Ravens (26 page)

She said, “Hey, could you shut up a minute and hook me up?”

He pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his sweaty nose.

Happy to oblige.

She stripped to panties and bra, and lay down on her belly, and he started throwing fishhooks into her flesh. Matching pairs:
scapulars, triceps, wrists, thighs, hips, and calves — till there were twelve hooks in all. The pain was smashing. For a while
she tried to fool it by singing to it. “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out; they crawl all over your face and snout.”
But singing didn’t help.

Arroyo turned the winch, and she was lifted into the air and the pain was magnified tenfold. The pain had its own lighting
system. Powerful searchlights that came from inside her and beamed jaggedly out to the world, to her miserable life — bad
grades, the scorn of her parents, bad boyfriends, Tara’s betrayal, Tara’s cruelty, Tara’s this and Tara’s that: her unsupportable,
unquenchable love for Tara. She was hanging face-down and horizontal, the hooks stretching out her limbs till she was a superheroine
flying through pain. Or a cross between a super-heroine and a bag of hospital waste. She tried to say something exultant,
but no sound came out, only a thread of slobber. Arroyo was trying to encourage her. “Just get in the flow,” he said. Then
she vomited. Something was wrong here. She knew that bursting into a shower of sparks was wrong, and distantly she heard Romeo
bellowing: “GET HER
DOWN
!” — then more sparks; then finally Romeo had her in his arms and he was saying, “It’s all right, Clio. It’ll be all right.
Oh girl, it’s gonna be fine. It’s all
right
. It’s all
right
.”

The hooks coming out, one by one.

Then Romeo holding her and talking to her while Arroyo massaged the air out of her skin.

She heard herself screaming,
“I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY!”

Romeo held her and said, “I know.”

He went out to the car to get her some Percodan. While he was gone, Arroyo asked if she’d mind if he bound her and gave her
a forced orgasm. She said not tonight, OK? Arroyo said of course not tonight; he wasn’t thinking about tonight, but some other
time. He said, what would be a good time? Next Thursday?

She threw up again.

Then she was in her own car, in the passenger seat, and Romeo was driving. The sun was setting on the old rice plantation.

“Are you awake?” said Romeo.

“Uh-huh.”

“How do you feel?”

“I’m aright.”

Next, she was in a sleazy motel room, on her stomach, and Romeo was rubbing unguent into her wounds.

Next, she was above the toilet and Romeo was holding on to her as she retched tiny drops of green bile. She was surprised
that he could hold her so firmly; he must be stronger than she had thought. He carried her back to the bed and set her down
carefully. He wiped her face with a cloth.

She said, “You know what, Romeo? I could fall for you. I think I could frikkin
falling
fall for you.”

At some point she woke up and Romeo was on the phone with somebody, and he was arguing and crying, and then there was a long
silence. A light flared in her eyes, and Romeo got her to sit up. He made her drink. Then he placed her laptop before her.
She didn’t understand what he wanted.

He said, “You have to write something.”

“What?”

“You have to write about your pain. Before you forget.”

The computer was at her MySpace page.

“Log in,” he prompted. “And then go to your diary.”

“No, I’m too sleepy.”

“You have to.”

He woke her again. He spoke more insistently: “Log in, Clio. We have to hurry. It’s almost time.”

She logged in. Her diary page appeared.

He said, “OK, write something.”

“I can’t.”

“Then I’ll write it. Just tell me. How did it feel up there?”

“It felt like I was floating above the Wick.”

He typed that. He asked, “Did it hurt?”

“Yeah.”

“How bad.”

“The worst,” she said.

He wrote that. “How does it feel now?”

She wanted to say, “Now it’s better.” But she fell asleep before she could speak.

When she awoke, he was still writing in her diary.

He said, “I’m writing about the pain.”

He seemed to be on the verge of tears. He was the strangest man she had ever met. Also the kindest. Kind and wise and an old
soul.

Then she was asleep again, and he was shaking her. “Clio. Wake up. You’ve got to stay awake.”

“Why?”

He said, “It’s worse than you thought.”

“It can’t be,” she said. “It can’t be worse than I thought.”

He said, “Everyone needs for you to die.”

She knew this was sad news, but she didn’t understand why. She was kind of foggy.

He said, “Tara particularly needs you to die. She
needs
it. I’m sorry. We have to do this.”

She stared at him, not comprehending.

