Ta-Da
TA-DA
Rose
“How does it feel?” Fionn asks as I swing next to him through the sliding hospital doors, my brand-new fiberglass cast wrapped with black tape. It encases my entire lower leg, all the way from my knee to the ball of my foot, replacing the temporary brace now that my stitches are out.
“It’s okay. A little weird, but I’ll get used to it.” Fionn smiles and I try to do the same in reply, but I’m still feeling a little too queasy to put in much effort. I made the mistake of watching as he clipped and tugged the first two sutures free of my flesh. I had to look away as he took the rest of them out.
But I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. The stitches probably just brought back the memory of all that pain and adrenaline. Fuck, that was gross. I remember sitting on the floor of his clinic, cutting the bottom of my pant leg so I could get a better look at the injury. The last thing I recall before waking up in the ambulance is the splintered bone that jutted from the split skin. And that’s it aside from a hazy moment of seeing his face haloed by a bright light, an image that might be nothing more than a dream.
“You sure you’ll be okay for a couple of hours while I finish up here?”
“Yeah,” I reply, squinting down the road in the direction of downtown Weyburn. “I feel like I’ve hobbled around most of Hartford now. It would be good to explore someplace new.”
Fionn watches me, a crease notched between his brows as his eyes scour my face. Sometimes, I feel like there’s a heat in his gaze that lingers in my skin. And then with a blink, it always disappears, as though he’s shuttered it away, keeping that little flame hidden in the dark. “Be careful?” he says, as though it’s a question he’s not sure he should ask. Though he tries to keep his tone clinical and detached, I still sense a thread of worry woven in the notes.
“Definitely. It might do me some good to move around,” I reply.
“Any trouble whatsoever, call me.”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll be fine.”
With a flash of a smile that seems to do little to reassure him, I swing my way across the parking lot of MacLean Memorial Hospital toward the empty sidewalk that will lead me to the shops. I glance back toward the entrance before turning the corner. I don’t expect Fionn to be standing there, his arms crossed over his white coat. But he is. And I don’t expect my heart to turn over when he raises a hand to wave at me. But it does.
I give him a nod, and then I keep going.
By the fifth block, I start to regret my life choices.
I’ve gotten pretty good at maneuvering around with my crutches. The whole tick-swing-step rhythm is almost musical. But there’s only so much crutch-music a girl wants to make before it becomes crutch-torture. My armpits are starting to chafe. The bistro a few blocks in the distance might as well be miles away. I need to rest for a minute, preferably somewhere with air-conditioning and maybe an iced latte.
I squint at the sandwich board of a store on the next block. SHIRETON HUNTING AND FISHING SUPPLY .
That’ll do.
I hobble my way to the small brick building, the first in the businesses that stretch along both sides of the tree-lined Main Street. When I pull the door open, the scent of leather and rubber and synthetic pine greets me. There are high-visibility orange vests. There’s camo print in every format of green and beige blobs. Fishing rods. Hooks and bait and fake fish and plastic worms. And knives. Short. Long. Serrated. Smooth. Matte, powder-coated in black. Shining silver, polished to a mirror finish.
The shop owner is a grizzled-looking old man with buzzed white hair and trenches of wrinkles that cut patterns through his skin. He looks up from his fishing magazine and gives me a nod as he flicks a glance down to my cast. I’ve become used to the repetitive questions and I have a practiced response ready to slide off my tongue. But he doesn’t ask. He just gives me a curt but not unkind “Good morning,” dips his fingers into a tin of snuff, and slides a pinch of the mahogany tobacco between his lip and lower teeth before he returns to his magazine.
I hobble down one of the long aisles and lose myself in the cool air and the rows of glass cases, taking my time to appreciate the finer details of every blade.
“… didn’t I tell you that? I thought I fucking told you that,” a man snarls at the end of one of the aisles, his body hidden by a rack of waders and waterproof jackets. “You are so fucking stupid.”
I glance toward the front desk, but I don’t think the shop owner heard, or if he did, he doesn’t let on. The man on the phone snaps out a few more disparaging comments as I creep down the aisle next to his. When he temporarily halts his tirade, I hear a woman’s muffled voice on the other end of the line, though I can’t make out what she says. Only the tone. Placating. Pinched with fear.
