1934, Ullapool
The water will always be red in his nightmares. Red frothing when he tries to swim out, the smell of brimstone thick in his sinuses.
It wasn't of course. The loch was still that day, and the only frothing was from a young boy, trying again and again to head out to where he'd last seen the rowboat disappear to, where he'd heard that great boom across the water. He'd swim, nearly drown himself, crawl to land until he could breathe, and then wade out again.
He did that until some passing elderly couple made him stop, held his tiny little wrist until he screamed, crying that he was sorry, that he had to go, he had to see if they were alright. Later, when there was a blanket over his shoulder and something warm in a mug nestled between his hands, the screaming would turn quiet, and there would just be the sobs.
But in his nightmares, the water would always be red.
1939, Vittel
The boy shrieked as his arm was twisted, dropping the bag into the muck beneath his feet.
"That does not belong to you," the man holding him said, plainly, easily, as though dangling the struggling child was no more a nuisance to him than strangling a writhing snake. And why would it be? The boy was not very old, nor very strong for his age even when he hadn't been starving.
The boy was dropped. Abruptly. He got to his feet and rubbed his bruised tailbone, but didn't try to run as the man collected the bag that had been his prize a moment ago. What would be the point? The stranger with the jacket too heavy for the spring heat had already proven that his reflexes were faster, that he could catch a small boy that tried to run out the thin alleyway.
Taking a leave of all his senses, the boy bit back, "it doesn't belong to you either."
The man blinked down at him. A cigarette appeared in his fingers where there hadn't been one a moment ago, and stared until the boy well and truly regretted his decision to say anything.
"I suppose it isn't," the man said eventually. His eyes caught along the silken tendril of white rising from his cigarette, watching it twist like a monkey's tail. "You're quite talented with that knife."
The boy breathed heavy, glaring. He was good with the knife because he had to be—cutting open pockets or purse straps before their owner noticed—because it was the only way to stay alive. There were other uses for the knife, he knew, but he had never thought to employ them. Not until today.
Whatever this stranger wanted from him, he would have to say it. If was going to hand him over to the local Ortskommandanturen then he could just go ahead and do it already.
"…I suppose I should be embarrassed," the man went on eventually. "Usurped from my contract by a mere boy. Still, fair is fair, and it is only right I pay you for your work."
The hand inside the jacket moved, and the boy caught what was thrown at him before he fully processed that he was being rewarded. It was some sort of patty, meat and bits of green smashed into a flat shape, and it was just recognizable enough to register as food. Logical thinking after that realization ceased. It could be poison, you look like an animal, don't trust this man, all of it sucked downward like bathwater out a drain as the child tore ravenously into the paper wrapping and swallowed the patty in great guzzling bites. It was old and grody but he didn't care, letting the cold grease run down his chin.
It was only when he was sucking at his fingers that he glanced at the man again. He now leaned against the alley's wall, still smoking, still studying the shapes he made in the air. The boy felt a small pebble of shame thinking about his display, tearing at a piece of meat like a wild dog, but the shame was nothing to the unclenching of the muscles in this stomach.
"Interesting," the man mused. "Not a drop of dignity to be had."
"I take it you've never gone hungry," the boy retorted. He did not know where this dangerous tongue had slithered up from today, but the feeling of fullness had only emboldened him.
The man shrugged. "Maybe. But I have known pain, and I know that even the sharpest knife can be weathered if one remembers to hold onto their pride." His eyes, glittered and shaded by his hat, slid over to his former captive once again. "It is a skill one can learn, if he is willing."
A warning, piercing like the bombs sirens, cawed in the back of his mind—but there was still a bit of grease coating his tongue, reminding him that there could be more where that come from. "That so?"
"Indeed. Your outer face is the most important thing about you, more so even than the weapons you keep tucked away. For instance, I stated that I was being contracted for this bag's collection—presumably for much more money than a single meat-cake is worth—yet you didn't ask for more in payment."
"Not exactly in a position to haggle, am I?"
"True," the man allowed. There was something off about his voice, his consonants curling in odd ways, but for as long as he had been speaking the boy couldn't quite place it. "It is wise to know one's limits. Still, instead of taking your prize and running, you ate it immediately. Both these things tell me you are desperate."
"I think anyone can tell I'm desperate."
"That is the point, boy," the man insisted. "One mustn't let their outer face slip, no matter the circumstances. But that can be taught. Fast legs, innate skill with a blade, these are all things that one must have to begin with."
The boy was tired of being talked at. "What exactly do you want from me?"
It was only a moment's pause, where the stranger's face flickered every so subtly in its provided shadow, but then it was gone once again. "I need a message delivered, beyond German lines. It will be small, inconspicuous, and I will show you how to sew pockets inside of your sleeves. If you do so, the recipiants will feed you a good meal as thanks. Additionally, if you make it there, return here with their response, and find me again all without losing your life, I will consider training you for other jobs like this one."
A job for a meal. It was so tempting a thing the boy almost chose to ignore the risk to his own life that came nailed to its back. But… "What does it even matter to you?" he asked. "Shouldn't a Spaniard be on their side?"
He pointed off down the alleyway, back to where the German he'd shanked was probably still lying, a big pool of blood under him. His bag must have been very important for people to send this stranger with the odd thing in his voice the boy had finally identified.
