The Lies We Steal by Monty Jay

 

Alistair

Once, when I was eight my grandfather took me hunting.

He was largely into big game animals. Things he could gut, skin, and hang on his wall or plaster on the floor as a rug in front of one of his many fireplaces. Not because he enjoyed killing, because he enjoyed winning.

Without fail when new people would show up to his home, he’d walk them into his study and brag about one of his many kills. Spewing an absurd story that always made him the hero. How he bravely fended off a bear from his buddies when he was only a teen or tracked a wounded elk for twenty miles.

My father got his boasting attitude honestly.

We stood in the middle of the woods from dawn till midafternoon when a flash of tawny fur rustled the trees in front of our tent.

“Nice looking female.” His smokers voice always scratched along my ears like nails on a chalkboard.

The cougar’s bright yellow eyes scanned the area in front of her, not thinking to look to her direct right. My grandfather shoved the outrageously large gun into my hands.

I looked over at him confused on what he wanted me to do with this fucking thing because I’d never even shot a gun before.

“Go on. You have to become a man eventually.” He nods his head to the unsuspecting animal.

I never understood that. The need to kill something to prove your masculinity. It always seemed like a ploy to make people into serial killers. But because I felt honored he’d picked me to come with him today, I lifted the heavy weapon.

Mimicking every western movie I’d ever watched, I pointed the barrel of the gun out, placing my small finger on the trigger and took a few deep breaths. Everything felt heavy, I felt awkward holding it.

I’d yet to grow into my body, all of me just limbs and bone. I didn’t even feel strong enough to hold it up. I told myself it would be no different than the toy guns Silas played with, the ones that shot plastic bullets with rubber tips.

I hadn’t meant to, but when I pressed the trigger and the explosion from the shotgun rocked my body I shut my eyes. I closed them tight, wincing in immediate pain. My shoulder felt like it had been blown clean off and for ten seconds I thought I’d accidentally shot myself.

But even through the pain my eardrums rang aggressively.

I thought, like lions or tigers, the cougar would roar in defense. That it would have a deep, hollow voice that made the ground vibrate with the bravado. Instead, it was a miserable shriek.

It sounded like a child wailing, shrieking over and over again.

Opening my eyes to see the animal fallen over in the clearing, tossing its head around and barring its teeth as it screamed in what I imagined was agonizing pain.

My grandfather, a man who on that day, taught me a very important lesson. The only one I ever remembered. He dragged me by my aching arm towards the crying animal.

Quickly removed a knife from his boot and showed me the long, thick blade,

“Sometimes putting something out of its misery is easy, Alistair. Like this cougar,” He says, “It’s obvious she’s in pain, so we are going to help her.” He swiftly plunges the dagger right beneath her rib cage puncturing the heart I think.

The sound dies in my ears, the eyes of the animal close and just like that, its life is over.

“Other times, it’s not as easy to tell when something needs to be put down. You may not see it right away, but it’s always in the eyes. That’s where you see if a person is already dead, even if they’re completely healthy. Their heart is beating, but their eyes, they have already gone cold.”

I thought about what he said a lot over the years. Especially when I looked into the mirror.

I thought about it even more as I walked behind Silas. I could only hear the crunching of dirt beneath our shoes and the echoes in my memory of Silas screaming. And just like that cougar when I was eight. Like he was being torn apart limb from limb. It wasn’t a roar it was a shriek that broke through glass. The pieces stabbing into my chest as I watched him just moments ago, sob over Rosemary’s body.

His hands pumping into her chest, over and over again. I could barely watch knowing it was doing nothing. So painful that hope wasn’t even an option. I cringed when the cracking of her ribs filled the air. It was at that moment, Rook and I had to do something while Thatcher called for help. She was gone. She’d been gone for hours now. We all knew that when we saw her.

None of us had the heart to tell him that though, not until he was doing more harm than good.

My hands grabbed at his shoulders, “Silas,” I think it was the softest my voice had been since I was child, “You gotta stop. She’s gone, she’s gone.”

“Fuck off! Fuck off, Alistair!” He weeps, pushing down with more force. Rose’s body has zero resistance to his strength. She shakes with every chest compression, her normal flushed cheeks are a morbid gray and it makes my eyes prick to see her like that.

I tug harder, hooking underneath his armpit. Rook follows my lead, and I can hear his voice,

“Si, please, man.” His voice is wet, the tears soaking to his throat, “You’re only gonna make it worse, just let her go.”

Police sirens whine in the distance, the flashing red and blue lights bounce off the trees outside, breaking through the destroyed house teenagers used to get wasted without their parents finding out.

“No! NO! Rosemary, wake up, Rosie, please! Let go of me! I have to help her, GODDAMMIT, ROSE!” My arms burned with strain as we hauled him off her body, his feet kicking out as he fought us the entire way.

I’d done a lot for my friends. This was the hardest.

