The Monster

by Shen, L. J.

“You could get into deep shit for doing this, know that?” I raised my head, pinning her with a look. Of course she knew that. Aisling wasn’t stupid.

  She tilted her chin up, ignoring my words. “Cillian and Hunter say they haven’t been able to reach you the last few days. I put two and two together and figured you were sick and too proud to ask for help, so I came to nurse you back to health.”

  “Listen to me…” I slammed my open palm against the marble between us, losing patience “…you can go to prison. This is first-degree murder. It is fucking intentional. Not even manslaughter. You need to stop.”

  “I know you’re used to obedience, doing what you do…” Nix perched her purse on the counter and took out a thermometer, sauntering over to me and sticking it under my tongue “…but you can’t tell me what to do, Monster.”

  I glared at her like she took a shit in my bed, waiting for the thermometer to beep. When it did, I spat it out back into her hand, and hissed, “This conversation is not over.”

  “Please,” she snorted, rounding the kitchen island and taking a few pills from her purse, reaching over to hand them to me. “Don’t pretend like you care. We’re too old and too jaded for that. Here, take these.”

  Eyeing her skeptically, I said, “I don’t know, Doc, you don’t have a glowing track record of bringing people back to health.”

  She shrugged, about to withdraw her outstretched hand. I snatched the pills, shoving them into my mouth and swallowing without water.

  “The soup will be ready in about forty-five minutes. Why don’t you lie down and tell me all about your brand of evil?”

  Kicking her out wasn’t going to fly. Not when I could barely crawl to the door, let alone shove her out of it. And anyway, I was tired of fighting her off. She’d finally succeeded in worming her way into my life. I saw a distinction between her and Gerald. Between her and her brothers. Nix was finally her own person in my eyes.

  And what a person that was.

  Gorgeous, intelligent, and compassionate. Worst of all—someone who was blindly in love with me. She didn’t have to spell it out. It was radiating from every inch of her silken flesh.

  I didn’t deserve her.

  I could have her if I wanted.

  I staggered to the couch and fell onto it. Nix balanced herself on the edge, right beside me, looking at me expectedly, like Rooney anticipating story time.

  I ran my fingers through my damp hair.

  “Where to start?”

  “The beginning would be a good place.”

  Rascal.

  “I was born on a blistering August day—”

  “Well, maybe not the very beginning. How about the middle? No. Third chapter. After the exposition, but before things get real juicy and turbulent.”

  Eyeing her with new fondness I wasn’t even entirely sure I was capable of feeling, I chuckled.

  “Things had been a shitty blur until I turned nine, after which it was all about the Brennans. I had a role to assume, and I did. I now make more than Troy did back in the day. I own more businesses, more properties, and I control more areas in Boston than he ever did.”

  “But you are also messier than Troy was.” She ran her fingers through my hair, fixing whatever the hell I did to it, smiling. “You kill more people. You get injured. Crime rate is up. And it’s a well-known fact the Bratva is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I read it in the news.”

  “Reading something in the news doesn’t make it true,” I pointed out.

  “What about the FBI? Cillian says they are after you, too.”

  “They’ll never catch me.”

  “Famous last words.” She sighed.

  “Quote me on them, Nix.”

  She smiled, dipping her hand into the bullet jar wistfully, slipping in the missing bullet she’d stolen from there.

  “Thank you,” I croaked, closing my eyes.

  “You are most welcome, my darling monster.”

  I drifted off to sleep, even though I tried hard to stay awake. It reminded me of the first few Christmases I spent with the Brennans. The fight against exhaustion was like swimming against the stream, but something good was happening, and who the fuck knew when would be the next time I’d feel this elusive, intoxicating joy?

  Aisling must’ve slept right beside me because I could still feel her heat when I woke up. Her scent of ginger and honey and my fucking undoing.

  I yawned, stretching on the couch.

  “Make coffee,” I growled, but there was no response.

  I opened my eyes, looking around.

  There was a bowl of steaming chicken noodle soup by my side, a bottle of water—uncapped—and some pills.

  Aisling was gone.

