 
# Wannabe

### by David Gearing

# Copyright © 2014 by David Gearing

All rights reserved.

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Published 2014 by Akusai Publishing

www.akusaipublishing.com

First Published in 2013 by David Gearing

Cover copyright © 2014 by Akusai Publishing

Cover design by Kevin Johnson/Akusai Publishing

Cover art copyright © Chrobatos/stock.xchng vi

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

### Table of Contents

Begin reading WANNABE

About David Gearing

More by David Gearing

Coming Soon from Akusai Publishing

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#

**Chapter One**

and when I poked my first body with a stick, I never, ever thought it would have been my grandpa. The corpse didn't bloat up so much, but his skin looks so—so thin. Like noodles. Or wontons. Okay, I'll level with you. It wasn't a stick, but a cooking spoon.

"Pop-Pop?" I say. Because even when you think someone's dead or sleeping, you always err on the side of sleeping.

He doesn't budge. And I'll be honest with you, the smell isn't that bad. I read somewhere that when you quote-unquote pass on, you have a tendency to go shit yourself. Something about muscles relaxing or whatnot. We never covered that much in my basic undergrad psychology class. Instead, we covered how to deal with grief.

Or at least we were supposed to. I was a little behind on the reading.

Pop-Pop must have been looking for someone to call, because his hands clasp the receiver of his old wall-hanging home phone in a tight claw of a hand. His muscles pull tight against his skinny frame. Tight, but so white. So, so white.

Directly behind him sits the baby-shit yellow rocking chair that my dad bought him nearly twenty years ago. The rest of the house is old, wooden paneling and dark. Even with the track lighting drawn up slightly, as they usually are, the place feels like it absorbs light, not reflects it. Graduation pictures of my mom and her brother hang on the walls. If it weren't for the dust, I might be able to make out exactly who was who.

My grandfather, "Pop-Pop", is spread-eagle on the floor and bent over at the waist. His cheek is pressed so tight against the low-thread carpet that his jaw sags open.

My first dead person, and he dies under my watch. Of course he does. Just fucking perfect.

I hold my breath and grab the exposed part of the phone receiver in his hands and pull. And pull again. And again. His soft old-people hands thump against the carpeted floor with each tug and release. This old fucker just won't let go.

It's funny, in a state of panic, you have a tendency to forget what you were really doing when you get somewhere.

Where I was supposed to be was in the kitchen preparing my Pop-Pop a can of tuna fish. At eighty-nine years old and after five mini-strokes, the poor guy ate like a cat. I tried to at least put the fish on some bread, but that always backfired. He'd eat the bread, scrape the fish off the bread with his tongue, and ooze the half-dissolved bread-goo out of his mouth. Ever see melted ice cream pour out of a dispenser at the mall?

Ya, kinda looks like that.

Pop-Pop has a helluva grip, and no matter how I pull, he just isn't letting go. Just when did _rigor mortis_ settle in? Was it hours? Days? Minutes? Why didn't anyone tell me these things when I was volunteered by my mother to watch my Pop-Pop after school?

By watch, I meant, make him food and watch him half-chew and swallow canned tuna until he fell asleep. That was my cue to go back home, read and/or study and let my mom do the rest.

And I swear to God, it was tempting. I could have—at that moment—just allowed my mom to find the mess. Let her come into the room and see her father lying on the floor, phone in hand, looking helpless as an infant with SIDS.

His skin feels so soft against my fingertips, but the muscles remained stiff, hardened. Pop-Pop held on with his dying breath, literally. I feel like I'm desecrating the dead by doing this. Disturbing the body while trying to phone for help.

"C'mon, Pop-Pop," I say, though it's not bloody likely that he was listening, "you can give up the phone now. Just let me have it."

But he isn't giving the fucking thing up. His fingers snap back into place as I pry them off one-by-one. Cartoon style, the way you see birds pluck the fingers of hapless cats and dogs, hanging on phone wires.

"Come on, damn you."

His body begins to feel cold against my fingertips and I realize that I have to gun it. Just do the damn thing, pull the fingers back, and take the fucking phone.

And it almost worked out that well until I hear the snapping of his fingers back into the palm of his hand. All four of his fingertips make a soft clapping noise as they shoot back to their original, tight-gripped position.

I swear I felt my food climbing up my throat.

Pop-Pop's hand sweat covered the handset in a thin film. The thought of that wetness on my ear—like a slobbery kiss from your dog—gave me shivers. Wiping the phone against my shirt, I dial up my mom's work number and pray to God that she actually answers. But she doesn't. At least not right away. Mom used to tell me all the time, call her if I needed anything.

I know it doesn't make any sense to whisper, but when I take the fifteen steps it takes to be in the kitchen, that's what I do. "Hey, mom? It's me. I got a question for you."

My mother's voice goes silent. She mumbles something to herself. I only know it's about me because she doesn't actually say the words out loud. If it's about my sister or my dad, she's as loud as all get out.

Across the room, pictures of my cousins stare at me with wide, smiling eyes.

"Mom?" I say. "Seriously. What do you do when you find a corpse?"

"Cooper," she says. "What do you mean? Corpse?"

"What do you do when you find one? Like, do you move him?"

As if it's happening right in front of me, I can see her rolling her eyes then checking the clock on the wall just above her cubicle. As the two events begin to merge in her mind, she begins to process cause and effect. "What happened, Cooper? And Speak slowly."

"I think Pop-Pop is dead."

There's silence. "That's not funny." Her voice feels still. Cold as Pop-Pop on the floor.

"It's not a joke, Mom. I'm pretty sure he's dead."

"How sure is pretty sure?" she asks. Because, ya, I'd lie about something like this.

"I don't know," I say. "Pretty sure."

"Is he breathing, Cooper?" An obvious question she asks. I feel stupid for not checking myself.

I rest my foot against Pop-Pop's chest, wait for it to rise or drop. "No change," I say.

"Cooper, this is not the time to be rummaging through his pockets."

Goddammit, bitch. "No, mother. There's no change in his chest. He's not breathing."

"I'll call nine one one," she says, "and then I'll be right over."

"You don't trust me to call for an ambulance?" I ask.

My mother hangs up.

Chapter Two

"When did this happen?" My mother stands in the hallway before the living room. Her hands remain tight against her mouth and she speaks through the holes between her fingers. "What did you do?"

"Why does it have to be I did something when we find a corpse?"

"Do not call him a corpse," my mother says. Her eyes widen and her eyebrows nearly reach the top of her forehead. "He is your grandfather. Not a corpse."

"But I—"

I'm interrupted by a man in a blue EMT jacket. He's tall, buzz cut and looks more military than a sensitive EMT guy. The usual empath must have been off today.

"The man is dead," Buzzcut says. He wipes his head with his hands and then looks at us with a fake sorrow that I mastered nearly thirteen years ago. Amateur. "If I could, I'd like to ask you a few questions. You know, for our investigation."

"I thought cops do the investigating?" I say. I look to my mother who barely resembles a cognizant human being at all. She might as well be Pop-Pop.

I flinch when something metal clicks only three feet from us. My mother, she doesn't budge a single inch.

The stretcher comes into the hallway. The wheels clang against the metal at the hallway door. On top, blue and white sheets folded neat and tight on top of each other. This is how they will get my grandfather outside of the house without my mother breaking down.

At least this is how they will try.

Sensing my mother's distress, Buzzcut stops the questions and motions over for my mom to step forward. "Ma'am?" he says.

My mother stares off into the distance. Her fingertips trace her lower lip and for a second, it looks like she's smoking. She quit nearly ten years ago, and we were all happy for her—especially my dad—but believe you me, I'd understand if she just started up again.

"Mom?" I say.

"What, Coop?"

"This man over here would like to ask you a few questions." She smiles and wipes the tears off her cheeks with the backs of her hands. Then she folds her arms tight against her chest. "Yes, yes. Of course. What do you want to know?"

I don't know what he's asking; I simply nod my head up and down until I stop hearing his voice. In front of me, two women lift my Pop-Pop onto the gurney and pop it up on its wheels. One of the women—the black one, small frame, beautiful hazel eyes—smiles a tight-lipped smile. The kind of smile you give when you really want to frown, but can't.

I feel my lips make the same shape and hold it. I feel a sensation crowbarring its way into my brain. This whole situation is trying to make me think about what really happened. About what they are wheeling out of this house. What will never come back no matter how long we wait. What is really, really going on here.

The gurney rustles, metal slaps against metal, as they wheel my Pop-Pop out of here. Buzzcut does a great job standing between them and my mom. He directs her eyes toward a clipboard, forces her to watch his pen and read some ink on a paper. None of it really matters much. He won't admit it, but it's for her own good. Trust me on this one.

Pop-Pop is wheeled to the ambulance outside, two wide doors opened to receive him. They'll take him to the university, shove him in a freezer, and wait for further instructions.

My mom's eyes, they look pink, looking bloodshot and raw like meat. Her hands begin to tremble as much as her words as she answers questions about who my Pop-Pop was, who I was, why was it he was left alone. She raises a quivering hand and looks to me. "When did you find him?"

I look at the clock and realize I have no idea. "Four? Ish?" I say. "Right when I called you."

Her eyes blink in disbelief.

"It's not like I'm lying to you," I say. "Check your phone."

"You called me at work, Coop."

"Well I called you as soon as I noticed. He was on the ground and something like _Law and Order_ was on television or something." I stop my shoulders mid-shrug and check for acceptance of my excuse. "I don't know."

"Alex Fennimore Cooper. You called me at five!"

I nod. "I had a test."

"You," she says. Her fingernail practically disappears into my chest. "You were supposed to be here at three. You know he needs his meds!"

"He can take his meds on his own," I say. "They're right there next to him on the table!"

My mom slaps my cheek. I feel the red and heat, my face a stove burner on high.

"What the hell?" I scream. I tell myself I'm too old to cry.

Beyond irrational. My mom's face reflects the blue and red lights of the ambulance as it drives off. She says nothing to me as she forces her straw-like legs into the car and drives off to follow the traveling corpse of her father.

Behind me was the house, still unlocked but cold and uninviting. The baby-blue wooden weather paneling of the house might as well be ice blocks of an igloo. To stand next to the house is to be next to the bloodless embrace of death. I lock the door and step to my car, marching the wedding march of defeat.

I have to force out the emotions for my mom. Try to be stable so she can as messy as she needs to be.

My father, my sister are—who the hell knows where.

The cell phone rings and my mom's number flashes on the caller ID. I'm reluctant to answer, but I cough to clear my throat. Smile though she can't see me. "Get home soon and fix dinner," she says. "Whatever you can find. Your father will be home soon."

We don't normally play any kind of music when we eat dinner, but for the first time the oldies from the 60s, 70s and 80s serenade us as we chew our chicken cutlets. My mother's eyes focus on the picture behind me—a painting of wine glasses, distorted red apples, and purple grapes.

It's only when I shift my seat, wave back and forth, and I receive no response from her that I realize she really is ignoring me.

"This is really good chicken, Alex." My dad smacks his lips as he chews. I tried that once and had my dinner plate taken off the table. Strictly a do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do kind of guy.

"Thanks," I mutter between chomps.

"See what you can do when you actually try to do something?" my mom says, deadpan and barren of life.

"Dori, don't. Not now," my dad says. "Now is not the time."

"Do not tell me what to do, Ian."

My eyes look over to my sister, who sits with saucer-sized eyes. Her pupils bounce from parent to parent like she's watching a tennis match. Mom-Dad-Mom-Dad-Mom.

"What the hell, mom."

"Don't talk to your mother like that," my dad says. He sets his fork and knife down and glares at me. You know, because I apparently started it.

"My father is dead, Alex."

"And what am I supposed to do about it now?" My dad's eyes widen, bigger than our dinner plates and he follows my silverware. My knife and fork are pointed at my mom.

"Nothing," she says with muffled laughter. Her eyes gloss over, her skin puffy and getting puffier. Any time now and the water works will start. It's almost like clockwork.

Then she stands up and looks me in the eye. Despite my dad putting his hand on her arm, she leans forward across the table. "Nothing. It is what you are good at."

"Dori," Dad says.

"Are you kidding me?" I shout. My feet twitch and quiver like a plucked string on a guitar.

"Face the facts. You killed him."

"Mom!" I plead. Is she really doing this right now?

My sister gasps and gulps.

My dad—well, he says nothing.

My feet carry me to the door. I'm not even aware I've left the table, but like instinct I flee the scene.

"That's all he cares about, Ian, is himself." My mom's words echo through the entrance and push me out the front door to a huge painted truck parked along our sidewalk. Yellow, with doors wide open at the back end of the trailer. Movers.

Large men in gray and blue shirts carry out someone's furniture. A tall blond woman shouts at them, directing the flowing furniture train into the house next door.

"Honey," she says to a younger version of her, except with brown hair and softer features. The girl's hair bounces on her shoulders as she nods to her mother's commands.

The mom's pointy fingers move into my direction. The girl's head, it moves, too, and two green discs flash their brilliance with red lips and soft, butterfly lashes.

"Hi," she says. Her lips are dark red pillows, pouty. Fluffy. "My mom wants to know if we can maybe borrow your microwave. These gorillas over there broke ours." The lugs carry more furniture—a glass display cabinet and some side tables—into the house. True to this beauty's words, one of them looks like they stumble and nearly drop a table.

My first reaction, of course, is to hand over everything. Instead I say, "Yes. Yes you can." Sure it wasn't my microwave, but I was sure my mom would be okay with it.

"I'm Coop," I say. Try as I might, my hands never left my pockets.

"I'm Alicia," she says. " _Enchanté_."

"Nice to meet you, too."

I rest my hand on the doorknob and pause. "Um, I should probably tell you," I say, "but the house is kind of in a mess."

"I'm sure it's okay," she says with a laugh.

And I blush.

We creep through the living room, step by careful step, until we both stand in the kitchen. The metal box that is our microwave sits ripe for the taking. My mother and father are back in their bedroom. The door is closed, only a thin beam of light illuminates the hallway carpet.

"Whatcha doing?" Holly asks.

"Go away, Holly," I say.

My sister leans up against the refrigerator and crosses her arms. "First you kill Pop-Pop and then you steal our microwave."

"She's borrowing it," I say. My head pokes into the thin opening between the fridge and the wall to find the plug. "Go away."

"Are you on drugs?" she asks.

"For a little kid, you ask a lot of questions."

"Who's this?" Holly says.

Alicia giggles. At least one of us finds this shit funny.

"Alicia, this is Holly, my kid sister. She's thirteen. Holly, this is Alicia."

"And how old are you?" Holly asks.

I sigh, bite my cheek to keep from yelling at her. "There. Done," I mutter. "Take it before she calls the cops."

Holly giggles. As does Alicia.

"You're cute," Alicia says. Both Holly and I look to each other; my sister has the same idea that I do...she was complimenting her.

My hands rip the cord out of the wall and Alicia thanks me. "We'll have this back as soon as possible," she says.

"Don't worry about it," I say.

"What if mom sees all that dust?" says Holly.

"Go back to watching your shows," I say. "Look, that guy's shirtless." Both Alicia and Holly's eyes turn to the television. "Watch out," I say and grip the edge of the microwave. Alicia turns to face me, and for the first time, she's so close I could kiss her nose. Such a cute, cute nose.

I follow Alicia outside with the heavy microwave resting on my chest, uncomfortable and unruly, I might add. The things we do to fuck women.

Every grueling step feels heavier than before. I stomp to her house and finally rest the microwave on the shrink-wrapped couch. "Will that work?" I say.

She nods and her mother enters the room. Her yellow and white dress flows around as if an ocean wave of sunshine. Everything about her screams elegance. A light stack of papers shuffles in her hands. Plans to the house, small pieces of grid paper with blocks where someone could plan out where to put what. Based on the size of the grid, I'm guessing living room.

"Honey," says her mother. She hands Alicia a blank map. "You haven't filled out where you want your things. I won't let the movers take your things into the house until I get this back." Behind her half-moon glasses, Alicia's mother looks at me. Her eyebrows rise as she asks, "Is he one of the mover's sons? I will not have a weak little thing like that carrying my precious clothes only to drop them all over the ground. We're already down a microwave." Her eyes drop to the map, and then circle the room around her.

"No, Mother," says Alicia. "He is our neighbor. He let us borrow his microwave."

"That was thoughtful, dear," her mother says.

"Wasn't it?" Alicia winks at me. "We should get going, though." She grabs my arm and pulls me outside, shutting the door behind us.

"Your mom," I say, but Alicia interrupts.

"Is a little forgetful, I know. She's so busy with the move." Right on cue, she brushes a lock of hair behind her ear and smiles. A dimple on each side of her face appears, happy to see me.

"We have a funeral this week, so I doubt we'll even get a chance to use it."

"I'm so sorry," she says. My eyes only half register the words. All I see is green. Green, green eyes.

"Don't be," I mutter with a sideways smile of my own, "I heard there's food at those kinds of things."

Although she continues to smile, the wrinkles in her forehead tells me she has no idea how to react. So, I smile and force laughter. It doesn't take at first, and I feel the beginnings of embarrassment coloring my face.

I open my eyes, wipe them. Pretend I'm still laughing. I am that funny.

She still does not smile.

"I mean," I try to explain, "my grandfather passed away. We're doing the quick burial thing since half of my family is going to Europe."

She nods awkwardly while refusing to lock eyes with me. My mind screams at me, "You're losing her!"

"Are you going to college here?" I ask. Change of topic. Pretend the last thirty seconds did not happen.

"No," she says. "Not yet, anyway." She does that frowny thing again with her eyes and forehead. "I'm graduating this year, then doing college."

"You're—"

She fills the in the blank with "Seventeen." She smiles. She's got me, and she knows it. "But I'll be eighteen in March, though."

And she's a Pisces. Perfect.

"I'm twenty-two," I say.

She smiles. College boys turn her on. Point in my favor.

The forest green door to my house opens up with a swift rush and my mother's pinhead emerges from the entrance. "Where the hell is my microwave?"

"Didn't Holly tell you?" I ask.

Alicia waves to her and extends her hand as she walks the short distance to my house. "I have it, ma'am," she says. My mother's guard relaxes, her shoulders drop. "I'm Alicia, ma'am. Pleased to meet you. Coop kindly offered his microwave until we can buy a new one. Ours broke in the move."

Her hands drew a line to the van parked out front.

"I see," my mom says. "It's no problem. Just return it as soon as you can. I can use the oven in the meantime."

"That is so generous," says Alicia. She clasps her hands together and rests them in front of her. "Thank you so much." Her beauty pageant smile lays on the charm kinda thick for my tastes, but it diffuses my mother's frustration.

"Not a problem." My mother's glance turns into a stone-inducing glare in my direction. "I need to see you when you are finished. Nice to meet you, Alicia."

The sound of the door closing hides the escaping burst of air I held in my lungs. "Thank you so much," I say. "I owe you."

"You can make it up to me by showing me around here sometime," she says as she walks away. I watch her ass bounce up and down as she struts back to her own front yard.

The front door cracks open and it's my mother poking my head out. "Get in here," my mother commands.
Chapter Three

"Don't have time to work on your homework but you have more than enough time to gallivant around with that girl?" My mother's voice stays calm, cool, but her face says otherwise.

"She wanted to borrow our microwave," I say.

"Ya, they took our microwave, Mom!" my sister screams over to us. She sits on the beige couch, curled up completely while nose-deep in her Game Boy. "I mean, what if I want a burrito or something?"

"Then I'll go and take you get one," I say to her. "You're being ridiculous mother."

"I need to make sure that your grades are better this semester. You're in danger of flunking out, Al—Coop."

"You can call me Alex, mom. And who says 'flunking out' anymore?"

My sister laughs from behind us, which I take it as a sign of approval. I laugh, too.

"Get that smile off your face," my mother says. "You need to take this seriously or we are not going to help you out with your payments anymore."

For a second, I swear my heart literally stops beating. "What do you mean by that?"

"Your student loans. Your car payment."

"I don't even live here," I say. "You can't do that to me!"

My mother pauses and smiles at me, the kind of smile that says "Now you've fucked yourself hard."

"Good point," she says. "You're cut off completely."

The house goes quiet. My sister seems to have turned off the volume of her monster collector game, listening in for more juicy gossip or quips.

"This is ridiculous," I say. "I didn't do anything."

"Exactly," my mother says. "Enough is enough. All you do is nothing." She walks to the door and opens it, looking outside—not at me, but outside—and says, "You can go now."

I have a million arguments flooding my head, racing like cars around the tracks of my brain. But it's no use, and even my brain knows it. I pause and my mouth opens despite my internal warnings, despite the problems that I foresee, despite my own need to get out of there and away from her before I say something—do something—do _this_ —that I know I'll regret.

Please don't. Please don't. Please don't.

It closes and I wave to Holly. She's bent over the back of the couch, her head nestled in the palms of her hands. "Bye," she says.

The door closes behind me.

And despite this bullshit, the sun shines bright, the birds chirp, and a blond girl beside me bitches at a few over-sized gorillas for dropping a table.

"And seriously, if you think we're going to pay for this shit?" Alicia asks. She holds up a small chipped piece of wood, large enough to stake a vampire and I can't help but wonder just how the hell the movers managed to do _that_? "It's coming out of your pay."

The first gorilla steps forward, twitches a little bit, then tries to get a word in edgewise when Alicia holds her hands up to the man's lips.

"If you know what's good for you," she says. "Hush." Alicia's lips turn to smooth, silky red ribbons. Her yellow sundress looks almost transparent around her shoulders and I swear I see hints of pink bra strap.

Please, let that be pink bra strap.

Alicia looks over at me and smiles, waves.

I wave back. And maybe a little too long, because she goes back to yelling at the gorillas while I'm staring and waving. Just staring and waving and feeling beads of sweat build up under my armpits. Stupid warm Februaries.

My car waits for me in front of the garage. The streets are mostly empty this early afternoon, and it's a nice time to break for it, make it home, have a shot of something and try to go to sleep. Pretend none of this happened.

"Wait!" Alicia screams when I shut the car door. She runs over to the passenger side with the stake still in her hand. "Where are you going?" she asks.

"Going home."

She raises an eyebrow and looks at my parents' front door. "Um?"

"This is my parents' house," I say. "Not mine."

Alicia smiles and opens the passenger side door. "Sounds good to me," she says.

"But, um," I stammer.

She fixes the seatbelt so it rests in that space just between her tits. "Are we going or what?"

I put the car into reverse.

Alicia throws herself to the sofa and sprawls out as soon as I open the door. She looks down at me, those green eyes working their way up and down my body, and she smiles. "Got anything to drink?"

"That's a good question." It sounds like I'm being coy here, but there's an honest-to-God truth in that statement. I haven't shopped in over a week, I've been too busy studying.

I open up the refrigerator and listen as the flat screen television electronically hums as it turns on. A loud voice comes on announcing that someone somewhere in the southside has shot someone else. Same shit, different day.

"How about a beer?" I ask. "I mean, maybe water?"

I run the faucet and let the coca-cola glass from McDonald's fill up to about halfway and come out into the living room. She's now sitting up and watching without even blinking. "Have you ever wondered?" she asks slowly.

"Wondered?" I pry.

Alicia looks up at me and takes the glass, sips some water. "Nothing," she says. She waves off the comment with her hand. "Just nothing." Her eyes, however, they stay glued to the television.

"I'm sorry it's not too homey," I say. I look around and survey the six hundred square foot apartment, with its white painted brick walls, light brown carpet and windowed corner. It only takes about twenty steps to get from the front door to the kitchen, forty to get to my bedroom, and thankfully fifteen giant steps to get to the bathroom. Things you count when you're drunk.

"It's fine," she says. "It's cute." She sips more of the water. "What are you thinking?" she says.

I pause and look at her neck, white alabaster skin and picture perfect curves. "I'm wondering why I even brought you here," I say.

She blushes—or at least I think she blushes. "Are you shy?" she says.

"Nope, not at all."

Her fingernail pushes into my chest. "Yes, you are!" she giggles a little bit, then sits closer to me. "You're so shy, which means you like me, which means that I can get away with anything I want."

My first impulse is to correct her, but she's right. She has tits, so she's got carte blanche to do whatever the hell she wants.

So, I nod. Smile. Wink.

"You're adorable when you're shy."

"I—am?" I stutter. My heart beats through my ears when I feel the pressure of her fingertips through my pants knee. "What is that?" I ask.

Her finger climbs up my thigh in slow, inch-worm crawls. "This?" she says. Two more nudges across my thigh.

I nod and swallow the feeling to cry out.

"This is nothing," Alicia said. She pulls herself forward, pulls on my Green Lantern t-shirt and kisses me on the lips. Her lips feel slick, fruit-flavored. I don't remember her putting on any chapstick or gloss.

"Cherry?" I stammer out.

She nods and wipes her mouth. "You're a wet kisser," she says.

"You're," I say, searching for something that won't make me look like a complete imbecile. "You're good."

She chuckles and rests her hand on my knee again. "You're so adorable," she says.

"And so are you." Resist the urge to bite off my own tongue. "I mean—"

"I know what you meant," she says. Her hand climbs up and I attempt to resist the urge to stiffen up.

"Maybe I should go home," she says.

"Maybe, I guess. I mean, did you tell your mom?"

"Tell her what?"

"That you're—you know—coming over?"

She laughs like I just told a joke.

"I didn't know it was funny," I say. "I mean, I just figured that it would have been safer than getting into a car with a stranger."

"You're not a stranger. Your name is Coop," she says.

"Actually, it's Alex," I say, but Alicia rests her index finger against my lips. She purses her lips and whispers "Shh."

Alicia eyes me and probably sees the sweat trickling down my forehead. "And you certainly aren't dangerous." She chuckles and I don't know if that is a compliment or an insult. I'll take either. She looks into my eyes because maybe she's studying them.

I'm suddenly aware of my own eyes and whether they may be dilating or changing color. Maybe I blinked and I didn't know it just yet. Would it be silly to ask?

"Ya," she says, blinks. "Maybe you should take me home." She stands up and clutches something like a wallet in her hand.

"Right," I say.

As we walk down the stairs, she kicks a stray pebble off the top step and watches it bounce downward.

"I'm sorry, you know," she says as she gets to the bottom step and looks up to me. "About your grandfather."

"Pop-Pop?" I say. I nod. "Thanks."

The corner of her mouth turns upward. "You don't seem so broken up over it."

I'm not sure what to do, so I smile, turn my head to watch a little boy playing with a ball in the parking lot. "I don't?"

"I mean, maybe if you weren't close to him, then I guess this is normal."

We walk to the car, but in truth, it seems as if she's walking the way. "What do you mean?" I ask.

"I don't know." She turns around, looks me up and down. "You just don't look like you care that he died."

"I care," I say. "I care a lot."

She smiles. The bitch is mocking me.

"And I was there when he died."

She raises her eyebrows and smiles. "Did you do it?" Her red lips draw my entire gaze.

"What?" I say. "No, of course not." I wave it off. "No, I did not, as you say _do it_. Okay? I didn't do it."

"I believe the lady doth protest too much," she mutters in a deep, British accent.

"Car's over here," I mutter. I unlock her side of the car and look over. "What TV show is that from?"

She chuckles. "Not a show, you pleb," she says. "It's from a play. Shakespeare. _Hamlet_."

I nod. "Never read it."

"What do they teach you in these public schools?" she asks with a smile. Her seat belt clicks into place and I start the car.

As I back up, I mutter, "Gang signs and drug seller's economics mostly." This brings a smile to my own face as I pull the shifter into drive. I'm looking at her as the car drives forward and then comes to a sudden halt.

My foot is on the peddle, but only after both Alicia and some chick yell at me.

"What the fuck are you doing?" the woman screams at me. She slams the hood of my car with her hand, makes a fist, and then does it again. "Are you fucking crazy? You could have _killed_ him."

The woman holds her five-year-old boy by the arm, pulling him up to my view.

My own heart feels slow, but pulses in my neck, my ears. "I'm sorry," I say. But not loud enough for her to hear me. "I'm sorry," I say.

Alicia swallows back some laughter.

The woman, she still yells at me through the windshield. Then, her eyes widen and she comes to the passenger's side door and knocks on the window. "Open up," she says.

Alicia shakes her head. "Fuck that bitch."

"Maybe I should—m"

"If you open that," Alicia says. "I will so not go out with you again."

I shrug and let my foot off of the pedal. The car rolls forward at two miles per hour. The woman, her eyes widen even further and she pulls her child off to the side. She watches us inside, me scared shitless and trying to keep my attention in two different directions and Alicia holding her hand over her mouth to keep from belting out laughter. The neighbor chick follows me along the parking lot road.

We come to the intersection where my parking lot meets the street that bisects the entire apartment complex. Neighbor lady slams on my windshield one more time.

"Screw this," I say. Putting the car into park, I get out of my car and point my finger at the woman. "Get your damned hands off of my car. I said I'm sorry, okay? If you don't back the fuck up, the next time will be for realsies." I get back into the car and strap on my seatbelt.

"You are so getting a blowjob for that," says Alicia. Looking out at each side of the grassy sidewalks, I turn left and drive to Racket Street.

"Did I just do that?" I ask.

"Yes, you did, killer."
Chapter Four

MY mother preferred for the casket to be open, so of course I can't go near the damned thing.

When I go—not to the casket, but The Big Goodbye kind of go—I wanna be burned and dumped somewhere. Not sure where or how far out, but I'm not going to let anyone stare at my fake-looking corpse. I know how much makeup they put on you. I know where they put superglue. No way. No how.

My mom barely looks at me now; why would she stare at me when I'm lying in some over-priced, silk-lined wooden box?

My mom's side of the family sits on the far right side of the room. The room we're in is borrowed from the Baptist church on Seventh Street. It was a favor my mom called in, since she runs the yearly Christmas Bake Sale.

The room remained bare. Redwood walls, bright halogen lights. Pillars of candles lining the back of the room. The white face of Jesus, staring painfully up at the ceiling, embedded into every statue and colored mosaic in the place. It seems like overkill at first. After all, only ten members of my family even came to this thing.

My eyes, however, were the only dry ones in the house. I don't know how to feel or how to think in a moment like this. I know I should be feeling something, but I can't. Like writer's block, but for normal people.

My aunts, Kim and Jaycee, were busy reading the rest of their poem; one obviously made about six minutes ago. The family weeps more at the end. It ends with a metaphor of my grandfather's candle extinguishing in the night. It's too much for my mother and she wails in sorrow. Her face melts downward, the way the Greek tragedy masks look in high school theater posters.

Everyone in the room turns to watch my mother stomp out. The noise she makes actually embarrasses me, and I don't know why. The more she cries, the more I feel I should cry. But I won't.

"I'll get it," I tell my sister. "Stay here." I exit the room and pause. I had never heard my mother wail before. Her high-pitched echoes shake the insides of my head. "Mom?"

She stands and covers the lower half of her face, the way someone might cover their face when escaping from a smoky, burning building. Each step she takes, quick and deliberate, echoes in the hall. Her skinny body has lost its grace. Her heels used to clip-clap in a natural pattern that only a dancer could have. Now, her heels sound off in a nervous beat, jittery.

My mother leans against a window and wipes her eyes. She tucks the tissue somewhere behind her and her red, swollen eyes survey the empty hallway.

"My father, Alexander, was a man I looked up to," she says. A smirk appears, then disappears on her lips. "How could you not? He was the tallest man in our family. But still gentle. Always so gentle." She takes a deep pause. For a moment, I forget she's even talking to me. "But he was more than that, Alex. He was more than that."

My aunts step outside to where we are, popping their head out in unison. They ask if we're okay, but my mother and I, we don't bother to answer.

"He was the center of our family and the most thoughtful human being anyone would ever have the luxury of meeting." She swallows and smiles again. "He was the master of everything he tried, but he was wise. The type of wise person who knew he didn't really know anything at all. But that didn't stop him from telling me that you were a sweet, sweet boy. How lucky I was."

My watch says nearly an hour has passed since this whole event began. And yet still, I can't cry.

Instead, I see how phony this whole thing is. I search the walls for cameras. Maybe one of the windows is a one-way mirror, a director telling his camera one to zoom in on my mom or camera two to pan across the casket.

That's how fake, how forced, this whole thing feels.

I think about the make-up designers behind the west door who are ready to apply more tears and rouge to the cheeks.

It's a stage, I tell myself. It's all so damn fake.

The poem was too bad to be real. My cousins, new ones I haven't seen in—well, ever—have been crying non-stop, like hired mourners.

Fake.

They haven't even seen Pop-Pop since he had the strokes. They never fed him. Helped him to the bathroom. Since the last three strokes, I was the one taking care of him. He, my own grandfather, barely knew me. His gaze drilled through the walls, to the next house over and still, no recognition of my own presence. He didn't know where he was, who he was with. He knew he liked tuna. Knew he liked peanut butter.

That's it.

I was named after this man. But he barely recognized me. Never asked how my day was when I came to visit him.

At four-fifteen every day, I shoved a pill into his mouth. Fifteen minutes later, I gave him the next one. Each psychiatric pill didn't seem to affect anything, but my mother, that ever-loving, ever hopeful overlord, wanted to believe. Wanted me to feed him pills. To read to him. To care for him.

I stayed for two or three hours every day and never saw one of these fakers there. Not a single fucking one.

Once, for kicks, I fed his pills to him in cheese, the way we gave our golden retriever her hip medicine.

I think the cheese confused him, but my grandfather never spit out the pills. He got a little milk protein with his psychotherapy. No harm, no foul, right?

I never said I was proud of all of this. As soon as I could, I left my Pop-Pop there until the nurse came off her first or second shifts. And I left him alone with her. I had to. I couldn't really stand just being there with this living, breathing statue.

No recognition, barely any form of communication at all. Once I think he grunted, but it could have been the squeaky recliner for all I know. I spent countless hours, days, months with the man in his own private, mental box. Yet, I can't cry.

These fakers cry out his name in praise and their cheeks are streaked with tears. Waterlogged.

And queen of them all, my mother, is pointing her fingers at me.

"...was so great, so special, that I named my only child after him. I hoped that one day he would grow up to be that man. Smart, dedicated, loving, caring." My mother's hands fall to her side gracefully and she offers us the fake smile she gives me when I give her something she didn't want for Christmas.

My aunts stand by my side and each grabs a different arm.

"Instead of getting the gift of raising another Alex Cooper in this world, I get this being in front of me."

What.

"This ungrateful child."

The.

More people pour in from the room as Mother's voice gets louder. Her words now becoming screams, she points at me and says, "This same monster who killed my father."

Fuck.

My mother's face still puffy and the room still, still silent. Still crying. Fake. Fake. Fake.

"The hell is your problem?" I ask. My aunts next to me, the relatives at the doorway, the cousins that are nearest to me—physically, not emotionally, believe me—do nothing except move over a nudge.

"You killed him, Alex. You're selfish."

"I had a fucking test," I say. I step forward, but stop. My legs wobble underneath me like weak noodles, ready to collapse.

I take my first few steps to the door and my mother begins to sob. Her chest gasps for breath, she's crying so hard. The crowd goes even quieter.

Surprise. No one at a funeral seems to know how to deal with a crying woman. My feet speed up. Soon, I'm running out of the building, out of the church and into the parking lot. The door doesn't slam behind me. My uncle, Thomas, is at the doorway.

"Get back here and pay your respects!" he shouts at me.

"What's the fucking point?" I scream back at him. It feels like my voice, anyway.

The door of my two-door Malibu slams after I get into the car. The engine purrs, enough to cover my sniffles.

It is my allergies. I swear. I'm not crying.

The traffic crawls along the interstate. If it weren't for the music, I would have abandoned this piece of shit a few miles back.

My mother's ringtone echoes somewhere in the back of my car. Behind my seat, under my backpack? Who really knows anymore. I practically live out of my car, so shit is, of course, every-fucking-where.

The traffic will not go anywhere so I take a peak back there. The phone, it might have fallen out of my pockets.

It won't shut up. So, it rings and rings. "Shut the hell up, mother, I don't really want to talk to you."

Turning the radio up won't work. I'll know it's still ringing. The phone knows it's ringing. It hates me. My mother hates me. This asshole, driving only twenty-five miles per hour, he probably hates me, too. Probably a woman.

Fuck women.

"Fine, mother!" I scream. The seatbelt whips back, slapping my car window. My hand holds it tight against the glass as I whip my hand around and slap at the car seat. "Fucking phone. Where the hell are you?"

Then the asshole behind me honks his horn. Everyone has moved so far ahead of me that I feel left behind.

My foot panics and presses on the accelerator.

My car moves some five feet before I stop in a thump.

"Oh my God," a woman screams outside.

Of course, it has to be my car. Of all the damned places—because I need this shit—it has to be my car.

