Page 52 of Intrepid

After a minute of holding my shoulders still, he dipped his head, guiding my attention back to him. “You got your wits about ya again, now?”

I didn’t answer, and instead ground my teeth, with a thousand thoughts running through my head, of how I’d kill him if I could.

“I’m gonna need you to come with me.” Fox disappeared behind me and took hold of my bound hands. Cold metal hit my skin, and in the next snap, my hands were free.

I spun around, fist drawn back for a punch, but he caught my wrist in his hand, propping the blade beneath my chin. The faint burn was only a fraction of the pain the blade promised.

“I don’t need another death on my hands, boy. But I will. I swear I’ll cut your throat where you stand.”

My jaw trembled as I glared back at him, wondering if that would be best. If I’d be better off letting him end me right there.

“You don’t want that. Trust me.” Lowering the blade, Fox swapped his knife for the gun, holding the pistol loosely in his hands. “You try anything, and you’ll be swallowing gun powder,” he said, holding the gun in front of me. “I find killing to be a waste, but I won’t hesitate. Now walk.”

“Why haven’t you killed me already?” Gun at my back, I made my way through the basement and up some stairs toward a door.

“I’m in a pickle. See, I got a murder on my hands. One I hadn’t planned on, but the cops, they don’t see things objectively, sometimes. They see what they need to see.”

Two rusted, abandoned trucks sat next to a newer red tow truck. Beyond that, a machine stood off in the distance, beside which Gideon waited, with his hands tucked into his pockets. Eli lay on the ground in front of him, and Trevi the Joker stood off to the side.

What I wouldn’t have given to steal Fox’s gun and shoot all three of them dead.

Behind them, the big yellow contraption sat quiet, the arm of it hanging off the back, arched over a bonfire crackling below it.

“So I need some … insurance.” Fox brought me to a stop in front of Eli, who lay on the ground, eyes closed, as if he were peacefully sleeping.

Tears blurred his face, and I waited for him to open his eyes, to sit up and tell me to quit fucking crying like a pansy.

Instead, he lay unmoving. Lifeless.

“I got a question for ya, son.” Fox lit a cigarette behind me, the menthol scent of it crumpling my stomach. That acrid smell would forever remind me of the dirty prick’s dry, cracked face. “You got a home?”

Fuck you. I didn’t answer.

“Don’t piss me off, boy.”

The warning in his voice no longer scared me like before, but I answered just the same. “Yeah.”

“You got a momma there? A daddy? Granddaddy? Suga’ momma with a French poodle? Who’s waitin’ on you?”

“My dad. And I guarantee he’ll come looking for you.” I kept my eyes on Eli’s blood-stained hands, wondering if I’d reached the point of desperation, just as he had, fantasizing of things that would likely never happen. A quick glance around, toward the buildings that stood off in the distance, and the suffocating quiet, confirmed that my father would never find me.

“I’m pissin’ in my boots right now. Really.”

A plume of smoke drifted past me, and I dared a glimpse of Eli’s sleeping face, coming to tears again. Red streaks marred his cheek, where he must’ve scratched himself to remove the mask with the headphones he’d worn. Blood had dried to his mouth, his chest, his leg, and I could just make out wet strands of hair at the side of his head, where the bullet must’ve hit his skull.

“You wanna see your daddy again?” Fox’s voice had become a distant echo, but I focused on his words, letting him pull me into his mind games.

My nose burned, as I fought to hold back tears.

“Y-y-y-yer not letting him go … are ya, F-F-F-Fox?” Gideon stumbled forward in my periphery. “We c-c-could keep him, instead.”

“And do what? Fuck ‘im on camera, like you and my little pervert brother?” Fox snorted and hocked a gob of spit behind me. “That lawyer fucked up, crossing me. So I’m gonna make his asshole pucker some by lettin’ this one go.” He poked the back of my shoulder, and my muscles flinched on instinct. “You wanna go back home, don’t ya? ‘Course you do. I promised to let you go, and I’m gonna. But I need some insurance. ‘Slike I told ya that first day, remember?” Though he paused, he didn’t wait for me to answer the question. “I said the odds of you telling someone lessen when you take part in the crime. See, it’s easy to say, I won’t tell,” he prattled on. “But then you’ll have thoughts of your friend, sweatin’ and pissin’ in your bed. And end up tellin’, anyway. But how the hell you gonna look a cop in the face and tell him ole’ Giddy boy shot ‘im dead, when you was the one who helped dispose of the body?”

A sharp pain struck my chest, and I slanted a glare in his direction. “What did you say?”

He looked past me and nodded, prompting me to follow the path of his gaze.

Joker stepped toward the machine, turned a key and pulled a lever, setting the contraption into a rumbling clatter of metal. He lifted a branch from the ground beside the bonfire and chucked it into the spinning blades. A buzzing sound vibrated across my bones, as I watched the small bits fly out of the arm of it on the other side, landing onto the flame.