by Easton, BB
I need this place too much.
Q finally drops her hand with a cackle and waltzes past me toward the door. “Bet that’s why ya man left.”
Rain
The mall is quiet. Quint is resting after the best day he’s had since we got here, and Lamar is sound asleep with his head on my shoulder. I should be happy. Or at least content. But I feel nothing.
I hope it lasts.
Footsteps in the hallway approach, but I’m not afraid. I’m safe here—inside this building, behind this counter. Nothing has tried to attack, shoot at, or rape me since I arrived.
Which is exactly why I’m never, ever leaving.
When the clomp, clomp, clomp of heavy feet enter the tuxedo shop, I expect to see Carter’s mop of dark curls appear above the counter—he likes to pop in while he’s doing his nightly rounds—but the face I see when I look up grabs the knife handle sticking out of my heart and twists it with invisible hands. Pain, sharp and suffocating, slices through my numbness, but I don’t show it. If I flinch, if I blink, he might disappear again forever.
Wes stares at me with that infuriatingly blank expression. The one he wears when he’s thinking.
He’s always thinking.
I can see him perfectly, even in the dark. Shiny brown hair, flipped up at the bottom from being tucked behind his ear. Soft green eyes hooded by strong, dark eyebrows. He shaved while he was gone. And washed his clothes. I know because the hibiscus on the shoulder of his blue Hawaiian shirt isn’t blood red anymore. As my eyes slide across his broad chest, I realize that all of the flowers are different now. In fact, they’re not flowers at all.
They’re hooded figures on horseback.
Yellow and orange and deep, dark pink.
I sigh, and for the first time since he arrived, I allow myself to close my eyes.
“You’re not really here, are you?”
He doesn’t reply, and I know that when I open my eyes, he’ll already be gone. Vanished like a ghost into the night. With a sigh, I look up and find Wesson Patrick Parker kneeling right in front of me.
God, he’s so beautiful.
I hold my breath, afraid that he might scatter like a dandelion if I’m not careful, but … I’m not careful. I reach out with impulsive fingers and tuck his hair behind his ear. When he doesn’t disappear, I exhale, letting my hand linger on his cheek.
“Why did you leave?”
Wes leans into my touch and closes his eyes. “Self-defense.”
Of course. Wes’s recipe for survival. Supplies, shelter, and self-defense.
“What are you defending yourself from, Wes? Nothing will hurt you here.”
His eyes flick open, and I feel his jaw clench in my palm.
“The only thing that will hurt me is here,” he grinds out, eyes as hard as polished jade.
“If you’re talking about Carter—”
“I’m talking about you.”
“Me”—I shake my head and huff out a frustrated laugh—“hurt you? Are you serious right now? You left me, Wes. You broke my heart. You wanna talk about survival? I can’t survive without my heart.”
“Bullshit,” Wes snaps. “I’ve been doing it since the second I walked out those doors.”
I hold his stare and my breath until my eyes water and my lungs burn.
Then, as if we both run out of patience and oxygen at the same time, we lunge for one another. His fingers dive into my hair. My hands grip the back of his neck. We erase the distance with a violent desperation, and just before our lips collide, Wes whispers my name.
“Rain … wake up.”
My eyes flutter open to find a very different man blinking at me in concern. This one has eyes like warm Tennessee whiskey, not cool, mossy stones. They’re friendly, not fiercely guarded, and they don’t stare through me; they simply stare at me.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Carter whispers with a smile, his perfect teeth almost glowing in the dark.
“Hey,” I croak, rubbing my eyes.
“You remember the plan?”
“Mmhmm.” I go to stretch but stop short when I feel Lamar’s head resting on my shoulder. “Can you …” I gesture toward the bag of bones slumped on top of me and roll my neck in relief when Carter gently shifts Lamar so that he’s lying with his head on Quint’s thigh.
“Carter?” I whisper as he helps me to my feet. “Do you still dream about the horsemen?”
