by Tess Sharpe
I nod.
He squeezes my shoulder, a little too tight, but I don’t let it show in my face. I have to be tough.
“Sometimes, like right now, killing’s necessary,” he says. “You put him out of his misery. Sometimes you gotta do that. Sometimes you gotta do other things, for other reasons. It’s always hard, baby. But sometimes it’s the only way.”
He gazes down at me, fixing me with a gentle look, a look that shows how much he loves me; how much I need to learn this.
“The only way,” I repeat, because I know it’s what he wants.
The smile lights his face like a jack-o-lantern, yanking me from misery into the warm glow of his approval. “That’s right, Harley Jean.”
I rub my fingers together. The buck’s drying blood peels off my skin in little pieces.
I’ve learned my lesson.
Forty-Eight
June 8, 11:30 a.m.
As I walk out of the sheriff’s department, I feel numb more than triumphant. Probably because I can’t celebrate yet, not until I’m truly done.
I still have my final target. But to lure Springfield out, I need it to be dark.
So I drive out to Burney. I cross two county lines on my way to the 299. It’s a curving road through the forest, the two-lane highway bordered by the thick tall pines and redwoods, following the path cut centuries ago by Cedar Creek.
I concentrate on the trees, on the road, on the cars and the trucks I pass by.
Anything but the fact that I’m driving to sit next to my father while he dies.
Am I supposed to hold his hand? Can he even feel it if I do?
In a way, he’s already gone. But I haven’t said goodbye, because I don’t know how.
I’ve loved him and I’ve hated him. I’ve worshipped him and I’ve resented him. He put me in cages and car trunks and danger. He’s taught me good things, useful things, terrible things. He’s used me and I’ve used him, and I’ve survived…and he won’t.
That’s the awful, twisted truth of it: People like us, we find true freedom only in death. Because I can burn what he built to the ground, but I have to make something from the ashes. And that means alliances. Compromise. Violence.
That’s what’s waiting for me ahead.
But Duke gets to be done. I tell myself that has to be some sort of relief for him. Some sort of freedom.
I pray that it is.
When I pull into the parking lot of Pathways, fear sweat is crawling down my back. Is he gone already?
I hurry into the building, nodding to the nurse in charge. When she sees me, something in her face shifts, and my stomach falls. Am I too late?
I pick up my pace down the hall, jerking open the door to Duke’s room, my heart beating too fast.
Will and Brooke look up when I step inside, but I’m not looking at them, I’m looking at him.
His chest, it’s rising and falling.
He’s still alive.
I sag against the wall, the air whooshing out of me like I’ve been punched. Busy gets up from her spot next to the bed and trots up to me. Brooke follows, to help me.
“Come sit down next to him,” she whispers. She guides me over to the chair closest to his bed. “I’m going to let you two have some time,” she says.
I squeeze her hand. “Thank you.”
She closes the door behind her, and then it’s just Daddy and Will and me. Family.
“I’ve been playing him some music,” Will says, gesturing to his phone.
I take the damp towel, using it to dab at Daddy’s dry lips, moistening them. “What’s up next?”
Will looks down and he lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “If I Were a Carpenter.”
My throat burns. Daddy’s favorite. I sandwich his hand between both of mine, pressing lightly, hoping he can feel it somehow. I think I feel an answering pressure…did I imagine it?
Will presses Play, and Johnny and June’s voices wrap around us, singing about the kind of devotion and sacrifice that either fixes or breaks us—or both.
The minutes tick by. The songs change from Johnny and June to Loretta, singing about being free. I reach out to moisten his lips every few minutes, holding his hand the rest of the time.
I don’t know how much time has passed, but it seems like we’ve been sitting together like this forever. The nurses come in once to check on him, and they have that knowing look in their eyes when they look at me.
I just keep holding his hand and watching him breathe. And then it changes, suddenly, horribly. It goes from peaceful and quiet to a rough gasping, like he’s struggling. Like it hurts. My hand tightens around his.
“I’ll go get the nurse,” Will says.
He hurries out, and I just hold on to Duke, resting my other hand against his heart.
I know what this is. He’s holding on. Some part of him knows it’s not done yet.
Some part of him knows it’s not safe yet.
I lean forward. “It’s okay,” I whisper in his ear. “You can go to Momma now. I’m fine here. I’ll be okay. I promise.”
But he’s stubborn. Even in death.
Gotta do it for me, Harley-girl. Gotta kill him.
I close my eyes. His heartbeat is so weak beneath my fingers. He keeps struggling to breathe, struggling to hang on, and I don’t want him to hurt anymore.
Fate left him with this: the long, painful months of decay and now the struggle as his stubborn soul hangs on, unfinished, unable, unwilling to leave me.
I’d been selfish.
I hadn’t wanted him to go.
“I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry.” It doesn’t sound like my voice, but it is, I know it has to be. “Please, everything’s all right. It’s okay to go. I’ll do it…I promise I’ll do it. I’ll finish it.”
I bow my head, pressing my forehead against his palm. “I promise,” I whisper.
His chest rises and falls, suddenly quieter. Did he hear me?