The Spaniard smiled. It was unnerving: intrigued rather than defensive. "I believe you are mistaken, my friend. I am a Frenchman, through and through."
The boy balked. Not only had the accent disappeared, but the Spaniard's voice was warped anew, as though it belonged to a completely different man.
The Spaniard chuckled, and his voice slid back into its true register. "A simple trick." It switched again. "Wie ist dein Deutsch?" The boy shook his head at the jumble of words now spewing from his mouth. "Hm. Italiano?" When his student still didn't react, the Spaniard waved a hand. "No matter, we will teach you."
"Hold on now," the boy said. "I still haven't agreed to this."
"Haven't you? You are not running, screaming for the hills as many fairer souls in your place would."
He grit his teeth. The man was right; he'd already seen how desperate he was, hadn't he? The boy had nothing left to barter with. "Alright. Say I do this…"
"A promising start, boy."
"My name is not boy, it is-"
The Spaniard held up a hand. "I do not want to hear it. Names are dangerous things, and we will call you what is useful for the moment. For today, you will be Vance."
Vance wrinkled his nose, but did not protest. He hadn't wanted the man to know his name anyway, the one his mother had given him, who'd called him from her rocking chair so shortly ago.
He would not think about his mother anymore. Instead he asked, "and you?"
"Raul will do. For now." Raul's cigarette had finally burned down, and he stamped it in the street, shouldering the bag he had mostly cleared of mud. "Come boy, we've lingered near the scene of the crime for long enough. Let us get you fitted for travel."
The possibility that there might be a chance to sleep in a bed, or that he might be able to change his clothes, pulled Vance along like a tether. He was so hopeful, caught on the strings of promises and forgetting, that he didn't realize Raul hadn't answered his question.
1940, Paris
There was nothing to be worried about in that first week. More concerning were the boots overhead, the checks that failed to notice the door that led to their technically-not-legal apartment, the voices above speaking their native tongue to whoever opened the door. Ludwig's attention was on the fact that food was now being rationed, and his best bet for supplying the two of them were the scant resistance fighters still in the city. Few and far between, extremely cautious, but between dabbling in reports on the occupation they would also occasionally smuggle supplies for those who needed it.
So he had plenty to occupy his mind in that first week. Besides, respiratory infections could last as long as a fortnight, so he'd trouble himself then.
After a month, Mother stopped breathing all together in that damp basement that might as well have been a tomb.
Not that that kept Ludwig from trying, of course. He did everything in his power, pouring over books, cutting and re-sewing, tearing his hair out and growling because one of these stupid academic tomes had to have something that would help, anything, please…
He wore himself to exhaustion, his mother's body cold and uncaring on the operating table. He had failed her. He had studied, he'd studied for years in research books piled high, all that time as a resident and he was nothing when it came to something that mattered. A common infection. And he'd let it take the last person he had left.
He hadn't left the apartment in months. If he was being honest, he didn't remember leaving it this time either, only that suddenly he was standing in a street he didn't recognize with rain pattering on his shoulder. It dripped down the remains of his once-white shirt and pooled Mother's blood at his feet. It was out here, yes, and dangerous, but no longer did he care, and he merely stared up at the pouring rain until his glasses were nothing but a spattering of droplets.
"You there! It is curfew!"
Ludwig didn't turn around. There was simply nothing left that could be afraid. What more could he fail? What more could he lose?
"I said it is curfew! Come here!"
It seemed the lone soldier had confused him for a French citizen, no doubt would ask for his paperwork. Ludwig considered responding in German, just to hear him jump, but he couldn't find it in him.
The footsteps splashed through puddles, storming to a lone man staring at the rain, a lone man lost. In the dark, the soldier couldn't see how much blood covered his suspect. He couldn't see the bonesaw clasped in the doctor's right hand.
"You there! I said-" The last words were a burble as Ludwig turned and slashed him across the throat.
He didn't stop there. Even as the soldier gasped over the blood spilling out of his mouth, Ludwig jammed the bonesaw forward again into his stomach, over and over, until he was dead as a man could be. He didn't know where the fury came from, the desire—no the need—to hurt, but he just kept hacking as the rain came down.
When it stopped, Ludwig blinked at the corpse of his countryman.
From this angle, it wasn't really different from all the cadavers he'd practiced on in school. More gruesome, yes, but ultimately empty. The resemblances to humanity shaved away.
So useless. A waste.
He hauled the body back to the basement. In a single halfhearted endeavor, he attempted a lung transplant, but it was as successful as he thought it would be. Maybe if he hadn't waited so long after Mother's death, or if he hadn't brutalized the other patient so…
Ah, but that was neither here nor there. Ludwig had discovered he much preferred working on the living than the dead; though maybe certain people should wind up dead when all was said and done. In the meantime, he shook himself from his grief. Mother had said he was a good son to her, but yet he had left her alone for a ridiculous amount of time, failing her once again as she was defenseless on that table. Careless. He went across to the apartment's lone mirror and threw a blanket across it, cursing himself for his selfishness, for his wallowing. Mother would need to be washed and prepared—there were many things he couldn't do by himself, but he would do his best. He owed Mother that. And if he could keep himself from being more of a waste, well, that could come later.
