Michael

Freckles cries and heaves outside the room and suffocating dread coils up to my throat. I bury my fingers into my forearm, rocking back and forth as I sit.

I can’t do this.

These days at Lyn’s have been unbearable. They were calm. I mulled over and over in my head the vents of the past. They became like poison, like a snake that coiled around me. And I know that I deserve it, but-but it’s unbearable. I couldn’t look at Hanna, much less talk with her about anything that happened. I forced myself to sleep in the same bed with her mostly because she wanted to, but every night I dreamt of hurting her, or myself, or someone else. And each morning, feeling her presence next to me, I felt so choked by guilt and my bloody past I wished someone would’ve murdered me in my sleep.

I know I want to fix the damage I did, but I… I can’t. Not when my morals finally caught up with all that I’ve been doing.

My teeth bite on my lip so hard I taste blood, but it’s all I can do to not wail.

It is not enough.

I need to get out of here. I can’t stay.

I jump up from the bed, hoping to leave behind the guilt, the pain, everything that I’ve done, but as I stand and reach the door my baggage doesn’t stay on the bed. It comes with me full-force. I stumble into Lyn in the corridor. She has a gun tucked into the waistband of her green pajamas.

With a step toward her I grab the gun. By the time she calls out in alarm I’m already galloping downstairs and out the back door.

Freckle’s face hovers in front of my eyes like a phantom. I can’t get rid of her, no matter how many times I blink.

I can’t take this anymore.

I stumble outside and down the porch into the snowy backyard. I’m shivering, but not from the cold.

“Wait!” Lyn’s voice gets lost behind me as I run into the forest, but I hear her plod through the snow behind me.

I pivot, extending the gun at her. She stops dead in her tracks, staring at me.

Snapping back into my original intention, I put the gun to my temple.

“Please!” Lyn puts her hands out. “Please, don’t! You don’t deserve to die!”

“You have no clue what I deserve or not!” I scream, cold metal so comforting against my hair and skin.

I can end it. Right here, right now.

I have the gun in my hand and no one can stop me. Lyn’s eyes, lit by a warm light coming from the house bear into mine; frozen, unblinking.

She doesn’t seem hateful or like she wishes for me to die. In fact, she seems…compassionate.

I want to kill myself anyway, right? Does it matter then If I tell her things or not?

Something in me breaks. “I-I kidnapped her! She’s my hostage. I murdered her sister.” I feel dizzy as the words leave my mouth, this uncontrollable itch to talk becoming a tsunami I'm powerless to stop.

But for whatever reason, incomprehensible relief floods me and Lyn’s face turns paper white. Her feet flinch. She wants to run.

“Don’t run,” I whisper, clenching my teeth so not to cry. “I’ll save you the trouble.” I pull the trigger and squeeze my eyes. Lyn gasps, extending her hand—

I freeze. Nothing’s happened. My finger didn’t bend. She’s stupefied too, tears gathering around her eyelashes. We stare at each other,  gazes glued as if looking away would cause all hell to break loose, as if it’s not loose already.

The safety is on. Of course, I forgot.

She watches as my thumb slides it to the deadly side, but I’m shaking ever more now. In despair.

A distant thought bubbles up to the forefront of my mind. What about Freckles? “I made her a promise to live,” I gasp out a string of suffocated words. I don’t know why I’m saying this out loud. I don’t know anything anymore. “But I can’t…I can’t.”

“I know,” Lyn nods. “I know it feels like you can’t.” She lifts her palm slowly and brings her fingers to her sleeve. Pulls it back. I squint and in the faint light discern many scars on the skin of her forearm. “Trust me, I know,” she then points a finger to my left. Unsure, I turn my gaze to the side.

Two graves.

I falter, my knees weak under me. She’s a cutter and she’s lost people…

“These are just reminders. One is for my dog,” she says, “The other for my son.”

I just stand there in stupor, pistol still at my temple, then come back. “But you haven’t hurt anyone,” I utter, my attention flitting from the graves to her cut arms to her black eyes.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

She shrugs slowly. “I got to the point where I brought a knife down my arm. Do you think the pain is that much different?”

I can’t help but let out a sob. “Why do you stay then? Alive?”

“Well,” she shuffles her foot in the snow, “I thought I might as well relax, escape from the world. That’s how I ended up here, in this house,” she adds quietly, “I guess I punish myself by secluding,” she gapes as if she’s just realized something, “oh, that’s why I felt alive when Crytal arrived. I’ve been so lonely and only now do I see how lonely. Anyway.” She refocuses on me.

The barrel of the gun clatters against my skull. I couldn’t comprehend Freckles and I sure can’t comprehend Lyn. She doesn’t want me to die either? What the fuck? How do two people who have been through a shit ton in their own lives don’t want me to die? Maybe because they know what this pain is like.

My hand with the pistol falls to my side and I succumb to my knees, sobbing.

“But how do I live? I gotta go to prison. It’s so not fair. I need to pay for this.” I look up at her. Though seeming lost she still comes closer and takes the gun from me, then places one unsteady hand on my shoulder.

“Come into the house. Let’s talk, okay?” She says.

I regard her with a wary gaze, but get up and shuffle alongside her back into the house.

In the kitchen she pours me a cup of tea and mixes some honey into it. I swallow my tears, even though I don’t know if I should or want to, given that she’s seen me at my worst and knows what I’ve done.