“And Shaw?” he said. His voice gluey with tears. “Your lover? He also needs you to die. Oh, God, Clio. He needs you to show
them there’s a price for what they’ve done. And you’re it. You’re the price. It’s not your fault, but that’s what you are.
Come on; let’s just do it; let’s just make it as quick as we can, OK?”

Tara
woke with Shaw standing over her. Still dark out. He told her to get ready; they were going on a ‘family expedition’. That’s
all he said. He didn’t say where they were going.

He’d already woken Mom and Dad and Jase, and now he hustled the whole family down to the Liberty. Trevor assigned a few convoy
bikers to ride with them, to ward off the news jackals, but the jackals never even stirred. When Tara pulled out onto Oriole
Road, it was quiet. She followed Shaw’s instructions, and went north on the Rt. 25 Spur. After a few miles, the Liberty was
the only car on the road. Clearly there would be no pursuit. So Shaw waved off the bikers. The Liberty went on by itself.

Tara had never been so tired in her life.

Shaw read to her from a sheet of directions. “Take the spur, cross over I-95. Go three miles, then left on 99.”

She did that.

“Then right on Cooper Pasture Road.”

Here at the edge of town were a few sprawling developments — Oglethorpe Estates, Georgian Majesty Villas — that had gone belly-up
in the real estate crash and were now abandoned, choked with weeds, already haunted. After that, there was nothing. A few
trailers, quiet as crypts. Scrub pine. Cow pastures. Tara checked the rearview mirror: Mom was sleeping soundly with Jase’s
head on her lap, but Dad was as vigilant as ever — she saw the gleam in his eyes.

“Left on Green Swamp Road.”

Was this going to be some picnic thing? Were they going seining again? Or crabbing this time, or bass fishing? But Shaw kept
mum, and the blankness of his features got under her skin. It was a game for him, keeping her in the dark like this. It was
too cruel. To be in thrall to this bastard, at his beck and whim, day in and day out — it was too hard.

But she knew she couldn’t show what she felt — she needed his mercy. For Nell’s sake she had to keep it steady, keep a distance,
float above this.

Green Swamp to Butler, Butler to Honeygal.

Then Shaw read, “300 yards to farmer’s road on right.” Intoning the words as though he had nothing to do with them, as though
they were some kind of disembodied decree. But it’s you, she thought. It’s your plan, you cowardly fuck. Whatever it is, I
know it’s yours.

They were on an oystershell road that wound through a hummock of pine and palmettos and Spanish moss. Oak branches scraped
the roof. The forest closed in, darkened. A banana spider fell onto the driver’s side mirror and perched there, defiantly,
big as a hand. After a hard turn, and twenty more ragged yards, they broke abruptly into a clearing, a bluff that overlooked
a marsh creek. There was a car here already, and Tara recognized it, and her heart became a fist. It was Clio’s car. Someone,
a woman, was leaning against the front fender. She wore a shawl, and kept her face down — so for a moment Tara could pray
that she wouldn’t be Clio.

But the woman raised her head, and of course she was Clio.

Standing there looking lost, hugging herself as though she were cold — though the morning was already hot and sticky. Oh,
my Lord, thought Tara. Please my Lord I know what I deserve but please don’t let it be Romeo who brought her.

“Turn off the engine,” said Shaw.

Tara obeyed. Silence. Then Romeo appeared. He went and leaned against the car, next to Clio, and drew her hand into his own.

Tara still praying: please don’t let this be what it is.

From the back, Daddy asked Shaw, “What’s
she
doing here? Why have you got Clio?”

Romeo called to them: “Everybody out. Don’t talk, don’t waste time. Just everybody get out of that car.”

They all emerged from the Liberty. Clio cried out happily and opened her arms for an embrace. But Romeo held her and murmured,
“No, you stay here.”

Dad said: “Why is she here? Shaw, what are you doing?”

Shaw gazed at the ground and said nothing.

Romeo said, “There was a price. OK? The price was posted. You knew the price.”

A heaviness in his voice, a slogging rhythm, as though he were reciting these words from memory.

Dad asked him, “What do you mean? What are you saying?”

Romeo unfolded a sheet of paper. He read aloud, “Hon I’m going to tell the FBI.”

Dad made a guttural moan in his throat.

