by Max Henry
He’s found the delicate center of who I am and smashed it to pieces with the weight of his words. I am redundant in this world. No work buddies, no family that care anymore, and no friends who would check in on me if I went silent.
I am alone, and that’s the one thing I hate the most. Hate with enough passion to consider trying a life with a crazed murderer.
I wasn’t entirely truthful when I said I’d be fine by myself. I’m okay on my own if I know somebody is coming back to me. I need to know I’m wanted. Not always loved. Just wanted.
A side effect of being repeatedly told you were a mistake as a child, I guess.
“You’re right,” I answer with monotone detachment. “There isn’t anyone.”
He frowns at my shift in attitude, my cool indifference to his pointed criticism. I’ve trumped him. Thrown him off course. He probably expected me to cry, to break down sobbing and to beg him to stay with me.
Instead, I pull in a deep breath and step toward him. There’s no point fighting to survive when I’ve got nothing to live for. No point asserting my rights and making a stand if there’s no oasis in my desert of failures.
I’m alone in this life, struggling to get by. I have no purpose. No greater good that brings light to anyone’s life.
I’m simply a waste of space without direction, and Dallas, he provides guidance on what to do, whom to be—even if I don’t like the sound of the woman I have become.
I lift both arms beside me, offering my wrists to the man with only death in his smile.
“What are you doing, April?”
“Obeying. I’m ready to go home now.”
FIVE
Dallas’ home is unusually normal for a man like him. I shut the passenger door of his car and hesitate in the driveway, wondering if he wants me to follow or stay with the vehicle since Terry still resides in the trunk.
Totally not looking forward to that job.
“Come,” he beckons, waving an arm in my general direction as he heads for the garage. “I need you to carry a couple of things.”
I stay back as he pulls the door open, taking the opportunity to look over the actual house once more. It’s simple, a cream color with pale green trim on the windows. There are fucking flowers in the window boxes for crying out loud. I’d expect to see the American flag flying from the porch, a weathered rocking chair or two, but I get the feeling that would be a step too far. No point drawing attention by being too cliché.
“Here.” I snap my attention back to Dallas to find him holding a duffle bag out to me. He glances over at the house also as I take it from his hand. “We can go in later, once we’ve got your problem sorted out. She might be ready for us then.”
She? Who does he live with?
“What’s in this?” I ask as the contents of the bag rattle with the movement.
“Cleaning kit.” He jerks his head toward the car as he retrieves what appears to be a plastic storage box. “Need to get the smell out before it’s baked through the upholstery.”
“He can’t be that bad already, can he?” There have only been about twelve hours since he went in.
“More than likely he’s evacuated his bowels post-mortem,” Dallas says robotically as he checks out the inside of the box. He smirks at the horror I no doubt show on my face. “No, April. I wasn’t talking about the smell you were thinking of.”
Oh, God. My gut churns at the thought of what’ll greet us when he finally pops the trunk. Why the fuck did I think I’d be able to bullshit my way through this? Why the hell did I think this would be easier than making it on my own?
There was a 7/11 a couple of miles back. I could make a run for it, try to dig out the track skills I had in high school …
“Problem?” Suspicion resides in the lines beside Dallas’ eyes.
“Not at all.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.
“Good.” He shoves the box at me and then grabs a jerry can from beside the garage door. “Put those things in the back seat.”
I do as I’m told, nerves frayed as I do my best to inconspicuously check out the neighborhood while I stash the bag and box in the car. No kind old men stand in their yard watching us, no friendly cop driving by. There isn’t even a kid with a ball. The street is just … quiet. Too quiet for suburbia.
“You two want some breakfast before you head off?” a woman’s voice hollers from the direction of the house.
I slowly back out of the car and stand to find Dallas frozen beside me, his face hard as stone as he watches my reaction carefully.
“Hungry?” he asks with a slight twitch in one eye.
Is this a test? Is he daring me to say yes, when I should say no? My stomach answers the question before I have a chance to decide.
Dallas lifts one eyebrow, his gaze dropping to my mid-section. “Yeah,” he yells back. “Breakfast would be great.”
I shift my gaze over his shoulder and feel every pint of blood in my system drain to my toes. The woman is a fucking fox. Tall, dark and glossy hair, impeccable makeup (at least from this distance), and one banging body wrapped in a crop top and yoga pants.
She has to be his girlfriend, surely. Only pretty people like these two date. Which means … fuck … I just had sex with her boyfriend. Maybe going inside isn’t such a great idea after all?
She waves from the porch, a huge smile on her face. I lift a weak hand in return, marveling at how many life or death situations I’ve managed to get myself into over the space of a weekend. The fox spins on her heel—hair flowing behind her like some goddamn shampoo commercial—and disappears back inside the house.
“Are you sure you want to introduce us?” I hiss at Dallas as he leads the way to the front porch.
“Not really, but it saves the need to do it later.”
