23
Locating Murphy was the easy part. Once he answered his phone, he filled us in on what he found out and Jesse told us that the tattoo looked Samoan based on the lines and geometry of it.
The shithead proved useful after all. We got Birdie as comfortable as we could.
Cress joined Jake, Jesse, and Rafe in the kitchen and I can hear the chaos of her trying to wrangle them all long enough to make food to eat.
I’m about to go help when my phone rings.
Unknown:
It’s a race. In two hours, I look down at my watch and it blinks midnight back at me.
The creek is a nasty route. The corner at the bottom of the hill breaks into a row of rocks and below is the nastiest looking creek in all of Arizona.
It’s not deep, but they constantly find trash and bodies in it. And it smells like rotting sewage.
I push my phone away, standing just out of their view to observe the smiles on their faces as Cress teaches Jesse how to cut an onion.
It should make me honest, give me a reason to be forthcoming about everything, but it only drives my need to protect them more.
I take one more look at Cress and she feels it because she looks over her shoulder at me with a lazy smile. One I haven’t seen in a very long time.
When she turns away I take the chance to slip out to the garage. I pull on my jacket and swipe the keys to Rafe’s car, hoping to be gone before anyone notices, but of course Murphy is standing there, judging me.
“Shouldn’t you be upstairs coddling Bird?” I ask him and he crosses his arms. Turns out Murphy knew she was going to that race but he was late. He should have been there, and I’d never hold that against one of them, but I know he feels how upset I am because he’s looking past me out into the night.
“You shouldn’t go alone,” he says. “Isn’t that what all of this proved?”
“I’m just going to pick some shit up from Bobby and I need to grab some things for Birdie. Everything we have is expired.” I lie smoother than I ever have and Murphy still sees right through it.
“At least turn your location on,” he says, his eyes drifting to the pocket holding my phone.
I nod, able to oblige his worry, but it’s not going to keep me from going. With Birdie down an eye for who knows how long… someone has to keep racing. “We either kill them, pay them, or lose the garage and everything we worked for here. We can’t stop moving, Murph.”
“I know.” He responds quicker than I expect him to.
“Then what are you asking?” I wait, itchy to get going but unable to move until he gets it off his chest.
“Just play by the same rules you set for us,” he says, throwing a shaky hand through his shaggy hair as he asks.
“I’m trying,” I lie. In reality, the rules are set to help me keep them safe. If I follow them we’re all in danger. “I need to go.”
“Just be careful. Please?” he asks, clearly very shaken up after Birdie.
“I will be.” That’s the truth, even if Murphy doesn’t believe it. “Location is on,” I tell him, digging out my phone and doing it in front of him so he settles. “Go eat, keep an eye on Bird, and if anyone shows up—”
“I’ll call.”
“Good.” I turn back to the car and when I look up Murphy is gone. The streets are already pretty dead and with over an hour to kill I find myself wandering. Before I even realize where I’m going I’m pulling into the driveway of Cress’s house.
It’s been a while since I’ve been here and I don’t know what I expected, but it isn’t this.
Everything feels grey. The last time I saw this place it was a thing of dreams; a white picket fence picked perfectly for Cress.
Kids were supposed to fill this house, laughter…
a family of Koa’s construction, one to replace the one he already had.
I cut the engine and pocket the keys but don’t move from the seat for another couple of moments.
This place is haunted—that much is sure.
I’m not even inside and I can feel his eyes on me as I wander around the back, swipe the spare key from under the plant on the step and through the screen door into the kitchen.
I don’t know what I’m expecting but a spotless kitchen isn’t that.
From the photos Birdie took and the story that Cress told…
this place should be a mess. The chairs are upright, there’s no glass on the floor, and even the magnets holding up the pictures are back on the fridge.
I make my way through the house, looking over the pristine condition of everything.
The picture frames on the wall hold memories of our past. I’m erased from every single one of them.
It shouldn’t sting, but it does.
You know how she feels.
