Page 41 of What Rough Beast

I was smart enough not to ask, but curious enough to talk to ChatGPT about it. What I learned was enough to make my pretend scenarios of house fires and tsunamis seem like pleasant daydreams.

“I saw a guy from the city make five grand in a weekend,” Ethan says now. “Offered me half if I could find a tucked-away spot he can train. Immediately thought of this place. Hailey found it chasing down her grandpa. Worked great for a fuck pad for a while, but now she’s kind of turned off.”

“Can’t imagine why,” I say tightly, looking at the dogs.

“These aren’t fighters,” Ethan goes on. “My job is to find bait—stray cats, raccoons, whatever I get in the traps. Last month he told me I had to go bigger, get some actual dogs for him to train on, so I went to the Humane Society halfway across the state, adopted Nickel and Dime here.”

“So, he brings his fighters out here and they . . .”

“Train,” Ethan says, not going into detail. But he doesn’t have to. Between the two dogs there’s only one ear, and the bigger one is missing most of his upper lip on one side. I remember what I’d learned about dogfighting and see that Nickel and Dime both have nearly hairless muzzles. Ethan likely duct tapes their mouths shut when the bigger, healthier dogs fight them, so that the real contenders get some training in but don’t take damage themselves.

“But how would Quentin know about it?” I ask, looking away from Nickel and Dime.

“I was keeping some of the smaller bait together over there,” Ethan says, pointing at another cage in the opposite corner. “Didn’t figure on a raccoon being smart enough to open the lock from the inside. Everything got out—coons, cats, couple of possums. Probably climbed the rafters and went out through the ceiling, but whatever the case, they got out.”

“And they’re evidence,” I say, putting it together.

“Yeah, it’s uh . . . pretty obvious what they’re for. A coon made its way over to Hailey’s. She took care of it,” he makes a finger gun, mimes shooting. “But if any of the other bait animals showed up and Quentin spotted them, he isn’t stupid. He’d figure it out.”

“Yeah, but . . .” I say, brow furrowing. “Why’s he coming at me?”

“Remember when you loaned me your car?”

“Because your truck was in the shop and you needed to take Hailey’s grandpa to the doctor?” I ask, a cold fear gripping my gut.

“They don’t use doctors, man,” Ethan says, shaking his head. “I was getting set up, going back and forth.”

“In my car,” I say, closing my eyes, remembering Quentin accusing me of creeping on Ava, driving by slow at night.

“That, and a few times when you’ve blacked your ass out, I drove you home the long way,” Ethan says, smiling. “Bait dogs or not, Nickel and Dime still need to be fed. Which is the other reason I brought you out here. Only thing they know about me is I’m a threat. If they see me or smell me most of the time that means they’re about to get hurt, and bad. At first I could manage it, but not anymore—I go into that cage I’m losing three fingers at least.”

To illustrate, he steps into their line of sight, and the bait dogs go wild. One of them still has some fight in him; he’s growling and pressed up against the fence. But the other has retreated to the back and pissed himself.

“You need somebody to feed them,” I say, realizing.

“Or”—Ethan shrugs—“they can just not.”

That’s not an option; I can’t watch a dog starve to death. When I unlatch the gate and go into the cage, the more aggressive dog—Nickel—backs away, still growling. But Dime—the quieter one—comes up to me, pushing his boxy skull against my knees.

Once I get the food out and fill the water bowl, Nickel understands I’m not here to hurt him. I take the water bowl and fill it again from a utility sink in the corner, since Dime already licked it dry and is watching me like a hawk, waiting for more. I close the cage door behind me, latch it, and join Ethan where he’s sitting on a lawn chair, out of the dogs’ sight, scrolling on his phone.

“This is fucked, man,” I tell him, finger pointing at his chest. “You don’t need to do this! There’s no reason—”

I bite down on my own words, already aware of the answer. It’s the same reason why his phone is loaded with naked pics of half the girls in our school. He’s got Hailey to provide anything he wants in the wank bank; he didn’t need Emily Vaught or anyone else for more. Ethan Brimley is the last guy in Bethington who needs to make money on a blood sport—but he wants to.

“The reason is, I just do what I want when I want to do it,” he says, confirming it.

“Did you do what you wanted to Ava?” I ask, finger going deeper into his chest. He leans back, shoving my hand aside.

“I told you before, I didn’t touch Ava. One—I didn’t want to, and two—Hailey would fucking kill me.”

“That’s your reason not to rape someone? Because Hailey would be mad about it?”

“Jesus Christ, it was her fucking idea!” Ethan explodes, and Nickel and Dime whimper in their cage.

“What was her idea?” I ask, my own temper rising.

“Hailey told me to roofie Ava, okay?” Ethan says. “We were in it up to our necks with the whole Emily thing. Her parents backed off, but Ava was still running her mouth about it. The party goes down, Ava shitposts about what happened but can’t prove a damn thing, and now no one will ever believe anything she ever says ever again.” He puts his palms together, snaps his hands shut like a bear trap. “Don’t get on Hailey’s bad side, man. It’s not a pretty place.”