Just outside, just under the driver's side tire is a blond paw and tail.

"You killed my dog!"

She stands behind me. Alicia in all of her glory, she has her arms crossed against her chest, her face in a twisted smile. Her bright green eyes now look smoky, maybe smoldering eyeshadow. The afternoon sun lights up her hair from behind, a halo that's too golden to be real.

"I'm sorry," is what I planned to say. Instead comes out, "Oh. Hi."

"I cannot believe this just happened," she says. She puts her hand on her chest and breathes in deeply. Her eyes are pointed downward at the blood and fur. "We just brought him back from doggy behavior classes!"

I can't not smile.

"My mom is not going to believe this."

"Your windows were rolled down?" I ask.

"And?" she says, defensive. "So are yours."

"Yeah, but I don't have a dog. A dog that likes to jump out of moving cars."

She huffs. "He liked to stick his head out the window. He must have seen a squirrel or something."

A squirrel on the road seemed unlikely. Even impossible. It'd be squirrely suicide.

Alicia, however, doesn't sob, but talks through muddled tears. The tears, however, seem small. No frown. No sign of a furrowed brow.

Her voice breaks into a near cry every few syllables.

"I'm really sorry," I say. "I'll pay for anything."

She wipes her eyes and smiles. "I can't make you do that. It was my dumb dog."

"Maybe I can just take you out sometime? Tonight?" My brain screams at me. You just killed her dog. What are you doing?

Alicia wipes away a tear. "You kill my dog then ask me out for a date?" she smiles, then pouts.

"When you say it like that," I say, "it sounds creepy."

"I have piano practice. But maybe I can get off this one time." She bites her lips in wonder.

"What was his name?" I ask.

"Rolf, like the muppet," she says. Her hair falls over her eyes, covering any expression she might have had.

"I'm so sorry," I say. I mean it. I swear.

She nods her head and smiles. "I'll pick you up around eight?" Saturday?"

It's mighty aggressive of her, but I nod with a smile anyway.

"Good," she says.

Someone honks behind us, her horn going to the tune of "Jingle Bells" in my head. "Hey!" she screams at us. "What the hell's going on?"

Alicia points at her dead dog and turns on the water works. Her face drops to her chest and she just cries and cries and cries. The woman, not knowing what to do, she apologizes and rolls up the window. As she does this, I see her drive around our stopped cars.

She takes a peek anyway, measuring the blood and mess, I'm sure. It's what rubberneckers do.

"Take a picture!" Alicia screams.

Soon, all other cars drive around us. Not one of them can take the time to see what's really happening. No one asks if we're okay, or why we're stopped.

Lemmings, they all follow each other as one person begins the slow drive around.

Toyota Tercels, Honda Passports, Beemers, they gawk at us as they go by.

For fun, I point to the ground and smile at the bloodied fur and blood explosion on my car. Seriously, that shit'll take a few hours to scrub off. Tufts of sticky red fur attached to my hubcaps like a kindergardner's art project.

A family of three looks horrified, but they still stare. Of course they do. They probably think I did it on purpose. "That Cooper boy," they'll tell their neighbors. "He killed this dog and before that, he killed his grandpa."

The next three cars get my middle finger. Alicia laughs and applauds.

The girl pulls out her cell phone and tries to take a picture. I flash her two fingers for that one.

Alicia's phone rings. "Hello?" she says. She covers her other ear and turns around. From the corner of my eye, I see her wave to me.

I wave back.

She waves again.

I wave again. Yes, I feel retarded.

"No, you idiot. You can go. I'll handle it." Her attention returns to the phone. "No you won't need an ambulance. Maybe a spatula. No, why would I joke about this?" she says. "It is—was—my dog. A dead one." Alicia waves to me and I start my car.

Before I pull away, though, I roll down my window and shout to her, "The blood's on my car, how can I just leave?"

She points at the wheel and says, "It's nothing. Just go wash it off!" With a smile she pushes me along with a wave of her hand and I wait for the next car to go around us.

The sun begins to set. The orange glow of the sunset lights up the crown of her head.
Chapter Five

THE shadows that crept around me covered the traces of more wildlife. I'm almost sure of it. The adrenaline took unusual hours to leave my system as I drove home. To make my heart slow down and let me breathe like a normal human being.

The minutes feel like hours on the interstate. I don't go home.

It would be easier to just go home and hide in my room. It would be too easy to run and hide.

But I'm not sure I deserve easy. The right to wallow in my own pain. My suffering.

My mother doesn't love me.

My dad thinks I'm a freak.

I'm a dog killer.

I'm a murderer.

Well, that last part? It's almost true.

But she would be there, waiting for me. Probably ready to blame me for the goldfish, Freddy. Or maybe the hamster babies that were eaten by their father.

Okay, maybe really Freddy was my fault. I never did understand that fish did not want to swim in the pool. I was five. I figured I liked swimming in the pool, why wouldn't Freddie?

From the corners of my eyes, more imaginary dogs jump out at me one-by-one.

I break check every two miles, my nerves on edge. Until, finally, I decide to do it. I drive through every imaginary dog on the interstate. I hit every Beagle. Every Retriever. Every Dachshund.

My mind's eye sees points, a flashing ticker of numbers that tell me I'm winning this game.

My wheels completely rip the skin off an imaginary Dalmatian. It yelps, but only for half a second, before he's under my car's undercarriage.

The black and white flag of its hide, ripped and blood-hot, flaps against the sides of my car.

Don't ask about the Chow-Chow. You'd never eat hamburger meat again. As the night continues, I stop seeing dogs. No wolves. Not even a damned coyote.

The animals, they run and hide from me. Serves them right.

Serves them all right.

The red needle on my speedometer climbs higher. Ninety. Ninety-five. Ninety-nine. One-oh-five. One-fifteen.

The speedometer makes it a point to stop at one twenty. I wonder if I could beat that.

The sun sets behind the hills in the horizon. The orange glow makes them look like they're on fire. A bright, flame-broiled horizon. It seems to be dark enough that I almost miss the same stretch of road that's now covered by for-reals doggy blood. Rolf's blood. A lot of it.

Dozens of cars must have gone over that spot by now. The fur is completely gone. The blood, now in cracks of the road. Rain probably won't wash it out.

My mistake, it won't be washed out of the road until much later with Coca-Cola. True story.

I pull over to the side of the road and park my car. For lighting, I turn on the hazard lights. The orange and white of my car's headlights and parking lights work like slow-flashing strobe lights—a murder disco.

No cars coming. Most of the commuters are already home from work. Eating dinner with their happy families.

I kneel over the spot where Rolf died. A small glob of gooey fur flaps in the air so gentle I don't even feel it against the bare skin of my neck. I pick at the fur, peeling. It picks right off with little resistance and I hold it out. As I release my grip, the fur plops back to the road. No fluttering. No flying.

Just plop.

Just like Rolf.

The spot itself looks black. Maybe purple in the light. I want to stick my finger it in, around it, touch the rocks to see if it's sticky. Or dried or whatever.

I never touched real doggy blood.

I take in a deep breath and let it out in a quick stream through my nose. I extend my index finger and scrape up some of the spot on the edge of my fingernail.

It comes up like a thick puddle. More dust than actual liquid.

Dammit, it's all dried up.

And yes, I sniffed it. Not coppery or metallic. Didn't taste like pennies like when you accidentally bite your lip or cheek while eating steak.

Thinking maybe it's too small a sample, I lay myself over the puddle and let my nose come within a gnat's ass of the rocks.

Still no smell. Nothing 'cept dust. No, this was just, I don't know. Dirt.

I scrape the black crud back onto the asphalt and watch as a pair of headlights come my way, albeit slowly.

I step out of the way by my car. My hands rest behind my back. The car passes by slow. Someone's watching.

For fun, I stick up my middle finger and watch it speed away.

As my ass bounces back into my seat behind the wheel, I look at the remnants of the doggy pancake and shiver. With every blink, I pretend to feel the car hit my ribcage.

I feel something shatter, then bounce.

My body turns rag-doll soft.

I roll up the car's hood.

To the windshield.

My hands slap the glass.

The driver says something incoherent, loud like swearing or spilling hot coffee on your lap.

He swears at me. This too, is my fault.

Words fly at me too fast to listen.

The car stops.

My body rolls off.

My legs twitch and I feel pain.

I blink again and I sit in my own car. The blood, it's still there. The highway before me and behind me is dark. The hills sit, barely illuminated standing watch.

I think I feel the slight pull of tears in the corners of my eye, but when I blink, I feel the urge to sneeze instead.

As I hold back the sneeze, a moment of clarity flexes like light across my line of vision.

"Okay, mother," I say. "If it's a murderer you think I am, then a murderer I will be."

The car's engine turns over.

"And I know just where to start."
Chapter Six

"HEY, Mom," I say over the ringing of metal on metal in the kitchen. "Do we have a sharp knives? But small? Like not too big small?"

Holly sits at the dinner table and stares at my mad dash for something sharp. "Why do you need a knife?"

"To cut things with," I say.

"Cut what?"

"Little girls. Into shallow graves along the interstate."

Actually, that's not such a bad idea. File that one away for later.

"No, you're not," she says. She gets up from the chair and stands right next to me. "You don't have the guts."

I wrap my hand around the first handle I see and slide it out of the drawer, nice and slow like. "That's why I'll take yours!" I offer an evil laugh to add to the ambiance, but my sister laughs at me.

"That's a ladle, dumb ass."

"If used correctly, it'd still hurt a lot!" I shout at her.

And of course, Miss Bad Timing comes into the kitchen. Her eyes wide with disappointment, she mutters, "Stop being stupid, Alex. Put the ladle away. You don't have the guts to hurt anyone."

A Challenge?

"Do you have any smaller knives?"

"Why don't you check your place?" she says. The dishes clang around in the sink. The faucet begins to run. When my mother begins rinsing off plates, some of the stream splashes onto my forearm.

"Because all I have are eating utensils?"

"And therefore knives," she says. Her eyes do not leave the sink. We've graduated past not speaking to me to her not looking at me.

"Butter knives. I don't need to cut butter."

"What are you cutting?" she says. The wet dishes go from sink to dishwasher.

"Um, Cornish game hens."

My mother's head almost turns to look at me, but freezes. She almost forgot how mad she was supposed to be at me. "That sounds ambitious."

"I'm an ambitious kind of guy."

My mother scoffs. I ignore.

"And I have a friend I'm trying to impress."

"A friend?" she says.

Holly's voice screams from the living room only five feet away from us. "Coop's got a boyfriend!"

My mother's hands stop making noise. When she hears my sister's cackle from the sofa, Mom lets loose a chuckle of her own.

"I'm not gay," I say. There was that one time when I was sixteen, but that was a dare.

Mom sighs. "In the drawer next to you. The big handled ones with wood. Those should work."

I check the drawer. "Those are steak knives. I'm cutting birds."

"Then take those knives." My mother has stopped listening to me.

Instead, I grab the thinnest bladed ones. Their dark brown plastic handles mean no one has probably used them. Perfect for an unexpected murder weapon.

"Thanks, Mom," I say. "I owe you one."

She grunts at my light-hearted banter. This party's still a little too serious for anything jaunty.

"Mom?" I say. My eyes stare right at her, though I'm standing on the edge of the kitchen between the dinner table and the refrigerator. "Mom? Thanks?" I wave the knives in front of me. She pretends to see nothing.

"Fine," I say. "Fuck you, too, lady."

My mother grunts and my sister gasps and I walk to the front door.

The both of them can kiss my ass. All the while, I wonder where my dad was. It could have been a school day, but I've really stopped keeping track in the past few days. Not since Pop-Pop died.

Bereavement is a wonderful thing sometimes. Got me a few extra days to study for tests.

As I pull away, my dad pulls into the driveway. He motions for me to get out of the car. He tries to fake a smile, but he knows I see right through it. His mouth moves, but I have no idea what he's saying. Probably "Come on in!" or "Help me with your mother!" or "Come distract her so I can go get a nap."

Either way, I shake my head and hold up the knives. I shout through the car window, "I needed to pick up some knives."

My dad, his eyes open wide. He's horrified.

"Oh Jesus," I say. I roll down the window on the passenger side. "I'm sorry, Dad!" I shout. "I was borrowing some knives. I need to cut a bird."

Again, out of context, this sounds and looks bad.

Either way, my dad nods and shuts off his car. The red parking lights go dark and he steps out of the car. He's directly in front of my hood and waves to me.

Even in these situations, he's making more of an effort than he has the entire twenty years before this.

SEVEN

THEY won't have anyone missing him, I'm convinced, so I bring the knife down around his neck while he sleeps. The man in his frayed jacket tosses to the side and smacks his lips. I'm reminded of a baby or sleeping cartoon child.

The handle of the kitchen knife feels fake plastic but cold against my palm. It doesn't help that the evening temps have dropped nearly twenty degrees since two days ago.

It takes two days to hatch a good, doable plan, I hope.

In the alleys, I do not believe that anyone will hear anything, so I kneel down and watch at the man's long gray hair drapes over his chin. I study the way his cheekbones looks hollow on his face. The shadows that are cast against his chin, the way someone would look if you dropped a skin blanket over a skeleton.

No one will miss him, I tell myself again. Not a single fucking soul.

I flip the knife around using just the tip of my index finger and thumb. It plays like a slick, badass kind of move in my head—something you'd see in a Quentin Tarantino movie—but I drop the knife and it bounces against the rockiness of the asphalt.

The man's lips smack again. Like he's chewing gum. An eye cracks open—just barely.

And I'm standing there over him.

"Mom?" he says.

I look up to the sky. He had to be a crazy one, too?

"Yes, baby," I whisper. "It'll be okay." I stroke his hair for effect. The grease slicks my fingers, makes them just slide off and through the naps of his hair. The knots and tangles snag my fingernails.

Hold my breath, breathe in. Then out.

You can do this, Coop.

I pick up the knife again, holding the edge downward. A typical slashing and stabbing method. Think Psycho shower scene. Drag down, pull up.

Rinse. Repeat.

His neck pulses as his heart beats. His pathetic heart. He does nothing for society.

No one will miss him. He collects change. Pockets jangle with change he collected, begged, from people who had gone to work that day. He wanted food money. Beer money. Drink money.

Whatever money. He wanted my money.

So I followed him.

Now he sleeps.

The ever-darkening evening begins to pop goosebumps on my forearms. In a few minutes' time, I'll be shivering. The slashing would turn nasty, twisted. Ripping skin instead of digging straight down and up. Like stabbing a bowl of water covered in plastic wrap.

Just sayin'.

I pull my fist upwards over my head and hold it.

If anyone were to walk in, it would be exactly what it looks like. No denyin'.

My fingers tremble, the knife shakes.

My blood, I feel it pulse in the undersides of my fist. That nervous.

Soon. All will be done soon.

I bring my knife down slowly. I don't want to miss. He's a big target, but coming down too slow might make me miss him, hit something else. Maybe my knee. Maybe the sidewalk. Maybe his forehead.

I don't know. I haven't done this before, but I figure it has to be like hammering a nail, right? Go slow, keep your eye on the target?

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

I hold my breath, but it doesn't help. My phone keeps buzzing. The steady streams of air from my lips does nothing to mask the sound.

"Hold on," I say. Standing up, I finger the phone out of my pocket and answer it. "Hello?"

I take a step away from the sleeping hobo. This phone call most likely doesn't concern him.

"What? I can't hear you?"

My mother answers on the other end. "Did you stop by Pop-Pop's yet?"

I rub my fingers over my eyes, scratch the back of my head with the tip of the blade. "Mom? Pop-Pop isn't here."

Silence. My mother's side of the discussion seemed to drop off completely, so I check the screen. Still on. The counter counts up in seconds. Thirty-two. Thirty-three.

"Mom? You there?"

The phone clicks off.

"Fucking bitch," I say.

"That's no way to speak to your mother," the hobo mutters under his chapped lips.

"Go back to sleep," I say. I kneel next to him and hold my breath. It's with extreme hesitation—and I mean extreme—I caress the side of his head again and look at his sun burnt skin. He's leather-tanned red, not the Hollywood glorious orange you see on television. This South Carolina sun, it'll do that to you.

Red, not orange.

He smacks his lips, then I hear something growl, then poof.

"Did you just—?" I begin to ask, but he answers by scratching his ass.

My mouth seals shut and my lungs stop working. It's for my own safety. This—this is not natural. Nothing that putrid can be natural.

I stand up, put the knife carefully in my pocket, blade side out. I take small, quick steps so I don't stab myself in the thigh. Again.

The car is around the corner. Quick steps. Don't make a scene. Look forward. Smile. Nod.

Be likeable. Don't raise suspicion, but don't be memorable.

My car door opens smoothly—thank god—and as I sit down I finally have the safety and distance to exhale. My lungs feel cool and refreshed. The air circulates around my lungs, cool like swallowing spearmint gum.

I couldn't do this.

Why?

It looks so easy on television, those episodes of crime scene investigations and those do-gooder serial killers. They just apply the blade, put in a little bit of pressure, and voila! Instant homicidal tendencies.

"No," I declare to myself. "This is happening whether I like it or not."

And older woman, head wrapped in some kind of fluffy hood that makes her look more like a real bunny than snow bunny stares at me.

"Yes, I talk to myself. Buzz off," I say. With the car door open along the sidewalk, it looks like I'm just loitering, talking to myself.

But the woman, she shrugs and walks on by just a little bit faster. Her nose snarls upward. It pulls her lips upward, exposing red gums.

"Fuck off," I say and walk back to the alley. The woman, she's in front of me and walking faster. Her back suddenly straightens out like she's power-walking the mall. Her elbows bend, her arms marching back and forth. "I'm not going to kill you," I say.

Her eyes widen and she keeps moving straight while I turn down the alley.

The hobo sits on his cardboard throne, a box made of flattened boxes and a curled up bunch of rags near his back for lumbar support.

I'll be honest, I'm guessing at the lumbar support thing. It's as sound as anything else I could offer.

"Okay," I say. I hold out a hand to keep him calm, a visual cue for him to know that I'm in control. My other hand reaches for the knife. I try not to show off the blade just yet so I hold the handle with the knife pointed down and away. Keep the blade close to my own forearm so he sees nothing.

Can't risk my first hunt getting away.

"I need for you to go to sleep again," I say.

The man scratches his head. I think he tears open a sore of some kind. "What?" His voice drags as he says this like the clouds drag across the graying sky.

"Try to go to sleep?" I ask.

"But I ain't sleepy just yet." His mouth barely moves underneath his walrus mustache.

"Yes you are. Now just go back to sleep."

"I told you," he says. He stands up and grabs for his pants, barely hanging on to his hips. "I ain't sleepy."

"But I need you to go to sleep so it's easier to kill you," I say. My legs feel weak and I sit down. I don't sit down so much as fall and land on my ass, but the effect is the same. "I mean," I say.

The man, he bends over me and tries to look me in the eyes, but they keep crossing, maybe even looking up at my forehead. "Listen, man, I get it."

"You do?" I don't look up at him—I can't, really, because his breath is really that bad.

"I do, man." He sits down in front of me, his feet out in front of him like he's trying to stretch out before a race. "I get that things just get too much, man. Like you just gotta kill someone." He holds out his hands and looks at them. "I mean, I'm all dirty here. Look at this," he says. He extends a hand and points at a spot on that fleshy flab between your thumb and index finger. "That spot, man, I don't even know what it is. My life sucks."

"I'm pretty sure it's chocolate," I say.

He licks it, makes a face. "I don't remember having chocolate."

I look to the side, away from him. From the outsider's perspective, it looks like I'm getting life lessons from a hobo. From my point of view, I'm being assaulted on all of my senses when all I wanted to do was kill someone.

"Do you have any friends?" I ask. "Anyone who'll come looking for you?"

The man scratches his head. "My wife?" His words sound insincere, even confused.

"Right. Your wife." A sigh escapes my chest. "This is going to be a long day."

"Hey," he says as I stand up and walk right past him. "We can't all be what we wanna be, can we?"

Those words make my feet freeze in place. Somehow I heard my mother yelling at me for these things, calling me a failure. A murderer.

"What did you say to me?" I flash the knife in front of him and pull my sleeve back to about my elbow. If there's going to be blood, I can't get too messy.

"Easy there, killer. I didn't mean any harm." Hobo raises his hands in surrender. What he doesn't know is it's too late.

"Just do me a favor and stand still," I say.

And much to my bewilderment, he does. The fucker stands still, his eyes closed, his hands in front of him covering his face. He's frozen as a statue.

"Wait," I pause. "You're really going to let me kill you?" My fingers shake. "I mean, really?"

His shoulders relax slightly, but his hands stay over his face. "Do I have a choice?"

I take slow, deliberate steps toward him. Each one, I imagine myself in a movie, pulling my hands to his head and pulling on his shoulder-length, mostly salt, not so much pepper hair. His jugular is large, pronounced nicely.

This close, it doesn't look solid, but fleshy. Maybe even spongy.

The fleshy tube jumps out at me as he swallows. "You gonna kill me," he says through rough, gaspy syllables.

"Maybe," I say and press the edge of the blade against his neck. "Maybe not." I slide the blade downward, shaving off a few hairs off his neckbeard. The whiskers flutter to the edges of his jacket.

"Well?" he says.

The blade quivers in my hands. "This is ridiculous," I say. I rest the knife back into my pants pockets and take quick but shallow strides to the edge of the sidewalk.

"Hey!" the man screams. I know the hobo pops his head out of the alley behind me because the other people in the alley way gasp at his smell. "Aren't you going to kill me?"

"Hold my breath. Move faster," I tell myself. "Keep moving. Don't acknowledge the crazy."

As I walk to my car, I'm careful to slip the knife out of my pocket and bring it into my shirt sleeves. My little yellow Ford Ranger fells cold, chilly cold, as my ass rests in the leather seats. My eyes feel dry and I begin to cry to lubricate them. And I stare forward—out into the streets and people walking downtown to the grocery stores and bars.

And that man, drunken and half-crazy, his head sticks out of the alleyway and stares at me. From here, I can see that his eyes are blue. A steel color that seems to glimmer like a police badge. One eye looks larger, more open, than the other.

I shift the gear into reverse and pack up while reaching for my phone. The number, I don't even have to dial, it's sitting right there. Missed call. I press redial and hold it between my shoulder and cheekbone.

"Hi," I say when she answers the phone. "You got some time to come over?" 
Chapter Eight

WHEN the doorbell rings, I check the peep hole first. Paranoia has set in, and it's not the good kind of paranoia. It's not the type where I get tense, feel like a ninja. Feel like I could grab an object—any object around me like this dull wooden cooking spoon—and turn it into a deadly weapon.

My body couldn't handle that.

How do I know?

Because when she rang the door bell, I was in the bathroom with, um, some stress.

Even through the small world that peeps through that hole, all I see are green fields of eyeball.

"Hello," I say and crack the door open. "You're here!"

Her eyes open wide and she peeks down near the handle. "Are you decent?" she says.

I blush. "Yes, of course, come right in." As I open the door, the air wafts in and carries with it her jasmine and cherry blossom perfume.

I'll admit, one thing I miss about living with a woman, even if that woman was my mother.

"You smell nice," I say and immediately wish I hadn't.

Alicia smiles and sniffs the room. "Thanks," she says, "so do...." She pauses. "So are you cooking something? It smells."

She does not finish the sentence.

Her eyes move to every corner of my humble apartment. All six hundred forty-four square feet of it. It's a classic first apartment, for sure, with its one bedroom, a bathroom with a barely working shower-slash-tub, and a light brown wall-to-wall rug. The popcorn ceiling just came off last month at the manager's request.

"It's a nice apartment," she says.

"Please," I say, motioning over to the couch. "Have a seat." The couch is white, suede and extremely uncomfortable. "Stay out of the center, though. A spring is broken."

"How did you break the spring?" she asks.

"I dropped it, when I moved." False. Actually broke during a potential tryst. Need to know basis. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Do you have bottled?" she says.

I assume water and get a glass out of the cabinet. "No, not really," I say. As the glass fills up, I begin to wonder just how someone can not really have bottled water. It strikes me as an either-or situation. My mouth needs to come with a bungee cord attached to my words.

"Right," she says. "Thanks, though."

As I attempt to offer her the glass, I notice that she's left the living room.

"Alicia?" I call out.

No answer.

I place the glass of water on the Japanese-style coffee table and walk back to my bedroom. There she stands, staring at all of the movie posters, one in particular.

"I loved that one," she says, pointing to Reservoir Dogs.

"Ya, it's a good one. Not the best, but fun to watch."

Alicia shrugs. "I love the mystery. The way that one guy was behind it all, even though he told the story."

"I think you're talking about Usual Suspects," I say. "Your water is in the living room."

She holds her hand out. I shake it.

Her head jerks toward me, staring at our incidental handshake. "What are you doing?"

I release her hand and wipe my palm against my pants leg. "I don't know. I'm sorry."

She smiles, her lips parting to show a glimpse of white pearl teeth. "You really are cute."

She grabs my shirt and pulls me closer to her. I close my eyes and wait for something wet, soft, or firm against my lips.

I get none of the above.

"What just happened?" I say.

She whispers to me to remain quiet.

My eyes still closed, she says to me, "You should really just stop being so nervous. Take what you want."

I grab her boob and squeeze.

She giggles, then slaps me lightly across the chin. "You are really new to this, aren't you?"

I squeeze again, this time harder.

Her hand slaps mine away from her. "That's not what I mean. And for God's sakes, open your eyes."

I pry them open and her nose is just so there, right in front of me. "Hi," I say.

She pushes me a few inches away from her and smiles again. "You're cute, but stupid."

"I am not stupid. My IQ is one hundred and fifty."

"And just how, exactly, is that faring you?"

My words lock up in my mouth. "I'm doing okay," I say.

She looks around and sighs. "Clearly."

"Water?" I say.

She pulls me closer again and holds my head near hers. Her breath feels hot, warm, almost moist against my chin. "No, keep your eyes open," she says.

This is what they mean by sexual tension, I'm sure. I'm not hard, exactly, but confused. Up or down, it doesn't really matter at this point because who the hell knows what's going on in this broad's head.

"Well?" she says.

I pucker up.

"Oh forget it," she says and pushes me away. She walks down the hall and disappears down the corner into the living room. Her eyes look out the window at my neighbor as he practices yoga on his porch. Shirtless, which makes it all the more impressive and uncomfortable since he's about fifty-something years old.

At least that's what I've guess from the white chest hair. I never bothered to talk to him himself.

"What's the point?" she says.

"Water?" I ask.

She nods at the window in front of her. "That."

"It's a nice day outside," I say. "Might as well enjoy it."

"I mean yoga. My mom does that shit, too. Yoga pants, spandex tank tops. The whole nine. It looks stupid and it keeps her from doing something meaningful with her life."

"Having a better body is meaningless?" I ask.

"No," she says. She slurps the water and manages to change my opinion of her for only a second. "Having a better body and doing nothing with it," she says. Alicia eyes me up one of my legs and down the other. She diverts them back outside.

"I don't follow," I say.

She slurps more water. This time, it's not so detrimental. Her green eyes captivate me, seize my attention and demand more. Green lights mean go, but I'm paralyzed. She sees me grab for her hand but I stop short. Too short for her to finish the gesture.

"Well," she says. "I guess it's time for me to go."

"Don't go," I say. "You just got here."

She looks at me and her eyes blink green and hide behind a smoky black eye shadow. "Ya, well," she says. "I'm busy. My mother wants me home sometime soon. Something about piano practice."

"That's awesome," I say. "You play piano? I tried learning guitar once. It didn't take."

She smiles, but it's all fake. "Is that so?" she says.

Her hand touches the doorknob. It twists, but she hesitates.

This is a clue, isn't it? Something I'm supposed to do? Kiss her?

"Well," she says. Her blonde hair flicks back over her shoulder as she looks to the white and paint-chipped door. "I'll see you around."

As I grab her hand and try to pull her back toward me, she yanks her hand out of mine. "Wait," I say.

"Tomorrow," she says with a wink.

The door shuts behind her and with it any hope I had of feeling those lips against mine. Something tells me she would have tasted like cherry blossoms, but for now I can only speculate.

"Why?" I ask and stumble into the living room. The dirty carpet makes dark marks, where the fibers go against the grain in shadows of my footprints. This whole place, it feels dark. Cluttered. Cramped.

"I need air," I say. "Lots of air."

My hands touch the windowsill, but I don't pull it open. No, this requires a much more intricate and more delicate matter.

I go back into the kitchen and withdraw the knife that I took from my mother. The blade reflects the light of the sun coming through the window. It nearly sparkles, casting red and blue and green onto the walls. It's so pretty, really. And sharp, I feel, as I run the tip of my thumb against the edge of the blade.

"Here goes nothing," I say and wrap the knife in a hand towel. Something thick enough to keep the blade from cutting but thin enough to keep it easy to conceal.

The drive to the alley is slow. The radio plays mournful music. Medium tempo, hard-driving guitar riffs that make me wish I lived somewhere in Seattle with cloud cover and drizzling rain to fill out the ambiance. In this damn sunny-filled day, it's all lost on me. No teen spirit here; smells like sunburns.

I swear to God in the hours since I left the hobo, he hasn't moved a single damned inch. His body rests against a building wall. A jacket—that's new, at least—covers his body like a blanket. I think his eyes are closed, sleeping, but in the shadows of his droopy and tangled rat's nest that you'd call a hair, it's too difficult to tell.

The rest of the alley is littered with the same old plastic trash bins and garbage cans lining the sides like pint-sized Dorian columns. The pile of blankets, though, heaped together in the corner against the drugstore, that's new.

"What are you doing here?" I ask. "Don't you have anywhere else to go this evening?"

The sun sets behind us, just over the building tops across the street. This gives the sky a purplish hue that blends lightly into the light blue sky overhead. Soon, it'll be dark enough to actually use headlights.

The building's alley carries an acidic smell. Piss. Human or dog, hard to tell. No other animals around so I gather that it's probably his.

"What's your name, anyway?" I say.

The hobo lifts his head and his eyes, those steel-blue eyes peep through. "I'm Curly."

I smile. "Ironic, huh?" I say.

He looks at me and frowns, twists his head to the side.

"Joke," I say, pointing at my own head of hair. "You know, because you hair is white and straight, and—you know what? Never mind."

He smiles. "Say, you here to finally kill me?"

I nod and pull out the knife from my back pocket. "Yup, I think so," I say.

From underneath the heap of blankets pops out a head. "What's that, Curly?" a voice says. It sounds male, tired.

"Shaddup, Frankie," he says. "It's just some boy. He's going to kill me today."

Frankie pops his head out completely. He's a turtle. A back alley turtle, soft blankety fabric shell on top of him. "Is that so?" he says. "Good luck to you, boy." He waves to me and then rolls over, shoving his head into a yellow-stained pillow.

"Thanks," I say. The compliments make me smile. The well wishes feel nice for a change.

"Do you want to do it here or somewhere else?" says Curly. "I mean, I don't want to interrupt Frankie here."

"Naw, it's alright," says Frankie, muffled through the pillow. "I'm sleepy anyway. Won't hear a thing."

"Are you sure?" says Curly. "We can move."

"Don't be so crude. Of course you can die here. I won't mind."

"You guys are too kind, really," I say. And though these words are leaving my mouth, I'm not believing any of this is actually happening.

"Okay, okay," says Curly. He stands up and adjusts his mud-God I hope that's mud-ridden shirt and pulls it over his pants. "Let's get this over with right here." He stretches his arms out, Jesus Christ style. "Will this work?"

I drop the hand towel that once housed the blade of my knife. "Um, ya. I guess."

"Good," he says and closes his eyes. "Any time now."

"Okay," I say. "Stand still." I hold the knife up and flip the blade around so it's facing downward for a stabbing motion. I make a few practice stabs into the air. The wind brushes past my knuckles and through my sleeves. It's cold, refreshing. Thrilling. I imagine this is what adrenaline feels like, you know, when it's not coursing through your veins because you did something stupid like accidentally kill your Pop-Pop.

Curly pops an eye open and then closes it again. He licks his lips and then smiles.

"Okay, just a second," I say.

The knife comes down twice more, stabbing and slashing empty air.

"Just a little bit more," I say.

"C'mon," he says. I notice Frankie's head pop out of the turtle shell of blankets.

"Whatcha so afraid for?" Frankie says.

"I ain't afraid for nothing," I say. "I just wanna make this right the first time."

"Fair enough," he says and rolls over.

"I gotta pee," says Curly.

My hand relaxes around the blade's handle. "Fine," I say with a heavy sigh. "Go pee."

"Really?" he says. His hands are already unzipping and unbuttoning. And he pulls it out in front of me. From the looks of it, he must be cold and Jewish. The fingers of both hands wrap around the tip and his stream begins trickling around my shoes. Thank whomever for the foresight I had to wear pants and not shorts today.

"Hey, hey, hey!" I shout. I'm leaping out of his way and off to the side. "Watch the sneakers!"

"Sorry," he says.

That question about smell in the alley? Let's just say it's answered about now.

"I'll just be a second," says Curly.

I nod and wait for the stream to slow its trickle. Then, a zip and I turn around to see Curly with a smile. "Okay," he says and extends his hands again.

I hold the knife up and look at his face. His beard stretches around his lips, pulled back at the cheeks like a smile.

"Aw hell," I say. I fold the hand towel back around the knife's blade. My finger presses against the edge of the blade to make sure I won't cut myself. It feels hardened, thin. Not sharp, not painful.

It's funny how something so innocuous as a towel can keep you so safe. "Tell you what," I say. "Wanna go get something to eat?"

Chapter Nine

OF course they stare like they've never seen a homeless person eat food before. Curly's unapologetic mouth smashes food between his lips in piercing smacks. The bread melts into a gooey mush, the eggs falling into fluffy yellow pieces in the corners of his mouth.

Lil Teapot Café is the place to eat in Saraday. I remember coming here since I was only a little one with my Pop-Pop, who would show me off and how smart I was by running through math facts in front of the elderly ladies. These four walls have always been the epitome of happiness and calm, with the bright yellow flower paintings on the walls, the light wooden walls—though I think the wood is fake—and the spicy salty smell of cooked burgers wafting in from the back kitchen.

The patrons that surround us, they watch with gaping mouths, some half-full with food, as Curly eats like a semi-civilized human being. While he holds the knife and fork with dignity, the food gets shoveled into his mouth with a tenacity that only that big orange cat Garfield could match.

The yellow halogen lights illuminate the room with a fake sunlight glow. The tables, once white, now look stained yellow from the years of exposure to shitty lighting and humid air. Maybe from age. Maybe from not being cleaned.

The thought makes me gag slightly, only swallowing it back down with a sip of my coffee.

"So you missed breakfast this morning?" I ask.

He nods, swallows. "For the past fifteen years," he mutters, then finishes the rest of the toast in a smooth gulp that would make a porn star proud.

"It's been that long?" I ask. My words fall on deaf ears, his own attention turned to the plate in front of him. He looks at the orange juice with wonder. A smile on his lips, then he grabs sugar packets and flips them between his fingers.

"Really?" I ask.

The sugar funnels out of the packets and into the orange juice. He stirs but the granules refuse to dissolve and crunches against the sides of the glass.

"That usually works better if the liquid is warm," I say. He raises his hand. "No, Curly, they won't let you warm up the orange juice." I smile and his hand goes back down.

"So tell me about yourself," I say.

"Isn't this, you know, weird?" he asks. As he talks, his knife points at my face. The metaphorical table turns on me.

"Having a knife pointed at my face?" I say. "Ya, it's a little strange."

"No," he says. "This!" He raises his around us, revealing pale yellow stains against the white t-shirts under his arms. "Having me sit here after you were trying to kill me."

I cover my head with a menu to keep from anyone seeing me. "You don't have to shout that so loud," I mutter.

"Sorry, man," he says. His gray bangs droop over his eyes, turning him into a cartoon sheepdog. "Was that a little loud?"

"Yes," I demand, quiet but forceful. "I was not trying to kill you."

"But you were just," he begins to mutter, but stops when he feels the shadow of our waiter stand over us.

The rest of the diner houses only a handful of couples, each with their own dinners and lunches. My friend here, Curly, preferred breakfast, so they served him breakfast.

"He wasn't trying to kill me," he says. He smacks his lips together, as if it somehow compliments the waiter. "He really wasn't. I was just kidding." He smiles at me, his mouth looking more plastic, fake, rubbery.

"He's such a kidder," I say.

The waiter nods, looks uninterested. "You want more orange juice?" he says. He clicks his pen and points at the half-empty glass on the table.

"Sure, and more sugar," says Curly.

The waiter looks at me, then eyes the ceramic container with more sugar then even Curly could eat. "Um," he says, unable to find words.

