Hushed (15 page)

Archer grabbed his arm. “
Yes
. I did. I killed him.” He couldn’t meet Evan’s eyes, but if the options were to spill the truth or Evan leaving, then it wasn’t much of a choice at all. “I killed Brody. I told you why. And I killed Ronny Brown and Richter and Jay Lee.” The waver of his voice did nothing to steel his resolve. He wanted to take back everything he’d said. Sure as hell didn’t want to say anything further. But Evan watched him, stone-faced, and there really was no option.

“And my dad. He was the first.”

Evan ran a hand over his face and turned away. Archer thought he would leave, but Evan eventually turned back around.

“Start at the beginning. Why your dad?”

Archer shook his head. “You would’ve had to know him. Really know him.” Not the way people at work had known him. Not even the way his own friends knew him. “He worked a respectable job, brought home good money, paid the bills.”

Brown eyes met his, unimpressed and accusing. “Oh, yeah. Sounds like a real monster.”

“He also used to shoot up in the living room every night when he came home. Or drink. Or both.” Archer tried to maintain that eye contact, but Evan kept looking away. “I saw him hit my mother more than once, and I overheard worse.” Still no eye contact, but Evan was listening. It was all he could hope for.

“Sometimes he’d force me to sit on the couch and watch things no kid should have to watch.” The memory made him wince inwardly. “He said it was our
bonding time
to make sure I grew up a ‘real man.’ He tried getting me to light up with him. Taught me all about it. Only when Mom wasn’t around, of course. Otherwise she’d start a fight just to get me out of it.”

Evan had turned away again. Staring at his back, Archer wanted to reach for him and apologize. Ask if they could forget the whole thing.

“How’d you do it? You were just a kid.”

Exactly. That was why no one had suspected him. No one but his mother. “He came home one day. Shot up, had a few beers, and passed out on the couch. Still had the tourniquet around his arm and everything.” Archer stretched out his arm, tracing his fingers along the blue bump of a vein at the crook of his elbow. “Still had a full syringe lying there. Just an overdose. That was all. I didn’t even do it thinking it would kill him; I just…wanted to do something. I wanted to hurt him.”

Evan wouldn’t look at him.

“I didn’t tell Mom, but she knew. She hasn’t wanted anything to do with me since. I only wanted to help her. She hated him.”

“Maybe she did. It doesn’t give you the right to take a life.” Evan’s shoulders rose and fell again. He turned a little. “And the others?”

He closed his eyes. “I pushed Jay down the stairs. Didn’t plan it, it just happened. Afterward, I realized I had the ability to get revenge for what they did to her and I started planning. A year later I killed Ronny, and then Brody after that.”

Evan took a deep breath. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but Vivian… She strikes me as the type to embellish things. She makes herself out to be the victim so you’ll come to her rescue. How do you know she told the truth about any of what happened?”

There was little energy to be had, but there was enough for him to muster some level of defensiveness. “She didn’t lie about it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because
I was there.”

Finally, Evan met his eyes.

“…What?”

“I saw the entire thing.” He wanted to stand and didn’t think his legs would cooperate. Sympathy crept into Evan’s features, but Archer knew better. Sympathy could be felt in unison with anger, and Evan had every right to be angry.
If I told him sooner, would it have made a difference?

Evan folded his arms. “You gonna elaborate?”

No. Please don’t make me.
His hands shook. “I told you before… Marissa went out of town. Brody had friends over; Vivian didn’t want to be alone with them so I went to stay the night with her.” That could’ve been it.
Should’ve
been it. Just a sleepover. Not the first time they’d done it, and not the last. “They were drunk or high or both. They came on to her, she got upset, threatened to tell Marissa…”

“And you—” Evan paused, but Archer knew what he wanted to say.
‘What did they do to you?’

Suddenly, remaining still wasn’t enough. He wanted to move, get out of the apartment whose walls felt too close and the air stifled. He shoved his hands into his hair, fingers curling, head bowing. “I wanted to help her. But they were bigger than me. They hit me, held me down, made me watch.”
Archie
, they kept calling him, taunting him. It was why he couldn’t stand the name.

