“This could use the hospital … stitches, like.”
We’re in the main office, out of view of the window, my arm stretched across a table atop a towel, ugly and open and still bleeding under the fluorescent lights overhead. I can’t look at it for too long without wanting to be sick. It didn’t seem so bad in Keith’s room. Here, it looks bad. Ellis has an ancient-looking first-aid kit between us. He raises his eyes to me, awaiting some kind of confirmation, like yes, a hospital.
“N-no.”
I couldn’t kill him.
It nauseates me, that I couldn’t, because he’s all that’s standing between me and Keith now. I have risked everything for this kindness, or whatever it is, and that makes me worry that I’m too starved, too broken, to do anything right. I know I am. I just thought I could be better than it for once. I close my eyes briefly.
There’s a phone near us. Ellis hasn’t made a move toward it.
In a neat little pile in front of me, the tags, the IDs.
“Didn’t think so,” he says.
He cried when I took the knife from his neck. That’s the comfort I’m clinging to; in his eyes, I looked like I could’ve done it. He feels like he walked away with more than he had before the moment I lowered my hand. I was dangerous. I had a knife.
When we came back into the office, he rooted around under the desk and found a bottle of Jim Beam. He took a shot and offered me none. I want to ask him what he gets out of this. What he’s going to make me do for him so I can finish what I’ve started.
“It’ll h-heal f-fine.”
“It’ll heal ugly.”
But most things do.
He unscrews a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and says, “This is gonna hurt,” and then upends it over my arm, a little bit of revenge in the action. There’s about a microsecond of nothing before all of my skin is on fire, I’m on fire. I press my lips together and scream through them, black dots in front of my eyes and I think I can hear Ellis saying, easy, easy, easy, and I gasp, didn’t even realized I’d stopped breathing. My skin calms down a little at a time, not enough that I stop feeling it. I have to swallow a few times before I feel like I can speak.
“Okay?” he asks.
He doesn’t wait for an answer. He rummages through the kit and I get the feeling he’s just trying to find things that make sense to him but he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing. After a long moment he settles on some butterfly bandages, and puts them where he thinks is right, pulling my skin as together as it’ll get.
From there, he finds a bandage.
“Lift your arm,” he says.
I raise my arms and he wraps the bandage around and around and around it. He does it with just a little more care than he did the disinfecting. And then it’s done. It feels snug.
We stare at each other.
“I’m…” Ellis pauses. “I don’t know what to do here.”
“You said y-you’d h-help me.”
“I just did. You pulled a fucking knife on me—”
“You s-said you were his f-friend!”
“I—” He stops, doesn’t know how to finish. He presses his hand against his forehead. “Look, the only reason I’m not calling the cops right now is because…” He pauses. “Is because you think Keith’s hurtin’ … little kids. And you think I got something to do with that.”
“I kn-know he is,” I say. “You said y-you w-were his friend! S-said you m-met online! What else was I s-supposed t-to think?”
“It was a stupid MMO game! It wasn’t any of the—any of the—” He waves his hands, floundering. “It wasn’t any of the stuff you’re talking about. That’s not the guy I met. That’s not the guy who got me this job. It’s—you know how crazy you look? You broke into his room and trashed the fucking place! The only reason I didn’t call the cops after you calmed some was because out of all the shit that coulda come out of your mouth, for it to be that fucked up … I don’t know. I just don’t fuckin’ know.” He scrubs a hand over his head and then reaches over and pushes his fingers through the IDs. “That’s him, though. But that’s not his name…”
I find the one with KEITH on it, slide it forward.
“Th-that’s who he w-was f-for me.”
He points to the tags. “What are the … what are those?”
“T-trophies. K-kids he’s hurt.”
Ellis turns pale, his hand drifting toward them and just stopping before his fingers can graze those tainted pieces of fabric, those lost girls. I watch him mouth each name, the curve of his lips for each one. I turn my face when he gets to mine.
“How do you know?”
“—” I close my eyes briefly and clench my hands together. “He d-did something t-to my s-sister.”
“Then shouldn’t you tell the police or something?”
“I w-will after I s-see him.”
“No,” Ellis says firmly. “You need to tell the cops now and let them—”
I slam my hand onto the table, the force traveling up my sore, hurting arm. It startles him enough to skitter back in his chair.
“N—no.”
Silence. Ellis grabs the bottle of Jim Beam and gets to his feet, takes a swig. Then he wanders over to the window looking out over the parking lot and laughs.
“Darren, Keith—whoever the fuck he is—he got me this job. He really helped me out. He saved Joe’s life. He’s only ever been decent to me. I don’t … I can’t believe it.”
“Then t-tell me I’m l-lying.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“D-do you know w-where h-he is?”
He tenses and it’s the answer I need.
I am. So. Close.
I get up slowly, carefully. He eyes me warily.
“Ellis, I d-don’t know you and I’m s-sorry about what h-happened in th—in that room, but I n-need you t-to tell m-me w-where.”
“So you can ruin a guy’s life?”
“Or p-put a sick f-fuck where he b-belongs.”
“But if you’re lying to me—”
“W-what’s it gonna c-cost you? You gonna b-bet on some l-little g-girl’s life? You g-gonna risk them?” I wish I’d followed through. I wish I’d cut his heart open. He turns back to me. I pick up each tag. “C-Casey. Anna. J-Joelle. Jessica … S-Sadie.”
“Then let me call the cops!”
“I n-need to see it myself. I h-have to.”
“I just…”
“P-please.”
It makes my stomach ache, how, at a time like this, I can’t make that word come perfectly out of my mouth enough to convince him. I can’t describe how bad it feels, this inability to communicate the way I want, when I need to. My eyes burn, and tears slip down my cheeks and I can’t even imagine how pathetic I look. Girl with a busted face, torn-up arm, begging for the opportunity to save other girls. Why do I have to beg for that?
“If y-you knew what he d-did to my sister you wouldn’t b-be doing this t-to me. You h-have to let me g-go. Tell me where he is. P-pretend I w-was never here.”
His shoulders sag and he exhales slowly. He squints his eyes shut and squeezes the bridge of his nose and I realize, after a moment, that he’s crying too.
I hold my breath.
I watch him age.