A Twist of Hate (18 page)

              “If you hate me so much, why don’t you just kill me and get it over with?” she challenged.

              Michael stood and took a few steps back. Siobhan braced herself against the wall. She worked her way to one knee, blinking to clear her vision.

              “Do I need to remind you who’s in charge here?” Michael crooned, brandishing his weapon.

              “That gun is in charge.”

              He made a production of placing the gun on the table beyond him. Then he lunged at her, his scratched and freckled hands hooked into claws. Siobhan marshaled her strength and threw a hard right to his crotch. His eyes bulged and his cheeks filled with air as he doubled over, both hands clamped between his thighs. Screaming, Siobhan delivered a hard blow to his windpipe with her clasped hands.

              She scrambled for the door. Splinters tore at her feet. Her legs seemed to have turned to lead.
Move!
she begged them.

              Michael threw himself at her and caught her about her waist. His weight yanked her hand free of the doorknob. He brought her down hard. She kicked at him with her left foot, catching him in the chin. He bit through the tip of his tongue. Squealing, he clapped his hands to his mouth.

              On her hands and knees, Siobhan scrambled for the door, ignoring the pain in her side, the blood oozing from her wounds, and the splinters ripping at her.

              With a feral grunt, Michael lurched for her, taking her down by the waistband of her trousers. She screamed, kicked, and clawed at his hands, but he tugged her closer over the weathered floorboards.

              She spotted an empty whiskey bottle under the table. Her fingertips grazed its label, but Michael pulled her farther out of reach. He flipped her onto her back and straddled her.  He wrestled her wrists into his left hand, her bones popping, and pinned her hands above her head. The bloody tip of his tongue laved his bottom lip. Mindless of her agonized cries, he grinned, gouging her bullet wound with his right middle finger.

              She stiffened. Her tortured scream seemed to rise from the soles of her feet. He forced her arms to her sides and kept them there with his knees in her biceps. He laughed at her incoherent pleas for help.

              “This gun is in charge?” he snarled. “Is that right? Who’s got the gun, huh?” He pressed the nozzle to her forehead. “Close your eyes.”

              She stared at him, her vision hazy. Her body, though solid, seemed to melt into the floor.

              “Close your eyes!” he screamed, spraying her with bloody spittle.

              She relaxed beneath him. The pain, the treehouse, Michael’s foul breath, and his hateful, blood-filmed smile drifted farther away. She saw only his eyes. “I won’t make it easy for you,” she gasped.

              His gun hand shook. He cocked it and sent a bullet clicking into the chamber. Her bladder emptying, she stared at him, unblinking, awaiting the shot.

***

              Camden peeped into the tree house through a jagged hole twice wider than his fist. The loud creak of the stairs had surely given away his presence, so didn’t dare count on the element of surprise. He pushed open the door, standing clear of the doorway in case Michael fired. The absence of sound and activity prompted Camden to peek around the doorframe. Wan candlelight projected Michael’s shadow on the glass wall. The rest of him remained out of view, concealed by the tree trunk. Camden took a few steps forward, the warped flooring heralding his approach as surely as the stairs had. He rounded the trunk to find Michael seated near a large cabinet, his ankles crossed on a tabletop, the gun dangling from his lax hand.

              “How’s it goin’, champ?” Mike greeted pleasantly. He rocked on the chair’s back legs. “Didn’t you have plans tonight? With your…?” He drew circles with the gun as if they helped him think. “What is she? Your girlfriend? Or just a piece of black tail. You know,
that
I understand. There’s just something about black pus—”

              “Where is she, Mike?” Camden asked darkly. Michael sounded winded but normal. So calm. As if nothing at all was wrong. Camden stole glances about the tree house. Mike seemed to be alone.

              A grudging chuckle scraped its way from deep in Michael’s throat. He casually used the gun to emphasize his words. “It’s Mike now? We’re best buddies again? All that stuff that went on at school…” He waved the gun as if erasing recent events. “You’re gonna look past it? Just forget about it?”

              “Forgiveness isn’t mine to give.” Camden sidestepped toward him, moving closer to the tree trunk. If Michael fired, the trunk might offer cover. “I’m not one of the people you tried to kill.”

              Michael grinned. A film of blood coated his upper teeth. He used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe a fresh rivulet of blood from his nose. “You can hurt someone, pretty badly, without ever touching him. All you have to do is destroy what he loves. Destroy that,” he triumphantly threw open his arms, “and you destroy him!” He let the chair down on all four legs with a loud thud and leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table.

              Camden’s breath stalled in his chest. He closed his eyes against a dizzying rush of dread and fury. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, and it took all his willpower to calmly say, “What did you do to her?”

              “What
didn’t
I do to her?” He jammed the gun into the front of his waistband and a half-eaten egg roll into his mouth. “Man, she was strong.” He pinned his gaze on Camden. “And oft. So surprisingly soft.”

              Camden forced himself to pass up the bait.

              “Where is she?”

              “Where’s who?” Michael laughed lightly.

              “Siobhan.”

              “How much time do I have, do you think?”

              “What?”

              “You obviously knew where to find me. You told the cops, right? How much time do I have?”

              Camden kept Michael in his line of sight, but he caught movement in his peripheral field of vision. Something inched along the base of the storage cabinet.

              “How much time!” Michael shouted through a mouthful of masticated egg roll.

              “Not long.” Camden discreetly glanced at the base of the cabinet. A dark pool seeped from the bottom seam of the doors. Its scent of wet rust overwhelmed every other foul aroma in the tree house. Through the dense silence, Camden heard it—a faint
drip…drip…drip…

              “How did you know?” Michael asked.

