30.
I HELD ROSE in my arms for the rest of the night. There wasn’t much left of it, but it was the best and only thing I could think to do.
“Ben,” she whispered at one point, her voice foggy with codeine.
I pressed my ear to her lips. “What is it?”
“Thank you for taking care of me.”
“I’ll always take care of you. You know that, don’t you?”
She gave a faint smile. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Does she make you happy?”
“Does who make me happy?”
“Avery,” she said.
“Avery?”
“It’s okay, Ben. I’m not mad. I told you that this summer. I want you to be happy. I want that more than anything.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I am happy. With you.”
“But you shouldn’t be. I ask a lot of you. More than I should.”
“Shhh.” I held her tighter. “You need to rest.”
Rose didn’t answer. She leaned her head against my chest and gazed up at me. She reached to stroke my cheek the way she always did when my head was hurting, and for some reason, that made me feel terrible, like a terrible person. Well, I suppose the reason I felt terrible was because I’d lied and cheated on her. Because I was still lying. But I couldn’t understand why she was asking me these questions in the first place. It wasn’t like I was going to confess to anything then.
“Is this about Archie?” I whispered.
“In a way,” she admitted. “But not like how you’re thinking.”
“Then how?”
“He’s the one who told me about you and Avery. How you two went off into the woods today. Alone.”
I tensed. “Come on, Rose. You know he’s full of shit. He’s a total dick.”
“But I already told you. I’m fine with it.”
I didn’t want her to be fine with it. “Can we stop talking about this? Please?”
“Archie says you two hung out over the summer. Maybe that’s when this all started. While I was in Peru.”
“We did not hang out! We talked once. About my car. Hardly enough to make her like me.”
Rose shrugged. “I liked you before we even talked.”
“That’s your problem!”
“You’re right,” she said. “It is.”
I rubbed my temples, pushing in small circles at the pressure points. “I spent my whole summer alone, Rose. I swear. While you were gone, I didn’t go out or see anybody. I didn’t do anything fun. Not once.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because you weren’t there!”
“So your happiness depends on me? On my telling you to do the things you enjoy?”
“What I enjoy is being with you.”
“The way you enjoy being with your mother so much it makes you physically ill?”
My mouth went dry. “What?”
“You spend more time with her than you do me, that’s for sure.”
“I don’t have a choice. And are you talking about my migraines? Those aren’t her fault.”
“But stress makes them worse. Your doctor told you that. And I know he thinks you’re depressed. You don’t deserve to feel bad all the time like you do, Ben. I promise. It’s the being depressed that makes you believe that.”
“He just wants me to take more drugs. They all do. And I got a migraine today. What was I stressed about then?”
“You tell me.”
I took a deep breath. Forced myself to calm down. Rose was hurt and sad and scared. Like a wounded dog biting its owner’s hand, she didn’t mean what she was saying. So I kissed her forehead. Then her hair. And I told her I loved her.
Rose melted at my touch.
“Ben,” she said softly. “Your mother. What she does to you. It’s not right. And what she said you did to your stepfather, that’s—”
“Don’t.” I was starting to tremble. I felt like I might get sick. “Don’t do this now. We’ll talk later.”
She nodded, her eyes heavy with pain. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset you. Let’s sleep. Okay? We both need sleep.”
—
I woke to a hint of daybreak. The air was wet and drippy. More fog had settled, but the sun was just barely rising, pushing back gloom and setting the world aglow with a pinkish char. Beside me, Rose breathed deeply, her eyes shut tight. After checking her wound, I slipped from beneath her and got to my feet. I walked around the fire, poking the flames with a stick as I eyeballed the remaining wood. It would last the morning but not much longer. That was enough, though. Soon we’d be gone. Off this mountain.
For good.
Beyond our clearing, the world was still and silent. Deathly so. I spied Archie sitting beneath a tree not far from the tent, with a blanket slung across his knees. He was snoring loudly. The Preacher’s rifle still lay in his lap, and I fought the urge to swipe it from him. My teeth chattered. It felt as if the temperature had dropped twenty degrees during the time that I’d been sleeping, and more than anything, I needed more clothes. So I shoved my hands into my pockets and marched out toward the spot where we’d dragged the bodies of the Preacher and the dead woman.
It wasn’t hard to find. I followed the trail of flattened leaves and mud. What had seemed like an endless slog during the night turned out to only be a short walk through the trees and down a fern-lined gully. I stopped once to piss against a tree and lamented the sight of heat leaving my body, in any form. When I was done, I jogged the rest of the way despite aching muscles and the nagging bite of queasiness.
We’d rolled the Preacher into the gully first. Meaning he lay beneath the woman and only the bottom half of him was visible. Cupping my hand over my mouth and avoiding looking directly at either of their faces, I crouched and strained to pull her off him. Her limbs had gone stiff and cold, and I tried not to get blood or whatever else there was on my hands.
Dropping her unkindly into the leaves, I went for what I’d come for, wriggling the Preacher’s jacket off his body. The coat was leather and lined and it felt good to slide it on—a pleasing heft. I flirted with grave-robbing guilt as I pried off his shoes to take his socks, but the payoff wasn’t worth it. Anything I did to the Preacher now wouldn’t hurt him. Plus, I figured he kind of owed me.
