SIX
CONVINCE ME
SERA
I wouldn’t have known it was Fix’s truck if I hadn’t seen him get in it and drive off earlier. After sitting around in the motel lobby for hours, waiting for him to come back, I grew anxious and begged a ride into Liberty Fields off another woman who was checking out of her room and leaving. I’d hoped I might find a gift store where I could grab another wedding gift for Amy, since I’d demolished the tequila last night. Instead, I spotted Fix’s truck and asked to be dropped off in the parking lot of a very run down, sketchy looking auto shop.
The front roller shutters were down, but the side door to the building was open. Inside: Darkness. The smell of oil, grease, and unwashed male. I hovered just inside the door, trying to decide if I ought to go in or not. Sixsmith used to cart me around a lot when I was really small. He used to take me to dark, strange, unfamiliar places like this, and there would always be trouble. Someone would be drinking. Someone would be cooking meth. Someone would be fucking loudly in the back. There would be things young eyes weren’t meant to see. And, by the time we left, there would usually be blood.
I could just wait outside for Fix. There was no reason to barge into the shop and start yelling at him for taking too long, when he promised me he’d only be gone an hour or so. I could do that in the truck, once the dark-haired bastard emerged and saw me leaning against his murdered-out ride, waiting for him.
I walked over to the truck and tried the handle to the passenger seat, but it was locked. I checked my phone—another missed call from Ben, but nothing from Amy—and then slid it back into my pocket, trying not to scowl. Things were so much simpler before cell phones. If you didn’t want to be harassed by anyone, all you had to do was leave the house, walk away, and not look back. I’d gotten my first phone when I was sixteen, bought and paid for with money I’d earned waiting tables in a diner, and I’d been so excited; everyone else in school had had one for a couple of years, and I’d finally got to play catch up. Now, there were days I wished I could just throw all of my devices in the trash and never purchase another one again.
The rain had eased slightly since I’d left the motel, but it was picking up again. Heavy, fat beads of water thumped against the hood of Fix’s truck, falling from the branches of a huge live oak that loomed over the parking lot like a grim sentinel. The tree was bare of leaves, and its considerable, crooked limbs raked upward toward the overcast sky like the fingers of a twisted, grasping hand.
I raised the hood of my jacket, shivering when the already damp fabric brushed against the back of my neck. I couldn’t wait to get the fuck out of this town. It was dreary, cold, and far too wet. Seattle was world-renowned for it’s miserable weather and grey skies, but at least it had life to it. A lot of life. Music. Great food. Art. Culture. Business and industry. Liberty Fields was an unmarked town on the map that no one visited on purpose, and no one really cared about, apart from the three hundred worn down people who lived here.
I waited for Fix, picking at my fingernails inside my pockets, breathing deeply. He’d come out soon and drive me somewhere I could get another car, and then everything would be okay. I tried not to let my mind wander. When I did, I ended up replaying the events of last night and driving myself a little crazy. Fix must have thought I was used to sleeping with random strangers hours after I’d just met them. He had to believe that, since that’s exactly what I did with him. The truth was I’d been more than a little intimidated by him last night. His looks were enough to make my cheeks color whenever he turned his attention to me—skin golden, like he spent a good amount of time out in the sun. His face was all angular lines, sharp enough to cut. His eyes were both exquisite and frightening. It wasn’t just their color that froze me to my core. Whenever he looked at me, a very real chill skated over my body, as if his frosty expressions produced their own wintry breeze that bit at my skin. He was an enigma—closed off and secretive. He didn’t want to share with me what he did for a living, and that was fine. Annoying, but understandable. Sometimes people wanted to keep things private, or they just didn’t realize they were being rude. There’d been plenty of times I’d forgotten the subtle nuances of social etiquette—etiquette I’d had to learn through studying other people at an early age, since my father hadn’t been too concerned with teaching me anything at all—and I’d been cold to the point of rudeness. My slashed tires proved that well enough. That traffic cop had probably seen my car parked there last night and decided to teach me a lesson in Southern manners.
A sudden blast of wind pummeled me, hurling cold rainwater into my face, and I bit back the urge to scream. Okay, this wasn’t working. If I had to change my clothes one more time, I really was going to scream, and what manners I had left were going right out of the window. Wrapping my jacket tighter around my body, I hurried back across the parking lot and darted into the auto shop through the side door, grinding my teeth together. So freaking cold… I couldn’t remember ever being so cold in my entire life. My eyes took a second to adjust to the darkness inside the building. Another second to take in the stacks of molding newspapers that were piled up against the walls, and the numerous, rusting tools that were discarded all over the place. To my left, a tiny office, with nothing more than a small desk and a heavily stained chair inside sat abandoned. The air was stale and reeked of old cigarette smoke, coupled with the sour tang of rotting food—probably emanating from the large, dented metal trashcan that was bursting with old takeout wrappers in the corner of the room. I was about to head further into the darkness, when the low, gruff timbre of Fix’s voice reached my ears.