"Just get him something. The pink stuff," I say.

"That stuff gives you cancer," says Curly. "I don't got a doctor."

"White," I say and rub my eyes. "Get him the white packets. Please"

Curly smiles, content.

The waiter forces a fake smile, then turns on his heels to the kitchen.

"Cancer?" I say. "Really?"

"What?" he says, shrugs off my questions. "Do you want cancer?"

"Does anyone really want cancer?"

"Listen," he says. His knife points in my direction again. "If I were to tell you that I wanted cancer at one time, and then I wanted AIDS another time, and almost every year I want the flu, what would you say?"

"I'd say you were absolutely fucking crazy."

"Of course you would," he says. "And you would be probably correct."

I notice as he speaks, his lips flap around as if barely attached to his mouth. Pliable. Plastic. If anything, rubberbands just stretching until they finally snap.

"And why would I be correct?" I see that the other shoe is not going to drop any time soon. "Are you diagnosed? You know, crazy?" As I say crazy, my voice drops to a little bit of a whisper before Curly's eyes raise to meet mine.

"Why you whispering?" Curly's voice shouts the words "Crazy" out into the air and then he smiles, looks at me. "See? Wasn't that hard."

"Says you," I say. "You really don't care what other people think, do you?"

He shakes his head. "I do if it affects them."

I let those words mull over in my head for a second before I realize that he's probably right. He's batshit crazy.

A woman approaches behind Curly. She wears black pants, white blouse, and a jacket that the designer never intended to button in the front. Her confident strides take her to our table, where her heels click together as if standing at attention. "Excuse me," she says.

Her badge says MADGE, MANAGER.

"Hi, Madge," I say. "This coffee is excellent."

Her eyes do not leave Curly's sight.

"You cannot be here," she says. "We kindly request that we get your food to go and allow you to finish it elsewhere."

Madge does no smile, does not even blink as she repeats these words as if lines from a play she auditioned for.

"You're just kicking us out?" I ask.

Again, her sight remains on Curly. "We have reports of inappropriate goings on."

"Such as?" I say.

Madge's lips appear fused tight together. Pursed.

"Hello?" I say. "Such as?" I grab for my wallet, a brown leather one that has lasted me most of my money-carrying life. "I have cash. I'm paying."

Curly chews on his bread with delight, then nods at Madge's direction. "You are looking beautiful today," he says with a smile.

The unexpected comment from Curly prompts me to stare at Madge's expression. Will she throw us out?

"Sir," she says. "Are you going to leave or will we have to call the police?"

Curly pushes his plate in front of him. Two pieces of bacon and an English muffin have so far escaped his appetite. "Box it," he says.

"Very well," says Madge. She grabs for the plate and nods in my direction. Her heels click away to the kitchen.

"And you're just going to let them kick you out?" I ask.

"And you're just going to let them kick me out?" he says.

Touché, asswipe.

"You know what?" I say. "No, I will not let them just kick you out."

As I stand up and try to find Madge the Manager, she comes back faster than any other server in history.

Only when you were allowed to smoke in restaurants had the waiters come that quickly.

"I will not allow you to just kick him out like some common criminal," I say. My left foot stammers on the ground, so I lean my weight on that knee.

"We ain't sayin' nothing about no criminals," she says. "We just don't want those people here."

"What people?" I ask. "His people?"

Madge's eyes look at me with a great disdain, her lower lip popping out like a stroke victim.

"Yes, like his people. You're stupid, boy." She points to a sign that not a single person in our room can see, because it's behind a wall. "You see that sign right there?"

Curly nods and mutters, "Yes."

"Well it says that we deserve the right to restrict service to anyone," she says. She stands up a bit straighter. She's proud, like a lawyer in a prime time drama.

"It says reserve the right to refuse service, not deserve the right to restrict, you stupid," I say but not finish the sentence.

"You do realize I can call the police?" she says. Like a damned boy scout, this bitch comes prepared for anything. In the front pocket of her black serving apron, she pulls out a mini cell phone, back when smaller was better. She begins to dial, then calls on someone named Sandy.

And this cute girl, red hair pulled back into a low ponytail, she comes in and takes the phone. Without saying a single thing, she dials a number and leaves the room.

"You got yerselves like five seconds before we complete that call."

"Hello?" I hear Sandy say from the register. "Ya, it looks like I got a problem," she says.

"Dammit," I mutter and wave at my new friend. "Come on, Curly."

"But what about paying?" he says.

"Don't you worry about that," says Madge. She looks at me—not him, oh never him, Lord forbid she look at the one she's accusing—and she says to me, "It's been paid for."

"Oh, well, if that's the case," says Curly. He extends ten dirty little digits and takes the white box from Madge's wrinkled fingers.

As she looks up at me, the rest of the restaurant looks at us, whispers in a monotone hush.

"What?" I say as we look to the front of the register and there's Sandy. She leans over the register and fuddles with pens in front of her. "So ya, I won't be out of here until sometime after seven. You-know-who is on her rag again."

I smile and wave at Sandy. "Thank you so much," I say. She looks at me and smile, but turns around as if I'm somehow intruding on her public conversation.

A weak electronic buzzer announces that we're leaving. The sun pokes at our eyes and I wince at first until I can finally pry my eyes open.

Curly covers his eyes with his hand, shading the rest of his face while guarding the box.

Across from us sits a new park. Part of an initiative to keep kids off the street by letting them play only a few dozen feet away from the street. It'd be a great idea of there was a more solid barrier between the streets and the park.

"Well, thanks for the food and the not killing me part," he says. Curly rests one foot on the sidewalk, the other on the street. "I really appreciates it. If there's anything I can do, let me know." His fingers burrow into the flaps of the paper box. "Did you want this back?" he says. His fingers glisten with grease and syrup.

"No, Curly, you can have it."

He blushes, and extends his hand.

Dear God, he's going to make me do this, isn't he.

"Thank you, so so much," he says He holds out his hand again, drawing attention to it with a shake and a nudge.

I hold my breath and grab his hand with mine. The grease allows for my hand to slide against his as I pull away and casually wipe everything away on my pants. "No problem," I say. "Wasn't nothing."

"Wasn't anything," he says. He smiles.

I smile again. We're all smiling when a maroon SUV comes driving by and nearly clipping Curly in the street.

"Son of a bitch. Are you okay, Curly?"

He smiles and waves. "Ya, I'll be alright."

Curly hadn't noticed that the car sped up as he began to cross the street.

Someone was trying to kill the poor bastard, after I just saved him the hassle of being thrown out of the local café.

"Curly, you be careful," I say.

I turn to face the street again and check out where I parked my car when the SUV pulls backward and parks in the middle of the street.

"Oh my god, is that you?" the voice says.

My shoulders tense as the car door opens and someone honks their horn.

Alicia takes big steps across the street toward where I stand.

"Hi, Alicia," I say. "How are you?"

"I was just driving by, thanks for asking." I wait for the words to make sense, but there's no time as the rest of the one-sided conversation comes rapid fire like an assault rifle. "So I saw you and thought, you know, we could maybe go back to your place."

"I can't, Alicia, I have a test," I say. Or something.

"A test?" she says. Another car honks as she stands in the street and inches back to the SUV.

"Ya, a new test. You know. Finals." I shrug. Play it all off. I have a knife to hide, some nerves to shake off. Something to think about.

And as I'm trying to keep an eye on my car, I notice that Alicia is moving in my peripheral vision.

She stomps over toward the car and knocks on the car's hood. "Shut up and get in the car, okay?"

"I don't really think," I begin to say, when I look over.

She's wiping the dust off her hands and she stands over at me. "So, you getting in the car or what?"

With that ass, those eyes, how could I not do as I'm told?

My libido isn't really checking in at the moment. It seems to be a bit exhausted at the moment.

When I sit down in her SUV, I notice that she isn't in the car at all. Instead, she's bent over in front of the vehicle like she's picking something up.

"What are you doing?" I say. "Find something?"

"Find?" she says and cocks her head. "Nope, leaving something," she says. She holds up a fifty dollar bill on the ground. She tries to keep my attention by flirting with me—butterfly kisses, I think they're called—with her eyes. When Alicia stands up, her tits bounce up like a trampoline.

"Why would you leave fifty bucks out there? You know what? Never mind. Where to?" I ask.

The car begins to stop and I'm staring at the illumination—a halo, really—of her profile in the sun. Her blonde hair rolls lightly down her shoulders, her eyes glimmer like gems.

The car rolls forward just when I begin to open my mouth. But as quickly as we begin to roll forward, we stop.

"What just happened?" I say.

Alicia's face is still. No emotion as she gets out of the car and kneels down. She pulls back her hair behind her shoulders and doesn't move. "I thought that would be different," she says.

Curiosity bites my ass, and so of course I have to get out. To my right is a white paper box just a few feet away from me. What makes me jump backwards, though, is the shaking arm holding fifty dollars tight in a fist. It sticks out from underneath the vehicle's front bumper.

"Curly?" 
Chapter Ten

SEDANS, SUVs, trucks, coupes, they all drive by, slowing down as they look at me across the four-lane downtown street. The only eyes not seemingly drilling into us are the ones behind us, at the park, where the kids scream out of joygasms and parents gossip over who's richer than who and what famous people did on TV.

"You what?" I scream.

A car slows down coming north. Traffic behind him slows down as he rolls down a window. I grimace at him, baring my teeth and the guy takes a hint and drives off.

"I just wanted to know what it felt like." Alicia's shoulders close up around her ears. She shrugs, the way a cartoon baby shrugs after getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Are you serious?" My hands flap all over the place, not knowing where to exactly point.

See, the cars around here, they aren't stopping long enough for anyone to notice that there's a guy only half-covered by my friend's SUV. The other half—well, he's somewhere underneath us.

And for the record, no, I don't believe he's actually breathing.

"So you hit the fucking guy with your fucking car?"

"If you keep screaming like that," she says, her eyes peering from side to side, "then everyone's going to think that I did it on purpose."

"But you," I begin to say, then stop. Birds fly in a small flock overhead, ignorant to the random deaths of us silly humans down below.

And I pause, thinking just how this is going to look on my record. My student record as well as any other public record that my future bosses could check out.

"I already hit a dog with my car," I say. "I can't be responsible for a human being."

"Stop yelling," she says. She comes up to me and her foot brushes past my thighs. She's kicking the hand underneath the car even more to make it disappear from any prying eyes.

Her breath smells like mint and her hair like flowers. Sweet flowers. Apple blossoms or maybe something strawberry. I don't know, but my mom wears something similar.

It's the thought of my mom that makes me take a step backward and I nearly trip on the edge of the sidewalk.

But Alicia, she catches me by the buttons of my white shirt and she yanks at me, hard. As I snap back to her, her lips meet mine. It takes a second for the velvety caress of her skin to ring true in my brain.

"Did," I say with a smile on my face and my hand at my lower lip. "Did you just bite me?"

"Oh my god you're such a child," she says. "I had to make it look real."

"That was fake?" I ask. My brain needs to reduce the endorphins before I start feeling depressed. "Why was it fake?"

She ignores the question and turns around the SUV. She waves at a car coming past us, as if she knows them.

"Why are you waving?" I ask. "Father?"

She shakes her head.

"Mother?" I'm still standing on the outside of the SUV. If I don't get in, I can't be held responsible for someone else's death. If I do get in, I might be the next death.

She shakes her head again.

"Friend? Cousin? Aunt?"

"Are you getting in or what?" Her perfectly straight profile flicks her hair from side to side. Each strand appears to reflect golden light, cascading a halo across the SUV's cab.

"Yes. Yes I am getting in." My heart dares me to run free from this psycho or else it's going to do it without me. I hold my breath to keep it calm, still. "Where are we going?" I ask.

She flings her gaze in my direction one more time. "Your place?"

The engine starts and we're driving in pure silence. I swear I hear the rocks on the road flipping up, hitting the bottom of the car as we go up Main Street and across to Congress.

You know, you have a lot of time to see the world around you when you're committing crimes.

I never noticed how newer trucks and SUVs are more rounded, slicker than normal. My ass begins to feel the warmth of the heated seats. Everything is tinted like we're A-list celebrities and the inside of the car smells like—vanilla?

However the elephant in the room—uh, truck's cab—refuses to leave me alone, poking and prodding with his imaginary yet weighty trunk. The question just needs to be asked. So I try to ask.

"So um," I try to mutter but Alicia cuts me off. It's just as well.

"Did you just want to make out?" Alicia asks.

"Are we dating?" I ask. The words ice skate out of my mouth.

She laughs—what my Pop-Pop would probably call a guffaw. When the cab is silent, I ask again.

Alicia keeps her head straight at the road but turns her eyes toward me. It seems counterproductive, but I keep my mouth shut. "Why?" she asks. "Did you want to be?"

"I didn't know that was an option."

She squints, stares at the road and corrects the gradual drifting to the right. "Are you always this meek?"

Meek. Meek. That means weak, right? Maybe powerless?

"Yes, I think so?" I say.

She guffaws again.

"You're mocking me." Funny, that should have been a question.

"Yes, I am totally mocking you. You just seem too cute to be this meek." There's that word again. "I mean, what did someone abuse you when you were little? Did a really hot girl turn you down in middle school?"

She waits only for a second for a response—not nearly enough for me to formulate shit in my head—before she turns the wheel toward my apartment building.

"This it?"

I nod. She doesn't see it, however, because she's busy looking for a parking spot.

Once parked, she winks at me and leaves the SUV. Her ass, those beautifully creamy mounds of flesh, they walk up the purple-painted stairs, strut their stuff upwards, and then turn and wait for me to follow at the door.

I'm slow, however. Slow to follow, slow to get out of the car, slow to think. The only thing going fast is my heart. Poor thing has had quite a day today.

Because I don't know if I have condoms. I don't know if I have lube, or if she's even in to that sort of thing. I don't know if she has pills to take, or has taken them, or whatever chicks do.

I don't know if I've shaved. If she's shaved. If it's going that far at all.

"Coming?" she asks with a smirk.

And as much as I'm loving this, I hate her so much. 
Chapter Eleven

IF this were only six years ago, Wolverine and the rest of the X-Men would be watching me fumble with Alicia's bra. Her mouth finds every nook and bump on my face, kissing it, licking it. Her hair falls flat along the lines of my cheekbones. I swear I'm breathing in strands but all I think about, all of my focus goes into my fingers that won't do what I fucking want them to.

The rest of the room is draped in a ghastly red light from the blood red curtains that hang from the bedroom windows. Late nights and terrible insomnia forced me to resort to dark cloths to keep out the daylight.

At this moment, it sort of looks like a bordello in here.

Alicia, however, doesn't seem to mind. She's got her own things going on, namely every part of my face and body being caressed by her lips.

Her tongue works its way into my mouth, parting my lips and only briefly touching mine.

Then, with a flick of her lips, she releases and kisses my chin, my cheeks. Every nook and round of my face feels the blessings of her kisses.

My hands, however, won't do shit. I swear I understand the concept. Hooks. Metal pieces. Pull, let go. That simple, right?

"Need help?" she says. "It helps if you take my blouse off first." Her skin is smooth, white the way you imagine marble statues in the Vatican. The rest of my room pales in comparison. The blood red curtains hang from the window casting a ghastly glow over the room. But still, the hue of her skin, the soft rounds of her eyes, they penetrate my brain and—

She takes her blouse off and tosses it playfully onto my face. The world now has a purplish halo around it. All I see are shadows and light and the motions of Alicia's body. . The smell, the smell of cherry blossoms and the hint of vanilla riding on its tails. It's easy to forget where I'm at as I close my eyes and feel something cold at my waist.

Her shoulders and arms move around in a matter that suggests that her bra is off, free and ready.

By the light that penetrates this blouse, I can see that she's willing to go much, much further than I thought she'd go.

I begin to feel a release of pressure around my waist. She has unbuttoned my pants.

The air feels cold against my lower abs. The plastic feel of her nails makes my hips jump up as she grips the side of my pants. She puts her hands against my mouth and shushes me from any gasps.

So, I remain still and let her do as she wants. What she wants, is to make me a bit more—comfortable, I guess you'd say.

My pants must have been tight. She drags my pants, and my underwear with them, downward over my thighs and to my knees.

The smacking sound of skin on skin embarrasses me when, well, it just flops on my leg.

She giggles. I groan, which I believe she takes for pleasure instead of embarrassment.

Alicia pulls the blouse off of my face and smiles. She lifts my shirt up around my chin and lets it sit there for a moment. Her hands to the talking, writing love letters across my chest and nipples and belly.

I don't remember when it got so cold in here. Well, cold until her hands grip around, um, it.

Chills travel through my hips and run to my shoulders.

"What's wrong?" she says.

"Nothing, I swear."

She believes me, and is about to sit over my waist when I mutter something that I have no business mumbling.

"Why?"

Alicia, as she probably should have, stops what she's kissing and holds onto my, well, you know—it. "What?"

"Nothing," I say. "Keep going." My hands let go of the shirt over my face and let the blouse slap my cheeks. "Continue," I say.

"No, you brought it up, so I want to know. Why what?"

"God dammit," I mutter under the blouse. My breath carries causes it to expand like a balloon, then deflate back to my lips.

Her fingernails scrape the tip of my nose as she pulls my shirt down and sits on the edge of my queen-sized bed. "Well?"

"Why are you so good at turning me on?" I say, but really ask. It would have worked had it not turned out like a statement and a question. A confused statement.

"Right," she says. She gets up and my eyes see more light flood in through the lilac blue fabric of her blouse.

I hear clothes rustling against skin.

"Wait," I say.

She huffs a burst of air out of her mouth that pushes her bangs up and out for a split second. "Good try," she says. She stands up and grips the blouse off of my face and pulls it over her head and shoulders. "No, listen," she says. "I really gotta get going. Thanks though."

"Thanks for?"

She says nothing. Her hands grip the buttons of her blouse. It hangs off her shoulders. It's unbuttoned, still giving me a perfect view of the valleys of her breasts.

"Later," she says and heads for the door.

My pants still remain around my knees, a weird moment I happen to forget when I stand up and try to walk toward her. I have to hold myself up from the hitting the door with my hands, enough so that I can't really pull them up without my mouth running into the bedroom door.

"Stay," I say. "Please?"

She doesn't respond. So close to sex and yet so far from actually getting it. The voices and commentary in my head, the things I should have said and want to say, they sound so real and loud that I can't tell what I'm really saying or what's just my imagination. That internal dialogue so real that it must have happened before.

The door hasn't opened. No jingling of keys. There's still time.

I slide my pants back up around my thighs, let my boxers crunch up around my crotch and awkwardly walk out to the hallway.

"I didn't mean it that way."

"Why did I do what?" she says.

This is one of those trap questions. She knows what I'm talking about, but if I change the topic then I get in trouble for lying to her. If I keep at it, then I'm in trouble for throwing something back into her face.

Fuck it all.

"God dammit."

"That's what I thought," she says and rests her hands on the couch. "Did you see my shoes?"

"Why today?" Here goes nothing. "Why Curly?"

"Who's Curly?" she says. She crosses her arms and her eyes wander down below.

"No, no. That's not Curly." My hands cover my crotch from her stares. "The guy you hit. Why did you really do it?"

"I told you. Wanted to see what it felt like."

"That's a little. You know, weird." Strike two, Coop.

"Why did you try to have sex with me?" she says.

We clearly remember the situation differently.

"Because you wanted to know what it feels like to fuck me, right? Same thing," she says.

The truth hits harder than I would like, like she just swung a sock full of bricks at my head. "What about his family?" I think of quick counter arguments, but this has just become too weird. I'm arguing against myself.

"What about his family? Don't you think if they wanted him they would have helped him out?" she says.

"But what about?"

"Listen, we can do this what if game all fucking day, but if we don't know why we're doing it, then let's stop now, right?" She smiles and looks down at my waist again. "We really ought to try this again sometime, though. This was fun." She flings her hands behind her and rests them in her back pockets. As she turns around she pauses. "Mind if I use your bathroom before I go?"

"Ya, sure," I say. I point toward the doorway in the hallway. "Down there."

She walks as silently as a cat stalking prey down the carpeted hallway. Just as graceful, just as deadly.

The door shuts and my ass rests on the end of the couch. It's all fabric, suede or something like that, and usually very comfortable, but now itches the back of my legs.

The air in my lungs wants to escape, but I'm afraid to breathe. Fifteen minutes ago, I saw a new friend—I guess you can call him that—get hit by a car. Fifteen seconds ago, I'm about to get in with Alica.

What the hell went wrong?

I stand up and go toward the kitchen. A thought itches my brain, tickling the insides of my skull.

If she's gone, I can do Curly justice.

We never went back to pick him up. We never checked to see if he was okay.

She just backed up and left him.

I think to turn on the news, but let's face it; she's right. No one will pay that much attention to a hobo run over in the streets. This town, southern hospitality only goes so far if you aren't contributing to society.

But a knife. Something to her neck or throat. That would end my problems. Probably save more hobos.

I grab a knife from the counters and realize it's too light. Only a butterknife.

Fuck that. Something bigger. Heavier.

Flipping through my cupboards down on either side of the oven, I realize that I have heavy pots and pans that could do damage.

Knock her out, drag her to someplace safe. Cover the carpets.

I'll never get the deposit back if I let blood ruin the carpets. And then there's all the questions and the answers.

I don't have time for that.

The heaviest skillet I have comes out of the cupboard and feels righteous in my hand. The weight of justice in my palms. The sink begins to run. Then, so do I to the end of the hallway. My steady hands grip the skillet with care. As I try not to hit the walls, I let it dangle behind me.

For practice, I hold it up over my head like I'm going to club her when the door opens.

"What the hell are you doing?" she says with a smirk. She walks right past me and into the living room—my wide open spacious living room because I'm too poor to furnish it.

"I was thinking about making something to eat. Interested?"

"Ya, um," she smacks her lips, "no, not really."

"Then do you think you could take me back to my car?"

"Sure." She steps into her shoes—these things that look like pumps, but not really because there's no high heel, and opens the door. "Come on."

My pants slide slowly up my thighs until I can finally button them. I'm hopping as I put on one shoe, then the other, and Alicia taps her acrylic fingernails against the painted metal exterior of my door. "Well?" she says. "Coming?"

"Ya, ya. Right here." I stand tall, try to impress her.

"Are you taking that with you?" she says. She points at the skillet beside my hands.

"This?" I push it off of my couch and it lands in a heavy metal clang against the door. "Why do you ask?"

"You should," she says. "Just to, you know, see something." 
Chapter Twelve

OUR first stop on the way back to my car is to a grocery store. Alicia says we're thirsty and demands that she gets a Dr. Pepper sometime soon or she's "literally going to die."

I smile and nod my head. She's driving and I've got no right to argue, so fuck it. Let's go to a grocery store.

We pass about three gas stations on the way to where she specifically wants to go. "Why are we going to this one, particularly?" I ask. "The Owl's all the way down there and my car is downtown."

"Hush," she says. "You're so cute when you're not thinking." She puckers her lips, blowing me an air kiss.

And I follow her. I follow her perfect ass, that waist that flexes as she takes slow, sexy steps toward the refrigerated aisle near the beers.

Great. She wants us to get drunk together.

Alicia motions over toward the aisle and ushers me in. "Pick something," she said. "Anything. I'm paying."

I stand there, looking at each side of the aisle. The colorful rows of glass. Clear. Amber. Dark brown they're almost black. The bottles shine like onyx and amber crystals in the fluorescent lighting of the store.

"Not that part, you moron," she said. "We don't have fake IDs." Alicia snaps her fingers and points over at the other side. Energy drinks and soda, twenty ounces. "Pick one of these."

Alicia fingers through the bottles and picks an orange Fanta. The bright orange makes me think sour, makes me think sweet orangeade, makes me think bright and shiny. Damn your advertising.

"Good taste," says Alicia when I grab another orange soda.

I read somewhere that getting people to like you was as simple as mimicking them. Getting them to like what they see inside you—or getting them to see themselves in you, rather.

The trick is more useful in sales, but it could work in most social situations.

The other trick, known in some circles as the Ben Franklin effect, is the doing things for other people to get them to like you more.

"No," I say and grab the soda from her grip. "My treat."

She smiles and blushes like she's on autopilot.

I watch and observe, but I know she's just playing with me. She knows what she's doing. A real pro.

The colors of the grocery store blend with the way Alicia seems to walk down the rest of the store. Nothing seems to be as bright, as colorful, as eye-popping as Alicia's own strut down the runway that is the front end of the store. Her legs, her ass. Every milky white piece of her a thing of beauty.

"Are you coming or are you going to watch me walk away from you all day?" She winks. "I have something I want to show you," she says.

And as we get to the front, Alicia stands in front of the cashier and smiles. She pushes her shoulders forward, pressing her breasts against each other. "My friend here, he lost his wallet, so we've only got maybe a dollar."

Nothing else needs to be said. The cashier, a pox-marked teenager who's skin is littered with brown marks like a brick oven pizza, he blushes through his acne.

Jesus Christ.

The cashier—Noah, by his nametag—takes only one of our sodas and rings it up. Then, he rings up the other one, types in something and scans something else and voila! Our sodas are buy one, get one free.

Alicia tosses the boy a dollar and doesn't want for the change. She grabs a plastic bag and balls it up into her hands and simply walks away.

The boy, he practically drools as he watches her strut out the door.

"Believe you me," I say to Noah, "I know."

The twenty ounce of soda shrieks a hiss when she twists the cap and flicks it onto the concrete sidewalk out front. She chugs about a quarter of the bottle and then burps a loud man-burp. She grabs her chest as only a lady would do and politely giggles. "Excuse me," she says.

Fuck women. Fuck women so hard.

Damn I want her.

"Where to?" I ask.

"Follow me," she says. She unravels the bag in her hands and I wait for her to pop the lock. When I climb inside, I notice that she's burying my pan in the bag.

"What's that for?" I say. Without a receipt, but a bag, she might be able to get away with a trade. Maybe store credit. "Wait, are you trading in my pan? It's been used."

She giggles again, a sound that's only transformed into an evil roar when coupled with the sound of the engine turning over. "Don't be ridiculous." She revs the engine once. "Just be patient."

When we drive, we bypass all of the stores in the downtown district. Everything from Target to Wal-Mart disappears in our rearview mirror.

"You're missing the stores."

Alicia flips her hair over her left shoulder. "Why, you missing something?" Her red ribbon lips part just enough to show more bright, pearly teeth.

She drives the SUV into the back alleys of the schools just on the edge of town. Saraday High School remains the largest high school in the northern part of the county, housing students from nearly two and a half towns in this part of South Carolina. I say two and a half because, well, in that religious part of town, the pastor works as part time religious leader and part time principal.

But these alleys, at this time of day, this is where the homeless gather and spend their times collecting food, gathering warmth, and sharing stories.

It used to be the scariest part of the town. Once you were able to ride your bike and travel up and down the street, your mom always told you to stay away from the school at sunset.

The school is an original red brick school building, untouched by the fire nearly a hundred and fifty years ago. The extension added on in the past thirty years does not look anything like the red bricks that make up the main building. A true testament to "They just don't make 'em like they used to."

Alicia parks the car not in the parking lot, but just on the edge of the grassy fields to the north of the school. The fields was where everyone ran out to play and where the physical education classes came out for football practice. Basketball was played on the courts to the far west of the campus.

"Why the school?" I say.

She looks at me and smiles. Without saying a word, just a wink, she snatches the pan from between my legs and wields it like a caveman would wield a club, threateningly brandishing it in front of the hobos.

Then, with her left hand tucked into a pocket in her shorts, she pulls out a fifty dollar bill and lays it on the ground.

"Who's hungry?" she says.

The hobos, they all peek out from around the corner. Their dirty faces gaping in awe and curiosity that someone has approached them for a change.

"What's that?" one of them calls out.

"I have fifty dollars for one of you," she says. "If you're willing to come by and take it." She holds the bag now by the handles, letting the bag hang heavy and low near the grass.

"What's in the bag?" one of them asks.

"Just something for me," she says. Alicia's foot nudges on the fifty dollar bill. "Look," she says. "It's right here."

One of the men, the smallest I think, pokes his head out first. Then the rest of him follows, shoulders, chest, then hips and finally feet.

He wears bright red shoes—they look new and maybe even more expensive than any pair I've ever worn—and he comes out with a confidence the others aren't ready to show.

"Where is this money, bitch?" he says. As he walks, his shoulders sway from side to side as if attached directly to his hips without muscle between. Robotic, if you will. My guess is he's small because of a medical issue. Maybe a defect?

"That's no way to speak to your benefactor," she says.

"Lady, I cain't even spell da werd," says the tiny hobo.

Alicia turns her head to me and smirks. "No doubt," she says.

The tiny one, he stops only a foot in front of Alicia and looks down. His stubby little sausage finger points at the bill under his toes. "You lettin' me have this?"

"Why else would you be standing on it?"

"And I ain't gotta do nothing?"

"Anything," I correct.

Both the tiny one and Alicia give me that look. You know the one I'm talking about. Because I corrected them. I get it all the time.

"Okay," he says. "Sure, I'll take it." He kneels down to grab it and the bag begins to rustle.

At first I think it's maybe the leaves in the wind, until I realize there is no wind. Nothing to move the trees around this time of day.

This is when I notice that Alicia swings the bag up and grabs the black handle of the pan through the bag. Then, swinging backwards, she swings forward like a cricket club and launches the homeless midget into the air nearly two feet. He lands in a heavy thud, but in his hands, he still holds the fifty dollar bill.

"Alicia, what the hell is wrong with you?"

She ignores my pleas for sanity. "Alicia!" I scream.

She takes a determined step forward, her legs flexing as if ready to run if she has to.

"What the hell?" I scream at her.

She extends one acrylic nailed finger at me and shushes me through tight lips.

Her face, it's red as the sunset, her own blue eye shadow now looking purplish and sweaty. She swings the pan up around her head and lowers it onto his head.

One of the men comes from behind the corner school and steps out completely. He stands with his shoulders raised, trying to look bigger than he is.

Someone forgot to tell him that Alicia isn't a bear.

"You wanna try?" she asks. Her right hand extends the pan out to me and she smiles. "Give it a try."

"No thanks," I say and push the pan away with both hands. "I'm driving."

She shrugs and pushes a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "Pussy," she says.

Swinging back again, she hits the tiny homeless man on the head again. And again. And again. With each hit, a bit of blood and hair covers the moist bag.

The other homeless men, the ones who wanted to challenge this psychopath bitch, she stop in their tracks when they, too, notice the sticky red liquid dripping from the bag.

"We ain't got no problem with you," they say and step backwards behind the corner.

"Are you sure?" she says to me one more time. The end of the bag she holds out to me, it's covered in blood. Even if I wanted to take a swing—and maybe I do—I sure as fuck wouldn't grab that end.

"No, no. I think I'm okay."

Alicia pulls up the pan and lets it drop on the man's back. He's done crying, the homeless guy. He just lies there, twitching, quiet.

When she picks the pan back up and offers it to me, I hide behind the SUV's door and peek around the side.

"Don't be such a wimp," she says. She takes the bag off of the pan and lets it drift away with the light wind that starts to pick up in the evenings in the lowlands. "If you do this, I'll totally suck your dick." 
Chapter Thirteen

"I cannot believe you gave up a perfectly fine blowjob," she says. Her eyes remain on the road, afraid to meet with mine. Or maybe that's the other way around.

I can't tell because my heart beats so strongly in my ears.

"Was that not the coolest?" she says. "I love that feeling."

My hands grip the sides of the seat, fingernails digging into the depths of the fabric. She said that like she's done this before.

My mind replays recent killings or deaths in the recent few years. Nothing about dead hobos, anyway. Maybe she was right. Maybe they don't keep track.

"Well," she says. "Say something. Don't be all awkward and shit."

"What should I say?" manage to mumble through my frightened lips.

"Say anything," Alicia says. She snaps her fingers and as blossoming trees and yellow pollen pass us by outside, she says, "Why don't you tell me why you didn't wanna give that fucking little midget a bonk on the head."

The tiny one, he's still laying there if his friends didn't haul him off first. I doubt any one of them will call the cops. It's not exactly a secret that they hang around the school in the afternoon, but nobody in their right minds would draw attention to the fact that they're squatting in a public place. They'd get kicked out for sure.

"Why?"

"That's what I'm asking you," she says. She nudges my knees, which are pulled close to my chest. My arms reach around them, grasping my knees to keep them steady. "Why didn't you wanna try?"

"Because I didn't know how," I say.

The words surprise myself as much as they seem to surprise her.

"It's pretty easy," she said. "You're a boy, you know how to hit stuff. You just raise it up and let it plop down on the guy's head."

"I think you killed him," I say.

"Not think. I did." She smiles. "Did you see him twitching? It's what happens when the body begins to spasm from uncontrolled reflexes. It doesn't seem to happen all the time, but every once in a while we get a dancer on the concrete." She chuckles to herself and glares at me through the corner of her emerald eyes. "What do you say? You hungry?"

When we turn the corner, Alicia flicks down the window button on her door. I listen to it whir on my end and the breeze combs my hair backwards. "Did you mean to do that?"

Alicia grimaces at my direction and extends an acrylic fingernail toward the pan that sits precariously between my feet. Neither of my shoes will touch it. Any fibers or transfer of hairs and I'm going to be linked to the crime.

"Will you just dump that for me?" she says.

"You're kidding," I say. "That has evidence. Blood. DNA. Probably hairs."

"You're such a worry wart," she says. "I've done this before."

The question "Just how long" comes to mind, but I leave it alone for fear of getting a real, honest-to-God answer.

"I'm kidding," she says and slaps my knee. "But seriously, it's okay to dump that around the corner. You know, whenever you're ready."

"But it's mine," I tell her. The pan—I'm not even sure I want it back, honestly—was the one she stole from my apartment. I mean, sure I brought it from the apartment, and I was the one who put the damned thing in the truck. But dammit, she stole it. Took it hostage and turned it into a murder weapon.

Now it's between my legs and needs a serious rinsing.

"Fine, fine," she says. "I was only kidding you know." She points behind her at a blue traveling ice chest that lies in the back of the truck. "Get that will ya?"

The ice chest feels more bulky than heavy, maybe sandwich only heavy, not a full six-pack of beer heavy.

I prop it up on my lap and look at Alicia for further instructions. We hit more bumps and speed bumps because, apparently, she just doesn't give a fuck.

The trees that used to line the sides of the road are now street lamps and fire hydrants. Old people wait in lines to turn their cars down streets lined with wooden houses with painted metal paneling.

"And?" I say.

She snaps her fingers and says simply, "Open it."

I do and inside I see plastic gloves—a whole box like what you see in a doctor's examining room—and a clear water bottle with a spray attachment.

"What's this?" I ask.

"Ammonia and bleach," she says. "Spray."

I take the bottle out and, I swear to God, the thought of just spraying her in the eyes makes me want to burst out into tears. If only I could. Without her wanting to kill me, that is.

"So, are you going to do this or not?" she says. Again with the snapping.

"What you're trying to say is I spray something," I say.

"You're a fucking idiot," she says.

I point the nozzle to the pan and start spraying. The smell reminds me of cat piss and Sundays when my mother cleaned the whole house from top to bottom.

"Good boy," she says and grabs my knee. The squeezing of her fingers around my thigh tightens another part of my pants and I'm left adjusting my seating so I can pay attention to my job.

"What's this do?" I say.

"The ammonia makes the blood untraceable," she says. "I think." She shrugs. "I dunno, I saw it somewhere on a movie, I think and thought why not? It should work, you know?"

Her voice sounds quick, rapid fire in her responses. Each syllable drives out of her mouth in an adrenaline go-kart.

"You've done this before?" I ask. My eyes close as if it'll keep the answer from prying into my brain.

"Not here," she says. "I was just looking around, you know, and you seemed like the perfect guy to share this with."

My face turns so I can stare at the front of the road. The striped yellow line disappeared under her side of the SUV and I'm counting the thump thumps that this vehicle drives over.

The rhythmic beats help me focus, lose myself into something that isn't premeditated homicide.

"I like you," she says. "You have a dark side about you."

"Thanks," I say.

"No seriously," she says. The cat piss smell of the ammonia and bleach feels like a corkscrew into my brain. My eyes begin to melt from the fumes and I roll down the window while she's going on about how dark is sexy and she's a closet emo kid. "Good idea," she says, interrupting herself with an ADD twist that would put a meth addict to shame, "the smell will get pretty nauseating in a little bit."

I nod, keep staring straight.

"So back to your place?" she says.

"No, not back to my place. I need to get my car, remember?" I look back behind us and through the large window at the end of the fifth door. "I parked near the park."

