twenty-five
Harper Apple
As I run from the car, I curse myself silently. I should have leapt into the road and tried to get help. Not that anyone on the highway could have stopped in time to avoid hitting me.
It’s too late now, though. I ran into the rice paddies because I was on that side of the car. At least I’m alive, which means I have a chance. That’s what matters. If I want to stay alive, though, I can’t make mistakes. I can’t make decisions out of instinct and fear. I knew this was coming. How many times did I tell myself that if they found out what I’d told Mr. D, they’d kill me—and that was before I spilled the secret that could destroy them. But I wanted to have my fun and eat it, too, so I kept seeing Royal, even knowing it would be worse when he found out.
As I run, I think of the warnings. Baron told me Royal was a lot of things, but forgiving wasn’t one of them. Royal told me to leave them alone or I’d be sorry. DeShaun told me what happened to people who cross the Dolces. But I didn’t need any of them to warn me. I already knew they were dangerous, even deadly. I should have had a plan in place.
I try to turn on my phone to dial 911, but it’s dead. They’d never get here in time, anyway. I keep thinking if I can get to the trees, I can hide. Cottonmouths are out, but the water’s still cool in late March, and they’ll be slow. I’ll risk them rather than the Dolce boys after a betrayal like mine.
It’s almost dark, the sun setting behind the trees. I send a prayer of gratitude as I reach the far side of the rice paddies and race through the weeds to the trees, my feet sinking into the boggy ground with each step. I can hide here.
I duck behind a tree, my heart hammering with wild panic.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Duke’s taunting voice sings.
His laughter echoes over the murky water.
I stand perfectly still, my back pressed to the thick trunk, my feet on the swollen base of the tree above the water. I swallow hard when I see a snake floating to my right.
Suddenly, Baron is on my left, grabbing for me. I leap away from the tree, toward the snake. I almost fall but gain my feet, charging through the water and ducking behind the next tree and the next. But the fucking water gives me away. The ripples lead them right to me no matter how many times I run, and dragging my feet through the knee-high water starts to exhaust me. We go deeper into the swamp, into the shadowy darkness under the new leaves and twilight sky.
I almost escape the twins. When they catch me at last, I kick and slash, frigid liquid sloshing around our shins as we struggle.
But there’s one more.
I may be a fighter, and I could maybe escape the twins, but Royal’s a fighter, too. Royal has moves. He’s bigger and stronger and just as skilled as me. When his hand tightens around my neck, my mind flashes back to the railroad tracks, to the day in the hall he choked me out. I see the same emptiness in his eyes now, and I try to reach him like I did then. I know now that our monster is the same, and some part of me clings to the hope that he will recognize that killing me will kill a part of him.
But the darkness is too deep, and I can’t find even a shadow of the boy I love.
When I start to lose consciousness, I welcome it this time. I want to black out. I want it to be over quickly. I hold my breath and try to force myself under.
“Don’t kill her, dude,” Duke says. “We get to have some fun with her first.”
Royal drops me into the water, and my traitorous body sucks in air, like it wants to live, even if that means our last hours are torture. I hear a semi on the highway and imagine myself back at the Hummer, throwing myself in its path. Again, I curse myself for running. Being crushed by an eighteen-wheeler would have hurt less than what I know is coming.
The twins pull me to my feet, jerking my hands together in front of me. I don’t know when I dropped my phone or my knife. I’m still fighting for consciousness when I feel a rough rope cutting into my wrists. Baron deftly binds my hands. I start to flail, fighting with panic, elbowing Baron in the mouth where I smashed my knee and Duke in the injured shoulder, but they’re too strong. It was over the moment Royal stepped in.
Duke pushes me forward, to a little raised patch of ground under a tree. My brain’s still stunned by the lack of oxygen from when Royal choked me out, and I can barely walk. I think I’m crying, but maybe it’s just swamp water running down my cheeks. The twins wrap the rope around the tree above my head, so my hands are pulled up against it. I try not to howl in pain when my broken hand is crushed against the rough bark. Standing back, they look me over, breathing hard and spitting blood from their exertion while subduing me.
“I’ve been waiting to get my dick in her since day one,” Baron says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m going to enjoy this. I even brought toys.”
“You sick bastard,” Duke says, slapping his shoulder and setting his own backpack down. “I only brought beer.” He cracks one open and takes a long drink. Baron unwraps a sucker. They watch me cry and beg like the pathetic bitch Royal says I am. What do I have to lose? Pride’s never done shit for me.
When at last I accept that Royal is gone, that he can’t be reached in that place he’s goes inside himself, I turn to the twins.
“What are you going to do to me?” I ask, my whole body shaking.
“I think you know that,” Duke says with a grin, his eyes raking down my body in a way that makes the hair rise on the back of my neck.
“We’re going to fuck you,” Baron says, watching my reaction with keen interest.
“It’s about time Royal shared that juicy ass,” Duke says. “I want to see it bounce.”
Baron grins, too, a twisted little smile that makes me cold all over. “I want a taste of that pussy that brought my brother to his knees.”
“Royal,” I cry, twisting around toward him. He doesn’t look at me. He hasn’t looked at me since he said I was dead to him. He’s going to kill me. I know that. It’s as if I’m already dead, a ghost he can’t hear. The twins both look at him, waiting to see if he’ll answer me. Waiting for his permission.