Two Roads

by Lili St. Germain

  He sees right through me. He watches my fingers as they tremble, as I make tight fists with them and then loosen them again, and I know he sees the truth.

  He takes the baggie of heroin out again and tosses it at me. Stepping over to the door, he flips the lock, then comes back to me, a syringe materializing in his hand.

  “We’ll wean you off slowly,” he says, looking badass in his leather, his blood-spattered white T-shirt, and needle in his hand. He holds it like it’s a weapon, and in another place it would be.

  For Dornan, it was, anyway.

  ***

  The gear is good. Better than good. As soon as it enters my vein I feel a rush, a burst of stars that appear behind my eyelids and make them droop. I sag to the side and feel hands stop me from sliding to the floor.

  Though, with the heroin kicking around inside me, I honestly wouldn’t give a fuck if I did fall down.

  Something troubling gnaws at the edge of the bliss, and this is how I know he’s given me less than Dornan did. A troubling thought rears its head—if I died, if my heart ceases to beat, even momentarily, what did that do to the baby?

  I make a mental note to think about that later. I can’t focus on anything right now, and I think I’m giggling, the sound muffled with my face pressed against Luis’s shoulder.

  Strong arms loop around me and pick me up easily—much, much too easily. I am skin and bone. I sigh, letting the bed swallow me up as Luis deposits me under the covers and pulls them up to my chin.

  “You’ll be okay, mamacita,” he says, but I’m already fading into the blissful void, and I’m frozen, unable to reply.

  A noise rouses me from sleep, the scrape of a door hinge that needs oil.

  I sit up in bed, my hair still plastered to my forehead, the comforter too warm, but without it too cold. I peer at the figure in the dark, trying to decide it it’s Luis or Elliot.

  It’s too tall to be Luis.

  “Elliot?” I whisper.

  I reach over and flick on the bedside lamp, bathing the small room in an eerie yellow glow.

  And my stomach seizes.

  “You can’t be here,” I say, panicking, sliding myself over to the far side of the bed. I don’t have anywhere to go—even if I could somehow maneuver myself out the window, I’d be dropping into an icy sea and drowned before I could second-guess myself.

  Jase is an imposing figure any day, but usually it’s not me who is afraid of him. But now, with the revelation he killed my father, I am terrified. I am angry. I am despondent. I am so completely fucked up, and I don’t even know where to begin.

  I swallow, tasting the last remnants of heroin, oily and bitter on the back of my throat. “What do you want?” I ask weakly, the heroin still dulling my senses. I am two steps behind, too slow to catch up, and I pray he doesn’t notice.

  In the dark, I pray he doesn’t notice the fresh needle puncture in my arm.

  He’s dressed in jeans, his chest bare. He stands on one side of the bed as I crawl off the opposite side and stand.

  It’s the most confusing standoff I think I’ve ever had.

  I love him. I do. But that alone is not enough, not anymore.

  “I want to talk,” he says finally. His voice is cloaked in sorrow, the muted light casting all kinds of weird shadows around the room.

  “Please go away,” I whisper.

  “Juliette,” he says. My heart breaks at the sorrow in his voice.

  “You killed him,” I whisper. “How am I ever going to forget that, Jase?”

  Pain blooms in his eyes.

  “You’re not,” he says quietly. “You won’t.”

  And in that moment, I know.

  We’ve survived everything so far.

  But we won’t survive this.

  He walks toward the door, and for a moment I am relieved.

  But he doesn’t walk out. No. He closes the door instead, with an air of finality that says he won’t be opening it again any time soon. I stare in horror as his hand rests on the handle a beat too long, before he turns to face me again.

  “Get out,” I say, louder this time. My heart is going insane inside my ribcage. I am afraid of the man I love. It’s unbearable.

  He looks terribly sad. There are circles under his eyes, and his hair looks as messy as mine feels. There’s three-day old stubble on his face that he scratches absently, reminding me of his father.

  That reminder—it sickens me.

