Gant
I watch as my knuckles blanch whiter and whiter as I grip the headrest in front of me.
It’s not moving.
The car’s not moving.
We’re not on the road.
We’re safe. In the forest. Parked.
Breathe.
I gaze through the cracked tinted windows of Zedd’s G wagon that he keeps hidden in the forest and exhale.
Everything is fine.
We’re just sitting.
“We can get out,” Aria’s voice drifts softly into my right ear.
She’s sitting beside me, her big curly hair brushing my shoulder, her small hand gripping my knee.
“We can talk outside.”
I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut to stave out the impending nausea as my vision blurs from the motion, reminding me of what the scenery would look like if we were moving.
The engine hums along, giving me all the realism I can take.
I’m fine on the train. A bus. An aeroplane. A trolley. That’s how I got to Beaulieu after all, but private cars I couldn’t get over even two years later. But I had to because I’d spent the week crafting a list of the three people who owned a nineteen-forty to nineteen-forty-four Rolls Royce in dark green. It had to be a Rolls Royce with the Spirit of Ecstasy ornament.
Tall, silver, billowing, just like Elle had described. I look down at the printed photo on my lap of the car now, so sure it had to be the right make and model. From behind, it looks nearly identical to what I can remember, but it’d been a flash. A moving whirr.
“Distract me,” I breathe. “What did she say?”
“The same things she told you, but she’s hiding something.”
I gaze at her.
“We went to a liquor store last week.”
Their little pit stop had taken me by surprise. Stassi nor Aria were big drinkers and from my cyberstalking, neither was Elle. “You never did tell me why.”
“Why do you think? You wanted us to have a little girls’ night. A good bonding session. What helps someone to blab more than some liquid courage?”
“Hmm.”
“Don’t worry, your little dove was safe drinking it in the dorm. We skipped sitting at the bar, but you know who does, or who did?”
I arch a brow.
“Jarett. She kept looking around and around the aisles and not for a drink. She looked almost scared. Then the cashier obviously knew her. He kept staring, she kept looking away.”
I grip the headrest tighter. “That seems too simple. It’s a local spot. My father would have staked it out already.”
“Maybe he already has, and it’s not new information to him, at least. But I did overhear something that could be useful. Her mum calls her a few times a week and each time Elle seems to get progressively upset.”
“About the scratchers?”
Her eyes grow wide. “I knew you bugged her phone.”
“Did you also know that if you win a scratch card worth ten grand or more, you get a feature in the local newspaper?”
“I did not.”
“Jaime, Elle’s mum, went all out for the photo op. Hair, nails, professional makeup, a new outfit. The whole bit.”
“Are you bitter that she spent your money sprucing herself up?” Aria asks.
She catches on fast. It’s what I like the most about her. It’s why we’re actual friends and not default acquaintances because of étienne.
“I wouldn’t care if she spent it on tooth gems so long as she took care of Dove first. Elle won’t let me take care of her, but she’ll let Jaime, to some extent. Even then she feels guilty. She shouldn’t. She deserves basic shit like toiletries.”
“A true humanitarian,” Aria says, cocking her head and glancing at me with feigned admiration. “But next time leave me out of your shenanigans. I looked like an idiot explaining to Elle that I’d accidentally ordered five hundred tampons instead of fifty, so she could take half.”
“She won’t take anything if she knows it’s from me. Did she? Take them?”
“About a hundred. Again, the whole guilty thing. I swear it’s ingrained in her. She hesitates to even accept a stick of gum.”
“It’s how she was raised.”
“We’re from different classes, Gant. It’s easy for us to take and not think twice about it. To not think about what sacrifices people had to make to give it to us because we’re so used to there not being sacrifices. It’s called privilege.”
“Even when it comes to necessities? Her mother got ten grand and she still can’t send them to Elle.” I can hear the bitterness Aria spoke of creeping into my voice with every word. “Elle hates Jarett, but she makes a lot of excuses for Jaime.”
“Jaime must’ve seemed like a saviour in comparison.”
“She deprived her. She subjected Elle to her abusive husband.”
Aria gives me an almost sad look. Not for Elle, for me.
Wasn’t, isn’t Bart an abusive husband and father too? But this isn’t about me.
“She puts Jarett above Elle every single time.”
My mother hadn’t done that. She shielded me at every turn and my father hated it. What had Jaime done? Nothing.
“Did you know Ginhart is Jamie’s maiden name? Jarett refused to give it to Elle. He said she wasn’t his at the hospital. He said she was ginger.”
“Isn’t her Mum ginger?” Aria asks, puzzled. “I saw a picture on Elle’s phone.”
“Jarett isn’t exactly a scholar, is he?”
“I didn’t think you needed to be one to understand the possibilities of genetics recessive or otherwise. But it’s his lack of…well, anything that triggers you, isn’t it? Because it makes you even more confused as to why your mother chose him.”
I freeze, watching my white knuckles again. “I thought I hated Jarett based on that point alone. But the more I track Jaime’s movements. The more I despise her. She’s almost worse.”
“How?”
