Chapter 44 Emerson
Emerson
This team is lucky to have never had the Butler rage rain down on them.
With them, I have been patient. I have been courteous.
I have been giving, offering not only my wide-ranging expertise but my knowledge and resources as well.
I booked this Airbnb, obviously, but before that, I was always a conscientious guy.
Even now, I flipped the breaker for them so this house wasn’t completely pitch-black. Here I am, always handing out favors.
Not that they have ever appreciated it.
But this time.
This time, they took their lack of gratitude too far.
Thanks to the Tylenol I found in the bathroom, the pain in my thigh has ebbed slightly, moved from an ever-present, constant surge to a pounding. I might’ve fallen asleep at some point out there. There were periods I don’t remember. I heard my father’s voice, delivering his disappointment.
“I can’t believe you won’t be on that stage as the valedictorian,” he’d said after we got the news from the counselor about my third-place finish. “But this…This I’m not sure I can abide.”
But he doesn’t know that I’ve taken his advice to heart. That I won’t give up. Not least of all now when I’m so close.
I breeze in through the front door, past Avery and Caulder, and into the kitchen. I strip off my filthy, muddy jacket and drop it on the marble floor with a wet plop. Who cares about the cleaning bill at this point. I can just charge their parents and have my father’s collectors follow up.
But for now? Now I need something for the raw, aching thirst in my throat. I go to the fridge, pull out a beer, crack it on the side of the counter, and begin to down it.
“What the hell happened to you?” Caulder asks, staring at me. “Dude, are you okay?”
I snort. Am I okay? Of course not. I glance down at my pajama shirt, equally as filthy as my jacket and covered in what looks like literal sludge.
“I tried to get to the road.”
“You mean the mudslide?” Kaitlyn asks, snorting with laughter. “You tried to climb a mudslide? After being attacked twice?”
I glare at her. “I was trying to save our lives. And, yeah, thanks for reminding everyone that I’m the one who’s taken the beating tonight.”
“We should get that leg cleaned,” Avery says, jumping forward. “You don’t want it to get infected.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I say, taking another pull on my beer. “Whatever it is, my father’s doctors will be here to fix it first thing in the morning. And I’ll tell them to send the bill to this little bitch’s mom. Not that she’ll be able to afford it, of course.”
I don’t care if people gasp at the words. I don’t care because they might be ugly, but they’re true.
“Excuse me?” Marlene says. Avery tries to put a hand on her shoulder, but Marlene shakes it off. She stares at me, having the audacity to look surprised by what I said.
“You fucking stabbed me,” I snap. “You think there aren’t consequences for shit like that? Guess what? There are. And you’re about to pay them. So you’ll have to put off going to community college—”
“Emerson,” Avery says, and her voice is hard. “Stop it.”
“Or what, Winslow?” I snarl, turning on her. “You can’t do shit. Not unless we need someone to choke at the last minute. God, I can’t fucking believe you’re getting salutatorian on a technicality.”
“You’re delusional,” Avery says, hand lashing out to snatch my beer bottle. As she grabs it, beer sloshes over the side. “Only you could go through a night with a literal killer and talk about our goddamn rankings.”
I laugh, hard and cold, the sound ringing through the kitchen. “You’re so stupid, Winslow. So fucking stupid. So—”
It happens unbelievably fast. One moment, I’m standing there, enjoying Marlene’s pathetic tears, and the next, I feel the slam of the wall on my back as I’m thrown backward.
It takes a moment to process, my brain already feeling like soup, but then I understand.
Caulder’s hands are on my shoulders, and he’s got me against the wall.
His elbow’s near my windpipe, not quite choking me, but close.
“We keep telling you to shut the fuck up,” Caulder says. “But you don’t fucking know how to listen.”
Panic seizes me suddenly. My wound and the reality of Caulder’s strength hit even harder than the pain in my leg. But I have to stay strong. A man’s strength must be infallible.
“I’ll sue you,” I cough out, but it’s more like a whine. Damn it.
“I don’t give a shit.”
I need to appeal to him on grounds he understands.
“Don’t you see, Caulder?” I gasp, struggling against his grip. “We have to do whatever we can to survive. They want to take it all from us, and we have to do whatever it takes.”
And then, I start to sob.
Big, heavy tears roll through the mud on my cheeks. At the sight, Caulder lets me go, and I crumple to the floor, yelping as pain surges through my leg.
“This isn’t how this was supposed to go,” I moan, back to feeling like everything’s swimming around me. “This is fucking ruined! You ruined it!”
I wave my hand at Marlene, at all of them, but it’s Marlene who jumps up from the barstool and races toward the stairs; then she pauses at the base of them and turns around, her face streaked with tears, and she points in my direction.
“?Mejor callate hijo de tú puta madre!” she yells, and storms up the stairs.
“Marlene!” Avery calls, moving to follow her, but Kaitlyn grabs her wrist and holds her back. Avery looks at Caulder, who shakes his head.
“Let her go,” Kaitlyn says. “We’ve already got the murderers locked up anyway. Let her cry herself to sleep.”
I still. What did she say? Was that another hallucination, or did I hear her correctly?
“You caught the murderers?”
Kaitlyn glares at me. “Yeah, no thanks to you. Dorman and McCullough. We locked them in the seven-minutes room.”
Interesting. Fascinating, even. I look down to check my Rolex, then remember I wasn’t wearing it tonight. Lucky for Marlene. One less thing she has to pay for. I eye the beer bottle that Avery took from me, but she walks over to the sink and pours its contents down the drain.
“Well then,” I say. “Maybe Marlene has the right idea. I think I’ll go take a shower and clean this leg.”
“You leave her alone,” Caulder tells me, and I smirk. As if she has anything I want.
“I’m not going to bother her,” I say. “I’m going to take a shower.”
I don’t wait for them to agree. I don’t wait for them to give me permission. Because no one gives a Butler permission to do anything.
But they’ll regret not helping me as I drag my leg up the stairs.
They’ll regret it all when I’m done with them.
Before that, though, there’s something I need to do. Something I should’ve taken care of a while ago.