[A/N: WARNING: MENTIONS OF ABUSE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT. SKIP THIS CHAPTER IF NEEDED. TO SUMMARIZE THIS CHAPTER'S EVENTS: Accomplice finds out the abuse is still going on to this day with a distant relative of the Administrator named Uriel and his friends. She visits her brother, Sandro's, grave with Miss Pauling and lets her know that she's not fucking around and that she should take a hike. Accomplice kills her former abuser with Neuro, and the two briefly touch on the effects it's had on Accomplice's life for the past 17 years and she's never mentioned it to another soul for that long. Neuro reassures that she's her friend and that people care about her rather than what's happened to her.}
BLUs.
They're crawling everywhere.
I really lived like this, didn't I? Didn't we?
We've lived in a BLU world this entire time and we didn't even know it. Bookies, Beckett, and Porter.
Fuckin' Porter.
Adonebi and I stand across the street from the rec center. The fucking rec center. I never came here, but Adonebi did. Adonebi went to the rec center. It's noonish now, and we said we'd meet up for lunch later as Salvador and Neuro stay at the house to get her situated for the night before we meet up later. The sun came out, drying up a lot of the rain but still keeping the temperature down. I secure my purse on my arm. "We should head over."
"We should."
He stays planted. I grab Adonebi's hand and lead us across the street. It's a barrier, a threshold of sorts, that divides the two of us. Uppities and Bookies. I'm a teenager all over again. I never got this close to the edge until now, and it feels so surreal to be entering a place that's so familiar but so foreign at the same time. We go up to the glass double doors upfront. Flyers are taped into the windows for sports try-outs and community events. Christmas-themed Arts and Crafts happen tomorrow night.
I pull the door open and enter the building. Every other light down the hall is out as though it's supposed to be closed for the day. I tighten my hold on Adonebi's hand as he pulls me past the water fountain and the front office. There's a set of orange double doors down the hall past the day rooms with ping pong tables, books strewn about, tables with crayon streaks on top, and couches with dubious stains and bodily fluids on them from the younger children who stay here.
It's our very own YMCA but poorer because we're right on the other side of the tracks and the Bookies didn't want to share something that would be mutually beneficial. Footsteps, yelling, and a ball dribbling leak into the hallway from the other end. Shoes skid across the floor and impacts with the ground are made after jumping. Adonebi pushes one of the doors open for us to go in, the basketball court occupied by fourteen total that are all around Salvador's age. Seven of them are the boys from the car. They're playing on opposite sides of the court as they've probably arranged to stay out of each other's way like that.
We walk along the edge of the court and sit on the line of bleachers. There she is, Siti's niece- Akwokwo. She's short like me, the second smallest one on the team at five foot one. She has power in her legs, though, a high jumper to make a shot from the three-point line. She almost makes it until another girl's able to smack it out of the air and the game keeps going until Kenyangi, the youngest girl there at seven, notices the two of us and runs off the court without a second thought. She hugs me, and I sway from side to side with her in my arms. "Hi, Yaya."
"Hi, Coco," she chirps. "Are you gonna be here for Christmas?"
"Uhm," I lick my lips. "I don't know. I'll be here for a few days, though."
"Okay," she excitedly smiles as I sit her in my lap. "Because I want you to braid my hair."
"Is that what you want for Christmas?" I ask her, the other six starting to migrate over to us. She nods as I observe her afro. "I can do that for you."
"Coco!" Akwokwo bends over to hugs me next before I'm swarmed by children from all sides. Many of them haven't seen me in a while. I should come home more.
Adonebi shakes his head vigorously. "Ah, yes," he's jokingly offended. "Yes, forget about Bebu. Sina, ni sawa."
"You're silly, Bebu," Attakullakulla giggles. He's a Native American teenager who moved here not too long ago. His parents are in the military, so he won't be here long. He's fourteen or so if I can recall. We haven't given him a nickname yet. "I remember you."