“—so I picked up this knife, and I decided to take matters into my own hands. Just like I’m about to do right now.”
Huh. He was talking to someone…and it didn’t sound like a particularly nice conversation. From around the corner, in what I presumed was the main floor of the auto shop, another voice cut through the air, loud and edged with something like anger.
“You can go ahead and put that down now, motherfucker. You think I haven’t been threatened before? You think this is the first time someone’s come in here and tried to act tough with me? I ain’t some dumb piece of shit that don’t know how to protect hisself. I’ve killed men before. I doubt you’ve ever had the fucking stones.”
There was a long, pregnant pause, and something changed as the silence thickened—some tense, darkness seemed to develop, that spread from one side of the building to the other, poisoning the air from corner to corner.
“All right,” the other voice said quietly. “Maybe you have killed before. So what makes you any different to me, Ray? What gives you the right to judge me, when you’ve committed the same sins?”
“I’ve never raped anyone,” Fix growled. “And I’ve never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it. I’m very selective about the jobs I take. A set of criteria has to be met before I’ll consider taking another person’s life.”
“Criteria?” There’s a loud hawking sound, and then the wet splatter of something hitting the floor. “Sounds like excuses to me. What criteria cursed me to die?”
“You’re corrupt. You’re irredeemable. You feel no remorse over the pain and suffering you inflicted on that poor girl. You don’t regret your actions, and you’ll more than likely repeat those actions again in the future.”
“Fuck you, man. You can’t tell me what I do or don’t feel bad about. You can’t tell me what I will or wont do in the future.”
“You’re saying you won’t hurt anyone ever again?”
“Yeah, what if I am? Would that change your mind?” The other man’s voice was hard and aggressive, filled with defiance. He didn’t sound sincere in the slightest.
My heart was thundering like a freight train in my chest. I had no idea what I was hearing, couldn’t really make sense of any of it, but my blood had turned to ice in my veins all the same. Fix had told me back in the motel that he was an assassin. He’d told me he killed people for money, but I’d brushed it off as nonsense. Now, listening to the tense exchange that was taking place between him and this other man, it sounded like he’d actually been telling the truth. But there was no way. It simply couldn’t be true.
“Changing my mind isn’t easy,” Fix rumbled. His voice was filled with enough gravel to set my teeth on edge. I’d never heard the promise of such violence in anyone’s words before; it made me want to back up, to clap my hands over my ears, to quietly tiptoe my way back outside and run for my goddamn life. I couldn’t do it, though. I couldn’t make a single one of my muscles move as I stood there, listening to the men talk.
“Convince me that you’ll never attack another human being for their differences. Convince me you’ll never raise your hand in anger, or take something from someone weaker and more vulnerable than you, simply because you they aren’t white. If you can do that, I’ll let you live.”
“All right, then. You have my word as a good Catholic. I won’t never do that shit again.”
I’d heard that same haughty, smug tone before, the night I’d held a knife of my own up to my father’s throat. He’d sworn he’d never touch me again. He’d sworn he’d never touch Amy again, and I’d known he was just telling me what I’d wanted to hear. I’d heard the lie in his voice. I’d witnessed it in his eyes, that had been conniving and glinting with the revenge he was already planning against me. I was sure the same look of contempt and disgust would be on the face of the man Fix was talking to, and that made my heart stop beating altogether.
God, he was going to hurt this guy. Fix was seriously going to injure him. I couldn’t understand why, but I found myself propelled forward, toward the sound of their voices. I didn’t want to see… I didn’t want to watch what was going to happen next, but a part of me felt obliged to stop it, to prevent whatever was about to take place. I didn’t know how I was going to accomplish that, but…
My body was numb as I moved. I didn’t feel a thing. My lungs quit working as I found myself standing in a doorway. Fix stood with his back to me, and in his hand…
In his hand: the cruelest, sharpest knife I’d ever seen.
The man opposite him was shorter than Fix, soft around his midsection, his face crumpled into a mask of hate and fury. Despite the faint lighting, I could make out the dark splatter across the shoulders of his tired, worn jacket that the rain must have created when they were outside. His jeans were streaked with grease, and frayed at the hems. The baseball cap he was wearing was so worn that the material had split over the brim. Strange that I should notice such fine details, when I should have been charging forward, shouting, demanding that Fix leave the guy alone.
“You aren’t going to change,” Fix said softly. “The way you hurt that girl… you zip-tied her hands, and you pinned her down. You kept her in your basement for days. You forced yourself inside her time and time again, and you laughed as she begged and pleaded with you for her life—”
“I didn’t kill her,” the other man protested. It was then I saw the tire iron he was holding in his hand. “I didn’t take her life.”
