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COLLINS
How did we end up here?
I’d asked myself that question several times over the last ten months, after our parents were murdered and my brother, Kyle, was shot. I say murdered because the scene I came home to would never be misconstrued as an accident. Nobody accidentally trips into a chair and has the back of their head blown off.
Just saying.
Finding my parents' bodies, put on display as they were, the life drained from their eyes, played on repeat in my mind every day. I found my father slumped in his chair, blood pooling around his feet along with brain matter and bone splattered against the glass wall behind him. I’d located our mother in her tub, shot between the eyes, frozen in a state of shock and fear. Her blood turned the clear water crimson.
The day of the incident had started out like any other for our family. My brother called me early in the morning, reminding me of our free summer vacation, which meant doing whatever we wanted for as long as we wanted. I laughed at his excitement. Who’d have thought a sixteen-year-old would want to hang outwillinglywith his twenty-one-year-old sister?
By nightfall, I paced a derelict emergency room whose staff thankfully didn’t ask too many questions as long as I paid in cash. The right thing for both of us to do would have been to wait on police. However, we didn’t know who killed our parents or why and as I was getting my brother out of his closet, where I found him, we’d been spooked by a noise in the house. Our survival instincts kicked in, and neither one of us wanted to stick around to see who or what still lurked in our home.
From then on, we laid low.
We took some money from our father’s safe, and the car I didn’t think anyone would miss, since we had seven of them. Yes, the police would know I’d been there, but what happened from there, not so much—or at least I hoped so. I’d left my car out in front of the house when I arrived, excited to greet everyone, knowing I’d move it later. Once I witnessed the grizzly scene inside our home, I’d been careful. Anything I touched, I wiped down. Anywhere I stepped, I made sure not to tamper with the evidence.
No way in hell I’d take the fall for this. Obviously, thinking about it for the last ten months gave me a little more perspective. I had an alibi for where I was, but police wouldn’t give a shit about that. All they cared about most of the time was finding a suspect to pin the charge on. Everything else came out in a trial.
Again, farcical bullshit.
“Do you ever wonder if we made the right choice?” Kyle stared out the windshield at the small service plaza where we’d stopped.
I had.
Every day.
From the minute we left the emergency room, until the moment we pulled into the gas station we were at now, we’d been on the run. We never stayed more than a week or two in one location, and we were running out of money. Even with all the ideas we came up to make some extra cash, none of them worked. The minute we settled on a spot, we had to leave because someone was following us.
Yes, I know how paranoid that sounded. However, after waitressing for a small diner for two weeks, making money under the table, the owner and his wife were killed. And again, I was the one who found the bodies. After that, I swore I’d never look for work again. Stupid, really, because sooner rather than later, we were going to be out of funds and out of time. We were running on desperation and fear and both would wind up getting us killed.
We had to find some place safe to lie low. I’d never be able to solve the mystery of who killed our parents on my own, but turning ourselves in seemed counterintuitive for our plight. Then, I saw an ad for a tutoring position. I didn’t go to college to become a teacher, per se. Far from it, to be honest. But I could fake it, right? I was only a year away from graduating. How hard could it be?
“If you mean, should we have stuck around? Sometimes. On days like these.” I wondered what would have happened to us if we’d called the police and given a statement. Especially with as many times as we’d been tracked, no matter if we didn’t have our phones or computers or anything with GPS—including selling my father’s car for a junker in a shady as fuck deal. “Then I remember what you looked like when I opened your closet door, and I understood, right then, deep down, we’d made the right choice.”
It might have been the harder choice, but whoever was after us wouldn’t stop because of the police. In fact, if they believed us and didn’t arrest me, they’d have plastered our faces all over social media and news outlets, putting a bigger target on our backs—not that the marks weren’t huge already. We were missing and/or in danger. Whoever wanted us dead would have had an easier time accomplishing their goalifwe went public.
Period.
“Come on, let’s get some breakfast.” We were down to our last bit of money. I hoped, if I got this job with Miceli Daidone, I could replenish our supply and we could stop running. I knew Mr. Daidone. Well, let me rephrase that. I’d seen him at a few parties when I was younger. At one time, he’d been a client of my father’s or maybe an associate?. I can’t remember. Anyway, he ran some kind of fortune five hundred business with a swank building in the heart of the city. He was all over the news as well, going to charity galas and auctions. When I met him once upon a time, he’d been married. His wife was pregnant, and they were expecting a little girl.
From what I remembered, he was handsome. Debonair. He wore a suit better than most guys—men. His features were sharp. Bold. His dark brown eyes carried a myriad of secrets he’d never willingly tell. As a child, I had a crush on him.Stupid pre-teen years. He was gorgeous—the embodiment of power and grace. Of what ‘cool,’ should be. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one who held him in high esteem. Since our families ran in the same social circles, I’d heard rumors about his proclivities and the trail of lovers he’d left behind. Most of the women were petty, others were grateful.
Whether the other rumors about him were true, I didn’t know or care.
Nor would I be finding out.
Admit it, Stephanie, you’re a little curious about the Royal Anarchists...Not today, Satan. I wouldn’t go down that rabbit hole. Once I did, I might chicken out, and Kyle and I would be sitting ducks. Better to be oblivious than knowledgeable, particularly with the RA.
“Do you think I can rehab my arm soon? This shit sucks.” Kyle rubbed his arm, wincing with the pain as we started for the entrance of the convenience store. It was still cold in the mornings, though summer was quickly approaching. Because of our circumstances, I hadn’t been able to send him for physical therapy and neither one of us had any clue which exercises would work to strengthen his muscles or, if anything, would even work with the type of damage he sustained.
“Maybe? I hope so.” I frowned, grabbing us both a pre-made latte from the cheap machine and danishes. “Once I get the job, we’ll have to budget it in.”
I hated denying my brother anything. He was still a kid, and he should be more worried about who his date to prom would be than how we would make it through another day. Kyle should be writing essays for college and planning for his future, not wondering if he’d ever get to use his arm again.
“Sure.” He went toward the bathrooms while I paid.
