by R. J. Lewis
The day dragged. I didn’t know what was happening, but it wasn’t good.
I excused myself to pee often, and sometimes I’d just stand in the cold to escape the strain of being around those men.
When I returned from my latest non-pee, I walked into a hushed conversation.
“Not sure what you’re doing,” Roz told Nixon as I quietly stepped in and made my way across the room, gumboots squishing along the floor. “But you gotta step down, or it won’t end well, man.”
Nixon stopped to feed the woodstove more logs, re-igniting the embers. All day, the cabin had been warm, and he had been the only one to keep the fire going, but he never did it with his back to the men. He always had his eyes on at least one of them. When I kept seeing this happen, I began to understand there was danger brimming under the surface.
Nixon’s eyes flashed to me as I reached the bed. “Go back to the door,” he ordered me. “If I tell you to run, you run.”
What?
My heart jumped. Blood drained from my face as I looked around the room. Roz was still seated on the bed, and Tucker was in his, a hand hidden under the pillow.
“You don’t need to do that, sweetheart,” Roz told me, gently. “Nixon’s a little unhinged right now.”
But I didn’t think that was true.
My legs trembled as I took a step forward in the direction of the door.
Roz noticed and his face dropped with annoyance. “Don’t you move,” he told me, nose flaring. I stopped, dead still, uncertain of what to do. “Jesus, Nixon, we’re going to be stuck in this fucking cabin for at least a week, maybe even more at this rate, and you just want to do what? Stare at the fucking walls? Hobbs didn’t even provide booze. He gave us nothing to do.”
“Did you plan it from the start?” Nixon questioned.
“Her?” Roz’s eyes flashed to mine before he shook his head. “No, not her.”
“Who?”
“The girl from the store. The one that opened the doors for us.”
“The one you pretended to save from us.”
“Yeah, but Beckett fucked that up, which we should have expected from the fucking idiot.”
Nixon glanced briefly at Tucker. “And then what?”
“You didn’t see it, but she pressed the alarm, which activated that explosive from the safe and signalled the guys in the cars out front that we were robbing the place. Beckett shot her for it, then he took her” – he gestured to me – “because she practically fell from the fucking sky.”
Nixon didn’t respond. He shut the firebox and slowly turned to face them both, his knife back out. He flicked it open, then closed, then open, repeatedly.
“Hobbs would never have permitted this,” he said.
“Fuck Hobbs,” Roz retorted. “The guy is squeamish as fuck.”
“He would never have permitted this,” Nixon repeated, sternly.
“No, he wouldn’t, because the guy’s a fucking hypocrite.”
“You’re snatching people on the job for your own personal pleasure –”
“I wasn’t going to snatch her,” Roz re-iterated, pointing at me. “It was the shop worker. Beckett had his eye on her while we scoped out the place. She wasn’t some innocent fucking college student. Far from it, actually, and you’re only opposed to it because you think of Leona.” Roz paused just then, softening the tone of his voice. “How is Leona by the way?”
Nixon barely blinked, answering, “Dead.”
Roz stilled, and then slowly nodded. “My condolences.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Tucker murmured.
“Thanks,” Nixon replied.
“Look,” Roz continued, “I told Beckett to throw her out the door the second he snatched her, did I not? I wanted nothing to do with the girl, but then he took his fucking mask off, and suddenly we were all taking our masks off. What’s done is done. It happened. It’s too late to play the fucking hero.”
Nixon chuckled, dryly. “I’m not a hero.”
“No,” Tucker agreed. “You really aren’t.”