We held him down like a wild animal, nothing we could say would calm him down. He just kept howling her name into the night. Like the moon would hear his pleas and restore her life.

I wanted that for him.

If I could have traded places with Rose. If someone would have given me the option, I would have let them take me instead. Just so Silas would be okay.

The police, the EMTs, they came in like a swarm of bees. Buzzing around the scene, talking in hushed voices. When the shock faltered a bit, when he realized she wasn’t coming back and there was nothing the medics could do but cover her with a sheet, he went silent.

My throat was sore for him, and even though we tried to get him to leave, to get in the car so we could help him. He refused to leave. And because I was drained mentally, I had no fight in me. I couldn’t have wrestled him all the way to the car, so we waited with him.

We stood by until the police were finished, even after they questioned us. We didn’t move. Not, until they were about to lift her up onto the gurney and that’s when he moved again. Like a raging bull he pushed through them, shoving his way next to her again.

Officers reached for him, yelling at him that he wasn’t allowed past the yellow tape like we hadn’t already been there forty minutes prior to their investigation. He ignored them, like bullets ricocheting off metal, their voices did little to stop him.

Rook snatched his shoulder, “Silas, what are you doing man?” Worry riddled him, afraid of his answer.

He turned, a few feet away from her cloth covered body, facing the police and all his friends. It was like he was looking straight through us when he said,

“I just wanna carry her one more time. Her feet get cold when she doesn’t wear shoes outside.”

Nobody, not a soul tried to stop him as he scooped her up into his arms. Her sluggish arm falling out from underneath the white sheet, the tips of her fingers painted bright red.

We walked behind him, Thatcher, Rook and me as he carried her to the ambulance. I watched her hand sway by his side, her hair spilling over his forearm and I hated knowing she’d never laugh again. That she’d never tell a corny joke again or tease Rook about his hair. I hated that she’d never be around to make us feel…normal. Like regular guys instead of Ponderosa Springs’ bastard sons.

How she’d crept into the spaces of my heart and become a friend, only to be removed so quickly. The way she didn’t care about how people stared at her in the hallway when she held Silas’s hand for the first time in middle school. The weird schizo holding hands with the mayor’s daughter they whispered.

But Rose didn’t care.

She looked at Silas like none of that ever mattered.

Now, he was carrying her body to one of her last stops before she would be buried six feet beneath the ground.

Her life ended, just like that. Without any warning.

Taken from us.

Stolen.

“You take your meds?”

Rook’s voice brings me back to the present. Reminding me that we have a very short window of opportunity which didn’t include me daydreaming and him asking about medication.

Silas looks up to him from behind the desk, his hands full of papers as he searches through the drawers, dropping his head a bit as if to say, Are you really asking me that right now?

“Don’t fucking look at me like that. It’s twelve pm, if you don’t take them now you’ll forget after you eat. You always forget after you eat.” Rook argues as he pulls books off the built-in shelf.

“I don’t have them on me, I’ll take them later.” Silas grunts.

I’d worried for months after that night if he’d ever look human again. If the bags beneath his eyes would retreat and he’d change back to his normal tan skin instead of the nasty pale he was sporting.

We all took turns sitting outside of his door, sliding food inside, water, medicine. Just waiting.

Three weeks.

We waited three weeks before he came outside of his room.

Feeble, noticeable weight loss, and a demand to figure out what happened to Rose.

When we agreed to help, it was like we were giving him something to work for. Maybe it was wrong of us to do this. Maybe we were making it worse by opening up a can of worms we didn’t need to but it was helping him.

He started eating again, he gained muscle back working out in the gym with me.

But even then, even now as I look over at his eyes, I can see it.

His eyes had gone cold the night Rose’s heart stopped beating.

Rook abruptly stops what he is doing, as if we have all the time in the fucking world. Walking over to his book bag and unzipping the side pocket. Revealing a little baggie with two white pills inside of it.

“You’re joking.” Silas remarks as he watches him approach the desk.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Rook challenges.

Rook Van Doren, the only one of us who could leave this town and actually become a decent person. Parts of me felt guilty that we fueled his chaotic side so much, his father’s words having some truth among it.

Rook was already screwed up, but instead of telling him to cover it up like everyone else, we made him embrace it.

Depending on how you looked at it, that could be good or it could just be doing more damage.

“Okay, Nurse Jackie,” I butt in, “Take your goddamn pills so we can finish what we came here for.”

Silas takes the medicine, mumbling a low thank you.

We had searched every nook, underneath rugs, beneath the couch cushions and were coming up empty-handed. Tensions were high as we were headed towards what looked like a severe dead end. If we couldn’t connect Greg West to Rose, we didn’t have much else to go on.

And we couldn’t go around breaking into every single teacher’s office. So that would mean Rose’s murder would go unsolved. With no police to investigate, no lead to follow, her death would sit on our conscious, on Silas’s conscious forever.

Short of having Thatcher kill him just to kill him, we were screwed.