“Jarett’s direct. Jaime plays little games. She uses Elle as a token. A reminder of Jarett, but she’ll toss her into the fountain if she can just have Jarett himself. That’s what she’s doing with that makeover. With the elaborate spending and the posts on her brand-new social media profiles. She’s trying to reel him in. Instead of her own daughter.”
“Isn’t that exactly why you did it? To lure Jarett out of hiding? Has he taken the bait yet?”
“No. But it’s only been a few days since the publication. It needs more time for the grapevine to catch up. If he’s around, he’ll find her soon enough. That money’s like blood to a leech.”
“And once he has? Will you alert Bart?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I hit her with another question. “Why hasn’t Bart already found him on his own?”
Aria says nothing because it’s a mystery that still doesn’t make sense.
“What about Rin?” I ask, wanting to keep the conversation going so I stay distracted from the humming engine.
“She was at the restaurant eating lunch with her father, like you said.”
“I never said she ate lunch with her father.”
“The old Korean man, right? If it’s not her father, who is he? Her uncle?”
“Why would her father or uncle travel all the way into town only to invite her to lunch and not her sisters?”
Aria pauses, her eyes growing wide. “If she’s dating sugar daddies, what the hell does she want with étienne?”
“I can’t know everything.”
“But you know why you set up Elle to see Rin. Why? Obviously, it was to give Elle some sort of leverage against her. What did Rin do to tick you off?”
“She burnt my dove. I want to tear her down, but I can’t because she’s called for.”
Which is to say she’s completely off limits for me to destroy. But my dove can do whatever the hell she wants.
Aria’s brows knit, curiosity, hatred and confusion all contorting her features. “Called for? By who? Only an untouchable can call her.”
I say nothing.
“étienne? étienne called her?” her voice wavers.
“You know I’m not allowed to say until the caller makes it public.”
“That’s bullshit. Why am I only an untouchable when it doesn’t count? Or when it benefits you? When you can use me for your bullshit.”
“Aria. étienne loves you. I don’t think he cares about a single thing on this planet if it doesn’t involve you. You know that, and isn’t knowing that enough?”
“No.”
“I can’t help you with this.”
“We’re done,” she hisses, reaching for the door handle. “We’re even now. I don’t want to play spy anymore.”
“You’re not a very good one anyway.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not telling me all of your conversations with Elle.” I light up my phone screen and turn it towards her with a GPS pin of the lingerie store they visited. “Why didn’t you tell me you went to a sex shop?”
She doesn’t answer.
“I let it go because I figured Elle was finally getting rid of her horrible granny panties. But do you know what she’s been wearing all week?”
She doesn’t flinch. “Horrible granny panties.”
I nod. “None of the dozens you helped me pick out for her. I thought it was a stupid pride thing. She didn’t want my gifts, so she’d save her coins and buy some for herself at that ratchet sex shop. With you. But she didn’t, so what did she buy? She didn’t swipe her card and you were in there for forty minutes.”
Again, she keeps quiet.
“Then there’s your little sneaky tactics. Like lending her your leotard that can barely cover her pussy to piss me the fuck off.”
“You told me to befriend her, didn’t you?”
“Befriend her, not become her pimp.”
She giggles. “Say pimp again.”
“Oh, I see. So you can keep little secrets but I can’t? Now who’s an untouchable only when it’s fitting?”
She rolls her eyes and is about to bolt when something makes her pause. “You know. You said Elle wanted to help you with this. Help you find the car so you could feel better and get off her ass, no doubt. So why isn’t she here with you now? Oh, that’s right, you don’t want her to think of you as being even weaker, seeing as she’s already witnessed your breakdowns in the greenhouse. What would she think if she knew you can’t withstand a five-minute joy ride?”
“You won’t tell her my secret because you want to keep yours nice and safe. It’s why you helped me in the first place. Although I still don’t understand why it’s a secret at all. But I can guess.”
Again, she’s so quiet. Like a little mouse.
“You don’t want étienne to know where you were the night before school opened because you don’t want to taint his pure image of you.”
She swallows. “That’s not true. I don’t care what he thinks. Besides, you and I are just friends.”
“You don’t?” I ask, hearing footfalls over dried leaves just outside the car door. “Then why don’t you tell him that I was just comforting you? That you came like a thief in the night and climbed into my arms, and cried on my shoulder like a baby when you saw what he was up to with that girl. Why don’t you just ask him what’s going on with Rin? Maybe it’s because you don’t want him to view you differently. You don’t want him to know that you sought comfort with me. You don’t want him to think you’re jealous and insecure because you’ve always been so calm. So confident. So pretty and perfect. But it’s not perfect to creep into someone else’s bed at midnight, even if it is just to cry. Your cheeks were so very wet that night…”
“Don’t,” she hisses, warning me of her limit.
I slide across the leather seats so I’m inches away from her and reach a hand into her curly hair. “But it’s the truth. Like you said, we’re just friends. But étienne won’t see it that way. He’ll just see it as us being all alone..all night. In my bed, on those sheets you soaked.”
She slaps my hand away. “We weren’t alone. You got a special delivery, remember? A custom order,” she says, her voice suddenly growing bold. “What was in that pink box, Gant? I know it wasn’t for you.”