  “I…killed him because he was going to die anyway,” he says sadly. The effort it takes for him to say killed is like a shard of glass stabbing into my heart.

  How dare he.

  “It doesn’t matter!” I cry, picking up the thing closest to me—a fucking pillow—and hurling it at him across the bed. I begin to cry.

  “I hate you,” I sob brokenly, as the pillow bounces off him and lands on the floor. “I trusted you. I made love to you, I told you every shitty fucking secret I had. I gave it all to you, and you knew all along that you killed him? You must have been laughing at me this whole time behind my back.”

  He’s moving slowly to the end of the bed, trying to be subtle so I don’t notice him rounding toward me.

  “Stop,” I say, pointing at him. “Stay there.”

  He doesn’t stop.

  I scream.

  He looks surprised. His eyes light up in surprise.

  “Shut up,” he hisses.

  I take another breath. “Elliot!” I scream.

  He rushes me, coming around the bed, all arms and hands, pushing me against the curved hull of the boat with one hand and slapping the other across my mouth. My screams die as he seals my mouth shut.

  I stare at him with as much hate as I can muster.

  “What the fuck?” The door crashes open to reveal Elliot, dressed in blue boxer shorts with neon-yellow stars printed all over them. He’s holding his gun in front of him, and his light brown hair is all mussed-up.

  “Oh,” he says, lowering his gun.

  Jase takes his hand from my mouth like he’s been caught with it in the cookie jar, running his fingers through his hair as he takes a step back.

  I give Jase the most withering glare. “Get out, Jason.”

  He doesn’t move. “You killed four of my brothers,” he says through gritted teeth, “and I gave you the benefit of the doubt, Julz. I let you explain. And I’d really fucking appreciate if you’d listen to me for five fucking minutes. Can you do that?”

  “That depends,” I shoot back, fucking furious. I’m yelling and throwing my arms around and I don’t even care how overbearing I might appear. “Did my father beat you and rape you until he thought you were dead? Because if he did, I’d really fucking like to know, Jase.”

  They both stare at me, stunned.

  “What!” I demand.

  Elliot looks awkward, scratching his chin with the butt of his gun. “Maybe you should hear the guy out,” he says. “I believe him when he says it wasn’t his fault, and I fucking hate the guy.”

  My thoughts whir; I can hear them hurtling around in my mind. Not his fault? Killed my father. Having his baby. Too hard. Too much.

  “It was a mercy killing, Juliette,” Elliot adds softly, his voice thick with sleep. “Not a murder.”

  I soften at Elliot’s words. Knowing how much he hates Jase, knowing how hard it must be to defend the man who ruined our relationship just because he existed and my heart couldn’t forget him. I feel like a fucking idiot.

  “Is that true?” I ask Jase softly, shifting my attention to him.

  He nods.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask Jase, slower this time.

  He laughs mirthlessly. He raises his hands at me like he’s going to shake me by the shoulders, but clenches them instead as he pivots and paces.

  “I TRIED to tell you,” he yells. “If you’d shut up for five fucking minutes, I’m TRYING to tell you what happened!”

  Dazed, and on the verge of tears, I sit on the end of the bed where Luis and I
spoke a few hours ago. When Luis shot you up, you mean, my conscience screams inside my head. I shiver, two fingers pinching the delicate skin in the crook my elbow that’s now marked and bruised from the needle he gave me. I take a deep, ragged breath, steeling myself for what comes next.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m listening.”

  He turns again, pressing one hand against the wall where I was just leaning. He licks his lips, his eyes are red and glossy. He looks terrible, and yet I know I look so much worse. He can’t even look at me, addressing the wall instead.

  “John and Mariana were taken by the Sangue Cartel,” he begins, his words slow and faltering. “The Cartel and The Gypsy Brothers. It was a complete clusterfuck. Dornan found out what they’d done, and after he took you, after…” he draws in an angry breath, every visible muscle in his body tight to the point I think he’ll snap, “after they killed you, they took me. I saw them. He…shot your dad, Julz. He shot him…Jesus.” He scrubs his eyes angrily, and Elliot shifts uncomfortably next to me on bare feet, his gun held down at his side.

