In Too Deep

by Fox, Harley

  I stare at my mom, the last spoonful of yogurt still in the bowl. She stares out of the window, not comprehending, not noticing me. I look at her for a long time. The Bullets did this to her. Sal’s death did this to her. It’s like she doesn’t even know that I’m here. My eyes drop. I give her the last spoonful of yogurt, watching her lips move as she eats it. That done I put the spoon and bowl down and pick up my own breakfast, eating the egg on toast.

  When I’m finished breakfast I take the dishes back to the kitchen. I’m so tired. But I still have more to do. I go back to my mom’s room and gather up the dossiers, then put them back in their hiding place in my own room. I debate having a shower but decide against it. I would probably just fall asleep in the hot water. So I head out, wearing my Bullets gear. I’ve got the day off of work, and I’m going to use it to get some answers.

  I get on my bike and start riding to the bar. The wind in my face wakes me up and I blink against it a few times, shaking my head, focusing on the road. I need to talk to Flynn. I’m going to try at the bar, and if he isn’t there then I’ll try him at his apartment. But when I arrive at Point Blank I see Flynn’s bike parked outside and my heart skips a beat in my chest.

  Calm down, Trista. You’re not here to be with him. You’re here to get answers.

  I park my bike at the end of the line and go inside, the space dark and smoky compared to the bright sunlight outside. I look around and see some of the Bullets sitting around on the couches. Jackie is asleep, her head resting on Tyrone’s shoulder. They all raise their hands in greeting, but Flynn isn’t there. Then I hear the sound of pool balls clacking together and look over at the tables to find Flynn in the middle of a game with Chloe. He sees me and the smile on his face breaks my heart.

  “Hey, Trista!” he says. “You finally made it!”

  Chloe greets me as I walk up to where they’re playing. Flynn leans his cue against the table and walks over to me.

  “How’re you doing, babe?” he asks, wrapping his arms around my waist. I feel myself melting into him, and when he pulls me in for a kiss I don’t resist it. It feels so good, his lips against mine. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to turn him in. I just want time to freeze right now and have this moment go on forever.

  Trista! Snap out of it!

  Yes. I pull myself together, painfully taking my lips away from his. He looks puzzled.

  “What’s up?” he asks.

  “Hey, do you have a minute? I want to talk to you about something.”

  “We’re in the middle of a game!” Chloe protests.

  “Sure, sure,” he says, glancing at the table, at Chloe. “One second.”

  He lets go of me and picks up his cue again.

  “All right,” he says. “Here’s where they separate the men from the boys.”

  Flynn lines up his shot—8-ball in the side pocket—and proceeds to hit one of Chloe’s balls, knocking it first into the pocket, followed by the cue ball.

  I stifle some laughter as Flynn straightens up.

  “Huh,” he says, nodding. Then, to Chloe, “Best eleven out of twenty-three?”

  Chloe laughs and shakes her head. “No way, I think you’ve been beaten enough. Go, talk.”

  “Cool.” Flynn tosses the pool cue down on the table and turns back to me. “All right, what did you want to talk about?”

  I glance at Chloe, who’s just heading back to the couches, at the other Bullets on the couch.

  “Can we go for a walk?” I ask. Flynn’s smiling at me—he always smiles—but now he gives me a look.

  “Is everything okay?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I lie. “I just want to have some privacy.”

  He nods. “Sure.”

  So the two of us head out the front door. I see Flynn blink against the sunshine.

  “Oh man,” he says. “We got here last night and we’ve just been drinking and fucking around all night. It was great, you should have come. Tyrone even says he saw you at the warehouse yesterday.”

  “Yeah, I had some stuff I had to do,” I tell him. We begin heading down one of the sidewalks, away from the bar.

  “So what did you want to talk about?”

