Trembling (10 page)

 
"So you killed one of your students?" I squeaked. "That's why
you lost your job?"
"I didn't just kill her," said Mr. Sutherland. "I kept her
locked in a cellar for weeks, and I raped her repeatedly. When I finally did
kill her, she was begging for it."
Oh. I made another face. Could I really keep him talking about this?
 
"So how did you get caught?" I asked.
"I was sloppy back then," he said. "Too many people knew I liked
Linda. She was my favorite student."
"People know you like me," I pointed out.
"Yes, but I'll be long gone from the
U.S.
before they find your
body," he said.
My . . . body? He was going to kill me? Oh, Christ, what had I gotten myself
into? I needed my gun.
 
I could see it. It was lying on the floor next to the couch, barely two feet
away from my body. How was I going to get it?
 
"So," I said, "if they caught you, how come you're not in
jail?"
He grinned. "I told you I find good information. I've made my share of
bargains."
Wonderful. Wonderful. "So you aren't scared of the law, then?" I
said.
"Not a bit."
"Or the Sons?"
He laughed.
"When Jason finds out that you did this, he will hunt you down and kill
you," I said. I was serious. It was true.
 
"I'm not afraid of Jason either," he said.
Of course he wasn't. "Jason will know that," I said. "He'll use
it to his advantage. You've never seen when he's angry. He's unstoppable. He
killed five members of the Sons in the span of two minutes. I watched him do
it."
Mr. Sutherland looked a little taken aback. "Five?" he asked.
His grip on my hands loosened a little bit. I kept talking.
"Five," I said. "And Jason and I took out an entire church full
of them in
Shiloh
. Did you hear about
that?"
"I always wondered about that incident," said Mr. Sutherland.
"What did he do?" His grip was a little looser still.
I yanked my hands away from him as hard as I could. "We did it
together," I grunted as I freed my hands. I clenched them into fists and
forced them up into Mr. Sutherland's body, right below his rib cage.
He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat and his eyes got wide.
I rolled away from him, off the couch, feeling for my gun.
Mr. Sutherland recovered quickly. He was behind me, his arms reaching around
me, trying to pin me down.
I elbowed behind me as hard as I could. I made contact with some part of his
body. Some soft part.
Mr. Sutherland let out a cry of rage. "Maybe you are imbued with the
spirit of demon," he growled.
Where was my gun?
Well, there was no time. I scrambled to my feet. "Think about that the
next time you plant a stolen bell in a girl's purse," I said, running for
the door.
Mr. Sutherland was right behind me.
I tugged open his door, threw myself through it and ran out into the street. I
didn't look back, and I didn't hear Mr. Sutherland running after me.
But I did hear him calling after me from his doorway, "Azazel, I didn't
put that bell in your purse!"

* * *

I ran and ran. There were no footsteps behind me, but
I ran anyway. I ran, taking streets at random, hoping that if he were following
me, I'd lose him. My breath went ragged and quick. My lungs started to hurt.
The joints in my knees ached each time my foot hit the pavement. Eventually, I
stopped, looking around me. There was no one there. And I wasn't entirely sure
where I was.
 
I tried to catch my breath.
 
Damn.
What was wrong with me? Was there a big sign on my head that said, "Please
attempt to violate me sexually"? First there was Toby. Then there was the
veiled threat of that guy on the beach. Now Mr. Sutherland?!
 
I wasn't even that pretty. I wasn't ugly or anything, but if anybody should be
getting all this negative sexual attention, it should be someone like Lilith.
Not someone like me.
But I couldn't ponder that. I was lost on the streets of
Bradenton
, out of breath, and I'd lost both
my purse and my gun. That really sucked. I'd lost my fake ID. I'd lost my
driver's license. And I'd lost my check card. I was going to have to get that
cancelled immediately. On top of everything else, I'd lost my phone.
And just when I really, really, really wanted to call Jason, too.
 
What was I going to do?
 
If I could find my bearings, I guessed I should go back to my apartment.
Luckily, my keys were in my pocket, so I could get in.
But Mr. Sutherland knew where I lived. Was there any reason that he wouldn't
have just gotten in his car and driven there? He was probably waiting for me.
 
I rubbed my face with my hands. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. My eyes were
dry. My chest was loose. I wandered to the end of the street to look at the
street signs.
Oh. Well, I wasn't that far from home after all. A few blocks.
 
I didn't have anywhere else to go, so I guessed I'd go home. I'd be very
careful. Look around for Mr. Sutherland's car. Then, as quickly as possible,
I'd get inside, find the other gun, load it, and hide in a closet somewhere until
Jason or Hallam got home. We didn't have a landline phone, so I couldn't even
call anyone.
 
I walked the few blocks to my apartment and cautiously approached, looking
around for Mr. Sutherland.
And then I saw Jude. He was standing outside my door, his phone to his ear.
Dammit. Jude was probably calling me. What was he doing here, anyway? Well, if
Mr. Sutherland was around, he might go after Jude. Jude could be in danger.
 
