The Darkest Joy

by Marata Eros

  Thank God, I can’t have him floundering on me now. I nod. “Lacey Colbert.”

  Tucker’s features burst like a lightbulb into a slide of surprise. His brows rise then fall in anger. “That blonde Evan wanted to . . .” He lets the sentence go unfinished.

  We stare at each other and he sucks in a breath. “No fucking way,” he says in disbelief, even as he reads the ready knowledge of Evan’s death in my expression. I put that on a faraway mental shelf for analysis later. My friend’s death I can grieve over when I have the luxury of time. Brooke has no time.

  “Yeah,” I answer quietly, regret and sadness thick in my voice.

  “Fuck.” Tucker hadn’t known Evan well, but they’d shared beers; they were Alaskan. And there are few enough of us that, in principle, that’s all that matters. We fight for our own. We just do. There’s a wildness here that is embraced, which is absent in other place—us against everyone else.

  I clench my hands into balls at my sides. “You got any brilliant ideas? Like where?” I ask.

  Tucker’s eyes flick to mine then away as he palms the short beard on his chin. I wait in torturous silence, the two minutes he deliberates, I die inside. That internal clock ticking. Always ticking.

  “You gone by old man Kashirin’s?” he asks, his brows popping in question.

  “Not yet, you were closer.”

  He nods, mind made up. “Let’s hit his place first. Call the Fed . . .” His brows rise again.

  “Clearwater.”

  He nods. “Tell him where we’re going.”

  I feel my own question on my face and Tucker answers it. “Just in case Goldilocks whacks one of us, they’ll still be able to save Brooke.”

  I lift up my shirt, the gun holster digging into my waistband, the cold butt of the handle warmed by my flesh.

  Tucker shakes his head. “I don’t think that’ll help. This one wants to be up close and personal.”

  I think about the article describing, in vivid detail, the knife work employed on the victims. I think of Brooke in Lacey’s tender care and adrenaline surges through my already beleaguered system.

  I don’t need to be up close and personal with Lacey. If the opportunity presented itself . . . “I’m taking it. She doesn’t have the element of surprise anymore and every Fed in the state is looking for her.”

  Tucker just stares, then finally he says, “She’s smart or she wouldn’t have gotten this far. The only advantage we have is we know Alaska like the backs of our hands. She doesn’t.”

  “She’s a girl,” I say.

  Tucker gives a grim laugh. “She’s a clever murdering girl that’s holding your girlfriend hostage,” he says as he restates the facts, his level stare locking with mine.

  I rake my hand through my hair for the billionth time. “Let’s snag Jake. He’ll have an idea.”

  I feel hopeless. Like nothing in the world can save Brooke. Then I think of her guarded trust and we race to Tucker’s Bronco, then roar toward the spit . . . toward Jake’s junk shack.

  I set my feelings aside. One of us has to have hope.

  I’ll scrape together enough for us both.

  Lacey can’t take the one thing that’s made me live, each breath I take sweeter than the last.

  I won’t allow it.

  I peer through Jake’s grimy glass widows, the telltale glow of the laptop absent. I turn to Tucker. “Not here.” My hand drops to my side and I want to sound a primal roar in frustration. I dig my cell out: no phone call or text back. Shit.

  “Damn, man. That’s bad news.”

  I nod in tense agreement. “Could’ve used his head on this.”

  I stand still for a second, trying not to let panic overwhelm me. I can hear every second click by like I have a second timer going inside my head.

  Tick-tock-tick-tock.

  A sudden idea, as horrible as it is sweet, begins to form like a black cloud inside me, a dooming portent.

  Tucker sees my face. “What?” he asks, stepping forward, his eyes scanning my face before I utter my suspicion.

  “Fuck, I think I know where she is.”

  Tucker rolls his eyes. “Spit it fucking out, Taylor.”

  I spin away from him, sprinting to the Bronco. The sun plows into the windshield, breaking away in fragmented splinters of light that pierce my eyes, causing white dots to dance in my vision. My heart climbs into my throat and my body comes to life again, the fight-or-flight instinct kicking in.