              “Know what?”

             
…drip…drip…drip…

              “That I’d be here,” Michael answered. “I put three bullets in the place last night and nobody noticed a thing. How’d you know I’d come here?”

              “I remembered something you said once.”

              “I’ve said lots of things.”

              “After we got our driver’s licenses, you said you wished you had a tree house like mine. That it was the perfect place to take a date. Not that what you described sounded much like a date. It sounded more like felony assault.”

              “This is your fault, you know,” Michael said. “You could have prevented this.”

              “I had no idea that you—”

              “You knew!” Michael screamed. He clutched the sides of his head. “You knew this would happen! Did you think I would just stand around do nothing while she ruined my life?”

             
…drip…drip…drip…

              “She needs help, Mike. Please.” Sweat ran down his back, matching the pace of the soft drips Camden heard through the pounding of his heart in his ears.

              He smiled. It raised the hairs at Camden’s nape.

              “She’s gone.” Michael laughed. “I let her go. She said she was hungry. I think she went out for some fried chicken and collard greens.”

              “Tell me where she is!” So much blood. The pool at the base of the cabinet widened. Blood smears covered the floor, speckles of blood dotted the lotus blossom atop Siobhan’s dress. Camden swallowed hard to force his heart back into his chest. “She’s hurt. If she dies—”

              “She’s already dead.”

              Camden rushed him. Startled, Michael flew backward. He threw out an arm to break his fall while aiming at Camden with his gun hand. Camden caught that hand, forcing Michael’s wrist upward. Two shots blasted through the ceiling. Splintered wood and debris rained on them as Camden flattened Michael on the floor. Michael’s flailing legs upended the table, sending candles, food, and dinnerware flying. Camden crushed Michael’s throat with his left forearm. He grabbed the gun and wrenched it free of Michael’s hand. He heard high-pitched wails, and for a moment, he couldn’t distinguish them from Michael’s screams.

              They wrestled and cursed, Michael yelling, “She’s got your head totally turned around! Was it that good? Was she such a good lay, she made you forget who your friends are!”

              Michael gouged Camden’s eye with his thumb. Camden jolted back and Michael quickly wriggled free. “You and I are an endangered species!” Michael shouted. “We can’t get the jobs we want or get into the colleges we want because of
her
kind! And now you act like you’re in love with one. You picked one of
them
over me!” Michael kicked at Camden.

              Camden caught Michael’s foot. He yanked Michael off balance and slammed him against the tree trunk. He turned to the cabinet and threw open the doors.

              Siobhan.

              She lay on her back in a puddle of blood on the middle shelf, awkwardly folded, her knees nearly touching her forehead. Her right arm hung limp. A trail of blood ran down it, curving from her armpit and around her forearm, to drip from the tips of her thumb and forefinger.

              Cursing, Michael lunged at Camden. Whirling red and blue lights of police cars below threw crazy patterns on the glass walls, illuminating the hate and rage in Michael’s eyes. Camden dodged Michael and used his forward momentum to slam him face first into the tree trunk. Michael dropped in a heap.

                Breathing heavily, Camden reached for Siobhan, afraid to touch her. No part of her looked free of injury or blood. Carefully, he slid one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees, and he lifted her out of the cabinet.

              She couldn’t rely on the weak light or her blurred vision to see that Camden was the person handling her with such care. She knew his touch, his scent, and the muted drumbeat of his heart.

              “The police are here,” he told her. The walls of his throat thickened. His feet slipped in clotted blood. Siobhan was sticky with it. “Stay with me, Siobhan. Help is here.”

              So light in his arms, too light, Siobhan weakly clutched a handful of his shirt. His voice sounded so far away, yet his heartbeat thumped hard and strong against her left ear.

              Camden exited the tree house. He turned sideways to descend the staircase to avoid bumping Siobhan’s feet on the railing. Police lights trained on the tree house blotted out officers who had their weapons drawn and aimed at the stairs.

              “I’m Camden Dougherty!” he yelled. “I’ve got Siobhan Curran! She’s—”

              A shot screamed from one of three police cruisers, along with an ambulance, forming a wide semicircle around the tree. Camden dropped to one knee, shielding Siobhan with his body.

              “Don’t shoot, he’s got my daughter!” Mr. Curran shouted. He fought to get to them but two officers held him back.

              An officer with a bullhorn ordered a cease fire. Camden rose awkwardly with Siobhan held to his chest, but before he could take another step, he was tackled from behind. He was thrown down the last couple of stairs but he hit the ground on his elbows, absorbing the worst of the fall without dropping Siobhan. He released her and she lay still in the grass while Camden took hold of Michael, who attempted to crawl over him to get to Siobhan.

              The boys grappled, Camden’s larger size and weight overmatching Michael, but not before he got in one good strike. A stripe of damp heat across Camden’s back and him startled him. He quickly recovered to drive his elbow into Michael’s face. The sickening crunch of bone prefaced a shrill scream from Michael, who clutched his face and rolled out of Camden’s reach.

              Camden scrambled back to Siobhan and scooped her up. Michael, his face grimy with blood and dirt, held the gun on him, careful to keep Camden and Siobhan positioned between himself and the police.

              Michael nodded toward the line of armed officers following him with their guns. “If I don’t get out of this alive, neither do you,” Michael said quietly.

              Siobhan’s head lolled against Camden’s shoulder. “I couldn’t beat him,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

              Camden blinked moisture from his eyes and choked back the bile burning the back of his throat. “The police and an ambulance are here,” he told her. “It’s almost over.” He turned to Michael. “Give this up, man. Those cops will kill you before you can use that thing.”