Another Little Piece (24 page)

“Why did you do it?” I asked softly. “Why did you take Franky and why did you choose me?”

In response Eric pressed his lips to mine, keeping them tightly closed this time, but even without his tongue it was just as invasive and unpleasant. Not caring if he left a bald spot, I twisted my head away. He released his hold on my hair, but only to free his hand so he could slap me across the face.

“I love you,” he said, slapping me again. And again.

I scrambled to get my feet under me and, using the wall at my back, pushed myself up so that I stood above him.

Then I was on the attack. Grabbing hold of the little red curls, I shoved his head down and brought my knee up to meet his nose. There was a satisfying crunch and then his blood ran out. It wasn’t enough. As he clutched for his face, I pushed his head down again, but this time toward the toilet.

“Don’t,” he said, struggling to stand, but I kicked the back of his knees, forcing him to lunge forward. His hands gripped the edge of the bowl, holding his face inches away from the dirty water.

“Why me? Why Franky?” I demanded again.

“I didn’t want Franky, I wanted your brother. What was his name again?”

“You know his name.” I kicked at the back of his knees again, bringing him lower. He squealed like a little pig when his nose touched the water. “Say it. Say his name. Say it now.”

“Tommy! I wanted Tommy. It was gonna be easy.”

“Bullshit.” It felt so good to press my hand on the back of his head, pushing his face into the water, listening to him splutter when I finally let him come back up for air. “Tommy could have any girl he wanted.” As I said this, I remembered his broad shoulders paired with a killer smile, and knew it was true. A terrible and deep pang of loss, of missing him, ran through me with such power I could’ve sat down and cried from it.

“No, no, no,” Eric said, for once looking like the pathetic freshman who had once lived in his body. “Not a girl. I don’t get them like that. I do revenge. Don’t you remember?”

I let him stand and then spun him around, needing to see his face. Pushing him against the stall wall, I took a few steps back, out of range of any retaliatory violence. “No, I don’t remember. So tell me.”

Ignoring me, he swiped at the toilet water dripping down his face, mixing with the blood still seeping from his nose.

“Tell me,” I said again.

Eric’s fists slammed against the walls of the stall. But he talked, a thick Irish brogue fading in and out with every other word.

“My sister, a good Irish Catholic girl, got herself knocked up. Gave it away to the barber who lived at the end of our street. Him a fucking Protestant too. He said he’d marry her to get in her pants, but when he found out about the brat, well guess what? He pretended not to know her. And who was gonna stop him? Father had drunk himself to death when we were still babes, and my mum was too humiliated and tired to do anything but look the other way. This was when people still had a sense of shame and long before anybody thought of planning parenthood, and so that left me, the crippled little brother, in a body too twisted to cross the room by himself, much less beat the shite out of anybody. That’s when the Physician came, made me the offer. All I had to do was cut out my own heart and make that dirty Protestant bastard eat it bite by bite by bite.”

“And you became him,” I said softly.

“No. That’s the part you never got. I became me. The me I had always been meant to be. Bigger. Stronger. And indestructible. I took care of my sister. Married her, made sure she had the babe, and then filled her with another before I had to move on.”

“Move on,” I whispered, too sickened to say any more.

“Yes, move on and on and on and on. It’s what we do, and what I did for years before you. I crisscrossed the country, watching it grow faster. I saw man fly into the sky, and then beyond it all the way to the moon. And I’ll still be here when they learn to take us farther than that too. And I want to see it with you. It’s what I’ve always wanted.” Eric moved out of the stall toward me, no longer angry, but wooing. He held his hands out, as if he honestly believed I would take them. As if I would willingly join him.

I inched toward the door, but before I could leave, I still needed to know. “Why me?”

“I told you, Anna. Long ago and right from the beginning. You made me think of my sister. Made me wish I’d found a way to bring her with me. But in you I found her again. Many a generation later, a little branch grown out of the same family tree.”

His hands grabbed mine, clenching them too tight. I felt Franky in that grip, or the boy who I’d thought was Franky. What had he said then? “Share the same blood again”?

Family. The Protestant barber. My father’s razor, handed down through several generations. I reminded him of his sister. It all made a terrible kind of sense. He’d held that razor in his hand with such familiarity. Was the razor how he figured out the connection? Was that why he’d used it to bind us together forever?

I didn’t ask. Instead I jerked away, spinning blindly toward the door and then out of it. I ran through the empty hallways, with Eric’s blood still wet on my shirt.

