Louise
“School work?” asked Kayley in dismay. “You’re kidding, right?”
I shook my head and handed her another pile of worksheets.
“You’re missing a lot of school and you’re going to be missing a lot more.
I want to make sure that big brain of yours gets a workout.
” I smiled and tried not to stare at how pale she looked, how sickly.
I knew it was just the side effects, that the chemo was doing her good, long term.
But part of me wanted to just rip the needle out of her arm and whisk her home.
Kayley studied a pack of worksheets on the Civil War. “I hate you,” she muttered.
I leaned in and gave her a hug in response. It went on a lot longer than I’d intended: I just couldn’t let go. “Okay,” she said at last, her voice muffled by my hair. “Enough, already.”
I let her go. But right at the last second, as I pulled back, she awkwardly clung to me again.
“You okay?” I asked, keeping my voice carefully neutral. “Like, the food’s okay and everything?”
“Sure. Except they only have lime jello. You know how I feel about lime jello.”
I looked into her eyes and I could see the fear there. But I could also see the determination: she really, really didn’t want to break down and cry and she begged me with her eyes to help her.
I nodded, stood up and slung my purse over my shoulder. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do about the lime jello. And do the worksheets. When you get back from Europe, I want you to slot straight back in as a grade-A student, you hear me?”
She made a big show of sighing and rolling her eyes but she looked relieved...just as I’d intended. I wanted to convince her—okay, convince both of us—that this was just temporary, a glitch. That before the end of the year she’d be a normal teen again, heading back to school.
Because the alternative...that didn’t bear thinking about.
The next morning, we went to look round the grow house. Just as Sean had said, the realtor was desperate to rent. In less than an hour, the paperwork was complete, we had handed over the money, and we were standing holding the keys in the middle of the empty house.
“We can fit about eight tables in here,” I said, pacing out the living room.
“And another two in the kitchen—I want to keep the sink free so I can hook up water lines. And another four in each bedroom...” I was muttering mostly to myself.
“It’s almost a pity there are walls. It’d be easier if it was one big space, like a warehouse. ”
Sean nodded. “I was thinking the same thing,” he said. “Should be easy enough.” He knocked experimentally on a wall.
I gaped at him. “I wasn’t serious! We can’t knock the walls down, we’re renting this place! There are rules in the lease! We’re not even meant to redecorate!”
He blinked at me. “I reckon we’re not meant to grow dope, either.”
“But...what happens in six months, when we move out?”
He tilted his head to one side and he gave me a look that told me just how naive I was being. And yet it didn’t feel patronizing at all. It felt as if he thought my innocence was adorable. “You let me worry about that,” he said.
Fine. This was why I’d asked for his help in the first place, after all, because he knew all this stuff. I checked out the windows. “We’ll need to do something to stop the light getting out.”
“A lot of people cover them with newspaper,” said Sean. “Or use blackout blinds. But it looks obvious. Who has their blinds shut all day, every day?”
“So what do we do?”
For once, he looked almost...shy, like he was admitting a weakness. “I’ve got this idea,” he muttered. “Might not work. But I’m gonna give it a crack. Okay?”
“Of course,” I told him.
He nodded quickly and went off to his car to get his sledgehammer.
I gathered up the few items the previous owners had left us: some scarlet, fake velvet drapes in the living room, a saucepan with no handle I found in a kitchen cupboard and a solitary coffee mug.
A few moments later, the demolition began.
I knew what he was famous for, of course. I’d imagined, plenty of times, how he must look swinging the thing. But imagining isn’t the same as seeing...or hearing.
At first, it was fine. I stood there open mouthed as he tore through the place.
Huge chunks of plasterboard went flying, wallpaper flapping at their edges.
Cinder blocks shattered, chunks of stone and clouds of dust arcing out across the room.
The muscles of Sean’s back bulged and flexed hypnotically under his tank top as he swung, his tight core powering him round.
I couldn’t take my eyes from his hard ass as it stood out under his jeans.
But as he worked, the mood changed.
It wasn’t that he got angry. That would have been okay. Everyone likes to unleash some healthy rage when they do something like knock down a wall. But you do that with a silly grin on your face—you yell and scream and it’s cathartic, but then you laugh at yourself.