I broke into a sprint again, snatching my keys from my pocket and feeling for
the one to the front door as I ran.
"Jude!" I yelled as I approached.
He looked up and half-waved, confused because I was running towards him.
"Azazel?" he said as I approached. "Why are you
—
"
"Don't move," I said, fitting the key to the lock of my door and
swinging it open. "Inside," I ordered.
Jude obeyed, his eyes wide.
Once we were safe in the house, I slammed the door after us and locked it.
 
"What's going on?" Jude asked.
I shook my head. I dashed back the hallway and went into Hallam's room. He kept
his gun under his pillow, and the bullets in his top bedside drawer.
"Azazel?" said Jude, following me.
I didn't answer. I just got the gun, got the bullets, and methodically loaded
the gun.
 
"Jesus!" said Jude. "Why do you have a gun?"
I turned on him, angry now. "Why are you here?" I asked. "You're
gonna get yourself killed."
"Why?" he said. "Is someone after you?"
I strode out of Hallam's bedroom, more confident now that I had the gun. I
didn't think that Mr. Sutherland could have broken into our apartment, but I
wanted to make sure. I went from room to room, checking closets and under beds.
No one was there.
"Azazel," said Jude, "you are freaking me out! What's going
on?"
I looked at him, finally. What was I going to tell him? What kind of lie would
keep him safe, but keep him from being so curious that he'd keep wondering what
was going on? I guessed I'd better stick as closely to the truth as possible.
"I went to Mr. Sutherland's house this evening," I said.
"Why?" said Jude.
"I don't know. I got this weird idea that maybe he was the guy in the
parking lot last night. Because he wasn't there at school today, and because he
seemed so weirdly into me."
"So you went to his house?" Jude said. "Why would you do
that?"
"I don't know!" I said. "I guess I just thought . . . I wanted
to tell him to leave me alone."
"What happened?"
"When I got there, his face was bruised and messed up," I said.
"So it was him," said Jude.
I nodded. "Yeah. And then he . . ." I trailed off. I didn't really
want to talk about what Mr. Sutherland had tried to do to me.
"I was right," said Jude, "he
 
is
 
a
pedophile."
I remembered Jude's joke in the car earlier that week. I laughed bitterly.
"Yeah," I said. "He told me that he did this to a girl at his
last job. He said he kept her in a room and . . . over and over. And then he
strangled her." I swallowed.
"Jesus!" said Jude, looking disgusted and little terrified.
"How'd you get away?"
I shook my head. "I don't know, really. I struggled, and hit him and I ran,
and . . ." I looked around again, half-expecting Mr. Sutherland to jump
out at me, his bruised face twisted into an expression of psychotic glee.
"He knows where I live, because he followed us to the shooting range the
other day. I was afraid he'd be here, waiting for me."
Jude looked around too. "He's not, is he?"
"I don't think so. I left my purse there. All my money was in it, and my
phone and
—
" I broke
off. "Jude, do you have your phone?"
"Sure," he said, taking it out of his pocket and handing it to me.
"Thanks," I said. "I want to call Jason."
I flipped Jude's phone open and stared at the numbers. I started laughing.
 
"What?" said Jude.
I couldn't stop laughing. The laughter rolled out of me. I doubled over from
the force of it. Could hardly catch my breath.
"Azazel?" said Jude.
I tried to squelch the laughter. I handed the phone back to Jude. Between
giggles, I said, "I don't know his phone number."
It was programmed into my phone. I'd never dialed it. I just always searched
through my address book and selected Jason.
 
"Oh," said Jude. "Maybe I have it."
"You've never called Jason," I said, still laughing.
Jude searched through his phone anyway. "You're right," he concluded.
"I don't have his number."
Suddenly, it didn't seem so funny anymore. The laughter caught in my throat,
where an enormous lump was forming. And before I could help it, I was sobbing.
It was just too much. Everything that had happened to me, and now not being
able to call Jason. If he knew, he'd drop everything. He'd leave work. He'd
come home. He'd wrap me in his arms. And then, I'd feel safe again. But I
couldn't call him, because I didn't know his phone number! It had seemed so
utterly ridiculous before, but now it seemed tragic. Cruel.
 
"Oh God, Azazel," said Jude. "I am so sorry."
As if he'd been reading my mind, Jude put his arms around me. I'd never noticed
it before, but Jude had very strong arms. He was nearly the same height as
Jason, and they had a very similar build. I buried my face in Jude's shoulder,
and it felt so much like Jason's shoulder that I started crying harder.
We stood like that for a long time
—
Jude
holding me, and me crying onto his shoulder, clutching Hallam's gun like it was
my lifeline.
Finally, I quieted. I pulled back from Jude, feeling embarrassed. I scrubbed at
my eyes. "I got your shirt wet," I said.
Jude shrugged. "What's a little wetness between friends?" he said. He
cringed. "Okay, I didn't mean that like it sounded."
I laughed. "Well, that's the closest you'll probably ever get to wetness,
anyway."
He snorted. "Right."
Jude and I went into my bedroom and sat down on the bed.
 
"When will Jason be back from work?" he asked.
 
"A little after eight," I said.
 
It was six o'clock then.
 