  It’s fight all the fucking way.

  “Chance!” Tucker roars, his footsteps stomping behind me like a lumbering giant awakened from slumber.

  I whip open his door and jump into the driver’s seat and put the still-running rig in gear, slamming the door with a slapped palm on the exterior.

  “Don’t!” Tucker bellows from a car length away and I toss him my cell out the window.

  He catches it smoothly. “Call Clearwater!” I yell over the rumble of the engine and I pull away in a spray of gravel.

  I lean out the window screaming over my shoulder, “Marina!” Tucker scowls, punching his fingers through my cell as I travel the short distance to the marina.

  I check the rearview mirror and see Tucker speaking heatedly into my cell. Then he disappears from sight and I head for Life Is Chance.

  Let’s hope the name of my boat holds true . . . and that chance is on my side tonight.

  I ninja-sprint down the gangplank like a silent ghost for the first time in my life. The steel grating is meant to make noise, but the tide is high so it’s not a climb, but almost horizontal—easy for once.

  How many times have I shoved dollies full of two hundred pounds of fish up that thing? It’s strange to be empty-handed of my catch.

  I reach the bottom, my gun naked in my hand. No one with any brains pulls a gun unless they’re willing to kill.

  And I am willing.

  I know that taking a life is a sin. A reduction in the sanctity of humanity’s precious tally. But for me, the choice is easy.

  Brooke or Lacey.

  Prodigy pianist whom I love or obsessed serial murderer?

  Everywhere I look I’m greeted with bulging eyes and people who move out of my way, slowly backing up the way I’ve come.

  Everyone wants to avoid a man who looks like I do at that moment: armed, brutal . . . purposeful.

  No one wants that kind of attention turned on them.

  I move to the last slip where my boat, the same boat that used to be my folks’, gently rocks with the slight disturbance of the quiet harbor.

  I know that a storm is coming.

  Yet the sky is a cloudless blue, the fabled cool Alaskan weather on hiatus until further notice.

  I move toward my boat, which Matt had just been cleaning not two hours ago, Lacey almost certainly using that window of time to stow Brooke. The gun is a familiar comfort in my grip, all those days at the shooting range coming full circle to give me what I need: confidence.

  The confidence of a killer, driven by love.

  My hand squeezes the handle of my weapon just as I round the corner of the bow and catch sight of Jake. A pool of blood like a halo of death surrounds his body.

  And then Lacey steps out of the cabin, an entire half head taller than a stunned Brooke, whose vivid lavender gaze is a window to her terror. I read in her expression a resolute determination. And instinctively guess she might martyr herself for me, sacrificing herself because she feels like she must—some kind of convoluted redemption for her family’s death. If she weren’t, she’d put herself out of harm’s way. But that’s not Brooke’s design. Death irrevocably changes our life path and Brooke is the proof.

  Fuck that.

  I can feel the Feds approach like a bitter taste in my throat.

  I should wait.

  Instead, I put my hand on the starboard side of the ship, pushing up and lifting off, the gun high in the air in my right hand for balance. I sail over the side of the vessel and land on my feet, my toes just inches from Ja
ke’s blood.

  I stare into Lacey’s eyes and see my death reflected back in them.

  Brooke

  I watch Chance move down the wide-planked dock, his sea legs navigating the moving dock as fluidly as if those boards were rock steady. Chance’s bluish-green eyes blaze like cool fire from a face with a perpetual tan, his inky hair standing on end, and I know he’s combed it in frustration a hundred times since I’ve disappeared and I want to cry.

  Chance deserves so much more. And Lacey deserves to die. I thought I’d be scared when this moment finally arrived, or maybe try to escape . . . but all I feel is a desperate sort of calm resolution. I know that she’ll never stop killing, that somehow I’m the catalyst for her behavior. I can’t ignore the deadness behind her eyes.

  I thought I loved her.

  But maybe I was just so desperate for a connection, loving how much she loved me, that I ignored what I didn’t wish to see. And now all I’m left with is hatred. If I have to die to save Chance, and ultimately others, I will.