Somehow he made it to standing despite the unsteady feeling in his legs. He paced to the end of the coffee table, turned, cast his gaze across the living room that reminded him so strongly of Vivian. Evan looked out of place there. The one thing that wasn’t
her
in the entirety of his life. And his voice sounded so far away, lost in the space between them.

“I couldn’t help. I couldn’t protect her. My entire life I’ve only wanted to make up to her what I wasn’t strong enough to do back then.”

Evan stood there, oceans apart from him. It seemed no matter how far Archer reached, no matter what he said, there was no closing the holes his secrets had gouged.

“There’s nothing honorable or strong about taking another life, Archer,” Evan said. “It’s a monster’s indulgence.”

Evan might as well have hit him. Archer rested a hand against the arm of the couch to steady himself. Evan inclined his chin, eyes focused on some point above Archer’s head, unable to look at him. “One could say that she didn’t protect
you
, too. But instead you’ve molded every facet of your life around her. You’ve been her personal punching bag all these years.”

“That’s not—”

Evan raised his voice. “Everything you do, everything you think and say somehow ties back to Vivian. Her wants, her needs. You go where she tells you to go, do the things she wants to do. God, even your apartment isn’t yours. It’s
hers.
What you two have isn’t a relationship. You’re leeches
.
You feed off of her praise and attention, and she”—he spread his arms wide—“she sucks all the humanity and life right out of you. Take Vivian away, and what’s left?”

“I don’t know,” Archer said, helpless.

“Bones.” That one word resonated throughout the room. “Just bones, Archer. Vivian’s the skin and muscle and everything else of what makes you
you
. All that’s left beneath…”

“There’s you.”

“Is there?” Evan let his arms drop, shrugged. “Doesn’t seem to be much room for me in a Vivian-centric world.”

Archer swallowed hard. “You’re telling me to choose between you.” Just like Mickey had done to Vivian.
‘It’s me or Archie.
’ It wasn’t fair.

“No, I’m asking you to choose between slowly killing yourself, and someone who loves you.”

He desperately tried to meet his eyes. Evan wouldn’t let him.

“You’ve been trying, I’ll give you that. But look back on today and tell me if you think it’s enough. What you need is
help,
Archer. Professional help. Someone to get in that head of yours and help you sort through all this.”

Archer squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t do that.”

A pause. “I’m sorry.” There was no anger in his voice, no malice. He sounded sad. “I can’t keep letting you drag me down over and over again. I can’t let you be
my
Vivian.”

Evan turned his back on him. He marched across the apartment with purpose—a purpose of getting away. From him? Could Evan really not even look him in the eye now that he knew everything?

Archer wanted to run after him, to say he hadn’t been able to finish off the last people on his list because all he could think of was letting Evan down. But he didn’t think it would matter. Not now.

He stayed on the couch Viv had picked out. That matched the coffee table, artwork on the walls, rug on the floor…all Vivian’s things. Her touches. Her fingerprints on his life. His hands shook uncontrollably, met soon enough with a tremor working its way up into his shoulders, his chest, shaking loose frustrated sounds not unlike sobs.

Maybe that’s what the trembling is.
Take away Vivian, take away Evan…the leftovers weren’t strong enough to hold him up and keep him going.

“Just a monster,” he said to an empty room. “Just bones.”

Tuesday, October 28
^th

Too many things he needed to say dancing on the tip of his tongue. Too much he’d done wrong. Too many regrets. His entire life—Vivian, Marissa, his mother. But Evan most of all.

He needed to set things right.

Archer sat in the gazebo for hours, watching the pool. Waiting.

Evan didn’t show up.

Thursday, October 30
^th

No New Messages

The mantra of his phone anymore, it seemed. No calls. No texts. Not from Evan, Vivian, or his friends from The Grove. He’d tried calling Evan. Left two messages and after that, only listened to the sound of his recorded voice mail prompt before hanging up. It dawned on him if Evan hadn’t gone to class the last few days, he’d probably headed up to his parents’ house early for Halloween weekend.