1941, Chapayevsk
There was an older woman who sometimes shared her meals with the girls—just the tinniest bit, a mouthful maybe, but Mikhail was grateful for it all the same. His sisters didn't remember their grandmother, but she, her name was Biserka, was just like Nana with her kind face and kinder words when the day was long.
She was too old to be working. They made her work anyway. She died two months after their family arrived.
Mama cried often these days, but she cried much when Biserka died. The extra food had helped Bronislava stay strong, and now without it the littlest of them might shrivel away entirely, so small as she curled to Mama while the cold chewed away at them all. He watched them both fall asleep, exhaustion claiming each pair of eyes in their sleeping room.
It was his job to watch now. Papa had gone and gotten himself killed and it was Mikhail's job to watch his family. He would not let them die. They had been sent here to do just that, but Mikhail would not let them.
Zhanna had too much spirit. She talked back and the guards beat her often, and it was just so much like Papa's brand of stupid that Mikhail couldn't sleep for how much his heart ached for her. He found her, once, after a particularly bad one. Zhanna was almost thirteen and never cried anymore, but here he found her, pressed against one of the walls as blood, tears, and snot leaked out of her in equal measures.
If she were a bit older, the guards would do much worse to her. He'd seen the way they looked at the other women in the labor camp, and he know there were evil things that went on here where these men controlled everything: their food, their blankets, their very lives. He wrapped his arms around his sister and let her cry. Mikhail was fifteen and never cried anymore either, but salt-wet spilled out of him onto the top of her head.
It was three months in when they tried to separate him from Mama and his sisters.
They shouldn't have left their baton where it was so easy to grab. They shouldn't have underestimated him—he was fifteen, but when he peeled back the slouch that had hung around his shoulders for the past three months, he felt a gleeful satisfaction at the terror on their faces when they realized he was taller than them. They should have sent more than two men to try and take him from his family. When the second of the guards shot at him, he shouldn't have missed.
"Go!" he told Mama as a singular fist wrapped around the neck of the second guard. A whole fist around his tiny, baby neck. "Let everyone know: we leave tonight!"
He would kill every Party man in this building. He now had two guns, and he was free, and he had would kill every single one.
But first.
"You," he said, squeezing slightly. "You are the one who beat Zhanna."
If the man could piss himself a second time he would have. His eyes were already boggled, popping out of his head, yet somehow they managed to become more terrified.
"Every man in Chapayevsk will spend his last moments in agony." Mikhail's fist tightened around the baton, the first weapon he'd managed to grab. He pulled the sweaty face close to him, red from lack of oxygen, tongue lolling out of his mouth. "And you. You get to be first."
1942, Hancock
"Ma says smoking is unladylike," Jane said.
Like the lines in a script, Peggy looked sideways at him, fit every morsel of contempt an older sister could into a single sentence and said, "you gunna tell?"
Jane ignored her. "Ma says you must report for supper."
That made Peggy move, though it was it was a pained, achy sort of move, the kind you did after you've been picking weeds out of the strawberry bushes all day. But at least she stopped leaning against the barn and smoking, so Jane had fulfilled his duty. He marched after her as she returned to the house.
"Jane," Pa barked as soon as they entered. "Where the fuck have you been? Get me a goddamn beer."
"Yes sir!" Jane saluted.
"And take that fucking bucket off your head, Jesus Christ."
Jane didn't want to. It was hiding the ugly buzz cut he'd tried to give himself with the kitchen knife, and plus it was his helmet. Soldier aren't supposed to abandon their gear. But Pa was glaring, and it was bad to tell Pa he was wrong about anything, so Jane sheepishly removed it from his head. He went to the icebox to get the beer.
Chatting followed him out. Elle, his little sister, was asking Ma something, and she responded, set up in the corner with the iron board. When Jane had left Peggy had just stared. Just stared at Pa as he sat in front of the TV.
It was normal when Jane had left. Normal, and then in one second everything changed, and he had his hand on Pa's favorite brand when he heard the yelling start. Pa must have got up. Ma was whimpering, but that happened sometimes, and it was best just to hide when it did. There was the sound of a fist hitting skin. The sound of Ma screaming in pain. The sudden bellow of Pa screaming in pain too.
That last one was not normal.
When Jane came rushing in the scene made no sense because Ma was on the floor like she was sometimes when Pa hit her, but Pa wasn't standing either. He was collapsed on the ground, Peggy over him with a chair clasped in both her hands. Her face was furious. The wild spite and the terror chased around each other in her expression and she was still poised with the chair as though she might hit Pa again.
He stirred, and she did.
This time it cracked loud, one leg snapping off in her hand as the wood smashed on Pa's back. He collapsed, the feeble inches he'd pushed up with his arms gone in an instant.
Peggy threw the broken chair away. "Ma!"
She ran at Ma. Elle was grabbing Ma's and helping her to her feet, but Jane was still struck there, stupefied. He was staring at Pa. He couldn't stop staring, couldn't believe what he was looking at.
"Ma, Ma c'mon we're going." Peggy didn't give her a chance to argue, not that it looked like she was going to anyway. She was just as stupified by Pa's prone body as Jane was.
With a great strength, Peggy grabbed both Ma and Elle, Ma around the shoulders and Elle around the wrist, and went for the back door. For one fateful second she and Jane locked eyes.
