Sliding into my car without a penny to my name, I turn my key, then adjust my mirror, looking at myself for the first time in maybe years. I stare into my own eyes and try to recognize something, and for once, I think I just might. My lip curls on one side, and I look back down, tugging my beanie on my head, my smile growing as I think about what I’m racing home to, shifting into drive and grinning all the way through the warehouse district.
I stop at the last light before I leave the shadows of the delivery bays—between two of the largest shipment buildings—and I think about calling Emma. I leave my phone in my pocket, deciding surprising her will be even sweeter. When I glance back into my review mirror, I see the swell of bright headlights racing toward me, and I don’t have time to do anything but prepare my body for the blow.
The large SUV hauls through me, smashing my back-end, shattering glass, and pushing my car into the intersection—a passing car clips my front bumper, spinning me into the pole at the side of the road.
My arms are cut to shit, and my lip is bleeding badly, but my bones don’t seem to be broken. I’m still whole. I kick at the door, the smell of gasoline rich. As I’m stepping out, I look toward the spot of the impact, the crushed SUV still revving, but the driver no longer inside. My head is ringing, and my body is tingling with adrenaline, but I somehow am aware enough to notice that both doors to the front seat are open. Two people were inside, and I have a strange sensation that they meant to hit me.
I wobble on my unsteady legs, and the faint sound of someone calling my name tries to force its way through the rush of blood passing over my eardrums. I spin in all directions, my head soon dizzy from my movement. I find the two people from the SUV—each grabbing one of my arms and kicking my legs out from under me, dragging me closer to the car that hit my front end.
“What the fuck, man!” I kick and jerk, but their hold is tight, and their size is nearly double mine. They stretch my body in opposite directions, kicking at my legs until they’re able to drag me to the back end of the black Mercedes that hit me the second time.
“Always so unwilling, Harper. Always so quick to say no—to put up a fight. You never could just do what you were supposed to.” His voice reaches down my throat and through my ears, strangling me…before seeping through the rest of my body and killing my spirit, one cell at a time.
I left Lake Crest when I was seventeen years old, never formally bidding farewell to the man who’d broken me more than any tragedy in my life had been able to before. I opted out of my exit interview, knowing nobody really cared to listen about my tales of corruption or reports of abuse. Instead, I let my last memory of that man be the beating he gave me and the round burn of his cigar on my wrist.
Standing before me, his hair grayed, but his body the same—his height somehow more than mine despite his age—I’m instantly filled with terror, and I fight to run, pulling and kicking against the beasts he’s brought with him to hold me here for him to torture. I’ve been here, in this exact position with this man, so many times before.
“Graham was always such a good boy. He and I, we’ve had a great business relationship since he left my school. He saw the potential for our mutual gain—my…ability to persuade people for him, to make his indiscretions vanish. And we’ve made loads of money in return. I could hardly believe it when he mentioned your name a few weeks ago. What was it he called you? Oh yes, this nuisance that he wanted me to make disappear. But I don’t do that anymore, Andrew. I don’t make people disappear. I’ve…changed.”
His grin is that of the devil, his mustache thin and his teeth yellow from nicotine. The acid in my stomach threatens to come up, so I will it down. I won’t be weak in front of him. I’m weak for no one.
“So that’s how Graham knew I went to Lake Crest,” I say, spitting blood to the side, the spray of it hitting one of his beasts, who jerks me harder; I smirk, pleased that I’ve pissed him off.
“He was two years before you. Drugs…just like you,” he says, and I jerk at the comparison. I’m nothing like Graham—not then, not now.
“I thought you would be another one I could trust, just like him. That’s what I did at that shit-for-nothing school; I made apprentices, partners in my…business. But you were too stupid, weren’t you?” His brow lowers, and he reaches into his side pocket, pulling out a lighter before moving to the breast pocket of his jacket for a cigar. I wince at the sight, my wrist burning from the memory.
“I’m not weak, like Graham. That’s all,” I say, the blood from my lip choking me again. I lean forward and spit, turning to the side and grinning at the guy I spit at before. “That better?” I say, an eyebrow raised.