Falling Harder (14 page)

There are no
words that could possibly encompass everything that hangs unsaid between us, so
we don’t even try to find them. Instead, we collapse into each other’s arms,
clutching onto each other with every ounce of strength we have.

“He was going
to...I had to...” Trace stammers, staring down at me in shock and terror.

“I know,” I tell
him, cupping his face in my hands. “I’m so sorry, Trace. It’s my fault...”

“No,” he says
fiercely, “Don’t say that. Don’t you ever fucking say that again, Nadia. It’s
his fault. His mistake.”

“What are we
going to do, Trace?” I ask, “What the hell...?”

“I don’t know,”
he says. For the first time since I’ve known him, he actually sounds young. “I
just...don’t know.”

Fifteen

Trace

Dead Fucker

“Christ, I wish
I could have a whiskey right now,” I growl, my teeth chattering.

Garrick glances
up at me from the foot of the porch stairs. “The last thing you need is to be
drunk when the cops get here.”

“I’m just
saying.”

“Well, stop
saying. Stop talking. Just keep your mouth shut, and maybe we’ll figure out a
way to fix this.”

Nadia lays a
hand on the small of my back. I know that she means the reassure me, but the
guilt and fear that pull at me are far stronger. I sit down at the top of the
stoop, looking out into the night. None of could stand to stay in that house,
not with Paul lying there in the kitchen. Dead.

That word is
still too heavy to carry. Dead. I’ve done a lot of terrible shit in my life,
hurt a lot of people, but I’ve never killed anyone. Not even close. The fight
in the kitchen is a total blur. Did I decide to kill Paul? Did I make that
choice? Or did it just...happen? The last thing I really remember is walking in
the front door and seeing that son of a bitch on top of Nadia. And then...I
just snapped.

The crunch that
his neck made as it snapped keeps replaying in my head. It’s on and endless
loop that I just know will score the rest of my life. I keep expecting, hoping,
to wake up in a cold sweat. This has to be some kind of twisted nightmare.

This kind of
thing doesn’t just happen. But of course, nothing in my life has been what one
might call ordinary. Or good. Or fair. So it stands to reason that this is
where I’ve ended up.

“You guys sure
you got rid of everything?” Conway asks. She huddled at Garrick’s side, trying
to keep warm. December in Chicago is not known for its forgiving weather.

“Poured the
booze down the drain, flushed the weed,” I tell her, “Should do the trick.”

“I’m sure the
cops will understand,” Nadia says, sitting down beside me, “When you explain
what happened—”

“Wake up,” I
snap, “The only thing they’re going to see when they get here is a bad kid who
finally snapped. You know I’ve got a record, Nadia. I don’t stand a chance.”

She stares at
me, hurt in her eyes. “You’re not bad,” she says, “You saved me, Trace. That
counts for something.”

“To you, it
does,” I say, “And I’m glad. But the rest of the world isn’t going to see it
that way. That’s the truth.”

“But there’s got
to be a way. I remember one of our mock trial cases—”

“For fuck’s
sake,” I groan, “Mock trial? Seriously? Nadia, this isn’t some logic puzzle to
be sorted out. You can think your way through this. So please, stop trying to
make me feel better. Stop trying to make this OK. It’s not.”

“Fine,” she
says, “Have it your way. I was just trying to help.”

The sound of
police sirens silences us at once. Most people have a vague, impersonal
relationship with the sound of a wailing siren. They figure that someone out
there is hurt, or in danger, or in deep trouble. God, how I envy those people.

See, for me,
wailing sirens usually mean one thing—my life is about to get turned upside
down, again. When I hear those blaring horns off in the distance, I never
imagine that they’re coming for someone else. Because often, too often, they’re
coming for me.

I’ve lost count
of how many visits I’ve had from the police over the years. One of my very
first memories is of being woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of
screeching sirens and raised voices downstairs. My parents had gotten into one
of their epic throw downs, and some concerned neighbor had called in the
cavalry. I remember tiptoeing out into the main room of our crappy apartment,
watching from just out of sight as the cops cuffed my dad. For me, getting in
trouble with the law has always just been a part of life.