Adonebi hugs him. "Thank you, Attakullakulla, you're the only one I can ever count on."
I don't know the three other boys, but Adonebi knows them. Ishaq, Jamal, and Devonte, triplets that are nineteen. I glance over and see that the other group stopped playing and are watching us like hawks. We make eye contact again, and I notice that a few of them were still playing despite having arm braces and one walking around with a limp.
"Just don't pay attention to them, Coco," Devonte sighs, crossing his arms and glaring at them. "They're always looking for a fight." I have Kenyangi get off of my lap, and I set my purse aside. "Coco?"
I get up and walk over to them. They're all taller than me, but they don't scare me. The one who was making comments against me has a broken finger. I stop just short of him. "I need to ask you something."
They give glances to each other as if to discuss it. "What?"
"You're going to hate me asking."
He taps the metal casing on his finger. "No." It probably hasn't happened to them, maybe they just ran into a group who knows how to fight back like what happened with me. It's still worth asking.
"Do you know Mr. Porter?" I blurt, my voice echoing off the high ceiling.
"Who doesn't?" A young man on the heavier side speaks. "He coaches the basketball team, we're practicing because we're on the A-team."
"He drive you guys here?" I get a 'you saw us in a car, you dumb bitch' look, and I add onto it. "Some of you. Does he drive you here sometimes if your buddies can't pick you up?"
"I don't know what you're getting at, but, uh, you should probably go," the one who was driving demands. He's the one with a limp.
"He tells you you're special, doesn't he?" I start. "Since you're A-team, he tells you you're the best of the best, right?"
"Go the fuck away."
"How about this," I jut in. I have to know. I have to know how far this goes. I thought it was just the four of us, but if there's more... "If I can make a shot from half-court, you talk to me."
"I guess she really is into you, Carter," another one snickers. "Fuckin' Uppities, man." I see the microphone patch on the arm of his jacket that looks like the Administrator's. We're on the same side, this is pointless. "How old are you even, lady? Messing around with a bunch of kids."
"Thirty-one, but the fact that you're allowed to wear your class patches tells me you're not a kid. Let me guess-" I point to the larger one. "You're the heavy. You, you're-" I squint at one of them who has burn marks on his hands. "You're either a demoman or a pyro, one of the two. Am I on the mark?"
He shoves his hands in his pockets. "Pyro."
"Bingo."
"Who the fuck are you?" The one with the microphone patch asks.
"Give me the ball, two-way street. I win, I tell you who I am, and then you hear me out."
One who wears glasses holds the ball, and he throws it over to me to keep his distance. I catch it, dribbling over to the center court and facing the hoop they were using. I haven't played in so long, much less done a trick shot. We'll see if I still have it in me. I exhale, still dribbling the ball. Lights hum and a fire detector chirps, indicating it needs new batteries. My hazy reflection in the floor stares back up at me, unsure of the chances of me making it.
The bleachers watch tensely, Adonebi still picking away at his lips as Kenyangi has transferred over to his lap. I look him in the eye and he looks hopeful that I'll do it. We haven't discussed it yet, but I'm sure we're both on the same track in terms of what my goal is.
I might overshoot, but I had a track record of undershooting, so it just might work out.
The ball is new; still brightly orange, and smelling of rubber. I feel the SPALDING letters on the side with my index finger as my knees bend, shifting onto my toes and bringing my hands down closer to my face. As I blink, my wrist tenses with force as my ankles strain when I jump. The ball flies out of my hand, and it arches, bouncing off of the rim and falling off to the side. I groan.
"Welp, guess we both lost something today," I suppose, going back to sit down with my group again. "Sorry for bothering you." Footsteps shuffle behind me.
"Hold on," the microphone kid is still their advocate. "Seriously, who the fuck are you?"
"I told you: Two-way street." I look back at the kids and Adonebi.
