Vicious (20 page)

“Your cheeks are pink,” Damon noted. “You look cute.” I hoped that he would kiss me again.

I heard the motorcycle before I saw it. I frowne
d in the direction as the black-clad rider roared up the street. “It’s noisy. Maybe we should go ins—“

The noise rang through my
head as Damon seemed to catapult backward, and screams sounded far away. Something warm splattered across my cheek, and I could taste blood in my mouth. I moved but wasn’t aware of how. I managed to kneel down where he lay. He shook on the ground in great panting attempts at breath as his wide eyes stared up at me. I grabbed blindly for his hand and held it in mine. Blood had flowered over his torso in red and black, and he started to choke on the blood coming out of his mouth. My arms went around him, and I hugged him to me. The only sound I heard was the wheezing coming from his chest in panicked, desperate motions.

“It’ll
be okay, Damon,” I cried into his hair. “I love you. Everything will be okay.”

There was more wheezing, more desperation, then he just stopped moving
, and his warmth seemed to be gone. I didn’t let go though. Not until the paramedics got there and made me. I kneeled in his blood as they pronounced him dead and started to cover his body.

The police tried to speak to me
, but I couldn’t. “She’s in shock,” someone said. My phone rang in my bag, and that got my attention. Brody’s name flashed across my screen. I answered it but couldn’t speak. A police officer took it from my hand and started to talk.

It wasn’t long after that that Lawson arrived, clad in a black suit and with what seemed lik
e an army of distinguished men beside him. “She’ll come with us,” he told the cops, and after that I was bundled into a car. They took me back to the penthouse where I just stood stupidly before Lawson told me to change out of the clothes that were stained with Damon’s blood. Lisa arrived soon after, her eyes bloodshot and swollen.

“I’ll make you tea, or do you want something stronger?” She flapped her arms but didn’t seem to do anything.

I managed to breathe and stood. “Go sit down, I’ll do it.” I poured shots of whiskey and placed them before her. She grabbed one and poured it down her throat. I followed suit. “Where’s Michael?”

She shrugged.
“Getting revenge no doubt.” She grabbed for the bottle and poured another, not even flinching as she knocked it back.

“Who was it?” I asked before my next shot.

“Michael had so many enemies. He’s fucked with a lot of people.
God,
that poor boy.” Lisa looked like she was going to burst into tears. I stood abruptly; I couldn’t deal with her grief.

“I’m going to go lie down.”

She didn’t respond and just kept crying. It was easier to just walk away from that. I ended up running a bath, I was still covered in his blood and hadn’t even noticed. The water stained red, and I felt like I was sitting in a bath of his blood. I didn’t pull the plug; I just left it there and I stepped under the shower. I wished that I could have cried like Lisa, but no tears came. When I finally stepped out from under the water, I wrapped a towel around me and made my way into the bedroom.

Brody
sat on the edge of the bed, staring straight at me. “Why were you with him? I told you to stay away from him.”

I stood in front of him. “Are you happy now?” I asked bitterly.

His eyes narrowed. “No. This is the reason I told you to stay away from him. He was always going to be a target. Anyone who wanted to get Michael where it hurts just had to go for that kid. I realized that long ago, and Michael never listened. Now he’s dead, and you are very lucky that the bullets missed you as well.”

Tears started as I listened to him. “How can you be so cold
and cruel? Damon is
dead.
Don’t you care even a little bit?”

“Don’t cry, Violet.”

“Why not,” I sobbed. “He’s worth crying for.”

He waited for a few seconds before pulling me onto his lap so I could cry onto his shoulder as he stroked my hair
. “I went after Damon.  I made him mine. I was so scared that his friend would rape me, and that’s why I went for him. I was just using him at first. Do you think he knew that?” I cried harder. We must have sat like that for an hour, and finally all the tears were out of me and the wet had dried on my cheeks. I straightened so I could look at him. “Who did this?”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, Violet. They’ll pay
, but you don’t need to know who they are or what will happen. Just trust me when I tell you that they will pay.”

He put me to bed after that with a sleeping pill which made me sink into a dreamless sleep. But that felt wrong when I woke up the morning, I should have been having nightmares that had me screaming. It was only fitting.

I woke early; it was still dark and I went to my window and saw the moon smiling down at me. I needed to feel it; I was going down onto the beach. There were guards stationed outside the apartment, and I expected them to stop me, but they didn’t. Instead, they just followed me as I stepped into the lift. I slipped out onto the beach with ease, knowing that Brody’s men were following. I kicked off my shoes and let my feet sink into the cool sand. I walked for a bit, before sitting down and hugging my knees to my chest. I hoped that Damon was with his Dad, and his Mom. I hoped he was happy.

“Bye, Damon,” I told the ocean, but no one answered back and that made me feel all the more lonely. I watched dawn rise, and marvelled at how things could be so normal when everything was so fucked up.

I hardly saw Brody. When it was time to speak to the police, I had lawyers beside me to make sure the questioning wasn’t distressing. I couldn’t tell them anything anyway. My d
ays were spent in the apartment, and I had no desire to leave it. I went through stages of rage. I wished that Damon had never come back into my life. I wished that he had died without me knowing, and then I wouldn’t be sad.

Connie came and dragged me out shopping with her. I sat and watched as she tried on dress after dress. Her
poses were exaggerated but they didn’t draw any laughs from me. “Do you like the red or the pink better?” she asked as she leaned over to adjust her breasts. The tanned mounds swelled out from the dress almost obscenely.

“Neither, they both make you look like a hooker.”

