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Goddammit, I want them to fight me. Throttle me. Tonight of all nights they leave me unscathed and I need the pain. Fuck, I’m not right in the head. Then again, what’s new?
“Fight me, dammit. I’m not gonna do what you want, whatever bullshit robbery or whatever it is you’re planning. No fucking way. Go to hell.”
“Then why are you still here, Jones?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why haven’t you killed yourself already?” Ed asks and everything shuts down. I’m vaguely aware they’re finally fighting back, ignoring Ed’s presumed orders to leave me in peace so we can talk. “What do you have left, if not your cruelty? Nobody and nothing, that’s what. You’re Jasper Jones’s son, his disciple, his successor. If you won’t take the throne, then I will.”
He’s insane. Dangerous. If he’s serious about doing whatever the hell he’s thinking about starting.
And that’s when he nods at his friends and finally they pile on top of me, beating me up, kicking me about, roughing me up just enough to make sure I’ll feel it in the days to come.
But although I asked for it, for the pain, by this point I barely feel anything. Such a waste of a good beating. My mind’s gone again, back to the shadows, my body’s numb. By the time they get off me and I limp down the main street, in the vague direction of the garage, curious eyes following my unsteady progress, all I can feel is emptiness. I’m back in prison.
“Why don’t you kill yo
urself?” ask the voices of the other inmates in my memory. “What do you have to live for? You’re done.”
But Luna...
“Check out. Find peace. You know you want it.” Faces leering down at me. Mocking me because I did think about checking out. “Fucking pussy. Cunt. Kill yourself now.”
Ah fuck. I start to run to outrun the voices in my head, even if I know it’s impossible.
***
Home sweet home.
I curse under my breath as I unlock the garage padlock, sweat running down my back, my temples, into my eyes. Not from running, no.
Why don’t you die already? the voices jeer. You’re a dead man walking, Ross Jones. Son of a serial killer. Did you have a hand in doing your old lady in? Did you know where your dad liked to bury them? Did you dance on their grave? You got nothing to live for, and you know it.
Luna said—
You know it, Ross. It’s your doing. You fucked everything up, your whole life long.
Fuck.
I head straight to the small office and retrieve a half-empty bottle of scotch from under a cupboard. Dad’s stash. I avoided it for a while, but then I thought, what the hell. I figure it’s the least my old man owes me. Not like he’s gonna be needing it where he is now, in the slammer. It’s good Scotch and it goes down like fire with a smooth aftertaste. It relaxes the muscles in my shoulders.
Sends my thoughts into a deeper spin.
Nothing shows you the error of your ways better than a fucking mirror held up to your face. My dad. Then prison. I saw different versions of myself, different outcomes. I saw my futures laid out in a row, none of them good. I saw my dad’s face looking back at me and it fucking terrified me. I don’t want to be him.
But maybe that’s exactly who I am.
I was planning to work on the car brought in for repairs when Luna and I were so rudely interrupted. I look at my bike, remember kissing Luna there. Everywhere I look, everything I do reminds me of her, and something dark comes over me.
Oh, I try to fight it. Been fighting it all my life. Like a thorn, it keeps snagging at me, making me bleed, and now it just won’t let go.
Swearing, I stride past the bike and go up the ladder to the roof, intending to finish the bottle.
Banish the ghosts. Breathe fresh air.
The sky looks so close from up here. I stand on the sloping tin roof, rusted in places, faintly illuminated by the full moon and the street lamp right below, reflections of light.
I take a swig from the bottle, and close my eyes.