"Fine," he quickly advances. "What, what do you want to know?"
This is delicate. I don't have their trust, and there's a strong chance I could be wrong. But, on the same coin, this could be something huge. "Let's-- Let's go talk in the dayroom."
I walk around them and start for the double doors to leave Adonebi with the younger kids. He might ask them about it, I don't know, but it's best to keep the two age groups separated. They keep their distance behind me as I sit on a fold-out chair at one of the tables. They sit, too, and I dig into my pocket for my wallet and take out my TF Industries ID and slide it to the table. They pass it around.
"Miss Fredrickson. I work with Team Fortress and directly for the Administrator," I tell with tone.
"Helen's my great-great Aunt," the one with the microphone patch talks. "I'm Uriel."
"What do you do?"
"I'm an announcer, hence the microphone," he points to his patch. "I oversee battles when Helen can't and just yell stuff at the people participating."
"How old are all of you?"
"Sixteen through twenty, Ma'am." He got real pleasant once I told him what I do. "Is Mr. Fredrickson your brother?"
"Leo? Yeah, he's my little brother. So, do you know Mr. Porter?"
"Yeah," Uriel hesitantly agrees. "He got us on the basketball team."
"And you're all varsity?"
"Yeah."
I watch the pyro observe my card. "And... What did he tell you when he put you on the team?"
"You pretty much nailed it on the head," Uriel says. "We're the best of the best. Why else would he put us on that team?"
I can think of a few. "Porter used to be my guidance counselor at Beckett."
"And?"
"And that means I know a few things," I state, looking at a star etched into the table with a pair of scissors. I sniff and sit up, placing both hands on the table as my eyes wander to the heavy's. "I've been here longer than all of you obviously. Porter's lived here for a long time, he moved here when I was still in elementary school. I didn't know him until I got to high school. Freshman year, I was fourteen."
"Okay. Still have no clue what that has to do with us."
"He's a nice guy, isn't he?" I ask them. "A great guy, right? Acts like your cool uncle."
"Try dad," the one with glasses corrects. "Not that you'd know anything about that."
"Jim, shut the fuck up," the pyro scolds him and socks him in the shoulder.
"No, I know." I get my ID back. "He punishes you like a dad, too, if you don't listen to him." Jim's eyebrows drop. "Not that a dad should want that from his children anyway."
He pushes up his glasses. "What are you on about, broad?"
"The first time, he said he just lost his temper," I express. "He's sorry, he's begging for your forgiveness and promising it'll never happen again. He makes up for it by giving you something you want." All of them stare at me. "The second time, he finds a reason to justify why he was in the right and gives you something else that you want." I rub my arm. "The third time, he keeps telling you it's normal."
"You're wrong," Jim counters.
"He tells you not to tell anyone--"
"Shut up."
"'No one else would understand.'"
"Shut. Up."
"'It's in your best interest that I do this. I'm your future.'"
"Shut the fuck up," he exhales. It's Jim. Jim's their Adonebi.
"And then you start protecting your friends by taking on a bit more and more of the burden," I drone on. "You don't have to cover for him, you know."
"I'm not," Jim spits. "No one's covering for him because he didn't do anything."
I hum, brushing hair behind both of my ears. "How did you break your finger, Carter?"
"I slammed a door on it."
"And you?" I point to the one with an arm brace. "How'd that happen?"
"We were messing around, and I fell down the stairs at school because I missed my footing."
"Why do you walk with a limp, Uriel?"
He crosses his arms. "Manny hit me from the side because I'm post." He points to the heavy. "I landed on my hip."
"Accident prone, aren't we?"
"That doesn't prove anything." Jim starts peeling his fingernails.
"It does-" I stand up, leaning over the table and staring down Jim, "because my friends and I used the exact same excuses. We got caught on doors all the time. We got into fights all the time. We fell down stairs all the time. My parents just stop taking me to the hospital after a while because what would be the point if I get another concussion at basketball practice the very next week?" He stands up and grabs my collar, Uriel and Manny pushing him off.
