by Skye Warren
“Shut the fuck up.” Caleb shoves the boat up onto a rise in the ground. We used it to get over some of the deeper parts of the swamp. The damn thing can barely stay above water. Sets my teeth on edge. “You’re going to scare the ducks away.” His eyes linger on me when he turns around and lifts his gun out of the bottom of the boat.
“Sorry, boss.” Connor pastes on a shit-eating grin. “Just trying to bring the boys up to speed. Things are happening, if you know what I mean.”
Caleb smirks. “You think we’re going to be smuggling anything out here in the damn swamp? They’ll learn on the job. Settle the fuck down and shoot some ducks.”
He checks his ammo.
I pretend to take another swig of beer. There’s not a chance in hell I’m actually going to drink out here, away from witnesses. I can feel Caleb’s eyes tracking me and make sure to make the next swallow obvious. He doesn’t trust me completely. Not yet. I’m still the new guy. It’s a sensible way to do business.
I don’t trust him at all. Honestly, I won’t be shocked if this ends with a bullet in my back and a quick descent to the bottom of the swamp. I wouldn’t be the first guy to go out that way. Bodies have a way of disappearing in the bayou. Some of them resurface in parts. Some of them never resurface at all.
My one pang of regret is that I didn’t go and see Bethany before this boys’ night out. It makes no fucking sense, because she’s not mine.
I aim my gun to the horizon. A movement in the brush. A duck flies through the trees. It’s right between my crosshairs… I move an inch to the right and pull the trigger. A loud blast. The duck flies away. “Damn,” I say, my voice flat.
“Nice try,” Caleb says, sounding smug.
He wants to be the best shot here. I could say that’s why I missed on purpose, but the truth is, I don’t have the heart for killing at the moment. I’m sick and fucking tired of it. Maybe that’s why I agreed to it when my commander sat me down with someone from the CIA. We’ve been looking into Caleb Lewis. You’re in a unique position to get information for us. There’s a commendation in it for you. And if you’re interested, a job with us. Who exactly are you? That’s what I asked. Get the information. Then we’ll talk. So who the fuck knows? Someone who gathers information instead of dodging bombs in the middle of the fucking desert, so yeah, I’m interested.
A fly buzzes by my ear, and I swat it away. Water sloshes against Caleb’s boots. He stands shoulder to shoulder with me. How far is he going to take this? Is he going to sling an arm around my shoulders and welcome me into the fold?
Jesus. I’m not sure I’ll be able to fake my enthusiasm if he does.
“Connor’s right.” He trains his gun out over the surface of the water and looks through the scope. “We’ve got a good fucking system. And at our level, very few people are paying attention. They underestimate us, don’t they?”
Caleb thinks we’re all just above grunts. We’ve got enough access to get to the weaponry, and he’s scraped together enough trust to rob the United States Army blind.
Noah wades past us, a wad of chew in his cheek. He wades a respectable distance before he spits into the water at his feet. Caleb and I shift forward to get in a line with him. Better this way. If one of them is going to shoot me tonight, I’ll see it coming. Not that it’ll make any difference. I think about Bethany’s smile, flashing white in the starlit darkness of her grandmother’s backyard. I wonder if she knows where I am tonight. If she’ll think anything of it if I don’t come back. Morbid shit.
“It’ll be more lucrative now that you’re on board,” Caleb adds.
“Good. I’m not going to help you out of the fucking kindness of my heart.”
A chuckle. “Kindness of your heart. That’s a good one, North.”
Caleb is right about that. I had the last vestiges of kindness beaten out of me years before I shipped off to boot camp. It almost made me feel sorry for some of the guys who signed on at the same time. They were soft. Came from suburbs named after Robin Hood fairy tales. Flinched away from a punch.
My older brother walked away without looking back. A year later I did the same thing. I haven’t spoken to either of them since then. For once I wish that I’d changed that. I’d like their advice about this. Does it make me a fucking snitch to turn on Caleb? Do I even want a job that’s based on those lack of principles?