"Right," she says. After a hissy sigh, she says, "Fine, fine. You can have your car back."

"Gee, thanks," I say.

Her foot touches the break and dips it slightly. The car's speed drops enough that I can actually see what the blurs of color are on the outside of the road. The wind doesn't blow my hair back as far and for a second, I think a fly or a mosquito is flying in the same speed as us.

"Don't get pissy with me, okay?" she says. "What happened happened, and you just need to be okay with it. You can't go changing the past, and you sure as fuck can't go telling anyone on me."

It's funny how she thought about that before I did.

"I mean, it's not like a whole lot of people will believe you since my dad is the new police chief."

"New police chief?" I mutter. Of course he is. Why wouldn't he be? It's only the strangest, most awkward situation I can think of.

The chief of police lives next to my mom and I'm dating a psychopathic bitch.

Wait, are we dating?

"So I guess I'm just dropping you off?" she says.

The park is up around the bend. Soft green grass blows in waves along with the wind. The park benches are mostly empty except for a single couple and their little three-year-old daughter running after a yellow and blue beach ball.

"Ya," I say. "You know, I need to get some homework done." Please don't ask any more questions than that.

"Sure," she says. "Pass up on it again," she says. Her right hand, those claw-like nails, seize my left knee and she squeezes. Then without warning, she climbs up my thigh, grabbing, squeezing, testing the fleshiest parts of my leg until her arm can't move any further up without her adjusting her seat. "You sure you want to pass this up?"

"I have to," I say. "Tests." Or homework. Or whatever. Shit, what's the fucking use? She already knows I'm lying to her.

"Fine," she says. Alicia unbuckles her seatbelt and leans over and kisses me on the cheek. "Thanks for a fun day, and don't forget your pan."

The orange pan drops ammonia onto her carpets and onto the black asphalt as I transfer it from her SUV to mine.

She drives off into the afternoon sunset. I'm sitting in the car, watching her tail lights fade to black and I'm thinking that I'm in so much fucking trouble.

I am not a random murderer.

My stomach churns with butterflies churning more butterflies in a hurricane of would-be vomit if I had anything in my stomach.

This—this is why I don't date. This is why I think women are crazy, that they're all psychos. Mom taught me well: the model for what all women were going to be.

"What are you going to do with yourself, Coop?" I say. I roll down the window when the fumes hit my distracted nose and centers me back into reality.

The windows whir down with a mechanical ease and then I pause. I weigh the considerations. She could be home. She could be at my place. She could be at my parents' place.

Who the hell knows? How do I avoid Lucifer herself?

When the car engine turns, I shift the car into gear and drive off toward my house.

Trees—nice, pacifistic trees that don't try to kill random hobos on the streets—pass by in faster and faster pace as I accelerate to my apartment complex at the edge of town.

A funny thing happens when you lose yourself when you drive. You begin to see the past, the future, the current goings on in multiple realities. In my case, I see dogs, fur, and blood everywhere. Every thirty seconds I swear I'm going to hit another imaginary blond dog. Long hair would be splattered along the sides of my car, stuck up under the wheels, painted and affixed by blood.

My mother called me a killer that day. She called me a murderer.

Well, mother, I learned I am not a murderer. I am not a killer. I am not the let down you want me to be, Mother.

I'm not. It's not in my nature. I am not a force of evil.

As the thought of evil enters my brain, so does Alicia's beautiful, silky white face.

I may not be a force of evil, but I can be a force of good. Even murderers can be good, right? Maybe it takes a murderer to kill a murderer.

Outside, the street lights grow thinner, casting less light along the streets. The yellow lights are slowly replaced with the white high beams of my own car as I pull into the parking lot of my apartment complex. If I'm going to be the killer my mom wants me to be, then I'll have to do this my way and prove her wrong.

You're wrong, Mom. Your little baby boy is not the cold-hearted bastard you want him to be.

No. Not cold. Not a murderer.

But a savior. An angel of mercy. A killer of killers. A protector.

The smell of stale air and dusty paint flees the apartment when I open the door and throw myself onto the couch. It gives a little push back, letting me bounce and think and relish in the happy medium of future.

I will stop a killer. Protect homeless people and innocents everywhere.

And I'll still be a killer, Mom, because you want me to be. I have to be. It's the only way you'll be happy, is if you're right.

I yawn and wipe the tears away that come with it.

But I'll start tomorrow. I have class in the morning.

Chapter Fourteen

SCHOOL'S out so I do the first thing I can: sit and hide in one of the lecture halls.

It's here when I realize that my phone is not on vibrate, so it buzzes a tune I had nearly forgotten about.

As Fergie sings about her humps, her lovely lady lumps, I'm fumbling with the phone to mute the sonuvabitch.

The phone drops from my hands and the impact echoes into the nearly empty lecture hall. The room is barely large enough to hold all one hundred-something students that normally sit here for a minor psychology class.

When I pick up the phone and play it off like I was going to turn it off anyway, or maybe my headphones—which I now notice I am not wearing—just slipped out, I laugh to myself.

The other thirty people who just watch me, their eyes judging me like they've never had to shake their thang to this tune. "Sorry," I say and wave to make peace.

The phone buzzes off and in bold black letters against the photo of a raining sky, is Alicia's name.

"God dammit," I mutter to myself.

Just to be sure, I look over my shoulder and look for anyone who looks typically clean-cut, maybe wearing a habit or a white collar. You know, the typically Christian-like fellows.

Then I remember where I am: a liberal arts school in the local community college.

Not a whole lot of religious folks here. Most of the real dangers are Southern Baptists. In this deep in the woods, it's of the Hills Have Eyes variety. Scary, creepy stuff.

The phone begins to buzz in my hands again. I mute it, putting my palm over the phone and pressing hard. I don't have enough strength to keep it still, even for a second.

"Hey, are you going to answer the damn thing or can you just shut the fucking phone off?" says one of the girls.

Her nose piercing scares me more than her tone of voice, so I comply and put it against my phone.

No, I don't answer the damn call, I just put it against my ear and step up, grabbing my light blue Jansport and flinging it over my shoulder.

"Sure, sure, I'll be there in a second," I mouth into the phone without any real audible sound coming out of my mouth.

The bright light of the cloudy sky pierces my retinas and I see spots. Dark red splotches, spots that fade outwards like a supernova star. Like blood on the back of a hobo midget's head.

God damn this bitch.

The night before was a toss and turn kind of night, the kind of event where you just rest your face in the pillow, not on, but in, and pray to whatever you believe in that your body will exhaust itself and you'll pass out before it's time to wake up again.

When you're still a freshman or sophomore, by the way, you can't not take a morning class. Sucks ass.

So when you're at your sleepy time and you realize that you can't get your eyes to close without seeing the muddled face of a bruised-and-beaten-to-death, tiny homeless person, you quickly learn what kinds of medication will make you sleepy.

For the record, acetaminophen is not one of them. Neither is DayQuil, though I hear it works for some people.

And expired Nyquil, well, sometimes that works. This case, it didn't.

To call back or not to call back? My eyelids droop like they belong to Garfield the cat, those eyes that just look like they crave permasleep.

This is what I would call chronic fatigue syndrome if I had a medical degree.

But I don't...and psychologists are not supposed to be able to diagnose medical ailments.

I bite the bullet, so to speak, and press call back on my phone.

It rings three times before she answers. "Yello?" Alicia says. She sounds hot over the phone. Not sexy, but heat exhausted and tired.

"You called?" I say. Play it cool, frustrated. Unwilling to take her shit.

"Ya, I was just seeing what you were up to."

I check the time on the face of my phone. It's only one-thirty.

"Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

"Oh that?" Alicia says with a giggle. She lets out a little sigh and then says, "So what are you up to?"

Just out front of the lecture hall is a small plant area. Dark, wet mulch and something that hopes to grow up to be a big, leafy tree remain held in an area squared off by bricks. The bricks stack up about three feet high, enough for most of us to sit down and rest before and after classes.

I take my seat and watch as young men and young women in flip flops trod into the hall for the next class.

"I'm waiting for my next class." False.

"And you can't skip?" she says.

"In college, you're actually paying for your classes. Doesn't make much sense to skip." I look up at the people passing by. Smile like I'm not a serial killer just yet. "Besides, I need these credits to graduate."

"I thought college was just all taking tests and passing exams and drinking and shit. At least that what it looks like on television."

"If only it were that simple," I say. Someone comes by, someone who looks like no one I particularly know and I wave at her. She shrugs and pulls her bag closer to her side. Her hair is loose, draping the sides of her head without touching her shoulders. Her glasses make her look smart, but not bookish. She doesn't wear makeup yet, or this is maybe an off day for her.

"Oh, hi!" I say and she looks at me again, walking faster. Then, to the phone I say, "Listen, I gotta go. Someone's here."

"Who is it?" she says. "What girl's ass do I have to kick?"

Do I feel flattered or frightened just now?

I chose both, blushing and feeling my balls get a little bit closer to my intestines. "I gotta go, but I'll call you when I'm out of class." Basically, never again.

When I hang up the phone without waiting for her goodbye, she calls me back.

Again. And again. And again.

I don't answer...can't really answer when you're sitting in a class that you just randomly decide to audit without telling anyone.

It's a basic psych 101 class. This class—an afternoon one—is small, almost too small to let me hide out in the back. The professor, a woman, comes in and places her books on the counter and looks out at the class. She smiles, her glasses bring accent to her crystal blue eyes.

Immediately, I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. The girl I waved to, she's the professor. Or should I say grad student. In most schools, they don't make the professors teach lowly 101 classes. That's a job for the grad students. Gotta let them earn their pay somehow.

She sees me and smiles, her own eyes meeting mine in what seems like an awkward minute. "So," she says with a smile. "We have some new faces."

The rest of the class—only about thirty students, if that—look from side to side and try to measure each other up. Have they seen each other before, they wonder? Did they know that they would be visited by someone else? Do they even see me?

The answer to all of this is probably, no, and definitely no. Not a single soul looks behind the group to see me hiding out in the back. I slouch down low into the seats, looking at the woman in her black skirt sitting on the table. She crosses her legs at the knee and leans off to the side, holding herself up and looking at the group.

"So," she says, "who can tell me about Zimbardo?" She surveys the room, then at me. She sees that I know the answer, but I'm keeping my lips tight. She suspects that I may not be a real student, but just a lurker. A visitor. A tourist, if you will.

She doesn't call me on it, but points at a boy in a purple Aeropostale shirt. "You, what can you tell me about Zimbardo?"

The boy squirms in his seat and looks at his peers. Not one of them says anything to him, but instead raises their own hands in a search to make the poor guy look like a fool.

The boy throws out a suggested answer. "Isn't he like, some famous coach or something?"

"That's Lombardi," she says. "Vince Lombardi," says the grad student.

"He experimented with prison," I mutter from the back. The grad student's eyes gravitate toward mine. Her eyebrows raise high enough to hide behind her bangs. "What was that?" she says with a know-it-all smile.

"He experimented with students in a prison. Turned a Stanford basement into a prison. In assigning students randomly as guards and prisoners, he established that if someone is given a role to fill, they will gradually become that role, particularly if that role is one of power."

"Not bad, mister, uh," she says.

"Coop," I say. "Just call me Coop."

"Thanks, Coop."

"Any time, miss, um."

She smiles and raises her eyebrows. "Erica."

The sun swings low enough for the evergreen trees up on the hills to hide it in the sky. This makes the evacuation of the lecture hall a peaceful one. As I'm leaving through the door and looking for my phone in the pocket, Erica comes to the back and holds out her hand.

"I see you've already covered this in your other classes," she says.

I shake her hand. It feels cold but soft, like the bottom side of a pillow. "I'm just sitting in here, actually. Hiding out from a girl." It's only until after I've added from a girl that I realize just how ridiculous it seems.

Erica smirks. She points her toes toward her desk at the front of the room and motions for me to walk with her. "That was good work," she says. "Thanks for answering. Helps the class move a little bit faster."

"Anytime," I say. "Honestly, I've already taken this class," I tell her. "About a year and a half ago. I'm in the last year of my program. Where were you when I was taking Psych 101?" I joke.

She smiles and says, "I just enrolled this semester. This is the class they gave me."

Her blue blouse looks professional but cheap. She's trying to dress nice to get some recognition. Based on the class's turnout, I'm guessing it isn't working out so well.

"So what classes are you taking now?"

"Taking a psychology of gender class with Norton. Interesting stuff."

Erica gathers the books up into the nook of her arm and presses them tight against her chest for support. We walk toward the door in slow, graceful steps. She doesn't notice that we're walking step-by-step, in line like soldiers. It's my own doing, mimicking her. An old sales pickup I learned while working at clothing stores in the mall back in high school.

The idea is, if I do what she's doing, then she sees me as one of her and she likes me more. Applied psychology.

"You know that Norton is a lesbian, right?" Erica says.

"It's only painfully obvious," I say and hold the door out for her. "She rants about men so hard my balls crawl up inside me."

Did I just say that? A quick peek at the corners of her mouth and I see them drift upwards into a coy smile.

I continue with the routine, "The only thing that threw me was she kept talking about her kids."

"Those are her partner's kids. From another straight relationship."

I nod. "Figures," I say.

I follow her to the car and wonder if I'm supposed to ask her out, or if it's even legal. I'm not taking any of her classes this year, but there's this awkward understanding.

Do I be the man in this situation or do I let her be the man? What's a psych student to do?

Erica leads me to a yellow pickup truck, a Ford Ranger. She opens the door with a push of a button on her keychain and tosses her books into the passenger's side. "If you want to stop into my class again," she says, "please feel free. I could use the help."

"Let me be your little plant in the audience?"

"It's too small for that to work," she says. "Works better in a larger audience." She winks at me. Her hands twirl the keys around her index finger and I'm left wondering just how much farther this game will go before one of us just does it.

Oh, fuck it.

"How about I don't come to class and you come to dinner with me sometime?"

Erica pushes her hair back behind her ears and looks into her window, peering into her cab. She fixes her collar on her blouse, pushes her hair back again and then turns to me. "Sure, we can probably do that sometime."

"So, can I get your number and call you?" The words rush out without me thinking about it.

"How about you come to my class next week, and I'll have it for you then?"

Coy. Beautiful. Manipulative. I like it. "Okay," I say. "Deal." I extend my hand out to her, and she stops to stare at it.

Stupid, stupid Coop. You know better than that.

She smirks with only half of her mouth, the left half, and grabs my hand. Her soft skin tickles my palm and we shake hands. "Till next week, then."

I nod. "Till next week."

I motion my shoulder to hug her, but I pause. It's too early for that, to feel that close to anyone. So, I take a step backwards and watch her get into the small truck. Rangers, small for their size, easy to get in. A good truck for someone like me, who doesn't like trucks.

She drives away with a smile, a nod, and a wave.

I stand there, watching everything she does, every motion and as she drives away, turn to find my car in the parking lot. It extends over and upwards, as the parking lot is built into the hill. Almost like terraforming, but more environmentally friendly.

My white car sits there waiting for me, the only one in the row. The way it's parked, you would have thought I was maybe drunk or blind at the time.

As I walk to the car, I hear the sounds of another car coming from the side of me. The engine sounds heavy, its roars pulsing deep into my chest.

"Who the hell has that?" I say.

The vehicle pulls forward and flicks its lights on. They are visible, but barely in this time of day. My steps pick up faster, toward my car. The thought does cross my mind: someone's going to kill me if I stand still too long.

I make special care to walk carefully toward my car, putting as much distance and many roadblocks between us. The trees that line the concrete blocks in the front of the parking spots keep a steady line between me and the mysterious vehicle.

"You're finally out of class?" says the voice.

My heart sinks deep, falling into the caverns of my stomach.

"Dammit," I mutter to myself.

"Don't just ignore me, Coop," Alicia says. Through the lights, I see the shadow of her head popping out of the window. "Who's that girl?" she says.

Chapter Fifteen

WHAT keeps me up at night is almost laughable. You know those conversations you have in your head before you can sleep? Those ones that are all about saving the world, solving its problems, or tackling those unique issues that only your sleep-deprived mind can consider?

Well, what keeps me up at night is a conversation starter kinda like this. "So, there's this girl that wants to kill you because she's in love with me. I hope that means we can still go out sometime?"

My arms behind my head, I try to keep myself focused on a blank spot on the ceiling, a pattern that for the past few weeks has reminded me more of a spider than just what it is: random plaster on the ceiling.

And for all of my training in psychology, I couldn't tell you what Freud would say about spiders. Except that maybe they were kinda creepy. Or maybe very creepy.

Okay, focus, Coop. Focus hard.

There is a guilty part of me that says that I can't tell her. Maybe it won't happen. Maybe if I just keep the secret between me and Alicia, we won't even have to worry about it.

Maybe if I keep Alicia busy, she'll forget about it.

But maybe she won't forget about it. Maybe she'll hunt her down with the tenacity of a large, blonde, gorgeous pitbull with green eyes the colors of unnatural emeralds.

Or maybe I'll just have to kill her myself. Do unto others, right?

No, Coop. Bad Coop. Bad, bad Coop.

I roll to my side to view the red lettering of the digital clock that serves as my alarm. It sits on a wooden end table for a nightstand. Turned up extra when I bought my living room set. Had to think fast or find a way to get rid of it. That's always been my mom's philosophy. Find a use or get rid of it. A cluttered home was a sign of a cluttered mind was a sign of a lazy mind.

Focus. Focus. Focus, Coop.

Do I just go to the class tomorrow and tell Erica that her days are numbered? Does anyone even say that anymore?

I pick up my phone off the charger and look at the black numbers against the stormy sky background.

Alicia hasn't tried to call me yet. This is maybe a good thing. Maybe it's a bad thing, and it means she's on the hunt.

Wouldn't put it past the crazy bitch.

And it's like she knows that I'm thinking about her. It's her number that pops up on the screen. Just when I'm ready to drop the phone and worry about all of this tomorrow.

Of course, when my eyes want to finally close and my brain might just be getting tired of the death threats and imaginary conversations, she comes calling.

"Hello?" I say. For effect, I restrict the air coming out of my throat so it sounds like I'm sleeping. If she thought I was still awake, answering this quickly, it'd all go to her beautiful, crazy little head.

"Hey," says Alicia. She's perky. Her voice goes up, the tone looping upwards like a California stereotype. "Whatcha up to?"

"Sleeping?" I rub my forehead and squint a little bit. I figure if I'm to pull this off, I need to focus pretty hard on the physical as well as the vocal.

"That doesn't sound like fun," she says. "We should go out. Tonight. Get dressed and meet me outside. I want to show you something."

Those words: I want to show you something. Famous last words before she took a pan to the side of some tiny homeless guy on the side of the school's parking lot.

"What are you going to show me?" I play coy, like maybe she wants to show me something in her pants.

"You'll have to come out here and see."

Earlier today when she picked me up from the college campus because, you know, I never actually called her and she was just stalking me like any normal girl would, she had seen me with Erica.

It's not like we did anything. No kissing. No hand holding. Nothing romantical at all.

Yet, there was Alicia. "Who's that girl?" she said.

I winced and said, "Just a new grad student. She was subbing for a professor. She was on vacation."

Instantly, Alicia says, "I don't like her."

And that's all I could say about the matter without wanting to yell.

If only I were a bit more assertive.

Alicia wants to offer me a ride, this thing about wanting to be my girlfriend and maybe keep track of my every movement.

"No thanks," I say. "I have my car over there." I point in a direction at the time. Her eyes follow my hands wavering about behind me, aiming at one direction, then the next.

No doubt she didn't believe a single fucking word I said.

"I see," she says. "Well, are we going to hang out?" She grabs her tits and squeezes those fleshy orbs in her hands, her fingernails clawing at her chest in the process.

Why? Dear god, why?

"No, I can't," I say.

"You sound like a broken record," she says. She pulls her hands to her hair and pulls it to the side of her head. She's pulling every single move that you see in movies. Everything she knows about picking up guys she learned from MTV.

"I know, I know, but I have an exam in a few days, and I need to get some notes from online."

"Can I come hang out?" she says.

I shrug and almost say yes, because truth be told, it was a reasonable request at the time.

"No, no," I say. "No, not a good idea."

Back in the real world, Alicia whistles into the phone. "You there, space cadet?"

"What?" I say, even though I know damn well I heard her the first time. "Ya, I'm here. I'm here." I pause and sit up looking for clothes. "I don't really want to go anywhere tonight. I'm tired, and it's late."

Truth. It was about twelve thirty, half past midnight. Technically a new day.

I say, "It's too early or too late for shenanigans."

"That's too bad," she says. I hear a honk outside of my window. "Because I'm already here."

"You can't be already here." I peek out of the window like a creepy stalker neighbor. "You live like twenty minutes away."

"Well, yes, but I was sitting outside when I called you. See that?" she says, proud. "Sneaky like that."

"Sneaky, creepy, whatever."

There's silence on the phone. Our conversation goes dead for a brief moment, and as it does, I picture her plotting my death as well. Two would-be lovers buried next to each other in shallow graves along the interstate.

"Well, are you coming or not?" she says. Something slams shut in the phone over on her end.

For fuck's sakes, she's on her way up here.

"No, no, no," I say. "Don't come on up here."

"Too late," she says. The doorbell rings. "I'm here."

Justifiable homicide, breaking and entering. Great start to the day.

"No, I'm not even dressed." I say.

She moans and yes, I feel a little pull in my groin. "Well, we can start with that," she says.

"What happened to the cute little girl that I first met a few days ago?" I say.

She knocks on my door again and as I open it up, phone still attached to the side of my head, I smile. Alicia pushes me aside and comes in, measuring me up. "That girl never existed," she says. She leaves me behind when she goes to the bedroom. She stops, stares at the doorway and says, "Let's get you some dark clothes for tonight."

For safety, she figures that she needs to be the one who drives. She considers me a flight risk, I can already tell. She knows I've considered it because I've already done an offer to drive separately.

"Not a chance, cutie," she says to me. "Get in." The locks pop and she sits inside the driver's side. She waits for me to sit down and then starts the car.

She's dressed in all black: black turtleneck, long sleeve; black cargos; black boots. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail with a black scrunchi.

Alicia dressed me, so I match her almost perfectly. Didn't have a turtleneck, though, so I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt with a darker black felt patter on it. "Good enough," she says as she pulls it out and rests it against my chest. "You don't buy a lot of clothes, do you?"

Back in the car, the orange-yellow of the streetlights flood the insides of the SUV's cab, beating like Morse code but in lights. Beat-beat. Beat-beat-beat.

There's silence in the truck yet again, though I recognize the path she's taking. She driving back to the community college, but she's taking a longer route. She wants me to say something about this. Maybe call her out. Give her a chance to make a statement.

"Recognize this?" she finally says.

"A little bit," I say. "But we were already here today."

The parking lot pops up over the hill, a quick black asphalt entrance that splits the luscious green ocean that makes up the landscaping.

No other cars sit in the parking lot. Well, not a lot except for maybe a few different ones that I don't recognize. My guess is night watchmen.

Means we're not getting caught, means we're not doing anything stupid, means that maybe she's not really going to kill someone.

"Can we not have to kill something today?" I say.

Alicia grimaces at me. "You're no fun," she said. Her hands don't even twitch as we have this conversation. Her eyes are wide open; the green irises of her eyes dilate and reflect the orange of the overhead street lamps.

"We don't have to do this all the time," I say.

"You say that like we do this all the time," she says.

"You're not really going to kill Erica, are you?" I say.

She pauses and smiles. "So that's her name!"

"No, it's not her name. It's an alias I gave her." It's utter bullshit. Yes even she sees that.

"You're a terrible fucking liar," she says. "What does she teach?"

"She doesn't teach. She subs. Like the subs you get at high school."

"And you think I'm an idiot," she says to herself. "You're building quite a grave for yourself, mister." Her hands trace the inside seam of my pants and her hands stop just short of my crotch. Then, without a warning, I feel her fingers press against my flaccid, unflattering manhood. "Why don't you trust me?" she says.

"Because I watched you bash some homeless person in the head?" A quick search of the cab reveals no apparent weapons. No telling what she's probably hiding in her sleeves or pockets. Or in the sides of the seat.

"God, you're such a child," she says.

I take a deep breath and sit back in the seat. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"You're wrong," she says. Her gaze penetrates my eyes, into my head. She's digging for power in this conversation. She smiles, her painted nails and perfume lingers into my nostrils. She sees my nose flare, each nostril taking in the strawberry goodness of her perfume.

"So then what are we going to do?" I say.

She opens the door and says nothing. Typical. When it comes to talking about her, she doesn't want to talk. Only about me, me, me.

Rocks from the loose asphalt crunches underneath her steps. I'm stuck in the car, breathing in fresh air from the side of the interstate.

"Alicia!" I shout. "What are we doing?"

She turns around and rests a finger against her lips. "Shh, or I'll kill you," she says.

The smile on her lips, I don't know if she's pretending or if she's serious.

I pray for the earlier, prepare for the latter.

"I don't understand why you feel threatened by her," I tell her. "You don't really have to be. She's just a grad student. Nothing important."

"She's pretty," she says. "Pretty girls are dangerous."

"Tell me about it," I say and she laughs while still walking toward the main building. It sits in the middle of the compound of God only knows how acres of land. The community college itself is surrounded by roughly nothing but trees and streets on all four sides. The individual buildings, however, are painted a beige color to contrast nicely with the dark browns and greens of our local South Carolina environ.

The lights are on inside the main administration building, but no one seems to be in there. No cars in the parking lot. Not even a nighttime cleaning crew.

"You're sweet," she says.

"So, we're here because?"

"I want to make a point," she says. "I want you to see something."

We turn around the corner of the building, toward the back southern end. The campus is set up with a series of beige cubes that house the different departments. The arts department. English department. Psychology.

The main ones sit in this one main campus. The others are centered at the other campuses that are scattered in the cardinal directions at the extremes of each town. Culinary in the south. Chemistry in the east. Math in the west.

And us, psychology and education in the north.

The air still feels humid and thick in my lungs, the way I breathe urges me to keep short steps and not overwork. In this time of year, it gets to be rainy at any time of day.

Besides, at each corner we turn, I go looking for a sign that someone might be around there, someone with a gun or a truck or a flashlight. Someone who could get us arrested if we said or did the wrong thing.

Alicia holds no weapons in her hands, and the way her body flexes when she talks, the hip huggers that leave so much to the dirtiest of imaginations. She isn't carrying anything that is typically labeled a weapon.

"You're doing what, here, exactly?"

She rests her fingers against her lips again while whispering, "Shut the fuck up."

I raise my hands in surrender and walk slowly. The view is wonderful back here. Her ass flexing as she walks, each cheek pumping up and down, her hips waving from side to side as she walks.

She must be doing this because she can read my mind. She knows it turns me on. Or she's a pro at this kind of thing and it turns her on.

Though the scientist part of me says she only walks like this because she's on the hunt. The same way a cat's shoulders become meat and bone pistons as it crawls, fluid in their movements. This is her equivalent. Her ass muscles working like pistons to get to her desired location in the most flashy and economical way possible.

When we get around the corner and near the far end of the campus, she points at a dumpster. Nearby, a man sits in his own wet, dark circle and his head down. He's sleeping, I think, or passed out. No bottle means he might not even be drunk, or he wandered here afterwards.

"What's this?" I say.

"If you're going to be my boyfriend," she says, "I want you to share this experience with me."

She extends an open hand out in front of her, as if introducing me to this man in front of us.

"He's all yours," she says.

My eyes widen, feel cold and dry despite the cold humidity that surrounds my head. "You can't be serious."

"And why not?" she says. "Here."

She picks up a rock on the side of the parking lot and hands it over to me. It's black and probably a sun-dried rock of asphalt. Maybe tar. Who can tell in this odd lighting? What I do know is it has sharp edges that cut along the creases of my palm and it reflects the orange-yellow of the lamps above us.

"That's how," she says. Alicia points to the man and says, "Now hop to it." 
Chapter Sixteen

ALICIA snatches the rock from my own trembling hand and walks over to the man in his own drying, darkened circle of piss.

"It's not that hard," she says. Her small frame forms a shadow that looks like darkened power. The lamps from multiple angles each cast a shadow that fades across the old man and into the fields around us. "All you have to do is this," she says.

She takes the rock and knocks the old man across his face. There's a tiny squirt of blood in the darkened circle, near the edge by Alicia's feet. It dissolves into the darkness and into little whirls that fade into nothingness.

"Jesus Christ," I say. "Stop."

Alicia twirls the rock around in her hands and slams the guy across the head again. He finally wakes up long enough to see another blow to his own forehead.

The poor guy, he doesn't have enough time to even flinch before falling over and covering his head with his hands.

"What are you trying to prove?" I say.

Alicia chucks the rock at the man's head. It bounces off of his head in a parabolic arc like a rock skipping off the surface of a lake.

"I'm trying to show you that not everyone is really that precious," she says. "Look at this guy." Alicia's foot presses into the man's leg. I swear I see a darkened spot on the man's jeans, right at the crotch that extends to just under his pants toward his ass. "He's sitting in his own piss and shit. He's not collecting money. He's not doing anything for the betterment of America. Or mankind. Or himself, for that matter."

She kicks the man's knee and he's so knocked out, his foot doesn't even jolt outward in reaction.

"He has done nothing except exist in a pathetic waste," she says. "We're overcrowded as it is anyway. Why bother keeping him around? Save the space and resources for who's sober enough to use it."

"So you fancy yourself a great savior of mankind?"

Alicia grins and crosses her arms. "And what are you doing for us?"

By us, she means the human race. For one, I'm not killing all of us.

"That's what I thought," she says. "You do nothing and you can't even admit to yourself that you're just as useless as him. Maybe you're good for a good fuck, but that's about it."

Try as I might at this moment, the thought of sex with her horrifies me, making my dick turn into an innie instead of an outie.

"I get a chance to vent some frustration and clean up some human problems at the same time," she says. "You should really try it. It's pretty fucking therapeutic."

She kicks the man again and he doesn't budge.

"Well, you know," she says, "having killed your grandpa and all."

My teeth grind together. "I did not kill him," I tell her. "That was a complete, isolated incident independent of anything I could have done."

"Hey," she says, "you don't have to convince me." She kicks the man again. "It really sounds like you're trying to convince yourself."

"You bitch," I say. "Fuck you, too." I turn to walk at the car when I feel a rock come flying at the back of my head. I stumble forward but catch myself from falling over completely. I grab the back of my head and turn around, flinching already because I could swear I see another rock come flying at me.

It was a fly.

"Get your ass over here," she says. "I'm not ready to go home yet, and I'm the one who drove."

"You are the one who's a fucking psycho," I say. "And I can walk."

"You wouldn't really fucking walk that distance. We're at the other end of town." When she calls my bluff, I stand still and rock back and forth from my heels to my toes and back.

"See?" she says. "Chicken shit."

"Well, can we start with something smaller? You know, not human?"

Alicia rolls her eyes. "Why would we do that?"

The silence in the air pervades my lungs, pulls me deeper into the chill that's trying to burrow down through my skin.

Truth be told, I have no answer for this.

"Well?" she says. "Find me something and maybe we'll talk."

"Find you something," I say. "Great. And where do we do that?"

"What about that?" says Alicia. She points again to the piss-soaked old man laying on his side. "We both know life has no plans for him. Let's just off him."

"But that doesn't make us a better person," I say. "Can you somehow, you know, not try to kill human beings?"

"Where's the fun in that?" she says.

Like arguing with a little child. Just as rational.

"Fine, fine, fine. I'll find you something not human."

An idea jumps to my brain, a particular place that will make it look like an earnest attempt, but won't yield any fruit.

"How about the restaurant at the junction of I-95 and the 20?"

"What's at this restaurant?" she says.

"Lots and lots of dumpsters. Animals wander there because they can find food. All the rotting, thrown away shit."

"And if we go, you're going to kill something, too?" She tilts her head to the side and smiles.

I sigh. I won't commit to anything when it comes down to it, but crossing my fingers behind my back, I say, "Ya. Sure. I'll kill something." The words taste sour as they come out of my mouth.

She ponders for a bit, then smiles. "Sounds good," she says.

Back in the truck, we're driving at only fifty-five miles per hour down a side road, trying to look slowly for any animals that might be wandering around. It wasn't that unusual out here to find deer, maybe a bear or so. The woods that fed into the nearby hills housed wildlife that came down during drought seasons.

Full confession, I took a chance that maybe she would want to go see about killing an animal and maybe get mauled by a bear first. Maybe eaten by a wolf. Or something big. With teeth. Big, big teeth.

"So what kinds of things we going to find here?" she asks. Her eyes blink as a car comes driving past us. The darkened trees cover the hidden secrets of the forest that surrounds us on both sides. Large, furry animals and other creepy crawlies sneak about in the trees around us.

"I don't know, honestly," I say. "We used to go out there and get ice cream and watch the bears come out and eat the trash. Around spring time we could watch the cubs come out, try to climb those big green canisters and feed themselves."

"Sounds cute," she says. "Your family really liked you."

"Liked," I say. "I'm not so sure my mom does now. Haven't heard from her in a few days. She's still pissed."

"And you don't talk to your dad?"

I chuckle. "About what? He's busy working, I'm busy at school. We weren't close close, like throwing balls and playing catch close. We were close as in going to the library and picking out books close."

"Sounds boring," she says.

"What about you?" I ask. "Close with your parents?"

The road begins to turn rocky, muddy. Being a newish kind of driver, Alicia opted to not take the interstate.

This is the price we pay, the overbearing darkness and fear that we'll run into some stray animal and kill something with our car.

"No, not so much," she says. Alicia lets off the gas pedal and lets us coast for a little while down the hill toward more lights as we move toward Florence. "My dad is a cop and my mom is obsessed with being a perfect little princess. On a government employee's salary, that isn't so possible. Damn near drove my dad crazy."

She presses on the gas as she says this. The speedometer needle turns to fifty-five, then sixty, then sixty-five in only a few seconds.

"Calm down there, turbo."

"Don't tell me what to do," she says. "It's when my mom gets all spendy spendy that my dad starts taking on extra jobs, security details and stuff. That is, until he got this new promotion. Now I never see him, my mom never sees him, and they seem to be perfectly happy with it."

"That sucks," I say. "Sorry. Can't be easy."

"I'm just waiting for my mom to find out that my dad has been cheating on her the whole time," she says. "The bitch is the reason why we moved out here. So my dear old dad could have his cake and eat her, too."

"Ouch." To keep from getting awkward silence once again, I push her emotional button. "How do you know he's cheating?"

"Because I followed him one day. He said he had a security job at the mall. It was a big lie, I figured, so I kept on following him and then when he didn't go to the mall, but some random house in the middle of nowhere, a woman answered. That's all I needed to see."

"Jesus," I say. "I honestly don't know what to say."

"It's not your fault," she says. "You really don't have to say anything. It feels good," she says, "to talk to you and get all of that out into the open. I've been holding on to that shit for way too long."

"So no one knows about your dad and the mistress?"

She laughs and peers at me through the sides of her eyes. I really wish she'd keep both of her eyes on the road at this time of night. "Are you kidding me? My mom doesn't notice a damned thing unless it has a price tag attached to it and I can't exactly just come out and say it to anyone. As the new kid, you try to not go telling everyone what's going on in your life, you know? I'd like to have friend first before everyone starts hating me."

Something pops from the shadows of the side of the road beside us and then hides as soon as the headlights drive to its paws.

"I think I saw a wolf," I say.

"Too dangerous," she says. "I'm not looking at getting killed. I want to do the killing."

Seems legit, I think to myself.

"You know, you're really good to talk to," Alicia says. "A good listener. You should be a, what do you call them? A psychologist or a counselor or something. Like, go change your major and study psychology or something."

We pull up into the parking lot of the restaurant, pulling up into the edge of the building. She cuts the headlights and puts the car into park.

From where we're parked, we can see a perfect view of the green trash canisters from behind. Large dumpsters, they reflect what little bits of the moon struggles to dig through the green spines of the evergreen trees that hover over us.

"This is a really creepy place," she says. "Who the hell eats here?"

"Truckers, mostly. It's a great ice cream place, though," I say. "The strawberry is my favorite."

Alicia pulls out some change from a pocket and places it out into my outstretched hand. "Go get some," she says. "I promise I won't kill anything without you."

"Thanks," I say.

The car door pops unlocked and the sound jars me for a moment. She had me locked into the car in case I decided to escape. This woman, she's damn near lost her mind, and for a moment I think I forgot just who is fooling who here.

The bright yellow lights that pour from the diner's windows lead me to the front door. A bug to a bug zapper.

Another truck, an eighteen wheeler announces itself into the parking lot with hissing breaks and rattles of metal on metal.

Great, now we might have an audience if we aren't careful.

