Radical (35 page)

“What?”

She shuffles through the new discovery file, then looks up at me. “A cooler like that is in evidence. It held several firearms that had been illegally modified. And the kits for additional modifications. And some maps and lists. Of supplies.”

Wow. Maybe that’s why they were at the station? Did they need tools? Somewhere to work?

“Anything else? Anything at all on Tuesday.”

My stomach churns.
You keep your mouth shut
.

“Mark and I talked, for a few minutes. I . . . told him Riggs had asked about him.”

“Okay,” Joan says. “Wednesday.”

We don’t need Glenn
.

“Bex?”

My stomach turns over. I’m a traitor.

“Wednesday night, when Lucy dropped me off, Mark was at the house.”

Joan stops writing. I can feel her looking at me, but I don’t look up.

I tell her everything. Everything I can remember.

“I tried to stall. I knew I couldn’t outrun him. I didn’t know when Uncle Skip or Dad would be home. I tried to find out what he thought I had said.” I look up at her. “I didn’t know. I really didn’t know what was going on.”

If you don’t tell me . . 
.

His arm on my throat. “I mean, maybe he would have stopped. I don’t know. But . . .” His eyes.

If you don’t tell me . . 
.

“It’s okay,” she says.

I take a deep breath and try to remember that I can breathe now. “He kept asking over and over what I had told Riggs. He wouldn’t believe that I hadn’t said anything. That Riggs hadn’t said anything, not really. I couldn’t tell him anything — he wouldn’t believe me.”

Joan makes a sound but waves me on when I look at her.

“He knew about Lucy. He said to keep my mouth shut. I threatened to tell Dad or Uncle Skip about his stealing from the station, and being there when he wasn’t supposed to, if he didn’t leave, but . . .”

“But what?”

“He wasn’t stopping. And . . . I got away. Ran upstairs.”

The gun, in my hand, ready, tracking him in the hallway.

“I could have killed him.” I look at her. “Upstairs. I would have, if he had tried to shove the door open. I told him I had the Remington, to go away.”

My hands, shaking, with the Remington pointed at the door. Waiting. Waiting. If he comes near that door. If he . . 
.

“He just left?”

“His phone rang.” I tell her about the call.
She won’t. I’m handling it
. “He was freaking out. Said he was sorry, but . . .”
We don’t need Glenn
.

“When . . . ?” She clears her throat, swallows. “Did he come back?”

“No. Uncle Skip came home a couple hours later, and then Dad. I pretended to be asleep. I waited until the next morning to move the bureau away from the door.”

“What did you tell them about . . . ?” I shake my head. “You didn’t tell them? Your mom? Anyone?”

I keep shaking my head. “I thought about it. But he’d found the Bobcat, some of my ammo, some of my money. He took them. Said they were hostages to make me keep my mouth shut. They wouldn’t have believed me. He would have lied, and showed them the Bobcat. I needed proof. I needed to know what was going on, so they’d
have
to believe me.”

“That’s why you were carrying the gun and the knife,” she whispers.

I don’t have to answer.

She moves her pen toward the page, and then moves it away, shakes her arm, and tries again, actually writing this time. I wait.

“Has he threatened or attacked you like that before?”

“No.” She doesn’t believe me. “Not like that. Not . . . He was just . . . But maybe he would have stopped.” It rings hollow. “I think he was scared.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know. As soon as I saw him, I could feel it: something was different. He just . . . He’s never been like that.” I try to stop my hands from shaking.

She asks questions. I answer. About the station, and seeing Zach’s truck there. We go through the fight again.

I close my eyes and answer.

Eventually part of me is answering while the rest just says, over and over, in my head, like a reminder, that I could have killed him. I would have killed him. If his phone hadn’t rung. If he hadn’t left. If he had tried to get into the room. I would have killed him.

Would he have killed me, if I hadn’t gotten away? If I hadn’t been able to get upstairs? Would he have killed me?

I’ve been trying to protect him. For Mom, for Dad, maybe even for him — maybe.

But he could have killed me.

And he left me here.

He’s not worried about what’s happening to me. Neither is Mom or Dad.

For years, I’ve been planning to survive. I thought they would come around and I could save them, too.

But I can’t save Mark. And he won’t save me.

Joan’s right. I have to save myself.

I should be thinking about Mark. About what he did to me. About what I did to him. But when I think about Mark, my brain rotates between how it felt for him to choke me and Mom screaming through the phone.
How could you tell them your brother tried to kill you? Why? Why would you do such a thing? Tell them you lied! You have to tell them. . . 
.

I don’t want to think about Mark. I’m done thinking about Mark. And Mom.

Instead, I think about Lucy. Not about sex. Or her smile. Or her laugh. Not about any of that.

I can’t stop thinking about how I am exactly what she was afraid of.

I wonder if they took the skull ring when they raided my room. Maybe. I hate thinking of Lucy’s plastic ring in some evidence bag somewhere. But I hate worse thinking of it lost, dropped or thrown away while they took everything else. And then I feel stupid for thinking about the stupid ring at all.

Lucy wasn’t the love of my life. That isn’t surprising. But I’m not sure I even really liked her, the parts of her that weren’t about kissing and fooling around. I didn’t even know her, not the real her. She sure as shit didn’t know me. I made sure of it. Not the real me. Not the parts of me that are most me.