He pauses, looking up and to the left as he tries to remember. “Damn. You know what? I don’t think I do. Why? Are you still having the nightmares?”
I shake my head as we walk out into the hallway. “No. I still see the horsemen, but they’re not scary anymore … I think they’re fading away.”
“That’s good. Now, you can start dreaming about me again.”
Carter wags his eyebrows at me, and I elbow him in the ribs.
“God, you’re just as bad as your dad.”
“Speaking of the old man, you sure you know what you’re doing?”
I swallow. “No, but the way his foot looks like it’s sticking out in the wrong direction a little bit—and the fact that he can walk on it at all—makes me think it might just be a greenstick fracture.”
“And you can fix that?”
I cringe and look up at Carter. “Maybe? I saw the vet do it to our dog, Sadie, when she got hit by a car that one time.”
“That was in eighth grade!”
“You got any better ideas?” I snap.
Carter shrugs. “You sure it won’t just, like, heal on its own?”
I glare up at him. “It’s been a month, Carter. Does it seem like it’s healing on its own?”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “Okay. Damn.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, pulling my hoodie sleeves into my fists. “I’m just nervous.”
Carter wraps a long arm around my shoulders and jerks me against his side. “You got this,” he says, planting a quick kiss on the top of my head. “If you think you can fix it, you can.”
I relax a little, soaking up his warmth and support like a dry sponge, but all too soon, we’re at the shoe store. Carter goes in first, leading me through the web of old shoe racks by the hand.
“The girls are sleeping here,” he whispers, pointing over a shelf at the clearing in the center of the store.
I look in their direction, but it’s pointless. It’s too dark to see anything more than a foot in front of my face.
“We put the old man in the back tonight. He snores like a damn freight train when he’s been drinkin’.”
“Drinking?”
Bright white teeth flash at me in the dark. Carter slows his pace and leans down to whisper in my ear, “I mighta scored a bottle of some very bottom-shelf tequila today. Thought it might help with the pain.”
His breath is warm on my neck, his fingers are laced through mine, and even though I don’t want him this close … I need somebody this close. Anybody.
Carter pushes open a swinging metal door, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear a construction crew was behind it, taking a jackhammer to the concrete floor.
“Jesus Christ. How much did he drink?”
“Let’s just say, this is the first time he’s slept through the night since we got here.”
Carter pulls a small flashlight out of his pocket to light our way. We pass a few floor-to-ceiling metal shelving units before finding Mr. Renshaw passed out diagonally across a surprisingly comfy-looking sleeping bag.
“What the hell? Y’all have sleeping bags?” I smack Carter on the arm.
He chuckles. “A couple. We packed them for our trip to Tennessee. With all of our relatives heading to my Grandma’s house, we thought there was a pretty good chance that we’d end up sleeping on the floor until … you know.”
“April 23?” I roll my eyes.
“Yeah.”
The air between us grows heavy as I start to think about the day he left. The gates on Fort Shit I’m Not Going to Think About Ever Again Because None of T
his Matters and We’re All Going to Die rattle, but they hold fast. That’s an outside-the-mall memory. We don’t allow those out anymore.
“Come on,” I whisper in the silence between snores. “Let’s get this over with.”
Carter and I follow the beam of his flashlight to a very unconscious James “Jimbo” Renshaw. Kneeling by his sock-covered feet—nobody goes barefoot around here—I take a deep breath and push the hem of his left pant leg up to his knee.
“Holy shit,” Carter blurts. The beam of light darts across the floor and up the wall as he jerks back in response to his daddy’s mangled shin.
“No, no. It’s okay. Look.” I gesture for Carter to shine the light back down. “See how his leg is bent right here?”
“Yeah, I fucking see it. I’ll never unsee it.”
“I think his bone just kinda cracked, like this.” I hold up one straight finger and then bend it a little in the middle. “It didn’t break the skin, there’s not a lot of bruising, and he’s still able to put a little weight on it, so …” I swallow, my mouth suddenly going dry. “So, I think he just needs that fracture reset.”