Shit—I’m going to die. If his woman is any part as crazy as he is, she’ll likely shoot me on sight the minute she realizes where he was and what he was doing last night. Rage simmers under my skin, tangling with the burn of fear. How dare he put me in this situation? How dare he make me the other woman?
Fuck this.
Dallas hesitates with a hand on the screen door as I come to a grinding halt at the foot of the steps. “April? What are you thinking?” he asks with narrowed eyes.
“I’m thinking that a life alone might be less stressful than what you’re pulling me into.” My voice shakes as I fail to regulate my anger. “I get it,” I scoff. “You’re an asshole. But fuck me, Dallas. Your girlfriend?” I jab a hand toward the house, disgust curling my top lip.
His eyes go wide, and damn it all if he doesn’t bring out that boyish smile again. “My girlfriend?”
“It’s low.” I back up a step, justifying to myself that even if I end up in prison for Terry’s death, I’ll be fed.
“Come here.” He holds out a hand, all trace of humor gone from his steely eyes. “Now.”
“No.”
“The farther you get, the more I’ll hurt you.”
“Not if you don’t catch me.” Live or die—I have the power to choose, not the men in my life.
I turn on my heel and push off, leaping the low garden bed beside the driveway as Dallas’ boots thunder down the wooden steps behind me. If the damn nausea in my gut would subside I might be able to breathe a little clearer, yet I can’t, and it’s that damn constriction on my chest that means I lose.
Again.
Always.
I barely make it to the sidewalk before he wraps me in a fucking bear hug, picking me up off the ground with a loud laugh as though the two of us were simply playing. I press down on his forearms with my hands, yet the struggle is futile; this man’s arms are like fucking steel ropes around my middle.
His lips brush my ear, a delicate gesture so far removed from the words that pass by the soft flesh. “Do that again, and I’ll break both your ankles so that you’ve got at least six weeks to learn how to do as you’re fucking told.”
And I let this guy fuck me in my shower. Some woman I am
.
It’s that very realization that finally saps the fight from my body. I don’t deserve my freedom. I don’t deserve to be the hero when I so willingly place myself in harm’s way. My mother was right: I deserve every ill-begotten thing that happens to me because I’m too stupid to know better.
“If I put you down, will you behave?” Dallas asks as we reach the steps.
I nod—far too disgusted with myself to be able to form words. Having breakfast now seems such a farce; I have no appetite left. Nothing. Not when the black claws of self-pity have sunken in. It’s a strange feeling, having finally given up on yourself: hollow, yet painful all at the same time. I guess this is what resolve truly feels like—the knowledge that you don’t have it in you to change your life, as much as you try to believe you do.
“Inside, April.” His palm smacks my ass with a sharp sting. “Go give thanks to my sister for making us breakfast.”
SIX
His sister.
I want to melt into an invisible pool on the floor. How much of an insanely jealous bitch do I look like now? My feet stay sluggish as I make my way up the wide entrance hall to where I hear her clang around in the kitchen. Dallas places a fist on my lower back and presses, urging me forward.
“It’s kind of sexy, you know,” he whispers over my shoulder. “Seeing you so possessive.”
“I wasn’t possessive,” I snap under my breath.
“Keep telling yourself that, baby.” He shoves me hard, launching me into the open plan dining/kitchen.
I stall behind a chair at the table, placing my shaky hands onto the seat back to try and calm my nerves. Dallas’ sister collects plates off the counter, her back to us as she calls out, “Are you done playing with your toy yet, little brother?”
“For now.” He holds my eye, smirking as he pulls a seat out beside mine. “Sit.”
I do as I’m told, mostly out of fear that my weak legs will buckle from my sudden rush of anxiety if I try to stay upright any longer.
“Camille.” The fox introduces herself as she sets a plate of what appear to be freshly made bagels on the table, followed by one with bite-sized fruit. “I take it you two haven’t had time to chat about family yet?”
“Not really,” I mumble. I wring my hands under the table in the hem of my sweatshirt.
Camille runs her eye over my choice of attire and frowns. “Aren’t you hot? It’s like eighty or something out there today.”
“Ninety,” Dallas corrects, reaching for a bagel. “April doesn’t have a clean bra to wear, so she thought it might stop me from staring at her tits if she hid them.”
It may be ninety outside, but I swear my face just hit one hundred. “Did you have to share that?”
Camille waves it away as though his comment was nothing unusual for a first visit. “I’m not judging.” She points to the plates. “You pick first.”
“I’m not so hungry anymore.”
“Nonsense.” Her eyes darken, exactly like Dallas’ do. Definitely family. “I’m sure he made you work up an appetite last night, am I right?”
Dallas chuckles, leaning back in his seat with one arm slung over the back as he funnels the bagel into his mouth.
I glare at the asshole, wondering just how often he does this if his sister has his number. “I take it breakfast with your one-night stand is a common occurrence then, Dallas?”
He lifts both eyebrows suggestively and chooses to keep on eating rather than answer my question. Camille does instead.
“It’s not, actually.” She gives up waiting for me to choose and shifts a handful of grapes and a slice of melon onto my plate. “You’re the first woman he’s brought home … first one alive, anyway.”
