Page 121 of Malice and Surrender
Three months and six days after my mom died, I was hauled away by social workers to live with someone else because my dad was arrested for three murders. I never saw him again. I had the choice to visit but refused every time until they stopped asking. He meant nothing to me. He wasn’t my dad, just a man who had given me some of his DNA, and if I could, I would give that back.
The first three homes I went to were all rich people with fancy homes, and not one of them had been a nice person. I quickly learned that just because people had money didn’t make them any nicer or loving than my old man.
Then I ended up at the Collins home, and my world went from shit to amazing in a blink—only to end in a shitstorm. I figured it was karma for all the crap my father had done and for wishing a horrible death on him. Whether he was alive or not, I couldn’t say, but I wanted him to suffer, and in the end, it was me that suffered.
I shook my head, trying to rid it of the image of Raine lying on the floor, bleeding out like my mom. I was worse than my dad. At least he hadn’t pulled the trigger.
I almost did.
Raine
Yawning as I walked, I sipped on the shitty coffee the rest stop offered. Why did every cup taste too dark and burnt? It didn’t matter where we stopped. It was all the same. I’d thrown out the first few, but now I was desperate enough to drink it no matter what. I popped the last bit of burger into my mouth and climbed up the stairs onto the bus. Thankfully, it wasn’t that busy, and as it turned out, no one sat beside me, which I was grateful for.
The emotional rollercoaster that started with the decision to leave hadn’t gotten any better with the quiet ride. There was too much time to think, and I found myself going over the lyrics of, Another Sad Love Song. It seemed perfect for the story of my life. There were moments I was so livid that I wanted to jump off the bus and storm Kai’s house to kick his ass. But I knew I couldn’t do that, and the melancholy would settle in as I thought about how I’d put Avro and Jace at risk.
Pulling the backpack off, I plopped down into my seat and stared out at the darkness. I knew I needed to stop thinking about everything, but that seemed impossible. Just like I knew I couldn’t shut off the emotions with a switch, my brain was no better. It seemed intent on torturing me with images and the memory of touches. Of sweet words and the taste of lips that made them tingle. I’d fallen asleep once, and I could’ve sworn I was back in bed, cocooned in the warmth of Avro and Jace. I woke up with a smile on my face, only to have it slip as the bus bounced and jarred me back to reality.
I saw someone step onto the bus but didn’t pay them any attention until they sat down beside me. Startled, I jumped and looked at the man I didn’t recognize. I glanced around the bus at the four other people soundly sleeping.
“Um…can I help you,” I asked, confused.
“Nope,” he said and didn’t look my way. It was hard to tell his age, but he had shoulder-length hair that ran into a scraggly beard. He was gripping a large book to his chest while his eyes searched the front of the bus.
“The seats across from me are empty,” I offered, hoping I didn’t sound too pushy and yet wanting him to take the hint.
“Oh, that’s okay. Did you want to see my family?” He pulled the large book away from his chest to reveal a photo album. Before I could respond, he flipped open the cover. I looked down at the smiling images of people cut out from a magazine. “This is my son, Jeffery,” he said, tapping an image of a boy doing a cannonball into a pool. It still had the for-sale banner from the pool installation at a twenty-five percent discount.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to upset him, but I wasn’t sure it was healthy for me to play along with whatever delusion he had.
“Jeffery loves soccer, but his sister Leslie hates it.” He shook his head, a scowl pulling at the corners of his mouth and wrinkling his brow. He flipped a few more pages and pointed out travel ads for Jamaica and Ireland, telling me how they’d all flown there as a family.
“Do you like this photo?” He tapped one of a large mountain with a sunset in the background and a vehicle set up like it was camping on the top of the tall peak.
I nodded. “It’s stunning.”
The man smiled and flipped a few more pages. My eyes went wide as he turned to a page littered with Polaroids. The people all looked dead. I swallowed hard as I stared into the sightless eyes. It was a crash scene with cars in the background and glowing lights from the emergency vehicles. I had no idea how someone would even get their hands on pictures like this.
He smiled at me. “They’re not actually dead. This was for a movie. They are great actors,” he said, but out of all the images, these were the ones that I believed were real. Glancing up from the book to his eyes, they were shimmering with happiness, and I swallowed hard. “Jeffery is going to be a famous actor one day. He keeps saying that he wants to be on a crime show.”
The man pointed to a woman on her knees in the background. “This is my wife. Isn’t she amazing? The kids get their acting skills from her.” Her face was covered in blood, but it was the pain in her eyes as she wailed that had my chest aching for this man. I could almost hear her cries.
“She’s incredible,” I said softly, and his face lit up with emotion, but behind the smile were ghosts that I understood. I didn’t know what else to say, but I could feel his sadness in my soul, and tears pricked at my eyes.
The bus shook, and I looked up as two police officers stepped onto the bus and walked down the aisle to where we were sitting.
“Come on, Luis, we need to get you back to your place,” the first officer said. His name tag said, Dolson.
Luis looked up at them and then at me. The shadows in his eyes mirrored the scars in my mind. The smile on his face fell, and I suddenly wanted to stand up and yell at them to leave him alone.
“I don’t want to go back there,” Luis said and gripped the album to his chest like a shield.
I expected Dolson to grab Luis and drag him off the bus, but instead, he knelt down and reached out, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Where are you going to go, Luis? Your family is all here. If you leave, then how will you see them?”
Tears welled in Luis’s eyes, and the pain was so raw that I felt the stab to my heart as if the loss was my own.
“I don’t want to leave them,” Luis said.
“I know you don’t. That’s why you need to come with us. This bus is going to take you far away from them, Luis. I know you don’t want that.”