"Hey, that's a woman!" Uriel reminds him.
"She doesn't know what she's talking about, stupid ass bitch," Jim sneers.
I back up from the table. "I do, but it's alright.I'll leave you alone. If you want to contact me, do it through the Administrator."
"What do you even want with Porter?" Manny questions.
"I'm here for work, that's all."
"He's out of town anyway," Carter adds.
Uriel buttons up his jacket. "He comes back tonight."
"He does?"
"God, bro, when were you gonna tell us?"
"Never tell us shit."
He twitches his fingers. "He called me this morning, his trip in Brazil got cut short. But he's never done anything to us, I promise."
"He takes us to different cities on the weekends every other month to get away from our parents, he's cool."
A cleaning cart rolls in, my brother pushing it. He hasn't been eating, his face is sunken in. He wears his hair in cornrows and he has on a grey jumpsuit with stains on it. "So he takes you out of town?"
"Yes, Mr. Fredrickson," Jim nods. Leo probably got them to respect him by beating them at basketball and giving them tips.
"He runs his mouth a lil-" he takes a spray bottle from the cart and rag from his back pocket, spraying down the table, "he gets ya talking, man. You tell him that you see him as a father or a brother or some shit, and then he says he sees you as his son or his little brother. He's always calling you a boy. He starts letting you call him by his first name." The table jiggles as he scrubs off as much as he can. My stomach gurgles. Hellfire burns me inside. He was doing worse. "Then he tells you he'll make you a man since no one else was around to do it."
He did worse than beat them up.
Jim reels. "It's just until I graduate," he mutters. "By the end of the year, I'm moving away."
"Not the end of the year," I impart. "I'm fixing that tonight."
"What do you...? Oh." Uriel runs his finger over his embroidered patch.
"I've gotta go." I push in my chair, Leo and I not even looking at the other. I go back to the gym to find that everyone's gone. I go to the front, Adonebi standing out front with my purse in his hand. He hands it back to me, telling me that the triplets' mom took them all home. "He comes back home tonight."
"We still have one more stop to make today," Adonebi reminds me. I frown. "I don't want to go either."
"Can we go tomorrow instead?"
"You sure?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Okay. Well, your phone rang, so I answered. I have to go meet Siti at the Carey Hilliards. Miss Pauling is coming."
"I know."
"Samahani."
"Usijali kuhusu hilo."
The bus screeches to a halt, and Adonebi walks off. "Be careful."
"Uh-huh," I nod. I'm scared, angry, and hurt. The longer I stay here, the more I remember things. Memories I had once intentionally suppressed are unraveling. There's a convenience store around the corner. I should pick up a few things. The bus leaves when I indicate I'm not getting on. Carter and Uriel come out to catch me, the Announcer nervously speaking.
"What you said... You're... Killing him?"
"Do you want the Engineer answer or the normal answer?"
"Engineer...?"
"Nobody likes 'im, shoulda been shot by now," I rub my arm as I watch the bus drive away. "You still in school?"
"Yeah," Carter answers. "We go to Turbine."
"My kid goes to Metalworks," I note, turning to them. "They'll kick your ass at Nationals."
"Yeah right," he heaves.
I stretch my arms out. "Eh, dunno, they're a bunch of lunatics in the Badlands. You know my last name, you know who to look for." I step onto the street. "Phone's attached to my hip. Let me know how you're all doing once in a while, hmm?"
"Sure," Uriel complies. I hear muffled and embarrassed apologies, but I wave over my shoulder to acknowledge it's not necessary as I keep moving forward.
The same gas station I went to when I was on my way to the roller rink as a teenager appears. Not too much surprise would be had if Fernando still worked there, always asking if we saw anything interesting in the cinemas recently despite us never having one. It was us making fun of how more well-off would converse with each other. They'd never ask you how you were doing, they'd always ask what you were doing with your money. 'Read any new books lately?' 'Hey, saw the new paint job on your car!'