She straightened. I could tell that she was biting her tongue. The Connie of old was somewhere under that tanned Beach Barbie façade she had built around her. “I think I like the red,” she said. “Simon loves red on me.” Her attention was back to her reflection in the mirror. I realized why she liked looking at herself so much. The girl in the mirror was almost unrecognizable as that unwanted kid from back home. She was happy, I realized. Connie had created this new life, and the bitch was happy. That stirred hatred in me. I wanted to hurt her.

“Simon loves you looking
like a hooker. He loves having a slutty girlfriend at home with flexible limbs who does whatever he wants in bed. You’re like a toy for him, a doll. Are you stupid enough to think that he would actually marry you?” I sneered. “He doesn’t care about you, all you are is a stupid plaything that he’s going to throw away when—“

Connie’s hand slapped my face hard. It was
almost ladylike how she did it; the Connie of old would have struck me with a closed fist and kept punching. Regardless, it stung like a bitch. I didn’t touch my face though; I wouldn’t give her that satisfaction.

“You’re an idiot,” she sneered. “You’ve gone into depression over someone dying that you hardly knew. He was your boyfriend in high school who left you heartbroken. He’s the only person who you think would ever probably love you.
That’s
what you’re mourning, not him.”

“Excuse me, ladies,” the boutique manager said in a timid voice from behind the safety of the counter. “You’re disturbing our other customers.” She had her hands below the counter and out of sight. I wondered if there was a panic button there or a gun.

“Relax. I’m leaving,” I told her as I stood up, my cheek still stinging. I gave Connie a glance. “Fuck you,” I threw at her before I left the store. As I trudged home, my anger grew with each step. Stupid cow, what did she know?

Brody was home
when I got there. He sat at the table in front of his laptop, and his eyes darted briefly to me before going back to the screen. I stood in front of him, glaring at him, until finally he couldn’t ignore me any longer. He gave a sigh and closed his lap top. “What?”

“Are you happy he’s dead?”

He looked at his watch as if he were bored. “Are you drunk right now?”

“Answer
me! You must be happy that he’s dead. You’re his rival aren’t you? He was number one son; he was the golden boy. And what are you?” He stood and started walking away, giving no indication that he had even heard my words let alone let them affect him.  I followed him.

“It should have been you that died,” I continued. “The world would be a better place without you. What do you add to it?
Nothing.
”

He turned, taking me by surprise and staring down at me. His eyes were hard
as flints, and if my rage weren’t spurring me on, I would have flinched under his gaze.

“Wha
t do you want?” he asked softly, but there was a dangerous tone to it.

“I want him
dead
.” The words tore from me as a raw sound scraped from the base of my throat. “I want whoever did this,
dead.
”

We stared at each other, and then he reached out and gripped my chin tightly. “I’ve never denied you anything up until this point. I won’t deny you that either.” Then, just as suddenly, he let go and walked away from me. A moment later, I heard his bedroom door shut.

I got drunk after that; very, very drunk on sweet wine. I wanted to cry but found I couldn’t. I ended up passing out on the couch, but when I woke up in the morning, I was in my bed, and I assumed Brody had moved me. He hadn’t joined me. He hadn’t touched me at all since Damon’s death. For some weird reason, that made me feel even more alone.

The funeral came and went. There was
a crowd of people, but none of them were from back home. They were an austere lot dressed in black, and they were the type of people he would have laughed at. Lisa was a suitable mourner, and got drunk at the wake to the point where she had to be helped to bed. Michael looked like he had aged a decade; he still had that same, severe air about him, but he just looked older, and sadder.

I crawled into bed that night alone and tried to imagine what life would have be
en like if we had bothered staying where we were, but nothing came to mind. There was no alternative reality where we got to play at being a happy, ordinary family. It was near midnight when Brody entered my bedroom, and I still hadn’t slept at all.

“Get dressed. We’re going out,” he ordered.

I kicked off the blankets. “Where are we going?”

He was in my closet and pulled out a pair of jeans and a black sweater. “Don’t ask questions, Violet. Just do as you’re told.” The clothes were tossed at me
, and I caught them. “Three minutes and we’re leaving.”

I did as I was told. To my surprise, Lawson was there
, and I was bundled into the back of his car. Brody followed me; he sat on the far side and didn’t engage with me at all. I started to wonder if I should have been feeling scared at that moment. There was nowhere for me to go even if this was a bad situation, so I swallowed down my apprehension and watched the city fly past me as we sped down unfamiliar routes. We entered an industrial area where everything looked rundown and decaying. The headlights hit buildings with broken windows. Inside my twisted head, I thought of them as people, sad and alone.

Finally, we came to a stop outside one of these sad, abandoned buildings. Something in
me made me not want to get out, but Lawson came around and opened my door. I swallowed, not wanting to appear weak, and stepped out of the car and onto a surface of gravel and weeds. Lawson closed the car door behind me, and I dug my nails into my arms as I realized how that noise had rattled me. I raised my head up, but there was no moon. The night was lit only by garish orange street lights, and it felt like a stranger.

I shivered, and Brody caught my eye. “Let’s go.”

I followed him as he entered the building through a door that looked like someone had attacked it with an axe. I stepped where he stepped, over remnants of building material and lumps of concrete until we started up an unsteady iron staircase. A thousand questions burned on my tongue, but I kept it still.  Control was not mine here. There were dull lights burning upstairs, and insects buzzed around them, almost as if in warning. I heard other footsteps, and a group of men exited a room. Michael was one of them, his eyes met with Brody’s as he wiped his hands on a piece of cloth. He nodded at his son, a grim smile on his face.

“You saved one?” Brody asked.

“Of course. It’s only fair you get a turn as well.” Michael’s eyes darted to me then, and he raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You’re going to make her watch? Is that wise?”