Then again, those guns he’s selling will be used against me. Against my older brother Liam. Against Elijah too, if he enlisted the year he turned eighteen.
That’s reason enough to turn on him.
Except his sister is Bethany.
Dear Liam and Elijah, how would you feel about your dear brother turning traitor just so he can properly fuck a sixteen year old girl? Not exactly a sweet family reunion, but one that’s fitting for the North family.
Noah pulls the trigger of his 12-gauge so smooth and quick the click barely registers before the shot rings out. I stand tall, my own gun still hanging from the strap across my back. A line of ducks rises from the water in a panic. Wings pumping. Sounding the alarm to one another. I have the wild hope that it’s not too late for them.
Or maybe it’s me I’m thinking about.
“Got one,” says Noah. It’s a typical Noah comment. Brief.
“Fuck yes,” Connor shouts.
He takes aim at the fleeing ducks and squeezes off three shots that go so wide I have half a mind to scold him about wasting shells.
I keep my damn mouth shut.
Noah sloshes out to get his kill. He slings it into a shopping basket in the bottom of the boat. It’s my turn to casually get my gun in my hands and flick off the safety. I don’t like the way Caleb’s looking at me. Makes the hairs on the back of my neck reach for the sky. Does he know I’ve been taking Bethany out? Is that what this shit is all about? I’m not stupid enough to think that Caleb has any depth of goodness left in him. But he does have a certain lust for blood and vengeance. We all do. Thank you to the army for making it a marketable skill.
The minutes bleed away, the sun wheeling toward the tops of the cypress trees. I’ve successfully pretended to drink the same can of beer for the entire outing. The color leeches from the bayou while the seconds tick by. Frogs sing louder. I count my own heartbeats. Each one is a small triumph. Noah shoots another duck. Caleb lurks around, looking smug as hell. I keep my finger off the trigger…but close by. Somehow it doesn’t seem like a good bet to waste a shot on a harmless duck. Easy enough to play up feeling buzzed. Caleb stops watching me quite as close.
By the time Caleb flicks on the light at the front of the aluminum boat, the air is thick with flies. Connor’s drunk. The light catches his eyes and reflects back an almost crazed excitement. It’s too much for a duck hunting trip during which he’s killed zero ducks.
Something’s not right.
Either that or I’m a paranoid motherfucker.
Frankly I’ve got a right to be. But unlike some of the other jackasses crawling through the swamp, I don’t let it get the better of me. I help Caleb haul the boat into the deeper water. The rumble of the motor sends the swamp into a frenzy around us.
Frogs panic and leap out of our way.
I’m still alive back at the parking lot.
Connor tells us all the story of how Noah shot two ducks and the rest of us fuckers shot none while we haul the hunting gear out of the boat and stow it in the back of the Jeep. Caleb bends down to shove the boat under a nearby shelter.
I feel a thousand times better when the rifles are stowed, too.
Noah and I climb into the back. Caleb takes his spot behind the wheel. My entire body prepares for the Jeep to swing to the right. It’s a shitty, gravel on-ramp and somebody’s going to die there someday, but it’s not going to be me.
Caleb turns left.
My stomach drops into my feet. He’s going the wrong fucking way.
“Did you forget where the city is, motherfucker?” I keep my voice light. A joke between buddies.
Co
nnor swings around in his seat, his grin apocalyptic. “Should I tell them, boss?”
I catch Caleb’s eyes crinkling in the light from the dashboard. His mouth stretches in a hellish smile. “It’s going down tonight. First mission.”
Fuck. Fuck. How the hell can I get myself out of this? One of Caleb’s missions is not the plan. The plan is to go back to the city, report to my superiors, and throw some pebbles at Bethany’s window. Connor’s seat jerks backward under my palm. It settles with a sharp crack—must’ve been halfway between positions on its rails. “What the fuck, man?” He looks me in the eye. “You scared?”