Even before the fight, I knew I wasn’t following her to college. We weren’t going to call and text and pretend it was something more. Maybe a weekend hookup, if she was back at her grandparents’ next summer, but this wasn’t going to be some big long-distance romance. The way she looked at Karen and Cammie. The way she dismissed everything I believe, like she was so much better than us. Maybe I would have tried to see her one last time, maybe, just so it didn’t end like that, but it was over.

And then I was in handcuffs and she was the furthest thing from my mind.

Then I was in the hole.

And this is what she feared: that I was some crazy person who could get her hurt or in trouble.

I lied to her and hid who I was because deep down I knew she wouldn’t like that person. I knew it was unfair, and I didn’t care.

I could have been with her when I was arrested.

They could have thought she was involved.

She’s eighteen. She’d have been held in adult jail.

When Joan first started asking questions, I made a pledge to keep Lucy out of this. If I didn’t say her name, they’d never know she exists. Just another example of how deep my stupidity goes. Of course they’d be able to find the deleted texts and calls. They’d probably already talked to her by the time I was deciding never to say her name. I told her once I could protect her, that I would put myself between her and danger, and I did the exact opposite.

I have no idea what she might say to them.

My head falls back against the cinder-block wall. I let my fingers trace the painted-over seam between slightly rougher painted-over blocks. What would she say? Would she tell them a distorted version of that night with the deputy?
Would
it be distorted, or was I the one who was seeing it all wrong?

Did she tell them I’m a liar?

I am a liar. I lie a lot. Sometimes without saying a word. How many times did I lie to her so that she would want me? How many times did I keep information from Uncle Skip, or Mom, or Dad, that might have prevented this? What if I’d told Uncle Skip about Mark’s being at the station, about them being at the house? What if I’d told Uncle Skip about Mark, about how crazy he was acting?

“Bex, you doing all right?” Ortiz asks through the slot in the door. “Bex?”

I look up, make eye contact, say “Fine” so she’ll leave me alone. She probably has to ask me since I flipped out. After I told Joan everything, I flipped out.

Lucy was in this from the beginning. Because of me.

Will she end up saving me, even if I broke my promises to keep her safe?

Would I have seen that Mark was planning something, if I wasn’t so wrapped up in her? Balancing so many lies to see her? Would it have mattered?

Mark is going to prison. I’m going . . . somewhere.

Lucy is gone.

Everything’s gone.

And Mom will never forgive me.

“’Morning, Bex,” Gage says when she brings me breakfast. “Back to normal,” she says, like an apology. Now that Christmas and New Year’s are past, there’ll be no more treats or “special” meals.

Christmas. Mom didn’t come. She hasn’t called or visited since she heard Joan was talking to the U.S. Attorney.

Joan said the lawyers may have told her not to, but it still hurts.

They won’t let Uncle Skip visit. Once I’m out of pretrial limbo, he’ll be able to visit, to call, Joan says. But not while I’m here. And I have to be here until the feds give me up to the state or until the case is done.

I would have actually preferred to forget that it was Christmas. I tried to. Kept my schedule as best I could on Christmas and New Year’s.

My workout in the mornings — push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, jumping jacks, anything to move — until I’m too weak to do any more.

I’ve never gone this long without a run, a hike, something fast and hard and exhilarating. What I can do here is a sad substitute. But I can work my heart rate up, a slight sweat,
something
so my body doesn’t become entirely useless. So that I can maybe sleep later.

Reading in the afternoon. I never read much before, and I can’t say I’d choose it now if I could do almost anything else, but sometimes reading can make the day, the hole, everything fade away for a while. Just a while. Until a sound — yelling, keys, doors — pulls me back to reality.

Someone put lights on the tree by the lot. Like a Christmas tree for those of us on this side of the building. They’ve taken them down now.

That tree is all that grounds me some days. A few weeks ago, I woke up freaked out, and got it in my head that they had stretched out time — spaced meals and morning and night so that what I perceived as a day was really more than a day. That I’d been here years instead of months. It took all day, counting and obsessing and waiting, to talk myself down. I was so freaked I couldn’t eat at all. I wondered if they were drugging me, too. The tree is what convinced me. I look at it every day. The seasons — no one could fake the seasons.

If they ever let me out of here, I swear I will never live in a place with cinder-block walls.

I will sleep with the windows open.

Drive with the windows open.

Maybe a motorcycle. I wished for one when I was little. On a motorcycle, I’d feel everything.

If I ever get free, I want to see the ocean. Both oceans. First one, then the other.

Joan promised to come as soon as she heard from the U.S. Attorney. But it’s been weeks since I’ve seen her.

What if there’s nothing? What if I’m in limbo in the dark for years? They could do it, keep me here, try everyone else, leave me to rot. Joan says they can’t, but every time there’s a delay, I trust that a little less.

She says that if there’s a deal, I’ll get out of the hole. But there are others down here — how many of them had deals? She can’t promise me that. I’ve been here long enough to know that in here, the guards call the shots.

After lunch I give in, curl up under the blanket, and sleep. Warm and quiet in the afternoon lull. It’s not dark like at night. Maybe I can sleep if it’s light enough to see what’s in here with me.

Heart pounding, I jolt awake, sweat wet on my skin, cooling a trail of goose bumps down my arms, my lungs remembering how to work.