  The next day, I met with Barbara McAllister on the outskirts of Boston.

  She was a hobo-looking woman, not in the hipster, bought-that-holed-shirt-for-three-hundred-bucks way, but in the seriously-need-a-sandwich way. You could tell that underneath the bleached hair, wrinkled face, and badly applied self-tan, she’d once been an attractive woman.

  Barbara was the final blow I needed to bring Gerald down to his knees. The missing piece in Operation Destroy Gerald. She held some deep secrets he never wanted anyone to know, and for a healthy sum of money, she was willing to air them out to the world.

  “But I need to make sure it’ll be worth my while. I’ll only do it for the right price. Can I borrow a cigarette?” Barbara asked when we’d met in a small coffee shop.

  She wore a black mini-dress and a cheap trench coat, and it looked like the ‘right price’ for her would be twenty bucks and a McMeal. I silently offered her my open pack of cigarettes, keeping my expression blank.

  I still soldiered through my plan for Gerald Fitzpatrick, but I was no longer gleeful about it. Somewhere along the road, hurting Aisling, which I knew I was bound to do, felt unnecessary. It wasn’t that I was going soft. It was that there was no need to be harsh to a woman as pliable as her.

  So fucking pliable that she runs an underground death clinic and seeks you out.

  Barbara lit up a cigarette, exhaling with a satisfied smile.

  “How do you know I’ll even get a book deal? There isn’t exactly a shortage of women Gerald Fitzpatrick has dipped his dick into.” She eyed me skeptically.

  “True, but you are the only one who’d lived in one of his apartments. You weren’t just a fuck, you were a mistress. He flew you places. Bought you expensive jewelry. I bet it’s just the tip of the iceberg.” I smirked at her, setting the bait to make her say more.

  She grinned, her teeth unusually white for a smoker, and nodded enthusiastically.

  “Oh, did he ever. Samuel, my boy, he adored me. Of course, I did my part, too. There were orgies. Massive orgies. He sometimes took us three at a time. I always thought it was peculiar Ger was so upset when his son, Hunter, did it. After all, he was the king of orgies back in the day.”

  My jaw tensed. I didn’t need to hear about my brother-in-law’s sexcapades before he married my baby sister.

  “What else?” I asked.

  “There were drugs. A whole lot of them at those parties.” Barbara rubbed her chin. It struck me as interesting that although Gerald had put her on the list, too, when I asked about her, he’d lied to me. Some of the details he had given me were different from what I’d found when I conducted my own research. Addresses, where they’d met, her age. Nothing lined up, so I decided to dig deeper. I was glad I did.

  “There were also a few abortions.” She cleared her throat. “Gerald did not like to use protection, but he also didn’t want any bastard children. He was actually adamant about that, as you could imagine. I, myself, knew better than to tempt fate. I was always on the pill. Didn’t have the ambition of getting knocked up with a billionaire’s kid. Too dangerous. Looking back, maybe I should’ve. Maybe I’d fare better than I do today.” She looked around the small coffee shop with the peeling wallpaper and dusty surfaces. She lived in a small, deserted town. It was obvious she
wasn’t swimming in it.

  “But I was privy to everything that happened behind the scenes. He was a monster, Samuel. A real monster. Ever met one?” She sucked on the cigarette I gave her greedily, ignoring the disturbed glances the barista behind the counter shot at her—though she didn’t approach us or tell her to put it out.

  “Yeah,” I said easily. “I’ve met monsters before. Multiple times, actually. So, here’s how we are going to do this, Barbara. I’ll bring the lucrative tell-all book deal, you’ll bring the juice. But whatever happens, you must remember one thing—you never met me, never saw me, and never heard of me. Am I clear?”

  She nodded, finishing off her cigarette and taking a sip of the stale coffee I’d bought her.

  “Absolutely. May I have another cigarette?”

  I laughed, standing up and tossing the pack in her lap before disappearing back into the white blizzard.

  “Sure, sweetheart, take the whole fucking pack.”

  I smelled it before I saw it. The puke.

  Then when I noticed the first spot, I realized they were everywhere. Vomit stains.

