Caleb

I couldn’t figure out what to say to her. Not a goddamn word.

Usually, I don’t say much but seeing Hailey look at me for the first time since she’d come to, had me thinking about saying something.

To tell you the truth, it’s kind of hard to say too much of anything when you’re holding on to a girl with nothing but your boxers on. I tried not to think about it too much.

I don’t know what was going on in her head. Usually she says everything she’s thinking, and I mean everything. You don’t even have to ask and she just spills her smart-ass comments all over the place.

But she was quiet.

Dead quiet.

Eyes wide open but nothing going on behind em’.

I thought maybe she was gonna pass out again so I pulled her a little closer to me to keep her warm. I was so cold I couldn’t really feel if I was making a difference, but she could, ‘cause all of a sudden she got this look on her face like nothing I’d seen before.

She didn’t really seem scared or anything—she never has around me—but all these creases started popping up in her forehead, and her eyes got big and wild like some kind of feral animal. So I figured I’d say something. I had a feeling she’d get crazy if I didn’t.

“I didn’t do anything to you…if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Hailey didn’t blink. She just kept staring at me like she hadn’t heard a word I’d said.

“Nobody touched you. You can check if you want.“

“What’s there to check, Caleb? The first time’s the only time it counts.”

I didn’t say too much to her after that. Trying to figure out if she meant what I thought she did was awkward enough to shut me up for the night.

“Did Liam take the keys?” she asked.

“What keys?”

“The cop’s?”

She pointed to the frozen red trail lining the side of the room leading to where Marcus and Cillian had dumped Rusty’s body. I couldn’t get past his hands. Seeing Russ’s fingers all blue and swollen like that wasn’t something anybody could look at for too long.

“I don’t know. Nobody said anything about any keys to me. Why? It’s not gonna open that door.”

Her face scrunched up around the corners again. The longer she glared at me the less I wanted to look at her. Whatever make up she had on was either smudged or had rubbed off somewhere along the way. Her cheeks were blotchy red from frostbite, and I figured she’d probably be pretty devastated if she could actually see the way her hair looked right now.

Hailey tried getting to her feet but it took her a while. Swimming around in my jeans and tripping all over the place made her look like a toddler. I don’t know where she thought she was going, but she walked over to Rusty, pocketed something, and started pacing around the room. I stayed put. I wasn’t even sure if I could stand yet, but I’d be damned before she figured that out.

“Can you sit down or something? I’m getting dizzy from watching you go around in circles.”

“So stop watching me.”

“You’re distracting.”

“I’m trying to figure my way out of here. ”

“There isn’t one princess, so sit down.”

Hailey dropped the conversation. Trying to talk some sense to her didn’t seem to work too well. She kept walking around the room like an ant in a mason jar, thinking she could change things.

She didn’t get it. Even after nearly freezing to death, she still didn’t understand how bad things were on the other side of that door. We were better off dying in here, then trying to fight to get out there. Liam was out there, and he’d kill me if he saw me again.

“Do you think that once you get outside, they’re just gonna let you leave?”

She stopped pacing and whipped her head around towards me. I was really getting sick of that smug look on her face.

“I’m not asking permission, Caleb. When I—“

“When you what? When you open that door and my brother puts a bullet in your skull? What’ll you do then, huh? You’re not a hostage anymore, you’re a target.”

She stomped over and planted both her feet inches away from my face. I don’t know what the hell she thought she was doing, but I stood up. I wasn’t gonna be looked down on by a girl.

Getting off the ground wasn’t as easy as I thought it’d be though. I nearly passed out from the pain. Hailey started up again before I could get my hands over to the side where Liam had slammed me into the wall. There she goes again with that mouth.

“If I’m so high up on your hit list, then why am I still alive?”

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

“And you screwed that up. Gee, I don’t know what to say Superman. Thanks for the body heat, I hope stripping my clothes off while I was unconscious did it for you.”

I sent the back of my hand flying across her face so fast it took her a few seconds to realize she was bleeding.

It took me even longer to realize what I’d done.

I never should’ve touched her.

She wavered a little on her feet but she didn’t cry. Instead the edges of her eyelids narrowed into swollen angry slits. She could be as pissed off as she wanted, I didn’t give a shit either way. I wasn’t gonna take any heat from someone I nearly died trying to save.