  I watch the muscles of Chance’s arm tense as he does a one-handed leap over the right side of the boat, hardly rocking it, and close my eyes against his natural grace, using an athleticism he’s not aware of. His left arm’s branded by ink, a gun like death in his fist.

  “Well hi, lover,” Lacey says. As he moves to step forward she presses the knife deeper into my neck and I feel a drop of my blood slide down like a heated trail of fire. It rolls between my breasts and my fear, my determination coalesce into a burning focus.

  She can’t win. Somehow, I have to end this.

  Chance’s Adam’s apple does a slow bob, those piercing eyes slicing her up like small razor blades. “Let her go, Lacey,” he says in a soft voice full of menace, but emboldened by resolve.

  He’s made up his mind just as I have.

  “I think not, Fisherboy. As a point of fact, I like the idea of you taking us somewhere more private. I’ve always wanted to take a little sea voyage . . .” She gives a tittering giggle and her insanity slips down my spine like an ice cube.

  Surprise lights on Chance’s face then disappears. I watch him build himself up for what has to happen and I grieve for him.

  For me.

  “No way.” His eyes shoot to mine and whatever he sees there causes him to step forward.

  “Don’t,” Lacey says in a low voice of warning, dragging me back with a strong arm hugging the bottom of my rib cage and pressing the knife harder.

  Another drop of blood joins the first. I see Chance track it with his eyes and a low sound of despair rips out of his throat.

  “Don’t hurt her,” he begs, his voice cracking.

  “Put the gun up, handsome . . . and see if you can save our Brookie. Like a man,” she invites in a baiting drawl.

  I shake my head at Chance, taking a risk with the knife. I don’t care.

  I don’t care.

  Lacey grunts with dissatisfaction. “Brooke, let your sperm donor fight for you. . . . if he’s man enough.”

  Chance slams the gun back into its holster, his eyes burning with frustration, with rage.

  There’s a sudden groan from the deck and all eyes move to Jake. His pale blue eyes instantly take in the scene, the ragged flap of skin waving off his skull like a flag of flesh.

  Jake sees her holding me, the front of my blouse bloody, my eyes bulging in terror while a manic Lacey holds my life with the turn of sharpened metal at my throat.

  His gaze silently meets mine. Our eyes lock, then his slide to something on the boat.

  I follow it.

  The gaff.

  Our interchange takes seconds. Jake never sees Chance, who stands behind him. Jake’s given me the method.

  I take it.

  Chance knows what I’ll do before I move, watching the interplay and instinctively putting it all together.

  “Brooke, no!” he bellows, moving forward. He doesn’t lose his footing because of the sea that rocks the boat underneath us but because of the blood that slicks the deck like a fine oil. He slips as I move under and away from the lingering presence of the blade, Lacey’s hands momentarily slackened by the surprise of the moment.

  “Brooke!” Lacey shrieks as I dive for the gaff. My eyes hit on the brass brackets that hold it in tension pincer grips; the barbed and sharpened end is like an eye that winks at me. I land chest first on the deck, my legs over the top of Jake’s, my arms outstretched.

  I hear it before I feel it.

  A meaty thwack sounds behind me as I crawl forward that last foot. Something tears out of my leg like a burning torch.

  When the knife hits my upper thigh again, it feels as though a giant has punched me with his great fist.

  I think it should hurt more.

  My hand grips the smooth wooden handle of the gaff and I jerk it out of its brass guardians.

  The knife exits my thigh in a sucking reverse pop and a flood of blood like a warm bath pours around me.

  I ignore the shrieking agony of my body, turning just as Chance avoids a strike. Arching his back, he sucks in his stomach as the knife flashes toward his midsection.

  Lacey moves in like a tornado of blades. Both hands now hold knives and she moves with a grace she shouldn’t possess.

  That I didn’t know she possessed.

  Her total focus is on Chance, the threat of me forgotten.

  I move to my knees in a swivel that brings the momentum of that barbed point in a horizontal arc. I turn it like a baseball bat and hope for that perfect home run as I swing it toward her.