Jane didn't move.
She turned, and pulled the rest of the family out into the yard. Out into wherever 'away' was. Pa stirred.
When Hancock's only two officers, Sherriff Johnson and Deputy Miller—Miller who'd caught Jane once when he'd been stealing scrap metal from the junkyard and promised not to tell nobody if he never did it again—finally arrived on the scene, the Jane they found was more blood than person. Jane didn't remember much, not of them coming, not of them taking Pa and making him lie down until someone could bring him to a hospital. What he remembered was Pa, Pa hurting him over and over until none of his limbs worked and his jaw was all wrong. He'd never earned a beating that bad before.
The hospital smelled awful. It was in a different town because Hancock didn't have a hospital in the first place, and it was understaffed because most of the doctors had been recruited as medics for the war. Jane was left in a bed with sheets that were always clean and some flowers by the nightstand that were always fresh. Sometimes a woman would come and visit him. She was a social worker, but he didn't have answers for any of the questions she asked him.
"Where's Pa?" he'd field her sometimes, a question of his own.
She'd try to answer him, but he knew it couldn't be the truth.
Only when he was two weeks better, his limbs working and jaw set again but still not quite right, did he ask Peggy that same question. "Where's Pa?"
She was smoking again. Elle was there this time though, and they were supposed to be picked up, supposed to go somewhere. Jane wasn't going anywhere yet though, not without answers.
"Prison," she puffed.
"You're lying," Jane countered.
"He nearly killed you. Everyone saw. It was enough this time, and he ain't coming back out."
"No," Jane shook his head. "You! You killed him with the chair! I saw you, you goddamn backstabber."
She narrowed her eyes at him. It didn't work as well as it used to: he was taller than her now. She couldn't look down anymore.
"Well then maybe I did," she said quietly. "Maybe I did kill him. Finally worked up the nerve."
"Traitor!" he pointed at her.
"She didn't Jane," Elle tried to say, but Jane wasn't in the mood for listening.
"Murder!" he yelled. There was no one around to hear. The car that was supposed to pick them up wasn't here. It was just them. "Judas!"
She looked him dead in the eye. "One of us was going to have to do it, in the end. And it wasn't gunna be you."
This was no straw that broke the camel's back. The was a sword through the single rope holding the pulley of bricks.
He flew at her, and they both landed against the sidewalk with a smash. The force knocked a surprised yelp out of her, but that hesitation got eaten up fast, and Peggy responded the only way she ever had. The only way the two of them had ever treated each other. He beat his fist against her, and her strike came right back, fist colliding with the side of his face. He didn't care. He'd felt worse.
So, so much worse.
He picked her up and slammed her back on the concrete on the outside of the social services, hitting her again and again, ignoring every kick and punch and bite she threw his way like he was numb to it, like he was nothing but a killing machine. Pain was weakness. Weakness he no longer had. She'd murdered Pa and he was going to murder her back.
"Stop! Stop you're killing her!"
Elle tried to grab his arm. He threw her aside and she landed in the street, and after that he didn't think about her anymore. He only cared about Peggy. And when Peggy stopped moving, his knuckles had peeled back at the skin, and his front was covered in blood that wasn't his. He didn't listen to Elle's whimpering. He turned in a direction, any direction, and ran.
1953, Bee Cave
"Dammit, god damn it," Dell hissed, his voice not sure if this was a curse or a plea.
The end of the gun was still smoking, and it must have had some mighty fine conduction because all the sudden Dell felt his own temper sparking up just as hot. The dead man on the floor had a big hole in his back, blood getting all over the rug, (Mom's rug, her favorite, been here since even before Dell was born), and all 'n all being a huge nuisance. It was one of them RED fellas, a Spy maybe, Dell couldn't tell much by the remains of his uniform.
The Spy's intended target was cowering in the corner, underneath one of Mom's shelves. She had a penchant for collecting little ceramic angles, hundreds of 'em, more cherubs than anything as they loitered about with little garden hoes or knitting needles. Dad hadn't thrown them out when she died. He hadn't changed a single fiber in that house.
"God dammit Dad," Dell repeated. "Get up. Just…shit. Get your sorry ass up."
Dad did, eyes wide as he stared saucers at the body. His goggles were around his neck. Had he even been in the workshop today? Every damn time Dell came over he was just standing out the field, staring at nothing. Might as well have come to visit a scarecrow.
Except not this time. Dell's gut twisted as he realized if he'd been a couple minutes slower, if he'd stopped at record place like he'd wanted to, he'd have arrived to a completely different body lying on the floor.
"What the hell are you doin' down there?" he demanded of his father. "You were a goddamn mercenary for Christ's sake—some snake busts into your home and you're cowering on the floor like a dog? Why am I always doin' this? Why do I gotta break my back to look after a grown ass man?"
"I…" Dad shook his head, but he managed to stop gawking at the body for just a second.
"I can't-" Dell's voice cracked. "I can't keep doing this. You gotta snap out of it Dad, or you're gunna be dead. Find something to work on or, hell, go back to BLU for all I care. Just do something because I am done with this."
Dad was gunna say something. Dell knew it, tensed for it, and despite his harsh ultimatum what he wanted most in the world was his father back. The man who'd brought him up right, the one with drive.