In the diner, the smell of salted meats and sizzling something greets my near-empty stomach. It growls back at me, as if asking for a quick bite.

I'm tempted to just say, "Fuck it" and go get something to eat instead. The waitress points at a sign that says "Please Seat Yourself."

Ignoring the sign, I sit at a counter and point at the ice cream bowls next to me. "Two, please. Strawberry."

The woman at the counter takes my order and comes back with two ice cream cones, strawberry, swirled to a point like cotton candy.

When I get out of the restaurant, I realize that there doesn't look like anyone is in the SUV.

"Oh dear god," I say. In a hushed whisper, I try to yell, "Alicia! Alicia, I have the ice cream."

The parking lot is mostly empty except for a few sedans and vans. Only one truck at this time of night. Mostly unusual, but then again, I'm not out here a whole helluva lot lately.

Something rustles around me, but in the darkness, I can't tell where it's coming from.

"Alicia?" I say.

I approach the side of the SUV and peer inside. I'm too afraid to get too close to the SUV. I've seen too many horror movies where monsters come creeping out of the window, dark, scaly hands grabbing my face and pulling me in to eat me. Or maybe a clawed hand, or even better a hook, comes from underneath the car and snatches me under.

"Alicia?" I say and take a step outside.

Again, more rustling I take a quick glance at the trash dumpsters and there's something moving around there. "Alicia," I say. "Alicia, we've got something." With both of my hands holding an ice cream cone each, there's not a lot of knocking and tapping I can do, so I kick the side of the car. "Alicia!"

"Stop kicking my damn car," says a voice from the darkened rustles. "Have you lost your goddamned mind?"

"What the hell are you doing over there?" I hold out the prize of the hunt, two pink ice cream on crunchy cones. "I got one for you, too. We can kill something later," I say. These words sound stranger and stranger as they leave my mouth. In another reality, I have to be sleeping somewhere, dreaming this shit up.

"Put that down," she says. She's still covered in night's shadows cast down from the moon up above. Only traces of her own movements let me know about where she's standing.

"But you paid for it."

"Put it down," she says. "I have something already. You can take first crack at it."

I tip toe toward the side of the restaurant, trying to play it cool. My nerves are a jumbled ball of anxiety. What waits for me, I can't make out from sound or sight.

A light grows as a bell rings from the diner's entrance. Heavy steps crunch rocks in the walkway until it gets to the truck. The door pops open and I recognize the sound as the eighteen wheeler.

"Hey, Bubba," says the truck driver. "I got some nice bones for you."

"Are you coming over here or not?" Alicia says. Something rattles down below her feet. From the shape of her figure, I can tell she's hunched over and holding onto something between her feet.

"Bubba! Where are you, boy?" says the truck driver.

**Chapter Seventeen**

"WHAT the actual fuck are you doing?" I scream.

"Keep your damn voice down," Alicia demands. She scoots backwards and something between her feet—hidden from all of the shadows—scurries to fight her pulling backward. "Is that the guy?"

"What guy?" I ask.

"The one who owns the truck?" she says. "Where I got this dog."

I rub my hands through my hair and I'm just this close to going to get the truck driver and tell him that this psychotic bitch is going to kill his pup.

"What are you thinking?" I say. "He's huge. He's a truck driver. He could kill us both."

"Not if you keep your fucking voice down," she says. She drags the puppy back to the end the shadows, where the dumpsters lie at the edges of the woods. There they hide behind them. Once we get out from the diner's shadows, I can see she's dragging a cute little German Sheppard puppy, yellow mostly with a large black spot on its back.

Its big black eyes look wet, and even though I know dogs don't really cry, my brain turns the story into her crying for her life.

"You're going to kill this cute little thing?" I ask.

She shakes her head and for a moment I get some false hope. "Hell no," she says. "You are."

"You're out of your goddamned mind," I tell her.

"Keep it the fuck down," she says. Her right hand grips the puppy scruff on the back of its neck and lifts it up. "What do you think? Did I do alright?"

She holds this thing like she caught a fish, ready for weighing and scaling.

"No," I say. "Bad. Very, very bad."

Footsteps creep up behind from beside us. The truck driver, he's walked to the side of the diner. "Bubba?" he says. "Bubba, where are you?"

He stops. My eyes watch Alicia's reaction to the man as we're both hiding behind the left most dumpster. Alicia is squatting, her knees holding the puppy still and both hands wrapped around its muzzle. For some reason, the puppy isn't making much of a sound.

That is, until I fall over from trying to keep my balance. This startles Alicia and her grip on the puppy runs loose.

"Bubba?" the man says.

The puppy whimpers from hearing the man's voice.

He's on grass now, just off the parking lot. He makes no noise, though I can guarantee he's walking toward us.

I try again to balance myself on the balls of my feet, pushing myself forward and holding onto the puppy. Her eyes look at me with a deep disdain and fear and hope at the same time. Such expressive eyes.

"We have to let him go," I mouth to her. My hands make a little walking motion like I'm carrying the puppy to the master.

"Fuck you," she mouths back. She grips the puppy tighter around its shoulders. "Stay here," she mouths to me, pointing at the ground.

"But he's going to find us." I point in a general direction that seems like it's the way to the parking lot.

She shakes her head.

I nod my head.

She shakes hers again.

The trucker, he calls out, "Bubba!" The voice is so close to us, he has to be on the other side of the dumpster. The trucker's voice is deep and rough and very pissed off. "Goddammit, dog, he says. "Where the hell are you?"

"Come on," I mouth to her. "We're going to get caught."

While keeping a firm grip in the puppy's mouth, she reaches into a back pocket and pulls out a slim knife.

Where she keeps these things, I have no fucking clue.

"If we lose this puppy, you die," she mouths to me.

I gulp and shake from nerves. My hands and legs, they can't keep me steady anymore and I'm grabbing the side of the dumpster to keep myself still.

This is exactly what the trucker apparently needed to hear. His boots squeak in the dew of the wet grass and sure as fuck, he's coming around the corner. I can practically hear his shadow.

"Give me that," I whisper.

Alicia pulls the puppy from my reach and holds the knife against the puppy's neck. Holding the scruff tight with one hand, she stands up and lets the dog dangle from her hands while the other presses a short, shiny blade against the neck. "Not a goddamned word," she says.

"Bubba?" says the man's voice.

"Are you trying to get us caught?" I mouth.

Alicia sighs and looks over where the man's voice seems to be coming from. "This is ridiculous," she says.

"What are you going to do?" I say. Holding out my hands, I repeat, "No no no no no."

"We're going to get caught," she says. "Here, do it now." She flips the blade over in her hands, holding it out so the handle points toward me. "Take it. Do it now."

The man's shadow stands behind me, towering over the both of us, he's so tall.

"Fucking kids, how the fuck did you get Bubba?" he says. The man's short, country-western beard barely moves as his big lips pronounce the words with a Canadian accent.

"Mind your own fucking business, old man," says Alicia. She holds the puppy closer to her chest, as if daring him to come after her. "Well?" she says, her eyes widen as she looks at me.

"No, I'm not doing it."

The man steps forward and grabs my shoulder, pulling me tight. "Give me the fucking puppy," the man says.

"Fuck off," Alicia says. "Give me back my boyfriend."

The fact that she calls me a boyfriend is almost lost on me.

"Have you lost your fucking mind?" the man says. "That's a puppy. A baby. Give her back to me."

"Not on your life. Give me back my boyfriend."

The man's grip on my shoulder tightens, his fingernails dig into the fabric and scrape the top surface of my own skin. It wouldn't hurt so much if I wasn't scared shitless.

The burly man, he tosses me forward and I fall flat on my face.

I feel Alicia's foot nudge my head. "You alright?" she asks.

I nod and pick my head up. The man's shadow creeps up toward my shoulders and covers my view of Alicia's feet. "Give me back my dog."

"Fine," Alicia says. When I look up, blood splurts into my eyes. The puppy squeals quickly then silence.

The man behind me, he cries something out that I can't understand. He sounds to be like he's crying, his voice broken and throaty.

"What did you just do?" I say knowing damn well the answer.

Alicia throws what's left of the dog corpse at the man and then grabs my shirt's shoulder . "Will you fucking get up?" she says.

The puppy's corpse lies, bleeding on the trucker's feet. I'm kneeling at Alicia's feet, my hands not knowing if they should push me up and pray for forgiveness.

The trucker's eyes behind his thick glasses tear up. Streams of tears fall down his face and drip off of his chin.

I, too, start to cry, feeling the terror of blood on my cheeks. It mixes with my own tears and I'm left shaking. Nerves. Fear. Shock. I don't know what.

"Get the fuck up," she says. When I don't, she marches forward and grabs the man's shoulders.

"I'm calling the police," he says.

As the man takes a step backwards, I hear something from behind me. A swallow or a groan, I can't tell.

The man looks down when he feels his foot slip along the wet grass. "Is this fucking ice cream?" he says.

In this moment, Alicia pushes me off to the side and with the knife pointed downward in her fist, she slams the knife's blade into the man's right shoulder. The pain causes the man to wince and grab for the area.

He's too slow for her, however, and Alicia pulls the blade and shoves it, hilt deep, into the trucker's neck. Blood spurts out in a thin line along Alicia's black turtleneck. Her hair still pulled back, I can see her lips tightly pressed together. Her intense eyes never blink, don't even seem to reflect the moonlight, even with how wide they are. She stabs the man's neck one more time and he falls over to the ground.

The puppy falls free from his grip to the trucker's side.

"Don't do this," I say. "Don't."

Alicia kicks the man's gut and there's no motion. No movement or reaction from the body. "Too late," she says. "It's done."

She pulls the knife and wipes the handle and blade with the end of her sleeves. Alicia carefully slips it back into her back pocket and smiles, wiping her mouth and cheek.

"That was messy," she says. Alicia looks at the puppy's corpse. It looks like a wet yellow sack in the grass.

"You fucking killed the puppy," I say. "Fuck you. Fuck you. I'm not gonna get in trouble for this."

I scoop up the puppy and hold her under my arms. Even through her thick fur I feel her life gone. Like holding a heavy stuffed animal. I hope for breathing, for shaking, for wagging. Anything to show life, but I can't feel a single damned thing.

"She's dead," I say.

"No shit, Sherlock," she says. "You were supposed to do it."

"I don't care what I promised, this shouldn't have happened. It wasn't supposed to happen." I pat the top of the Bubba's head, stroking its lifeless ears. I begin to walk out into the shadows along the side of the restaurant. "Maybe we can help her. Maybe help her get better."

"That was a clean cut," she says. "It's not alive. Look at you!" By this point, she's yelling at me. Her voice sounds like an echo coming from her own voice, volleying off the walls of the diner and the sides of the dumpsters.

"We're going back," I say. "We can help her."

"That thing is not going into my truck," she says. She pulls the knife from her pocket again and points the blade at me. "Dump it or we don't go home."

"You can't be serious." My grip on the pup tightens as I carry it up under my arm. "Fuck you. Fuck that knife. You don't have the fucking balls."

"That thing is dead. Are you going to just keep clawing at it? You want to be Dr. Frankenstein? Bring that damned thing back to life? It's dead. No longer alive," she shouts. "Fucking dead!" She grabs my empty hand and pulls it with her. "Dump the fucking dog and let's get out of here. If anyone comes around and sees this shit, we're both going to get in trouble."

I follow her steps to get me in front of the diner. The parking lot looks somewhat empty at this time of night, but the sudden awareness of witnesses and curiosity hits me when I feel the puppy's own blood soak the front of my shirt. It feels heavy and saturated and kinda warm, sticking to my sides like I just got out of a pool.

"Dump the goddamned dog."

I don't want to admit it, but she's right. I have blood on me. She had bits of human blood on her. We're both saturated with evidence and if anyone were to ask questions, we haven't thought about what we'd say. Safest to just go.

"You're a fucking moron," she says. "Let's go."

My hands feel slick from the dead puppy. With tears in my eyes, I feel the temptation to just let go, but she deserves better than just a dumpster.

"Wait," I say. I turn around and as I do so, I hear Alicia yelling at me to hurry up. I hustle to the side of the trucker's body and tuck the puppy up under his arms. If they are going to be found, they need to be found together.

Just laying the Bubba's body against the trucker's body, I can't hold back anymore and I let out a cry. Not just tears but full on sobs.

I wipe my eyes, but my hands just slide across my cheek, lubricated from the tear and blood mixture.

"Now take me home."

She stands in the shadows and sheathes the blade back into her pants.

"Fine," she says. "God, this sucks."

We both agree, and I nod.

We walk back to the SUV in complete silence. Alicia's hair swings back and forth in the ponytail, but her stands, her demeanor, it all seems to have soured.

She nearly hunches over in the truck and I sit idly by, calm on the outside and ready to rage out in the inside.

We pull backwards out of the parking lot and into the main road. My eyes focus on the lights of the diner, imagining how many happy faces eat toast, drink coffee, and remain unaware of the bodies lying just outside.

"I'm sorry, Bubba," I whisper as we drive down into the darkness of the roads.

So much bad.

"You know I'm only giving you a ride back because I don't know the way home, right?"

On the armrest between us, I notice that the blade glistens in the bits of moonlight from the windows.

For a second, the thought crosses my mind. We're on an empty, dark road. No one around us. No one to hear her scream or find her. No one to find me.

Alicia looks at me and smiles. Then, without a single glance downward, she takes the knife from the armrest and tucks it into the drink holder on the driver's side door.

Chapter Eighteen

WERE it not for my mother's knocking on my front door at nine o'clock this morning, I probably wouldn't be awake.

I'm stumbling through the short four-foot hallway to the front door when I peep through the peephole. "Mom?"

I prop the door open and there she is, holding something wrapped in paper grocery store bag and staring directly at me through darkened eye glasses. "For god's sake," she says. "Put a shirt on."

I grudgingly open the door and my mother walks right in and directs herself to the kitchen.

I hear the rustle of her opening the bag and placing something into my refrigerator. "I brought some leftovers from last night," she says. "I thought you'd be over for dinner."

"You didn't call, and I thought you'd maybe want some space."

"Space?" she says. A cabinet slams shut and she fills a glass with water. "Why would I want space?"

She's apparently so thirsty that I can hear the thick gulps of water go down.

"Maybe because you are still mad at me?" I say.

"I thought I told you to put on a shirt?" she says.

It's not cold enough to walk around my own apartment with a shirt. Still spring, it's getting warmer and more humid each day. Worst part is, it'll be worse through the rest of March and clear through May.

"It's my apartment," I tell her.

She stops, staring at me and drinking at the water.

Taking the cue, I walk over to the bedroom and throw on a shirt I had laying on the bedroom floor. Because I gotta do laundry tomorrow, and because I don't want her to tell me I have to consider cleaning my room, I go ahead and close the door to my bedroom when I walk out.

"Why are you here?" I say.

She taps the glass with her nails and I make a quick correction.

"I mean, what brings you here?"

"Where have you been?" she says. "I hear that you're going out with that girl next door to us."

I sit down on the edge of my couch and keep my legs closed. I think these shorts might have a fly that doesn't remain buttoned all the time.

"Who told you that?" I say.

She walks into the kitchen and gently places the glass into the sink. "At least you're keeping your dishes clean," she says. "That woman next door, the stuffy one with her hair all done up all the time. Big jewelry. You know the one," she says.

"Ya, that's her mom," I say. "I didn't know you were talking with the neighbors."

"I'm not," she says. "Since you decided to give them our microwave, I wanted to go get it back so I could make dinner like normal people do. She refused, that bitch. Excuse my French."

I have to hide my smile for a second, turning around to pretend to push my hair back over my eyes. "Do you want me to talk to her?" I say. "I can do that today if you want."

"Why aren't you at class?"

"I've got some stuff to do today. Get a paper done before it's due. Some research. The semester is done in about six weeks or so, so I wanna get a jump on it and maybe have some time off for spring break in a few weeks."

"Do you have plans with that girl?" she says. There's a hint of judgment in her voice, but it could just be jealousy as well.

"I don't know if I have plans with anyone just yet. But it'd be nice if the schedule was clear. Last year I didn't do anything."

"I see," she says. "So you'll be free this weekend?" she says. Her eyebrows rise as she says this and she crosses her arms. "We might need a babysitter."

"Mom, Holly's thirteen. She doesn't really need a babysitter."

"She's thirteen and she needs a babysitter," my mother says. She finds the paper bag from the kitchen and folds it up into her purse. "Since you don't recycle."

"So you'll be free?" she says.

I think about my weekend, the loss of the dog. Every fucking chaotic event from last night. "Maybe, I don't know."

"Coop," she says, "it's the least we can do since we're paying your loans and payments."

"I thought I was cut off," I say. "Are you going back on that now?"

"We never said we were cutting you off," she says. She looks shocked, her mouth almost dropped open about halfway. Her eyes begin to widen when she feels indignant. It's the warning look before she nearly goes over the edge with the accusations.

Let's see how far she can go.

"Do you think maybe I can keep my loans and payments covered? You know, while I'm still at school?"

"We'll talk about it," she says.

"No, we won't talk about it. We don't talk about anything. We just yell and swear and then we make threats but never follow through."

Her eyes widen. Indignance is coming soon. "And when have I ever threatened you?"

"You threatened me just last week, after Pop-Pop died!" I say.

"I did not," she says. She lets out an indignant laugh when she lies. Climax reached. Now for the fallout.

"The hell you did not," I say. "During dinner. You told me that you and Dad weren't paying for my stuff anymore. You said so yourself."

She looks around. "And now you decide to attack me about it?"

And of course, this is really her show. It's always her show whenever something big goes on. Big drama queen that she can be, she rests her hands on her hips and the tears begin to well up in the corners of her eyes.

For a change, these might actually be real tears.

"I'm not attacking you," I say. "You said it was the least I could do, watching Holly, since you were paying my bills. But you said you weren't paying them earlier. So which is it?"

"I don't see what the big difference is. We're paying them anyway."

"For fuck's sakes, Mother. Make up your damned mind. Yes or no?"

My mother's face goes pale. She's never heard me swear in front of her before. She doesn't know what to do, but she knows that she needs my help. She also knows that if she says any of this to my father, he'll just passively agree with me.

The worst thing you could ever do was disagree with her.

Mother's lips purse, and then tighten out to straight pink ribbons between her cheeks. She huffs outwards in a heavy sigh. "Fine, we will keep paying. But I never said we weren't."

My mouth opens, but there's this voice in my head that screams, "Don't do it!"

So, I don't.

"Thanks, Mom. When are you and Dad leaving?" I ask.

"We're leaving Friday after I got off work. We're leaving that afternoon. Heading to Baltimore for a little while."

"What's in Baltimore?" I say.

"Just wanted to visit," she says. "Never been, so we might as well."

My mother doesn't realize that I cracked the code for their visits nearly ten years ago. At twelve I realized that any trips to non-gambling or concert places were attempts to celebrate something; a personal time for them away from the kids. Anything other than that—all attempts for sight-seeing and anywhere they "never been"—was an attempt to recover from a fight.

Sometimes I doubted that they actually went to the same place together. Haven't proved it yet.

"Fine, then I'll be over there after class," I tell her.

"That would be perfect. Not too late. I don't want Holly trying to make dinner on her own," she says. "She still hasn't figured out how to make anything without that microwave."

"So you want me to get the microwave, too?" I ask.

"If you would be so kind," she says. Mommy-speak for yes.

"I'll bring that, too," I say.

My mother rests her hands on the door handle. "Thanks," she says. "You're such a good son." A sarcastic smile.

I wave and wait for my mother to leave before I tear my shirt off my body and throw it against the closed door.

"Dammit," I say.

I go back to my bed and try to close my eyes, but something blinking along the side of my bed catches my attention.

My phone. Someone called. When I reach over, the blinking blue light tells me that a text message awaits me.

Images of a dead German Sheppard puppy flash before my eyes as I look at the stormy background of my phone.

The words in a small box read ALICIA.

Without reading a single fucking word, I delete the message and roll over. The clock's black hands look like they are twitching slowly around the numbers. It's only nine forty-five and I'm left almost wide awake. Nothing a little bit of coffee can't fix.

After a shower I head to the downtown campus to the campus bookstore. At the end of the main building, where they make you go through all of the aisles of overpriced books written by our own professors, sits a rather large glass doorway that leads to a Campus Grounds, our version of Starbucks. Not willing to pay for the name, Saraday's community college decided that they'd just forego the formalities and put in a store of its own.

With the stereotypical college student love of coffee, the campus thought they'd make a bazillion dollars about now.

They were almost halfway right. At nearly all hours of the day and most of the afternoon, this place is hopping. I stand in line, checking out the various different macchiatos and mochas they make.

The thing is, everything seems so much more expensive when you don't have a steady job. For kicks, I check out the walls and the glass sneeze bar in front of the espresso machine for possible "Now Hiring" posters.

Sadly, no such luck.

"Welcome to Campus Grounds," says a woman's voice as I approach the desk finally. "What can I get started for ya?"

When I look down, I see Erica in a burgundy apron and a smile on her face.

That smile turns to a look of embarrassment with a hint of horror to fake happiness when she realizes who I am. "Hi, Erica. Fancy meeting you here."

The smile looks plastered on her face, painted, maybe. "Hi," she says. "How are you, Cooper?"

"Coop," I say. "Just Coop. And I've been better. Family drama, you know?"

She nods just once and then swallows. "So what can we get started for you?"

When I look into her eyes, I'm so happy that she's not dead yet. Either Alicia has decided to not kill her or she's waiting for the right time.

For some reason that moment in Rambo comes to mind, where a knife finds the bodies of two young lovers in a scenic moment of passion.

"What do you recommend?"

Her expression turns south as she spots the line behind her. "How about a mocha?" she says. "Hot?"

"Ya, it's kinda getting warm out there. You know how South Carolina springs can be."

She does that fake smile thing again. "No, Coop. I mean, hot? Iced?"

I feel the heat rush to my cheeks when I blush. "Right. Iced. Definitely iced."

She smiles and rings up the order. I hand over my debit card and she slides everything. The exchange goes silent for the entire time until she says, "Thank you!" and her eyes motion for me to stand off to the side.

With my own debit card tucked into my pockets, I stand there with my arms folded across my chest. Her own brown hair hides, tucked under a hat and her glasses glimmer in the light of the fluorescent above us.

What I want to say, I don't know. What do you say? Should I start with the easy stuff first?

"So, when's your class next?" I say.

Her face sours into frown and she's just as embarrassed to answer as I am to ask. Amidst the customers asking for sugar-free something or another or extra shots, she says she'll talk to me later.

Another boy behind the counter, his red curly hair sticking out from underneath another cap, he turns and presses one button, squirts syrup into my plastic cup and with the quick, oiled precision of robot, swishes the drink together in only a few minutes. He calls out the order and then waits for me to walk on over.

No one standing in front of me, he knows it's mine, but he won't offer it to me. He stands there, waiting for me to say something.

"I'm right here," I say.

The man puts the drink on the counter and walks away. "Some service," I say.

"You don't have to be a dick," I say back behind the counter.

The redhead is already steady working on the new drink order. His eyes look up to me just long enough to give the evil eye and then returns to the rest of his orders.

I walk up to the counter and point at the ginger. "Your employee over there is quite an asshole," I tell Erica.

She smiles. "That's my boss."

I bite my lip so hard it stings, almost goes numb, but doesn't bleed.

"I'll be off on break in a few minutes," she says. "Go wander and I'll come find you."

It takes fifteen minutes of me glancing over the backs of books I'll never read for Erica to find me. Her apron is gone and she's left wearing something that looks almost normal for someone who teaches side classes in psychology.

"I didn't know you sling coffee during the day," I say.

"It's my first day," she whispers. "I needed some extra money since the loans aren't covering as much as they used to this semester." Her eyes look at the ground, trying to not to notice any expression on my face.

"Hey, it's nothing to be embarrassed about," I say. "At least you have a job."

She smiles and pushes some hair back around her ear. "I guess," she says.

"Are you coming to my class today?"

"When is it?" I ask. "I still need to get your number."

"It's not until three," she says. "I don't get off until one. She looks at the clock. Just a few more hours to figure out this whole coded coffee thing and then maybe grade a paper or two."

"So you do all of that and make great coffee?" I say. I rub her arms and try to be closer to her, but she takes a step back as if she were flexing her arm and scratching an itch.

"I don't make the coffee," she says. "That's Jerry. The supervisor. Well, technically a supervisor of me only. He's been there just a few months longer than I have."

"Sounds exciting," I say. "Are you looking for anyone else?"

She smirks and turns around at me. "Are you buying anything from here?" she says.

"Didn't plan on it," I say.

We walk outside into the new extension of the college. The bookstore was built with a gift from a generous blueblood donor with the demand that they name it after his pa. Because of him, we now step out of the Beauregard Building.

"So about that job?" I say.

"Sorry," she says. "I think I took the only open position."

"Just as well," I say. "My girlfriend wants to kill you."

She stops walking.

Dammit.

"I didn't mean that," I say. "I mean, this girl who thinks she's my girlfriend, well she'd kill you if she found out that we were talking."

Her face doesn't change from the state of shock. "Are you kidding me?" she says.

My phone begins to ring a marimba tune. I take a quick peek at the phone. "Speaking of bitch," I say.

"Speaking of which?" she says. "That's her."

"I said speaking of bitch." I show her the phone as it keeps ringing. "It's her, yes."

"Alicia," she reads. "Sounds fancy."

"She's a teenager, like seventeen years old and crazy as fuck," I say. "Trust me, you don't compare."

"Coop," she says, "I think you're reading too much into this." She smiles that fake smile again and my body begins to feel heavy. "We just started talking. We haven't even gone out on a date. It's not fair to say that we're dating just yet."

"But I didn't. Never said we were dating."

"You were clearly hinting at it."

"I swear I never said that."

"Coop, it was great seeing you," she says. Her face keeps that stale, fake smile. I know she's faking it. She knows she's faking it. "But I have to go back to work. I'll see you around."

"No," I say. "No, don't do that."

"Maybe we can talk a little bit later," she says. "I'll call you."

You don't have my number, I think. How the hell are you going to do that?

"But you don't have my number," I say as she walks away.

She pretends to not hear me.

And yes, I know it looks like stalker behavior, but I follow her—one half step for every step of hers—back to the Campus Grounds.

She puts her apron back on and returns to work. She gives the next customer a fake-sounding greeting and my thoughts of us suddenly disappear.

My brain, it wanders all around in every which direction until I feel my phone vibrate in my pockets.

She left a message, that murderous bitch, she left a fucking message.

My fingers hover over the different buttons. In my visual voicemail, I can either delete it or listen to it. Temptations swing both ways, until I look up into the Campus Grounds.

Erica takes someone's money and wishes them a great day.

Maybe I can save her. Maybe I can keep her from doing any more bad things. Maybe I can be the thing that she needs.

Or hell, maybe I'll just kill her.

With a click of my button, I don't listen to the message, but call her back.

"Hey," I say in the most pleasing voice I can muster. "My parents are out of town this weekend, how about you come on over?"

Chapter Nineteen

"YOU'RE not seriously going to fuck her here, are you?" my sister says. Holly sits curled up along the corner of the couch, furthest from the blaring television screen. She probably hasn't moved in about three days.

If there were ever a reason for child abuse, this would be it.

"Mind your own goddamned business," I say.

The microwave, back where it belongs after a little negotiation, beeps the sweet sounds of ready popcorn. The kitchen is a little small, maybe able to hold like four people if we stood side-by-side. The refrigerator seems to run all the time and the little bits of decoration along the walls or on the dish towels around the every room reveal that my mother at one time may have been interested in cactus, ducks, and Jesus. Not necessarily in that order.

"I'm telling Mom you swore at me," she says.

I chuckle. "And you're the one saying fuck."

"Fine, I won't tell if you don't," she says. Holly follows me to the living room where she grabs a handful of popcorn and makes a sour face. "This needs salt. Lots and lots of salt."

"I don't know if Alicia likes salt or not," I tell her, "so I'm waiting until she gets here."

"Just make a damned decision," she says. "It's not like she's the only one eating it."

Sometimes she's right and other times I wish she weren't so right. "Buzz off. Go back to your room and watch those movies we downloaded." I click off the TV.

"What's this we shit?" she says.

I reach behind the couch to pull myself around and watch her go down the hallway. "Where did you learn to talk like that, anyway?"

"My teachers at school," she says with a laugh. Her door closes and I'm left staring at the circular face of the clock that hangs right above the fifty-two inch plasma TV set.

A birthday gift to my dad, he barely watches it now, instead letting my mom control the TV. She prefers the "husband gone" television shows. You know, the ones about decorating a new bedroom and how to train your puppies?

The longer I'm around Alicia, the less sure I am that I'm going to keep myself from doing anything stupid.

Take that as you see fit. It probably means all of those things.

I don't know that I could turn into a killer very easily, at least not the type of killer Alicia is, but maybe I could, you know, maybe get violent. Stop somebody cold. Maybe hurt them if they really pissed me off.

I've had those moments where I come close to hitting my steering wheel when I'm cut off on the interstate.

Sometimes I can even hit a pillow. If I'm mad enough.

The bell rings and Alicia arrives almost on time, if you round down.

I open the door and she's wearing this beautiful light blue blouse with a short white jacket over it. She smiles her beautiful pearly smile, those red velvet lips. I grab her hand and lead her in, almost twirling her around as she crosses the threshold.

"You're in a good mood," she says.

Alicia bends over to kiss me on the cheek and heads around the couch and grabs some popcorn.

I swear, she makes the same sour face as Holly. "Needs butter and salt," she says. "A lot of salt."

"Told you!" Holly shouts from her room right before I hear the door slam.

"Shut up, brat!" I grab a throw pillow and use it appropriately against my sister's bedroom door.

"I'm telling!" she shouts.

"Ignore her," I say to Alicia. "Holly's just being Holly."

Alicia giggles and takes another bite of the popcorn. "No seriously, dude, this thing needs salt." She takes the purple plastic bowl and leads me to the kitchen. I forget that she had been here a few days ago when my Pop-Pop died. It seems, however, that despite only being here once, she knows where everything is.

She opens a cupboard to the left of the stove and takes out some salt, shaking what seems like a dozen times and then shakes the bowl around.

"That just drops everything to the bottom," I tell her.

She puts her fingers to her lips and tells me to shush. Then, she takes a fluffy white piece of popcorn and holds it tenderly between her red nail-polished index finger and thumb. She slowly glides the kernel to my mouth and rests it against my closed lips.

I open my lips just slightly, and she presses the popcorn gently inside my mouth. I take it between my teeth and hold it there gently before my tongue touches the dry outside surface of the popcorn and pulls it into my mouth.

"Damn," she says. I follow her back to the living room. "I think I got lady wood."

God damn you, you sexy, sexy psycho bitch.

"If you're going to say stuff like that, can you keep it down?" I tell her. "My sister is in the other room."

"Fine," she says. "Sorry." She slunches over in the couch and stares at the black screen of the television. "What are we watching?"

"I was thinking a movie," I say. "Wanna find something on Netflix?"

She nods and takes the remote, shuffling through everything on our blu-ray player until she settles on some princess movie.

"So you're one of those girls," I say.

She takes another handful of popcorn into her mouth, and though it's filled to the brim, she says, "Whakinnanigh?"

I can't not smirk. With a kiss to her forehead, I leave her in the living room and get something to drink.

There's a quote that comes to me as I'm pouring some diet soda for both of us. "Know your enemy." It sounds like either a Lao Tzu or Sun Tzu kind of thing, but right now I can't hardly think straight. For instance, I took a guess and figured that Alicia would drink diet sodas. Her fit body, the blonde hair, her mother's rich upbringing. Let's just say that she fit a perfect little stereotype.

Yes, I know. Bad, bad psych student.

But if you think really hard, there are reasons for stereotypes. Some gays are flamboyant. Some blacks are late for everything. Some Mexicans can put a house up in no time flat. Some Asians are bad drivers and yes, even women are typically bad drivers.

Call me a racist, an asshole, or a sexist, but sometimes this is true.

I mean, how many black, Hispanic, or Asian serial killers can you come up with? It's always the white guys who go crazy. And that's without drugs.

So it's this that I consider when I just pour her a drink and realize that what I just did—I considered her an enemy.

"Here you go," I say. I hand her the drink from a glass with mallards floating along an invisible lake—part of my mother's duck period.

"What is this?" she says.

"Mallards. Green heads. Look like ducks."

She takes a sip of the soda and looks at me. "Diet!" she smiles. "How'd you know?"

"Oh that?" I say. "It's the only thing we had in the house."

When my sister comes out, she looks at the two of us staring at kinda-okay violin music and a panoramic view of a cartoon kingdom complete with happy villagers and singing peddlers. We're cuddled up next to each other, holding our drinks like we're holding mugs of hot chocolate.

"What are you two watching?" Holly says. "Lose the remote?"

Alicia holds it up into the air. "Right here."

"Then why are you watching this shit?" says Holly.

Without warning, Alicia launches the remote at Holly's head and it bounces off of her shoulder.

"What the fuck?" says Holly. Her face goes red, her eyes red and slick with tears. "Why'd you do that?"

"Keep your opinions to yourself," says Alicia. Her face grows cold. I've seen that look a few times already. Usually someone ends up dead.

"It was an accident, right?" I say. My eyes widen, the universal sign that my girlfriend needs to agree with me immediately.

"Why are you trying to protect her?" says Alicia. "She was being a bitch."

"She was being thirteen," I shout at her. When I stand up from the couch, Alicia umphs as she falls into the gap where my ass used to be.

"What crawled up your ass and died?" she says.

My sister just stands there, half shocked and half frustrated and waiting for me to do something to Alicia.

"Holly, go to your room, okay?" I grab her head and pull her toward me. Kissing the top of it gently, I say, "Just go. I'll come and check in on you later."

Holly does what I ask, but she move's at a snail's pace, the kind of slow that means she's taking in the environment and will most likely come out guns blazing.

So to speak. She's not quite up to Alicia's level just yet.

"What the hell was that for?" I ask. I pick up the remote from the floor and check the battery cover for damage. "She's just being a smart ass. It's what we do in this family to survive."

"Your family sure is fucked up," Alicia says. She diverts her eyes to the picture of a pretty princess clad in pink riding a unicorn of some sort to an opening drawbridge.

"This from a girl who's father moved his family so he could fuck another woman."

Alicia stands up and pulls her shirt down around her waist. "You asshole," she says. Her index finger digs into my chest. "You keep that to your fucking self or I swear to God, I'll kill you."

Something about her looks like she means it. After the last few days, I wouldn't doubt it.

"Listen," I tell her. "I already got rid of Erica for you."

"Erica?" she says. "Who's that bitch?"

"She's no one." I take a step back to get a better look at Alicia's stance. "She's gone, alright? All gone."

"She fucking better be," she says. "I don't share well with others."

No doubt, I think to myself. Not brave enough to say it out loud though.

"Just what do you think you can do about it, anyway?" I say. If I call her bluff, maybe I can learn how to talk her down, get her to curb her own murderous tendencies.

"Who the hell knows? Now that she's gone, I won't have to do shit." She takes her regular seat at the couch and sinks in. "Just have a seat will you?" she says.

I head toward the couch but before I can take two steps, she holds her hands up. "You don't think you can maybe go get some butter or something?" Alicia's hands hold out the purple bowl. "For this?"

I sigh and nod.

Back in the kitchen, I realize I'm missing a movie that I don't really care about and it actually pisses me off.

"What kind of butter?" I ask. "Never mind," I say. Grabbing the salted butter I throw it in the microwave—the whole fucking thing—and let it nuke for a few seconds. Soften it up and then mix it in.

The microwave rings for about a three or four cycles before I give up and take the mushy squares of butter and just squeeze it into the popcorn.

"Here you go," I say, turning the corner.

Alicia has sprawled out onto the couch, her legs spread open and waiting for me to lie right next to her.

"Our popcorn is not going to fit down there with us," I say.

"Get over here," she says.

Thinking with not my brain, I walk to the couch and lean over. She kisses me on the lips with a light peck and then pulls me to lie down behind her.

My arm grabs her right under her ribcage and we watch the movie.

Okay, she watches the movie and I watch her. I watch her hair fall over her head as she pulls it out of the way. I watch her lungs expand and collapse as she breathes. I watch her legs pull closer to mine.

"Sorry," I say when I realize what's happening. "I'll start thinking about baseball."

She giggles and reaches around to rub the top of my head, curling my hair around her ruby red fingernails.

Fortunately for me, she has a soft side after all.

While she's watching the movie, I feel her body begin to loosen up. Relaxed. She's falling asleep in my grip.

This would just scream romantic if she wasn't responsible for the blood that soaked my black shirt last night.