  I hesitate for a moment, not sure how to put this into words. “I guess I wanted to talk to you … about the future. I mean, not our future,” I say with a smile, but Flynn’s expression doesn’t change. “But just the future in general. I guess I’m just curious … what do you have as a plan, if you have a plan at all? Do you want to stay with the Bullets forever? Maybe become the leader after Maddox? Or did you have other plans? What do you see yourself doing?”

  Flynn is silent for a moment. We can hear the morning traffic from not far away.

  “I guess …” he begins. “I don’t think I’m going to be in the Bullets forever.”

  My heart skips with joy, but I stay silent as he goes on.

  “This kind of thing is fun—staying up all night with my friends, drinking, riding around—but when Maddox gives us a heavy task to do, that’s when I really question what I’m doing here. I tell myself it’s for protection, but that’s not why I joined up in the first place. I think I can take care of myself, and help take care of whomever I’m with. And that’s even if we need taking care of. I mean, Santa Espera is a dangerous place, but there are other cities out there which are much nicer to live in. Like, what was Pasadena like?”

  It takes me a moment to realize what he’s referring to.

  “It’s great,” I tell him. “A really nice city.”

  “Exactly. So maybe I won’t stay in Santa Espera forever. And I think I’d like to settle down and have some kids. Buy a house. Get married. You know, that kind of thing. And when you’re with the person you love, it doesn’t matter where you live. Just so long as you’re together, that’s all that matters.”

  Flynn’s hand finds mine and he gives it a squeeze. My heart skips a beat and I look over at him, squinting in the sunlight. He’s smiling down at me. I give his hand a squeeze back.

  “Wow,” I say, swallowing. “If I’d just met you, I would never have pegged you for the kind of guy to settle down and have kids.”

  “I know, I was definitely more of a bad-ass when I was a teen, or even in my early twenties,” he says. “And that doesn’t mean I couldn’t kick somebody’s ass if they deserved it. But the novelty of this kind of lifestyle has worn off, you know? It’s just not the same as what it used to be.”

  I think back to my job as a police officer.

  “I know exactly what you mean,” I say to him. “But … what about all the bad things you’ve done as a Bullet? Aren’t you afraid that some of it might catch up with you?”

  Flynn just shrugs.

  “We all do bad things,” he says to me. “The world is full of bad people. Sometimes situations make things worse than they have to be, but in the end it’s all the same. Nobody is innocent, and everybody has at least a little bit of evil in them. And there’s nothing you can do to change that.

  “But even so, I’m a part of the strongest gang in the city, and maybe the strongest in the state. So long as I have ties with the Bullets, nobody’s going to touch me. Hell, half the cops are on our side. I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Oh God, what am I doing? I can feel a part of me agreeing with everything Flynn just said. People do have evil in them, even those who are the most peaceful. If you push them hard enough, eventually they’re going to snap. And the idea of settling down with Flynn? Of marrying him and buying a house and having his children? It sounds perfect to me. It’s what I want—it’s everything that I want.

  But the other part of me, the more rational part, says that I can’t do that. That I’m a cop, and that I’m lying to Flynn by not telling him. I need to tell him. But if I do then he’ll hate me. He could kill me. I wouldn’t blame him. Oh God, why did I get myself into this? Why did I get myself into a tangle that I can’t get out of?

  “Trista?” Flynn asks. I realize he’s looking at me, a
nd he’s not smiling now. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I lie again. “I’m fine.”

  “How about you?” he asks. “What are your plans for the future?”

  “I have to go,” I tell him, stopping us in the middle of the sidewalk and turning back around. “I’m sorry.”

  I begin walking back toward the bar at a quicker pace and Flynn quickly catches up with me.

  “Whoa, hey,” he says, trying to grab my hand to stop me, but I pull it away. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

  I can feel tears in my eyes but I blink them away.

  “I just realized I have something I have to do,” I tell him, striding purposefully toward where my bike is.

  “Well, what do you have to do? Is it something I can help with?”

  Oh God, Flynn, just get away from me while you still can!

  “No, it’s nothing you can help,” I say. “I just … I need to go.”