But then Dad's mouth fell closed. The moment passed. Dell cradled the remains of his crushed spirit, small and biting in his chest, and pointed his gun at the floor.
"Goodbye Dad," he said, surprising even himself how flat his voice could go. He turned and left, engine on his pickup still hot. Dad might have opened his mouth again as he left, but if he did, he still couldn't find the words to make Dell stay.
1955, Boston
"Why not?" she asked, trying to keep up with Lou's long legs.
"'Cause I said so, that's why."
She was better at keeping up, better every day. She bet that when her brothers were her age they weren't nearly as fast her, and she could've run circles around them all on account'a how much she would run just to practice. Of course, no one would take her on that bet, because the point was that they all weren't her age and if they wanted to go someplace without her they just would do it on their stupid long legs.
"Why'd you say so, though?"
"Because shut up, how's that for an answer?" Lou snapped. "God, d'ya ever just stop talking?"
She pressed both hands to her face and made a farting noise.
Everything was so dark right now, which was probably the only reason he hadn't ditched her already. Ma would kill him if he left her baby alone in the city at night.
(She stuck her tongue out at the thought.)
She wasn't a baby. She could do anything her brothers could do and then some, but they were always up to something, or ditching her, and when they let her play ball with them it always out in left field. No one likes playing left field. That's where you send the loser kids during gym, the ones who only want to eat grass and put their gloves on their hats.
But now she was out! With Lou! And it was exciting, she felt like the world was at her fingertips until a voice from the dark called, "'sup Lou."
It made her jump. It didn't make Lou jump because he was in high school and no one made him scared anymore, but she still saw his face go taut in the streetlight. "Whaddya freakin' want, Ricky?"
Ricky, no one she knew, all long and lanky and a lot older than Lou, crept out of one of the shadows. They were near the park on Norcoss and it was a big open space but suddenly she felt very cramped as he stalked closer to them both. And sure she saw her brothers talking to strangers all the time but…this guy put a bad feeling in her stomach.
"What do you think I fucking want?" The park was a little lower than the street and each of Ricky's footsteps when smack on the concrete stairs. "Three. Fucking. Weeks. I gave you three weeks and you still don't have my money."
"You'll get it." Lou was looking tough. That was good. She felt better when her brothers were tough, except when they were using that tough to wail on her. But right now it was good to see, so good to see she pretended not to notice the way his eyes kept darting about for witnesses.
"Like hell I will Deramo." Ricky spat. He pushed her aside when he got in Lou's face, like she was nothing, random bunch of junk that just happened to be watching. "I'm starting to think you're no good for it. That you're a bad investment."
She wasn't used to thinking of Lou looking young, but next to Ricky he looked positively baby-faced. "Don't start shit, Rick," he told him.
"You don't give orders round here."
"Well I don't take your orders neither."
And then the knife came out.
She really wasn't thinking straight when she saw that knife. The only thing she could think of was Lou who was screaming because in a split second the switchblade had gone in and out again, and all the sudden he air was filled with howling as the two scuffled at each other. Lou held Ricky back by his wrist and she just. Didn't think. There was only the thumping of her heart and the blood in her ears as she ran forward and pushed.
Ricky lost his balance at the top of the park stairs. He went back, back, arms pinwheeling and it might have been funny except then he hit the first step with a lot louder crack than he had going up it. It went like that: crack all the way down, over and over again, limbs going all which way until he reached the fountain at the bottom of the steps with the loudest crack of all.
There was a big bloody print where his head had hit the fountain edge. She could see it from here, how red it was even in the dark. Ricky didn't move no more.
She glanced at Lou. "He stabbed you," she noted.
Lou stopped looking at Ricky for the barest of seconds to look down at the knife wound in his side. He put a palm over it, catching red shirt and bloody skin both. "It ain't so bad." He paused. "Think Ricky got it a lot worse."
She looked down at Ricky. Ricky who was definitely a dead body now. "Yeah. Guess so."
"Yeah," Lou echoed. "Yo, help me out with this."
She didn't get what this was until Lou went down and started moving the body, dragging him by the legs and hauling him further into the park. "Where you taking him?"
"Harbor. Hurry up, grab his arms."
She did. He was heavy, and the walk to the harbor was long, but Lou was bleeding heavy out his shirt so she decided she had no right to complain. (For now. She'd sure get in some good complaining later.) Instead she asked, "why the harbor?"
"It's uh…shit it's that habeas corpus thing. If they don't have a body they can't prove that he was murdered, so they can't charge you with nothing. Plus, water washes all the fingerprints off and stuff, so they're less likely to pin me with it."
She wrinkled her nose. "You? I'm the one that got him."
He looked at her, tough again. "If anyone asks, I'm the one who did it, got it?"
"What? No fair!" She'd saved his stupid life and he wasn't even going to let her say she'd killed a guy?
"Yes fair," Lou said. "You're nine, I can't let you- If they thought it was you then-" He took a deep breath. "You just gotta say it was me Jeremy. Please."
He was worried about her being in trouble. There was going to be trouble and for the first time in her life someone was willing to take the heat for her. It still didn't seem fair that her first kill wouldn't count, but she sighed. "Fine. If anyone asks."
"Which they won't. Let's get this chucklenut in there."