“So, what’s the harm then?” Roz implored slowly. “I lived most of my life walking the fucking line, and you know where I ended up, man? I ended up homeless, unable to put a roof over my brother’s head, and you know what happened to him? He got to watch mommy’s head blow off her body because of some punk cunt who wanted to clean out the cash register of a bakery.” Roz’s face went red as he rattled on, growing angrier. “And he was lost in the system somewhere, who knows fucking where, idolizing me for years because I was good behind the wheel of some fucking car. I wasn’t there for him. He went through his teens alone, stuck in a community home until the system threw him out the second he turned eighteen, and he wasted his potential for years trying to be like big brother. And I don’t want him to be like big brother. You know what I want? I want him to stop fooling around because he’s got too good a heart to do what I do. I want little bro to go back to school, have a house over his head, and not have to worry where he’s going to get his three square meals a day because it’s not going to be from robbing car parts in a random parking lot of a 7/11!”
That was so much to process. Everyone took a moment.
“There’s an easy difference between robbing people and rape,” Nixon finally said.
Roz shook his head. “No, not rape. I would never do that –”
“Toby’s granddaughter –”
“I was drunk. So was she.”
“Roz, you’re really not selling it.”
“I was not going to rape her,” Roz said, gesturing to me. “She would have consented.”
“If it meant death.”
“Then it isn’t rape.”
Nixon just blinked slowly at Roz, looking perplexed. “Are we really having this conversation?”
“I can have anyone,” Roz said, defensively. “Women can’t resist me.”
“Until they do.”
“But they don’t regret me. I’m gentle about it. I make them come. It isn’t all about me.”
Nixon stopped to press a hand over his pulsing head. “I need a minute to process the utter fucking bullshit coming out of your mouth, Roz.”
“Women like it,” Roz continued slowly. “They want to feel used.”
“There’s a fine line between feeling used because it’s a fucking kink, to pushing them down and forcing them –”
“Because you’ve never tried it.”
“I don’t think my dick wants to, Roz.”
“Stop sitting atop your mole hill,” Tucker suddenly cut in, glaring. “You killed Mills and Beckett for a bigger cut. You think we bought your stupid fucking story? We didn’t.”
Nixon turned his sights to Tucker, an amused smile curling on his lips. “You really need to watch your tone with me, Tucker. You’ve been an annoying little shit from the start.”
“Are you gonna kill me too, Nixon?”
“I’ve killed people less annoying than you.”
“You should be careful who you’re threatening.”
Nixon shook his head in detest. “Suddenly you’re so tough? That’s dog mentality. You think you’re stronger because you outnumber me two to one? You’re so beta, I feel insulted, Tucker. Stop with that false macho shit. I could blow on you and you’d fly away.”
Furious, Tucker slipped his hand out of the pillow, and I tensed. He was gripping a handgun and pointing it at Nixon. “It’s you who’ll be blown away, Nixon.”
Nixon stilled, but not from surprise. “You’re talking puns at me? Is this how you want to live your final moments, like something out of a B-grade movie?”
“Fuck you.”
In spite of it, Nixon let out a laugh. “Cheeky shit, Tucker, pointing that gun at me –”
“This is on you, man. You can’t dictate what is done here.”
“You trying to prove that by aiming that gun at me?”
“You deserve to die anyway, Nixon, for the shit you’ve done.”
“Go on and shoot me the
n, but you watch out, Tucker,” Nixon retorted, turning his entire body in his direction. “Because, unless it’s bigger than a .38, I’m going to beat your head into the floor while I slowly bleed to death.”
“Let’s just tone it down,” Roz immediately cut in.
“I’m sick of this guy constantly telling us how it’s going to go,” Tucker seethed. “It ain’t right. We’re a crew, a fucking team, man. Who put him in charge?”
“Tucker –”
“As if he doesn’t fuck around with the girls. He’s been trying to keep her for himself. He doesn’t share, that’s the real problem, Roz.”
“Pussy isn’t worth this much trouble, Tucker. Put the gun down.”
But Tucker was shaking, his anger growing at the goading smile that was spreading on Nixon’s face.
“You’re right,” Tucker gritted out, suddenly aiming the gun in my direction now. Oh, my God. “I see the way you look at her. You just want to win, don’t you? You want to feel like the big guy. You’re so used to getting your way, so used to winning. Well, you can’t have her now, Nixon.”
Then he pulled the trigger.