I stop, eyeing the one on the end that stands out from the rest, and pull my phone out to shine a light on it.
It’s been folded more than once. The lines down the picture create tiny cracks of white that spread across the background.
It’s the photo we took three weeks before Koa died.
Cress is staring up at him like he’s the moon and we’re laughing about something I can’t remember.
I swallow tightly and look around, tempted to pull out my phone and ask Cress if she’s been back in here, but I know she hasn’t.
Murphy and Rafe have been keeping tabs on her—GPS and in person. Rafe hasn’t taken his eyes off her since she showed up. He follows her to work, follows her home. The only time he does is if he knows Murphy is watching.
Someone else was in this house.
They left this for me to find.
I pull the photo off the wall and out of the frame, following the folds and staring at the picture with me removed from it.
Just the boys, Birdie, and them. It should have been me.
I blow out a huff of air and rage stings at the corners of my eyes as I realize.
That day, he wasn’t trying to kill himself. He was trying to kill me.
“Fuck you, Koa.” I shove the picture in my pocket and keep searching the house for anything that will tell me who was here in our absence.
Murphy will have to check the neighbours’ cameras again, or hopefully he’s been keeping an eye on the house.
Maybe someone stopped by and he assumed it was Cress…
I’m rationalizing a hundred thoughts but none of them seem to be making any sense.
The bedroom smells like her, and it soothes the tension I’m carrying in my shoulders as I push open the door and flick on the light.
At first I’d been careful, not wanting to draw attention to the house, but they wanted us to find it, me, Cress.
They expected someone to come home and they’re watching anyway, so I might as well give them a show.
The dresser is lined with more pictures of her, Koa and Birdie.
I ignore them and the feeling of jealousy that bites at my heart as I move across to her closet.
I inhale her scent and check that everything is in place, nothing is strange…
no one is hiding. I shove my hand through the clothes, tapping the back of the closet with my knuckles.
I smile at the Louisville bat beside her bed, the one with the nicks out of the base. That thing has to be twenty years old.
There’s a shoe box on the end of the bed and it’s not necessarily out of place, but there’s an energy to it I can’t explain. Like it’s begging to be opened. I set my phone on the bed beside it and pull off the top.
Inside is all sorts of trinkets and photos, only it’s not Koa’s or Cress’s.
It’s mine.
It’s full of gum wrapper origami hearts, peppermint, Cress’s favorite.
There are some rings I thought I’d lost years ago.
I grab the stack of photos tucked under an old ripped Monroe Motors t-shirt and swallow roughly.
I flip through them, and the more I look, the more desperate I become to be out of this house.
Every photo is of Cress and I, long before Koa became something more to her.
These are from when we were young. I don’t even remember half of them being taken.
The last is folded, crumpled and flattened back out, in similar fashion as the one I found hanging in the hallway, only this time it’s a photo of the three of us and Koa has been completely erased from it with a dark permanent marker.
I stare at it and remember exactly how I felt the day it was captured.
It was the week after he asked her to marry him.
We threw a party for them, and everyone came.
Koa spent the entire night making conversation while Cress made sure everyone was happy and fed.
On the back is scribbled in thick, capital letters.
THIS IS MY FAMILY.
Fuck. The fear that builds tastes like poison.
I set the photos aside and see what was nestled beneath them in the box.
I reach in and grab it, twisting it in my fingers and holding it up in the light.
It’s the ring. The one he took that day, safe and sound in the box.
The rage is undeniable. I keep digging inside only finding more crap that makes no sense to anyone but me.
It’s just garbage, every last thing in the box is useless and fucking pointless.
I dump out the box on the bed, pushing around the quarters and the gum wrappers to make sure I didn’t miss anything. What is the point?
And then I see it.
“How the hell did you get here?” I whisper.
My fingers grip the wooden fox from the kitchen window sill.
I flip it over, checking to see if it’s identical, and along the bottom is the tiny chip in the tail.