“Fuck no.” I’m not scared. I’m fucking pissed. Pissed that I agreed to this in the first place. Pissed that I was stupid enough not to recognize the signs. Pissed that there’s nothing I can say to get Caleb to turn the Jeep around. I know it in my gut. Goddamn it.
I watch twenty minutes crawl by on the dashboard clock. It feels like the end of the fucking world. Then Caleb makes a sharp right onto a dirt road. If there was any cover—any cover at all—I’d bail out the side of the Jeep right now. But there’s nothing. It’s an empty field, the grass cut short. A warehouse looms out of the darkness. A floodlight comes on. I raise a hand on instinct. It’s fucking blinding. My eyes lag in adjusting like they want me to die. It can’t get any worse than a warehouse in the middle of nowhere. A bead of sweat gathers at the base of my neck and slips down my spine.
Caleb brakes hard.
Oh, fuck.
It’s worse.
Now I see them. The lust on Connor’s face. The crates, piled high. And the men with guns aimed at us.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Katherine Dunham was an African American dancer and anthropologist. In 1931, when she was only twenty-one years old, she formed a group called Ballet Nègres, one of the first black ballet companies in the United States.
Bethany, five years ago
The minutes tick by. I’ve stretched so much there’s a perpetual ache in my hamstrings. It’s forty-five minutes past the time he usually comes. He isn’t coming. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. Just because he comes to see me five nights in a row—we aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. We aren’t going steady. The fact that I felt that way…that’s my fault. A knot in my stomach pulls tighter and tighter. Nervous energy moves me around the room, until finally I have to skip down the stairs just to distract myself from the window.
On the back porch I do a series of slow pirouettes. As slow as I can stand it. Testing my balance. Staying upright. And, yes, picturing how it will look through the window when he sees me. If he sees me. We’ve never had a formal conversation about any of this. There’s no spoken agreement that Joshua North will keep coming to my house every night. I’ve known all along that this could end at any time. I just never really believed that it would end.
Maybe I still don’t.
Ten more pirouettes, the last one so agonizingly slow that my calf starts to cramp. I let my arms fall to my sides. My eyes are perfectly adjusted to the dark. Every time I’ve faced the back windows, I used the time to scan the yard. There are no solid shadows blotting out the night. None. I find myself in first position. Like I might lift my heel off the floor and let my weight carry me into a spin. Wouldn’t that be ironic? You turn and turn and turn. That’s what he said that day in the cemetery, and that’s what I’m doing now.
Time to do something different.
“Bethany?”
Mamere’s voice has a worried edge. I whirl around, rising on tiptoe, hand flying to my throat. “Mamere, I didn’t know you were still up. Did I wake you?”
“What are you doing out there?” She beckons me close with one hand. “Your bed was empty. I came to find you.”
A wave of residual fear and guilt sloshes through my belly. The one night I’m home, she comes looking. If this had been another night, with me down in that basement club that doesn’t check IDs, pressed up against Joshua North…a shiver goes through me. She would’ve woken the neighborhood. A flare of anger burns away the guilt. This is what comes of getting involved with men like that. I never should’ve trusted him, not for anything. I walk with Mamere back up the stairs. “I couldn’t sleep. I needed to move, and I didn’t want the noise to wake you up.” I give a rueful laugh. “I guess it did anyway.”
She puts her hands on either side of my face and pulls my head down to kiss my forehead. “Whatever’s troubling you, it’ll look better in daylight. Sleep, child. Don’t fight your demons in the dark.”
Back on my bed I sink into the mattress. There are no more demons to dance with now. Josh isn’t coming tonight. We’re not together, so he had no obligation to stop by. He had no obligation to tell me that he wouldn’t be coming. None whatsoever. But if he believed in common courtesy, he’d have done it anyway. Josh obviously doesn’t believe in common courtesy. But he did come here every night for five nights in a row. What’s different about tonight? My thoughts go around and around in circles.
You know. You know exactly why he didn’t come. The awful, terrible truth of it circles my other errant thoughts. Because he wanted to see if you’d put out for him. That’s all anybody’s interested in. Your legs spread for a man or for an audience. On a bed or in the air. They all only want one thing.