Dear God, I swear I’m going to be sick on this table if their Addams Family style meal carries on this way.
“I’d even go as far to say the first girl he’s had a crush on, too,” she remarks, casually selecting a bagel for herself.
Dallas chokes on his next bite, which strangely calms my nerves somewhat. Knowing he feels as awkward as I do right now has us on an almost even par; I don’t feel so much like the odd one out.
“What the fuck are you on about?” he grumbles, seeming as though he tries to play it cool.
“This morning on the phone,” Camille explains. “I said I love you before I hung up like I always do, and you said you love me too.”
“So.” His lip curls up as he picks at what’s left of his breakfast.
I take a bite of my own, my stomach seeming to have settled enough for me to consider trying the food.
“You have never, once, told me you love me.” Camille leans back, staring down her brother. “At first I thought you might be giving me some signal you were in trouble, but then I realized you didn’t use any of the code words.”
Jesus—they have code words. What kind of family business is this?
“So,” she continues, “I thought on it while I did the housework and it came to me: you were fucking with a girl. The only reason you’d do that is if you liked her.”
“Maybe I was fucking with a guy?” he counters. “I could have been establishing a hierarchy by showing his girl was jealous and wanted me, not him.”
“You wouldn’t be that subtle,” Camille says flatly. “You’d just fuck the woman in front of him.”
“True.” He shrugs nonchalantly.
I drop the melon back on my plate.
“Lost your appetite, April?” Dallas asks with a lilt of humor.
“Strangely, I have,” I say.
“Eat,” he demands. “You’ll need a full stomach for what we’re doing later.”
“Which is?” Pretty sure the only thing we’re doing is unloading Terry, and I’m certain an empty stomach would make less of a mess.
“Burning your boyfriend,” he states flatly, taking another bite to finish around his mouthful, “Wouldn’t want you to faint.”
“It’s true,” Camille chimes in. “You need the energy to stay upright if it’s your first.” Her expression softens while she looks me over. “I take it this is your first?”
“Why are you both so flippant about it?” I ask as I push my chair back. “You both sit here discussing the fact he killed my boyfriend”—I gesture to Dallas—“as though it’s normal, as though everybody does this on a Saturday.”
“More people do than you would realize,” Dallas says casually as he pulls his phone out.
“You people are crazy.” I stand; noting the way Camille watches Dallas with apprehension. At least it seems she realizes this has gone too far.
“I may be crazy,” Dallas says as he scrolls the screen, “but you’re homeless.” He places the phone on the table and spins it around to face me before sliding it across.
I stare down at the news article open on the browser. The headline reports a building fire in an old apartment block. Camille sighs when I fail to move the page, reaching over to scroll up so she can presumably keep reading. As I feared, the fire was in my building, less than an hour ago.
“What did you do?”
“Covered our tracks.” He frowns as he licks his fingers clean. “What? You didn’t have anything of value in there.”
“You might have hurt someone.” My neighbors weren’t exactly friends, but they were people nonetheless.
“Everyone got out,” he states calmly. “I tipped off a guy on the top floor while you were asleep this morning; gave him an incentive to go door-knocking.”
“Seriously …” I can’t believe this guy. He’s so goddamn entitled, as though everything is his to do with what he pleases. “You don’t give a fuck about anyone but yourself, huh?”
“Now she gets it,” he exclaims, throwing his hands in the air.
“April,” Camille says firmly, drawing my attention back to her and away from her cocky brother. “Can you please give me a hand by bringing that plate to the kitchen?” She looks across at Dallas. “Go outside for a while.”
If looks could kill, he would
have upped his daily body count to two. Yet he does as Camille asks: he rises from the table and stretches before walking that fine-as-fuck ass right out the door.
“Get,” she instructs, jerking her head to the kitchen.
I pick up the abandoned plate of fruit and follow her to the counter. She takes the dish out of my hold and sets it down firmly enough that I wait for the damn thing to crack.
“How did he pick you up?”
I shrink against the cabinets, wondering if this is where she whips the gun out to shoot me on the spot. “He hit me with his car.” I point to my bruised hip despite the fact she can’t see it.
“Why?” She frowns and folds her arms as she puts a hip against the counter. “He’s not usually a bad driver like that.”
“I ran out without looking, okay? I was a little preoccupied with trying not to get stabbed.”
“The boyfriend?” Camille cocks an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” I admit, chin down. “Ball and chain, really.”
“Huh. Makes sense why Dallas took care of it, then.”
“Why?” I look up expectantly, hoping she’ll have pity on me and explain what exactly it is Dallas wants with me.
“He can’t stand pointless violence against women,” she says as though that makes sense with a man like him—all I’ve seen is violence from him. Her gaze drops to the bruises on my neck, a slight twitch in one eye the only sign of recognition I get. “He’s rough, yeah, but he would never go too far. I know it doesn’t make sense, but we had a rough childhood. Hate is love to Dallas. It’s all he knew, so it’s all he learned.”