  “Tell me,” I press him.

  He clears his throat. “Dornan shot John, and he put him in that room. That room where you were.”

  Jesus. The room I spent three months of my life in—living a nightmare—was the room where my father died?

  “He was bleeding, real bad. It was everywhere. And then Dornan threw me in that room,” he shudders. “And threw a gun in behind me.”

  I can feel my palms turn slick with sweat as I listen. I want this to stop, yet I need to know what happened.

  “Your dad, he was dying, Julz. Where Dornan shot him? He said it was for betraying him. For screwing Dornan’s girlfriend behind his back. He shot him there so he’d never screw anyone ever again.”

  I want to be sick. I imagine Dornan pressing his gun into my father’s lap, the fear he must have felt. The deafening blast, the agonizing pain. My poor father. My poor fucking father.

  “Your dad was so brave, Julz,” he says, choking up. “The dude had just been shot in the dick, and instead of freaking out, he was trying to make me feel better. Trying to help me out.”

  “What happened?” I breathe. “I need to know it. All of it.”

  He steadies himself, looking at me for the first time since he started his macabre confessional.

  “He’d lost a lot of blood,” Jase says softly. “And he was in a lot of pain. People think when you’re shot the pain gets better when you go into shock, but not that kind of pain. It’s with you until you pass out, or until you die.”

  I nod, swallowing thickly; I know that kind of pain too well. Its remnants are written along my disfigured flesh. A pain that doesn’t allow you to pass out.

  A pain that seems to last forever.

  “He told me a phone number. A name. I memorized them. I recited them to myself for three fucking years. Amanda Hoyne. Nine-seven-five-three-three-zero-five.”

  “The DEA contact?” I guess.

  He nods. “Even in his final hours, your dad was more worried about me than himself.”

  Of course he would have been. He died trying to get us out of the hell that was the Gypsy Brothers. He did everything for me, for Mariana, for Jase. For us all.

  It can’t all be for nothing, surely. That would be too cruel.

  “He was in so much pain,” Jase says, his words almost dream-like. They roll over me, like water, like fire.

  “Dornan had said to me, only one of us would be coming out of that room alive. And that it was up to me to prove myself. To show I could be…a Gypsy Brother.” His eyes flash with emotion - hatred for Dornan?

  I cry, then. “He made you prove yourself because you didn’t rape me,” I say emptily.

  He nods. “Yes, he did.”

  “My father told you to do it.” It’s the most logical explanation. Deep shame bursts inside my chest. I didn’t trust Jase when he needed me the most. He didn’t murder my father. He ended his suffering.

  “Your father took the gun from me, and I begged him to kill me. After what I’d seen—after watching you die—I didn’t want to live, not as a son of that motherfucker. But your dad, he told me I’d be able to get Dornan back one day. He gave me what I needed to bring them all down. A contact. Some fucking hope.”

  I’m shivering violently as I watch Jase’s anguished speech.

  “Your father smiled, even though he was in pain, and he said, ‘Don’t be silly, Jason. Do you know where I’ve been shot? I’m going to die anyway.’ He’d already made up his mind.”

  “I begged John, but he took my hand, and wrapped it around the gun. He put it to his temple, and he squeezed the trigger. And he died, in my arms.”

  Jase finally looks at me, probably expecting anger. Instead, all I feel is devastation.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

  Oh, god. I had told him earlier he was just like Dornan.

  Elliot leaves the room, just like that. He must see the resignation on my face, the acceptance. It was a mercy killing.

  I reach out for him, the boy I love. The boy I’ve always loved. Hands stretched out in front of me, and I cannot bear to go one more second without his skin against mine. I tell him I’m sorry, over and over again as he crushes me in his arms.