It's funny how people looks so innocent when they sleep. Like they couldn't hurt a fly. This must be how mothers feel when they watch their own offspring. I wonder if this is how my own mother felt when she watched me, or was that only with Holly?

Was I always the monster she thinks I am?

Am I the killer Alicia wants me to be?

Could I be?

She curls her hands around my own wrist and for a second, she breathes in deeply then lets it out. A huff of exhaustion or comfort, I don't know which.

All I know is it feels good to have her body heat against me.

I just pray that Holly doesn't come out here and ruin the moment.

Her own body lying helplessly next to me, it brings back to my own mind images of last night. Images of a dead trucker. A bloody German Shephard puppy, black-red from the blood around its throat. Both of them lying on the grass.

And we left them there, the both of us.

No one knows who they are. No one knew they were dead until this morning when the cooks probably took the trash out.

And our evidence was nowhere to be found.

Was it really that easy? Is this why she did what she did?

Holly pops her head out of her bedroom and says, "Is it safe to come out now? You both got your clothes on?" She comes out anyway without a response, her feet slapping against the floor. Her own usually long hair is brought up tightly in a bun with two pencils sticking out. She goes to the freezer and fidgets with something, sounds like plastic bags.

I'd shout over to her, ask her what she wants, but I can't wake Alicia just yet.

"Where's the bags of peas?" Holly says.

She sticks her head around and spots the both of us. She smiles, but only quickly. "Aw, she barely looks harmless."

My sister, she knows how to nail them.

"I don't know," I whisper. "Just look around." After a moment, it registers what she just said. "What, why are you making peas?"

"Not making them, retard," says Holly. She comes over with a bag of ice against her head. "I need something for the swelling."

"You're not that bad," I tell her. "It was just the remote."

"The edge of the remote," Holly huffs back at me. "And it wasn't the dull edge, either."

"There is no dull edge," I say.

She points at me and says, "Exactly." She goes back to her room and closes the door.

I'm left with my arms around this would be killer, this serial murderess and I realize, I don't like what she made me.

But she trusts me.

The police, they can't stop her. They won't stop her if she's the new chief's daughter.

That leaves only me to stop her.

And how do you stop a sweet, voluptuous killer?

The answer is, I don't even want to think about it.

Chapter Twenty

"YOU must be Alicia's father," I say and extend my hand out to this tall, tall man. His shoulders seem broad, able to fit about four heads of this man's blond hair, blue-eyed Nazi dream.

We're out front of the man's house—Alicia's house. Her father is posed awkwardly as he's only half out of his squad car. The sun beats down behind me, so he squints and considered shielding his eyes with his hand, but it made him lose his balance.

"I was hoping you'd be able to help me," I say.

"Well, I'm not sure where Alicia is right now," he says. Finally, he gets the balance to stand up. He looks even taller when he's fully out of his car. For some reason, he's not wearing a typical uniform, but slacks and a white button down shirt.

"I'm not here to see Alicia, sir," I say. Yes, sir was a good choice. "I needed to talk to you."

"Is this about the dog you hit?" He either smiles to mess with me or the sun still bugs his eyes.

"You knew about that, huh?"

"Alicia tells me everything," he says. Alicia's father fumbles through his pockets and digs out a set of keys. "Would you like to come inside and talk?" he says.

I follow him inside and, with all of the furniture back in its place, this house looks like a fucking palace.

Everything looks lavish and real. No fake leather, no painted golden frames. It's the real fucking deal, and on a cop's salary, I wonder if maybe the refrigerator is completely empty.

Alicia's father rests his keys in a bowl by the door and he pulls his tie up and off his neck. "What can I do you for?"

He sits down at the table and crosses his feet at the knee. I sit and do the same thing. It's smarter now to follow his patterns and make him like me.

"Well, sir, and this isn't about Alicia, I swear, but I was kinda wondering, what happens if you know that someone is breaking a law. You know, like doing something very, very bad and it will only get him or her—you know, because it could be a him or a her—in trouble?"

Alicia's father raises an eyebrow and just as he looks like he's about to ask a question, I cut him off.

"I mean, sir, if you could tell me. What kind of evidence do you need for something like that?"

He huffs at first and looks out the window. "Can you give me specifics, um..?"

"Coop," I say and extend my hand. "My parents live next door. And um, no. I can't. Sorry. It's for a friend."

He nods and smiles. Doesn't believe a goddamned word, but he plays along anyway.

"Well, Coop, if you had a friend who was doing terrible things, you tell the police and we'll handle it. Simple as that. Your job is not to provide the evidence. We check it out and see what's been going on." He sits up and shifts his weight forward. "However, if there hasn't been evidence of a crime—or if no one happens to call in a crime as a victim—I don't see what we can do about it."

"But what if the victim is dead?" I ask.

His face gets stern. Real stern. Concerned. "If someone has been murdered, I have to know, Coop."

"I never said someone was murdered. I just wanted to know, you know, what if someone was murdered. I'm writing a story. Doing some research," I say.

"Which is it?"

"Research. For a story. You know, for college."

His face brightens. "Oh, a university man, eh? What's your major?"

"Um, psychology, sir. At a community college."

The father's face turns sour.

"I'm trying to get a story together for an English class. That's all," I smile and offer my hand to his. His hand compares, surprisingly, as similar to mine. For such a giant guy, his hands are smooth, white. Just like his daughter's cheeks and chest.

"And that's all you wanted to ask me?" he says.

"Well, yes," I say. "And to meet you." I raise my hands and smile. "You caught me," I smile. "I just wanted to see what you were like, you know, because I'm friends with your daughter and well, she talks about you and I haven't seen you around and thought I'd introduce myself."

He waits for my rambling to finish. I feel the embarrassment drive to the surface of my cheeks. I want to run out of here, but running only makes you look more guilty.

I tried to play the game of tattle-tale and lost horribly.

"I see," he mumbles. "Well, it was nice to meet you," he says. "I'll let Alicia know that you stopped by when I see her pop in."

"Okay," I say and wave. "Your daughter is really a great person," I say. "Really great."

That second great was a bit too much. Her father, he knew it too and he stands up as I try to inch toward the door. "So you really like her, huh?" he says.

I nod. No use playing stupid now.

"Well," he says. He rests his hands in his pockets, jingling change or keys, I don't know. "You're in college and my baby is still in high school. I'd prefer if you don't, you know, get physical with her in any such way. I know what college boys can be like. I know how teenage girls can be like. The two don't mix very well. Am I clear?" he says. His voice is indeed clear. And cold. And intimidating. And almost a diuretic.

"Yes sir. Crystal." I wave and turn to the door. As I'm opening it, Alicia and her mother step out of her car in the driveway. They both hold Prada bags in both hands along with black monochrome paper bags with pictures of half naked guys on them. Stores I've either never shopped in or just don't recognize.

"Coop," says Alicia, happy at first, then suspicious. "What are you doing here?"

"Just meeting your father. You know, the new neighbor," I say.

Alicia stops in her tracks.

"Hi, Coop," says the mother. She walks past me, her own perfume trailing roses and vanilla between us and the front door. "Thanks for the microwave again."

"Any time, ma'am."

Alicia's eyes narrow. "What were you doing here?"

"I told you. Meeting your dad. That's' it."

The tension is too thick to even cut. Maybe chainsaw quality.

"Honey?" calls her mom. "Do you need help?"

"No, Mom!" she calls out sweetly. "I'll talk to you later," she says to me.

"Your father doesn't want me to be hanging around you. At least not in a physical way," I whisper.

"You talked to him about us?"

I shrug. "He's a detective! He can sniff these things out," I say.

"He's a horrible detective," she says. "Believe me. Why would you go and talk to him about us?"

"I didn't talk to him about us. I just said how nice you were."

"You said how nice I was? Why didn't you just scream that we're dating from the Empire State Building!"

"Because that's maybe a thousand miles from here?"

Alicia looks as if she's going to let go of the bags and grab my neck.

I take a step back and smile. "I gotta go, but if you want, call me later?"

I step backward and listen as Alicia walks into the door and announces that she had so much fun with her mother.

The door closes by her father's hand. His eyes watch me carefully as I walk backwards into my family's lawn.

"You stupid shit!" she texts me.

You could say I probably did something wrong. "What now?"

"What now?" she texts back.

"Ya."

"U fucking moron!" she texts back.

This is getting me nowhere, so I decide that it's best to just call her.

When the phone rings three times, I notice it gets sent directly to voicemail.

"Answer," I text.

"Fuck u"

It's kinda hard to set that up when you won't answer, you crazy cow. Instead, I text back, "Why?"

Finally, my phone rings and I'm sitting on my couch in my apartment. Looking around, I realize that I really need to get some paintings. Maybe a picture of something.

Maybe someone else's family. They always look so happy in those frames.

"Hello?" I answer. I get so far as the "Hell" part before she bombards me with the obnoxiousness that only Alicia can give me.

"If you ever do that again, I swear to God I'll fucking kill you," she says.

"I love you, too."

There is silence. I confused her, I think, and she's waiting to respond. I smile and look up above my tiny little television—a CRT one, those things with a huge jutting-out back that makes them super heavy to carry.

Maybe a picture of flowers. Or a puppy.

Maybe one of those pictures of random, colorful geometric shapes. That would be cool.

Maybe purple. Maybe orange. I'll see what's out there.

She's still rambling on about how she'll kill me when I stop what I'm doing and go into the kitchen.

"Are you even fucking listening to me?" she says.

I smile and nod. "Yes, dear," I say.

"You condescending piece of shit. Do I have to come over there?"

"Not unless you want to," I say.

"Why the hell are you so smug all of a sudden?" she says.

I wait a second, take a drink of water, and say, "Because I finally met your father. It seems that I got under your skin and I think that's a good thing. You don't want me to meet your family."

She screams on the other side of the phone conversation. I wonder for a second if she's in her own room or maybe outside. With all of the things she's said to me so far, I wouldn't be surprised if she was maybe some place else, where her cop-slash-bastard father wouldn't, you know, maybe want to arrest me for talking to his underage daughter.

"You're awfully angry all of a sudden," I say. "Calm down. I was only joking."

"That's all you were doing?" she says. "Trying to meet my father?"

"I swear on my life," I say. If only there were a delete button in real life. Substitute life for maybe, I don't know, a house plant. My unused dishes in the kitchen.

"Good," she says. "I wouldn't want my dad to come in and spoil all of our fun." There's a pause, a sigh, and then she says, "Besides, we haven't gotten you your first kill yet."

Oh, I'd say it's coming soon.

"Right, we still have that," I say.

"You won't know what it feels like until you do it," she says. "There's just this something that magical, something massive, you know?"

I nod like she can see me through the phone. "Ya, I think I get it."

"No you don't," she says. She chuckles and then says in a darkly sexy tone, "You have no idea."

I have goosebumps, but for the wrong reasons.

"So what time are you off school tomorrow?" I say.

She squeals. Typical teenagers. "Why? Do you want me to skip school tomorrow?"

"No. No teenage delinquency on my record," I say. "Just let me know when you get off, okay?"

The conversation ends with a click and no goodbyes. Just as well, I suppose. When speaking with Alicia, "goodbye" means a whole 'nother thing.

The next morning, I'm just outside of the school and I'm sitting in my car. I'm lucky this is still a local neighborhood, and I can just park beside a house's driveway and not really be noticed as much as I could be.

I mean, a twenty-something guy hanging by a school...nothing creepy about that, right?

There's no sight of her anywhere. No SUV. No sign of her parents.

Maybe she rides a bus. Would someone like that even ride a bus?

When the bell finally rings, I see that there's a person—a girl—walking toward the school. She's almost a quarter mile away from the school from the south. Coming from where about her parents would be.

No shit, I think to myself. That's an interesting mode of transportation, Alicia. It's not like you to have to walk to school.

It's Alicia, trudging along by herself. Her backpack pulled over one shoulder, her skirt pulled up to just below her crotch. I think that school dress code must be getting lax. Too bad it wasn't like that when I was in school.

Alicia pushes a lock of her blond hair behind an ear and walks to the front entrance. She's the last one into the school.

No friends wait for her and no one seems to even care that she shows up at all.

For the first time, this girl's pain begins to make more sense.

Not that it justifies the deaths of who knows how many.

But still.

My car starts at the same time Alicia seems to turn a corner to go up the steps to the school's entrance. She turns to look at my direction—hopefully not directly at me—and she squints, cocking her head.

"C'mon Coop," I say. "Get going."

The car rolls forward slowly. She seems to turn her head to the side again to get a better look at me and I nonchalantly press the gas pedal down and drive away.

For a second, I think I've been caught.

But to risk fighting your victim, you must first understand your victim.

Know thy enemy as you know thyself, I think Sun Tzu said.

Step one: know the schedule.

A perk of being in college is, I get to just download notes at home, study and not worry about the actual class meeting times.

When I get back home, I take a shower and wonder just how far I'm going to take this.

My heart beats as I rest against the shower's wall. One of those glass, standing-only types of showers, my eyes look through the glazed, foggy glass of the door.

There, I imagine my hands around that little bitch's throat. I imagine that maybe I'm bringing those people back to life. That I'm throwing every little horrific thing back into her face. I imagine that maybe, just maybe, she's crying.

Crying for her life. Crying for forgiveness. For my forgiveness. For God's forgiveness. For whomever will listen to her.

My heart beats faster, my pulse so loud I feel it in the sides of my throat.

The images come at me faster. She's crying. Her hands together, pleading for her life.

Faster still.

Tears bubbling, each blink pushing more saline down the sides of her nose.

And before I notice it, my hands have wandered down below my waist. I'm rubbing, massaging at the thought of revenge.

Getting hard off of justice.

And just as I think I'm might be coming up with a plan, a plan to bring this little sexy, sexy little girl to justice, I feel an involuntary squeeze and release around my hands.

My eyes closed, I'm only holding myself up against the wall with my forearm. Breathing hard, I'm smiling. Thinking about her tears. Her breasts, the soft white cleavage looking down her collar shirt.

Her hair reflecting the light. Threads of hair like stray golden sunshine rays flowing down over her forehead.

The water begins to run cold against my skin. I've been in here that long.

Yet when I look down, it just won't go down. Still hard, almost rubbing up against the wall, I put one of my hands down around the base and massage it in the water's stream.

Still thinking about her hair, those emerald eyes, I realize I maybe be out of my league.

Chapter Twenty-One

"DINNER?" she says. "Really?"

Alicia stands just outside of my glass patio door. Her short shorts ride just below her hips. They're so short, her legs look like they could go on for miles and miles.

I'm still in the apartment, sitting at the dining room table and staring outside. That ass...

"Is there something wrong with that?" I ask. "It's not like we have to call it a date."

"It's okay if we call it a date," she says. She leans over the railing of the balcony and flips her hair over her shoulder, peering back at me. "But only if you pay," she says with a smile.

"You drive a hard bargain, but sure. Why not?" I say. I run numbers silently in my head, wondering just when or if my parents have officially cut me off yet.

Speaking of which, my phone rings and I look down. It's Mom.

"So what are you trying to pull?" she says. "Trying to sleep with me?"

"Nope," I say. "Just hoping that you'd say yes."

She turns around on her heels and rests her elbows against the railing, looking back at me. With a smile, she flips her hair again, revealing the soft underside of her jaw and her smooth neck. A vampire's dream.

"What time?" she says.

"When will I not have to run into your dad?" I joke.

She gets it. "How about I just come here?" she says. "It gives me a good reason to get out of the house."

"You don't have any homework or anything?" I ask.

She chuckles. "Finished it."

What she doesn't realize is, I knew she came over here just after getting out of class. At least I don't think she knows. After this morning, watching her go to school at 8:15 AM, I finished what I needed to, checking syllabi and realizing that I had a decent shower, a great nap and then just enough time to get some reading done.

Psychology and the Adolescent. Good stuff. Practical just about now.

"Sounds good, then," I say.

She pushes herself from the patio and begins to walk toward the apartment. I cut her off at the glass door by holding my hands across the opening. I smile and she smiles and before long, she wraps her arms around my waist.

With a pucker of her lips, she kisses the side of my neck and then rubs my back. Her cherry blossom hair sinks back into my nose and for a whole thirty minutes, I forget that I'm going to have to stop this precious predator.

"I think I'm going to have to get home soon," she says. "To get ready."

My arms pull tighter around her body, pulling her deeper to me. I'll give you one guess which part of me wants her to feel the little poke around the waist.

She either doesn't feel it or she ignores it. Can't tell which, and it only makes me want her more.

"I'll see you in a few hours," she says.

After she leaves out the front door, I head straight to the shower and only really rinse off. I fix my hair and bring extra cologne with me just in case.

Picking out a basic black button down and some khakis, I get dressed. My bedroom feels warm and I become suddenly aware that I'm sweating like a proverbial pig.

This detective shit, it makes me feel particularly jumpy. Nervous. Is this how Sherlock Holmes felt? How Quincy and Jessica Fletcher felt?

Nearly twenty minutes after she left, I'm driving on my way to Alicia's house.

She's a fast driver, and probably just getting home right about now. It's only about five o'clock. Enough time for me to keep an eye on her and get the reservations ready.

Yes, I forgot about that little part. So sue me.

The drive is quiet on the way to her place. I take the fastest roads I can remember, anything that I think she might have driven.

No accidents, and this late—after the major rush hour—it's easy for me to think she just went straight home.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

The sudden brilliance of this plan comes to me when I'm ready to park right across my parent's place.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I restart my car just before I think that anyone may have seen me. Last thing I need to do is explain why I'm camping out in front of my parents' house. My sister wouldn't really take any answer for a good one.

So I drive a little bit forward, about three houses up the street.

When I peer over, there's no SUV there.

How the hell did I beat Alicia here?

I can't call her, though I don't think she'd answer if I did. Can't call. No accidents. Nothing.

I wait almost fifteen anxiety-ridden minutes before I realize I need to waste time.

No detective story I've ever read or watched ever ran this awkwardly. How do they keep from being spotted? From getting the timing right?

Goddamn liars.

I search through online lists of restaurants—nothing too pricey—and I finally find one named after a Renaissance painter. Sounds fancy but inexpensive; doable.

The reservations take only a few seconds to really get. One table for two, set for seven-thirty.

Gives us time in case Missy here decides that she doesn't want to arrive on time.

When I hang up, the SUV finally arrives, carrying Alicia in the driver's seat.

Out of instinct, I slouch down in the seat and peer over the dashboard. She doesn't see me, instead parking in the driveway and stomping to the car.

The scene goes quiet and I'm timing everything. It's nearly quarter to six and she's still not coming out.

Takes between fifteen and twenty minutes to get to my apartment.

She's pushing the timing. Maybe on purpose.

My finger rubs over the call button on my cell phone. The number on the screen is Alicia's.

For a second, I remain tempted to call her, see where she's at, pretend I'm at the apartment and maybe go straight home.

It's when I see her—a bright red dress, hair curled up into what could only be described as a frosting like hairdo—that I begin to feel like an ass.

I'm so desperate to find out she's been killing behind the scenes, doing things behind my back, that I always begin to fear the worst.

Maybe she saves the killing for my company. Maybe it's her way of getting off.

We don't really get into these types of things in abnormal psychology. Not in the first four years, anyway, so my answers are based on what I can assume from detective novels and what I've seen on television, along with my rudimentary knowledge of human psychology.

None of it seems to help at the moment. But to catch a killer, sometimes you have to be one. The best ones—the ones who seem to be most successful as serial killers apparently stalked their prey. They got to know them, met them from time to time, became an innocuous person in their lives before finally doing the deed, so to speak.

This role, the innocuous "boyfriend", this role comes to me.

And I've never been so unprepared in my fucking life.

I start the car and she begins calling me.

"Hey, Alicia," I say.

"Are you home?" she says.

"Of course," I lie. "Just waiting for you."

"Your air conditioner is really loud, Coop," she says.

My car's engine is indeed too loud. In this little car that's almost as old as dinosaurs, a few things need to be worked on.

"Ya, I'll let the apartment office know about that," I say. I'm careful to not drive past her house directly, so I'm driving the back route to another street—one that will take me directly to the interstate that will get me to my place.

Alicia, she's still a little too new to have explored everything—or so I hope. The goal is to be inside the apartment before she even gets to the complex's first sign.

"So I dressed up," she says. I hear a car door slam in the backdrop. She's on her way to my place. "I hope that's okay," she says.

"Oh ya, it's perfect," I say.

There's a pause.

"I mean, I'm sure whatever you have. You're a beauty. You'll look great no matter where we go."

There's another pause.

"You were supposed to tell me where we were going," she says.

"Oh right. Some place kinda fancy. Italian. Hope that works." My car drifts onto the interstate.

"Good," she says. "I was hoping I wasn't overdressed."

"I sincerely doubt you are," I say. "I'll see you in a few minutes, I hope?"

"Perfect timing," says the woman at the front door. She's elderly, but poised. The wrinkles around her eyes appear tiny but distinguished. I'd believe it if she told me she was a Secretary of State in her past life. "Your table just opened up. Just give us a few minutes to clear it off for you?"

I nod and smile. My hand reaches out for Alicia's, but she pulls away, holding her clutch in both hands and looking around like she's never seen a candle-lit restaurant before.

"How's this?" I say.

"It's pretty small," she says. "Why here?"

"I thought it would be nice," I say. And jam packed with people. The trick to learning about someone's habits is to learn how they handle stress.

Thus far in our "relationship," we've only been inside private homes. Never public.

My hypothesis: she doesn't do well in public. My test, a public, semi-romantic dinner.

Let the experiment commence.

The restaurant is packed with people. Most of them are elderly—another positive since she hates them—and all are busy wearing fancy clothes and eating overpriced pasta.

I think out of spite I'll order a pizza.

The walls are lined with mockups of Renaissance paintings and statues of Davids and a white marble statue of some guy who looks like he's dying.

It's almost crowded in a fancy and upbeat kind of way. The kind of place where the hipster movement meets "has a high-paying job".

We walk through the crowded group and with each step I see Alicia grab at her elbows, hugging herself to avoid walking into any of the elderly eating couples.

"Is this okay?" says the young lady. She smiles at the both of us, standing off to the side and presenting the table with outstretched hands.

I nod. "Thanks, yes, this is perfect, isn't it dear?"

Alicia grabs the chair and sits herself down.

I seat myself as well and the woman tells us that our waiter will be with us in a moment. I nod, Alicia buries her head in her hands, and the woman returns to her station at the front of the restaurant.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"Nothing," she says.

By nothing, I know she means "Everything," so I change the topic.

"Thanks for making me look like an ass in front of that woman," I mumble.

Alicia raises her head and looks at me, one eyebrow raised high. "Excuse me?"

"I was supposed to pull out your chair. Now I don't look like a gentleman."

"You're not a gentleman," she says. Her hands flail for a menu, hidden just beside the candle that sits stylishly in the middle of our table. The white tablecloth reflects some of the orange-red light of the candle onto our faces.

Our faces so red, we both look like we've been running in the gym.

"What looks good?" I ask.

"Everything," she says.

"Good," I say with a reach for her hands. She pulls back, sitting back completely in her chair. Alicia's shoulders pull forward as she slouches over the menu. "Did you wanna split something?" she says.

I shrug. "Sure."

And she points over the menu with her hands, playing and mouthing "eenie, meenie, miney, mo." She lands on something and makes a face of disgust. "What do you think about spinach dip?"

"Sounds perfect," I say.

"Looks like we already have a dip here," she says almost under her breath. She peers over the edge of the menu at me and either grimaces and smiles—I can't tell with the menu covering her lips.

"Just order what you want," I say.

Alicia takes the menu and folds it up and rests it on the table. "How about you order for me?" she says.

I pick up the menu and overlook the entire thing. I've been here a few times, mostly with other dates and family birthday celebrations. "I'll only end up getting the same thing over and over again—the Chicken Alfredo with a Caesar salad." I look up at her, whose eyes are out peering at the rest of the restaurant. Her eyes are wide, the whites almost glowing in the light.

"Ya, that works just fine," she says. Alicia shifts her weight toward me. "Is anything planned for after dinner?" she says. Her mouth forms a frown. Her eyebrows crunch down and the man behind her scoots his seat backwards, bumping Alicia's seat.

Her eyes widen even further. Her lips go tense and tight and small. I just watch, measuring her thoughts by her face and body language.

"Excuse me, miss," says the old man. His hair has completely disappeared in the middle of the top of his head, but white fluffs of cloud-like strands line the sides of his head. His smile is genuine and his suit says his bank account is healthy.

"It's fine," I say and Alicia looks over at me.

If looks could kill.

It's only in the silence of our non-conversation that I notice that the diners all seem to clink their forks and knives against the earthenware plates at periodic intervals. People try to squeeze through past our table—which lies just between the front door and the bathroom, it seems—and it irritates the hell out of my would-be girlfriend.

Alicia's eyes bug from direction to direction, bolting around the way a dog's does when he's stuck inside a crate.

She's the one forced into a corner, and it's my job to take notes and seek out her weaknesses.

Besides, in a crowded area, she's less likely take someone out with a sharp object to their neck, a blunt object to their head, or maybe just a good ol' fashioned kicking and punching until they stop twitching.

So many old people, so little time, though. That's what she must be thinking.

I smile and laugh internally. Externally, I ask, "So how was school?"

She doesn't look at me, instead looking right above me. "It was fine," she says. "Math sucked. History paper due sometime soon. I don't know. Didn't pay attention."

"How is your mom?" I ask.

"Delusional. She don't care about my dad's quick trips to wherever he's lying to her next." She says "quick trips" in air quotes.

The waiter stops by the table and introduces himself. His hair looks shiny, slicked backwards and his smile is nearly perfect. The man's chin remains impossibly still as he reads off today's specials.

I'm patient enough to let him finish before I look up and just order for the rest of us. An order of the olive ante pasta, one bowl of chicken alfredo, one shrimp alfredo. The man nods and asks if we'd like to see a wine menu.

He doesn't card her when I nod, so I figure I'll ask for two glasses.

Moments later, he arrives with a bottle of Moscato and two glasses.

The olives remain untouched by forks, instead we dig into the small dish with our fingers.

The more she begins to drink of the wine, the more she dares me to first sniff her fingers, then lick the vinegar marinade off her fingers.

When I finally give in, the waiter asks how everything is. He's holding back a smile, but Alicia begins to laugh hard enough for all of our neighbors to notice.

"Shh," I say and she shakes her head.

"You know what, no, I won't," she says with a dark grin. After this, however, she ironically begins to remain silent.

Her shoulders drop so they no longer wrap the sides of her head. Her eyes relax and for the first time tonight, she smiles a real smile.

Her hair falls off to the side just a bit, but it's the messier look that I don't mind. She looks natural, relaxed.

She can have fun.

We finish off the bottle and we sit and talk about everything and nothing.

It's here she tells me that she's secretly superstitious and looks up her lucky colors for the day in her horoscopes and plans her wardrobes off it.

"And what happens when you don't have a color that matches?" I ask.

She shrugs. "Have you not seen my closet?" she says. "I made damn sure I have everything I need, just in case."

I laugh and she laughs. The bottle is completely empty, our food is already lukewarm and getting colder.

"Can I get you a box?" says the waiter. He comes prepared, already holding two white Styrofoam boxes and a brown paper bag.

"Yes, we'll take one," says Alicia. Her words come out sloppy as a monkey on ice skates.

The waiter, he apparently sees this type of thing all the time. Without a single comment or smile, he slides our foods into the boxes and bundles it all up. Along with the bag, he drops a small black leather folder onto the table. "When you're ready," he says.

I hold out to him and hand him my debit card. He smiles and packages it all together, promising to come back soon.

"So what's after this?" says Alicia. I'm starting to think I poured the drinks a little bit stronger on her end. Out of the typical four glasses of wine a bottle holds, I think she had the lion's share.

"I don't know," I say.

She eyes me with suspicion, each beautiful emerald eye narrowing. "You're lying," she says. "You want to go back to your place."

"Well, your car is there," I say with a smile.

"That's not what I meant," she says, "and you know it."

Her feet dig around mine, finally kicking, then caressing mine under the table.

"I haven't played footsie in like, forever," I say.

Liquored up, I find that Alicia is quite magical. Almost human.

The waiter arrives with our receipt and something for me to sign. I put my John Hancock on the table and just walk out of the restaurant. Once we get back to the car, Alicia turns around at the sound of someone screaming at us.

"Oh, right," she says. The girl who showed us to the table, she smiles and tries to talk to Alicia.

"You almost forgot this," the girl says. "I'm glad I caught you."

I freeze completely. All muscles remain still and I wait for Alicia to act.

There's an exchange of bag and glances, and before long, I hear words I never thought I'd hear from Alicia's voice: "Thank you, ma'am. Have a good night."

Did that just happen?

"What are you doing?" I say.

"Getting in the car," she says. "You need a bigger car. There's hardly enough room for me and the food." She laughs. On my way back to the apartment, I start to think that maybe I was wrong about her.

While driving back to my place, her hands carve finger hearts into my leg, just above my knee. In almost no time flat, this crazy girl slides her hand up my thigh until she just goes all in—into my pocket.

Her fingers probe until she says, "Wanna see something?"

Chapter Twenty-Two

ALICIA remains curled up in the blue and white striped sheets of my bed. I'm on the couch, staring at the ex-popcorn ceiling of my apartment. I'm in boxers and a white t-shirt, nothing too sexy, but definitely cold.

And all of my blankets, well, they're in the bedroom with her.

What I tell myself is that she's seventeen and drunk. Not a good combination; and the phrase statutory rape rotates in my head like a computer's screensaver.

When we got to my apartment, she had to go to the bathroom, she threw up and then she passed out in the bedroom. It was her decision to take my bed. "Let me sleep it off," she said as she stumbled to my bedroom, "or my dad'll kill you."

It was a convincing argument.

I let her stay in the bed and shortly after cleaning up the bottle of peach schnapps and Jaeger, I passed out on the couch.

The fact that it's about midnight doesn't concern me right now. We can sneak her back into her house without a problem.

No worries there.

What concerns me is the handful of bloody blade that sits in the palm of my hand.

The thick red liquid doesn't seem to drip off. No mess on the carpet.

I jump out of bed, still holding the knife in my hand—an average steak knife with a wooden handle, a thick serrated blade only a few inches long—and head on over to my bedroom.

Did I accidentally kill her? What do you do with a dead body? I can't call the ambulance now. Not after two deaths in a little over a week.

"Alicia," I whisper.

Something rustles around in the sheets on my bed. Whatever that something is, it's alive.

My steps are light and careful. I can't risk her waking up with this in my hand. She'll never let me hear the end of it.

"Are you awake?" I whisper.

The moonlight pours in from the bedroom window. It gives the room a haunted house kind of feel. Definitely not helping.

When I peek in, holding onto the edge of the doorway and poking my head it, I see that Alicia had passed the fuck out. Her head is buried into the pillow, but her chest seems to be moving.

Good sign. No blood. Girlfriend moving. She's not the one I stabbed.

But then, who the fuck did I stab? And why is the blade still here? Did I sleep murder?

Holy shit. This is evidence.

Looking down at the blade, I realize that there's nothing hanging off of the blade. No strands of hair or shirt fibers. Overall, no sign of who I may have stabbed.

Or what.

Dear god, this could be an "or what."

I try to fight the panic, but I can't. I search around for the laundry detergent and figure that maybe bleach can help.

Yes, bleach can get rid of the blood. Maybe wash away any fingerprints on the handle. Can wood even have fingerprints?

Is anyone looking for me?

Jesus Christ, Coop. Last time you have wine. And Jaeger. And peach schnapps.

Just no alcohol at all. Whatsoever. Bad Coop. Bad, bad Coop.

I have a big white jug of bleach for when my mom tells me to wash whites. It is something I do often, using bleach when I wash my whites. My mom says it's too harsh for fabrics, but I figure she's only been washing for a few dozen years, what does she know?

I pop the purple lid off the bleach bottle and freeze.

Container. I need a container.

Looking around, I realize anything I have resembling a container is in the kitchen.

Onward to the kitchen I go, light-stepping all the way there. Against the short pile of the carpet, it's a pretty easy thing to do, moving around without being noticed.

I lightly place the knife in the sink and pour bleach all over it. The red blood turns a thin liquid, then pink against the bleach.

But the smell, it cuts into my nostrils and lungs. I can't hold my breath because the urge to cough is too great.

Water. Dilute it with water.

"Whatcha doing?" says Alicia's voice.

I try to relax my body, but I can't. My arms and shoulders feel so tense I'm starting to get a headache. "Hi, honey, how are you?"

When I turn to look at her, I notice she's wearing one of my shirts and absolutely no pants. Would it be wrong to ask her to not put on any pants again?

"Thirsty," she says. She peeks over my shoulder and holds her nose shut. "Did you make a mess?" she says. Then, spotting the knife, she grabs my elbow.

"What did you do?" There's a smile in her voice as she says this.

"Nothing," I say. "Well, I was going to make a sandwich, but I accidentally dropped the knife on the floor."

"Bleach?" she says. "That's pretty harsh, isn't it?"

"I'm a germophobe," I say. "It's one of the perks of OCD." Lying out of my ass. Nice one, Coop.

"Right," she says. Because she's been here a few times, she seems to feel comfortable enough to ransack my apartment for a glass. She finds the hidden behind some other mugs and takes one out, fills it with water, and leans up against the refrigerator. She sips the water through her front teeth, making this Hannibal Lector sound that chills my spine.

My hands almost begin to burn from the bleach. "Excuse me," I tell her. I nudge her away from the fridge and pull out a hand towel to wipe my hands. Everything feels cool and warm at the same time from the chemical burn.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she says.

"Of course everything's okay," I say. "When do you need to be home?"

She looks at the clock on the microwave and shrugs. "About now, I guess," she says. "If you're that ready to get rid of me."

"It's not that, I just don't want your dad killing me. He's a cop. He can do things."

She frowns and leaves the kitchen without saying a word. The only sound that comes from the end of the conversation is the slam of glass-on-countertop.

I poke my head out to see just where she's going, either to pout on the couch or back into my bedroom.

The bedroom door slams and I get my answer. I think I hear a click so I grab the handle and try to turn it. "Open the damn door," I say.

"Why?" she says. "All your shit is out there."

When I turn around, I notice that my shoes are not where I thought they'd be. No sign of where I usually take off my clothes—in a straight line from the door to the couch. Instead, they are bunched up on top of another in a corner between the dining room and the living room area.

"Just what the hell did I do last night?" I say.

The door pops open and the smell of perfume and moonlight pours out. "Ready?" she says.

On the way back to the bedroom, I find more underwear, more shorts, more shirts. I don't care just what matches with what right now.

It's midnight, and as my mother would say, I'm not going to a fashion show.

"Have you seen my shoes?" I ask.

"Ya, I think so," she says. Alicia digs around on the ground, pushing some of my clothes and shit around on the floor. She holds up a pair of tennis shoes. "These it?" she says.

There's something brown covering the white rubber on the bottom of the shoe. "Is that dirt?" I ask.

"I don't know what you do with your shoes," she says and hands them to me like they're infected with the bubonic plague.

"Fine," I say. I sit down onto the bed and put my shoes on.

We head to the front door and I watch Alicia's expressions.

Does she really not know what happened last night? She's saying nothing about it all, letting me believe that maybe I did leave someone—or something—to die somewhere. Bleeding from stab wounds.

We walk down the stairs and she's still silent. She looks kinda groggy and disheveled, like she really has been drinking all this time since we left.

"Can you at least look less drunk?" I say.

"Can you look less ugly?" she repeats back, wiping her eyes and trying to fix her hair. That cupcake frosting hairdo looks just as drunk as she does, falling off to one side. Melted, if you would.

She walks with a stumbled, drunken confidence to my car. Her legs and ass move like pistons—good ol' Alicia—toward the passenger side.

I wait for her seatbelt to click before I decide to pop the question.

"Will you please tell me what the hell happened last night?"

She laughs and runs her hands through her hair. "You mean you don't remember either?"

"That's not an answer," I say.

"And what does it matter?" she says. "All I know is, I love those drinks you made. What do you call them?"

I rub my forehead with my hands. "Call them?"

"The drinks? Kinda fruity? Kinda strong?"

Remembering the bottles I had to throw away, I say, "Red headed sluts. Ya, they're yummy." And painful.

"We should definitely have those again."

"Ya, we should," I mumble.

The streetlights flash like orange strobes into my car's little cab. Me on the driver's side, Alicia beside me, we must looks like hangover brought alive—well, maybe half alive.

"You're awfully quiet," she says. "You know, I totally would have slept with you."

"And you're seventeen," I say. "That's a bit creepy. Even by my standards."