I didn’t have time to come to grips with what he had done until seconds after he’d fired the gun and nothing happened.
No bullet rang out.
Nothing hit my body.
The only thing I felt were my legs wobbling and me falling down to the ground beside the bed, gasping from shock.
I felt weak all over.
Nixon lunged at him not a beat later, slamming his fist into Tucker’s face and knocking him down cold. “You think I didn’t find your gun in the night, Tucker?” he growled, standing over his unconscious body. “You think I didn’t know what you fucks were up to?”
I saw Roz move quickly in my peripheral. He was in the wood pile, his hands digging around. Nixon moved to Roz now, pushing his sleeves up his arms. “You looking for that axe you hid, Roz? How were you going to do it, exactly? In the night, when you thought I was asleep?”
Roz turned around, his face glowering with contempt. “You want to be known for killing your whole crew, Nixon? This would ruin you.”
“Would it?” Nixon asked evenly, coming at him. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“You’re really going to kill us because of some pussy?” Roz asked, raising his hand out now, as if that would halt Nixon. “If you stop now, we can put this behind us, and no one will know. You can have the girl to yourself. You can let her go or fuck her to death for all I care. I wasn’t gonna kill her, anyway –”
Nixon tackled Roz to the ground, cutting him off mid-speech. Nixon’s knife fell away from them as he used his fists on Roz.
To my utter surprise, Roz was equally as strong. He managed to throw a punch at Nixon’s face that pushed him half off him. Then they were a ball of fists, fighting to subdue the other.
Roz may have thrown a series of surprising punches, landing a few against Nixon’s jaw, it still wasn’t enough to knock Nixon completely off him. I saw the concentrated look on Nixon’s face as he accepted the onslaught and began wrapping his hands around Roz’s throat.
Roz’s arms flailed around him, his hands searching.
“Nixon,” I screamed as he grabbed at Nixon’s blade and swung it at him.
Nixon let go of his throat as the knife slashed through the side of his neck, blood pouring out of him now. Roz grunted, teeth clenching as he fought to bring the blade back to Nixon’s throat. Nixon’s hands gripped Roz’s wrist, surprisingly leaning into the blade as he twisted Roz’s hand, struggling to aim the tip into Roz instead.
“Don’t,” Roz pleaded in a strained voice as the tip closed in on his chest. “Not like this, Nix…Please. Please, my brother, Nixon. He’s waiting for me. Not like this. Please…”
But Nixon only flared his nose and plunged the tip straight into Roz’s chest, forcing it all the way in. Roz let out a guttural gasp, his hands letting go of the knife and grabbing at Nixon’s face. Nixon pulled the blade out and stabbed it into his chest again…and again. Every time he pulled the blade out, blood spurted out of Roz’s chest, pooling around his body. I had to look away, unable to stomach the sight of it, but I heard him rasping, heard the blood gurgling in his lungs, and it would forever haunt me.
Tucker stirred from the ground, slowly regaining consciousness. I didn’t have to say anything to Nixon. He heard the movements and got off Roz. With the knife still in his hand, he went to Tucker next.
I pulled the blanket off the bed and buried my face into it. With my hands over my ears, I screamed into the blanket so I wouldn’t hear Tucker’s cries.
35.
Victoria…
I hadn’t moved from the floor long after the cries had ended.
I heard Nixon’s movements all around the room. Heard the sounds of bodies being dragged. Felt the cold wind on my body when he swung the door open.
My body was wracked with tremors. I was horrified, my brain muted, my body a cold shell.
I couldn’t process.
At some point, I’d shaken so hard, my limbs rattling, the blanket had slipped from around me. My eyes cut to the door just as he stood at the threshold. It was mid-afternoon, the sun was hidden, the snow was still falling, the room was dark, and the fire had gone out.
He was a dark silhouette.
Ominous looking.
Terrifying.
Covered head to toe in blood splatter, face wind beaten and red, hair dishevelled and wet. He stepped in, his footsteps slow and heavy on the hardwood floor.