Touche.
She always saved her cards for the right moment. So she had seen.
“You packed it in your suitcase that night. The night before, we all boarded the train to Beaulieu, so I know it’s here. What did you order? What did you do?”
The car door snaps open and I ignore it, staring into Aria’s petrified gaze as she shoves me away. At the same time, she’s being pulled away from me, straight out of the car and against étienne’s chest. In a blink, the door slams shut in my face, but not before étienne’s murderous gaze burns into me.
But for all Aria’s struggling, yelling, and seeming annoyance, she quiets like a good little girl the minute étienne’s low, cool voice begins to chastise her. The moment his long fingers squeeze her mouth shut and cups her chin so that she stares up at him at a neck-breaking angle. And she surely doesn’t protest when he lifts her into his arms like a petulant child who’s disobeyed his number one rule.
No alone time with any male. Even if it’s one of his best friends. Even if it’s one of hers.
Aria’s red and excited face disappears into étienne’s neck as he carries her like a koala bear to the greenhouse for her punishment.
But I don’t get to watch their retreating forms for long because Zedd, Hale and Bae appear, crossing paths with the couple but not daring to intervene. But their shit-eating grins fall the moment they see me in the car.
Bae opens a door first. “You don’t have to do this,” he says as he slips into the passenger seat. “We’re just going to the hacker’s today.”
Bae’s heavy into dogs and cars, so when he offered up a connection in the vehicle registration department, I didn’t ask any questions. What did I care so long as Hacker could get me a list of every nineteen-forty Rolls Royce Phantoms registered in the county?
Of course, my father could do that too, but why would I offer up the make and model information when he hasn’t been successful in finding one little ginger and her piece of shit father?
It doesn’t make sense and until I can figure out why I’m not involving him in anything.
“No. I need to do this. I need to get over it.”
Zedd meets my gaze in the mirror from behind the steering wheel. His expression is blank, but I know what thought is spinning around in his head. Hadn’t we done this song and dance before?
It’s different now.
I have a new motivation.
Find the person that took my mother away. Find the person who can take away all my hatred for Elle and let me have her.
“But it doesn’t have to be today,” Bae says softly. “It doesn’t have to be now.”
“It’s been two years,” I say.
“If he wants to go, let him,” Zedd says, his eyes still boring into my skull.
“We haven’t had a practice run in a while,” Hale says. “Maybe we should just go around the block today. Then the rest of us can—”
“No,” I hiss. “I can’t wait another week. Don’t you get it? I’ve dreamed about identifying that fucking car for years. I finally have a description. A model. A list. Maybe. And you think I’ll let it go for another day?”
“No one’s saying to let it go,” Hale says. “But what’s wrong with taking a backseat, or in this case, getting out of it? We’ll bring you the addresses. Then we can all go—”
“How do you think I can make it to four, five, six addresses in one day if I can’t even make it to the hacker in one short trip? This is the practice,” I say, gripping the headrest tighter as Zedd shifts gears.
“He wants answers. Let’s get him his answers,” Zedd says.“Wait,” Bae starts, but Zedd ignores him, manoeuvring between some trees.
“He’s a big boy,” Zedd says, cutting Bae off. “If he says he can handle it, he can handle it. Right, Gant? Did you drink the tea I made you? It’s meant to be calming.”
I never know if Zedd is trying to be helpful or just trying to prove himself right. His tea is calming because it’s laced with some hippy plant drug that makes my skin feel like ants are crawling beneath it. It’s calming in that my limbs and mind feel too sluggish to react properly.
They say I’ve changed. I say I’ve never known Zedd well from the start.
Our gazes meet in the rearview mirror again, but I glance away only to regret it as I take in the moving scenery.
“You really are morphing into the Zaddy of the group,” Bae coos. “Feeding us. Making tea. Chauffeuring us.”
“I’ve never had a dad,” Hale says dreamily.
We roll over a large branch and the car sways and my brain with it.
Bae shoots me a worried look.
“I’m fine,” I swallow. “Just keep going.
But the more we go, the more everything becomes overwhelming.
The rush of the wind.
The moving scenery.
The sound of the engine accelerating.
It all begins to blur and warp.
We make it over the last set of gnarled roots, but when the street comes into view, and I take in the black tar of the winding road, I panic.
Zedd, still watching me, slows down and unlocks the doors without me asking because he already knows.
I hop out without saying anything and neither do they.
In fact, I barely slam the door shut before Zedd’s zooming off. They know not to approach me or comfort me.
They know that we won’t speak of it at all.
I collapse against the nearest tree trunk, reach into my pocket pull out my phone and stare at the screensaver of Elle and me. She’s sleeping in my arms, her red hair wild and tossed across my grinning face.
That night, when she’d slept in my arms, I didn’t have another nightmare. Another memory.
I wish I had my doll now, right at my side, to squeeze and keep the vivid images at bay. Because when I’m with Elle, it’s just her and I.
And no one else can enter our little bubble.
Not my father.
Not hers.
Not the corpse.
Just us.