But this is a
new level of fucked up, even for me. I’ve had the cops on my ass plenty of
times before—for getting in fights, for drugs—but never for something as
serious as fucking murder. Christ...was it murder, me killing Paul? Could
anyone fail to see that I was just trying to protect Nadia?

If I hadn’t been
there to stop him, there’s no doubt in my mind that he would have raped her.
But how do you go about proving that to the cops? Maybe I won’t have to. Maybe,
they’ll be able to see it clear as day.

Here’s hoping,
anyway.

Nadia and I
stand as the patrol cars and ambulance round the corner. Garrick made the call
to the cops, reported the dead body. He told them it was a self defense
thing—hopefully that will be a good enough explanation for them.

The cars stop at
the curb and four policemen unfold themselves from the side doors. I feel my
every muscle tense up as they make their way across the icy lawn towards us.
Even with all the crap I’ve gotten from cops in my life, there’s something
about a uniform that inspires respect in me. After all, it’s been the cops who
have pulled me out of every shitty foster home I’ve gotten stuck in.

They’re the ones
who always swooped in to save the day when my parents became dangerous. That’s
why it was so strange the first time they came because I’d fucked up. It’s a
complicated relationship, mine and theirs.

The law has been
my salvation and damnation, depending on the day. I say a silent prayer to any
god who might be listening that they prove to be my allies this time around.

“Are you Garrick
Moore?” asks one of the cops, a lean guy in his early thirties with cold gray
eyes.

“That’s me,”
Garrick says. “I’m the one who called.”

“I’m Detective
Sullivan,” the man says, “Are all you kids OK?”

“We’re fine,”
Conway chimes in, “Just a little freaked.”

“The body, where
is it?” asks another cop, an older guy with a salt and pepper mustache and
badge that reads DeVito.

“The kitchen,”
Nadia says softly.

“We’ll be right
back,” Sullivan says.

He and DeVito
head into the house, leaving us kids under the watch of the two other cops. They’re
barely older than us, in their mid-twenties or so. One of the guys is African
American and absolutely jacked, the other is white and wiry.

I wonder if
they’re locals, if they grew up here in Chicago with the rest of us. Have they
ever been on the wrong side of the law, or have they always been on the
straight and narrow? I wonder how I seem to them; whether I’m just another
thug, or if maybe I have some potential to turn things around for myself. Do I
have that kind of potential? Who’s to say.

After what feels
like a day and a half, Sullivan and DeVito reemerge from the house. My heart
tightens in my chest as I see their grim expressions.

“Go check out
the rest of the house,” Sullivan tells the younger officers. They nod and make
their way inside.

DeVito and
Sullivan survey the four of us, their gazes heavy and searching. I can feel
them coming to conclusions about us, guessing at what happened before we can
offer up our alibis and excuses. I know that they’re sizing each of us up,
determining who’s the most likely to have done his horrible thing. And I know,
before they even open their mouths, that they’ve both decided on me as the
villain, here.

“Well,” Sullivan
begins with a sigh, “Who wants to tell us what the hell happened in there?”

Not one of us
has anything to say. Where the hell could we even begin?

“Come on,”
DeVito urges, “We need to know what the deal is, or else all of you are coming
down to the station with us.”

“Fine,” Conway
says, “I’ll talk. That guy in there, he’s our foster dad. Was. I’ve been here
the longest, so I can tell you that he’s been a fucking creep since day one.
His wife, Nancy, she hit the road a little while ago and he went off the deep
end. They’re drunks. Have been the whole time I’ve known them.”

“Were they
abusive?” DeVito asks.

“I guess,”
Conway says, “There have been fights. Lots of emotional shit, you know.”

“And why didn’t
any of you report their behavior?” Sullivan asks, “If things were so bad, you
should have called in and—”

“What?” Garrick
asks, “Risk being put someone even worse? Without each other? We figured it was
better to take our chances here.”

“And see how
well that turned out,” DeVito mutters.

