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“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Rosa,” she whispers.
“I’m sorry, Rosa. Be good and keep playing dead.”
She lies back and closes her eyes.
I stand up just as Adam crashes into the kitchen, still zipping up his pants. He looks down at the girl, and I can’t mistake the moment of question on his face for anything else. He’s suspicious.
“Do you have any more coke?” I ask, trying to pull him away from looking too hard at her.
“In the car. She’s good?”
“Dead.”
“Sick fuck. You hardly fought me at all on killing a kid.” He laughs, and I consider strangling him right here. But the girl has seen enough.
“It’s all done in there?”
“Yup,” he says with a smile. “Let’s go get higher.”
We can get as high as we want, but it won’t raise me from the depths of depravity I’ve fallen into.
I’m covered in blood and spoiled coffee. I look insane right now, but I guess that’s a good look for what we plan on doing. As Sam drags me down another deserted road, my heart thumps against my chest. We could run into someone at any moment, and there are no buildings or alleyways to hide us now. I said we should stay back and wait, but Sam thinks we have a better chance of finding someone closer to the town’s center.
I trip and fall forward, my wrists skidding along the cobblestone path. It’s my favorite thing about the town, and now my blood is staining the ancient stones.
“Come on, get up!” Sam says in a harsh whisper. His head swivels in all directions, scanning the open space for anyone.
We really are sitting ducks right here.
I climb to my knees and scramble back to my feet. We take off toward the shops, but I stop mid-step as we reach the strip of stores. The word “traitor” has been scrawled on the brick in black paint. My eyes slowly rise to find a man hanging above it. His body swings listlessly, and it looks like he was tossed from the roof.
Which means they’ve been here.
I’m tempted to tell Sam never mind, that we should just go home, but then my father flashes into my mind again. I remember how he looked, slumped on our front porch. I hardly recall pulling the nail from his skull, but the memory of the blood pouring in a thick line down his face burns brightly. So does the blood coating his eyes as he cried. And the way crimson ribbons poured from his mouth before his head dropped back.
These painful memories remind me why I’m doing this. This is my only chance for another decade, and I can’t miss it. Ican’t.
“Get your shit together. They’ve already been here, and we’re out in the open!” Sam yells, but his voice sounds so far away.
I’m guessing the grim memories have frozen me in place and left me lost in a time I don’t want to live in any longer. My body shakes, and that drags me from my mind and sets me back in the middle of the street. I look around, orienting myself. He’s right, we have to get going, and fast.
Because footsteps are running toward us now.
We both look at each other with similar panic in our eyes. Sam grabs my arm and pulls me around the corner and to the front of the building. I peer past the edge and see a man in a suit. He raises a metal bat and swings it against another man’s head. The hollowthunkas metal collides with bone is a sound I won’t soon forget.
When I catch a glimpse of the man on the ground, I recognize him as the homeless man from earlier. His head is split open,falling apart in two distinct segments, but his hands keep moving, reaching toward his assailant. He’s fucking alive.
Oh god.
I throw my hand over my mouth to suppress the agonizing scream twisting through my throat. Tears stream down my face in thick lines. I mumble words beneath my hand, and Sam slaps at the back of it.
“I can’t understand you,” he whispers.
“The man . . . the homeless guy. His head . . .”
“Wait, you saw them? Who did it?”