We thought we were so clever, making fun of the bourgeoise when that's just how normal people born into that lifestyle communicated. It's different for everyone, but I didn't know that at the time. I was so hateful and spiteful about everything that was foreign to me if it had anything to do with the Bookies. Even though I was one of the more literate people on my street, I still hated the fact I could do it. I hated that I was smart. I wanted to be street smart, rather. Widen the divide between us. That's what they wanted.
It's nineteen-seventy-fucking-one. About to be two. Things have changed, dreams were spoken, people were shot. And yet we still have a long way to go.
I walk right past the store and keep going down the street to the church. I don't know why I wanted to go to church so badly. I guess hearing my neighbors criticize my parents for not letting 'Jesus save [their] children' was enticing. I felt like I didn't deserve saving, and I sure as hell made the conscious decision not to go once my parents did disappear. Maybe He would've saved my life, I don't know.
The splintered white front door is locked tight, so I supposed I'm not sitting in any pews today. There's always still the back that's open twenty-four-seven-three-hundred-sixty-five days a year. Going back up the sidewalk and casing the edge of the building, the back gate is open. A car was going fast enough to just continue down the street, but it slows down once I pop out around the corner.
Just leave me alone.
I have people to beg forgiveness from.
Neuro and Miss Pauling get out and approach me. "What do you want?"
"We've been looking for you but because you never tell anyone where you are--" Miss Pauling starts.
"I no longer have a phone. I don't work with or for you anymore."
She pushes up her glasses. "Still..." None of what she says makes sense. I can't tell if this is some long-winded prank that she's trying to pull because Scout and I told her she wasn't funny over the phone after she tried to make a joke once.
I look behind me. "I have something to do first. I'm no longer on the clock, I'm just a crazy woman who's killing a guy now."
"It can wait," she says, but Neuro furrows her brows and corrects her.
"To you, not to her."
"Sandra--"
I don't want to do this again. "What was the term you use, Miss Pauling?" She lifts an eyebrow. "'Subpar parenting for below-average kids?'"
"Fredrickson, I said that out of anger, I didn't mean it. I should be ap--"
"Neuro, can you wait here?" I request. "I have to go show Miss Pauling she's right." The both of them decompress, softening up at the connection I made for them. "That I am 'selfish,' and that I am just a jumbled up mess of 'degeneracy and disappointment.'"
She sucks in air. "You don't have to do this, Fredrickson. I'll give you your time. I'm sorry."
I grab her wrist and tug her along, yanking her forward and grabbing onto the back of her collar to move her along faster. My feet move with purpose and determination, my strides widening to get to where I need to go. I pass by Tebu, and I'm sure he understands that I'm leaving him be for today. Wilted flowers and empty glass vases that are knocked over onto the grass, grimy because they haven't been washed. More tombstones and plaques than what should be are left devoid of a name. Only years. Some are rougher looking than others. The grass is as green as it can be for winter. I finally stop, facing Miss Pauling.
"You said you met them," I state. "You said that you know what you're talking about because you met them."
"Fredrickson, I'm sorry."
"Who was never available to talk to you when you visited?" She keeps her lips sealed. "Now's the time to talk. Who was never at the house to meet you?"
"Sandro."
I jostle her and force her to look to the side. "Meet Alessandro Botticelli Fredrickson, my little brother."
She stands and stares, covering her mouth. "You always talk about him like--"
"Like he's alive?" I finish her thought. "He is alive. To me, he's alive." I let go of her. "That's why I got that job. That's why I was so persistent in getting work. I'm still taking care of three people. I have to pay his final expenses for him. I take care of three people. So, yeah, maybe I'm selfish because I used you to get work. Maybe all I do is cause problems for others since I took down half of the team with me and maybe I am the very vessel for degeneracy and disappointment because I can't hold down the job that required me to kill people and file papers, but don't you ever-" I grab her face, looking at her with the same anger in her eyes when she fired me, "call my parenting subpar for below-average kids. Don't tell me things I already know. You wouldn't even know a single percent of any of it. Of how I wake up in the morning knowing that I failed the greatest basketball player that I've ever known."