Sidestepping away from the bodies and not bothering to slide the shoes back on his bony feet, I rummaged through the jacket’s pockets and found a few items of interest: a roll of cash—there had to be at least a thousand dollars, just rolled up and loose in there—a receipt from a Denny’s down in Santa Cruz, and a scrap of paper with the letters EUR AMTK followed by a bunch of numbers written on it and the words For Jules scrawled at the bottom. I had no idea what that meant, but maybe it had to do with euros. After all, the stolen bank money would have to eventually be laundered overseas, as far as I knew about things like that—which was really nothing but phrases and concepts I’d picked up from television and heist thrillers. “Overseas” was about as tangible a place in my world as Jurassic Park.
I shoved everything I’d found into a pocket on the jacket’s interior before turning back toward the campsite. The money offered a certain amount of relief; if Maggie were truly prowling around, waiting to ambush us, she would’ve already found these bodies and searched them for anything valuable. It was no half million dollars, but no one would let that much cash sit around and rot.
Trudging back up the gully, I went over the details of what needed to be done in the hours ahead. Someone had to first hike up to Grizzly Falls to retrieve the car keys and medical supplies and some food. When that person returned, another group would have to walk down the mountain to the car and drive for help. All told it would probably be another six hours before we got off this mountain and before R
ose could see a doctor. During that time, I vowed not to fight with her or get drawn into any of her moods or arguments. She was hurt and deserved compassion. And she could say whatever she wanted about Avery, but I planned to deny it forever.
I also didn’t intend to let anything Rose said about my mother get to me. It was a frequent topic she liked to rail on about to make me feel bad. She’d tell me I was codependent. Or enabling. Worse, she’d act like I was some pathetic slob being manipulated in all sorts of awful ways without even realizing it. A Stockholm son held captive by my own weakness.
None of that was true, by the way. My mother was sick and had issues, yes, but she couldn’t help who she was or what she’d been through, and even if she could, it would still be up to me to care for her. It’s what any child would do, because it’s not like there’s a choice. Not to mention, it was especially important for me to step up, seeing as I was the one who’d hurt her. And don’t get me wrong: I knew full well that she was the adult in that situation. That she was the one who’d brought the young, hot-blooded Pentecostal minister Marcus Salvatore swaggering into our lives—he might as well have had LOVE and HATE tattooed across his knuckles—and it was a little like a hen opening the door to her house and letting the fox just march on in. Or more accurately, the way I remember it, it was like the hen carrying the fox’s bags inside, taking his coat off, and setting the table for him.
But in the end, I was the one who shot him and whether it was an accident or otherwise didn’t much matter. What mattered was making sure the door to our home stayed boarded shut from there on out. And if that meant me buying groceries and working to pay our bills and staying home with my mom when she didn’t hate me and letting her push me around when she did, then I did all of that. Willingly. And maybe I did other things, too, things I didn’t dare tell Rose about because I knew she’d never understand, like lifting bottles of vodka from the storeroom at work when we couldn’t afford to buy them. Or pouring myself a glass of said vodka before going upstairs, turning off the light, and crawling into my mother’s bed to be with her on those nights when she was lonely and drunk and needed to feel needed. And no, I didn’t do what it is you’re thinking. But maybe I let my mother believe otherwise.
Maybe that was easier.
Walking with heavy shoulders and an even heavier heart, I finally made it back to the campsite. Only when I got there, something was different. It took a moment to figure out what it was because Archie still snored beneath the tree and Rose still lay sleeping, her cheeks pale, but her breathing steady and even, and the other three were still in the tent from what I could tell.
It wasn’t until I glanced across the fire through a haze of white wood smoke that I saw what it was—the Preacher’s brother. He was awake.
And standing right beside him was Tomás.
31.
I DIDN’T SAY anything at first. I just stared at the two of them staring back at me in that grainy pinkish light. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Hey, Ben,” Tomás said after a moment. And he didn’t say it in a nice way. It was his same old sneery Tomás way.
My jaw tightened. But I still didn’t say anything.
“Do you know where Clay is? I kinda need to talk to him.”
“What do you need to talk to him about?”
“That’s not any of your business.”
“Excuse me?” Something dark simmered inside me. I stalked over to where Tomás was standing—he was smoking a cigarette, for fuck’s sake—and there was nothing I wanted to do more in that moment than rip the cigarette from his mouth and punch him in his stupid, pouting face.
“Do you know what happened last night?” I snarled. “Do you have any idea? Where the hell have you been? And why exactly are you talking to this asshole?” I jabbed a finger at Abel, who was watching us from where he lay on the ground.
“We’re not talking. I just got here and I saw him and he was awake, so I asked him who he was and what was going on.”
“Yeah, right.”
Tomás narrowed his eyes as he took another drag from his cigarette. “You know, you’re the asshole in this situation. No one else is walking around screaming at anybody.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you’re being a real prick.”
I balled my hands into fists. “Don’t you even care about Rose?”