“You might as well have done,” Fix countered. “What kind of an existence do you think you left her with? Do you think she’ll ever be able to sleep again? Do you think she’ll be able to go back to her daily routine and forget about everything you did to her? Normal doesn’t exist for Holly anymore. She’ll never be able to have the normal life she deserved. She’ll never be able to form a connection with a man. She won’t be able to fall in love, get married and have children. Every time a guy looks at her in the street, every time someone smiles at her and admires her, she’ll never be able to smile back. She’ll see you. Your hideous face looming over her. You, palming your disgusting dick as you prepare to shove it inside her one more time. She’ll remember every single terrible thing you did to her, and she’ll die just a little more inside. You robbed her of everything good.”
The other man’s scowl deepened in the flash of an eye; he’d heard the finality in Fix’s tone, the same way I’d heard it, and he knew he was never going to be able to trick Fix into believing him. “That little fucking cunt didn’t deserve anything. She deserved exactly what I gave to her. I should have slit her fucking throat. You’re right. I didn’t stop hurting her when she begged. It made my dick hard. I loved fucking the shit out her. I fucking loved hurting her. I’d do it all again if I had the chance.” When he launched himself forward, I didn’t see it coming. He was slow and sloppy, hefting the tire iron over his head, bringing it swinging down in a savage arc aimed directly at Fix’s head. Fix sidestepped out of the way with apparent ease; he didn’t even raise a hand to defend himself. He simply moved out of the way, tutting under his breath. The other man stumbled, carried forward by his own momentum, and that’s when Fix reacted. He flipped the knife over in his hand and angled his wrist, darting it out to the right—a casual, fluid movement that looked like it cost him nothing at all. The tip of the knife plunged into the other guy’s side, and time stopped. The other man looked up at Fix, his eyes wide with surprise, and a long, wet gasp hissed out of his mouth.
“You…fucking asshole,” he wheezed. “You fucking piece of fucking…” The tire iron moved again, flying toward Fix’s shoulder, but Fix reached up and took hold of the man by the wrist, halting his attack in midair. He was so calm. So collected. With his back still to me, I couldn’t see his face, but there was a serenity that poured off him, loosening his shoulders. It was over quickly, but the scene would play out in my mind until the day I died: Fix slowly, carefully withdrew the knife from the man’s side, and he raised it to his throat.
“I won’t let you hurt anyone else,” he whispered. “You’re done, Franz. It’s over. I’ll make it quick.”
There was a resignation Franz’s eyes. He knew Fix was telling the truth, and a part of him looked like it had accepted it. He was welling up, tears threatening to spill down his face as Fix stepped closer to him, holding him tightly by the arm. Franz swallowed, a flicker of pain passing over his face. “You…you’re a priest,” he gasped. His face had gone white, turned to the color of ash, and tiny spots of blood flecked his lips and his chin. “Absolve me. Free me of my sins.”
Fix swiveled his body, the sound of his boots grinding against the concrete underfoot filling the air. “I used to be a priest. I can’t help you. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. You have to actual repent to be absolved. And I don’t take confession anymore.” In one swift, predatory movement, Fix slashed out with his arm, and the knife sang through the air. I watched, horrified, as the wicked edge of his serrated blade cut across Franz’s throat. Then the blood came. A gushing spurt of crimson that sprayed all over Fix, and up over his head, hitting the wall right beside me.
Franz gurgled and choked as he died. He was unable to scream, which might have been a blessing had he not been trying very hard to do just that. A further jet of blood spouted from the jagged tear in his neck, and he grasped at Fix, hands clawing at him as he tried to remain upright. It was useless, though. Completely futile. The light faded from his eyes in a matter of seconds, and then he was slipping, sliding, hands releasing Fix as he sagged to the ground.
I still couldn’t move. My nerve endings weren’t responding, even though I was hollering at them to obey. I could have snuck away and hid before being discovered, but the shock of what I’d just seen had me rooted permanently to the spot. As Fix slowly turned around, I knew with every fiber of my being that I was about to die. I’d seen what he’d done. I’d witnessed the whole thing. There was no way I’d be allowed to live to tell the tale. The coppery taste of metal and fear flooded my mouth, so thick and overwhelming that I almost gagged on it.
Fix saw me immediately. He was a vision of terror—face and hands covered with blood, jacket doused and drenched in red. He was the stuff of nightmares, and I was locked in his gaze, unable to run. He didn’t look shocked to see me standing there in the doorway. He didn’t look surprised at all. There was a darkness shrouding him as he took a step toward me, wiping his face with the back of his hand, smearing the blood like it was war paint.
“I didn’t think you’d stay to watch, Sera. I didn’t think you’d have the stomach for it.”