"I'll stay here with you until he comes back," said Jude. "You
shouldn't be alone right now."
"Thanks," I said. "You're a good friend, Jude."
Sensing I'd had enough of talking about what had happened, Jude breezily
changed the subject to something ridiculous. For over an hour, he and I
critiqued Britney Spears' latest video, which Jude thought was
"tasteless."
 
He sighed dramatically. "I used to love her so much," he said,
"but I don't know what's happened to her lately. She's just betrayed her
roots."
Since I'd never liked Britney Spears at all, not even when I was a kid, I found
this hilarious, and we spent another fifteen minutes debating whether Britney
had any actual roots to betray. I didn't think she did. She was a product of
marketing and record companies. She didn't have anything personal to say.
By this time, Jude and I were laying on my bed. I lay flat on my back and Jude
lay on his side, propped up on his elbow.
 
He looked shocked. "What about when she did 'My Prerogative'? That was
personal."
"That was a cover!" I said.
 
"Still, she made it her own," said Jude, shaking his head solemnly.
I threw a pillow at him.
He caught it, laughing, and checked the clock. "It's almost eight,"
he said. "Jason will be back soon."
"Good," I said.
 
"He's going to be pretty pissed off at Mr. Sutherland, isn't he?"
Oh. Yeah. He was. I hadn't thought about that before. I nodded. I thought about
what Hallam had said the night before about Jason becoming more and more
violent. I looked up at Jude.
 
His eyes were dark and large like Jason's, but they didn't have the intense
luminosity of Jason's. In Jason's eyes, there were depths. Layers and layers of
pain and anger. Jude just looked kind. Safe. Happy. I wondered if Jason's eyes
would look like Jude's if nothing had ever happened to him.
 
"Jude?" I said.
"Yeah?"
"You remember this morning when you asked me if Jason ever scared me, and
I said he didn't?"
"Yeah."
"I lied. Sometimes he does scare me."
Jude was quiet. He just looked down at me, his expression concerned.
"Not because I'm afraid he'll hurt
 
me
," I said. "He'd never
hurt me. But other people . . . He just gets so, so mad. That guy at the party
he beat up is just one guy. There have been others."
Jude nodded, still not speaking.
"You asked me if I'd forgive him if he murdered someone," I said.
"I know Jason, and if something bad happened to me, he would. He'd kill
someone." He has, I thought, but I didn't say that out loud.
"Azazel
—
" started
Jude.
But at moment, the door to the apartment burst open, and I heard Jason hurrying
back the hall to my bedroom. "Azazel, where are you?" he called.
"I called your phone three times
—
"
He broke off as he entered my bedroom. He looked at me and Jude, lying together
on my bed. I watched emotions flit across Jason's face. Disbelief. Hurt. Anger.
And then he put his hands in the air and backed out of the room.
Jude shot me a look. "Um," he whispered. "He knows I'm gay,
right?"
"He knows," I said.
Jude nodded. "All the same, I think I'm gonna go." He got up and
walked out of my bedroom.
"Be careful," I called after him.
"I will," he called back. "Hi, Jason," he said as he walked
through the hall. Jason didn't respond. "Oh," came Jude's voice,
echoing through the house, "you must be Lilith. Nice to meet you."
"Hi," she said. "You're Jude?"
"Yeah. I'm actually on my way out."
"Too bad," said Lilith.
 
And then the apartment door opened and closed.
I got up and went to my door. "Jason, come in here. I need to tell you
something."
His face was stone, but the rest of his body was twitching. His hands were
clenched. His jaw was set.
 
"Jason, come on," I said. "This is a big deal."
He shook his head. "No," he said. "I don't want to hear
it."
"You don't even know what it is," I said.
"I know what it is," he said.
 
"No, you don't."
He wouldn't look at me. "I worried," he said, "I always worried,
because I knew that you kissed me while you were still dating Toby. But I told
myself that didn't matter. I told myself that what we had was different than
that. I told myself
—
"
"You worried about what?" I demanded.
"But you haven't changed," he said. "And right in our
house."
"I haven't changed?" I repeated, my voice steadily rising. "What
the hell?"
"I don't believe you, Azazel," Jason said quietly. "You have no
idea what you mean to me. If I meant half as much to you as you do to me
—
"
"What is your problem, Jason? Why are you leaping to conclusions? And how
could you throw Toby in my face like that?"
"You cheated on him with me," said Jason.
"But he had been cheating on me for four years before that," I said.
"But you didn't know that when you kissed me," he said. "And you
said you loved him. You told me you loved him so many times. So many times that
I almost believed it. I didn't think I had a chance."
"Oh my God, Jason, how can you possibly think that about me?"
"You have a pattern. You find your next boyfriend before you've dumped the
other one. Well, I'm not going to give you the pleasure of dumping me, because
I'm going to beat you to it. It's over, Azazel."
What?!
 
"You idiot!" I growled. "You stupid, stupid, idiotic bastard.
How dare you say I have a pattern? I don't have a pattern. And if you were so
worried about this, why didn't you tell me you were worried? How could you have
such a low opinion of me that you would think that I would do anything behind
your back? You said that I didn't know you, but you clearly don't know me. And
how dare you even think about breaking up with me?"