Although separated by who knew how many decades, Eric had found a piece of his original family and had given up the greater portion of his freedom to have it back. To have me. And now our fates were intertwined. Whatever I chose for myself, I chose for him as well.

Which meant Eric would be coming after me to make sure that I took Lacey and that everything went back to the way it had always been between us.

Half blind and dizzy with dread, I skidded and tripped down the halls. Instead of going for one of the side exits, I headed toward the front doors on autopilot, forgetting the monitor who was always stationed there.

“Young lady, do you have a pass?” he called out. Sunlight poured in from the row of glass doors behind him, turning him into a scowling black shadow. I pushed right past, throwing my whole body at the closest door. As the cold air hit my face, I heard him behind me. “You can’t run forever.”

Ignoring the words and the chill they sent down my spine, I escaped from the school and kept going. Without breaking stride, I glanced back. There was no sign of the hall monitor. Or Eric.

But I was caught anyway. Feeling the telltale signs of a past I couldn’t outrun, I quickly ducked behind a car, before another memory descended.

NOTHING

CROSS MY HEART

Cross my heart

and hope to die,

stick a needle in my eye.

If this vow I do break

then no more breaths

shall I take.

Lips sealed, I promise true

I won’t break my word,

my word to you.

KIDS

It is Franky’s idea. Tommy came home this weekend, and ever since he got here, Katie has been walking past our house every two minutes hoping to accidentally bump into him. Little does she know he was out until five a.m. and isn’t likely to resurface again until it’s time to start getting ready for another night out.

Franky and I watch her from his front porch as we chain-smoke and tried to outdo each other in describing the odds of her ever hooking my brother. Then Franky calls her over.

“Hey, Katie, c’mere a second.”

“What?” she says, walking toward us. Her arms are crossed against her chest, defensive, ready for us to pick on her.

“I thought you might be interested in knowing that Anna’s been practicing a little black magic lately. And most recently she’s learned a love spell that she’s been dying to try out on somebody. Right, Anna?”

“Go to hell.” Katie walks away, and I wait for Franky to crack up, but instead he is pushing me to run after her.

“What?” I hiss at him.

“Help the poor girl.”

“You’re an ass.”

“All right.” He smiles in that way I’ve come to think of as dangerous. “Then help yourself. You keep whining about wanting your dad’s razor back. Well, you can have it . . . just convince little Katie to solemnly swear she will hand over her hot, beating heart in exchange for Tommy’s love.”

“I think you forgot that I don’t believe in love.”

Franky smiles. “But she does.”

“Stupid,” I mutter, not specifying whether I’m referring to him or her. Or maybe me. Because even as I say it, I’m hopping off the porch steps. “Hey, Katie, wait.”

I catch her on the sidewalk beneath the wide branches of the same tree we’d used as home base during our childhood hide-and-seek games.

“I’m sorry about Franky. He’s such a jerk sometimes. Right?” I glance back to where he is watching us.

Katie looks toward Franky too. “Why do you hang out with him then?”

I shrug. “Better than being alone, I guess.” Her eyes widen with sympathy, and before she makes an offer to be my friend again, I cut her off. “He also kisses pretty good.”

“Oh.” Katie hides a titter behind her hand. “I didn’t know you liked him like that. I mean, you were always kinda secretive, but I never even got a hint.”

“Always did,” I lie. “But I knew he didn’t like me that way, so . . .”

I heave a big sigh and she answers with a matching one. “Yeah.”

As our wistful sighs slowly melt away, I realize that mine was not a total lie. I understand longing. Not for a boy, but I understand wanting something you cannot have.

“Well,” I say, shuffling my feet, getting ready to turn away, go back to Franky, and let him know what I think of his stupid dares.

But Katie’s words stop me.

“You’re lucky, Anna. You’re really lucky.” Her eyes are shining and sincere and so very stupid.

I smile, shrug, push away the urge to cry. “A little lucky, but maybe I used a little magic too. Well, not magic, not really. More like the power of thought. And channeling it toward what you want, until you get it.”

I don’t even know what I’m saying, but Katie has always been gullible, and now her arms have loosened and she’s looking at me like she believes every word out of my mouth.

“You can make Tommy want you. I can help you. It’s easy. Of course, by
want
I just mean sex. But love can come from that, and hey, it’s better than having him see you as a little sister, right?”

“Sex.” Katie says the word slowly, drawing it out. I am certain I’ve scared her away, but then, “What would I have to do?”

I look up, thinking. I could tell her to strip naked at midnight and run beneath the full moon. She’d probably think better of it by then. So instead I take my inspiration from the boughs above me.