  I hear the swish of air as it whistles past my position and sinks into her back. She cries out, looking at me for a shocked moment suspended in time.

  The sun sinks behind Lacey, backlighting her in red, and Chance gets close, punching the knife from first one hand, then the other.

  They fall with a dull clatter to the deck of a boat now soaked by blood.

  Mine.

  Jake’s . . . hers.

  A shot thunders and echoes in the stillness of the marina, the sharp retort causing my ears to ring.

  A perfect hole appears in her head and blooms like a horrible flower, spraying the bits of what made her Lacey over all of us like a gruesome and final rain.

  I crumple to the deck, and as if in a dream, I see Clearwater straighten from his shooter’s stance as he yells to a team of suited agents and they swarm like bees around a hive.

  But there’s no honey here.

  Only blood.

  And death.

  I close my eyes and float into unconsciousness.

  My eyes flutter open and I see a swinging bag, a snakelike IV line running to my taped and abraded arm.

  A medic flashes a penlight in my eyes and I groan. Each sense awakens and suddenly I’m ambushed by the noise.

  Sirens.

  A hand encased in latex checks my pulse then pulls away.

  “Hang in there . . . don’t you dare die on me, Brooke Starr.” Eyes like seawater in sunlight beseech me to stay. I close mine against the sensory overload.

  “She’s lost a lot of blood . . .” I hear a voice say.

  The ambulance rocks and jostles, tossing my limp body with the jogs and ruts in the road.

  “Whatever she needs, take it from me,” I hear Chance say, as though from a great distance, his voice coming to me through the swamp of my consciousness.

  I hear bits and pieces of their conversation: Nicked femoral. Low blood pressure. Shock.

  Will to live.

  That phrase settles in. I think about it . . . floating on whatever the medics have juiced me with.

  Do I want to live?

  I feel my hand move and another one, warm and vital, grips mine.

  I feel the heat of his lips move over my cool skin and it’s the most intimate thing I’ve ever known. I struggle to live and Chance’s lips hold me here to this life, pinned like a butterfly on a board.

  His will is imposed this day.

  The day I choose to live. F
or him.

  For us.

  And finally . . . for me.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Chance

  I can’t get over the humidity of Seattle. It clings to everything, even in September, when Alaska is cooling, the fireweed having only their tips crowned with purple flowers heralding autumn’s approach . . . the Seattle summer is just springing to late life. Whoever says it only rains in Seattle hasn’t been here.

  It’s almost October and three months have passed since Lacey Colbert lay dying on the deck of my boat, true twilight descending as the blood of my cousin Jake and the woman I love mingling with that of the killer’s. Three months since Evan’s funeral.

  One horrible month of Brooke hanging between life and death.

  One month of her guilt coming full circle to finally release her from the tragedy of truth: that her best friend had loved her. Not in a healthy way, but in a deadly and obsessive way. To realize that Brooke could never have saved her family. That she’s not responsible for any of this.

  One month of explaining, cajoling, and finally, understanding. Juilliard has admitted Brooke. Making the biggest exception of all time to admit someone that eschewed tryouts, regardless of the reason. Of course, there is no precedence. Brooke fought for the other survivors of the two murdered families as well. All three candidates will pull their own weight in a school filled with talent, without their respective families. It was Brooke’s catharsis . . . her redemption. Something good had to come out of the tragedy of death.

  I slap the steel doors shut and lower the bar across the brackets that hold it, padlocking the doors together. I step away, the orange U-Haul logo covered partly by the lock, and turn to Brooke.

  I watch her walk toward me, the storage unit mostly empty, but still holding some of her belongings saved from the sale of her family’s home.

  She still moves with a slight limp. The physical therapist says she might walk smoothly again one day. Nerve damage can sometimes rectify . . . sometimes not.

  Brooke is beautiful to me, scars and all. I have kissed each one as her solemn eyes watch me erase not the pain of the scars, but the pain of the past. I want Brooke to know that her wounds are tangible proof that she survives—lives.