AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Leo and I watchedFrankensteinevery Halloween when we were kids. We’d come in from trick-or-treating and take over the coffee table in front of the TV, saying the dialog along with the movie while we engaged in high-stakes candy negotiations. I could wrangle two Snickers for every Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup; Leo liked them that much.
Now, my brother flops onto the couch, stretching his legs in front of him and balancing his bowl of popcorn on his chest. His feet are bare, and I remember how filthy they were when Trap brought him to the gallery. Leo’s soles are pink now, but I can see thick callouses on his heels and toes.
Just like I can see the scar on his right cheek, the white ring where someone burned him. And I can see his poorly healed broken nose. He used to snore when we were kids, but he outgrew it. I wonder if he has trouble breathing at night now.
Telling myself not to stare, I sit at the other end of the couch. I move a lot more gingerly than Leo does. My butt really hurts from the lashes Trap gave me. I shift a few times, unable to find a comfortable position.
If Leo notices, he doesn’t say a word. Instead, he stares at the TV like he’s just been brought to life by his own lightning strike. He shovels popcorn into his mouth by the fistful.
I think about Trap. Has he made it out of Delaware yet? Is the traffic bad on the New Jersey Turnpike? What if there’s an accident? Will the cops arrest him if they find the syringes in his pocket?
A slow ache leaks behind my eyes. I rub my temples, trying to make it go away.
“It’s alive!” Leo shouts.
I’m startled, missing my cue as the monster awakens on the evil doctor’s table. Leo shoots me a sideways glance; we’re supposed to say the lines together. Whatever he sees in my face makes him study me even closer.
“What?” I ask, blushing. I wonder if he can guess what Trap and I did in the gallery.
“Nothing,” he says, but his eyes narrow.
His hair is so short I can still see the tracks of scars on his scalp. Put a couple of bolts on his neck, and he could be the monster on the TV.
Things don’t end well for the creature in the movie.
Once again, I think about all the plans I had for my brother, the table he was strapped to, the room I’d prepared to hold him for weeks. He doesn’t know what I meant to do. He has no idea how I planned to torture him. The ache behind my eyes starts to pulse in time with my heartbeat.
“Hey,” I say, digging into his ribs with my elbow. “Pause the movie. I need to go potty.”
Potty. Like we’re five years old.
Leo looks at me like I’m nuts. I realize the monster on TV is about to kill its first victim. It’s weird for me to take a break now.
Well, this entire night is weird. The man I love is heading north to murder our enemies. I’m pretending like the last three years never happened. I’m half-blind from the headache lancing the backs of my eyes.
Leo runs his hands through his too-short hair, but he picks up the remote and pauses the movie. “Down the hall,” he says. “Through the bedroom.”
I suck air through my teeth as I stand, countering the throb of my bruised bottom. “Don’t even think about touching the Snickers,” I say, nodding toward the bag of candy.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he grumbles, but he grins.
Leo’s bed is unmade, which isn’t a surprise. He’s left a couple of T-shirts on the floor, tangled with some underwear. In the bathroom, streaks of toothpaste paint the sink. The toilet seat is up.
I close the lid and start to sit down, but my butt reminds me to avoid the hard surface. Instead, I stand in front of the mirror. I take my phone out of my pocket, to see if Trap has left a message. Of course he hasn’t. Trap doesn’t have his phone. He doesn’t have anything that will identify him, in case something goes horribly, drastically wrong.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I tell myself not to picture the pink scar on Trap’s biceps, the gunshot wound he got retrieving Leo. I don’t want to imagine what could happen to him tonight. How much worse it might be.
My headache marches down my spine. Shoving my phone back in my pants, I open the medicine cabinet, looking for something to beat back the pain.
There’s a bottle of Advil, just what I need. Behind it—almost blocked by a tube of toothpaste, by a razor, by a box of Band-Aids—is a plastic bag. I recognize the tiny slips of paper inside. Each one has a cartoon drawing of an explosion and a bright red word: Crash.
As I stare, vomit rises in the back of my throat. I swallow hard and grip the sink. I force myself to take deep breaths, because I honestly believe I might faint.
Crash. Herzog’s drug. The one he designed to target children. The one Leo was packing in the Philadelphia warehouse. The one Herzog dosed me with, the night he and his brothers broke me.
It can’t be here. Leo is clean. Leo was discharged from the hospital just two weeks ago. He’s been at the freeport the whole time. He has no dealer, no way to supply his addiction.