“Tonight, then,”
Sullivan said, “What happened tonight, leading up to Mr. Daniels’ death?”

“We were getting
ready for Christmas,” Nadia says softly, “We've never had one, not since we
became orphans. I guess that’s not going to change.”

“We’ve been
keeping an eye on Paul,” I offer, “Protecting each other. But tonight...I
fucked up. I went out, left the others alone.”

“What did you go
out for?” Sullivan asks.

I let my eyes
flick toward Nadia. “Nothing special,” I reply.

“While Trace was
gone, I...I was in the kitchen alone, Garrick and Conway were downstairs,”
Nadia says haltingly. Her voice is tight with held-in tears. “Paul came home
and started harassing me.”

“What do you
mean, harassing?” DeVito presses.

“Just...talking
about inappropriate things,” Nadia says, “Commenting about my body. Asking me
about my sex life. I tried to just ignore him, to get back to the basement with
the others, but he wouldn’t let me leave.”

My blood starts
to simmer with renewed fury as I listen to Nadia’s account. Whatever happens to
me next, I know that I would do the same thing again, protecting her. I never
meant to kill the man, but I can’t help but feel in retrospect that he deserved
what was coming to him.

“Did he...touch
you, at all?” Sullivan asks.

“Yes,” Nadia
says softly, “He...He pinned me against the counter, and started, you know,
putting his hands on me.”

“Can you be more
specific?” prompts DeVito.

Nadia’s cheeks
flush, her eyes widening in surprise. “Um...What do you mean?”

“Can you tell us
where he touched you?” Sullivan clarifies.

“Everywhere, I
guess.”

“Under or over
your clothing?”

“Does that
matter?” Conway asks, astonished.

“Yes,” DeVito
says shortly, “Details are important.”

“Over, I guess,”
Nadia says quickly.

“So there was no
penetration?” Sullivan says.

“Jesus Christ,”
Garrick says, “Cool it with these questions, would you?”

“I know what he
was going to do,” Nadia says firmly, “He was just about to undress himself, and
he had me where he wanted me.”

“But he was
stopped?” Sullivan asks, turning his gaze on me.

“Yes,” Nadia
says.

“Tell us what
happened, please,” DeVito says.

“Well—”

“Not you,”
DeVito says to Nadia, “We need to hear this from...Mr. O’Conner, is it?”

“Yeah,” I say,
my hands balls into fists. “Look. I got home, and found Paul in the kitchen
with Nadia underneath him.”

“What do you
mean, underneath?”

“Is there more
than one meaning of the word? He had her bent over the fucking counter and was
taking off his belt.”

“So you
intervened,” Sullivan says.

“Of course,” I
tell him, “I pulled the guy off.”

“And that’s when
you assaulted him?” DeVito asks.

“What?” I say,
“Assaulted him? I was stopping him from raping—”

“By beating him
to death,” Sullivan says.

“That’s not...I
never meant...” I stammer.

“Paul pulled a
knife on Trace,” Nadia says quickly, “He was just trying to defend himself!”

“Is that true,
Trace?”

“Yeah,” I tell
them.

“But once you
disarmed Mr. Daniels, you kept hitting him?”

I look back at
forth between the officers, cold understanding coursing through my veins. They
don’t give a shit that he was about to attack Nadia, they think that I’m in the
wrong here. I should have known that I wasn’t going to get out of this without
a fight. All they see is a rotten foster kid who took his acting out too far.

Whatever my
intentions were don’t matter at all. The one time I try and do the right thing
for the person I love, I’m going to go down the hardest. Where the hell is the
justice in that?

“Listen,” I tell
them, “He was going to hurt Nadia. And probably the rest of us. I did what I
had to do.”

“That doesn’t
make it OK,” DeVito says.

We all look up
as the two young officers step out onto the porch. I hear a low groan escape
Garrick’s throat as we see that they haven’t returned empty handed.

“Toilet was
overflowing,” says the smaller cop, holding up a damp baggie of weed. “Found
this and a couple others like it.”

“Christ,”
Sullivan sighs. “You guys aren’t going to make this easy, are you?”