I hold my hands up, trying to placate him. “I don’t think we’repoking aroundso much as?—”
“Oh, come off it,” he snaps at me, his blue eyes harsher than I’ve ever seen them. “You two are running around doing heaven-knows-what, digging up the past, and you’re going to get hurt. Some nutter stole my chickens this time, but next timethat could be you.”
An image pops into my mind of myself, covered in feathers and lying glassy-eyed on someone’s front porch. I shake my head to get rid of it and then say, “When did your chickens go missing? You didn’t see who took them?”
Some of the fight drains out of Rocco at this question; his shoulders slump and his face falls. “Last night sometime. I didn’t see anything. Didn’t even hear them. I should’ve installed security cameras,” he says. “If I had just installed security cameras like I’d been planning, I would at least be able to see who it was. Should’ve installed them. Gotten a better lock, too?—”
“All right,” I say quickly. “Calm down. We’re not mad.” I look at Aiden.
“I mean, I’m a little pissed—oof.”He breaks off when I elbow him in the ribs. He glares at me and then turns to Rocco. “Obviously it’s not your fault someone stole your animals,” he says, sounding grumpier than necessary. “I’m just mad that someone did this.”
“I know,” Rocco says, and somehow he droops even further, deflating completely. “I feel horrible that I had any part in this. And I’m so terribly,terriblysorry. Just—stay safe, kids. All right?” He’s more earnest now, his voice beseeching. “Stop whatever it is you’re doing and stay safe. Don’t meddle, don’t get hurt.”
“Let me ask you one thing,” I say. It’s partly to avoid making a promise I don’t intend to keep, but I also really do want to know. “Do you think this is something your brother might do? I’m not saying that he’s responsible for this”—I gesture vaguely at the door mat that I will most certainly be throwing away—“but just…do you think this is the kind of thing hecoulddo?”
Rocco heaves a sigh. “I don’t know,” he mutters, running his hand over his hair again. “I don’t want to believe he would stoop this low. But he’s a son of a—ah.” He shoots me a self-conscious glance. “He’s a power-hungry scumbag, and he’s surrounded by power-hungry scumbags. So if you’re messing around with him”—he’s back to looking severe now, and I half expect him to start wagging his finger at me—“you just cut it out and leave it alone, all right?”
I garble out something nondescript under my breath, and I can’t help noticing that Aiden doesn’t reply at all. It seems neither of us want to promise him we’ll walk away.
What about Cam Verido?a little voice in my brain asks.Where is he in all this? And what about the incident Gus mentioned? How much do we really know about those two?
Not much. I can admit that. And it’s a thought that has my insides squirming with discomfort. I think back to the rest of the people on our Murder Board too before deciding to erase the Betties later. There’s no way a few small-town teachers would be involved in something like this, right?
When Rocco finally leaves, Aiden and I go back inside, although we make a quick detour to the dumpster first. Aiden holds the chicken-blood welcome mat pinched between two fingers, his arm extended as far away from his body as it will go, while I follow behind with a look of disgust on my face. I do feel better once the mat is safely at homein its trash heap, though, mingling with the company of old banana peels and grease-stained pizza boxes.
“Don’t you need to go to work?” I say once we’ve returned indoors. Aiden stands at the kitchen sink, scrubbing his hands with dish soap and a sponge. He’s using the bristly green side, not the softer yellow side, which makes me think he feels more violated by this ordeal than he’s letting on.
“I’ll go.” Short, to the point, quiet. But then he looks over his shoulder at me. “Will you be okay here by yourself?”
It’s a good question, and I don’t know if I have an answer. Will I be okay? Yes. I will emerge from the end of this day in one piece. But will I feel comfortable here alone, knowing that someone out there knows where I live and likes to play ding-dong-ditch with dead chickens?
No.
“I’ll be fine,” I say, smiling at him.
He pauses, like he doesn’t quite believe me, and then grunts, turning his attention back to his hands. I don’t even think they got any chicken blood on them, but I don’t blame him. I’m going to do the same when I take a shower. Scrub the top layer of skin off my body, watch it swirl down the drain, convince myself that the only sound I’m hearing is the thundering of the water as it beats against the glass.
“Why did you cry earlier?” He shuts the water off, shaking his hands over the sink before grabbing a towel from the counter and patting them dry. They’re the same red as my skin when I’ve been in a hot tub for too long.
“I just remembered something,” I say, keeping my voice light. “A bad memory. I’m fine.”
Aiden’s eyes fix on me for one long moment. I lie to him with my smile until finally he nods and heads to his bedroom, leaving me alone.
I don’t bother washing my hands at the sink. I just rush tothe bathroom and strip immediately, kicking my clothes over to the corner of the tiled floor. I’ll wash them and then decide if I’m keeping them. Like Aiden’s hands, they didn’t get any blood on them, but they still feel irredeemably dirty right now.
Then I bolt into the shower like I’m the side character in a B horror film searching for the most obvious hiding spot she can find. You hide in the shower, you’re going to die, Side Character, but that never stops you. The shower is my salvation, though, and I turn the water all the way up to scalding, darting in and out of its path until I’m used to the temperature. Then I immerse myself as completely as possible, grabbing my citrus shampoo and squeezing out way more than I actually need.
Lather, rinse, repeat; lather, rinse, repeat; lather, rinse, repeat.
And as the water rains down, cleansing everything it touches, I tell myself I’m crying because I have soap in my eye.
When I emergefrom the bathroom thirty minutes later, I’m a woman on a mission.
Once my shower tears subsided, I started getting really, really angry. I’ve worked hard for my entire adult life to provide a safe space for myself—my home. It’s something I didn’t have as a child, so safety is priceless to me now.
And someone has come and trampled it under their stupid, stinky, chicken-wielding feet.
I am not okay with that. And I refuse to live in fear.