With a great heave, the two of them managed to lug Ricky's body over the railing and into the harbor below. She'd once heard that corpses float, but that must have been a load of bull because Ricky disappeared as soon as the ripples stopped forming. She looked at Lou.
"Time to get out of here," he said, but then bit his lip. "Actually, we should try to wash the blood off the fountain first."
"And deal with that." She pointed as his shirt.
"…And that, yeah."
The walk back to the park was eerily silent. She wanted to say something, but for the first time in her life she was at a loss for words. "Thanks Lou," was all she could manage.
"Yeah, don't mention it. Literally."
"I mean. Thanks. For saying you'd do that for me." She was quiet for a minute. "I know you guys don't like hanging out with me. I know I ain't really…"
She didn't know what to say. She was the baby and that made her different than her brothers, but Lou was different too right? He let her hang around, and he just said he'd go to jail so she wouldn't have to. Maybe that was it.
"…It's alright kid," he supplied. He put an arm around her shoulder, and she didn't ask about it anymore.
1957, Chaparral
It shouldn't have been that easy, he thought. Big bang boom, 'nother wanker dead, and he was just some idiot sitting at the end of his scope.
They paid him in Australium. Thirty thousand dollars worth. He sat in his hotel room rubbing it between his fingers wondering if this time it would stick.
1961, Rancherías
There was wind today. Martia liked the wind, liked when it came down from the north areas and shook the agave like they were afraid of something, kicking up dust but not so much that it would get in the eyes. It was nice and sickly-sweet, the sort that made you forget about the sun making your skin itch.
They wandered through the side door near the kitchens. One of the cooks looked up at them, but then returned to the rice that was turning soft in the pot, paying them as much mind as the breeze that had brought them in. Papa's house had few doors on the outside—things were in the old fashion, and Martia knew their family's lifestyle was a fading one, that most people worked on the communal farms now, but Papa's was one ranch that still hadn't gone. It was all they knew, really, just the breezy home with its glassless windows and arches with no doors. Their bare feet walked them through the courtyard (shoes, Martia, Mama was always telling them, you cannot walk around the house like some sort of mud creature) where their toes spread across the white tile, blue and red designs marking it as the most exquisite room in the house.
It was about time they found the little ones. They stood in the center of the Saltillo and called.
Dinner was ready within the hour, and Martia had managed to wrangle everyone so they wouldn't get yelled at. Their brother was too small to sit alone, so he sat on Martia's lap as they broke off the small pieces of carrot for him to bite. Their sisters (they were really Papa's cousin's daughters, but so many of the family lived and on Papa's ranch to help him watch the farmhands that it was usually best to call someone by the simplest name you could) were close by and digging into their rice with gusto. Martia leaned over and picked a few grains out of Chofa's hair.
There were other brothers and sisters too, none as old as Martia still at the children's table, but the smallest three were their responsibility. All the others would leave every now and again, to go into town, or learn to cook or do numbers from their own mamas and papas, but not Martia. Martia stayed home. Martia minded the children.
Simple work for the simple one, Chofa's mama had said once, which although hadn't been meant as a cruel thing, Martia still didn't think it was fair. Minding children was hardly simple: sometimes all three of them wanted to play something different. Sometimes Ramon would wander off and Martia would have to go chase after, and by the time they got back the sisters had gone missing too. Sometimes Jamie would fall and get a big cut in her knee, all gross and gravel covered, and the other two would start crying because the blood was over everywhere. Simple their foot.
As they thought it, they looked to where the adults were eating. Chofa's mama wasn't there; she had been sick for a very long time and-
(Maybe everyone thought Martia dumb, but they knew she wouldn't get better. No one would say it, but Martia knew.)
-and there was an argument between Papa and his brother.
"They won't take this lightly," their uncle was saying. Martia looked down at their plate and pretended they weren't listening. "You've insulted them. Can you not be happy with the land we have?"
"Every acre we have is one more insurance against bad times."
"You are too prideful," Uncle bit. "It will be the death of us."
"Is it prideful to want our family to flourish?"
Martia thought that sounded wise. Papa always sounded wise, and they nodded quietly to themself even though they definitely hadn't been eavesdropping. They knew Papa would keep them safe through bad times.
They told the children this as they Chofa and Jamie into bed, but the girls didn't find it as moving as Martia did. Instead they just rubbed their eyes, yawned with missing teeth, and said goodnight as Martia and Ramon walked to their own room.
The soft wind rolled the white curtains, in and out, in and out like breathing. Martia watched them as they listened to Ramon fall asleep, in and out, in and out.
In the morning they ate eggs, Martia made sure Jamie ate all of hers, and then it was time for schooling.
Everyone had a bit of chalk in hand, and paper lessons spread out on the floor before them. Everyone Martia's age was already done with their schooling, had gone on to help with the black books, with working in the fields, or even gotten married and moved off to their new family's ranch. But Martia was still here. Still taking lessons with the children.
They stared down at the paper before them. Once upon a time, before everyone had decided that Martia was simple—which had come one slowly and then all at once, as though the more people said it the truer it became—Mama had wanted them to help with the books. But try as they might the numbers never made sense to them, and Mama's infinite patience had worn down little by little until snapping all together. Letters were no better. Here Martia was, with the same sheet as Jamie set in front of them, but trying to copy the sentence onto their chalkboard always came out wrong.
