“He took you to kill someone?”
“We went out to this pier. He told us to stay in the car, they’d be right back,” Duke goes on. “There was another car, one of my other uncles. We saw them dragging this guy out and beating him up. Then they took him down to the water.”
I take another drink. I’ve seen some fucked up shit in my life, but none of it included murder. That’s by design. Any violent urges I have are expelled at the Slaughterpen. I stay away from the gangs and all the shit that goes along with it. I know how much a life is worth, even a life like mine.
“We were supposed to stay there, but Baron really wanted to go see what they were doing. We were a bunch of kids, so disobeying our parents was exciting. We snuck over to this cement barricade thing and hid behind it. They took the guy down to the river, and they threw him in the water. My uncle held him down until he stopped struggling. Then they just… Let him float away.”
“Damn,” I say, shaking my head.
“I started crying,” Duke says, though I’m not sure he’s really talking to me anymore. “They told me to shut up because Dad would hear and we’d get in trouble. We ran back to the car, and we were supposed to pretend we’d never left. Dad and Uncle Donnie got back in the car, but I couldn’t stop crying. Dad asked what was wrong, and Baron said he’d hit me.
“Dad turned around in the seat, and he said, ‘Well, son, what are you going to do?’ I didn’t want to hurt my brother, so I wasn’t going to do anything. Dad got all quiet, and then he said, ‘If someone hits you, you hit them back.’ But for some reason I just couldn’t, even when he said it again. ‘Hit him back.’ I just sat there crying like a fucking pussy. After a minute, Royal reached across me and punched Baron for me. Then we left, but I knew… I could tell Dad was disappointed, that I made him look bad in front of my uncle. I should have hit him. I shouldn’t have needed Royal to do my dirty work.”
“Or maybe your dad shouldn’t have taken you along for a murder when you were five years old,” I say, the old anger at the Dolce patriarch rising inside me. Sure, it’s nice to take the D-boys down a notch, especially Baron. I didn’t release that video, but I can see why he’d think it was my doing, that I put Dixie up to it. I’ve been gunning for him since I started back. But even if she ruined their untouchable reputation at this school, it doesn’t really solve the bigger problem. It’s alleviating the symptoms without eliminating the root cause.
“By the time we got back, Mom was home,” Duke says, his eyes glazing over. “She’d lit some of her candles and passed out drunk, and one of them had fallen over. The couch was completely engulfed in flame. King ran and got the fire extinguisher. I wished he’d let it burn, though. The couch was already ruined, and the fire was so… Alive. I wanted to watch it forever.”
He’s speaking in a faraway tone, like he’s back there now. It gives me a creeped out feeling, like when Royal gets all hollow-eyed. I shiver and take another drink. “Good thing you got home when you did, though. Right?”
For a long minute, Duke doesn’t speak.
“The next time, it was Dawson,” he says at last, his voice so quiet I’m not sure I heard him right. He finishes his beer and then hangs his head down, his shoulders jerking when a hiccup erupts. At first, I think it’s a beer hiccup, but after a few more, I realize he’s… Crying.
“You did that?” I ask.
“It’s my fault,” he says, his voice rough with tears. “It was my idea to bring him. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Harper. I don’tthink.”
I know I should be disgusted, should despise him, because he was the one who said they’d bring friends when they were leaving me in that swamp. I should take this moment when he’s broken, and I should use it against him, use it to ruin him. But I don’t know if he’d survive it, if he’d ever be vulnerable again.
When I found the one spot where Royal was most vulnerable, I exploited it, and even if he said he’d forgive me, I don’t know if he’ll ever truly let me in again. I won’t make that mistake with Duke. I won’t give him one more piece of evidence proving the world is cruel, that everyone exploits everyone else at their most vulnerable. I will give him more than he deserves, be better than he was to me.
So I get up, and set down my beer, and go to Duke.
“Don’t come near me,” he says, scrambling out of his chair and landing on his ass on the floor, like I’m toxic to the touch. “Please, Harper. He’ll kill me.”
It strikes me then that he’s truly afraid of me. Not physically, but afraid of my power. He knows I have Royal’s unwavering support, that I can do anything I want, that if I say something happened, Royal will believe me, not him. And why wouldn’t he be afraid? All he’s ever known is monsters making monsters making monsters. That’s what the people around him have always done. It’s his world, and he’s a product of that world.
But it’s not mine.
I make my own world. I choose to step out of line. Not to forgive, but to give. Even though I owe him nothing, even though he doesn’t deserve it, even though I should take a video of him crying and begging and pass it around school the way he did with my video, I don’t. I sit down next to him, and I pull him into my arms, and I hold him the way he held me once, the way not enough people have done for either of us.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I’m so fucking sorry, Harper.”
He clings to me, his sobs loud and ugly, echoing through the underground room. When they finally stop, I keep holding him, waiting for him to put himself back together. I think he might have fallen asleep or passed out from drinking so fast and then exhausting himself with tears.
I look around, trying to see if I can find somewhere more comfortable to sit, or at least rest my back on the chair. That’s when I see a shadow in the open doorway to the other room. I tense, my heart lurching as I look up to see Baron standing there, a sucker tucked in his cheek, watching.
Fuck.
Duke said he wasn’t down here, but he looked that way, like he was expecting him. Baron must have come through the tunnel from the parking lot after leaving.
I don’t move, don’t react. Duke’s arms are around my middle, his head pressed to my chest. My eyes meet Baron’s, and I wish I could read him, wish I knew if he was going to start shit about this, tell Royal it’s something it’s not. Or maybe he’ll just watch, the way he watches from the back seat when they ride together. I once thought Duke was the favorite brother, but now I know better. Baron’s not resentful about it. He prefers to stay halfway in the shadows, watching.
But he doesn’t just watch. He gathers information—ammunition. I know better than to trust him. Whatever he sees, it will be used later.
He steps back into the other room, swallowed by shadows so completely I wonder if I imagined his presence. Before I can decide what to do, Duke finally sits up, turning away and pulling the hem of his shirt up to wipe his face.
“Fuck,” he says with an awkward little laugh. “I haven’t cried like that since I was a kid. Probably since that time I told you about.”