24. Nix
24
NIX
It’s not like I don’t have any experience sneaking around, avoiding notice. It’s like I’ve been preparing for this night all along.
By the time I reach my shitty neighborhood, the blood along the side of my face has dried. I must look like something out of a horror movie—one side scarred, the other looking like I just paid a visit to a butcher shop. My hood hides it all anyway, and I make sure to pull the sides over my face whenever I come too close to people. Not that they would go out of their way to stare for long. It’s only a Tuesday night, but it seems like most of the people I pass are either on their way to do something fun or coming back from it, half-drunk and distracted by their own shit.
Besides, nobody likes to stare too long at the weird, secretive guy with his hands in his pockets. He could be trouble.
Right now, I am trouble. I almost wish somebody would try to fuck with me just so I could have an excuse to kick their face in.
Who did it? Who tampered with Colt’s car? It’s obvious the same person is responsible for the message Leni got today—I mean, I’m not a genius, but I can put two and two together. But who did it? How will we ever find out? Those questions, added to the soreness that gets a little worse with every block I trudge, have me in the mood for violence.
As it turns out, there’s no excuse to lash out by the time I reach the apartment building. If the guys on the front stoop have missed me, they don’t show it, sticking to the usual chin-jerk greeting before they go back to their softly muttered conversation. It’s funny how I’ve told Colt so many times I want to come back here rather than live with him and Leni and put them in danger because, as I walk up the narrow stairs and smell the familiar piss and cooking odors from other apartments, it hits me—I never saw myself doing this again. Not really. Deep down inside, I didn’t think I’d ever come back.
It’s a good thing I’m still paid up on the rent and my key still works in the locks. It’s not like I could go back to Colt’s apartment with blood on my face. I managed to sneak past the front desk before, but I don’t want to risk somebody deciding to pay attention tonight.
The apartment seems smaller than it did before. Already, spending time with Colt and Leni has made the life I lived for all those months seem pitiful and empty. Not like I saw it any other way before, but now it’s like everything’s much more obvious. There are times I wonder if this is where I belong, really—someplace cramped and worn down and bleak, without hope. How much better do I deserve?
At least the water is hot when I step into the shower after shedding my clothes. Once I’ve rinsed the blood off my face, I touch gentle fingers to where it hurts the worst, wincing when I make contact with the place where the side of my head hit the window.
If living through the destruction of my childhood home taught me anything, it’s that pain never lasts. I’ve almost forgotten all about it by the time I finish washing off and step out to dry. Hell, even the towels are better at Colt’s. Who am I kidding, telling myself I can go back to living like this when I now remember what it’s like to live better?
How am I supposed to go back to living like this when there’s still somebody out there determined to hurt Leni—even to kill her?
The snarl I wear when I meet my gaze in the mirror barely scratches the surface of how I’m feeling about whoever is after her. How am I supposed to find them? I can’t sit back and wait for them to try again. They might be successful next time. Tonight, we got lucky.
Though right now, I’m still sore as hell, and I wonder how lucky we actually are. I don’t feel that way when I lift my arms overhead to stretch out my aching muscles. How much worse does Leni feel? And what about Colt? Shit, I don’t even know if he woke up yet or not. I can’t sit around and wait. That’s not what I do.
By the time I’m dressed, I know what needs to happen next. I’m not going to hang around this shithole and hope my brother is okay. I’m going to go see for myself. First, I call Colt’s phone and hope he’ll answer. I probably should’ve done that sooner, but I’m not thinking clearly. It’s hard to keep things straight when all I want to do is hurt somebody.
It isn’t Colt who answers, but the sound of Leni’s voice is like a balm smoothed over my troubled soul. “It’s me,” I murmur, and her choked sob tells me how worried she had to be. Closing my eyes, I absorb the sound, and I know I don’t deserve it.
“Where have you been? I was so worried!”
“I went back to my place. Where are you? Is he okay?”
“They’re keeping him overnight at the hospital. He has a concussion, but I think he’ll be fine.”
“And you’re staying?”
“Yes, I have to be here,” she explains. “I would worry myself to death at home.”
“What room are you in?”
A soft gasp tells me she wasn’t expecting the question, and I don’t know how that’s possible. Like I wouldn’t want to be there. “It’s too risky.”
“Are you going to tell me where to find you, or am I going to walk around the hospital all night looking? There’s a lot less chance of me being spotted and questioned if I know exactly where to go, right?”
She keeps me waiting longer than I like but finally gives in the way I knew she would. “It’s 836. But there’s no way you’ll be able to get through without somebody asking who you are.”
“Let me worry about that. I’m pretty good at sneaking around in hospitals.”
When she makes a worried noise, I have to add, “You need to stop worrying so much about whether I can handle my shit. I’ll be there soon.”
Really, I should just be glad she cares. Yet another reason why I don’t deserve for her to care, because it annoys the hell out of me to have somebody hovering and asking questions. I take it personally, even though I know I probably shouldn’t. Maybe it’s all those years I spent without a mom—maybe I would be used to it if I had her in my life instead of a dad who wasn’t an example of good parenting in any way.
He’s the last thing I need to think about when I’m in a mood like this. He’s the last thing to think about ever, but his fingerprints are all over my life. He’s in everything I do—everything I think. He’s even in my scar tissue, since I wouldn’t have it if I didn’t want to punish him somehow for everything he did. I need to find a way to let go, but now is not the time. I have other shit on my mind.