I want this not to be true for Josh. The things we’ve done haven’t involved beds or even nudity. Only the hot press of his mouth and the expert graze of his fingers. I keep coming back to the same conclusion. That’s what he wanted. My mouth. My touch. That’s it.
Sleep drifts close, only to tease me and run away again. Over and over and over. I refuse to look at the clock on my bedside table. I don’t want to know how much of the night he’s stealing from me. At some point I squeeze my eyes closed and resolve to listen to Mamere. Don’t fight your demons in the dark. I’m trying not to do it, but damn. They won’t leave me in peace tonight. He won’t leave me in peace. And he’s not even here.
Done. I’m done. I’m leaving it behind me. It was a momentary lapse of judgment. That’s it. It won’t come with me to the future. He won’t—
The pebble on my windowpane is like a boulder crashing through water. My thoughts scatter like frightened guppies. My heart pounds. I throw back the blankets and leap to the window. A silent prayer—let it not be a branch, or a bird, or anything else—
It’s him.
In my scramble to climb out the window I don’t get a good look at him. As soon as my feet hit the ground I’m turning, words tumbling from my lips. “Where were you? I thought you’d be—what happened?”
“What do you mean?” His voice is harsh, mocking. “What makes you think anything happened, sweetheart?” His hands are buried in his pockets. The cocky stance only highlights the dark stain on his shirt. The stain is almost as dark as the expression he wears. It’s made worse by the hard relief of the moonlight. The shadows cut across his face, splitting his sneer in two. “And here I thought I looked handsome.”
“You have blood on your shirt.” There’s not enough oxygen to say anything else, though I probably sound ridiculous. There’s probably some perfectly reasonable explanation. I was walking on the sidewalk and tripped. “Where were you?”
“At a party,” he spits. “A gathering of some close friends. It was a celebration. Can’t you tell?”
He’s so big, so solid, and so angry that it makes me want to shrink away. But I’m not going to shrink from this. Not a chance in hell. My heartbeat is louder than any of the familiar night sounds. It blocks them all out until I feel like I’m standing on the inside of a bass drum. I swallow an acid fear. I take a step closer. “How did you get the blood on your shirt, Josh? Who did this to you?”
He looks away with a huffed breath. I brace for another mean response. Shock comes off him in waves. I’ve felt it coming off my brother before. I’ve felt it gathering on my own skin. At that time I was only six. I didn’t know what it meant, only that it felt like all the world was collapsing in on me. Caleb was the o
nly one holding its crushing weight at bay. You weren’t here. The urgent whisper crawls up from the darkest corner of my memory. You were in your bed, sleeping. When we woke up in the morning, we found him like this. Go to sleep. Go back to sleep. We weren’t here.
Josh turns back to me slowly, like he’s not quite sure I’ll still be standing in front of him when our eyes meet. I don’t move. His cheek twitches. A line of blood divides the skin there, too. “It was Caleb.”
No. “He did this to you?” My lungs cave in. “Why? Did you have a fight?”
“Did we have a fight,” he whispers under his breath. “You were lying to me before. You had to have been.”
“Lying about what? I wasn’t lying about anything.” My palms start to sweat. “What are you talking about?”
He forces his fingers through his hair. “You acted like you didn’t know anything. How could you not have known about this?”
“Whoa.” This is so horribly unfair. “Hang on. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Tell me what you’re talking about.”
“He’s in deep.” Josh’s voice drops to a deadly softness. “Deep in some shady business. And I’m not talking about a local drug ring. I’m not talking about small-time black-market bullshit. It’s way bigger than that.” He’s studying me like I might give something away. I have nothing to show him except a creeping sense of dread.
“I knew he was…I knew he sold things. Guns.” My voice trembles. Why? Why can’t I sound strong and sure in this moment? “Weapons. But—” What possible defense is there for what my brother does? I know it skirts some laws. “No. He sells guns to people who want them. That’s all.”