Chapter Eight – Ezra
Royal catches me in the gym downstairs, in the basement. I’m on the treadmill, getting some cardio in, but the expression he wears makes me slow down the pace. He wants to talk, and I have the feeling I already know what about.
It’s obvious. Of course it is. He wants to talk about Abby. Abby and her offer of stress relief.
She’s so cavalier about killing, I shouldn’t be so surprised she’d be equally as nonchalant about sex. Still, not only is it a rule we have, but it’s also something I haven’t let myself think about for a long, long time.
Sex hasn’t been on my radar in years, and up until the whole conversation between the three of us two days ago, it wasn’t even something I was interested in revisiting.
Now? Now it’s a weird mixture of guilt and something else. Even if you ignore the fact that I’ve only known Abby for a few days, I’m not the kind of guy who likes to hook up with no strings attached.
Call me a romantic all you want, but I like the strings. I like the attachment. It’s more than just sex for me.
Royal? Things are different with him, for reasons we all keep tucked safely away in our personal closets, AKA our memories. Royal’s case is different than mine, just as Hawthorne’s is.
By the time Royal reaches me, the treadmill has stopped beneath my feet.
He leans his bare arms on the side of one of the hand rests, his black eyes squinted at me.
His charcoal gray hair is a little messy today, its short length sticking every which way.
He wears jogging shorts and a loose shirt, ready to get today’s workout in, but apparently not before he talks with me.
“I already know what you’re going to say,” I tell him, “and I don’t want to hear it.”
“Why not? You have to know how stupid it is.”
I narrowly resist rolling my eyes at him. “It’s not stupid to not want to complicate things even more. Come on, Royal, you have to know how dumb it would be to hook up with Abby.”
“Why? Nothing she said was wrong. She already knows what we do, what kind of people we are, and it isn’t like she can stroll out of this house whenever she wants—hell, if she does, the very fucking second it happens, we’ll all know.
So why the fuck does it matter? You might be hung up, but I’m not.
I always thought that rule of Hawthorne’s was fucking stupid. ”
Hung up isn’t how I would describe myself, but maybe he’s right. It has been years. At this point, am I still paying respect to her, or am I too lost in the past to dare hope for some kind of future?
“We shouldn’t,” I say. “We agreed to follow the code years ago.”
“Yeah, and I think you and I both know neither of us thought we’d make it this far.
We all thought we’d get caught by now.” Royal’s gruff exterior fades somewhat when he adds, “Look, man, I know things’ll never be the same, but at the same time, don’t you think we have to start living a little?
We’re not just our job. There’s more to us, more to life. ”
His pep talk sounds like something I’d say. Normally, the positions would be reversed if the topic was about anything other than sex.
“Maybe you’re right, but what Hawthorne says goes.
We agreed to it when we agreed to do this together,” I tell him.
I have no right to say what Royal should and shouldn’t do; if he wants to risk things by hooking up with Abby, let him.
I can’t control him. I don’t know that I’d want to do this without him, and I don’t know what would happen if Hawthorne found out Royal went behind his back, but again, I can’t control him.
“We both know it’s not Hawthorne,” Royal says with a frown.
Yeah, Hawthorne is basically a middle man. Our team leader. The one at the top? They’re the one who makes the rules, rules we have to follow, otherwise…
Otherwise we won’t get a second chance to follow those rules.
Royal joins me in working out, but I’d be lying if I say my mind’s all there. I’m elsewhere, even if I am physically there.
Later that night, when I’m alone in my room, I sit on the edge of my bed. My hair is damp from my recent shower, and I only wear sweats, my usual nighttime ensemble. So many thoughts swirl through my head, I can hardly navigate them.
This life of mine. Royal and Hawthorne and what we do. The code. Abby.
Sex.
After what feels like an eternity of wrestling with myself, I reach for the nightstand’s small drawer and yank it open. The dark wood glides effortlessly, without making a single sound. A few papers, some books, nothing too out of the ordinary—other than the small box in the back left corner.
It’s that same small box I go for, and as I pull it out an uneasy feeling settles in my gut. I stare at the box like I always do when I have the balls to look at it.
A box this size? There’s only one thing that can fit inside it. Any adult would know what it is with a single quick glance.
A ring.
A ring I bought all those years ago for her.
I open the box and stare down at the ring. It’s the only thing I brought with me from my old life, the only remembrance of what I used to have, when I was a carefree guy happy with his lot in life.
Men like me, men like Royal and Hawthorne; we’ve all lost someone close to us.
What we do, it’s personal. It’s our vendetta against the world and society and the shitty people in it.
We kill because we want to feel in control, we want to make a difference.
We might not obsessively need it like other serial killers, but the way we want it is the same.
It’s not about exerting power over the individual. It’s not us getting off on the act of torturing and killing. No, it’s about so much more than that.
We do what we do because no one else will. We clean up the trash because otherwise the world would be overrun. Royal, Hawthorne, and I are killers because the world took those we love from us.
My girlfriend. Hawthorne’s mother. Royal’s sister. Three different types of wounds, all unique in their pain, and yet that pain brought us together and made us into who we are today: monsters that would make our past selves flinch and cringe in fear.
I close the ring box and put it away, and as I shut the drawer and turn off the bedside lamp, as I lay down for the night, I can’t help but wonder one thing.
What did Abby lose?
Or, maybe I should say, who did she lose?