"Fredrickson, please, I'm sorry."
I look down at her. "Now imagine how many times I've woken up saying that to him." I point to his tombstone. "Every day of my life since April fourteenth, nineteen-sixty-seven."
"I'm sorry."
"Then earn it," I release her and turn to Sandro. "I'm earning his forgiveness by killing Francis Porter."
"Your contract?"
"God, is everything just business to you? Do you ever think about anything but work? It's not a contract. It never was. It's a rite of passage. It's his right, and I'm going to be the one to carry it out as a crazy lady off of a paycheck." I sit down on the bench that faces him, holding my purse on my lap. "Go away." She doesn't know if she should speak, and she decides against it. "And, Felicity," I vocalize, not looking at her. "I'd stay as far away as you can from us. Friendly reminder that Salvador killed a man in a truck stop bathroom with a gun he's not too sure on how to use."
She leaves with Neuro, and I take my time in gaining the strength to put this all to an end. For Sandro, most importantly, but for my friends and people I don't know. For me. Miss Pauling came back to get me an hour later, and I drove her to where she needed to go. I told her I had a plan, and she didn't question it past that. Neuro and Salvador sat in the back, and I drove the three of us to Porter's house. Salvador eventually tapped out. I don't think he wanted to watch me kill someone as he knew it wasn't going to be as simple as blowing one's brains out.
I picked the lock to the front door with a tension key and a bobby pin, pure degeneracy in action. I find it weird how Miss Pauling said that these are skills I'd need for the job back on the cruise. I've learned to let the hypocrisy go without mentioning it.
Once inside, I send Neuro upstairs. I had a feeling his wife was home. She can take care of her first. There's a recliner in the sitting room, and I turn the lights off again to make it seem as though nothing is wrong. I pull my gun out of the holster on my belt inside of my coat and sit it next to my thigh.
We wait.
Steps come up the porch stairs and angry cursing rattles from behind the door. He notices it's unlocked already. Maybe he knew his day of reckoning was to come. I know for a fact he won't expect it from me.
The door slowly pushes open, and he brings his suitcase inside. I reach over next to me, pull on the chain to turn on the lamp, and sit up in the armchair. A yellow hue illuminates the tiny area around us. It's just Porter and me. A frail, disgusting waste of space. Despite being between Pilot and Heavy's age, it's incredible how being a deplorable excuse of a human being speeds up a person's decomposition. Liver spots cover his arms and hands, speckling his face like freckles. He still has brown hair somehow, but it looks like it's falling out. He observes me and closes the door.
"Mr. Porter."
"Oh, you know you can call me Francis."
"I was raised to be respectful." I fold my legs and rest my forearms on the side of the chair. "I heard you were in Brazil."
"For a vacation. You didn't have to break into my home to wait for me." A grandfather clock chimes from somewhere in the house as he moves to the kitchen.
"Your wife let me in." My eyes follow him over. "Do you remember Siti?"
"Who?"
"Uba, Adonebi... Nyala."
"Oh, Stella, Ode, Aaron, and Nancy. Yes, I remember them."
"Their names are Siti, Uba, Adonebi, and Nyala."
"Now, we talked about the names--"
"Right, sorry, I forgot that you were too illiterate to read so you just phoned it in and said 'good enough,'" I scoff. "I bet you don't even remember my name."
"Monique? Meena?"
I roll my eyes. "And to think you used to say I was your favorite student."
He gasps. "Mona!"
"There's just so many of us that you lose count, huh? All of our names and faces blur together... You could never really tell us apart."