  Yellow and faint, covering the carpets, the floor, the walls.

  I dropped my backpack at the door, following their trail up the stairway, where they led. It was unlike the housekeepers to leave any sort of dirt unattended.

  Unless they wanted me to see it.

  It was a cry for help, I knew. And not just from my mother.

  Lord, what did she do now?

  I reached the second floor then rounded the hallway, my stride picking up speed. Just as I expected, the puke stains led to the master bedroom, my mother’s room. Athair had left days ago, and even though I tried my best to keep an eye on her, I knew Mother was spiraling.

  I stopped outside her door, putting my hand on the doorknob and drawing a deep breath.

  “Mother?”

  There was no answer. I threw the door open, flashbacks of Ms. B attacking my memories, raw and vivid.

  Blood.

  Bath.

  Wrists.

  Despair.

  I scanned the room. It was completely empty.

  “Mother?” I echoed, confused.

  Cautiously, I made my way into the en-suite bathroom, my heart in my throat. I hoped for the best but expected the worst. Mother, rehashing that scene at Ms. B’s apartment, finally making good on her idle threats to take her own life. I knew my mother was a cutter. It actually provided me a screwed-up sense of security because people who cut were less likely to perform “successful” suicide attempts.

  Jane Fitzpatrick wasn’t even entirely a cutter. Sometimes she bruised herself a little, well and far away from the wrists, to draw attention. But she almost exclusively did this for my father’s and my viewing. Hunter and Cillian had no idea. They weren’t pawns in her emotional blackmail scheme.

  I found her lying on the floor by the vanity, facedown.

  “Mother!” I cried out, rushing to the bathroom, swinging the door open.

  I fell down on both knees, turning her over by the shoulder. She was passed out cold in a pond of her own vomit. Half-dissolved pills were swimming in the vomit like little stars, their content, powdery and thick. Like stardust.

  Jesus.

  I grabbed her hair, shoving my fingers into her mouth, forcing her to gag and throw up more. She came to life instantly, at first protesting weakly about my hurting her as I held her head, but then she started puking more.

  More pills. More everything.

  “You need to get your stomach pumped,” I groaned, calling an ambulance with my free hand as I continued trying to make her throw up. “What have you done?”

  But I knew exactly what she’d done and why.

  The ambulance arrived four minutes later. I followed it with my own car. I tried to call Hunter and Cillian repeatedly. Both their phones went straight to voicemail.

  I couldn’t understand why. It was nighttime. They should be at home with their families. I resorted to texting both of them our code word. Our emergency code.

  Clover.

  And then, when there was no answer: Clover, clover, clover! Pick up!

  Reluctantly, I didn’t want my sisters-in-law to know the extent of how screwed-up my family was, especially with Da living out of the house and my parents probably getting a divorce. I called Persy.

  Persephone and I always had this unspoken connection, of two, shy and romantic wallflowers forced to blossom in the jungle that was the Fitzpatrick family.

  “Hello?” Pers sounded drowsy, drunk with sleep.

  “Oh. Hi,” I said chirpily, feeling idiotic for forcing on a cheerful tone. “It’s Ash. I’m trying to reach Cillian, but he is not answering. Any idea where he might be?”

  “Hey, Ash. Is everything okay?” she asked and then, processing the fact I asked her a question, she added, “Kill is at Badlands with Sam, Devon, and Hunter. It’s some kind of a special gambling night. I wasn’t paying attention. Can I help you in any way?”

  My blood sizzled in my veins as I gripped the steering wheel to a point of having white knuckles. My brothers were ghosting me. They’d left me to tend to our mother while they went gambling with Sam Brennan.

  Fresh anger bubbled in my stomach. How dare Cillian and Hunter so easily accept a reality in which sweet, timid Aisling took care of Mother and Athair while they went to live their big fulfilling lives?

  I pulled up at the hospital and ushered Mother to the ER along with her designated doctor, giving him as much information as I could based on what I knew. What drugs she may had taken, the quantity, how much of it she threw up.

  They ran some tests at the speed of light and pumped her stomach, but it was already mostly empty thanks to me. Mother was put on an IV drip and was conscious now, not even two hours after she got admitted.

