Page 46 of Shattered In Darkness

My mother is still everywhere. The way her perfume clings to the carpet, somehow, after years. Her voice in the back of my skull: ‘Don’t be mean Brody, you’re not broken, not like him, please try to be good. I know you killed that boy in our old town, but that was an accident. You have good in you.’

And then the accident. Black glass, a red smear, the sound of her name on the phone. No comfort. Not from him. Never from him.

Richard leans back in his chair, shoes up, careful with the cuffs. “Clean yourself up,” he says, still not looking at me. “You drip on the paperwork again, we’ll need forensic specialists to scrape it out.”

I want to lunge across the desk. I want to grab his throat, squeeze until his pupils burst. See what color his soul leaks. But he isn’t scared. He never is. I was barely out of my teens the first time I realized he’d let me die to win another round against Marcus. He’d let anyone die. My mother. Me. Lola. Just pieces to be moved.

“They’re going to pin this on you if you keep being sloppy,” he says, eyes flat. “I don’t care about the body. You leave any part of yourself at the scene and you’ll make it harder to fix. Do you want me to fix it? Or should I treat you as a loose end next time?”

I almost gag, but I can’t stop listening. Can’t stop wanting approval, one scrap, one crumb, like the sad dog he thinks I am.

I want to say his bloodline is infected. He’s the source of every bad thing. I want to crack open my sternum, show him what grows in the dark. It’s all him. The need to hurt. The joy I find in bone and screaming.

I wipe my hands on the folder. The red stains go pink in the grain of the cardboard. There’s nothing clean about any of this.

“You think Marcus did it?” I ask.

He laughs. “Marcus doesn’t get his hands dirty anymore. He has people for that. His daughter. His whores. His companies. NorthLine, the Bloom Network, all of it.” A pause. He tilts his head. “She’s not just his puppet, Brody. She’s a part of it. NorthLine, the girls that he trafficks and uses, the eyes on every street. You need to wake up and see what’s right in front of you, for once in your wasted life.”

I want to throttle him. Pull the teeth right out of his lying skull. He hates that Lola is still tangled in my head. He hates that I can’t cut her loose. I hate it too. But the more he tells me to kill the feeling, the sicker it gets.

“She’s weak, Brody. Marcus made her that way. Use it. Don’t let her use you.”

I’m not listening. Not really. All I see is a white flash—the car, rain-wet glass, the moment my mother’s head hit the dash and her eyes went empty. The hydraulic whine of a tow truck. I wanted to die. I wanted to kill. Even then, the world just moved on.

Richard didn’t even shed a tear. He said, “That’s the price.” He taught me to shove grief down. Crush it down until something worse takes its place. Now I can’t feel anything except this need. Lola in my hands, Lola on her knees, Lola screaming my name. Our violence.

I snap back. His pen scrapes the page. He’s already forgotten my mother. He’s already forgotten everything. “I expect results,” he murmurs, head bent. “Don’t disappoint me again. If you do, maybe I’ll hire someone hungrier next time. See what his girl fetches on the market these days.”

I see red. Full blackout. I slam the file on the desk; it bursts like a gunshot, paper flying. “She’s not yours to fucking sell, you piece of shit!”

Richard blinks at me. Just that. Utterly bored.

“Grow up. You’re still a child. Still want to think she was ever innocent. She wasn’t. None of them are. They arranged it. Maybe under Marcus. Maybe for someone bigger. Doesn’t matter now. The only justice you’ll find is what you carve out for yourself.”

He leans back, the chair creaking under his bones. “Marcus plays a long game. He’ll cut out his own daughter’s heart if it keeps his fingers clean. You understand now why the girl’s so dangerous? She’s the only thing he can’t control, so he keeps her on a short leash. You want to avenge your mother? We need to take her out of the picture, just like he did to your mother. We will ruin Marcus Bloom.”

I let it sink in. My jaw pulses. Mother, Lola, violence. It’s a straight fucking line.

He’s gloating. He thinks he’s showing me my own death in a mirror. He’s proud of it. Bastard.

“If you want to burn him, use her. Use what she is. She’s already ruined. No point pretending she isn’t. I have something big planned for her, for Marcus. A storm is coming Brody, you’ll want to be on the winning side,” he says, quieter,

My vision blurs at the corners. I see a mouthful of red. My mother on the tile, her skull opened up like a flower of bone. Lola on her knees for me, cheeks and thighs bruised where I left my mark. All the softness scraped away by men like Richard and Marcus.

I step back from the desk. My hands drip. My mind empties out. I want to bite through my own tongue just to stop the noise.

He doesn’t flinch. Not once. “You good?” he asks. Like he’s checking on the fucking groceries.

I slam my fist into the door on the way out. The crack echoes all the way down the hall.

13

BRODY

THE PAST (AGED 18)

Kissing my girl is like a dream. My sweet Lola, my beautiful Bambi.