Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
PJ
The week’s been a bit of a blur.
I managed to change clothes on Tuesday, but I haven’t showered since. It aches too much, missing Fallon in there with me. The only food left in my place is for Jolene. I’ve been living off stale leftover shit from the custodial break room on campus.
Mostly, I’ve spent a lot of time wandering around, because being at home in my shitty apartment for too long reminds me of him. He’s in every corner and every drawer.
At some point I called my ex to ask if I had been a good boyfriend or a bad one, and she mumbled to me that it was four in the morning in Australia and if I wanted to have an existential crisis, I needed to do so at a more convenient hour.
I think I remember buying coffee for a woman I accidentally bumped into at Buzz Buzz Buzz. Maybe ice cream for a kid I bumped into a few blocks later. Was that real, though? I don’t remember actually talking to anyone.
I recall going to campus a few times but not actually going to class. Facing Fallon while I still have this wide-open wound in my chest could only end in disaster.
In between everything else, I drove past his house a few…several times. I didn’t stay because I didn’t want him to see me and call the cops, but I needed to be sure he was okay. Lights turning on and off inside was the only proof of life I got.
What I know for sure, as I wander into the laundromat on the North Side where Brennan keeps his office, is there’s a stain on my favorite shirt and I smell like a disturbing mix of exhaust, coffee, and pistachios.
I don’t remember eating any pistachios.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” Ravi pops his head up when I walk into the back office of the laundromat. He’s kicked back in a chair on the other side of Brennan’s desk with a textbook open in his lap. The man in question isn’t behind it, but his bodyguard/first in command, Jalen, is.
“Uh, where is he?” I blink, looking around the room as if seeing it for the first time. Have the lights in here always been this bright?
“You okay?” Ravi sits up in his seat, squinting at me. “You sick or something? You missed class all week. I tried texting you. There’s a quiz Monday. You can borrow my notes if you want.”
“Oh. Right.” I search my foggy memory. “I think maybe I dropped it.”
He blinks, looking confused behind his glasses. “But you’re a senior. If you don’t take it, you don’t graduate.”
I shrug. “I’ll take it next semester.” Or I won’t.
I’m having trouble caring right now. I do know one of the things I did today was my usual tour of the East End, where I showed Evan’s picture around.
Once again there was nothing, except pity on the faces of the people at the Mission, who recognize me after showing up every week for so long.
For all I know, Evans is gone and there’s no point in any of it now.
“Fuck it, man. Who fucking needs a college degree?” Brennan comes marching out of what looks like a storage room, followed by three more of his guys. Scott or something, I think? The other two don’t look familiar.
All of them are hauling duffel bags of what appear to be guns. A lot of guns.
Is this real? Did I wander into a Tarantino film when I wasn’t paying attention?
“You robbing a liquor store or something?”
Brennan laughs. “Please. I haven’t robbed a liquor store since I was twelve. And if I was gonna do that, I wouldn’t need this many guns.”
“What’s all this for?”
While Brennan and his guys are laying weapons and ammo out on his desk, Ravi’s the one who answers.
“So, B said most of the people who have gone missing on the East End were last seen near the old train tracks. He’s had his guys staking out that peach factory you told him about.
He thinks they’re using decommissioned shipping trains to transport people and other contraband over the border. ”
“You remember Simon’s boyfriend had some clients go missing,” Brennan adds.
“They were moved out on yachts and private jets too. Gotta figure it all ties together, but we’re not exactly sure how.
What we do know is there’s been a ton of activity in the last couple days.
Looks like they’re getting product ready to move out. ”
People, my fuzzy brain supplies. “You’re talking about people going missing and calling them product.”
“If I didn’t think of them as people I wouldn’t be trying to rescue them, asshole.”
“You’re rescuing them so the guy running them won’t take over your turf,” I grumble. “Everyone’s self-serving as fuck.”
Brennan puts down the gun he’s checking and braces his hands on the desk.
“Do I want to stop humans from being treated like cattle? Yes. Cattle shouldn’t even be treated like cattle.
Do I want to stop the piece of shit who’s trying to take over my territory?
Of course I fucking do. Both things can be true.
We contain multitudes, you dick. At least some of us do.
Anyway, this interloper sounds like a real piece of shit. They call him—”
“Eric Leslie,” I mumble.
“What?” Brennan looks at me like I’m off my rocker. Which I very well might be, to be fair. “They call him the Ghost. No one seems to know his real name. What makes you think you do?”
So, I recount the story, the one about Fallon’s brother-in-law, leaving out the attempted murder part, only saying they’d thought he was dead, but that Fallon had identified him, that the same guy had left cameras and creepy messages for Fallon.
Ravi’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wait, you’ve been sleeping with Mr. Monroe. Our lit teacher?”
“If you tell anybody, I’ll murder you in your sleep.”
Ravi smiles. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about me. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen that nobody knows about.” Then he smiles and returns to his book.
I’m honestly starting to wonder about him.
Brennan slams a clip into a gun. “Matches with a lot of what I’ve heard.
This guy’s selling junk that’s killing people.
And the rumors that if you piss him off, you disappear?
Maybe he’s killing them, maybe he’s trafficking them.
Either way, my intel says there’s a big shipment going out tonight, and I intend to head him off.
Gonna burn his whole operation to the ground. ”
“I told you I wanted in if you were taking someone down. Why did I wander in here and find you fingering your gun collection?”