“I don’t fucking care, Naomi.”
My spine goes rigid. I’m standing in front of a stack of waders hanging from an aisle rack, but I’m not really looking at them. Instead, I’m picturing the nurse, Naomi, and the way her smile never reached her eyes when I pulled her cards at the hospital. I’m seeing the dullness of the light in them, like they were too haunted to shine. I’m hearing her voice, the thinnest thread of hope in her words when I asked what the Ace of Cups meant to her. To take flight. I know exactly who this man is. What he’s done. And where he needs to go.
A burst of wicked glee explodes through my cells. I glance down at my cast. Maybe my bad luck wasn’t so bad after all.
“It’s your problem,” the man continues, snapping me back into the moment. “And if you’re not careful, I can make it even more of your problem. Unless you suddenly don’t care if those photos of you make their way around town …?” There’s a quiet plea from the other end of the line. “I told you already that I’m going out tonight, and I swear to fucking God, if you aren’t there when I get back, I’m going to—”
I part the waders with sudden force, the hangers grating against the metal rod. A man my age startles, the phone held a few inches from his face as he looks at me with wide, steel-blue eyes. “I’ll call you back,” he says.
And then a slow grin spreads across his lips.
Just to look at him, he’s handsome enough, in an unfussy kind of way. Tousled dark hair. Stubble on an angular jaw. Those silvery eyes that light up when he smiles. I’m sure he’s gotten away with all kinds of trouble with that smile. And he knows it.
“Hi,” he says, his voice rich and smooth. I give him a faint nod. He waggles his phone and gives me a sheepish tilt of his head. “Sorry about that. Work thing. You know, people not doing their jobs and stuff. Trust me, they deserved it.”
“Yeah,” I deadpan, though he doesn’t seem to notice my sarcastic tone. “I’m sure they did. Bet they won’t fuck up again.”
His expression lightens and he takes a deep breath. “I hope you’re right.” He jerks his head down to my leg. “What’d you do?”
I lean forward through the waders and cup my hand over my mouth. His eyes glimmer with anticipation of a secret shared. “I broke it trying to kill a guy.”
I wink and he laughs, delight filling the aisle. “Now that’s a story I’d like to hear more about sometime. Name’s Eric.” He pauses, as though I’m going to give him my name in return. When I don’t, it brightens the gleam in his eyes. “You like fishing?”
“Something like that,” I reply, and his lips curl.
I shrug and start hobbling my way back over to the knives. Eric follows, watching from the other side of the glass case as I turn my attention to the weapons just out of reach.
“Do you have a secret fishing hole? I could use some tips if so. Haven’t caught anything all week. Maybe you could show me sometime.”
I look up at him, tilting my head. A slow, predatory grin creeps across my lips. “I think Naomi would mind. Don’t you?”
Eric’s smile finally cracks, though doesn’t disappear completely. He scoffs, pausing as though giving me one last chance to come to my senses. Then he rolls his eyes. “Dumb bitch,” he mutters, loud enough for only me to hear.
I stay where I am, my hands curled into tight fists, my nails etching crescents into the padding of my crutches as I watch him stride toward the counter. The shop owner sets his magazine down, his expression unreadable as his eyes flick to mine. “Afternoon. What can I get for you?”
“I’ll take a box of Winchester 350 Legends,” Eric says.
The old man lets out a grunt, his eyes narrowing. “It ain’t hunting season. Shouldn’t you be getting fishing gear?”
“I am. Gonna shoot the fish right out of the river. Just don’t go tellin’ the sheriff. Not my fault if a deer gets in the way of my shot.”
With another grunt, the shop owner unlocks a display behind him to take a black box from the shelf, the ammunition inside shifting in a deadly whisper. I linger at the glass case even though the urge to jump on Eric’s back and strangle him with my bare hands breaks over me in waves. Why does a man like that get whatever he wants? Get away with whatever he wants? Hurt anyone and anything he wants? I stare down at the knives and they seem to whisper in their cases, reflecting their possibilities back at me.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
I’m still staring down into the acid-etched patterns on the steel of a hunting blade when I hear the door open and close as Eric leaves. Shuffling footsteps follow and come to a stop at my side.