"It's my dad, isn't it?" she says.

When she says the word "dad" I get an instant headache. The booze, it's all catching up with me.

"Can we not talk about this now?"

"Can we talk about this, like, ever?" she says. "I'm getting pretty sick and tired with you being so fucking afraid of my dad. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"He's a cop. I'm an adult dating a minor. What do you think?" I say. "I can't really have a record. My mom and dad will kill me."

From the corner of my eye, I see Alicia roll her eyes and then turn to face the street outside. We drive silently, so silently that I have to turn on the radio to a station to give me something to concentrate on. The booze, that drunken tired feeling, and the meanderings of a lost and forgotten men, they all gang up on me. Imagine having attention deficit disorder. Now imagine that about tenfold and you might just feel my pain.

When we pull up to her house, she gets out and immediately takes off her shoes. She tiptoes to the front door and something seems off. She's walking, but she's walking a straight line. Her back and shoulders, she holds them high and confident.

The bitch, she isn't as drunk as she led me to believe.

While the world spins around me, she's been pretending to be as messed up as I am.

That bitch. That lying, conniving bitch.

Biting down on my lip to keep from screaming, I pull out of the driveway just in time to see something peep through the blinds.

All signs probably point to the father, but I'm not willing to keep looking.

It takes fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes of intense concentration, focus, and lots of loud music and face smacking to keep me awake—and alive—enough to make it home.

There, I don't go immediately inside. I look around my car. My ass in the air, my hands on the seat, I check underneath the driver's side seat. I look in the glove compartment, the sides of the door, the little area just underneath the passenger's side seat.

Nothing. No signs of blood or mud or evidence.

None of this makes sense, and even less sense when I figure out that there's a pair of shoes in the trunk of my car.

They're mine, seeping with dark red globs all over the toes.

Chapter Twenty-Three

THE boots go into the washer as soon as I can stumble there. That night, and for the first time in my life, I let a pair of shoes get soaked in hot water and ran them in the dryer.

To be safe, I stood by both machines, arms crossed and staring off into space.

Because to have someone open them and see the evidence of my murders would mean I'd have to kill her, too.

I believe this is what my mother refers to when she says I let my imagination get away with me. When the shoes are done being washed, I don't bother to try them on. I'm swinging them from side to side to let them air dry. If I let them in the dryer for too long, maybe they'll shrink. I don't know.

I've never washed shoes before.

Does anyone really wash shoes in a clothes washer anymore? That night, I don't sleep.

I nearly want to cry, but I don't sleep.

All evidence points to me and watching the time tick away on the red digital numbers on my alarm clock is all I can do to keep from throwing up and turning myself in.

Not that I'd know what I was confessing to.

When you might be a sleepwalking murderer, you have a tendency to not go where everybody might be looking at you funny.

Case in point: school.

Instead of going to my regularly scheduled classes, I stay home and curl up on the couch.

It's not the couch thing that's so bad, mind you. It's the fact that I have to scroll through every television station I own—and that's not many and mostly local—to see if any new bodies pop up.

What I've learned from Alicia is that I am not as skilled as her. I'm not even as intelligent about what to do with the bodies.

But this chick, she seems to have this whole thing freaking figured out to a T. Me? Not so much.

Channel 6, our local Fox channel. No reports. Channel 4, 3, and 9? Zip, nil, nada.

I check the news reports at noon. I look online for local news on search engines.

No new dead bodies.

Maybe I am good and hid the body. But I know myself; I'm not that lucky.

I scroll through all of the search engines. Google. MSN. What's left of Webcrawler, for crying out loud. And what my search results tell me is that I might not be a killer. Or I'm better at hiding evidence than I thought. Drunk me is smarter than sober me.

No one on Facebook puts out notices that their sweet baby boy or girl or whatever didn't come home last night.

It's my imagination. I have something of a smile on my face when I close down my laptop with a click.

The only person who might know isn't volunteering any information. Of course, I haven't asked just yet, either. But now we're getting into semantics.

At twelve-fifteen, I consider calling Alicia on her cell phone. Except, I don't know how to bring up the idea of a dead body to her.

"Say, do you happen to remember killing anyone with a knife?" I could say and she'd cheer and jump up and down—though I'd never see it because, you know, we're talking through a phone—and she'd finally tell me that she was proud of me.

And let's make hot, hot passionate love that night.

And then I'd wake up and realize that I'm in prison, buddying up with a guy named Spike with tattoos of skulls and snakes on his neck.

"Hey! wut r u up 2?" says a text message at twelve-thirty.

I breathe a sigh of relief and text back, "Nothing much. You?"

She sends an "LOL" and we both know she's not laughing out loud, but I let it slide.

"U shud cum pick me up," she texts.

I consider it. "Fine," I send back.

I get another one quickly after that. "Fine? Wuts wrong?"

"Nothing," I say. "Rough night."

No response. Probably in class.

Tossing the phone on the bed, I crash down right next to it, my body bouncing as I hit the soft springs of my queen-sized mattress.

I don't even realize just how long my eyes have been closed when my phone buzzes underneath my hand.

"Where the hell are you?" Alicia texts.

"Why do you spell correctly when you're mad?" I text back.

"Asshole," she sends back to me.

I smile and grab my keys. "I will b right therr," I text.

She sends an LOL as if she's really happy about the situation and I'm driving on the way there.

When I get to the school, I pull up the parent parking area. "Where were my shoes?" I say.

Alicia tosses her backpack into the back of my little truck and buckles herself in. "I don't know," she says. "You're wearing something now."

"Well, ya, but I couldn't find my shoes this morning."

"Did you look in your bedroom? It's a fucking disaster in there. Do you clean up at all?" she says. Alicia flips down the visor and checks herself in the mirror. "Do you know how long I was waiting out there?"

"Not really, no," I say. The truck starts and we roll forward.

"Fifteen minutes. In this heat and humidity? My hair is a fucking mess."

"Calm down," I say and turn down the road toward her house. "You're not going to a fashion show."

"No," she says, "it's worse. We're going to my place."

I smirk. "We?"

"Ya, didn't I tell you? My dad wants you to come over. For dinner. Hope you have your diapers on."

I gulp and smile and clench all at the same time. "Why me? Why dinner? When is this all happening?"

"Oh?" she says. "He invited you over today. I knew you wouldn't agree to it, so I thought I'd ask you to pick me up."

"But I thought we were going to," I pause. "I don't know. Do something."

"Ya, well," she says and rolls some fruity smelling lip gloss over her lips, puckers them in the mirror and then says, "I knew you wouldn't go if I said something. Let's just get this damned thing out of the ways so my dad can be happy. You have nothing to worry about. Adults seem to like you."

"You say adults like I'm not one," I mutter.

"Have you seen your place? Don't you have like a maid or something?"

My lower lip pulls into my mouth and becomes clenched between my upper and lower teeth. Biting them so I don't cry out loud.

The trip is painfully fast. It's only when you don't want to get somewhere that you end up getting there that much quicker.

Alicia hops out like this is nothing to her. She doesn't realize the execution she is about to enjoy—or she knows exactly what's going to happen and she's willingly leading me to the slaughter.

"Can we talk about this?" I say. "I didn't even get a chance to get dressed for something like this."

She eyes me up and down, tilts her head to the side and says, "Meh, good enough." She waits by the door, holding it open. "Well?"

I hum the death march song to myself with each perilous step to the front door. I'd been in there only a few times before, but this time it felt completely new.

Every little detail of the door looked unfamiliar. Had they always had a red door? Was the edge of the doorway always paint chipped?

The door opens by Alicia's hand and we're standing at the edge of my doom. The warm smell of a pot roast, maybe, something with baking carrots and potatoes, massages my nose and lures me in.

From behind, I think I hear my own mother call my name.

"Well hello," says Alicia's mother. "How are you two?" She has a glass in one hand, a white wine that swirls around the glass with each gentle wave of her mother's hand. "I'm really glad you could make it," she says. She crosses over the white carpet and extends a hand to me. I shake it and watch her take a sip, smile, then return to the kitchen.

The house is probably a bit larger than ours. The living room is solid wooden floors, white walls with thick golden-framed pictures in perfect pairs of three, and red and dark blue furniture focusing around a circular leather coffee table. I think I saw a living room like this in a magazine once in a doctor's office.

I smile. "This is a beautiful home," I say.

"Oh, you've been here before," says Alicia's mother. Takes another sip of the drink and rests the glass on the counter. "Do you know anything about refrigerators, Coop?" Her fingers press every single button on the electronic panel on the front. "I just want some damned ice."

"In your wine?" I ask.

Alicia shoots me a stare that tells me I might have gone too far.

"No, no, dear, I'm not an animal. I wanted to get you kids some ice for your drinks."

I wander through the luxurious living room and stand by Mrs. Alicia's mom and stare at the black gunmetal refrigerator. "No, like this," I say. "Crushed or cubed?"

Alicia's mother taps her lips with an index finger. "Crushed, Alicia? Or cubed?"

From behind, I can already feel Alicia rolling her gorgeous green eyes. "Crushed, mother. Jesus Christ."

I swear my shoulders pull up tight around my ears. In my house, I would have felt a smack up against my head and an earful of not disgracing the Lord.

Instead, I hear, "Right, crushed. I forgot."

Her heels tap on the wooden floor in the kitchen, from one side to the next. She opens a cupboard, then another one, looking inside each of them.

"Mother, the cups are next to the refrigerator."

Her mother nods and smiles a drunken grin. Taking two glasses out, she fills them with the crushed ice she just learned to make, and then with some lemon-lime soda.

"Here you kids go," she says. "Unless you want some wine with dinner." Alicia's mother's eyes peer straight through mine. She appears to be measuring me, looking at my shoulders, my stomach, my legs. She takes a step closer and says, "Maybe a glass?"

"Mother, when is father coming home?" Alicia comes from behind me and reaches over my shoulder. She pulls me closer to her and then releases me.

"Your father will be home any minute now."

Right on cue, as if this were a fucking sitcom or something, the door cracks open and I hear not one voice, but two coming from the front door.

All three of us peek around the corner to see just who arrives.

"Look what the cat dragged in!" says the male voice.

"Hi, Father!" says Alicia. She hurries to her tall father's side and gives him a gigantic hug. "You're home!"

"Hi, Coop," says my mother.

There has to be a backdoor somewhere, I think. I won't look my mother in the eyes for fear of missing out on an escape route.

There's got to be one somewhere around here.

"Coop! Give your mother a hug," Mom says. She stretches her hands out and waves me in. I give her a hug and she clasps her hands shut around my shoulder.

Her hug gets tighter as time goes on, until she finally releases me and sniffs the air. "Smells good," she says.

"It's a roast," says Alicia's mother. "We had it made earlier today. Just warming it up."

"Had it made?" Mom says. She looks to me as if I have an answer.

"Our maid made it," says Alicia's mother, chuckling at her own internal rhyme.

No one else laughs.

"Mother, why didn't you just let the maid finish it herself?" says Alicia.

"So what brings you here?" says Alicia's mother. "Wine?"

My mother frowns and waves the glass away. "No, no, thank you. I'm not staying long. I just was saying hi to Frank here and saw my son come into the house."

Frank! That's her father's name. Funny, he doesn't look like a Frank. His jaw doesn't seem strong enough to be a Frank.

"Well, suit yourself," says her mother. She disappears into the kitchen and we hear the oven door open with a squeak. "How do you know this is done?" she says.

My mother comes to the rescue, pushing me out of the way.

Alicia looks at me and shrugs. I shrug back, and Frank the Chief of Cops looks at me as if I've already committed a felony.

"Honey," he says. "When is dinner finished?"

My mother's voice comes from the kitchen, "In about ten, maybe fifteen minutes still."

Frank nods in approval and disappears down the hallway to the bedrooms. A door opens and shuts.

My mother decides that she isn't done with the stage just yet, and continues to explain what had happened to the roast that it still takes an extra few minutes to cook.

No one else cares, but Mrs. Alicia's mom does the best job pretending that she does. It's the alcohol, I'm sure.

"Are you going to stay for dinner?" she asks.

Alicia and I, we instantly glance at each other, then at my mother. We're both shaking our heads no. So much so, that it looks like we're cats following a laser pointer.

"Well," says my mother, dragging the word out for added effect. "I don't know. I still have to go home and make food for my family."

Mrs. Alicia's mom doesn't know how to react, so she takes a drink. Her glass appears to be about an eighth full in just these short minutes.

"Ya, it's probably for the best, Mrs. Cooper," says Alicia. "I've tasted our maid's cooking, and her roasts are the worst."

"But it looks like it's falling apart already, it's that tender."

It's when I let out a sigh that my mother looks at my direction and shakes her head. "You know, I really should get going soon," she says.

I smile and give her a hug. "Ya, that's probably for the best," I say.

My mother gives me a quick hug and then holds me by the shoulder. Her eyes look excited. "How about you and Alicia come over for dinner tomorrow?"

"Great, now everyone knows we're dating."

"And don't they just make the cutest couple?" says my mother. She holds the two of us together—me and Alicia—and then injects her head somewhere between ours. She smiles and poses as if we're part of some family portrait.

Not in this lifetime.

"Ya, that sounds great."

Alicia's wide, frightened eyes disagree. "Ya, Mrs. Cooper, that would be wonderful." Her flat tone is lost on my mother's exuberance to have someone over for dinner.

"I have to get home." Mom points a finger at me and says, "You behave."

"Yes, Mom, I will."

Mom rubs her hand in my hair, ruffling it, and then leaves through the front door. If I wasn't going to have a heart attack, I sure as fuck should have.

"Alicia, would you set the table?" says her father. He comes from the hallway, emerging as a full grown and burly man with a plaid buttoned shirt and jeans. He looks almost normal. Like maybe he wouldn't kill me if he'd known what I have done with his daughter.

Alicia gives me a peck on the cheek to piss off her father and it works. He groans almost underneath his breath and motions for me to sit down.

I take a seat on the red couch opposite of her father in the blue couch. We're facing each other. Frank extends a hand out to the air and says, "Honey."

His wife arrives with a glass of wine—this one red—and places it finely in his hands.

It's as if she'd never been drinking at all today.

"So, Coop, where were we?"

"I don't know, sir," I say.

He looks at me and relaxes in his seat. That cold, calculating stare that he has, those same green eyes as his daughter.

Dear God, there are two of them in this world.

"And what did you say you did?" he asks, takes a sip.

"I didn't," I say. When I notice that Frank frowns at my answer, I correct myself. "I never did say. But I do go to college, studying psychology. Hoping to get into a master's program at the university sometime next year."

"Sometime next year?" asks Frank.

"Well, yes. I believe I may take a secondary major this year."

Frank's demeanor picks up. He sits forward and places his wine glass on the table. "Do tell."

"I was thinking maybe a pre-law degree along with it. There are some very interesting degree programs out there for those psych-law combinations."

Frank frowns again. "So you want to be a lawyer?"

"I never said that."

"Dinner is almost ready," says Alicia's mother.

"That sounds great," I say and then stand up. Frank remains on the blue chair, taking a sip of his drink and watching my ever move toward the dining room.

"It all looks so good, Mrs. Uh," I say.

"And you still don't know our last name?" says Frank.

Looks like my points have gone negative on the board.

"Mrs. Gardner," says Alicia's mother. "But you can call me Jamie."

"Thank you, Jamie." I smile as I sit down along the side of the table, assuming that the head is reserved for the father.

"No, no," says Frank. "You can have the head of the table. You are, after all, my guest."

His guest. Not our guest. Not a guest, but his guest. The fight or flight response kicks in and my legs begin to twitch under the table.

"Sure, thanks," I say. When I stand up, I nearly fall over from my nervous legs, weak like cooked spaghetti.

Frank watches me stumble and then politely and quietly seat myself. Enough damage for one day.

When we all sit down to eat, there's more silence than talking. My family eats dinner while unloading our day on each other. Sometime we talk about stress, sometimes we talk about farts. Depends on the day, really.

This family's dinner time, I think I'm actually hearing grass grow outside.

"This is delish," I say to Jamie.

"I'm sorry?" she says.

"Delicious," I say. "This was delicious."

"Then why didn't you just say delicious?" says her father. Frank pats the side of his mouth with the cloth napkin and rests it back on his lap. "Why abbreviate it at all?"

"I apologize," I say. "I'm just a little bit nervous."

Alicia's eyes follows the conversation, back and forth, like a bouncing ball at a tennis match.

"So I make you nervous," he says. "Good."

And with that, I don't know how to respond, so I don't.

When I take a bite out of the potatoes, I feel something tapping against my foot.

"Do you have a dog?" I ask.

Frank's eyebrow raises up in suspicion. "No, why do you ask?"

"No reason," I say.

The tapping on my leg turns to a rhythmic stroking pattern, up and down my ankles.

Across from me, Alicia smiles and seductively sucks in each of the tiny baby carrots into her mouth.

I'm feeling pressure down around my pants and Frank sits eyeballing me across the table.

"So what are your intentions with my daughter?" says Frank, obliterating the complete and total silence.

"What the fuck, Dad?" says Alicia. She flicks the tip of her fork toward her father, firing off a few drops of gravy along the tablecloth along with it. "Why are you being such a pissy bitch about this?"

I bite my tongue. Alicia's mother takes a drink.

"I want to know what this man intends to do with my daughter," he says. "And watch your tone."

"Do you want to know if he just wants to get in my pants and then leave me?"

Funny part is, I'm squirming more than her father is.

"I never said that," he says.

Jamie stands up with her plate and glass in hand. "Ice cream anyone?" Her voice sounds distant. She could be talking to anyone or no one.

"Coop, let's go," says Alicia. She stands up with enough force to push the chair back. I'm less aggressive, standing up and patting the sides of my mouth like I watched Frank do earlier.

"Thank you," I say. "This was an amazing meal."

"So no ice cream?" says Jamie.

Alicia is already halfway to the front door when I get the nerve to walk past Frank.

"Where do you think you're going?" says Frank.

"To Jeannette's," she says. "Isn't that where you always go?"

When the door closes behind us, I hear something smash—plates and maybe glasses—then silence.

Chapter Twenty-Four

"You're going to do this, for fuck's sakes. Stop being a pussy."

We're sitting on the sidewalk across a beautiful two story house. White paint on the outside, a garden of yellow roses and a row trimmed bushes that form a neat line below the windows that face the street.

"It's a beautiful house," I say.

"Get your fucking head back in the game," she says. She slaps me on the top of my head and then takes a drink from a dark brown beer bottle—one of a six pack—that we picked up when we ran away from her parents' house. "I wish you'd be a fucking adult," she says.

"We're camping outside of a house because why?" I say. "Answer me that, and we'll talk about being an adult."

"Stop being a pussy," she says. "You know why we're here."

"But I want to hear you say it," I say.

Alicia stands up and takes a few steps on the street. She stops in the middle of it, stretching her arms out like a cross. "I'm so fucking done with all of this!" she shouts into the humid evening air.

"Can we just calm down?" I say. "It wasn't that bad."

"He was fucking grilling you like a piece of meat. He hates you, he hates me more. Maybe I should just get the fuck out of here forever."

I look both ways thinking that maybe a car is going to come along and hit her while she gives this prophetic speech about wanting to be away and leaving this world.

No cars in sight, but I keep my ears open while I watch her stumble backwards.

"Get out of the street," I demand.

She peers at me, smiles, and says, "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on."

Are kids still saying that these days?

Did I just say "kids?"

"Don't be stupid." I pull myself up and approach her in the street. She steps backwards, a devilish smile across her lips. She takes a few more steps and stumbles as she reaches the other side of the road. "You're going to get yourself killed," I say.

"Isn't that your job?" she says.

What she means by that, I don't know. So I look at her face, searching for a hint of a joke. A hidden smile, a twinkle in her eye...something.

I see nothing, and that begins to scare the hell out of me.

"What I see is a girl who's a little pissed off," I say. "You should come inside."

"What you should do is get off your ass and help me," she says. She takes another drink of the bottle, then decides to finish it.

"I think you've had maybe a few too many," I say and gesture toward me. "Come on, let's get you back to my place."

She refuses, stamping her feet on the sidewalk and then crossing her arms. Then the devilish smile returns and she turns to face the house. "Help me finish this."

"I think you drank all the beer," I say. She had at least three since we left the house.

The most obvious question—who the fuck this house belonged to—didn't even cross my mind when we first arrived here.

"You're going to be a man and show me that you care about me."

I step forward onto the sidewalk, carefully since she appears to be more aggressive than usual. Any more typical startling and who the hell knows what she'd do. "We should go now."

Alicia pushes me off to the side and back onto the road. She takes a big step onto the house's lawn and marches to the front of the door. "Dare me to ring it?" she says.

"Whose house is this, Alicia?"

A light flicks on in the one of the downstairs rooms and I swear I feel myself about to shit my pants.

"We need to go. Now."

"We can't go," she said. "We haven't rung the doorbell yet."

"We?" I say.

Before she gives me an answer, she knocks on the door and there's a sudden flash of lights all over the house—whoever lives there turns on all of the lights and makes it look like it's been occupied all night.

"We should go," I say again.

She pushes me away and knocks on the door again.

"I thought the idea of a hit and run was you hit, then run." I say. Motioning to my car, I say, "Can we make with the running?"

She kindly flashes me the middle finger of her left hand and turns around, crossing her arms.

"Okay then," I mutter. I don't know what to do, so I do nothing. She won't budge with me, and she probably won't do anything stupid with me there, so I decide to keep an eye out on her.

There's some silence in the house, until Alicia knocks again.

The door opens and a woman's head becomes visible. "Can I help you?" she says.

Alicia flicks back her hair and opens her arms. "Are you Jeannette?" she says.

My stomach gurgles as my heart seems to drop inside of it, bobbing like an apple.

The woman looks suddenly concerned and she closes the door a little. "Who is asking?" she says.

That's enough for Alicia, and she pushes the door open. "Ma'am, I believe you took something from me."

The door closes behind them as they both enter the house.

My knocks at the door go unanswered. Silence from the inside of the house.

Means Alicia is either outside or she's already knocked out the woman.

Did she say her name was Jeannette?

Fuck me.

No more knocking, I just let myself into the house. It's modest when compared to the Gardner's house. Nothing seems fancy. Basic couch, chairs. A cheap glass dining room set and a bunch of paintings that look like maybe they were painted by the woman herself.

And apparently her favorite color is beige.

I listen carefully for the woman's screams or signs of a struggle. I get instead footsteps and sounds like something is being dragged.

I follow the sound to a bedroom near the back of the house. Alicia sits on the edge of the bed. The woman's shoulders are propped up by Alicia's knees. Her arms stretch over Alicia's legs, and her unconscious head dangling between her shoulders.

"What are you going to do?"

Alicia has her fingers caressing the sides of the woman's head, pushing her hair back. "What does he see in you?" says Alicia. She pushes more hair back, combing it with her fingers and then pulling it back into a ponytail.

This crazy bitch looks up at me and says with a dry smile, "Do you think she's pretty?"

There is no right answer to this, so I decide with one and brace for impact. "No, not particularly."

When Alicia smiles, I take a deep breath and let it go in a smooth stream through my lips.

Alicia pulls the hair back tightly, pulling on the woman's scalp. "I think she's beautiful," she says.

"Can we go now?" I say.

The woman is half awake, half asleep. From this angle, I finally see the drips of blood coming off the woman's ears and dripping thin lines down the sides of her neck. The woman, she nods her head forward and her eyes seem to widen as she comes to.

"Where am I?" she says. When she feels her hair pulled backwards, she screams and Alicia covers the woman's mouth with her hands.

"You will shut the fuck up or my friend here will kill you," says Alicia.

The woman's eyes look at me, looking mostly horrified and maybe a bit unimpressed.

I wave at her and smirk. "Hi."

Alicia rolls her eyes.

"Coop, meet Jeannette. Jeannette, meet Coop."

I wave again and freeze. "Jeannette? You mean?"

"Yup," says Alicia. "She's my daddy's girlfriend, aren't ya, Jeannie?"

The woman's eyes widen and a tear escapes, trickling down her cheek.

"That's right," says Alicia. She pulls on the hair even more and then releases.

Alicia moves fast. She snaps both of Jeannette's hands together, pulling them behind her body.

She's thought about this. Done this before.

My would-be girlfriend. has both of Jeannette's hands clasped together and pulled backward, making any movement by Jeannette pointless. Any strong movements would pull the arms right out of their sockets.

"What are you doing?" I say. "We should go."

Jeannette nods in agreement.

"You're going to come for a ride with us, okay?" says Alicia.

"She's not getting into my car. We're not kidnapping her," I say.

Alicia's fingers stroke the underside of Jeannette's chin, then flicks the side of the woman's nose. "Don't tell me that you're getting cold feet."

"Cold feet? My feet were never warm to begin with," I say. "Just let her go."

"If I let her go, stupid, she'll call the cops and then my dad'll be really mad at me. Won't you, darling?"

The woman shakes her head furiously. She shakes her head no, then widens her eyes. Tears stream down her cheeks, down the sides of her nose.

"She won't call the cops, will you?" I ask.

"You're so fucking naïve," says Alicia. "You're the psychologist, what do you think she'll really do?"

"Well, the symptoms of PTSD are aggravated—"

"Shut the hell up," says Alicia. She stands up and the woman lets out a scream that makes the both of us jump. "Give me that," she says and points to a sock on the floor by the bed.

When I kick it over to her, she takes the sock and shoves it into the woman's mouth. "Try that again, bitch, and my friend here, he's itchy to kill you."

I wonder if she's talking about someone else.

"Let's just let her go, please?" I say.

"We've come too far," she says. "Gosh, I thought after you'd kill your first person, the second would be so much easier."

"First person?" I ask.

"You don't remember, do you?" she says. Alicia's smile lures me in while the panicked face of her hostage pulls me back into reality. "That other night? You wanted to know where your shoes were? They were in the trunk of your car," she says. "They were a little—um" she pauses and thinks, "dirty."

"You fucking knew about all of that?" I scream. I feel the itchy sweat of fear on my back.

"Keep your voice down," she says. "The walls in these houses around here aren't very thick."

"You fucking bitch," I say. "You fucking bitch and you never told me what happened?"

"You seemed to be having a good time," she says. "I just decided to roll with it."

When the woman's legs begin to twitch, I take a step back but Alicia, she stomps on the woman's ankle and causes her to cry out again. Alicia pulls the woman's arms backwards, forcing more crying and piercing screams, even through the sock shoved into her mouth.

"Shut the hell up," say Alicia.

The woman's cries mellow, but she begins to shake in fear.

"You're going to get yourself killed if you keep this up," says Alicia.

"Maybe," she says, "but I'm taking someone with me."

Alicia drags the poor woman past me, and I'm powerless to help her escape. I'm afraid of getting caught, afraid of being turned in, and afraid that Alicia's going to kill me. A textbook no-win situation.

Without much thought, Alicia pulls Jeannette's arms around her like a cop would to arrest someone. "Keep them there," she says. Alicia nudges for me to open the front door. I'm keeping a small distance between us when possible, except for this one key issue that I forgot to contend with...I have to drive the getaway car.

Fuck me, fuck me running.

We get to the car and Alicia tells me to pop the trunk. I already know where this is going. Judging by the new sobs, so does Jeannette.

Alicia forces the poor woman into the trunk and then pulls the trunk closed. "There," she says smacking her hands as if they were somehow dusty. "Drive."

We both sit in the car and the trunk is surprisingly devoid of any ruckus. "Did you knock her out?" I ask.

Alicia shakes her head. "No, why?"

"It just seems really quiet back there," I say.

Alicia pats me on the knee and then squeezes my thigh. "Just drive, cutie."

"And where am I driving?" I ask.

"Home," she says.

When I flick the blinker to turn around, Alicia gives me this cold look through the corner of her eye. "What the hell are you doing?" she says. "Taking the long way?"

"You said home," I tell her. "So I'm taking her home."

"God damn you're a fucking moron," Alicia says. "Why would I take her to my home?"

"This is my first kidnapping, alright? Give me a break!"

I adjust the car to turn back down the road and head for the interstate. I avoid all back roads and take the fastest route I can think of back to my place. Why we're hiding at my place, and how the hell we're going to keep her there will have to wait a little bit later.

After all, Alicia seems to have a plan, and we've both established that she seems to be better than me at this.

"So what do you suppose we'll do with her?" I ask as if I don't already have the answer.

Alicia draws finger hearts on my thigh again, squeezing it and migrating toward my crotch.

I adjust my seating, pulling my ass from side to side to shake her off. I'm pulling full turtle-in-shell, if you catch my drift. No sexual anything going on in my brain.

All I'm thinking is, what do I do when someone asks me what that blood is dripping down their ceiling.

Or who keeps crying in my apartment.

Is maybe something the matter, and can they get help?

There are only so many ways to tell someone to buzz the fuck off before your cover gets blown.

"Where are we going to keep her?" I ask. "Seriously."

"I told you," Alicia says with a smile, "your place."

"I have an apartment. Lots of people live around me. Someone will see and or hear something."

"And we'll worry about it later," she says.

"We can't worry about it later. What room will she stay in? What do we do?"

"God damn you're a fucking buzzkill," she says. After almost getting to the off-ramp, Alicia sighs and says, "Fine, let's go toward the park," she says. "You can just kill her there."

Chapter Twenty-Five

THE public park is typically closed after nine p.m. around these parts. It's something that the city council decided on in the name of public safety.

Today, Alicia doesn't give a rat's ass about public safety.

"I'm not burying her in a public park," I say. "What if some kids find her and dig her up?"

"Don't be stupid," she says. As she opens the car door, she says, "Besides, I never said anything about burying her."

"We're not burying her?" The conversation continues outside of the car, where we're standing amidst the trees blowing lightly in the evening wind and the silence of the park. Swings move back and forth in the breeze and other than that, it's a pretty peaceful night.

"Did you bring a shovel?" I say. "Because I sure as hell didn't."

She checks her pockets, slapping around until she peers at me and shrugs, holding her hands up. "Nope, must be in my other pants."

"You're not wearing pants," I say.

"Unlock the damned trunk," she says.

I pop the trunk with my key and it swings open. Feet flail around my head. I take a step back and realize that Alicia has actually stepped torward the kicks.

"Just calm down," she says, trying not to yell. "Do you want us to get caught?" she says to Jeannette.

The woman's eyes reflect moonlight from above us. Oddly, the rest of her skin seems to glow a pale blue in the light. Against the darkness of having nothing around us, everything she does appears shadowy and gentle.

"Do we have to do this?" I say. "Can't we just, I don't know, do something else?"

Alicia pulls the woman out of the trunk and hands her the sock again. "Put this in again or I swear to God," she says.

Jeannette attempts to do as she says, but then swings a rope around like a lasso.

The rope is yellow and orange with a thick metal hook at the end. I needed it once when I got my car stuck in a muddy ditch. The rope was used to pull me out by a nice couple in a huge truck.

We both duck down, me covering my head. Alicia, however, realizes that Jeannette's swings are wild and way above us. Her eyes haven't adjusted to the difference in night, or she's just blind as a bat at night.

Either way, Alicia uses this to her advantage.

While ducking down, she slides her foot over and kicks Jeannette's feet out from under her.

Jeannette slips down, hitting her head against my trunk and falls over. Both of her hands hold her head still while her feet curl up into the fetal position.

"Stupid bitch," says Alicia, and she grabs the woman's head and slams it into my car. Pieces of blood and strands of bloody hair stick to the bumper of my car.

"Gee," I say. "Thanks."

And though it's against most people's sense of safety, Jeannette sits there in front of us, listening and obeying instructions.

"Give me that," she says to Jeannette. Alicia takes the rope and wraps it around our hostage's wrists. "Glad you had this, Coop. Don't know what we'd do without it."

"Not get hit in the head?" I say.

I rub the side of my head and Alicia looks at me and smiles. "Did she get you?"

"I think so," I say. My head throbs on one side.

"Fair enough," she says. Alicia stands up and pulls the woman to her feet against her will. Jeannette is still clearly in pain and frightened enough to do whatever we tell her to do. Alicia has already established that we will do anything we need to do to get our point across. Alicia prefers violence.

I prefer nearly pissing in my pants.

As I'm ready to slam the trunk closed, Alicia takes the woman's hands and slips them under the trunk's hood before I can clear them out of the way.

The trunk closes with a crunch and a wail.

"What are you doing?" I say. The trunk bounces back up and almost comes back down.

Jeannette throws her body forward to protect her hands from any more damage.

"Get back here," says Alicia. She grabs the woman's robe and pulls it back to us. "Do anything stupid again, and it'll be your head in the way."

Jeannette nods and cries. Her mouth full of sock that must smell like the trunk of my car by now, she can only wail in muted vowels and l and r consonants.

"Why did you do that?" I ask.

Alicia pushes Jeannette to the park in front of us. "Don't question me in front of the hostage," she says.

They disappear near the swing set. I watch as Alicia seems to be giving some speech to Jeannette's red, crying face.

Whatever she's saying, death is probably involved. And the worst thing anyone can have to deal with is imminent and uncontrollable death.

"Why?" she mutters between the sock.

"Because you're fucking up my family," says Alicia. "Because you're responsible for me moving to this hellhole, for making my mother go fucking crazy with paranoia, and because you're so much prettier than my own mother. How's that?"

Jeannette's body falls to the ground, collapsing in itself and huddled up on her side in the wet grass.

Alicia looks at me, smiles, then grits her teeth together and kicks Jeannette in the side. Each kick getting deeper and deeper into the woman's kidneys and back. The woman cries out in pain and tries to scramble across the grass.

And try as I might, I can't move. As much as I want to, I can't save her because I'm just not in control.

Like watching a movie or television, I'm helpless to stop anything I watch from happening.

Jeannette's body seems to stop twitching so much, just giving in to the pain and abuse. Alicia's kicks grow swifter, harder. That sound you hear in the movies when someone punches someone else?

It's not exactly what this sounds like, but it's close.

If you've ever used a dull wooden spoon to chop a beef roast, you might understand the sound.

The words slowly drill through my mouth. "Stop."

Alicia doesn't appear to hear a goddamned word I say.

"Stop."

Jeannette's body, her arms tied behind her, she still flails a little bit, rolling onto her side. Just giving Alicia a little bit more space, more soft, fleshy space for her to kick.

"Stop!" I scream.

Alicia seems to freeze mid-swing. She stops to look at me, her eyes wide open. Even from here, I can see the white oceans that her emerald eyes—black in this moonlit evening—swim around in.

"You're going to kill her."

"If I haven't already," she says. "It's what she deserves." Alicia delivers the final blow to her side and takes a step back, panting. "That's a lot of work," she says.

As if it's some sort of joke, she smiles and stands up. She holds the back of her sides like runners do after a race. "Want in on some of this?"

"No," I say, "I'm alright."

"Ya, you don't have the stomach for this," she says. As she says this, she leans over and grabs Jeannette's shirt. "Come and help me with this," she says to me.

I take a few steps forward and realize what she's doing. Jeannette's unconscious body gives up a little bit of a fight before finally letting go of her shirt.

Next come off the pants, or at least that was the plan.

"Are you just going to stand there?" my girlfriend says. "Grab a leg!"

When I approach Alicia and grab the bottom of a pants leg, I can smell the sweat coming from her. This raw, attractive scent that makes me want to stare at her, give her a hug, a kiss, everything.

With two tugs, the woman's pants come right off and she's officially naked in the park.

"Take the clothes," she says to me. She holds them out to me and I grudgingly take them and ball them up in my arms.

"Wash them when you get a chance," she says. "They'll have your fibers and hair on them from your car."

"You've thought of this," I say. Not so much of a statement but a declaration of just how crazy and methodical she might be.

"You have to be prepared," she says. "My dad is a cop, remember?"

"Oh fuck," I say. I feel acid trying to climb the back of my throat. The need to reintroduce the roast to the air.

"What's the matter with you?" she says. "Stick with me and you won't get caught. I swear." As she says this, Alicia steps over the body and then over the wooden blocks of the sandbox.

"Wait," I say. "What about her?"

Alicia doesn't looks back, but waves me off. "Leave her there," she says. "It'll be a nice little wake up call for my father."

The light comes on in the cab of my car. She sits down and buckles the seatbelt. She only half-smiles and watches me with the clothes in one hand, the other doing I'm not sure.

For those three to five seconds that the light stays on in my car, me and Alicia, we lock eyes.

For the first time, I don't see emerald greens and smell the sweet perfume of cherry blossoms and vanilla.

I see a chill that causes my knees to want to buckle beneath me. I see a dead stare, muscles that look hard as stone, a window into the Gates of Hell.

The lights fade out slowly and then disappear into complete darkness. I watch as Alicia's normally glowing, milky white skin turns to a black shadow of herself. The whites of her eyes remain, two white globs of fear that penetrate deep into the cold, spring night.

