I did not do well with my mother trying to control me. And my father did not have her back in those matters. Unlike her, he just wanted me to be happy.
I glanced back up at Saint, not realizing my gaze had wandered. Losing eye contact was a sign of weakness. “Maybe that’s why she hates me,” I said. “Blames me. Because if I had been the perfect daughter, I wouldn’t have been outside, throwing a football that went into the street. The one my brother chased, the same time as he teased me about my shitty aim.”
I shook my head as if the memory could be jerked out of me. “He was a kid,” I whispered. “Stupid kids. Get caught up in things like throwing footballs. Forget about the fact the world is basically just a melting pot of assholes. The asshole across the street had been laid off the week before. His wife went to work, children probably parked in front of the TV. He had run out of beer.”
I shook my head at the simple reason behind it all.
“We didn’t know that until after. He ran out of it because he’d drunk it all. I think it was before lunch.” I screwed up my nose. I’d used to think he was a total lowlife for drinking all that beer in the morning before he killed my brother. But then I started my own morning drinking. I never drove, though.
“I don’t remember,” I said. “You think I’d remember every single part of that day or forget it all. But it doesn’t work like that. I remember all the unimportant things, like my brother’s last words to me. Or exactly what time of day it was when he died. But I remember the fact that the asshole ran over his head. Squashed it. I shouldn’t have been able to hear that sound. Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I created that crunching, squelching noise after. After I saw my little brother’s eye popped out of his socket, half of his brain leaking from out of his skull.” I shrugged. “But I still hear that noise sometimes. I don’t remember the rest. I remember blood on my hands but I can’t remember touching him. The breath of the driver, it was stale. Rancid. He had on an AC/DC shirt. I don’t know what he looked like. But I hate AC/DC.”
I made eye contact with Saint. “A lot of people would say that’s why I write what I do. That I turned my life into a horror show because it was going to be, no matter what. But that’s not true. I was obsessed with the morbid before that. I think that’s why I stared so hard at my brother’s corpse. That I made sure every detail sank in. Not because it horrified me, because it fascinated. Now, I’m not a psychopath. I loved my brother. More than anyone in the entire world. I grieved him in my own way. I still do, I guess. But at that point, he wasn’t my brother. I don’t know. At that point, things stopped being able to shock me, I guess.”
His face was blank. I didn’t know whether he was surprised or if he somehow knew already. If he’d looked into me too. There was no sympathy. I liked that.
“What do you do for a job?” I asked abruptly.
He jerked. A small motion, but enough to show my change in subject surprised him.
“I’m an investor.”
I raised my bows. He’d gone and surprised me right back. “Investor?”
He shrugged. “Computers. Stock market. Financial shit. Always been good at it. These days, you need an internet connection and half a brain. Then you can make money.”
“And you have that?”
“Half a brain?” he returned.
I smiled at him. It was half genuine. “And a fancy computer room, with all sorts of screens with shit I don’t understand.”
He nodded.
Ah, I really should’ve done some more snooping. It should’ve surprised me, that the ex-biker was making a fortune by investing in the fucking stock market. But thinking about it, it didn’t.
“I found her,” Saint said. I knew exactly who was talking about.
That didn’t surprise me either, not really. He was the man who lurked around the woods. He was fucking her. If there was anyone who would find her dismembered corpse, it should’ve been him. Life was cruel that way.
But kind at least, not to let someone find her that couldn’t handle it.
He ran his hand through his hair. “Seen death. A lot of it. Dealt even more of it. Blood doesn’t bother me. Violence. Violence on women…” he trailed off. Averted his eyes for a sliver of a second. Not long at all, but enough. “Don’t like it, but I get it. We live in a world of animals, monsters. You’re forced to either be a victim or a monster. Emily was that. She didn’t have it in her to turn into a monster.”
He looked at me, eyes clear and cold. “So, she got ripped apart by a madman. Not gonna lie and say she didn’t mean nothing to me. She meant enough for me to try and find this fucker. To have that image etched into my mind. But I got over it. Handled it.” His hands bit into my hips. “Findin’ you, curled up into the ground like you wanted to sink into it, not even knowin’ you, it hit me. Harder than seein’ a woman I was fuckin’, gutted and lyin’ amongst the flowers she planted. Says a lot about me. Says a lot about you too. The more I know you, the more I know I will figure out how to handle finding you like that. ’Cause I’m the monster, not the victim. I’ll handle it. But I won’t ever get over it.”
He paused. “There’s someone out there, gutting women. I don’t like it. But I tried, I can’t change it. And even if I could spray his brains across these same flowers, someone else would just replace him. Not interested in saving the world. It’s beyond saving. I’m not interest in saving you either. Because, baby, you’re not a victim. But I’m interested in making sure I don’t know what your death smells like.”
“You know that I already do,” I told him.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“And you spent how long with a patch on your back, breathing nothing but death,” I said.
He didn’t respond.
I was going to make him respond. This was a night for sharing, it seemed. And I needed more from him.
So, I waited. Sipped my wine, feigned patience.
“I know it’s the trendy thing to call them clubs now,” he said, sighing. “Movies and that fucking TV show showed them for what they were, but somehow made it romantic. Sure, there are clubs out there that aren’t gangs. But that wasn’t what mine was. It was a gang. Lost boys looking for a family turned into ugly men with rotten hearts, scarred with the sins they’d committed in the name of brotherhood.” His dark eyes found mine. “And don’t you go thinking anything different with your romantic writer’s brain. I was one of those men. I am. Men like that don’t change. I’m not in the gang, but I’m still a dangerous man with sins against his soul. Nothin’ changes that, okay?”
I nodded obediently because I figured that was the smartest thing to do at this juncture. Plus, his story was finally coming out, after weeks of me imagining it. No way was I ruining it with my big mouth.
“But men, even bad men, even the worst of men, they have a limit. A hard limit. Something they won’t do. Won’t witness. Won’t live amongst. I found my hard limit.”
“What was it?” I blurted before I remembered I was supposed to be keeping quiet.
He narrowed his eyes at me in that ever-present default of anger and a little bit of shock, like he didn’t know quite what he was doing here, with this talkative woman who disturbed his peace.