“Rose? What does this have to do with Rose? I saw her over there. She’s sleeping, right?”
“She was shot! By your new fucking friend!” Abel made a cackling sound as I said this.
“Wait, what?” Tomás’s jaw dropped, his cigarette falling to the ground. “What do you mean shot?”
“I mean he shot her in the stomach! Or someone did. And they killed Dunc and Mr. Howe!”
He shoved past me. I shoved him back, but then let him go. He raced around the fire to Rose, his face ashen. He fell to his knees by her side.
“Is she—?” he gasped.
“She’s sleeping,” I said. “She’s hurt, but I don’t think she’s in any immediate danger. She’s been talking, drinking water. The bleeding’s slowed. I gave her pain medication. She needs a doctor, though.”
I don’t know if he heard me. Tomás gently gathered Rose in his arms, pressing his cheek to hers. Even from a distance I saw tears welling up on his lashes; he’d always been able to cry when I couldn’t. Rose’s eyes opened and she murmured something to him, something I couldn’t hear. He murmured back, then kissed her hand, her nose, and soon the two of them were lost in their strange twin place that I’d never understood or been invited to enter.
“Nice fucking jacket you got there, Bennett,” a voice said.
I looked down.
Abel lay on his back in the dirt, his four limbs still tied together, and where the left sleeve of his T-shirt was pushed up, a black ink tattoo identical to the one on his brother’s arm was visible. XX. I leaned to inspect it while he glared at me through bloodshot eyes. As helpless as his situation was, he still had the arrogance of his brother, which meant he acted like he was better than me.
I straightened up. The smug look on the man’s face was ugly and cruel, and for a flash, I felt good. I was glad he’d noticed the jacket. Wearing it felt like hard-won victory, an antlered trophy mounted on the wall.
“Your brother’s dead,” I told him. Just to make sure he knew.
The man didn’t answer.
“And Maggie left you,” I added. “Guess she’s the real rebel, huh?”
Abel still didn’t answer, refusing to give me the satisfaction of a response. Instead his eyes fluttered shut, and it was impossible to tell whether he was ignoring me on purpose or whether he’d drifted out of consciousness again.
I sat and I watched him, my nerves strung tight, waiting for his next move. But he never stirred again. The campsite fell quiet, and Tomás and Rose both appeared to be dozing. I didn’t know what else to do, so I ended up sitting there, not doing anything, until the light changed, going from pink to gold to bronze, a lazy roll past daybreak into dawn. And as the sun came up at last, rising high to meet the day, the wind blew harder. Colder. It nipped my cheeks.
—
I was startled by a noise behind me. Peering over my shoulder, I spotted Avery, Clay, and Shelby crawling from the torn-up tent. Haggard and filthy, the expressions they wore were more shell-shocked than the night before, as they took in the reality they’d woken to. Chilled sunlight and blood spatter. A wounded Rose. Abel tied to a tree. The two blanketed figures wrapped and reverently covered near the pile of firewood.
Clay and Shelby made their way over to me, their shoulders hunched and shivering, their skin sallow. There were fresh tears and I understood that, even if I didn’t particularly want to deal with it. But at some point, Shelby began to sob helplessly, and finally I put my arms around her. She kept sobbing, wetting my neck with her te
ars, and I noticed scratches on her hands, bloody ones, only I didn’t know how or when that had happened.
I glanced at Avery but she didn’t look at me. She walked over to where Archie sat and shook his shoulder until his eyes opened. He held tight to the rifle resting across his legs but pushed her away with a groan. She shook harder.
Clay went to stand by the fire, but something about him seemed off. It took a moment to realize what it was—his legs were trembling. His whole body was.
“Hey, Clay,” I called out. And when he didn’t answer: “Clay!”
He turned toward me, his expression flat.
“You need to sit down or something. Seriously. You don’t want to pass out in the flames.”
“He was sick all night,” Shelby whispered. “It’s his anxiety. It’s really bad. He even got—”
“Hey, is that Tomás?” Clay asked suddenly.
“Where?” Shelby squinted.
“Right there.”
“Yeah, that’s him,” I said. “He got back a little while ago.”
Clay set off around the fire on those wobbly legs of his. I held my breath watching as he stumbled first over the burned-out propane tank, then again on the ruined stove, both feet catching in a charred metal clatter. Archie laughed loudly to see this, while Avery advised him to shut the hell up; and the whole commotion ended with waking Tomás, who sat up and stared at us with haunted eyes.
“Clay,” he said thickly. “You okay?”
Clay wiped dust from his pants in obvious disgust. “Yeah, I’m fine. What’re you doing here? What happened to you?”
Tomás gave a quick shake of his head. “I’ll explain later.”
I didn’t want him to explain later, and from the look on Clay’s face, the feeling was mutual; but I also didn’t want to get sidetracked. We had a plan. We needed to stick to it.
“I’m going to go get the keys,” I announced. “I’ll bring back food and anything warm I can find. Then a couple of us can walk out to the parking area. Drive for help.”
“Will you get my bag while you’re up there?” Shelby asked. “Please?”
When I Am Through with You Page 16