His body looked heavy from exhaustion. His movements were slow as he opened the firebox and began trying to revive the embers.
He hadn’t looked at me once.
I was glad for it.
Because I was scared of what I’d find in the depths of his eyes if he did.
His face was flat, cold – it unnerved me to see it. To know I’d been trying to talk to such a man in the hopes he’d let me go. My hope had been nonsensical. This man killed without hesitation, and all I could see and feel in that moment was death, death, death.
I used to think having to watch my mother deteriorating was traumatic enough, but that death – while ugly in its own right – had not come close to this. Mom’s passing was a slow and expectant decay. Nothing armed me for the suddenness of the deaths that had occurred in plain sight of me, so close I felt it, the gore and blood and sounds – all of it swirled chaotically inside my mind, making me lose complete sanity.
My brain was scrambled. My thoughts incoherent. My gaze swung to the door, and for some unfathomable reason, my flight response was kicking in. I just wanted to be gone. Away from death and blood and terror. It would get me only to certain death, but I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. As far as I was concerned, death was my ultimate fate regardless how this played out.
I was still in my gumboots as I slowly settled on my knees, the urge to run jolting my muscles awake. His back was turned to me, occupied in the dying fire. The door of the cabin was ajar, and I knew all I had to wait for was a sudden slam of wind to have it swinging open the whole way.
I stood up, bracing myself, testing my balance. I expected to fall back again. Surely, I couldn’t have full equilibrium of my body with all this chaos inside me.
But I did.
I was standing straight. I felt…determined to flee.
He must have sensed me moving, because he turned his head in my direction. His expression turned wary. He saw me eye the door, he saw the determination in my face, and he whispered tightly, “Don’t.”
Just as that word left his lips, a heavy breeze slammed into the cabin, and the door swung wide fast.
I bolted
He didn’t chase me when I made it out the door. I was going in a linear direction, into the trees. My boots sank miserably into the snow, all the way to my knees. I tripped having to unbury my feet with every strenuous step. The wind and snow swirled around me, slamming into my face, my eyes, my bare legs.
I lost v
isibility almost straightaway.
I was aware I was sobbing into the air, though I didn’t feel the tears running down my face. Every inch of me felt so cold, and as a result, I was quickly stiffening.
I couldn’t have been that far from the cabin when I fell, face planting into snow and bush. I stopped moving and bawled in defeat. I couldn’t get up if I tried. I shook, my hair wet all around me, the wind dancing a wicked tune as it whipped me, and god, it felt like hot lashes against my skin every time.
Every time I shut my eyes I saw blood pooling on the floor. I saw brains and Beckett and a head blowing apart over me.
More than that…I felt the immobilizing terror of it all. It couldn’t be ignored.
Yet…I couldn’t find it in me to give up. I forced my head up, blinking rapidly at the white all around me. I didn’t want to die. It scared me to think I was going to, maybe right here, in this place, and I had never amounted to anything and no one was alive to care about me.
There was such an acute pain in that – dying and knowing no one loved you.
I began to crawl aimlessly as my thoughts roared an angry melody.
Maybe I didn’t put myself out there enough. Maybe I tried too hard, maybe I was too fake, maybe I’d spent too much time with my head buried in a fake world, envying people I thought lived better than I did.
Maybe my life wasn’t so bad. Maybe I had everything I needed all along.
I only missed Mom when I knew she was dying. I never thought she’d leave me. I had always been secure in the knowledge my mother would always be there for me. How were you supposed to live with yourself when you looked back on empty moments that could have been shared with someone you loved but took for granted?
I only cared about my life when I felt I might die. Where was my oomph to get ahead? It seemed all I knew how to do was graze by in life, barely breaking even. My potential was now lost, once again taken for granted.
I crawled and crawled.
Every day I had ballooned the small issues and made them control my feelings, my outlook on life. I had been too negative, too hard on myself, too enveloped in me without ever having truly focused on me.