“Unless you wanna die here, keep that mouth shut or I’ll hit you again.”

She flicked her tongue lightly across the cut on her bottom lip and slipped into a guilty smile.

“I need you to do something for me,” she said.

“Depends on what it is.”

“Make this count.”

She stepped in close, real close, so I could feel her there—and everything got slow. Trying to think felt like walking around waist deep in molasses—thick and sticky. She slid her hands up the sides of my face and stood up on her toes till her lips were just inches from mine.

I got sloppy all of a sudden, like warm and damp all over the place. What kind of guy breaks a sweat in a thirty-degree icebox? She laced her fingers together around the back of my neck, like she didn’t care how clammy I was and—

Wham.

The edge of her knee came crashing hard, and heavy into the weak side of my ribs. Blood spattered out of my mouth and into her face. I must’ve yelled pretty loud because she went white all over. Hailey grabbed on to me like she thought she could keep me standing but I shifted my weight so she didn’t have a chance of holding me up.

The second I hit the floor, my body did it’s own thing. The shakes hit me in waves. The first couple felt like little tremors, but the later ones got so violent that if I hadn’t tried to keep my head up I would’ve knocked myself out.

I don’t know why she hit me like that.

Maybe she thought I’d lied to her about everything.

Come to think of it, Liam and everybody else thought I deserved worse than this.

Maybe I do.

Bleeding or choking to death from a busted rib or punctured lung was probably payback for a guy like me.

I didn’t want to cry about it, but Jesus!

This pain was so bad I couldn’t hold back.

Hailey looked down at me like she didn’t know what to do. Funny thing was she’d already done what she wanted, she just wasn’t happy with the way it turned out.

She kept saying she was sorry and waving her hands everywhere like it would fix something. I don’t know what she had to be sorry about. Laying me out was probably the smartest thing she’d done all day. She just didn’t know it yet.

The door opened behind her and somebody walked in. I shut my eyes and waited for the gunshots. Two clicks would settle all the bullshit. Instead Marcus came in, ran over to me, and lifted my head off the ground. Damn, he looked terrible.His eyes were darting all over the place and he kept yelling at me to stop crying or else I’d die choking on all the blood I was hacking up.

“What the hell have you done to yourself, Caleb?”

“The usual.”

I knew it wasn’t the best time to start laughing but I did anyway. Seeing Marcus all choked up was kind of funny ‘cause I wasn’t used to him worrying about me like this. I wasn’t used to him worrying about me at all. I guess dying has its perks.

“What are you here for?” I asked. “Didn’t Liam tell you and Cillian to let us freeze to death?”

“He said he’d shut the air off.”

I tried not to laugh at that but holding it in was a mistake.

“Does it feel room temperature in here to you? The son of a bitch took you guys for a walk. You should’ve checked on me, Marcus. You should’ve been here the minute his gun went off next to my face.”

His eyebrows might as well have fallen right off his forehead. Sometimes I think Marcus has more of a guilty conscience than I do. He just never says anything. You can see it though. His eyes get all lowly and pathetic and he doesn’t like looking at you straight.

He hunches over too, even when he’s sitting down. Growing up he couldn’t even get away with eating the icing off a birthday cake without getting caught. He’s kinda soft. Sure he get’s pushy sometimes, but he doesn’t really have any pull.

He doesn’t speak up when he knows something’s wrong, and he can’t stand up to anyone—especially Liam. That’s where we’re different. Maybe that makes him smarter than me, or maybe he’s screwed himself over because of that—I don’t know. But given the last couple hours, nobody should follow Liam the way he’s going.

“There’s sports tape in the kitchen somewhere, I’ll get you patched up. We’re gonna need you when the cops get here.”

“He’s not going anywhere and neither are you!” Hailey—as usual—interrupted the conversation.

I didn’t think I’d ever see a five-foot-four “Skinny Minnie” pointing a shotgun at me and my brother, but I guess there’s first time for everything. Marcus had been so freaked out about me when he came in that he dropped the damn thing on the floor and left it out in the open.

Thank God he hadn’t taken off the safety or he might of shot me or himself on accident. That would’ve been a gas. Liam would’ve been so pissed if he’d come in here to find out that Marcus had shot himself and I’d gotten my ass kicked by a hostage. There goes his four-man army.