  “Just don’t tell your father. He’d think it’s about him, and he doesn’t need the ego boost,” she moaned, reaching for the remote by her hospital bed. “Do you think they have Netflix here? Oh, this is so highly inconvenient for me. I have a facial tomorrow morning.”

  I stared at her through bloodshot eyes, my whole body shaking with rage.

  “You’re an idiot.”

  The words slipped from my mouth before I could stop them, but I couldn’t for the life of me find a drop of remorse after they were out in the open.

  “Excuse me?” Her head jerked sideways. She gave me a hard, motherly stare.

  “You heard me.” I stood up, walking to the window, watching snow-caked trees and dirty ice roads. “You’re an idiot. A selfish one at that. You refuse to get the help you need, and you abuse prescription drugs to get back at … who, exactly? The only person you are hurting is yourself. Now let me tell you what’s about to happen …” I turned back around, fixing her with my own glare, my newfound spine tingling with the need to take action. “I’m going to go back home, leave you here on your own, and empty all your cabinets of drugs. Any drugs. You won’t even have an Advil for your morning migraines. Then I’m going to book you an appointment with a therapist. If you don’t go, I’m moving out of the house.”

  “Aisling!” Mother cried. “How dare you! I would never—”

  “Enough!” I roared. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m tired of mothering you all day, every day. Of holding your hand through life. Of being the parent in our relationship. You know, I grew up seeing you and Da shipping off Cillian and Hunter to boarding schools in Europe and was terrified of sharing their fate. There was nothing I feared more than saying goodbye to you and Athair. Now, I am actually jealous of my brothers,” I spat out, “because you gave them the best gift of all. They grew up barely knowing you and liking you very little. They are not attached to you like I am. They can live their lives, do as they please, free from the chains of loving two people who are incapable of loving anyone else but themselves. I’m done!”

  I flung my hands up in the air and stormed out, bumping into a doctor who scurried into Mother’s room. He called out to
me, trying to find out what was wrong, but I ignored him, feeling very young and very desperate all of a sudden.

  The drive back home was a blur. I was surprised I made it at all, seeing my unshed tears impaired my vision. I stormed into my mother’s en-suite, opened the cabinets, and started throwing everything into a white trash bag I’d taken from the pantry.

  Anything you could get high on was gone. I shoved it all in without rhyme or reason. Sunscreen, Vaseline, bandages, painkillers, and cough medicine alike. When I was satisfied with my findings, and sure there were no other drugs to be found in the house, I proceeded to stomp my way outside, hoisted the full trash bag into the trunk of my Prius, and floored it all the way to Badlands.

  I tried not to think about the last time I’d seen Sam.

  I told him I never wanted to see him again then went ahead and knocked on his door. Not the most consistent I’d been, but I was worried. When I’d heard from Cillian, Hunter, and Da that Sam was nowhere to be found, I figured he was holed up in his apartment and for good reason. Honestly, I’d been more afraid he’d gotten shot or had a serious wound and was too proud to ask for help.

  I’d found him sick and shivering, nursed him back to health, and then gave him the space he needed.

  That was three days ago.

  He never even said thank you.

  Not that I had any reason to expect him to. This was Sam I was talking about, a well-known monster.

  While I knew he wouldn’t hand me over to the authorities in a red satin ribbon, I also didn’t trust him with the information of what I was doing with my medical degree. Why did I share with him my story of Ms. B, then?

  Because you love him, mon cheri, and when you love someone, you want them to get to know you, so maybe they’ll fall for you, too.

  Well, Sam was obviously feeling much better, seeing as he was clubbing with my selfish brothers tonight.

  I stopped in front of Badlands, dragged the trash bag out, and rounded the building, toward the back door leading to Sam’s office.

  I knew better than to knock. Which was why I took the tweezers out of the trash bag and tampered with the lock. It was a simple lock, and I had the advantage of knowing what I was doing. I’d broken into my brothers’ rooms plenty of times when I was younger. I was bored and alone in the impossibly large, looming Avebury Court Manor.