She moves rigidly and her eyes lack her usual softness that I noticed they had before. She’s probably in a mild shock from having a murderer in her house, but she doesn’t freeze or panic. She still seems to be coherent.

“So,” she stretches the word as she places the cup in front of me. “What happened?”

I swallow, glancing at her from under my brows. I feel so defeated, so tired of life that I can’t find a single fuck to give. I tell her. And I tell her everything. From me killing my father to my life in the gangs, to the people I killed because the gang wanted me to. I tell her about how I picked my victims, how FBI and Hanna’s brother were tracking my gang, and that Hanna went snooping around where she shouldn’t have and that I got orders to get rid of her.

Lyn listens. Her eyes stray sideways sometimes in deep thought. Sometimes I catch a look of disgust on her face and I promptly look down. I feel like I’m confessing and I’m sinning more just by looking up at her; this heavenly creature who still somehow didn’t pull out that gun and shoot me in the head, but I don’t… can’t stop talking.

I describe how after I took Hanna I failed to kill her because she wasn’t someone who met my killing criteria and that instead, we had to get on the run that led to us beginning to interact and develop this fucked up relationship. I chuckle as I talk. It’s funny how my psyche started falling apart. By interaction.

When I finish I’m trembling again. I can’t help it. My wounds throb and my whole body is alive with sensations of grief, and loss, and guilt. For what it’s worth I’ve never felt this alive before.

Lyn gapes, lost for words, then exhales as she closes her eyes and leans back in her chair. “Well, that sucks.”

Is that all she’s gonna say?

And with that I still, as if my body remembered who I am. God, what have I done? I just spilled everything to her, endangering, myself, Freckles, and her. Should I kill her now? Would it be better?

She notices me taking deep breaths, looking at her in my unblinking gaze. The terror that spreads through her face snaps me out of it. She shuffles back in her chair a little.

“I’m not calling the cops,” she whispers as if she’s just read my mind. “I’m intent on holding my promise of letting you two rest until you can move on. I don’t want any part in this,” she pauses, thinking. “But I’m glad you didn’t shoot yourself.”

I snicker and wanna tell her that if she calls anyone, I’m gonna hurt her, but then stop myself. This would evolve into another hostage situation. I can’t repeat my mistakes.

But what do I do? I don’t know how to not be threatening. Maybe I should be honest?

“I don’t trust you,” I say. “And I have no clue how to protect Hanna with you in this house.”

“Understandable,” she says, wringing her hands as she tries to keep her composure. “The only thing I can say is I need to think about all this. And are you kidding? I’m basically your hostage too now,” she throws her hand to the side, “who in their right mind would do anything stupid with a murderer in their house, especially when we can just agree for you two to leave peacefully.”

Oh, great. She feels like she’s a hostage.

“By the way,” Lyn exhales with exhaustion, “Hanna’s okay for now. She had a panic attack and I led her to the other room. Gave her my blunt to pull on.”

It’s a bit funny how it wasn’t anti-anxiety meds or anything proper. “I could use a blunt.”

“Sure,” she says, a crooked smile appearing on her face as if someone’s just asked her about her hobby. My desire to shut down her happiness kicks in but I swallow it. She ferrets out a little bag with her supplies and just rolls a joint on the table, her scarred forearms showing. The whole picture looks familiar to me. This is how gangers look with their hunched backs and scarred arms, and eyes obsessed with the drug.

“Have you ever been involved in crime?” I ask tentatively.

“Daddy’s been,” she says, not looking up, her black long hair slipping around her shoulders.

Relief floods me. Relief my body was trained to feel around the presence of my own. I remind myself that gangers can betray you just as easy as they help you. But she’s not a full-on ganger, is she? Probably just an amalgamation of her father, her lost son, and money.

But somehow I still feel more at ease.

She lights the joint and gives it to me. “This is the best,” she says knowingly.

I pull on it.

For the first time I wanna kiss someone not because I’m horny, but because I’m grateful. I feel like I’ve dropped the load of a lifetime I didn’t know I was carrying. Just by sharing things with her.

“It’s good right?” Lyn raises her brows at me.

The weed is the last thing on my mind. “Don’t tell Hanna this happened, okay? It's hard for her as it is.”

“If she hasn’t figured it out already from all the noise we made, but she seemed pretty out of it.”

Lyn stands, walking to the kitchen window. It’s dark outside but I know she’d be facing the garage. Her face appears sunken as she peers out into the night. The glazed look in her eyes reminds me of Hanna.

“I’m sorry,” I let out.

“Life,” she shrugs, not turning. She trusts me enough to turn her back to me. This is a good sign.

A minute of silence passes.

“Springs coming,” she says casually, then chuckles. “I still haven’t fixed my lawnmower. Keep putting it back. So stupid. The back yard will look like a shaggy beard.”

I raise my brow. She’s just random like that, or maybe it’s me starting to feel stoned.

Smoke rises from the joint in my fingers. Lyn seems pretty abundant in this stuff. Back in the gangs we’d always be reminded to save weed. Not that I smoked much.

“I could fix it,” the words leave my mouth before I think about it.

Lyn turns, propping her hand on her hip. “You know how?”

“I’ll figure it out.” I had my fair share of fixing things. “I can look it at least.”

She thinks for a moment. “This is really weird but okay.”

I take another hit, my body slackening in the chair, either from this completely new idea of being useful for something other than illegal things, or getting higher.

Maybe both.