“It’s easy. Like when we were kids,” I say, holding out my hands.

Another moment of hesitation, but she takes them. Of course she does. It wasn’t long ago that we were best friends, and even though that friendship has crumbled away, I don’t think she realizes how much I hate her. How I hate the way she idolizes my whole family. My banker father in his crisp suits, my made-up mother with her model good looks, and Tommy. Perfect all-American Tommy. A stand-up guy who went off to college without a second thought and left his poor sister behind. I hate them and I hate her for not understanding why I am so desperate to escape.

“Anna?” Katie asks, her soft voice bringing me back. Her warm hands clasp mine, and I realize that mine have gone cold. My stomach turns, but I don’t back down. I have come this far, and I can feel Franky watching, egging me on.

“Cross your heart and hope to die. Remember?”

Katie nods. Of course she does. During sleepovers, on the school bus, and beneath this very tree, linking our pinkie fingers together, we would solemnly repeat the childhood rhyme.

“Say it with me. The whole thing.”

And she does. We do. Together we recite the worn words. And if Katie feels a chill go through her, she doesn’t say anything about it to me.

But I feel it. My teeth chatter with it for the rest of the day.

RIDE

I looked up and saw Logan kneeling in front of me, a frown of concern on his face.

“Annaliese, are you okay?”

I ignored the hand he held out, standing on my own power. Peering around the side of the car, I saw no sign of Eric or anyone else. Gulping air, feeling like I would never get enough, I found my breath strips and emptied the pack, putting one after another into my mouth like a chain-smoker. Only when they were all gone could I focus on Logan.

“Did you follow me here?”

Even as his face reddened, Logan lifted his chin in defiance. “I saw you run outside. You seemed upset. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He looked me up and down. “Is that blood?”

I brushed at the marks on my shirt as if I was seeing them for the first time myself. “It’s nothing.” Spinning away from him, I started to walk. I had to get home. It was now chillingly clear. It was time to say good-bye.

I turned to face Logan. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s been a bad couple of days and I just want to go home. Can I borrow your cell to make a call?”

Instead of producing a phone, he pulled car keys from his pocket. “I can drive you.”

I wanted to hit him for being concerned and nice and obnoxious. Except after today Annaliese would disappear once more, and he would have the rest of his life to replay our last conversation.

“Okay,” I said. “I’d appreciate that.”

Logan grinned, as if I’d granted him some amazing gift. And his smile stayed in place even as he turned out of the parking lot.

“Wow, your car is really clean.” I had meant to say something meaningful that would make him feel better about what had happened between him and Annaliese. But nothing came to mind. Also, his car was insanely clean. Two layers of floor mats were beneath my feet and there wasn’t the slightest smudge of dirt on either one.

“Yeah, I know.” Logan shrugged. “It’s my mom’s car but she lets me use it as long as I drop her off and pick her up from work on time. And I have to keep it clean. And when my mom says clean, she means superclean.”

He didn’t say it in a complaining kind of way like some guys would have. It made me remember that Logan was a good guy. The way he was with his mom reminded me a lot of Dex. This was the guy Annaliese had fallen for.

“Logan, look, I want you to know, I’m okay.”

Logan’s gaze drifted to my blood-spattered shirt, but he said nothing. He didn’t have to. I was a mess inside and out. I decided to try another tactic.

“Maybe I’m not okay, but that has nothing to do with you. I know you want to fix things, but you can’t. Some things aren’t meant to be fixed. Some things deserve to be broken.”

Logan opened his mouth to protest, but I held up my hand, stopping him.

“Bottom line, Logan, what did you do that was so terrible? Yes, you cheated on your girlfriend. Yes, you had bad sex with a girl who you knew had stronger feelings than you did for her. And yes, you left her alone in the woods after the bad sex, and something terrible happened to her. But that part wasn’t your fault. And you need to let it go. And you need to let me go too.”

I could see him mulling over my words as he pulled up in front of my house. He shifted the car into park but still remained silent. I didn’t want to linger in case the mom looked out the window and wondered what I was doing here in the middle of a school day, but I needed to know that Logan was okay.

Gently, I placed my hand on his arm. “I gotta go now.”

Finally, he turned to look at me. “Was the sex really bad? Is that something you remembered? Because at the time you seemed to, I don’t know, enjoy it.”