Like locating my car, which I left around halfway between my apartment and Colt’s. It would’ve been a risk to park in his garage, where you’re supposed to have a pass if you’re staying for longer than a short visit. I couldn’t leave it down by the warehouse, of course, so this was the next best thing: finding a spot on the street with no meter, which wasn’t so hard to do early in the morning, after we discovered the bodies were missing.
Is it crazy to think whoever moved them might be the one who sent that message to Leni? It only makes sense. Just like it makes sense that they were the ones who fucked with the car. Even if Leni hadn’t been in it, she would’ve suffered over what happened to Colt. I’m sure they had that in mind, whoever they are.
At least I know there’s next to no chance anybody tampered with my brakes once I’m behind the wheel. I’m pretty much moving on autopilot as I make the drive Colt was trying to make earlier, taking me to the hospital where now he and Mom both have a bed. As I drive, I’m always looking around, wondering if random people on the street are responsible for the cut on the side of my head. They’re out here somewhere, whoever they are, and they had better hope they never meet me because I’ll be the last person they ever meet.
It takes no time for me to reach Colt’s room once I’ve parked and entered through the cafeteria door. All it takes is moving with purpose. Still, Leni manages to look surprised when I duck into the room as soon as the hallway is clear, and no one is watching.
I hold a finger to my lips when her mouth falls open. It snaps shut in response, but she still scrambles out of the chair she was in and throws her arms around me.
Don’t do it. Don’t feel it. I can’t help it. I know I shouldn’t. She’s too good for me, and she isn’t mine. She’s Colt’s. She loves him. But I can’t pretend there isn’t a part of me that craves more than her submission and humiliation. Now that she’s in my arms, trusting me, happy to see me, I know there’s a part of me that wants this, too.
“How is he?” I whisper, since that seems a lot safer than admitting she brings me peace in the middle of so much chaos.
“I think he’ll be all right. But you probably can’t stay for long,” she whispers, clutching my hoodie in her fists. “They come in every hour to make sure he’s all right with the concussion and everything.”
“Did they give him a scan or anything like that?”
“Yes, and they said everything seemed fine.”
“Except for that egg on his forehead,” I mutter, wincing at the sight of the swollen bruise. I mean, compared to what I’ve got going on with my face, it’s nothing. But it’s a symbol of what might’ve happened if he had hit the wheel a little harder.
I need to do something about this. That bruise is a symbol of what’s at stake, a reminder of what could’ve been lost tonight. “Can I see your phone?” I ask Leni.
Her head snaps back, confusion touching her features and drawing them together in a frown. “What for?”
“I just want to see the messages, that’s all. There has to be a way we can find out who’s behind this.”
“Sure, maybe you can think of something I haven’t.” She takes it from her bag and hands it over after unlocking it and opening her messages. “Pretty much every app you can send a direct message on, somebody has sent them to me. I don’t have anything to hide. Look around.”
She’s not kidding. “Why don’t you delete them?” I have to ask, scrolling through one evil, threatening message after another. I wouldn’t want these reminders sitting around for me to see anytime I opened an app.
“Most of the time, I do. That’s just from the end of last week.” So, before our meetup at the warehouse, in other words. “I didn’t think to go back in and delete them. I thought…”
She doesn’t need to tell me what she thought, because we all thought it was over.
Of course, when I tap on the accounts sending the messages through social media, they are all nameless, faceless accounts created for the sake of bullying. There’s not much I’m going to get out of sending a message to one of them. “Have you ever tried calling one of the numbers that sends the texts?”
I knew the answer before I asked. “No way. I figured nobody would answer if I tried.” And that’s not how she thinks, either. She wouldn’t call to bitch somebody out. That’s not Leni.
However, it’s me.
“Hey, it can’t hurt,” I mutter, placing a call to the number the last text message was sent from earlier tonight. I doubt anyone will answer, but they might. Either way, they’ll see we’re not afraid to tell them to fuck off.
It rings once. Again.
Then, someone answers.
Leni watches, eyes wide, hands folded under her chin. At first, all I hear is breathing on the other end—heavy, raspy. “Who is this?” I ask, watching her, listening hard.
Again, they keep me waiting until finally, they speak. “Someone who’s gonna make you pay for what you did.”
Three beeps sound when they end the call.
One thing I know for sure. “That wasn’t somebody our age,” I mutter, calling back, my blood boiling now.
“How can you tell?”
“Just the sound of their voice. It was a man, older.”
This time the phone rings and rings with no answer until finally, I’m sent to voicemail. It’s that automated recording, telling me the number I reached without giving me any other information.
“You think you know what I did?” I growl, staring at my brother while Leni chews her lip like she’s trying to bite it off. “That’s fine. And I know what you did. Why don’t you show yourself, you piece of shit? Come out of hiding. Let’s talk about this face-to-face.”
With a glance at Leni, I add, “And you’ll find out what happens to people who threaten what’s important to me.”
It’s not anywhere near what I’m thinking or feeling, but something tells me that’s not the last time I’ll have the chance to tell whoever this is exactly what I’m thinking.
Though next time, I won’t use my words.