“It’s called taking inventory, you little weasel, and you’d have known about it if you’d checked any of your messages in the past few days.”
Oh. Right. I pull up the messaging app on my phone. Between Brennan and the group chat I have hundreds of them.
“I saw you sent me some stuff,” I admit. “I assumed it was for jobs, so I didn’t read them.”
“Suddenly found yourself a sugar daddy?”
“No.”
Never once did I think of Fallon as a sugar daddy. Hell, I wouldn’t have wanted him to be. I’ve taken care of myself for a long time. Would I have given it all up for him? I certainly thought about it. And after Fallon came to stay at my place, I didn’t want to go out without him.
The night he touched me with shaking hands before fucking me into the mattress assaults my memory. All that trust and love feels like a lifetime ago.
“Well, if you’re going after this guy, then I’m coming with you,” I tell Brennan. “I want to fucking kill him.”
He’s a danger to Fallon. He was such a horror to Fallon’s late wife that she tried to murder him. He’s terrorizing the entire East End. He has to die.
Brennan raises one dark blond eyebrow. “You don’t look like you could manage stomping a cockroach right now. No offense.”
Ravi holds up a finger. “To be fair, cockroaches are notoriously hard to kill.”
“I hate it when people say no offense. They only say it because they know they just said something offensive.”
Brennan laughs. “I’m telling the truth. If you’re offended, no skin off my ass.” He looks me up and down. “Can you shoot?”
“Not really. I’m good with a knife, though.”
Nobody would’ve let me have a gun when I was in foster care, and they’re fucking expensive.
“I can shoot.” Ravi holds up his hand like he’s ready to answer a question in class.
My head swivels to face him. “You can?”
He shrugs. “Sure. My, uh, the guy I was sent to live with after my parents died? He’s some former military something or another. He taught me a few things.”
Ravi knows secrets. Ravi can shoot a gun. What the hell else don’t we know about this kid?
“Look. Real talk. You go in there, it’s a solid possibility you don’t come out. That something you idiots really want to sign up for?”
“Yes.” No hesitation on my part. Fallon needs to be safe. That’s what I know. That’s what matters.
I’m surprised to see Ravi’s head bobbing as well.
“If you can stay the fuck out of the way, I’ll let you ride along,” Brennan says. “But if you don’t know how to fire a gun you’re not going to be the one who kills this guy. I never thought I’d say this, but stay behind Rav.”
I look at my friend, who’s five-foot-five and not even old enough to drink yet. “What are you even doing here? Don’t tell me you came down here to help Brennan kill off his competition.”
Ravi’s eyes get wide. “Oh. Yeah. No. Well, I came down here because we were going to discuss the details for my auction.”
Right. The fucking virgin auction. As soon as I straighten out the rest of my shit, I’m having another talk with this kid.
“But then I stayed when Brennan told me what was going on. This guy is hurting people, PJ. He’s taking people who were already struggling off the streets and putting them on shipping trains to Mexico.
That’s so wrong. And when someone is doing something wrong and you can do something to help, shouldn’t you try?
” For a second Ravi’s eyes narrow, before he adds, “Besides, I don’t like it when people use their power to hurt someone who can’t fight back. ”
Well. Shit. Okay.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him I’m not sure most people would bother to help, but I don’t.
Ravi’s starry-eyed earnestness is refreshing.
I’m not going to be the one to beat it out of him.
I’m more selfish, is all. If I can take this piece of shit off the board, then Fallon won’t be in danger. He won’t have to be afraid.
And I will be the one to kill him, I don’t give a shit what Brennan says. I refuse to hide behind anyone. I’ll carve him apart, one tiny piece at a time.
“Look alive, man!” Jalen yells and then tosses something at me. A baseball bat. I manage to grab it right before it hits me in the face.
“What the fuck? You almost knocked me out.”
Jalen grins. “Needed to make sure you were alert enough to not get yourself killed. You’re looking a little rough there. Worst-case, if I knocked your ass out, at least then we’d get you to stay put.”
I give him the finger but wrap my hands around the bat. It’s solid and satisfying. Made of wood, not aluminum. It would crack a skull open easily.
“Okay.” Brennan zips up the bag he’s been rifling around in and looks at everyone. “Listen, no bullshit. We’re going in light because I’ve heard this guy’s a sick son of a bitch, and I don’t want people getting killed, or worse.”
Ravi holds up his hand again, and I’d bet my life he’s about to ask what’s worse than getting killed. I shake my head, telling him to drop it. Thankfully, he does.
Brennan points to Jalen and then to…Scott?
No, I think it’s Mehmet—whatever his name is.
“These two are my eyes and ears, and in my absence they give my orders. You fucking listen to them. I don’t feel too warm and fuzzy about taking you guys along, but this is a little like the parent who lets their kid drink at home so they don’t go out and party somewhere else. ”
Ravi raises his hand again. This kid knows how to shoot a gun? “I don’t understand.”
“He’s saying he’s letting us come along because he doesn’t want us to try to go off on our own and do something stupid.”
To be fair, I absolutely would. I’d leave Ravi behind, though.
“Exactamundo.” Brennan, the asshole, gives me finger guns. Then he hoists one of the big bags, and Jalen does the same.
He points to Ravi and me. “You two keep your eyes open and your hands to yourselves.”
Ravi nods earnestly. I’m a little surprised he’s not taking notes.
“Form a line behind me, you murderous ducklings,” Brennan shouts. “We’re going to go show some pieces of shit they can’t fuck with our town.”