by Lake, Keri
I peeked into each of the rooms, finding Dr. Cross in his back office. “Richard, I have a bad one.”
Waving me on, he rounded his desk and directed me to the room across from his office.
The dog had hardly moved by the time we slid him across the green tabletop, and Dr. Cross immediately went to work. He called in his assistant, and the two of them fussed over the wound and administered an injection.
“Where did you find this one, dear?” he asked.
For one brief second, I feared he might call me by my name. “He was, uh …”
“Found him in the woods,” Warhawk interrupted. “I found him stabbed. Bleeding. Tried to put pressure to the wounds.” A strange air of concern had shadowed his voice, and for a moment, he almost sounded scared for the dog’s life. “Is he going to be okay?”
“I don’t know yet. These wounds are deep, and he’s lost quite a bit of blood. I’ll have to see what, if any, organs have been hit. You can leave him overnight. Just give Mary a number where I can reach you. You know the drill, kiddo.” Gloves covered in blood, he nudged me with his elbow, and his gaze fell to my bare legs and feet. It was then I realized my arms were on display, the yellowing bruises from Peepshow and the ligature marks clearly visible to him. “Is everything okay with you?”
I shot a glance toward Warhawk, but he remained impassive, simply watching me. “I’m fine.” Dropping my gaze, I feigned a smile. “We were, uh … just having some fun.”
Clearing his throat, Richard gave a quick glance toward my captor and back at me. “I see. Well, don’t you worry about this guy. You did the right thing, sweetheart.” He shot me a wink and turned his attention toward Warhawk. “This one has the biggest heart I know. You’re a lucky guy to know such a wonderful young lady.”
I scratched the back of my neck, biting the inside of my lip. I hated compliments. More so, I hated the sudden heat of Warhawk’s stare on me. Lifting up on my toes, I gave Richard a hug. “Thanks for doing this.”
“Anytime, you know that. And don’t be a stranger! For a while there, I was starting to think someone had you locked away, or something.”
A burst of nervous laughter beat from my chest.
Why I didn’t say anything, I didn’t know. Maybe the issue with the dog opened up a new door for me to explore. Maybe I wanted to know why my captor was so affected by it.
Maybe I didn’t believe he was the man he’d made himself out to be.
* * *
I sat in the passenger seat beside Warhawk, neither of us talking. Buildings passed by the window, the homeless standing around burning trashcans that lit the night.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” His voice broke the quiet that'd filled the air between us since we’d left the clinic.
With a shrug, I let out a huff, not bothering to look at him. “I don’t know. I thought about it.”
“You’d give up the opportunity for freedom, to be tied to a bed?”
Well, shit. When you put it like that …
“Why did you save the dog?” I challenged back.
He glanced over at me and back to the road. “If you think there’s something deeper to me, something worth salvaging, you’re wrong. You made a mistake by not saving your own life.”
Maybe I did. Unfortunately, I’d been born with a stubborn hope, and as much as my head wanted to believe him, my gut refused to accept that the guy was a raping bastard. Hell, he’d pretty much proven it a few days back, with his little shower stunt.
I glanced across at his shirt, where blood had soaked the stark white fabric, but above it, finer splashes of blood confessed there had to be more to the story. “Is the blood only from the dog?”
He tipped his head forward, perhaps noticing the same thing I had, then looked back toward the road. He didn’t answer, though.
“You killed the man who did that?”
The shift of his jaw told me I was treading on dangerous ground.
“I hate people who hurt animals.” My gaze fell to where my hands fidgeted in my lap. “I’m a pretty mellow person, but I have this irrational hatred toward those who hurt the innocent. Children. Animals. They deserve to be punished.”
“What makes that irrational?”
“Well …” I cleared my throat. “It’s not exactly socially acceptable to go around beating the shit out of people.”
“Right. God will take care of them. Or better yet, the pedophiles and baby killers will get brutally fucked in prison.” He glanced over at me and back to the road again. “Why should they get to live out their lives, while their victims rot in graves?”