If only they had been good at something else around the ranch, anything to be useful. But no, they weren't good with the farmhands either, and Papa said they would never manage a thing if they didn't learn to be firm. They weren't good at firm. Yelling at people only made them anxious, and no one took them seriously anyway, not when they thought Martia was wrong in the head.
The chalk had somehow become a drawing of a lollipop.
It was a relief when schooling was finally done for the day. For midday with warm bread, and after that they could find fun games to play. Martia brought out the papers and paints, and they laid them on the tile floor, fingers dipped in jars and swirled until the colors were just as beautiful as the ceramic blow them. Paints weren't cheap, but Martia hardly ever asked for anything, so when they begged Papa with big eyes and a promise it was for schooling, he had allowed them this.
"You're so good at this, Martia," Jamie said wistfully, tracing the whorls of paint with her eyes.
Martia puffed with pride. It wasn't good to be bigheaded like that, but they couldn't help it, not when they knew it was true. Still, it wasn't polite to brag, so instead they said, "so are you! I love your unicorn." They tapped two fingers against Jamie's paper.
She smiled, missing teeth wide in her mouth. "That's the Mayor! He's a good friend."
The Mayor was round and pink. Martia thought he looked like a balloon. He made them happy, just like the rainbows they drew, like the cool breeze, like the baptism candle they let burn in their room at night. If they had enough paint to last it, they could have kept themself happy to the end of the world.
"No!" Chofa yelled, starling Jamie and Martia both. "I don't want to do paints anymore!"
Martia looked up just in time to watch Chofa knock the purple over with one furious kick.
The jar turned over completely, washing a cascade of pigment across the floor, seeping between the beautiful tiles and into the grout between where it would no doubt stain. The wave crashed over Ramon's paper, and he began to cry as his hand smudges of green and yellow were wiped away.
"Chofa!" Martia gasped, springing to their feet.
"I don't like paints!" Chofa repeated. "They're boring and I hate them!"
They rushed over, but it was too late; there was no saving the purple. There was no saving Ramon either, who had been lying on his tummy and now was completely covered, messing himself even further as he wiped at his teary eyes.
"Chofa you are being very bad!" they told her, their throat empty of anything else, but that was all they could say.
Someone had once said that because they were no good at yelling that would make them good with children, but Chofa was just like the farmhands, and never listen to them either. Now they would have to ask Papa for more paints, and when he learned what happened he would say no and then he might even take the remaining paints away-
They shook their finger at her. "You are a bad little girl!"
"I don't care!" She stamped her foot. "I want to do something else!"
The paint was all over and the children were so loud and Jamie had her hands over her ears to block it all out. Why was this Martia's job? Why couldn't someone else do it and Martia could be left alone to find something they were good at instead? An angry little viper reared up inside them. They wanted to make Chofa behave, but they cared about the paints more, so instead they went over and scooped up the ones that still had color inside.
"Where are you going?" Jamie asked as they wrapped them in their long arms.
"I am putting them away," Martia sniffed. "Art time is over, until you are good children again."
Jamie protested, but Maria had a fast walk, and they were out of the courtyard before they would even let themself listen. They knew, knew they were being unfair, that it was only Chofa who was being a bad girl, that Ramon was just sad because his painting got ruined, that all the crying and the kicking was part of being a child. But they didn't care. They just wanted to be angry, to feed that vicious little serpent inside them that hissed to see all that good paint go to waste.
Normally the paints would be put away in the cupboard near the kitchen, but an overwhelming protectiveness urged them outside, up the hill and across to the house on the overlook. Some of the family lived there, the ones who didn't sleep in the big house, but the most important part is that in the overlook there were no children allowed.
The wind picked up as they climbed, up the path where crops turned to the hardier grass that could live at the incline. You don't plant growing things on a slope—they could remember that, from lessons long ago, back when their parents were still trying to teach them. If you planted them at an angle, all the water wouldn't get to the roots, and would just fall down the hill.
So they climbed, and huffed, letting sweat bunch under their arms as they hauled the paints upwards, taking in the long day through their mouth and not noticing the taste of smoke on the wind.
It was only the noise that made them stop. They froze, poised at singular spot of level ground, straining to hear over the sound of their own breath as they glanced around their father's land. The light on the agave was very bright, glancing in beautiful turquoise. It was perfectly still, perfectly peaceful, until the sound came again.
They'd never heard gunfire before. They still knew what it was.
Over, on the other side of the outlook, people were running through the lines of plants.
"The fields!" one of the farmhands screamed in warning. "They're burning the fields!"
Every one of the jars smashed as Martia dropped them, feet halfway down the hill before the liquid even hit the ground.
A tranquility that had once stretched for years now unraveled in minutes, Martia's run joined by others as dozens of people began to flee the south fields like fleas abandoning a bathing dog. There was screaming and warnings, telling Martia or whoever to run, run, and now the scent of smoke was too strong to ignore. That once beautiful breeze had turned on them, bringing the fire home.
"Ramon!" they screeched as they came flying into the house. "Jamie! Chofa!"
Not in the courtyard anymore, just an oozing, ugly bruise of purple that could have occurred only twenty minutes before.