  We reach the bar and I march up to my bike, fishing my keys out of my pocket. But Flynn’s hand lands on my arm and I stop, looking down at it. He feels so warm. I look up at him.

  “Hey,” he says in a soft voice, his eyes only on me. “I just want you to know that I care about you. I know you’ve got an entire life outside of the Bullets, and that’s good, you should. But I want you to know … if you ever want me to become a part of that life, I would gladly say yes.”

  I smile, blinking and feeling a warm tear trickle down my cheek. Flynn smiles at me, and he wipes the tear away. Then he leans down and kisses me on the lips, softly, tenderly. I don’t want it to end but it does, and then he takes his hand from my arm and takes a step back.

  “I’ll see you later,” he says. I sniff, and then nod.

  “See you later.”

  I get my keys out and start up my bike, giving Flynn one last look before riding away.

  The air whips into my hair as I try not to tear up. Flynn is such a beautiful person; why didn’t I see that before? I don’t know what to do. I need to sort my head out. I need to get a grip on what’s going on.

  I ride to my apartment and go in, walking up. The place seems silent in the middle of the day. It’s silent all the time, but at moments when I’m not usually here, it feels like I’m trespassing on some secret place.

  As I go to my room to change out of my Bullets gear I think back to when I was a little girl. Sometimes I would pretend I was sick in order to stay home from school. After Jake and my mom went, I was left alone in this big house, all by myself. It’s the same house I was in every day, but for some reason being there when I wasn’t supposed to be made it feel … strange. Foreign. Like I didn’t belong.

  I step out of my room wearing a T-shirt and jeans—civilian clothes. I look down the hall at my mom’s closed bedroom door.

  Sometimes I’ve wondered if her being catatonic is one big ruse. If, when I’m away during the day, she actually gets up and moves around. It’s a terrible thought, I know, but it’s strangely comforting at the same time. That everything is fine with my mom. And that she fakes being sick, just to keep me close. Just to convince me that I’m needed.

  Part of me wants to go to her bedroom and open the door, see if she’s in the same position as when I left. Maybe she had to scramble to get back into bed when she heard me.

  I shake my head. No. What am I doing? I need to get out of here. My brain’s all fucked up.

  I turn away from my mom’s room and descend the stairs again, leaving by the front door and locking it behind me. I jump on my motorcycle and ride away, not sure of where I’m going.

  All I can think about is Flynn.

  I think I’d like to settle down and have some kids. Buy a house. Get married. You know, that kind of thing.

  Did he say that because he wants to do that with me? Or did he say that because he just wanted to fuck me some more?

  Lately it seems like I’m being fucked by everyone I know. My life at work. My life with my mom. This undercover situation. Flynn’s is the only fucking I enjoy, but he may just be saying those things, doing those things just to get into my pants.

  I blink and realize the tears in my eyes are not from the wind.

  Maybe I should move my body around. I could go to the station’s gym. It’s usually empty during the day.

  I turn my bike and head back east, toward the station now. The gym is in a separate building not far away, but I have to ride past the station in order to get to it. I pull up outside of it and park my bike, getting off and walking inside.

  Like I predicted, the place is empty. I go to the locker room and change into my workout clothes, shutting the locker before heading in.

  As I situate myself on one of the machines, my mind wanders to Flynn again.

  The world is full of bad people. Nobody is innocent, and everybody has at least a little bit of evil in them.

  Growing up here in Santa Espera, I can definitely agree with this statement. Even the most cavalier of people end up showing their true colors sooner or later. Even the people you arrest who cry out that they’re innocent end up having records as long as your arm.

  Even myself. I stood there and watched that Slinger die when Maddox forced him to take that drug. I helped tear apart an office building, knowing full well that it was going to be used in the production of drugs. And I would’ve shot that dog. I know I hesitated when I was holding the gun, but I would have shot it. Trade a dog’s life for the opportunity to get deeper into the Bullets? Absolutely.