I thought about that for a moment. Certainly I didn’t believe that people should be allowed to go around killing others, drawing up their own consequences for crimes. But I didn’t think those who hurt others should go unpunished either, and that just seemed to happen too many damn times where the legal system was concerned. “You killed the man, didn’t you?”
“His crimes killed him.”
I let that sink in. That I was sitting beside a killer. A man who’d taken the life of another, perhaps easily. A man who could probably take my life pretty easily, too, if he wanted, and no one would ever find my body.
Yet, in spite of my better judgment telling me that all killers were bad, something about him made me question my own morals. From what I’d learned somewhere in my life, most serial killers didn’t feel empathy, and they sure as hell didn’t go around saving animals at the risk of being caught.
“Why did you do it?” I toyed with the hem of my shirt, not willing to look at him with the likelihood that he wouldn’t tell me.
After a pregnant pause, he sniffed. “Because he stole something from me. And some people deserve to die before God takes care of them.”
The car turned into the apartment building, and he pulled into the same spot as before.
“I have to know … do you plan to kill me at some point?” Lifting my gaze, I stared at him.
He didn't look my way, as he told me, “As long as you don’t give me reason to, no.”
21
Lucy
The clash of glass startled me, and I shot upright, catching the stillness of the dark bedroom. Lifting my hands, I recalled the last part of the evening, after Warhawk and I had taken the dog to Richard. I’d crashed on the bed after having taken a shower to remove the blood.
Warhawk must’ve forgotten the binds.
Another crash snapped my attention back toward the door, from where light bled in through the crack, and the sound of mumbling had me concentrating.
I slid over the edge of the bed and padded across the room until standing by the door. Peeking through the crack showed no movement. An intruder?
Opening the door, I cringed at the quiet creak and slipped out into the living room. In the kitchen, I halted my steps, when I found Warhawk slumped against the wall, behind the table, clutching his skull with a bottle of liquor beside him.
One step inside the kitchen, and a sharp sting pierced the bottom of my foot. “Ah! Goddamn it!”
I lifted my leg. Blood had already begun to seep from a wound where a piece of broken glass had lodged itself in my heel. With a frown, I glanced around the room, noticing bits of shattered glass scattered about, as if he’d pitched a few at the wall.
“'The hell you doing out of bed?” The subtle slur of his words told me he’d probably been drinking a while.
In a few strategic hops, I made my way to the table and fell onto a chair. Nausea gurgled in my stomach at the sight of the glass in my skin. It was one thing to tend to someone else’s wound, but anticipating the sensation of the glass sliding out of my own flesh had my stomach flopping about. I grabbed hold of the end and, at the first tug, gagged and balled my hands into a fist before shaking out my wrist.
Warhawk’s snort grated on my spine, and my eyes shot daggers at him, but he pushed up from the wall and staggered across the room, boots crackling the glass on the floor, coming to a stop in front of me. “C�
��mon, tough guy. Let me see it.” Palm up, he flickered his fingers.
Frowning, I drew back my foot and pushed at his proffered hand. “Forget it. I can do it myself.”
“I see that.” Before I could dodge him, he snatched up my foot in his vise-like grip, and I braced my hands on the chair to keep from toppling over, as he stood holding my leg outstretched in the air. He tipped his head, as if examining my heel, while clutching my ankle so tight that I couldn’t have escaped even if I’d really put forth the effort. “Oh, yeah. That’s a nasty one. Should watch where you’re walking.”
“You should stop being an ass and learn the right way to use a glass.” Oh, for fuck’s sake, did it have to come out a rhyme?
He chuckled, and when he grabbed hold of the fragment, I jerked my leg on reflex. His eyes slid to mine. “Quit being a baby.”
“If you’re going to do it, hurry up. Quit toying with me.”