“Seriously? That’s what you have to say?” I nearly choked, and was tempted to choke him too.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . If it was bad, I mean, I guess you would know, if that’s how you remember it. And I know it’s not the most important thing, but I want to know for next time, so we can do it right.” Logan quickly backtracked—in the wrong direction. “I think we can figure that out, though, along with everything else. It doesn’t change anything, Annaliese. I still want to be with you. After everything that’s happened, I think we belong together.”

It was so horrible, it was funny. Almost.

There was no getting through to him. Leaning across the seat, I brushed a kiss against his cheek, and then quickly retreated before he could turn it into something more.

But not quick enough.

“Annaliese, please.” He grabbed hold of my hand. “I just want to make you happy. I’d give everything for that.”

“Don’t.” I opened the car door, stepped out, and then leaned back in. “Giving everything is what got us here in the first place.”

Slamming the door, I walked away, hoping that Logan understood. Everything was too much to give anyone. And yet somehow still not enough to get what you really wanted.

SEE

“What do you see? For me. What do you see?”

I hadn’t meant to say this to Dex, and certainly not for these to be the first words out of my mouth. But now that they were out, I didn’t take them back. I needed to know if I had a future.

The smile of greeting that had been on Dex’s face faded. “Don’t.”

I pushed my way past him, down the stairs. In the dim interior my eyes were immediately drawn to the glowing light of the computer screen. Instead of its usual scroll promoting free will or choice, a video played. Curious, I stepped closer.

“Anna, wait,” Dex called. I ignored him, already transfixed.

A young girl stood on a street corner, a backpack at her feet. She didn’t do much, just stared into the distance, waiting. Then a bus pulled up, hiding her from view, and the video ended.

I whirled to face Dex. “Are you nuts? That’s the girl that creep is gonna kill, and when he does, people are gonna remember seeing you hanging around, videotaping her. Holy shit, Dex, are you trying to frame yourself? People are already suspicious of you because of the whole YouTube thing.”

Stalking past me, Dex grabbed the mouse and minimized the screen. “This is what I do. I record it.”

He moved toward one of the large metal cabinets and flung open the doors, revealing rows and rows of neatly labeled DV tapes. “I know it doesn’t help them, and I know it makes me look like a crazy person with a fetish or some kind of predator. But I have to do something. And I tried to do more—going after that guy. You already know how that worked out. I thought maybe if I’m there when he grabs her, I could stop him or record some detail. It’s stupid, I know, but I have to try.”

He threw the doors closed, and took two steps toward me, looking into my eyes. It seemed like he could see to the darkest parts of my soul. I cringed, afraid of what he might find. “I thought you of all people would understand that.”

His words cut right through me. He thought I would understand saving someone else, when the only person I’d ever saved was myself. Guess he couldn’t see into my soul after all. After everything he knew, he still believed in me.

“What do you see for me?” I asked again, my words soft this time. I held out my hands. “Please, Dex. If you can’t tell me, then show me.” I took a step toward him, palms up and open. “It might help me figure out what to do. How to make the right choice.” I had no such hopes, but I knew that these were the words Dex couldn’t deny.

I played him. Played him right into my hands, his fingertips gently connecting with each of mine and then the heavier weight of his palms settling upon my own.

I had time to feel the warmth of his flesh against my ice-cold hands before everything sank away.

STATIC

REC
. The red abbreviation appears at the bottom of the screen.

The noise is that of an angry librarian.
Shush. Shush. Shush.

I wait for a picture to appear, and then realize that I am seeing it: the static scene of gray ash being blown in endless waves across the screen.

NOTHING

“I’m nothing,” I said, pulling my hands from his.

Blinking, Dex looked away. It was all the answer I needed. And now it was time to tell him what he’d already known. Time to tell myself too.

“I’m gonna take Lacey. I know you think I have another choice, but I don’t. I remembered what happens when I don’t take someone. I remembered what the hunger is, and I can’t . . .” I couldn’t finish.

I expected Dex to nod in understanding and maybe express his regret. I was wrong.

“That’s it then?” His hands gripped my shoulders hard, hurting me. He was fierce and angry in a way I had never seen him before. “You’re giving up?”

The always-understanding, supersupportive Dex had disappeared. I shook my head, wondering if this was another dream. “Dex, you don’t understand.”

“Because you aren’t telling me anything. You’re afraid of the hunger. I don’t even know what that means.”

“It’s something inside me, and if I don’t jump to the next girl then it takes over, and . . .” I glared at Dex, hating him a little bit for making me say it. “I killed my parents. My real parents. My brother, too. It was like I was an animal. I ripped them to shreds. That’s why I’m giving up. I can’t stay here and risk hurting the parents or you.”