He's making something on the stove. Coffee, probably. "Don't be that way. I'm old, but I haven't lost it yet."
"Good," I nod. "So you remember everything you did to us then?"
"All of the counseling and running around and recommendation letter writing?" He puffs, running the sink. "That's still my job, I'd hope I remember."
"Oh, no, Mr. Porter. A lot more things happened in your office."
"Right, parent phone calls, disciplinary reports, probationary advocacy, juvenile write-ups. I think you can recall those."
"I was in there for failing my algebra test," I exhale.
"Right, right, and I promised not to tell your parents if you promised to retake it."
"So I retook it."
"And you passed. Then you never had to come to my office ever again."
"No!" I yell at him, shaking. "Don't twist the story, tell it right."I grip the handle. "You took advantage of me. I didn't have parents, and you used that against me."
He changes the topic. "But you've grown to be such a fine young lady."
"I'm a woman."
He peers at me from the kitchen. "Says who?"
I side-eye him. "The man I'm seeing."
That look. The fucking look. The one that Sniper gave. The one that Seylor gave me. This man did it first. "Alrighty if he says so."
"He does, and I'm sure he knows a whole hell of a lot more than you do."
"Hey, women don't use that language." He pours himself a mug, and I pull out my gun from beside my thigh. "Only children speak like that. You used to speak like that, and you were a rowdy child if I've ever seen one."
"So you acknowledge that I was a kid at the time?"
"You were acting like one as a young lady."
"What was I then? A young lady? A child?"
"Immaturely precocious, that's what you were." I shoot him in the leg.
"That's what all of us were to you, huh?"
"You shot me!"
"I can do worse." I stand up and walk over to the kitchen, spinning the revolver chamber until I pop it out and let all of the bullets fall out.
"Get away," he pants, dragging himself away from me. His back hits the cabinets and he reaches up for a kitchen knife. I pick up a bullet, reload, and shoot his arm.
"Stop moving." I pick up another bullet and spin the chamber three times until I cock it. "Right now, your wife is upstairs getting her organs harvested by one of my employees. She was killed in cold blood in her sleep."
"She was an old lady, she didn't do anything."
"Exactly, that's why we killed her." I pull the trigger. Blank. He quivers and swallows hard. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why?"
I pull the trigger again. Blank. I spin the barrel. "I... I don't know."
Blank. "Why?"
"You wouldn't tell," he flinches. Blank. "What were you going to do, tell your parents?" I holster my gun and pull surgical gloves out of my pocket. I grab a knife from the block. "None of you told."
"Not until now." I kneel down. "How many children do you have?"
"Three."
I gash his face down his cheek. "How many children do you have?" I ask again.
He takes a second to think. I stab his leg, and that seems to jog his memory as he yells. "Five."
"Say it," I raggedly exhale, slowly pulling the blade from flesh. "Say that you hurt me."
"I hurt you."
I show him my gun. "Do you want me to end it all? Right now?" He nods. I pull a chair from the kitchen table and watch him. His eyes plead for mercy. "You know, a lot of people did this. Just sat by and watched... You so severely need help, but you don't know how to call for it. You feel it right? The loneliness. The deafening silence?"
The clock ticks, and I spin the chamber. "My brother could've been a basketball player, you know. Both of them. They're phenomenal." I exhale gently. "Me? Oh, Lord. Who knows. I wanted to be a teacher once. I wanted to help others. But you ruined that for me. I could've been in politics. With debate club and all that? But being general, I could've graduated. Truly, I should leave you here, but I'm afraid someone's going to find you before you die."
He looks past me, gasping. "Medic, please. Doctor--"
Neuro has her ice chests, white coat drenched in blood. I look up at her. "All done?"
"Yes." The kettle on the stove starts to whistle. I stand up and turn off the stove, picking up the kettle.
