1648
I lifted the now-crushed paper in my hand and double-checked the number, though I was certain I knew it. 1648 Dumont Avenue, Apartment 3F. This was the right building. Chipped bricks, sagging windows, and rusted fire escapes zig-zagged across the front. The only thing that had been updated in the last decade were the graffiti tags. The run-down, shitty building in the middle of a forgotten area of Brooklyn felt like a fitting home for Silas Clive.Silas.I’d never even known his real name until an hour ago.
The front stoop was missing half its bricks, and only one crooked railing remained. I took a deep breath and walked up to the door. A collection of beat-up doorbells with an array of crossed-out names lined the inner doorway. I scanned until I foundS. Clive. Rather than ring, I reached for the door handle. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t locked, and the door creaked open like something out of a horror movie. The vestibule smelled like urine and mildew, with maybe some weed mixed in, too.
I knew what I was doing was stupid.Verystupid. I didn’t even understand why I wanted to see him. But it was like I was heading into an accident with no brakes, and all I could do was brace myself for impact.
I climbed the creaky wooden stairs up the first flight. When I reached the landing, a teenage boy came out of nowhere and brushed past me, nearly giving me a heart attack. I wasn’t winded, and it wasn’t hot, yet my forehead had a thick sheen of sweat and my palms were wet with perspiration. But I kept going, rounding the landing, down the dimly lit hall, and up the next flight of stairs. A cat meowed as I reached the top step, and I had to grab the railing to keep from falling backward.
This is dangerous.
No one knows I’m here.
Still, I kept going. My pace slowed as I reached the last stair of the third flight, and I took in a big deep breath as I stepped onto the floor where he lived.Silas. Silas Clive.
3A
3B
3C
3D
My heart felt like it was about to burst out of my ribcage, and I still hadn’t released my breath.
3E
3F
The door was slightly ajar. I turned my head and put my ear to the opening. But there was nothing to hear except eerie silence. Was he waiting for me right on the other side? Did he somehow know I was coming? Was thisa trap?The answers to those questions didn’t really matter, though, because nothing could’ve stopped me from going in.
I pushed the door open ever so slightly, and it creaked as it scraped along the floor. I expected to find Silas Clive inside. But that wasn’t the man I saw first.
“Jagger!”
He had the barrel of a gun in Silas’s mouth, and Silas’s eyes widened when he saw me.
“Get the fuck out, Sutton!” Jagger yelled.
“No! Stop! Don’t do that!”
“Get out!”
I didn’t know what to do. The man who eight years ago had taken something I could never get back, looked at me with fear in his eyes. I knew the terror he felt, the helplessness, the nightmare of someone having control over you with ill intent. It drew me closer to them.
Jagger yelled again as I neared. “Sutton, leave, goddamnit! Now!”
“No. I want to see him up close.” An odd sense of calm washed over me. “I want to see the same fear in his eyes that he made me feel.”
Silas was bent backward, his head pressed against a plastic dish-drying rack, his mouth stretched around the width of the gun. His jaw trembled, and spit glistened at the corners of his mouth. He’d also pissed his pants.
I leaned in so our faces were close. “How does it feel? Not being able to move and someone else holding your life in their hands?”
Tears spilled from the corners of his eyes. I allowed myself a few more seconds of vengeance before turning my attention to Jagger. I rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Please don’t do this. He’s already taken so much from me. Don’t let him take you, too.”
***