“What, like, we can just pop it back into place?”
“Well, it’s been a few weeks, so it probably already has a good bit of tissue growth on it …”
“Oh my God.” Carter sits down next to me and rests his elbows on his knees. The beam of light lands on a cinder-block wall about fifteen feet away. “Are you trying to tell me that we’re gonna have to re-break his fucking leg?”
I give him a tiny smile that feels more like a wince. “Just a little.”
I count Mr. Renshaw’s snores until Carter finally responds.
Five … six … sev—
“Fuck it.” He throws his hands up. “It’s not gonna get better if we do nothing, right?”
I nod, trying my best to seem confident when, really, the thought of what I’m about to do makes me want to puke.
“We need to make a splint to keep his leg straight while it heals.”
Carter swings the flashlight across the empty warehouse. “There’s nothing in here but shelves and …” The beam lands on a haphazard stack of wooden slatted things piled up in the far corner of the room. “Pallets!”
He jumps up and disappears into the darkness. I watch the circle of light bounce across the warehouse until it reaches the pile of wooden trash. A second later, Carter’s foot crashes into it like a grenade, sending splintered shards flying.
My gaze darts to Mr. Renshaw, but he doesn’t even flinch from the ruckus.
I do though when I reach into my pocket and pull out a certain black pocketknife.
Not now, dammit. We are not gonna think about him now … or ever.
I slice open the toe of Mr. Renshaw’s sock and slide it up to cover his calf just as Carter returns with an armful of wooden planks.
He sets the boards down and takes a step back with his hands in the air. “I can’t do it. I can’t fucking do it, Rain. You gotta do it.”
“By myself? I don’t know if I’m strong enough. There might be a lot of new bone growth to get through.”
“Oh my God.” Carter squeezes his eyes shut.
“Stop it!” I whisper-shout.
“It’s my dad, Rain. What if it were your dad?” He clamps a hand over his mouth the second the words tumble out. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to … shit.”
But I’m not looking at Carter anymore. I’m staring at the drunken, bearded, snoring, middle-aged man passed out on the floor before me, and suddenly, those outside-the-mall memories are having a real hard time staying locked up.
What if it were my dad?
What if it were the same unemployed, self-indulgent, depressed, angry bastard who treated my mama like a punching bag until the day he killed her?
What if?
Without another thought, I grab one of the wooden pallet slats, place it on the bent side of Mr. Renshaw’s broken shin bone, and hold it in place with both hands. Then, with my teeth gritted and liquid fire in my veins, I press my foot against the bumped-out part on the opposite side and give it a good, hard shove.
“AHHHHHHH!”
I hang on to the board for dear life as Mr. Renshaw sits up and tries to jerk his leg away from me. Carter grabs his thigh and presses down to hold it in place as his dad slurs at the top of his lungs.
“BEAR DONE GOT ME, AGNES! GIT MY GUN!”
Then, his eyes roll back up in his head, and just as quickly as he came to, he passes out again, free-falling toward the concrete floor.
“Fuck!” Carter lets go of his thigh and dives with his hands out like the all-star athlete he was born to be, catching the back of his dad’s head just before it splatters on the ground.
The two of us share a wide-eyed stare—him holding a head, me holding a leg—until the snoring resumes. Then, after a few deep breaths, we get to work on Mr. Renshaw’s improvised splint.
Carter braces the straightened bone with four broken boards—over the sock so that he doesn’t get splinters—and I carefully slide Mr. Renshaw’s belt off to lash them around the middle. I take off his other sock and tie it around the top and use the drawstring from his sleeping bag to secure the bottom.
“Think it’ll stay?” he whispers between snores.
“If he doesn’t mess with it.” I take a deep breath and blow it out, bracing my hands on the tops of my thighs. “Hey, Carter?”
“Yeah, Doc?”
“You got any more of that tequila?”
“Easy, tiger.” Carter plucks the bottle from my hand as I swallow my third mouthful of what might as well be gasoline.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, trying to hide my grimace as the tequila scorches its way down my throat to my empty stomach.