His lips curved up into a crooked grin. “I like toying with you.” Fingers curled tight around my ankle, he gripped the edge of the glass again. “One. Two.” A vicious yank gave one sharp zap of pain, and I cried out.
I drew my leg back when he released my ankle. “What the hell happened to three!”
“Who said I planned to count to three?”
“You always count to three! It’s like … a universal preparation for pain, asshole!” Blood continued to seep out of the gash, and I gripped tight, propping my leg up into my palm.
He twisted back toward the sink and tugged the drawer open, nabbing a rag from inside. After saturating the cloth, he gave it one tight ring and carried it back to me. Another flicker of his hand, and I shook my head. “Give me your foot.”
“So you can inflict more pain? No thanks.”
“Jesus fuck, you are stubborn.” He yanked my foot, holding it tight again. As much as I wanted to take the opportunity to kick him in the face, the gentle pressure and warmth of the washcloth soothed the wound. “Better?”
I gave a nod, and he released my ankle, handing me the cloth to apply myself. “Why’s the glass all over the place, anyway?”
“I break shit when I’m mad.”
A quick glance at the bits of broken glass told me he’d broken a few. “You must’ve been really pissed.”
He slid back down the wall, where I’d found him earlier, and took a swig of his liquor, not saying a word.
I nudged my head toward the bottle in his hand. “Why do you drink so much? Jesus, I could probably set fire to your blood.”
Chuckling, he pulled his legs in and rested his elbows on his knees. “I drink when I’m mad, too.”
“What the hell are you so mad about?”
The amusement on his face withered to solemnity. “That dog …. You know, he might not make it. In case you were holding out hope.”
I'd had a feeling it was about the dog—all the more reason I didn’t believe he was as big and bad as he made himself out to be. “You don’t know Richard. He’s saved lots of animals. Worse than the dog.” I gave a squeeze to my heel and lifted the rag, seeing that the bleeding had slowed. “But if you’re trying to prepare me, I’ve seen lots of animals die at the hands of cruelty.”
His snicker had me looking up to see zero amusement on his face.
“Ever had a dog?” I asked.
Jaw shifting, he cast his gaze away from me and sniffed. “Once. When I was a kid. Stray I brought home. Pitbull-mix.” He took another sip and cleared his throat.
Getting the sense that he wasn’t the type to get all sentimental over a dog that’d died of natural causes, I dared the question swirling in my head. “What happened?”
Scratching his jaw followed by rubbing the back of his neck confessed his discomfort. “He was … strung up and gutted.”
Gutted? As in, cut open? I shook my head, the anger bubbling up from the pit of my stomach at the visual of such a thing. “Who would do something like that?”
“My stepprick.”
I thought about my own stepfather, Paul, who’d once helped me load a German Shepherd, which’d just gotten hit, into the back of his truck to take to Richard. “Why?”
“I stole his gun. Hocked it for cash to buy food. He beat the shit out of me, and Razor attacked him.”
A zap to my brain left me frowning. I’d heard a story just like that before, and the familiarity struck me like a bad case of déjà vu, but I couldn’t place where—a newspaper? A rumor? “Your stepfather beat the shit out of you?”
“All the time.”
My mind drifted back to the night I’d seen the curious line of circular scars on his back. “He … he put those scars on your back?”
Kicking back the bottle, he took another sip and squinted as his neck bobbed with a swallow. I imagined it must’ve been the alcohol that kept him talking. No way he’d tell me so much about himself, otherwise. “Yep. A sixteen-tine steel rake.”
“Oh, my God.” The words came spilling out before I could stop them, while ignorant disbelief had me wondering if he was lying. “For what?”
“I stepped in, when he tried to hit my brother with it.” His head rolled against the wall, eyelids heavy. Definitely drunk.
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen.” He snorted and held the bottle up like a toast. “Sixteen scars to remember my sixteenth year.”
A cold and hollow ache sat heavy in my chest. I couldn’t even process what he’d told me. A rake slammed into his spine that was meant for his brother? The thought spurred both nausea and rage in a clash of sickness that churned in my gut.