  I hear the door open behind me and turn my head to see who’s coming in. My heart drops when I see Devon, dressed in his tight wife beater and shorts. He gives me that sickening smile and I see him heading my way. I sneer and turn back, continuing on the machine.

  “Well well well.” I hear his slimy voice appear beside me. “What a coincidence. You and me alone in the gym.”

  “Hello Devon,” I say in a monotone. “You here to work out?”

  “I already worked out this morning,” he tells me. “Little bit of a confession: I saw you go past the station on your bike, then turn into here. Thought I’d come and join you, since there isn’t anybody ever here during the day.”

  I sigh loudly and stop my workout midway through a set. Leaving the machine, I walk over to another one and get on, but Devon follows me, not taking the hint.

  “So Pearson,” he says. “When are you and me going to go back to my place to get rid of all this sexual tension?”

  “Listen, Devon,” I say to him, looking straight ahead as I work out. “I don’t know what I did to give you the impression that I’m interested in you. But I’m not. And I’d appreciate it if you would just back off and please stop hitting on me.”

  Devon’s hand lands on my arm and I freeze. I look over at him and his smile has turned into something sinister.

  “I know you want me,” he says, his eyes stuck on mine. “You’re just in denial. We’re going to be together, Pearson. Trust me, it’ll happen.”

  I wrench my arm away from him.

  “Don’t ever touch me again,” I spit, getting up from the machine. I’m done working out. Turning away, I stride back out the doors I came in through, down the hall to the women’s locker room. I go inside and head to my locker. I open it up, my hand shaking as I dial in the combination. I grab onto my wrist with my other hand, steadying myself.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “It’s okay.”

  I should shower. The warm water will help me clear my head. I finish opening up my locker and start to take off my clothes. When I’m just stripping off my shorts, though, I hear the locker room door open and I freeze.

  No. Oh no.

  Heavy footsteps make their way to my ears. I pull my shorts back on, dangerously aware that I’m topless. Devon appears from around the row of lockers, and when he smiles at my half-naked body it’s the most evil smile I’ve seen.

  “Hello, Pearson,” he says as he starts to take steps toward me. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  I back up at the same
pace that he approaches.

  “This is the women’s locker room,” I say to him, wishing my voice sounds braver than it feels. “If you don’t get out of here I’m going to … report you.”

  His smile dances as he keeps walking.

  “Oh, you’ll report me? To whom? I’m your superior officer.”

  “I’ll tell the captain,” I say. “I’ll tell everyone in the station.”

  He’s so close. “No one will believe you.”

  “I … I’ll …” My back hits a wall and I realize I’m trapped. He’s almost reached me and I feel so naked, so vulnerable and alone. “I’ll scream.”

  He’s reached me. He shakes his head.

  “There’s no one here,” he tells me. “No one can hear you scream.”

  His hands lift and they look so strong. I watch one of them land on my breast and my upper lip curls as I feel him squeezing me hard. The other one finds my throat. His fingers are like a vise as he begins cutting off my supply of air.

  “Just let this happen,” he says in a low whisper. He brings his head closer to mine and I can smell his fetid breath. “This was always going to happen. Just let it.”

  His lips press against mine and I feel like I’m going to vomit. Images flash through my head: Captain Hartridge, looking angry; my depressing apartment with my mom’s closed bedroom door at the end of the hall; the sight of Jake’s body on the table in the morgue, the day we had to identify him.

  And then Flynn. I see Flynn and he’s smiling. It’s not a malicious smile, though. It’s warm. It’s a smile of love.

  His expression changes in my mind and something in me changes too. As Devon’s hand leaves my breast only to grab onto the other one, I see Flynn’s smile become hardened. I see his eyes begin to shine with purpose, with fire. Inside my body I feel my strength start to come back to me. Devon’s tongue enters my mouth and I cringe as I taste him. But I open my eyes and see that his are closed. He’s let his guard down. I can be the one who’s in control.