“God, these frogs are almost as loud as your dad.”
Carter coughs out a laugh, trying not to choke as he lowers the bottle from his own lips. “For real!” He turns and glares into the fountain we’re sitting on and lifts a finger to his lips, shushing the wildlife.
I giggle through my nose.
“Hey, Rain?”
“What?”
Carter sets the bottle on the floor and turns to face me, his features serious in the silvery glow from the skylights. Then, suddenly, he grabs my biceps and whisper-shouts, “BEAR DONE GOT ME, AGNES! GIT MY GUN!”
I burst out laughing, doubling over and clamping my hands over my mouth as I try not to be so damn loud. Of course, that only makes it worse. “Too soon!” I hiccup, waving one hand in surrender. “Too soon!”
“Sorry!” Carter has the best belly laugh. It’s so boyish and sweet, like his face, betraying his manly, six-foot-three-inch packaging.
“For real though”—he claps a hand over my shoulder—“that was fucking badass back there. Thank you.”
My laughter dies down. “Don’t thank me yet. I could have made it worse, for all I know.”
Carter slowly shakes his head from side to side. His hooded eyes have a hard time keeping up. “Unh-uh. You make everything better, Rainbow Brite.”
“Pssh. You’re drunk.”
“I got somethin’ for you today.”
“Oh, yeah? Where’d you go anyway? You never told me.”
“Every few days, Q has me take everybody’s phones and shit out to my parents’ car to charge ’em.”
“I thought your car was busted.”
“It is. Dented all to hell, right in the middle of the pileup, but it’s got gas, and the engine still starts up, so …” Carter reaches into the pocket of his basketball shorts and pulls out a shiny black device. “I charged your phone.”
“Oh my God.” I gasp and reach for it, turning it over in my hands like some kind of artifact from a past civilization. “Where did you find this?”
“It was in your backpack the night I found it.”
My mood sours at the mention of that night, but Carter quickly changes the subject. “Check it out!” He taps his finger on the glas
s, lighting it up. The wallpaper used to be a picture of us, but after he left, I couldn’t stand looking at him anymore, so I changed it back to the default screen. Now, it’s just stupid blue digital swirls. “Your service even got turned back on.”
I stare at the phone in my hand, racking my brain for the name of somebody I could call, but … everyone I might want to talk to either left town before April 23 or …
The screen goes black.
“Hey … you okay?” Carter gives my shoulder a little squeeze.
I nod, staring at the blank screen, but it’s a lie, and Carter knows it.
So, I sigh and shake my head. “I don’t have anybody to call.”
“What are you, forty? You don’t use a phone for calling people, silly.”
Carter snatches the phone out of my hand, and I watch his face light up blue as he tap, tap, taps on the screen. Seconds later, the soft strumming of a ukulele drifts over the croaking of the fountain frogs as Tyler Joseph sings about a house made of gold.
“You’re supposed to use it to listen to your favorite band. Duh.”
I smile politely at his proud, illuminated face beaming in triumph. Carter is trying so hard to cheer me up. Now’s probably not the time to tell him that Twenty One Pilots was never my favorite band.
It was his.
“Thanks, Carter.” I take the phone from him and set it on the fountain next to me, letting it play. “That was really sweet.”
He nods, and his smile slowly fades. The two of us look around as we listen to the music. He nudges a loose tile back into place with his sneaker. I pick at my hoodie sleeves. He shifts a few inches closer to me. I hold my breath until I can feel my heartbeat in my neck.
“Your hair is shorter.” Carter’s voice rumbles in my ear as he reaches up and slides two fingers down the front strands of my black hack job.
I flinch and pull back slightly, tucking that side behind my ear. “Yep. And yours is longer.”
“Car Radio” begins to play, the electronic beat mimicking my erratic pulse as Tyler raps about being unable to distract himself from his dark thoughts.
Maybe Twenty One Pilots is my favorite band after all.