"Ramon, Ramon! Little ones where are you?"
They could see the fire now. Out the window. And logically they knew it could move fast but it still seemed impossible how quickly it had closed, how hungrily it ate every scrap of life before it as it darted across the ranch.
"Children? Please, if you can hear me-"
They slammed open the door to Jamie's room. The three of them were there, huddled into a corner, Ramon in the middle and sopping like someone had tried to wipe the paint of with a bucket over his head. Martia didn't care about any of that.
"Hurry, hurry!" They rushed forward, scooping Ramon into their arms. "They are burning the fields, we have to leave."
"Who's burning?" Jamie whimpered. She hadn't stood when Chofa had, refusing to move from the corner.
"I do not know," Martia said, and it was God's honest truth. The house creaked around them, groaning where the flames fed. "It does not matter. Hurry!"
They fled. Out the back, opposite of the way Martia had come, but the great fire had already begun to devour. The tower, the great one in the center of the big house whose bell chimed every day at noon, gave off a terrifying scream.
Martia didn't look at it as it crashed behind them. They didn't look until they saw Jamie was no longer with them.
Chofa hadn't noticed. She needed three strides for every one of Martia's, and was running, heaving, and didn't yet see that her sister wasn't there. Ramon was too busy crying into the front of their shirt. There was no time to go back. They turned toward the north and ran.
Gunfire was to the east. They could shy from it, but that would turn their path across the field diagonal, putting them in the fire's wake for much longer…But as they thought it, the rapid pop pop pop echoed from black blots in the distance. Martia grabbed Chofa's wrist and said, "this way, this way!"
The flames roared like towers, like waves, like an entire forest. It was nothing like Martia had seen before, not like the little flame they kept alive at night, not like the ovens that burned at the cook's careful touch. It was calling for them. It wanted them so badly and they had never been more terrified in their life. It was alive. It wanted them to join it.
Chofa stepped in a rabbit's burrow. Her leg went with an awful snap.
She howled, and it was somehow a more terrible sound than the fire's roar, but only just. The smell of burning plant matter left streaks down her cheeks and she yowled, "Martia! Martia help me!"
They rushed to her. Some stupid, stupid rabbit and their stupid, stupid hole and there was white bits poking out of Chofa's skin. Smoke was heaving in all their lungs. Ramon had stopped crying, and could only cough.
"Martia, I'm scared, I'm scared, it hurts," Chofa whimpered. "Where's Jamie? Martia please it hurts-"
Martia put one arm around her and pulled. Even as they did, (and Chofa screamed so viciously that it knocked their insides loose) they could tell it wouldn't work. They couldn't carry her with only one arm. They would have to put down Ramon down, and Ramon couldn't run, not with his little baby legs, and already he was barely moving in their arms aside from the feeble coughs.
They shook their head. "Chofa I-"
As they stood, Chofa's eyes opened wide in the black air. "No! Martia carry me, please."
"I'm sorry I can't-" They shook their head again.
The fire was coming now. It leapt onto Chofa's sleeve and she screeched, pulling herself across the ground in an attempt to get away from it. Martia stepped back so it wouldn't catch them too.
"Where are you going?" Chofa begged. "Please, please don't leave me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll be good okay? I won't be a bad little girl any more I promise-"
Flames had caught her hair. Martia turned and ran.
"Please! Martia I'm sorry, please don't leave-"
They could still hear her dying screams long after the fields disappeared behind them.
They didn't know how far they ran, or how long they walked when they could no longer run, the extra weight around their chest heaving and debilitating. There were still men with guns, people who had come to hurt Papa, to hurt them all. Were the family all dead? Dead like Jamie and Chofa and the other corpses they'd seen burning while they'd run past? The men with guns had been shooting people who could still scream, and even some of the ones that couldn't, and Martia knew that if one of them caught up-
A slope appeared before them. It was sudden, unexpected, they had never gone this far from the ranch before after all, so the uncharted landscape snuck on them and they went spinning down the hill. Crunch went everything and they landed at the bottom, terrified, breathing heavy as they stared at the burnt orange sky.
They were dead now, surely. They had broken a leg like Chofa had, as punishment for leaving her, for killing her, and now one of the men would catch up and shoot them.
After a few minutes of lying in frozen panic, they realized they couldn't hear the guns anymore. They couldn't hear anything but the slow encroach of night. Crickets. The rustle of grass. The men had chased them into the wilderness and they were alone.
Their legs weren't broken either. Everything hurt, yes, but they could move, and they clutched Ramon close.
When the sky finally turned black, they noticed he'd stopped coughing.
Slowly, they peeled his frail away, and looked down at their brother. How long had he been silent? Had Martia killed him, crushed him when they'd gone spinning down the hill? Or had they been holding a corpse for hours, his lungs too small to withstand an entire agave field of smoke?
As they thought it, they coughed sharply. Breathing hurt. When you run you're used to your lungs throbbing, the shortness of breath, but lying here in the foreign fields it ached just as badly as running had. There was wet along their cheeks.
There were rocks at the bottom of the hill. Martia piled them on top of the body until they couldn't see him anymore, and made a cross out of sticks and grass. They laid next to him, and hummed feebly. Maybe the smoke would kill them too. They didn't know. They would see in the morning