Black Sheep

“You look like dog shit,” Fletcher says as she plops down in the chair across the desk from me.

“Thanks,” I reply, watching my pen as I tap the paper with dots of ink. “I feel like dog shit, so it’s probably fitting.”

It’s been four days since Ogden. I haven’t seen or heard from Bria since. I’ve hardly been able to get out of bed. I’ve barely eaten. Every hour that passes scours my soul raw.

It doesn’t get better. It only gets worse.

Fletcher is the only person who knows we imploded. I guess she’s the only one who really knew anyway. She knows there was a fight and we haven’t talked, that Bria disappeared, and that I drove away and left her there in the woods or wherever the fuck she went. I fucking left her there. With bears.

The rational part of my brain says that Bria did reveal herself to be a serial fucking murderer, and she’s probably just fine.

But the larger, louder part of me, the man who’s still in love and heartbroken, drowns in a well of guilt that only seems to deepen.

You abandoned her, I berate myself. You promised you’d love her. You promised she could trust you. And the first chance she did you fucking left her. 

You’re no better than the people who raised her. 

I drop my pen and drag my hands down my face as the same cyclical thoughts play round and round in my head. It’s a battle of secrets and lies. Truth and love. Fear and hope and loss. I don’t even know which sides are which, or who’s fighting who, or if any of them are winning. I only know I’m fucking miserable, and no matter how hard I try to push it down and rise above it, I feel at the core of me that it’s wrong. It’s wrong to be without Bria.

“Why don’t you call her?” Fletcher says as I rest my forehead on my palms and stare at my desk.

“No.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because,” I say, sitting back to look at Fletch as a frustrated sigh billows past her lips. I would give anything to tell her what happened, but I can’t. The thought of Bria being arrested or possibly killed because of the words that come out of my mouth makes me physically sick. But I at least have to get closer to telling her the truth. I need someone to set me right, because I’ve been trying without any success. “There are like…laws—”

“Oh my fucking God, Elijah. Fuck the rules. Jesus—”

“We’re talking about serious rules, Fletcher.”

“Sure,” she says with a dramatic eye roll, pinning me with her crystalline glare. “What, she didn’t cross at the crosswalk? Boo fucking hoo. Call her.”

“It’s more serious than that.”

“What, she sacrificed babies to Satan?”

“No—”

“Committed war crimes?”

“Fletch—”

“Just. Fucking. Call. Her.”

“Don’t you care? If she was like, I dunno, running around stealing cars or robbing banks or killing people, wouldn’t you draw a line there somewhere?”

“Not really,” Fletch says with a shrug, shaking her head. “Actually, if she does any of those things, I’ll probably like her more. She’d be a super hot car thief.”

I groan and toss a crumpled piece of paper at Fletch, which she catches and whips back at me, pinging it off my forehead. “I work in the field of forensic fucking psychology, Fletcher.”

“Ohhhh, I see. I get it. You’re pissed you didn’t spot some rule-breaking, law-fucking behavior earlier, Mister Fancy Forensics Man. But you seem to be missing something critical.”

“What’s that, oh sage one?”

“The why.” Fletcher sits forward in her chair, regarding me with a long, fierce look. “And don’t give me some shit that she duped you. That’s bull. I think she showed you exactly who she was all along. She showed you she was dark. Bold. Smart. Ruthless. And you love it. You love her. All of her.” A faint, melancholy smile passes Fletcher’s lips as she watches my internal struggle dance across my face. “Let me put it to you simply. Are you miserable because of whatever rules Bria has broken?”

“I’m not thrilled about them,” I admit, “but no.”

“Are you miserable because you want to be with her, but you’re not?”

I nod. We sit and watch one another in silence as I process Fletcher’s words and everything I feel. She’s right, as much as a small part of me hates to admit it. Bria did show me who she was. I did choose to love her not just despite her darkness, but because of it. Is what I have with Bria perfect? No. Can I live without her?

I’ve been trying, but I don’t think I can.

I let out a deep sigh. “I don’t know how to fix it, Fletch,” I whisper.

“Pulling your head out of your ass and talking to her is a good start. Call her.”

My phone vibrates facedown on my desk and we glance at one another, Fletcher’s eyebrows rising in question. It would not surprise me at all if Bria’s been listening to us on some hidden camera this entire time, and when I flip it over, I expect to see her name on the screen. But it’s an Unknown Caller.

I swipe to accept the call.

“Hello?”

“B-bria,” a vaguely familiar voice grits out on the other end.

I meet Fletcher’s hopeful eyes and shake my head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where—”

“B-Bria,” the man says, his voice insistent. Maybe even desperate.

“Samuel? How did you get this…never mind. I’m sorry, I haven’t spoken to her in a few days.”

“In t-trouble,” Samuel says. “C-cabin. B-berger.”

Fuck.

Fuck. 

I’m going to lose her. 

I burst from my chair and whip my jacket from the coat hanger, Fletch matching my pace as I stride from the office. “I’m on my way. Send me your number. I’ll call you when I get close.”