For safety's sake, Alicia decides that she wants to sleep over.

Because it's easier to keep your enemies closer, I tell her I think it's a great idea.

She becomes so happy I think she's going to explode. That night, going to bed after her long shower, she puts on one of my oversized t-shirts from my fat days and prances around the bedroom. She takes long but dainty steps around the bedroom and then lies in the bed with me.

She curls up in front of me, letting me be the big spoon. She nestles her head in her arms and then pulls my arm over hers. It looks like I'm hugging her, keeping her warm, but what I'm really doing is feeling for a heartbeat.

Does this monster even have a heart anymore, I wonder.

I watch her nearly kill a woman, leave her to bleed in the parks, naked in the chilly evening.

Replaying the moment, I watch her slaughter a puppy and his owner. I flinch and drive away wishing I could find a happier place to be.

I get home, thinking that I can stop her. Maybe I can change her. Maybe I can be the thing that curbs her appetite for destruction.

How naïve was I? How fucking naïve can I be?

"What's wrong?" says Alicia in a whisper.

"Nothing," I say. "Just kinda thirsty." I pull away from her just enough to get a foot off the bed and onto the floor.

She grabs my arm and kisses the back of my hand. Her lips feel tender and warm, a sharp contrast to the murderous cold-hearted bitch I watched not even an hour ago.

When I go into the living room and into the kitchen, I bring my phone with me. The soft blue glow of the phone's locked screen lights my path to a drink of water.

While I'm in the kitchen, I notice a blue blinking light for the first time all night.

A message. From my mother, it looks like.

I press the button for visual voicemails and rest the phone against my ear. It's my mother, her voice sounds shaky and rattled.

"Hi, Coop, I just wanted to say I love you and I hope you are okay." The message pauses for a second and then she seems to get almost hysterical. I can't tell if she's crying or not, her words become so disjointed and confusing.

"I think I found something in the garden this afternoon. I was planting more rose bushes, and found a soft part of the ground. I thought it was kind of weird so I kept digging, thinking maybe it was a cat or something making it a litterbox."

Another pause and I hear the light flick on in my bedroom. I turn around and cover my other ear to understand the message better.

"Anyway, I wanted to just let you know that I had to call the neighbor's. Your girlfriend's father. Coop, I don't know how to say this, but I think I found a body in the garden. I'm a little scared, but your father seems to be okay. Mr. Frank Gardner says that we don't have anything to worry about, but I have to ask, do you know anything about this?"

The message gets a little bit blurry from here, almost muffed, before she comes back clearly. "I know it seems odd, but you've been acting weird since Pop-Pop's death, and it's weird that it's our house." She sighs. "Anyway, give me a call when you get this. Love you. Bye."

The phone clicks and I hear something behind me. As I hang up from the voicemail, the kitchen's light comes on.

"Who are you talking to at this hour?"

Chapter Twenty-Six

"You don't really want to do that," Alicia tells me.

I'm throwing on my jacket and trying to do this civil-like, but she keeps getting in my way.

"Why are you such a bitch?" I say. Famous last words to be sure.

"Bitch?" she says in something more like a whisper. "Fine, suit yourself. But don't whine to me when you get there." She sits down on the couch and stares off into the blank white walls behind my television. "Consider this an I told you so."

For her being so concerned, she doesn't seem to physically get in my way. Just random banter to keep me distracted from going.

"Stay here, then," I tell her.

"Where else would I go? I don't have a car here." Alicia goes to the bedroom and closes the door, not with a sudden slam, but a quieted one. A muted physical way of saying "Fine" when you know she doesn't really mean "Fine."

I pause to ask a stupid question while putting on my shoes. "Do you want to come with me?"

She gives me the stare that shrinks my balls. "I just ran away from home. Why the hell would I go back?"

I nod. She has a point.

On the way to my parents' house, there's still a line of police tape that encircles my parent's backyard.

The cops, my mother says, are all dismissed. She's left to deal with how she's ever going to plant her roses with all that yellow tape everywhere.

"You said you found a body?" I say.

My mother nods. "Do you know anything about it?"

"Why would I?" I ask. "I know where you're going with this."

"Well, you've been strange lately, and you were indirectly responsible for Pop-Pop's death."

At least she said indirectly this time.

"When are you going to let this go?" I say. Muttering obscenities to myself, I grab my keys and head to the front door.

"I know what all of those means," she says. "Those swear words."

"Who the hell calls them swear words anymore, Mother?"

The obvious answer stares me in the face, her arms crossed and her eyes wide open. The look on her face says she's either trying to understand what to do next or how to keep me here. I can't decide which.

"I just wanted to make sure you and Holly were okay," I say.

"And what about me?" says Dad. He sits in his chair, watching the television with a set of headphones on. A gift from my mother; she couldn't bear to hear the television as loud as my dad kept it. So, she figured he can watch TV and she'd never have to yell at him.

The gift that kept on giving—peace and quiet that is.

"And you, too, Dad. How are you?"

My father cocks his head to the side. "What?" he says loud and clear.

"I said 'How are you?'"

My mother goes into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. She takes out a yogurt and a spoon. "Want anything to eat?"

"Mom, did they say who the girl was?"

"I figured you knew her, that's why you buried her here."

I grab my keys and go to the front door again. "Bye, Mother."

"Go and talk to Frank," says my mother. "You can ask him what happened and get some information."

"Why couldn't you have just said that instead of accusing me of murdering someone else?"

My father takes his headphones off but says nothing.

"Coop," my mother says, her hands shaking in front of her as she tries to keep a spoonful of yogurt from falling. "Coop, I'm sorry."

The words sound like a whisper to me, but my father, he gasps.

"What for?" I ask. My hands fidget with the keys. "It's not like you were sorry for anything a week ago when you accused me of killing your father."

"Your grandfather was a good man," she says.

"And yet you still can't do it," I say. "Well fuck you too, lady."

My dad's favorite chair squeaks as he stands up and then the door shuts. What happens after that, I don't give a shit. My next goal is to check out what and who was buried beneath my mother's lawn.

And how the fuck it got there.

When I go next door, Alicia's father answers. "Where's my daughter?"

"I don't know," I say. Because he's a cop, and probably trained in detecting lies, my eyes focus on his, pupil to pupil.

He waits a beat before he opens the door and lets me in. "I suspect you're here because of your mother's discovery?"

"Discovery?" I say with a chuckle. "Now we've got a sense of humor?"

"Do you happen to know an Erica Salvadore is?" He watches the expression change on my face and says, "I'm going to guess you do." He pats me on the shoulder and then points at a chair.

I take his suggestion and have a seat. He stands above me.

"I'm going to be frank with you," he says. "We found her wallet shoved into her pocket. I can't give you too many details," he says, "but we have a feeling that whoever did this wanted you to find her, and wanted you to know who she is."

With those words, a gorgeous angelic face with golden blonde hair and eyes like emeralds appears in my head. She whispers to me, "Shhh," before disappearing.

"Oh shit," I say and bend over. My stomach turns like an ice cream maker.

"Were you two close?" he says.

"No, not really," I say. "I couldn't be."

Frank sits on a chair across from me and rests his hands in his lap. "What do you mean by that?" His voice feels soft to my ears. Suddenly he's gone from High Inquisitor to Caring Counselor.

"I don't know," I say, except that I do know. "I just couldn't see her."

"See her how?" says Frank. "How is she connected to you?"

"We met once. In a class."

"And?"

"And we started talking. But just in the parking lot. Never after that."

Frank sits back, looks relaxed. "And why is that?"

"I don't know."

Frank keeps it cool. His calm demeanor allowing him to smile and almost mean it. "I think you do know," he says. "And since you do know, you should tell us. Help us with the investigation."

"It's your daughter, sir. That's why."

"Because you were dating my daughter?" he says. Once again, Frank's voice goes soft like he's reading a children's book. "Is that why you couldn't see her?"

"I couldn't see her because she would do something to Erica if she knew we did see each other."

"I see," says Frank. He stands up and extends his hand. "If you aren't going to take this seriously," he says, "then I suppose this is over and done with. We'll let you know if we have any other leads."

"Why?" I ask. I rest my hand on the door handle, but I won't open it. And although I just stare into the wooden etchings on the door, I can feel Frank's breath behind me.

"Why what, Coop?"

"Why won't you do something?"

"We don't have any evidence that there's something to be done," he says. "I'm not really sure what you're talking about."

"She's hiding at my place, you know. At Saraday Commons Apartments."

Frank grows silent. His shadow feels cold against my back. When I crack the door open, Frank rests his hands against the door and shuts it closed. "If you tell anyone about what happened—what you think happened—I swear to God you will regret it."

"If you only knew, sir. Check the parks tomorrow," I say.

His silence speaks volumes as I crack open the door and a rush of cold air comes into the room. It slips past my bare forearms, chilling the hairs into standing straight up. I exit to my car and the door shuts behind me.

My mother stands in the front yard, watering the lawn with the garden hose.

"Mother," I say. "It's late, the sun is down. Why are you watering?"

"So the plants don't burn," she says.

I nod and think how sad all of this is. People lying to themselves out of habit. Because breathing in the truths of the real world is dangerous and threatens to tear at the expectations we have of the world.

Frank's eyes prying through the blinds as I get into the car, my mother's eyes watching as she haphazardly waters the lawn with freezing water, I'm a sudden side show in a circus of lies.

These thoughts linger in my mind on the way back to my apartment. The pieces of the puzzle begin to fit together in my brain. What Frank said was true, she did want Erica to be found. Alicia wanted me to know it was Erica.

She's never been so subtle about everything.

Why now?

When I walk through my apartment door, I find it to be unlocked. She knows better than that. Any idiot could walk in.

However, tossing my keys in a bowl by the front door, I hear, "Okay, let me explain."

Alicia comes out of the bedroom.

"You were talking to me?"

"Yes," she says. "About that woman. Erica, was it?"

The muscles in my chest go taut, my shoulders pulling forward. The nerves in my stomach, it feels as if something is trying to burrow out. I try to keep my cool as best as I can, but I'm afraid that Alicia has learned too much from her father already.

"I was going to tell you," she says.

"Why now? Why lie about all of this now?" I say.

"I'm not lying," she says. "It was really an accident."

"So you just happened to find out who she was, you happened to find out where she lived, and you just happened to kill her and bury her in my parents' backyard and forget to tell me?"

"I thought you'd get mad at me," she says with a smirk.

"Enough with the manipulative bullshit." I push her off to the side and head into the bedroom. "Your father knows about Jeannette, by the way. I told him where to look."

Silence from the living room where she stands.

"Because you wanted to strike out at me, now I'm striking back, bitch. It'll just be a matter of time before he comes looking for you."

"And you really think that this will end well?" she says. "I can kill you here and now. End you in your sleep and just walk away," she says. She sounds nervous, her voice almost cracking as she pronouncing her vowels.

I open the door and hold the phone in my hand. I type in 9-1-1 but don't hit the call button just yet.

Alicia throws her hands up at me, telling me to put the phone away. "Wait, I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry."

She comes closer to me, but I open the door wider and say, "Get the fuck out."

"I knew you weren't going to stay with me," she says. "I got scared."

"You fucking psycho," I say. "Get out or I call the cops."

"And they won't do anything. This crooked little town? I hear what my dad says about this place. They won't touch me." She pauses and sits on the couch, crossing her legs at the ankle. "Besides," she says, "I love you."

"No you don't. You're just scared."

"And I know you love me, too," she says. "You were lying about telling my father. I could tell you were. You're a horrible liar."

"I wasn't lying, Alicia. Come tomorrow, they'll come looking for you."

Alicia's eyes glisten with the onset of tears. "What do you mean come for me?"

"Your dad also knows you're staying with me. He can get my address from anywhere."

"Why would you do this to me?" she says.

"You're the victim here? When the fuck did that happen?"

I hear a door from outside open, then close. Something that sounds like flipflops comes up the steps outside. "Hey, can you guys keep it quiet up there?"

"Mind your own business," I say.

"No, you mind your own business and keep it down," says my neighbor. She's about thirty something with God knows how many kids. She either runs a daycare of babysits for the complex.

"We'll be finished in a second," I say. I don't hear the flipflops again so I stick my head out the door. "Hey, I said we'll be done soon, okay?"

The woman, her hair a curly frazzled mane around her head, she bobs it back and forth and then goes back inside. Her light goes off through the window.

"Alicia, get out."

She stays there, barley able to budge. "But I love you."

"You love that I could protect you from getting caught, but that bird has flown the fucking nest. You're on your own now."

She stands there, folding her arms across her chest and rubbing her biceps.

"Be thankful I don't turn your ass in by myself. Maybe you can talk your dad into covering for you."

"He always does," she says and, grabbing her shoes from the floor, she steps out of my apartment. She gives me a kiss on the cheek and whispers to me, "You'll be back. They always come back."

Chapter Twenty-Seven

AT three-eleven in the morning, I get a knock on the door. A firm knock that sounded official, if not urgent. "Alex Cooper, please open up," says a voice.

I'm squinting one eye and looking out the peep hole with the other. A man in a dark blue uniform stands in front of me. His face, distorted through the tiny glass in my door, looks pissed off, if not utterly concerned.

Fuck. Police.

"Hello officer," I say as I open the door.

"You're Alex Cooper?" he says.

Footsteps come up the stairs to our left. "Coop," says Frank. "Come with us."

"What's the problem?" I say.

"Your little tip off caught our attention," he says. "We just have a few questions."

Tip? He means about searching in the parks. "So you found her."

The younger cop looks to Frank for instructions, shocked at my question.

Frank nods to me.

"Alex Cooper," says the cop as he takes my shoulder and turns me around. "You are under arrest for the murder of Jeannette France. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law."

Cold plastic cuffs go around my wrists—the new kinds that are more like white ribbons than old school metal cuffs—and zip together tight.

"But I didn't do anything," I say.

The other officer, he pulls me out of the apartment and closes the door behind him. Swell guy. "Watch your feet," he says.

Keeping your balance down stairs with arms zip-tied behind you isn't easy, I experience this the hard way, damn near falling down the stairs.

"This way," he says. As I turn the corner, flashing red and blue lights have people peeping out their doors and windows at me.

Their collective faces turn blue, red, blue as I'm left white in pure embarrassment. I think I'm literally close to throwing up, but there's no time to do so as the cop pushes my head down into the police cruiser.

The door closes behind me and the woman who told me to keep it down, she stands with her hands on her hips, smiling.

The car smells like piss and leather. The seat, shiny and moist-looking. Freshly polished.

Frank gets into the driver's seat and to my surprise, no one else gets in. "Let's talk," he says.

My downstairs neighbor, she waves at me as the police cruiser takes me away with flashing lights and no siren.

"About what?"

Frank's cold gray eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. His brow reminds me of wrinkle pups, or young bulldogs. "About what you know."

"I know you can't just arrest me without evidence," I say.

"We found the body in your parents' backyard, your mom says you murdered your grandfather. Even Stevie Wonder can connect those dots."

"I didn't fucking kill anyone!" I scream.

My feet kick at the floors beneath me. Then I'm leaning on my side, kicking at the windows of the cruiser.

Frank, he doesn't move a fucking muscle, just driving calmly down the street.

"Are you done with your little temper tantrum?" he says. After a second of listening to me whimpering in the back, he says, "Your mother is going to meet us at the station. Do yourself a favor and get a fucking hold of yourself."

"That answers one question," I say.

"What question was that?" Even from back here, I can see that he's smiling.

"Whether you're gonna kill me."

He chuckles with a gruff smoker's cough at the end. "You're funny, kid."

This late in the evening, buildings come out of the darkness, pass by us and disappear behind us. Everything in the streetlamps is a pale yellow, like watered-down orange juice. It looks still and quiet, but cold. Somewhere, I get the feeling that maybe someone is watching me drive by them.

Then I look up and realize that it's him. Frank's eyes are on me as much as his eyes are on the road.

"Why did you do it?" he says.

"I didn't kill anyone," I say.

"Not that," he says. "Why'd you sleep with my daughter?"

I smile.

"What's so funny?" he says.

"I never slept with her. As much as she wanted it, I couldn't do it."

From the mirror, I see him nod. Frank lets out a long groan that I assume means he's pleased that I hadn't deflowered his princess. As if she still had any flowers left.

"Besides," I say and look out the side window. "It's hard to trust a murderous teenager, don't you agree?"

"You know," he says. "I had hoped you'd be the one for her." His eyes meet mine again as I watch him talk in the rearview mirror. "She had these mood swings as a kid, then this rage. God knows I didn't know where it came from. Her mother or I never had any issues with her. She was just a bad seed, you know?"

Apparently I'm too silent for his tastes, so he looks over his shoulder to see that I'm still there.

"I thought, you know maybe he'd be good to her, treat her well so she wasn't so angry." He sighs and shakes his head. "Turns out I was wrong."

We pull up to the station, a small square building made of cement base and red bricks. It feels too much like a two story schoolhouse if you ask me. The building out back, the new one that's all gray and only slightly larger than the main building, it's the prison and lock up where they take me.

Frank only motions for me to get out of the car. When I do manage to stand up, the other cops stare at me walking myself into the building. I even take the time to apologize and greet the young men and women in blue.

Some wave back. Others don't know what to do, so they look past me and greet Chief Frank.

We sit down in a room with a metal table bolted to the floor. I'm handcuffed to a six inch bar in the middle of the table so I don't escape.

Frank sits on the other side and folds his hand together. "Comfy?" he says.

There are small black cameras in the room, in the corners, and a glass mirror to my left. No one says anything about anyone watching us, but my skin still crawls on the back of my neck.

"What are you doing here?" he says.

I shrug. "I don't catch your meaning, sir."

"You tell me about Jeannette's body, then you just waltz out of my house and expect me to just let you go?"

"I didn't say anything about expecting you to let me go," I say. "But if you want the real sicko, go get your daughter."

Frank looks at the mirror and then waves his hand past his neck, the universal sign for cut it. Or I'm going to kill you.

"Now that the cameras are off, you do me a favor and stop invoking my daughter's name, got it?"

I shrug. "Why should I? You arrested the wrong person."

Frank looks at the window and then gives them a thumbs up. Coming from a giant Frankenstein-like police chief, it looks kinda comical. "Tell us about the murder," he says. "Why?"

"I didn't know she was dead," I say. "That was the honest to God truth. I just knew she was beaten to death. With a foot."

"With a foot. Not your foot."

I look him in the eyes. "Did I say my foot? Because I was pretty sure I didn't say my foot."

Frank stands up and walks next to my chair. He sits on the table next to me, one leg up and the other flat on the ground. "Just cooperate and we'll see what we can do about leniency."

"Leniency for what? I didn't do anything," I say. "Let me out of these fucking cuffs."

The clanking of the cuff's chains against the metal pole echoes in the small, small room.

I pull on the cuffs enough to feel them pinch against the skin on my wrists. The pain is cutting sharp, pulling my skin forward and down the fleshy mound of my thumbs.

"You knew about the body," he says. "How did you know if you didn't do anything?"

"Shouldn't I have a fucking lawyer first?" I say. "I distinctly remember from government class that I get a lawyer."

Frank tells the mirror to cut something again and he peers at me. His lips remain still but he throws his voice with the grace of a drunken ventriloquist. "Work with me or I swear to God I'll lock you up myself."

Confused, I mutter, "What?" and realize that Frank is putting on his show again.

"I was there when it happened," I say. "Is that what you want to hear?"

Frank smiles up, looking at a black camera on the far corner of the room. Then, looking at me, he shakes his head and says, "Yes, Alex. That is exactly what we want to hear."

His body saying no, his words saying yes, I don't know what to believe.

"So you wanted to know that I was there."

"We want to know why you did it."

"I didn't do shit," I say. "I keep telling you that, but you don't want to hear it."

"Why her?" Frank says. There's a knock on the door. Frank holds up a finger to tell me to wait a minute. His steps almost squeak when he walks. The door cracks open and there's some whispering. Of what, I'm not sure, but I do hear Frank end the conversation with "God dammit!" and then a loud sigh.

He squeak-walks next to me sits back on the table. "Someone tells me that we found another body." He looks at me and squeezes the bridge of his nose. "Are you ready for this?"

"Ready?" I say. My fingers begin to sweat and I'm pulling on the cuff chains, trying to sit upright comfortably. "Why do I need to be ready?"

"We think we have an ID on your mother," he says.

"You what? Fucking Alicia, I swear to God I'll kill her myself."

"Now now, you are being recorded," says Frank. "If anything happens to her, you know we'll have to come after you first."

"Fuck you," I say. "It's your goddamned fault. You mean to tell me that you're just going to let your daughter do whatever the fuck she wants to and I'm going to go to jail for this."

Frank looks up at the window and snaps his fingers. He points at my cuffs and then walks to the front door without saying anything.

"Are you going to let me out or anything? What the fuck are you doing?"

The door clicks behind me and Frank's feet stop squeaking. He's left the room.

"Fuck you, Frank! Fuck you so hard!"

The door opens again and I'm kicking my feet off the ground, rattling the chair on the cement ground. "Easy there, turbo," says a voice behind me. It's feminine.

"Great, they send someone else to accuse me of something. I was here, you idiots. I didn't kill anyone else."

"We never said you did," says the voice. A woman comes around into my line of sight and it's a smallish woman. She wears her blues tight around her shoulders on her small frame. It still looks tight from the breasts up, small from the waist down. She dangles keys in front of me.

"You ready to go?" she says.

"What the fuck kind of game is this?" I'm shouting at her.

"If you don't stop talking like that to me, I will have to keep you here until you calm down."

I bite my tongue and look at her. My teeth enjoys the feel of something fleshy and soft in between my jaws, even if it's my own tongue. They squeeze harder and I'm running on so much adrenaline and anger that I actually start to enjoy the pain.

When the lady cop puts her hands near mine, she waits for me to settle down. "There's a good boy," she says and unlocks the metal bolt on the table. She takes the cuffs into her hands and leads me to the front door.

As I'm about to see the outside lights, the fluorescent halo of the hallways, my knees buckle. Everything goes upright, and before long I'm looking at the paneled ceiling up above me.

There are feet that scuttle around me, then the lady cop's face. Her eyes look from one of my eyes to the next, then she slaps my cheek. "You okay?"

I tell her yes with a groan. My legs feel like rubber, maybe warm sausages, wobbly, sweating.

"What happened?" says Frank. He knees over me and touches my forehead. "He seems okay," he says. "Get him out of here."

"Aren't we going to get him checked out?" a voice says.

Frank shakes his head and points at the door. "I'm done with him," he says. "Let him out."

The woman hauls me up on her broad shoulders, pulling my arm around her neck. She helps me up to my feet.

My legs don't want to bear any weight, so she drags me to a bench and lets me sit down for a while. "We're going to have to get you out of here," she says. "Captain's orders."

I nod. "Take me to the hospital?" I say.

The lady shakes her head. "We can't do that."

As I felt myself collapsing to the floor, I felt the mad rush of heartbeats, thumping like a techno beat set on fast forward. The mad drumming of my heart, the screaming in my mind like a Pink Floyd song, something like a panic attack.

Haven't had one of those in, like, ever.

The lady cop snaps her fingers and orders someone else to get me a drink of water. The paper cone cup comes to my hands, and though I'm shaking a little bit, I manage to take a few sips and then crunch the cup in my hands.

"Can I get up now?" I ask.

The cop nods and helps me stand. Before long, I'm standing under my own weight. My hips feel wobbly, my face flush, and my palms sweaty, but I manage to make it to the cop car anyway.

"Why can't we go to the hospital?" I ask.

"Captain's orders," I say. She lets me into the backseat of the cruiser and closes the door behind me.

"Everything a fucking game to you people?" I ask when she sits down in the passenger side. She doesn't give me a response, but starts the car.

When I get home, the cop pulls away after watching me climb the stairs.

The sun peeks over the low hills on the horizon. It looks pretty, pink and orange. A bright new day if I were in the fucking mood to enjoy it.

The first thing I do is grab my keys when I go through my door. I'm barely into my apartment when I have the keys in my hand and I'm locking the door.

My feet stomp on the floor, still a little wobbly. Already I'm forming the arguments in my head, the things I'll say to Alicia when I finally meet up with her again.

It's inevitable, I say. It always is. She said so herself. "They always come back."

Those words echo around in my head, bouncing around like a computer screensaver.

My car starts and I pull out of my parking spot. When I do, I feel something kick at the backseat of my car.

"Hello there," Alicia says. "If you know what's good for you, you'll drive and keep looking forward."

Chapter Twenty-Eight

SHE tells me to go to the alley where I met Curly. I go there obediently because I don't know if she has a weapon or not. Either one wouldn't surprise me, to be honest.

But as always, she's in control.

She holds something against my neck. I can't see what it is, but the tip of it feels sharp against my skin. "Park here," she says.

We end up in a grocery parking lot. Owl Foods, the only downtown grocery store left. Everything else is left on the outskirts of town, closer to the residential districts.

When the car shuts off, she pushes deeper into my neck and says, "Get out. Slowly."

She gets out of my car and holds something in the pocket of this red hoody she's wearing. I check it over quickly to affirm that yes, it is indeed mine.

"You're wearing my hoody," I say.

"Shut up," she says.

She turns me around and holds the jacket pocket to the small of my back. She says, "Walk" and we walk down the streets.

This early in the day, no one is even walking anywhere or opening the shops. The town, it's never been more obvious that it's on its last legs. A dying town with dying people.

"To the alley," she says. Whatever she's holding in her pockets jabs me in the back, the sharpness of the blade dulled by the fabric of the jacket.

As she's pushing me in the direction, not worrying about the pain, I start to think that she's just going to tear a hole through my jacket.

And I liked that jacket, too.

"Here," she says.

I turn down the alleyway and she nudges me down the alley before she shoves the back of my head forward. I lose my balance and fall forward, taking only a few steps before landing and sliding along the floor.

To my left is a man, snoring. He's covered up with a blanket torn to near shreds. His face is wrinkled, white stubble and dirty.

"Curly?" I say.

The eyes seem to open up just a bit, but he doesn't wake up. He smacks his lips and then turns over, pulling the blanket even higher over his shoulder.

"Curly?" I say. "Help me out here buddy."

"He's not going to be able to do much," says Alicia. She tosses a knife to the ground beside me. "You're finally going to do it."

"Fuck you," I say.

"No one can help you this time," she says. She takes another weapon out of another pocket. This one is a small pistol. What kind, I can't tell and don't recognize it. Even as a child, I was afraid of guns. Even the colorful toy ones.

"You end him or I end you."

I'm thrown off by the phrasing of "ending someone."

She kicks the blade closer to me. "Well?"

"Go to hell."

Alicia pulls back the hammer of the gun and stands closer to me. She literally stands over me, each leg on opposite sides of my hips. She's not smiling and looks pale, even in the glowing orange-yellow sunlight. Her hair, however, glows with the brilliance of an angel's halo. An angel of death.

"Well?" she says. "We can do this the hard way if you prefer."

"Hard way?"

Alicia takes the gun and holds it over Curly's body. She fires one shot into Curly's chest. Blue smoke curls out of the gun's barrel.

After the thunder of the shot finishes echoing in my eardrums, I realize that Curly's hands clutch my shirt. He's drowning in his own blood, gurgling and coughing up a pink combination of phlegm and blood.

"If you don't kill him, he'll suffer. You don't want that, do you?" Alicia's voice sounds psycho calm, reminds me of her burly father, that son of a bitch.

I grab the knife that lies on the opposite side of me. I'm too nervous to realize I'm not grabbing the handle until I feel the serrated edge catch into the skin of my palm.

"God, you're stupid," she says. Her foot kicks into my hip. "You're doing it wrong," she says. "Jesus, maybe it's a good thing we never fucked after all."

I have to use both of my hands to flip the knife over so I'm holding the handle and only the handle. I'm that nervous.

"Time's a ticking," she says. The shadows of her mouth pull backwards to reveal something like a smile.

There's barely enough room between her legs for me to turn over to my side and hold the knife in my right hand. Curly to my left, knife in my right hand, I let the blade flip downwards between my thumb and forefinger.

"Fancy," Alicia snorts.

I bring the blade down to Curly's throat, but I don't finish the job. It hovers, quivering in my shaking grip.

"Just do the fucking thing," she says. "How many times do we have to do this? Just do it!"

Alicia kicks my hip again. And again. Each time, she seems to hit the same part of my hip, the boniest part of it, leaving a bruise.

Four kicks in and I'm wincing. The smell of alcohol and days of sweat and body odor creep into my nose. Curly's eyes open and see me looking at him, looking at Alicia. He looks at my knife and he tries to scoot backwards. The effort, however, seems to cause him strain. He coughs, panics, coughs some more.

As he scoots backwards, he coughs again, leaving a trail of pink blood, saliva, and phlegm.

"Your prey is getting away," says Alicia. "Do it already."

So I do as she says.

I take the knife and stab downward and Alicia screams. She looks down at the blade now wedged through the laces, through her foot, and into the sole of her right shoe.

She holds the gun down at me and screams. Her hand waves back and forth, not sure who to shoot first. The homeless witness or the man who just caused her to bleed.

She settles on Curly. The gun's shot thunders into the alley again. My eardrums stop hearing anything, but my brain feels the vibrations of the shot. The sound of the gun repeats over and over into my head.

I'm covering my ears, grabbing my head, and trying to look up at Curly. His knees and shins lie in front of my face. He's not trying to scoot back anymore.

For the first time, tears come to my eyes. I wipe them away with my fisted hands.

"You," I begin to say, but I can't finish the sentence.

"Ya, ya, I know," she says. "You bitch. How could you? I hear it over and over again." She takes the knife out of her foot and holds it up. "That was ballsy, Coop." She holds the knife up over my, letting it dangle between her fingers. It swings back and forth like a clock's pendulum. "I should really just kill you for that," she says.

There's the squeal of a car's brakes and the slamming of doors that startles Alicia. Her grip in the knife handle weakens and the knife drops down, blade downward. It digs into my side, landing only an inch deep just to the right of my bellybutton.

The burning sensation takes over my stomach and I'm not sure if I'm in pain or just warming up.

I'm afraid to look down, so I keep my eyes up on the blue-pink sky above me. The clouds flow by smooth a ocean waves. Silent and fluffy, I try to make out shapes to see if I can't distract myself, but the burning goes away.

It's replaced instead with a sharp pain that causes me to curl forward.

The knife having cut my muscles, it causes me to cry out further.

There are other people in the alleyway.

I hear their voices over my own cries and groans. "Help," I cry out.

The other voices come with footsteps and crunching rocks and boxes in the alley.

"This one's hurt, sir," a voice says. It's a woman's voice and very, very familiar.

Something else clicks near the entrance of the alley. "Stay where you are," says a male voice.

Also familiar.

"Frank?" I ask.

"Dad, I can explain," she says. And though she's told to stay still, she still bends down and rips the knife out of my side.

I hear the suction sound of blade as it leaves my belly.

"Put it down," says the female voice.

"Honey," says Frank's voice. "I need you to come with me."

"But Daddy," Alicia says.

When Alicia's body turns around, the light of the sun momentarily blinds me.

Another shot rings out, followed by the metal and plastic sound of the knife hitting the pavement beside me. Then the meatbag slapping sound of Alicia's body hitting the ground. The way she fell, she's holding my knees and feet still beneath her beautiful, smooth white ass.

Someone sobs and a shadow comes over me.

It's the lady cop from the precinct just an hour before all of this.

"Need some help?" she says with a smile. "Don't you worry, you'll be alright."

They load me up with sedatives and painkillers while they let me recover after the stitches.

Turns out, all that fat I held around my gut helped to keep anything from getting cut too deep.

Score one for fat folks everywhere.

My eyes feel heavy and numb. My entire face just wants to fall asleep when I hear a voice coming at me from the doorway. "Alex?"

The voice sound like an old woman like she's been crying. "Alicia?" I say.

My eyes want to focus, but the painkillers won't let me. Whatever it is, this is the good shit.

"Honey, you really shouldn't say shit in a hospital."

Did I say that out loud?"

"Yes, honey. You did."

I feel a cold wet kiss against my forehead.

"How are you holding up, Champ?"

"Dad?"

"Finally he knows who we are."

I smile and let the kisses and hands push back my hair, turn my face from side to side and feel my forehead.

"No temperature," say the female voice. "Dori, he's in a hospital, they would know if he has a fever."

"Well, maybe he could get an infection," she says. Always like a mother to care too much. "You know what they say, go to a hospital only to get sick."

"I don't know of anyone who says that," my father says. He sits on the other side of the bed, opposite my mother. I know this because I finally feel the mattress's indents even out on both sides.

"Thanks, Mom," I say.

My mother's soft hands grab both sides of my head at the cheeks, pinching so tight I'm forced to smile. It'd hurt if I wasn't feeling so good right now. "I'm so sorry," she says.

"I thought you were dead," I tell her.

"Must be the pain medication," say my dad. "They have him on some strong stuff."

My mother squeeze again, kisses me on the forehead and gazes into my own eyes. "I'm so sorry about everything," she says. "I know it wasn't your fault."

I smile. "Not my fault," I repeat.

"Come on, Dori. He doesn't know what's heads or tails. Let the boy sleep."

"But just a little while longer?" says Mom.

"Dori, we should go. We can come back in a little bit."

"We'll be right back," says Mom. "I promise."

I nod and smile and turn my head to face the wall. Everything in my body feels almost numb, but good like sparklers at the Fourth of July. Little tingles of numb that give me a chance to rest.

My forehead feels like it wants to droop down over my eyes. As good as my body feels, my face feels heavy and tired.

I close my eyes when I hear another knock on the door. "I'm hungry, Mom," I say.

I hear a gruff, old chuckle.

"Hi, Frank."

"I hope I'm not bothering you." He waits for an answer, but I can't get my lips to form anything. "Judging by your smile, I see you're doing pretty well right now. The doctors say you'll be fine in no time."

I nod and stare at his strong forehead and short, white hair.

"I just wanted to let you know about Alicia," he says. "I don't know how you feel about this," he says, "but she's okay." He sounds more like an officer than a father. He's in safety mode, delivering bad news so he won't have to feel it himself. "When she was shot down, well," his voice trails off.

I hear him swallow.

"Well, let's just say I wish Officer Maxwell wasn't such a good shot. She's in surgery now, but hopefully soon, you'll get to see her."

His eyes look glassy. Or that's my own eyes feeling glassy.

I can't tell the difference and don't know if I care.

"Just wanted to say thank you, and sorry for using you like that."

He pats me on the knee and stands up. "We'll let you know when she's out," says Frank. "And we'll need to talk to you when you're out of here. We still have a few questions for you." He faces the door away from me and looks like he wipes away a tear, but again, everything looks so slow he could just be picking a booger.

Maybe he's getting sick too.

His feet begin to squeak as he takes a few steps toward the door. Something clicks, then squeaks.

The door. Must be the door.

"Curly," I say. "What about Curly?"

Frank says, "Just get some rest. You look like you could use it."

The door closes behind him.

The walls are painted purple, with curtains to my left and a wall with a humongous window beside me. The horizontal blinds are drawn almost shut, letting in only a little bit of the day's sunshine.

Suits me fine. My eyes close shut and just as I feel my brain get pulled into the darkness in my eyelids, the door cracks open.

Something squeaks and there's a man's voice. This one's different. Not Frank's. Not Dad's.

A nurse?

"There you go," the voice says. "You and your neighbor here were both in surgery today," he says with a smile in his voice. "Maybe you'll have a lot to talk about."

Sleep tugs on my consciousness, anchoring it down into the depths of my eyelids.

The other patient grunts something and there's the shuffle of sheets on the bed. "Call me if you need anything," the male nurse says.

The whatever it was from before squeaks again, gradually disappearing down the hallway.

It's this I listen to help guide my tired body into a restful sleep. An attempt that's failed when I hear the rustling of curtains next to me, then a voice. A girl's voice.

"Hey, killer. Fancy meeting you here."

# ABOUT DAVID GEARING

David lives, teaches, and writes in southern Arizona. He is also the author of the novels GIFTED (coming soon), MR. WHITE, BLOODLINES (coming soon), SAVIOR, and ECHOES, along with various short stories, available in trade paperback and ebooks.

Thank you for reading my work.

# Also by DAVID GEARING

MR. WHITE

CONFESSIONS OF A FAST FOOD DOMINATRIX

EARLY MISADVENTURES OF A FAST FOOD DOMINATRIX (SHORT STORY)

SAVIOR

ECHOES

# COMING SOON FROM AKUSAI PUBLISHING

SWORD OF STONE: BOOK I OF THE SHATTERING SERIES

#