A part of me hoped he’d laugh and tell me he was just fucking with me. My stepfather had been the complete opposite—caring, compassionate, perhaps even deserving of more than my mother. Not that I hated my mother. I just never understood how such a warm soul could love her frigid personality.
“That dog. I tried to save him tonight. He might die. But I did try … I wanted to save him.” Sitting with his knees kicked up, he circled the rim of the bottle with his thumb, eyes on me. Sadness and pain danced behind his forest green irises, like shadows amongst the trees, his mind lost to emotions I didn’t understand, like how a father could hurt a child that way. “Thanks. For helping him. And for staying quiet.”
I didn’t say anything, still undecided if I’d done the right thing. Or something incredibly stupid.
His head tipped forward, and he caught his skull in the palm of his hands. The compulsion to pull him from the nightmare, distract him from the pain prompted me to rise up from the chair, and he pulled his hands away from his face. Avoiding my heel and the bits of glass, I limped on my tiptoes around the table.
He slid up the wall to his feet, and without a word, lurched forward. Before I could react, he hoisted me over his shoulder, his hard muscles punching against my stomach.
Hanging upside down, I gripped his waist to keep from sliding. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t need you hurting yourself again.”
“What do you care?” Clutching his T-shirt, I held on for dear life, as he stumbled through the living room, where he hit the wall—opposite shoulder, thank goodness. “Thought you got off on my pain.”
“I don’t.”
A tickle slid up my stomach when my body flew backward, and the soft mattress caught my fall as I bounced.
Fists planted on either side of me, he leaned forward. “I get off on toying with you. Not hurting you.”
“Is there a difference?” I made an exaggerated sweep of my attention toward his circle seven tattoo and back. “It’s all about inflicting pain, isn’t it?”
His eye twitched. “Not for me.”
The intensity burning in his stare had me looking away, for fear he’d know the truth brimming inside of me—that I was unfolding, intrigued by him. Perhaps there was more to the tattoo. More to him. “What does get you off?”
“Revenge.” With a push off the bed, he staggered back into the other room, leaving me there.
Untethered.
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In the quiet, my thoughts returned to his story about the dog. I’d heard it before. I knew I had.
Sunshine on my face. A boy lies next to me in the grass. His rain-and-metal scent calms me, soothes me. I hold his hand. Hawkins.
Hawkins. Hawkins.
Jase Hawkins. A boy who'd lived in trailer park, across the street from where I grew up.
I hadn’t thought about him in years, but it didn't take much dredging to bring up the memory.
My chest tightens, anger and frustration locking up my lungs, as I run beyond the yard, hoping to get as far away from that place as I can.
Everyone said I’d love middle school. My mother told me I’d have a better year. “They’ll be other schools, other kids. You’ll find someone you click with, Lucia,” she said.
I haven't. And I hate middle school, even more than I’d hated elementary school. It doesn’t matter where I go. The kids are all the same. Cruel.
They tell me I smell bad. That I have lice. That I'm nothing but dirty trash.
Today was the worst. Roy Hamilton told the class that my father left me and my mother because I was such a disappointment. He called me a bastard in front of everyone.
Even though I sat quiet. Even though Roy Hamilton was dragged by his collar to the Principals office and suspended from school for two days. Even though I know the truth and tried to ignore him, as mother told me, he cut me deeper than I’ve ever been cut.
All the noise I’ve held inside for the last couple years, since my father up and disappeared, comes spilling out in a scream of tears and fury, so loud that the wind rips at my throat as I run. Blood swishes inside my ears as the laughter of my classmates fades with distance.
Before I know it, the schoolyard ends at a fence that cuts through the trees, on the other side of which sits the trailer park I have to pass through to get to my neighborhood.
I don’t normally take this route home, but I can’t stand walking with the group of kids and their parents—mothers and fathers who look at me strange, like I don’t belong in their perfect little neighborhood hike.