I watched Silas flip through pages, eyes scanning for anything, the smallest hint of something to give us an excuse to visit Greg late at night. Using whatever means necessary to get the information we needed.

He was desperate for answers and I thought, was the knowing worse? Knowing now that she was murdered, but still not being able to catch her killer.

I couldn’t help but wonder if we should have just left it alone in the first place. If we should have told him no and let him grieve. Then again, we would have been getting dressed for another funeral if we did that.

Silas, in his head, didn’t have anything else to live for besides Rose. This hunt, it gave him another reason. I wasn’t going to be the friend to take it away, just to have him kill himself moments later.

We searched for another ten minutes, the seconds ticking down quickly, too quickly. We were running out of time and patience.

“There is nothing in here! A few crinkled Hustlers with schoolgirls on them proves he’s a fucking pervert, not a goddamn killer.” Rook yells, frustration coming off all of us in waves.

“Well, what did you expect, numb nuts, there to be a message written on the wall in big letters, I killed Rosemary Donahue?” I bite out, if anyone needs to be pissed it’s Silas. Our jobs as friends is to keep our shit together for him, not blow up when things don’t go our way.

“You know, you don’t have to be such a fucking cunt.” He snaps.

“No big letters but, how about a metal safe hiding behind a curtain?” Thatcher’s voice is the only reason I have not punched Rook’s teeth in. That and that alone.

I turn to see Thatch holding back a curtain that I assumed hid a window, which was what Mr. West had wanted I assumed. In the wall was a large safe equipped with a built-in combination lock.

The only way we were getting inside of it without being caught is to figure out the code and from the looks of it, he didn’t look like the kind of guy to just write down the password to his sketchy safe.

“Anyone know someone who can crack a safe?” Rook mutters from the corner.

The alarm on my phone begins to go off, alerting me that we need to leave because there is only ten minutes left before the security cameras cut back on.

“If we get caught it won’t matter if we know anyone. Let’s go.” I wave, making sure everything is put back in its original place before opening the door and looking both ways.

When I make sure no one is coming we all slip out easily, locking the door behind us. Making our way down the hallway of the Rothchild District and towards the exit of the building.

It wasn’t a complete failure and it wasn’t the best news, but it was something. Another task, another name to hunt down. Whatever it took to keep Silas from turning his favorite weapon on himself.

I didn’t want to bury another friend this year.

Rook was already texting half his contacts asking around about safe crackers and people who specialized in it by the time we made it outside of the building, starting to walk past the commons when two bodies in front of the library, the library with my name on it, caught my attention.

I was quite close with the sin of wrath. If the devil was handing out awards for who represented which the most, I’d win the trophy with flying fucking colors. I knew about lust, my pride had gotten me into more fights than I could count, I think gluttony and greed went hand in hand and I was a glutton for punishment.

Envy was one of the only sins I didn’t practice often. Jealously and its green monster showed up around one person, and over the years it had slowly faded. I’d recognized there was nothing he had that I wanted as I got older, soon my jealously as the unwanted younger brother drifted into hatred. I couldn’t care less if my dear older brother lived or died, I meant that in the worst way.

And right now, I’d never wanted to commit first degree murder so badly in my life. Dorian Caldwell.

The bane of my existence was exchanging conversation I couldn’t hear with the thorn in my side.

I hadn’t seen my brother since Christmas three years ago, I’d made it a point to be out of the house until he was gone. He stood a few feet away, a stupid fucking tweed jacket over his shoulders that looked like a burlap sack.

Success, wealth, it stuck to him the way flies lingered on shit. I despised him a little more for the way he styled his hair, the same charcoal color sitting on top of my own head, just less gel.

Two opposing forces, both I wanted to ruin in very different ways stood before me.

The weather was decent out, warm enough for Briar to be sporting a pair of shorts moms wore in the eighties. I traced her long legs all the way to her busted up Converse, the one on her left foot had a piece of silver duct tape along the side. Assuming it was there to cover up the big ass hole that was still evident.

Her hair caught a gust of wind, slipping it behind her as she smiled at my brother who was helping gather her books off the ground.

I wanted to rip his arms off for making her smile like that.

For having her attention.

My fingernails dug into my palm, squeezing so forcefully I thought I might have brought blood to the surface. The way she laughed at something he said, and how he purposely made sure their fingers touched as he handed over her books.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kill him or punish her first.

Dorian wasn’t supposed to be in for another week or two, at least. He never showed up for holidays this goddamn earlier and the year he does, he’s trying to take what is mine. Once again, he is ripping what belong to me right out of my fucking hands.

Proving I was nothing but his spare. Everything I had was only his to take.

But not this time. Not her.

Briar was mine.

Mine to torment.

Mine to manipulate.

Mine to break.

It was about goddamn time she learned what happened when she didn’t play by my rules.

I look over at the guys, feeling like I need to physically remove my eyes from them,

“I think I know someone who can help us with that safe.”

Whether she wants to or not.