Samuel disconnects as Fletch and I jog down the hall. “What’s going on?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I reply as we start down the stairs. Dread is spilling down my spine in a cold wave. My ribs absorb every unrelenting hammer of my heart. “Something’s happened at the cabin. I need to get to my bike.”

“I’ll get you to the garage,” Fletch says.

A moment later we’re bursting through the door, running to her car.

Fletch takes the streets as fast as she can, weaving through traffic as she quizzes me about what could be wrong. The honest answer is, I don’t know. No details come from Samuel except for a dropped pin and his number. I save it to my contacts and within fifteen minutes of leaving the campus we’re at my garage, saying our goodbyes.

I ride harder than I ever have before. And still it feels too slow.

The BMW leans around curves and zips through the straights. I duck in and out of traffic. I even pass a cop who knows better than to bother trying to follow. He probably just hopes he won’t have to be the one to scrape me off the asphalt.

When I’m getting close to the cabin, I call Samuel on my helmet Bluetooth. He answers on the first ring.

“I’m a minute or two out,” I say.

“P-prae…t-torian g-gone,” he says. “Can’t s-see her.”

He must be looking at security cameras.

“Did you see what happened?”

“N-no. Bria s-stopped…m-me…” Samuel lets out a frustrated growl on the other end. “T-took… l-long…to g-get…b-back in.”

“It’s okay, I think I’ve got you. She shut you out of the system?”

“Y-yes.”

My heart plummets. Bria didn’t want him to see because she didn’t think she’d make it.

I turn down the gravel drive with a fist lodged down my throat, choking off my air. I slide to a stop and pull off my helmet, switching the call to my phone as I pull it from the mount. “I’m here. Where do I go first?”

“G-garage.”

I run to the building and open the door slowly, listening for any sounds. It’s still and silent. There’s a Suzuki bike and an Audi, with no signs of Bria.

“Go t-to the…s-shelf. S-second…d-drawer. On l-left.”

I’m there in a heartbeat, pulling open the drawer to find a Beretta handgun, a tactical-looking pistol with extra ammunition stacked in the drawer.

“D-do you know?”

“How to use it?” I ask, checking the gun before gathering a handful of magazines and stuffing them in my pockets. “Yes.”

“G-good. H-house.”

I leave the garage and run toward the house, entering with the gun raised and ready to shoot. I check every room, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary upstairs. But that all changes when I get downstairs.

The far end of the hall is covered with blood, the door to the outside left ajar. The blood is smeared across the floor, spattering up the walls in crimson streaks and dots. But there’s no body.

“Where are they?”

“P-prae-t-torian. T-took them. I w-watched.”Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“You didn’t see Bria when they did?”

“N-no.”

I stop at the pool of blood and look through the door toward a den that faces the lake. There’s more blood in that room, the glass stained with it over a series of impact marks.

“Bulletproof glass?” I ask as I walk toward it.

“Yes.”

I look through beyond the cracks toward the trajectory of the phantom shots. “The boathouse.”

“G-go.”

I’m already running back toward the hallway and the open door before he even finishes the instruction, barreling toward the narrow shed. There’s a patch of blood on the ground, but again, no body. I open the door and check inside, calling Bria’s name this time, but the only answer is the waves lapping against the pillars.

“Nothing,” I say, frustration and fear burning in my throat.

“The d-dock.”

I head back out of the boathouse and jog toward the dock. Just beyond the first planks is a speckled streak of blood. There’s a bloody handprint next to it. I kneel down, laying my palm next to it. The print is just the edge of the palm and the little finger, but I can already tell it’s hers.

“Bria was here,” I say, following the dotted trail of blood across the planks. Some of the boards are freshly marked with bullet holes. I look up toward the water and lurch to a stop near the end of the dock, unable to move.

Tears sting my eyes and crest my lashes, spilling down my cheeks. I press my hand to my forehead, wishing I could crush this moment right out of my skull.

My birthday gift to Bria, the cherry bonsai, sits at the end of the dock, coated in a spattering of blood. I can see the spray from where she must have been shot when she was almost to the lake, the line of it pointing toward the open water.

“D-do you s-see her? K-kaplan?”

I swallow, shaking my head even though he might not be watching. “No. But she’s been shot twice. Once at the start of the dock and again at the end.”

“D-do you see her? In w-water?”

“No, no. I don’t see her,” I say, scanning the water for irregularities on the rippling surface. There’s nothing. No scrap of clothing, no hand reaching out for help, no body bobbing on the waves.

“Then s-she m-might have m-made it.”

I glance back down at the end of the dock and rein in a sob as I turn in a circle, looking for any sign of Bria in the forest or on the shore. “It’s a lot of blood, Samuel. I don’t know—”

“You d-don’t k-know Bria. S-she can m-make it. S-she w-won’t…give up-p. S-so you don’t give up-p,” he says, his voice dark and menacing. I hear the killer in him. The man without the mask. But I hear the mentor in him too. The protector. He’s done what no one else has, what I thought I couldn’t do. He’s stayed with her no matter the darkness. And this time, he won’t be the only one.

I wipe my eyes and take a deep breath. If he’s right, every second might be the one in which she’s dying. I need to move.

“Send me a pin,” I say.

I cast a final glance toward the lake, then run to my bike and leave.