Will’s hands are on my shoulders, holding me. I don’t know when he came back in the room, but I’m grateful.
Duke takes a breath in. Lets it out.
And he doesn’t draw another.
Busy, who’s been quiet this whole time, starts to whine. She jumps up on the bed, curling in a ball at his feet, her nose resting on his leg.
For a long time, neither Will nor I say anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the nurses in the doorway, but they stay out. I close my eyes, pressing my lips to my father’s hand.
I want to stay. I want to cry and scream and grieve. But I can’t. Not now.
I made a promise. I have a job to do.
When I finally let go of him, it’s like letting go of a part of myself. Like I just reached inside and handed over my heart.
But I get up. I stand tall, the way he would’ve wanted.
“I love you,” I tell him. I smooth his hair back. This will be the last time I touch my father. This will be the last time I see him.
I don’t want to remember him like this, sick and wasting away. Do I remember him healthy and deadly instead? I don’t have the answer.
When it comes to him, I never do.
“Harley,” Will says softly.
“I have to go,” I say.
Will frowns. Tears are rolling down his face. But I’m not crying. I should be.
I cried when Duke was diagnosed. It’d been the first time in years. But I haven’t cried since.
It feels like a boulder is slowly pressing down on my chest. Pound by pound, the pressure increases, so now I can barely breathe around it.
Gotta do it for me, Harley-girl. Gotta kill him.
I turn, staring at the door.
If I leave him now, I never see him again.
So I look back. Once more. He’s so thin. So still.
But he’s not him anymore. He’s gone.
And I promised.
“Harley, don’t,” Will says, because he knows me. “Please.”
But I’m backing away. Aw
ay from Will, from Duke, from all the love, from all the lessons.
It’s on me now.
It’s just me now.
“I’m ending this,” I say.
It’s time.
Forty-Nine
I don’t know how old I am. Young. Young enough that there’s a fuzziness to everything, to the sound of his voice, the smile in his eyes.
He’s chasing me through the garden. My bare feet slap against the brick path he laid between the raised beds, and I’m giggling, my little legs pumping as I run from him. There’s this giddy feeling in my stomach, run, run, run, and I shriek with delight as he swipes at me and I dodge out of the way.
“I’m gonna get you!”
I run, and run, and run, and I’m laughing and I’m happy.
I am safe. I am loved. I am innocent.
I am not me yet. Not really. I am barely formed and soft at the edges. Living in a world where Mommas don’t die and Daddies don’t kill.
Eventually, he catches me. Swings me up on his shoulders. I’m higher than anyone’s ever been, high enough to touch the clouds, and I chant, Higher, Daddy, higher.
I grab for the sky.
I’m sure I can reach it.
Fifty
June 8, 9:00 p.m.
The house is silent and dark as I approach. The tall weeds—a mix of foxtails and cornflowers that have overgrown what was once a lawn—swish against my legs as I come at it from the north.
Whoever owned the lot built this place a few years after the rubble from the first house was cleared away. Rye grass was planted over the scorched earth, and the charred remains of the trees blasted in the explosion were replaced with saplings.
I bought it a few years ago, with some of the money Uncle Jake left me. I never told anyone because I knew it was kind of ghoulish, especially because I didn’t do anything with it. I just left it empty. The sycamores and mimosas are tall now, and the yard has returned to the wild.
Whenever Duke had to get to this part of town, he always took the long way. He couldn’t drive past the street.
Even before I bought it, the house never stayed occupied for long. I don’t really think she’s haunting it, but when you walk through the rooms, there’s something unsettling in the air. Maybe it’s true that some places, they just hold the pain that came before.
I walk up to the back porch, find the key I taped under the railing, and let myself inside. There’s no power, so I flip on my flashlight and set the two gas cans down so I can close the door behind me.
I’d originally planned to use Buck’s phone to lure Springfield out, but Bobby’s is even better. I take it from my pocket, scan through the contacts, and find Carl.
I tap out a message: I got her. 2360 Meadow Lane
When I hit Send, there’s no hesitation. I toss the phone on the kitchen counter and head to the living room. It starts ringing almost immediately, but I ignore it.
He’s gonna have to come and see for himself.
In the living room, there’s a ragged couch and an old wooden chair left by the former tenants, and I set my duffel down in the corner, where I can reach it easily. I take out the two guns, one in a holster that I fasten to my waist. The other in my hand, I walk the rooms of the house methodically. Bedroom. Bathroom. Second bedroom.
I decide to start in the second bedroom. It has fading flowered wallpaper and a bare curtain rod above the window.
Am I near the spot where she was standing when she died?
My body tightens up, and I force my muscles to relax. I can’t think about it.
It’s all I can think about.
They’re both gone now. Momma being gone so long ago is a natural thing, a hurt that simmers, boiling over only once in a while. But Duke…
I don’t know how to grieve for him. I don’t know how to live without him. I don’t know how to do any of this without him.
My legs start to shake. Leaning against the wall, I grit my teeth and breathe. In. Out. One. Two.
Gotta do it for me, Harley-girl. Gotta kill him.