"You won't tell anyone, right?" I press my foot down on his gunshot wound on his leg. He starts yelling. "No one would understand what we're doing, Porter. They'd all say it's wrong and inappropriate. Do you promise you won't tell? Tell someone and I could go to jail."
He starts crying, and I press my foot harder. "It's for your own good, Porter. I'm just looking out for you." He throws his head back in agony, and I pour the kettle down his throat. I spill it in his eyes, his nose. Steam lifts from his body as his skin sears. Neuro watches with her hands behind her back, watching the witch melt. I tug her sleeve. "Let's go."
She picks up her chests, and we waltz out the front door, getting into the car that Miss Pauling lent us. I drive, and Neuro sits next to me. She peels off her gloves glistening with blood and turns them inside out to keep the blood inside, then beginning to take off her husband's borrowed trench coat. I pull over into the gas station to let her shimmy out of his clothing. Once she's good to go, I drive around a little in the neighborhood to let off steam.
"Accomplice?" Neuro asks.
"Hmm?" I look at her and readjust myself in my seat before focusing on the road again.
"You knew that guy?"
"Kinda," I say. It gurgles inside of me. Like vomit and stomach acid will rise and burn my throat, pouring out my mouth and expelling the nastiness I feel inside. "Kinda."
"You were borderline ready to lose it," she continues. "And you mentioned that he did some shit to you."
I tighten my grip on the wheel and sniff. I haven't ever talked about it. Never once have I said a word. "Yeah."
"You don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to," she calmly tries to ease me as my back aches from being erect this entire time. "But I've seen this stuff before. More than I care to admit. Working this job makes you see things no human should ever see. But it's different when you're the one going through it. It doesn't make you up as a person, though--"
"You're damn right it doesn't," I muster with a cracking voice, breaking down. I've never told anyone. Not even Siti, and she was my best friend. We knew it was happening to each other, but I never told anyone how it made me feel. It's surreal. I served karma that he had coming for a long, long time. Sandro was my driving force alone, but the addition of how many groups it spans to this day? I thought it was just us. Just me, Nyala, Siti, Uba, and Adonebi. I thought we were just making a big deal out of nothing. I never once said a word to anyone. "Seventeen years of this shit, Neuro, you're damn right I wasn't made from it."
"He hit you."
"Yes."
"He took advantage of you."
"No." I sniff. "I let it happen."
"You're a victim, Accomplice. He made you a v--"
"No," I firmly assert, Neuro's eyebrows peeking with the approach I take. "He didn't make me shit. I'm not a victim, I'm not a survivor, I'm not shit."
"How?"
"I didn't persevere, I didn't do any of that. I wallowed in it. I'm nothing to write home about." I sniff. I've never told anyone. No one knows, not even Salvador. He doesn't know it happened to me. Talking about it feels wrong. Like I shouldn't be saying a thing about it. "It doesn't matter, all it did was fuck me over in the end. If I wasn't such a bitch about it, I would've finished high school. I do everything wrong now because of it."
She twiddles his thumbs. "That's not true. You're a caretaker and a friend. You're my friend." Neuro is the one person I'd ever tell. She's like a laser-protected safe at the bottom of the Bermuda triangle. I trust her enough to tell her that. I don't know why. She just gives me that feel. "Did he touch you?"
"He beat the shit out of me," I chuckle. Now, I just shoot people who hit me. "Other people got it worse than I did, so I shouldn't be complaining."
"That doesn't account for shit," she says.
"Maybe." I won't cry over it for long. "Can we stop talking about it?"
"If you want to."
I turn on the radio just to get noise in. "Thank you." I stop at a red light. "Can I tell you something else?" She nods, and I feel silly for saying it out loud. "I love Engie a lot."
"Ooh, I know."
"Is it that obvious?"
"Fuckin-- yes. Bestie, he's in love," she teases. I laugh a little, thinking only of Engie and getting a hug from him. Bestie. She considers me a friend.
I consider her one, too.