I threw it out the window on the way home from the funeral, stopped the car, walked a mile back and forth until I found the damn thing, and it’s been on the window ever since.
My heart is racing because this means that someone has been in our home.
In the kitchen. I chuck it back into the box angrily, fear consuming everything rational.
I clean it all up, check the time, and realize I’m going to be late for that race if I don’t move my ass now.
I tuck the box under my arm and flick off the light before leaving the house.
I chuck it in the back seat and tear away from the house, leaving more confused than when I arrived.
The creek is dead. There’s not a single other person here as I pull up the road and stop the car. The silence is eerie. It sinks into my bones and echoes like it’s trying to teach me a lesson in humility.
This is my family.
It vibrates down my spine.
They were in our fucking house.
I reach over, pop the glove box and pull out the gun to set it on the passenger seat just in case, before checking the place and time on my phone once more. I’m where I’m supposed to be, at the right time, but it’s like I was the only one that received the message.
I survey my surroundings, and get ready to climb out when a set of headlights appears in the distance.
I can’t tell at first, but as it approaches, it’s clear whatever they’re driving is old muscle.
It rumbles along the gravel and its curves blend seamlessly into the darkness like it was made to drive in the shadows.
The windows are tinted and I can’t see who’s in the driver’s seat, but everything about this feels wrong. My hand flinches toward the gun beside me as the passenger door opens and a young girl who resembles Birdie climbs from the car and saunters over to my side.
“It’s up to the pass,” is all she says as I roll down the window. “He says, don’t lose,” she adds when I open my mouth to ask her who I’m racing and why I was brought here. She watches me for a moment longer before backing away from my window and standing between the cars.
Everything about this feels dangerous, like I’m driving into a trap, but I don’t think I have much of a choice.
The car beside me revs its engine in impatient wails and I pull up to the line.
I don’t know this road very well, but I do know the hills and I know every pull of the steering wheel beneath my hands.
I can win this. I know I can.
I inhale slowly, check my mirrors and watch as the girl drops her hands.
The cars take off from the line, my heart racing faster than the engine as we speed into the darkness.
There are no street lights up here, we’re relying solely on the light of the moon to keep us from going over any edges.
We hit the first curve, barely sliding into it without hitting one another but he sneaks out in front of me as we straighten back out and all I can do is switch gears.
The car purrs beneath me, begging for more speed and I oblige as best I can, urging the pedal down as I maneuver us around the next corner.
Each one we take grows tighter and I can feel my breath shortening despite trying to control it.
The rush of driving ignites my soul, something I haven’t felt for the longest time.
Unfortunately, the only other time I felt like this was with Cress in my lap, opened up on the highway.
My feet move in time with my hands and my thoughts, shifting gears as we pull up the hill.
Rafe will kill me if I destroy his car, and it’ll destroy me if I lose.
The air from outside funnels into the car and numbs all the other sounds as we make a sharp right higher into the hill.
This high up its thinner, sweeter, almost like you can taste the rain.
My heart hitches.
My fingers slip.
Just for a moment I lose control, my mind bouncing around in a collection of unwanted nightmarish memories.
Focus. My eyes train on his back tires, he’s got to be less than two feet in front of me, but it feels like a mile as the sign for the pass whips by my window and I know there’s seconds to close the gap and correct my mistake.
The engine strains for a moment and then catches up smoothly with one final push.
The bumper of the car ahead inches closer, but he pulls his car in my lane, forcing me back as we take the last left turn.
I can see the final exit sign for the pass and know that if I don’t do something now, I’ll lose.
I never lose.
I shift gears one last time, praying that he makes a mistake. But he doesn't. His car surges forward, widening the gap as he passes the exit, securing the win with practiced ease. The wheels burn loudly as he whips the tail end around and faces me on the street.
My throat is tight, my skin hot, my palms sweating around the wheel as the headlights beat down on me through the windshield. I almost expect him to play chicken, but after a long moment, he burns out from his spot and whips past me without ever showing his face.
What the fuck was that?