“Do you even know how to use that thing?” I mumbled.

Hailey whipped the barrel around towards me, looking mad as hell. For a self-proclaimed non-virgin she was uptight.

“Say something like that again and I’ll blow your balls off.”

I changed the subject.

“Where’d you even get a shotgun, Marcus?”

He looked guilty as sin.

“Cillian shot open Rusty’s trunk.”

Hailey stepped up and shoved the barrel of the gun into the back of Marcus’s head. I figured it was probably best not to tell her that she still had the safety on.

“I need you to stop talking and to open the door for me, Marcus.” She said.

“I can’t do that.”

He stood up, turned around towards Hailey, and pushed the nose of the gun out of his face. He wasn’t scared of anybody else in this world but his family.

“Hailey, You’ve been knocked around enough as is and I don’t want to add to that. I need you to let me help my brother—“

“And I need you to let me go.”

She slid her finger over the rounded edge of the safety and switched it off.

“You can take care of Caleb once you get me out to Rusty’s car. Try anything and I’ll take out the two of you. ”

Marcus couldn’t figure out what to say to her after that. She had a weird way of doing that to people. Hailey’s got a lot more balls than most girls I’ve been around. I haven’t been around many, but even if I had, I’d still think she’s one of a kind—in a nut job kind of way.

Her threats didn’t pack much of a punch, though. Mainly because I had the keys she needed to drive that cop car she was talking about. She wasn’t the only one who wanted to get the hell out of here.

“She’s got a point, Marcus. Sticking around this place with Liam off his rocker isn’t—

“You’re not going anywhere. We need you here. The kid can do what she wants, but you’ve got obligations here.”

Marcus and his goddamn orders. He had a way of making you feel like his word was the honest to God truth and that you were garbage if you didn’t listen to him. I used to do everything he said ‘cause I hated disappointing him. I still do.

I love Marcus.

He doesn’t make it easy. Maybe it’s ‘cause he acts so much like Mum. But if she was still around, still trying to keep the four of us in check, she wouldn’t have wanted me to listen to anyone else but myself. It’s hard knowing what you’re supposed to do when all you’ve ever done is do what other people tell you to. But I knew better than to stick around this place. I wish Marcus and Cillian did too.

The air in the room got heavy all of a sudden. The change had nothing to do with a set of broken ribs. I smiled at Marcus with enough blood in my mouth to paint my teeth pink. We didn’t have to say anything to each other to understand that this is where our roads split.

The quiet had Hailey on edge.

She couldn’t crack our code, but it wasn’t for her to figure out. She stood there, shaking like a jackhammer, using every muscle she had to keep that gun steady. I forced myself to sit up, and swallowed down a mouthful of bloody mucus.

Hailey turned the barrel towards me and tightened up on the trigger. She’d be better off pointing the damn thing at Marcus. He could take it from her anytime he wanted. I couldn’t even stand up on my own.

“I’ll get you home if you let me hitch a ride to Charlottesville with you.” I said. She looked skeptical.

“Don’t screw with me, Caleb.”

“I’m not.”

I slid my hand down into my pocket and pulled out Rusty’s keys. She’d freaked herself out so badly when she attacked me that she forgot to pay attention to where my hands were. She broke my ribs to get my brother’s attention, so I stole from her to keep my collateral.

“You can’t take the main roads outta here, and you’re gonna need me around if you want to figure out how to get further south off the radar.”

Marcus’s shotgun wavered in Hailey’s hands. She had the same sorry, helpless, look on her face that gave her away at Union Station. Broken kids are easy to spot. They’re real good at pretending that they’re okay in front of normal people, ‘cause normal people can’t tell we’re faking it.

Hailey has the eyes of a faker, the big bold kind like newspaper headlines—easy to read and hard to miss. She knows I’ve figured her out. She’s figured me out too, ‘cause fakers are the only ones who can recognize each other. My brothers haven’t even figured out that I’ve been faking for nineteen years, until today.

“When we get to your Mom’s place, I’ll turn myself in. You can shoot me if I try to run.”

I meant what I’d said. But Hailey hadn’t made up her mind to trust me yet. She looked over at me, then Marcus. He must’ve scared her ‘cause she dropped her eyes to the floor for a split second. Marcus only needed a split second.

He rushed her.