I lock my knees and straighten up. I can do this.
I have to do this.
I walk quickly back into the kitchen and grab the gas cans. I dump half of one in the kitchen, then head to the second bedroom, which I douse, too, and then dribble a long line down the hall leading to the living room. By the time I’m done, both cans are empty. The sharp smell of gasoline fills the house, and I open the windows and unlock the front door before going to lock the back one.
I tuck the cans behind the couch and then grab the motion sensors out of my duffel. They’re the basic model, with loud chiming alarms. I fix one to the wall next to the front door and the other to the back of the couch.
Then I retreat into the doorway of the first bedroom, careful not to step on the line of gas in the hall, and I wait.
Eventually, Bobby’s phone on the counter stops ringing. I check mine for the time—there are four texts from Will and two from Brooke, but I don’t read them. I can’t be distracted.
I promised Duke. My whole life’s been leading up to this moment.
So I wait.
The house is set far down the street, away from anything else, so I can hear his truck rumbling down the road and turning into the driveway. It slows to a stop; the truck door opens and then slams shut. He’s coming.
My hand tightens around my .45.
The porch stairs creak. I try to keep my breathing normal, flattening myself against the bedroom wall, hidden from view in the darkness.
Hands steady, Harley-girl.
The door swings open. He steps inside, triggering the first motion detector.
Set at the highest volume, it goes off, and the sound makes him whirl around to face the open doorway, backing toward the living room as he fires, the trigger-happy bastard. Glass shatters as the bullet hits the front window.
As he moves into the living room, he sets off the detector on the couch, and it blares on, filling the air with chimes. He spins toward the sound again, and there, he’s in position, his back to me.
I rush through the darkness toward him, the sound of the detectors covering up my footsteps. He senses my presence a second too late: Just as he starts to turn, my gun’s at the back of his head.
“Don’t even think about it.”
He freezes.
I reach around, grab the gun out of his hand, and pat him down, making sure he’s got nothing else on him.
I pull a knife out of his back pocket and toss it into the hall.
“Sit in the chair,” I say, pivoting to face him, and I drag the barrel of my .45 across the back of his skull, up to his temple, and between his eyebrows, before I pull back.
I can’t quite see his expression in the darkness, but when he sits down, a shaft of moonlight falls across him.
He’s smiling.
It sends chills down my spine. My teeth grind together, trying to stamp out the wrongness as his head tilts, looking me up and down.
I grab the zip ties out of my duffel. “Hands flat,” I direct.
I tie his hands and legs to the chair, punishingly tight, and then I back up, taking the LED lantern out of my duffel and setting it to the side. I flip it on, and the room’s glowing with light, stretching out the shadows across the room.
I sit on the couch across from him. My heart’s beating fast, but my hands are steady.
I can do this. I have to.
I look at him, now that we’ve got light. Now that he can see me.
It’s been a long time since we were face-to-face. He looks older—much older, since last I saw him close up. There are deep lines around his eyes and mouth, grooves carved into his forehead. His hair’s thinning like crazy, and he tries to hide it by slicking it back.
But he’s still smiling, like it’s all a joke.
He has no idea. But soon, he will.
“You got hold of my nephew’s phone,” he says.
“I did.”
His fingers flex, and I’m no
t stupid—I know he’s testing his bonds.
No way he’s breaking free of those zip ties. They’re the ones the cops use.
I’m quiet, staring at him, waiting.
“You got him somewhere?” Carl asks, and he’s trying to sound disinterested, but I can hear the worry sneaking in.
“Maybe.”
“He alive?”
I shrug, holstering my gun and pulling out Duke’s antler-handled knife, the one that’s been passed down for years in my family, from father to son, and finally, from father to me. I pluck the lighter out of my shirt pocket, flicking it on.
He doesn’t flinch—it’s not as obvious as that. But the second the flame spurts out, glowing orange and blue, his eyes fix on it like he can’t stop them. When I move the lighter toward the knife, his eyes follow, widening just a little.
“What are you playing at, girl?” he asks.
I stay silent and run the flame back and forth under the knife, just like I’ve watched Duke do. I think about Uncle Jake’s screams in that motel room. I think about his blood on my hands as he lay dying, begging me to run. I think about Momma, shining so bright, loving so hard, and getting snuffed out because she chose the right man instead of the wrong one.
The knife blackens with soot, and slowly it begins to redden. To glow. Just at the tip at first, and then spreading farther down the blade.
I blow on it gently, and it turns a ruddy orange. Then I stand up and circle around him, knife in one hand, lighter in the other. When I bring the blade an inch away from his left eye, he jerks back so hard it might’ve toppled the chair if my boot wasn’t firmly pressed against the leg. I know he can feel the heat against his skin. I hope he’s remembering those burns he got from killing Momma. I hope they’re aching like a bitch right now. I hope he’s scared.
“I’m not playing at anything,” I say. “We’re going to talk. And then,” I flick the lighter next to his right eye, “I’m going to set this house—and you—on fire.”
Fifty-One
I’m five years old when I catch Uncle Jake and Momma arguing in the barn.