“Stay away from that guy. He’s a piece of shit,” the old man says as he unlocks the glass case and passes me the exact knife I’m looking at in the row of blades, as though it’s whispered to him as much as it has to me.
“Kinda got that impression.” I take the knife he offers by the handle and turn it over to examine the swirling patterns of the Damascus steel blade. As the shop owner takes out the sheath and runs me through some of the specs, I glance through the front window. Eric is across the street, waving to a group of people our age. He opens the rear door of a black truck and tosses the box of ammunition on the back seat before he walks toward the liquor store. “It’s perfect,” I say, interrupting the old man. “I’ll take it.”
The shop owner rings up my order, and I slap down enough cash to cover the total. I don’t wait for the couple of dollars of change. With my new sheathed blade gripped between my teeth, I hobble my way toward the door at speed. The old man behind the counter must see a lot of oddities in his shop, because he merely grunts a goodbye as I limp into the merciless summer sun.
I scan the street. There’s no one around other than the group Eric just parted with, and they’re already a block away, their backs to me. No one even looks my way as I cross the road and throw open the unlocked rear driver’s side door of Eric’s Dodge Ram 1500 truck. It’s a bit of a mess, thank fuck, with a box of tools and some empty soda cans and a grease-stained set of overalls strewn across the seat. It might be a bit gross, but it makes it even less likely that he’ll notice me. I shove my crutches in across the footwells, and then I heave myself inside and cover myself with a blanket that smells faintly of mildew and diesel. I clutch my new blade to my chest, and then I wait.
It’s only a few moments before I hear the tailgate drop and a couple of cases of beer slide onto the bed beneath the tonneau cover. There’s some rummaging, and a moment later, the tailgate slams shut. My heart crashes against my bones as heavy boots smack the asphalt. With a grunt, Eric gets into the truck, clicks his seat belt into place, and a moment later we’re gliding away from the curb to the sound of country music and Eric’s off-key whistle. I hear the hiss of a can opening as he cracks a beer, as though that’s perfectly normal. Where are we headed? I have no fucking idea. But I’m sure it will be an adventure.
That’s how I have to think of it. An adventure.
Last time I tried to kill a man, it didn’t go well because I wasn’t prepared. Not that I’m really prepared now, but at least I have more of the element of surprise. And a better weapon too. Does the thought of those cocktail sticks quivering in Matt Cranwell’s eyeball still make me nauseated? Sure, a little, though right now it could also be Eric’s driving and this mildewy smell from the blanket. But the only way I’m going to get good at this is to practice on a deserving candidate. And it seems like everyone around here knows that Eric fits the bill.
Okay , the shop guy is just one person, but he’s old and grumpy as fuck, and if he doesn’t like Eric, that should count for the opinion of most of the town. So practice on Eric, I shall.
I just have to psych myself up.
And that’s what I do as we head through the town. I imagine how this time it’s going to go smoothly. He’ll park. I’ll spring up. I’ll slice his jugular. End scene. Maybe one or two doubts start to creep in, like how I’m going to dispose of the body, for one. I figure most problems can be solved with fire. Getting back to town might be another issue, especially now as we pick up speed and the town roads turn to country highways. But then Eric opens his third beer of the journey and places a call to Naomi to spend the next ten minutes berating her, and I can hear the broken notes of hopelessness and exhaustion heavy in her voice. I realize the issue of how to get home is a problem I can solve when I’m done, even if it takes all day to hobble my way back into town.
Gravel crunches beneath the tires as we take a right turn onto a side road. Then another turn onto an uneven surface, as though the road is rarely used and difficult to traverse. Eric hums along to a song on the radio, seemingly unbothered by the terrain, or his shitty-as-fuck attitude, or anything at all, really. At least, until a phone rings.
My phone.
Van Halen. “Somebody Get Me a Doctor.” I know Fionn’s name and face will be lighting up the screen. I scramble to silence the phone, but it slips from my pocket and drops between the rungs of my crutches, hitting the footwell with a damning thump.
“What the fuck ,” Eric screeches as the vehicle swerves on the uneven road.
It’s now or never.
I toss the blanket aside as I burst from my hiding place, my shining new blade clutched tight in my fist.
“ Ta-da , motherfucker.”