  He whispers to me that it’s okay, that he’s missed me, and that he’s so fucking glad I’m here, now, with him.

  He holds me for a long time. And it feels right. It feels better than anything.

  I am safe. I am loved.

  Maybe everything will finally be all right, at least our screwed-up version of all right. We can get through anything. Our love survived beyond death, so we can survive this.

  “Thank you,” I say to the quiet room, and to the boy who took me on the Ferris wheel on our first date and held my hand tight. The boy I was always meant to be with. How did I ever think he could be capable of killing my father in anything other than mercy and desperation?

  “What for?” he asks, rocking gently from side to side, his chin resting on top of my head, his arms clutching at me like he’s drowning and I’m the life raft. Which is rather ironic, really, given what’s just happened.

  “For ending his suffering,” I say, my voice cracking under the burden of the truth. “For making sure he didn’t die alone.”

  The relief, the embrace, is held for several minutes before we break apart.

  Because there’s something else. There’s always something else.

  “Are you…are you all right?” Jase asks, his eyes roaming my face. They drop to my neck, my arms, looking for damage I suppose. I turn my arm, too late, and he shoots a hand out, clamping it around my wrist.

  He stares at me and there seems to be a thousand unanswered questions in his eyes. What do I say? What do I do? I cannot bear the shame of what I am, of what I have become. Of what Dornan has caused me to be.

  I have become my mother. An addict. A junkie. Mere hours ago, I sat and let someone put a needle into my flesh, to push forth a substance my baby—our baby—shouldn’t be subjected to.

  I am a terrible person, because instead of thinking about how to stop, I am already thinking about how to get more, how to hide this, because I. Can’t. Stop.

  I feel like if I have to stop, I will die.

  Jase turns my arm over, exposing my scarred flesh, the tender skin where veins run underneath like rivers and tributaries, like a great system of influx and outflow. I shudder as he presses his thumb to the punctures in my skin, some new, some old, all telling a story best left unsaid.

  “What is this?” Jase murmurs, his eyes hovering between my eyes and the telltale track marks, the story of my destruction. I might be free, but I still belong to Dornan.

  In this moment, I feel like I will always belong to Dornan Ross.

  “He gave me drugs,” I say softly, casually almost. Don’t let him see how bad this is. Don’t give him another burden to bear.

  “What drugs?” he growl
s.

  I lick my lips nervously, feeling dry, chapped skin under my tongue. I am a mess. I must look like some sort of gross caricature of my former self, all bony and dull, pale and vacant.

  The word heroin is on the tip of my tongue. I almost tell him. It’s ready behind my teeth waiting for breath to make it alive. Heroin.

  But I am a coward. I remember my mother. How tragic her existence was when I was a child. How nobody, not even my father, wanted her around because of the way the drugs turned her into a monster.

  I remember the pity in my father’s eyes. The frustration. The way he ended up dying for another woman because the first one he loved destroyed herself every single day until there was nothing left.

  I don’t want to lie to Jase. I love him.

  But he’s all I’ve got, him and this baby inside me, and I cannot become my mother.

  I cannot risk him leaving me. Not after everything.

  “Antibiotics,” I say automatically. It’s not a lie, really. They did give me that huge disgusting needle full of antibiotics once, to stop my infected stomach from turning gangrenous.

  “For what?” he asks, looking dubious.

  I look down. See that I still haven’t changed out of this blood-spattered dress.

  I pull my dress over my head, letting it drop to the ground beside my bare feet. I’m naked save for my panties, a scarred, disfigured girl who was too stupid to listen to his warning all those months ago.

  Don’t leave like this. He’ll kill you.

  Dornan didn’t kill me, but he might as well have.

  Jase inhales sharply, his eyes stuck on my midsection.

  “How—what the hell happened?”

  My eyes burn but I keep my voice steady. I can do this. I can be numb.

  “He didn’t like the way I covered up his marks with the tattoo,” I whisper. “He kept cutting until it was all gone.”