Sean wasn’t laughing. I could see the rage throbbing through his body, see it in the way he gripped the hammer and the way he pounded it into the walls with single-minded determination.
It pulsed out of him like a heat haze and, every time the hammer struck, it reverberated through the room and soaked into every surface.
This wasn’t just demolition; Sean was ripping through the house the way a hurricane rips through a town, changing it forever.
I called out—I’m not even sure why. Maybe to get him to slow down. Maybe so I could tell him I was going to wait outside. Mainly, though, I just wanted to check that I could stop him, that he was still in control. And immediately, I wished I hadn’t.
Because he didn’t stop.
Either he didn’t hear me or he was so used to ignoring the pleas of the people whose home or business he was destroying that he tuned me out.
The air was full of choking dust, now. Sean stopped for a second to peel his tank top from his gleaming body and I wanted to yell again, but I was too busy coughing.
Through the dust, I saw something: I’d thought he had no tattoos aside from the sleeve, but now I saw there were some on his back: twisting black lines that fanned out like flames from between his shoulder blades.
In the circular space where all of the lines converged, there was another tiny tattoo no bigger than my thumbnail, and it didn’t match the style of the lines at all, as if it had been drawn at a different time. A shamrock.
The destruction started up again and this time I got really scared.
It wasn’t just that he was angry, that the destruction was letting something dark and dangerous pour out of him like a river.
It was that he was enjoying it. His lips were drawn back in a tight, hard smile, a look of savage victory.
By destroying, he was winning—or he believed he was.
The sight of it chilled me: I’d never seen anyone take such pleasure in carnage before.
And this is the guy I’ve teamed up with.
The guy I’ve let into my life. “Sean!” I yelled between choking gasps.
No response. He’d completely forgotten I was there.
I was starting to really choke on the dust, now, my fear was making me hyperventilate and that was making the coughing worse.
Sean was between me and both doors and I didn’t dare get in his way.
I had to snap him out of it. I darted forward through the clouds of dust to bang on his shoulder and—
Too late, I saw the head of the hammer swing back towards my head—
I let out a cry as the iron head came straight towards my face, heavy and fast enough to shatter bone.
I ducked and twisted, losing my balance, and slapped Sean on the shoulder, all at the same time.
The hammer whistled past my face close enough that I felt the waft of air against my eyelashes, and I wanted to throw up.
Then I thudded into his wide, solid back, my feet skidded between his legs, and I was on my back on the floor, looking up at him.
He turned and looked uncomprehendingly down at me. The raw emotion in his face made my chest tighten: not just anger but hate and shame, all spilling out of him. My fear of him eased a little. What the hell’s going on inside him? I had this overwhelming urge to tell him it’s okay.
And then he came back to himself. His jaw dropped open and he flung the hammer down on the floor and fell to his knees over me.
“Ah, Christ! Did I hit you?” The anger in his eyes evaporated in a second, to be replaced by sick fear.
He started patting my body. One hand stroked my head. “Did I hit you?” he asked again.
I shook my head, panting at how close he’d come.
“Not quite,” I croaked, and coughed on the dust. We were both covered in it and more was settling on us as the air stilled.
It clung to the sweat on his body, painting him gray, until he looked like a huge stone statue hulking over me.
I tried to speak again but the dust had caught in my throat and I couldn’t stop coughing.
He swept his hands under me and scooped me up, then marched over to the back door and out into the sunlight.
I drew in a huge gulp of warm, clean air, then another and another. The fear eased along with my breathing. And then he was setting me down on my back on the warm, sun-drenched grass.
He knelt beside me and took my cheek in one palm, using his thumb to rub away some of the dust. “Jesus, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—” He looked off into the distance and his hands curled into fists. I could see the anger rising in him again, this time at himself.
I reached up and took his hands in mine, curling my fingers around his fists. “It’s okay,” I said. “You just scared me a little.”
He suddenly looked down into my eyes and I saw the fear and shame there. As if scaring me was the last thing he wanted. Then he jumped up and started to walk away, slapping the dust from his clothes.