Romeo kept on. He read like a schoolkid, stressing each word, pronouncing
the
like
thee
, making the a’s long as well, and coming to a full stop at the end of each sentence: “I’ve been thinking a lot. I don’t trust
that Burrus. I know I did the right thing lying to him, but the FBI won’t be fools. They’ll track the calls that Shaw makes.
They got GPS on cell phones now, so therefore they’ll find Romeo easy and catch him. And Shaw too. They’ll kill them clean.”

Dad said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have written that.”

Romeo looked up from his paper.

“It was so stupid,” said Dad. “I’m so sorry. Oh my God, I’m
sorry,
Shaw. I didn’t
do
anything though. I swear to you —”

“Just listen,” said Romeo. He read, “Dad, I know how much you hate him. I hate him worse. When he opens his mouth I get sick.
He thinks now he’s some kind of prophet but people only love him for the money and he’s a coward. But once he gets the money
he’ll try to run and that’s when we’ll call the FBI. He won’t get away!”

Tara knew it was her turn to grovel now. But it felt as though the muscles of her jaw had been fused shut by rage. Now, when
she most needed to surrender, she couldn’t. She just looked at her father as he implored, “Please! Shaw! It wasn’t Tara’s
fault! It was mine, and I don’t know what I was thinking, but Shaw! Please —”

“I can’t help you,” said Shaw. “I warned you but you wouldn’t listen. Now it’s Romeo’s call.”

Dad turned to Romeo, “Oh my Lord, sir, I’m sorry, I’ll
never
—”

“There was a price,” Romeo repeated. “The price was posted.”

Then from his pocket he produced a little amber bottle. He made Clio hold out her hand, and he poured a dozen pills into her
open palm. Then he handed her a flask of something. Whispering, “Take them.”

Dad said, “
What are you doing
?”

“Do it,” said Romeo.

Dad started toward them, but Romeo raised his pistol. “If you come any closer, I’ll kill your kids. Which one do I start with?”

Dad’s mouth came open. But no sound.

Romeo grabbed Jase by the neck. “This one?”

“
No!
” Dad sank to his knees. “Please, no! Don’t hurt my son! Do what you think is right, sir, you know what’s right. But don’t
hurt my boy, please!”

Tara thought she should be doing as he was: kneeling in the dust, pleading. Why couldn’t she? She was putting them all at
risk. What was the matter with her?

While Romeo kept prompting: “Come on, Clio. We’ve got to save her. Remember how we save Tara?”

Clio lifted the pills to her mouth. Took a drink from the flask and swallowed them. Dad cried out, “NO! DON’T DO IT CLIO!
FOR GOD’S SAKE, YOU’RE KILLING HER!”

Romeo said softly, “That was very brave, girl.”

Tara saw the moisture in his eyes. As he drew two more amber bottles from his pocket, and filled Clio’s palm again. Twenty
or so this time. Blue pills, yellow. Gesturing: take them.

She did.

Mom was sobbing, and Dad made those tortured noises. But Tara just stood there, frozen.

Again Romeo replenished Clio’s palm.

But now Clio had turned ghostly pale. She whispered, “More?”

Romeo, holding her wrist, gently raised her hand. “You gotta be brave.”

She put them in her mouth. She drank.

Romeo turned to Tara. “Now we wait. Tara, you gotta say goodbye. Say goodbye to your friend who loved you so much that she
gave up her own life as a warning to you. Say goodbye to her.”

But something snapped in Tara. Those words,
Say goodbye to her
— released her. She told Romeo, “Fuck you.” And went up to Clio and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

Romeo said, “Get away from her!”

She disregarded the order. With everyone watching, she put her arm around Clio’s shoulders and helped her take a few uncertain
steps toward the Liberty. Clio tried to flow out of her arms, saying, “Honey, if it’s OK, I’d rather, I’d rather just, just
lie down right here, just, sleep for a little —”

“Sleep later,” said Tara. “Come on.”

Romeo commanded: “Stop!”

But Tara didn’t even look at him. She drew Clio along.

He cried, “I’ll start killing!”

She said, “Kill me first. You’ve already killed Clio. It’s my turn.”

“I’ll kill your brother!” Romeo shouted. “I’ll kill your mother! Everybody! Whatever I have to do! I’ll kill your father right
now!” He pointed the pistol at Dad. Tara saw this movement in the corner of her eye, but she didn’t stop. She opened the Liberty’s
back door, and helped Clio get in. Waiting for the shot. Any second, any second.