Archer only went to school because it seemed better than staying home, staring at an apartment he was severely starting to hate. But afterward, there was little to do, nowhere to go but home. The front door was unlocked when he got there.

Vivian was waiting for him, mottled blue and purple bruises adorning the right side of her jaw. He stopped in the entryway and contemplated turning around, walking right back out.

Except Vivian had a packed bag with her. His black folder spread open on the tabletop and his list unfolded in her hands. Since he’d decided not to finish off the list, he’d stashed it in his closet, determined not to look at it again.

The door clicked quietly shut behind him. His backpack slid to the floor. For as much as he wanted to run away, part of him wanted to gather her up, hide his face against her shoulder, and beg her to make everything better.
Make life simple again.

But had it ever really been?

Vivian leaned back, nodding down to the paper. “Is this some kind of hit list?”

His eyes traveled from the paper up to her face. He nodded mutely.

“Jay…” She didn’t sound angry as she stared down at the list. Almost…in awe. Quietly fascinated. “But he fell down the stairs.”

Archer shifted uncomfortably. “I pushed him.”

“Ronny? Brody? They killed themselves.”

“I forced them to.” His throat was impossibly dry.

“Huh.” Vivian’s fingers ran down the list of names, lingering at the end. After what seemed like a lifetime she asked, “Why isn’t Mick on here?”

His blood chilled. That sounded like a trick question.

He sank down into the chair across from her. “He didn’t rape you.” Archer wanted Vivian to leave Mickey on her own, without his help. Didn’t she see he was killing for her, to give her the strength to cast Mick aside?

A wry smile played across her mouth. “But you killed my brother and that was cool.”

“You hated him,” he said, but he was so tired of arguing. Why was she there if she only wanted to tell him how terrible he was? “He’s just as responsible for what his friends did to you as they are.”

“Your mom was right. You are a monster.” She cocked her head to one side, curious. “Do you regret it?”

Yes. No. Maybe. How did he answer that? “I don’t regret wanting to make you happy.” He rubbed the pads of his fingers together, like he could somehow still feel Richter’s blood on them. “But it doesn’t feel good, taking a life. If I could’ve done it some other way, I would have.”

“There really isn’t another way, is there?” Something in her tone sent spiders skittering up and down the back of his neck. “Would you do it again?”

Archer took one look at the bruise on her face and instantly knew where the conversation was heading. “You want me to kill Mickey.”

Vivian retrieved a pen from a kitchen drawer and added Mickey’s name at the bottom of the list in her delicate, pretty scrawl. “I’m never going to get away from him otherwise. Nothing I do makes him happy. Even after I told him I’d take him back, he did this.” She gestured to her face as she shut the folder and stood.

Her hair hung down around her shoulders, unkempt. She didn’t look like she’d been sleeping. Her fingers were cold when she touched his cheek. “I’m trapped again, Archer.” She slid into his lap, arms looping about his neck. His heart beat furiously against his ribs, reverberating through his lungs, down into his gut. “You want me to be free, don’t you?”

He did. Or had. Did he still? Did he know how to want anything else? His body still reacted to her. He still wanted to kiss her, to taste her and touch her. But there was a distinct wrongness to it he couldn’t place. It wasn’t comfort; it was desperation, a need for air as he lay drowning in the mess of his life.

She brushed her thumb over his lower lip. “I know Evan left you.”

Like a punch to the stomach, leaving him winded. They’d never been together, so how could Evan leave him? It sounded right all the same. He was alone. But if Vivian could understand and love him still, then didn’t they deserve each other? Her, psychotic and broken. Him, a monster. Maybe he didn’t deserve someone like Evan. Someone who could make the light envious of his brightness. Archer closed his eyes, pained, even with Viv’s mouth brushing against his own. He nodded mutely.

She kissed him, nothing gentle or loving in the gesture. Just a raw, eager want to drown him further. When she pulled away, he could still taste her on his lips.

“You’re such a good boy,” she whispered, feather-soft against his mouth. “And when you kill him, I’m going to be there with you.”