Hailey dropped the gun and sent it spiraling out of her hands and on to the floor towards me. I remember seeing Marcus’s shoes coming my way, just one foot after the other, real slow, like he was running through water or something. He’d fight me for that shotgun and if he got a hold of it, he’d try to stop me from leaving.

I wasn’t stopping for anybody.

I turned the gun around in my hands, as frozen and useless as they were, and used the barrel as a makeshift crutch to get to my feet. God gave me a split second on Marcus—I only a needed a split second.

Wham.

I sent the butt of that shotgun crashing into his gut. Marcus hit the floor wheezing like a penny whistle, eyes bloodshot and wild from the shock of the impact. My nerves exploded up and down my left side. I spat up reddish black evidence of a bad decision. I couldn’t stay steady on my legs anymore. Hailey caught me before I keeled over.

“Get outside to the car, Hailey. Rusty left it in front of the house. Grab any clothes you see near my bed on the way.”

Too shocked to say anything, she slung my arm over her shoulder and hurried us out of the cold room.

The house looked like an asylum. Everything my brothers and I had made together, every piece of furniture we’d cut and carved for ourselves had been broken down to use for what looked like barricades. My bunk was gone.

Liam and Cillian must’ve used the wood planks to board up the windows. Moonlight couldn’t even get into this place. From the looks of it, they’d set the house up so nobody could get out, or if they tried they’d end up falling through one of the traps in the floor or tripping on the broken wood piles scattered all over the place.

Hailey’s shoulders tensed up under me. She didn’t say a word but I knew how scared she was. I pinched the soft spot just above her collarbones so she knew she’d be alright. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know if we’d make it out, but she needed to believe that she could.

The two of us were looking at walking across a wooden minefield blind. Only Liam would block out the light like this. Cillian probably smashed the wood for him, but Liam set the traps. I knew his style.

Hailey took her first steps into the kitchen. The dull glow of Liam’s knife in the low light caught my eye.

He never walked around without it.

It worried me that he did.

I picked up the handle and angled the blade to redirect what little light was coming in from the outside. Silver strands of barbed wire lined the living room floor. Liam’s set up would keep the police out, but trap the five of us in the house.

This was the thirty-year old version of what he used to do to bugs as a kid. Marcus used to talk about how he’d set traps, real elaborate ones, so he could catch beetles, cockroaches, and all kinds of critters and kill them.

He wouldn’t kill them right away either, he did it slow, pulled their legs off one by one, or ripped out their wings. Liam says he did it ‘cause Mum was scared of bugs. They scared her, so he made them suffer. Liam hasn’t changed much since then. He outgrew the bugs, but never the killing.

Light spilled out on the floor from behind us. The living room lit up just enough for me to see that Hailey didn’t have a chance in hell of getting across with me weighing her down. Getting out didn’t matter too much anymore though, ‘cause Liam walked in.

I didn’t have to turn around to know he was there.

Three pairs of shoes scuffled around back near the cold room.

Two shotgun rounds clicked into place.

I told Hailey to stay where she was, but she’d already started moving her feet to turn us around.

She didn’t want to die with a gunshot in the back anymore than I did.

I guess I was right about her being a little braver than I am. I wouldn’t have moved if it weren’t for her.

Liam’s eyes flickered through the dark over the back end of his flashlight. Cillian’s shotgun was fixed on me, just low enough to blow a hole through my chest if he aimed right. He’s a great shot, Cillian. He’s never missed anything he’s pointed a gun at. He used to shoot baby squirrels with his BB gun. Today he was aiming at me with a shotgun. I wonder if he felt any different. Didn’t look like it.

“I’d offer you my help Caleb, but Cillian’s keen on shooting ya’ and who am I to deny him the privilege?” Liam jeered.

I didn’t want to die listening to Liam run his mouth. I pulled Hailey into me, out of Cillian’s line of fire, and covered her eyes.

She didn’t need to see any of this. She should’ve boarded that train to Charlottesville, and never ended up here. If she was gonna die here, it would be after me. A good man doesn’t let a girl take the first round.

I’m not a good man.

Hell, I’m not even a good guy, but I wanted to die doing something good for someone as dumb as it sounds. It was okay with me if that someone was her.

I stood there, eyes closed, waiting for the gunshots for the last time. Just two clicks would settle all the bullshit.

Click.

Click.

Bang.