Two

Jasper

A single gunshot ricochets through the trailer park, rattling my eardrums. There’s no mistaking the sound for a car backfiring or fireworks leftover from the Fourth of July. The pop is life and death, and around here, it’s usually death.

The closer I get to The Whip, the more sweat pours down my forehead and onto my face. The soles of my sneakers pound so hard against the pavement, the vibrations snake up my legs and all the way into my arms. Somehow, I manage to run the three-quarters of a mile more like the hundred-meter dash.

But, as I round the corner and spot the commotion, I can’t make sense of it at first. Trey’s peeling out of the lot on his motorcycle, and he doesn’t even glance over his shoulder as he pulls away. Jax and Ace are on top of Tess, shouting at each other. In between cuss words, she wails and kicks her legs like she’s in a pool of water.

Jax runs his hand through his beard and then restrains her arms the best he can. She punches the ground and pulls at her hair. It’s like watching a wild animal, but I know it’s just the drugs in her system, making her crazy. Once the high wears off, she’ll calm down and forget about why she was upset in the first place, just like she always does.

I can’t make sense of what’s happening. All I know is that something’s wrong—really, really wrong. My muscles are so tensed up, I can barely get my body to move.

I say Ace’s name twice before he hears me. His shirt is soaked with sweat, and his face is bright red.

“Get the hell out of here,” he says. “You can’t be here.”

When I turn my head, I take a swift punch to the gut. Something clicks, and I realize the girl on the ground that I’m staring at is Winnie.

“Is she dead?” I ask in a voice I don’t even recognize as my own.

Ace lets go of Tess and stands up. He grabs my arm with his sweaty hand, and I pull it out of his grip. I’m scared of what I’ll find when I get there, but I walk toward Winnie anyway, one cautious step after another.

Run, I tell myself.

Do something.

Move faster.

Help her.

But my body doesn’t listen to my brain.

“Jasper, for once in your life, listen to me. Go home, and if anyone asks, you weren’t here.”

He roughly pushes me backward, and I almost stumble, but he grips my elbow before I fall. My whole body is shaking, and I can’t take my eyes off the growing bloodstain coating the parking lot around Winnie.

“M-mom has Lydia. I didn’t leave her alone.” My teeth are chattering, and the only way to get them to stop is to mash my lips together.

Jax lets go of Tess, rips his T-shirt over his head, and then uses it to tie Tess’s arms behind her. She’s too strong for him without Ace’s help, and it’s the only thing to keep her from hitting him in the face over and over.

She screams like she’s in pain, but I don’t think Jax is hurting her.

“Where are the fucking cops, Ace?”

The sirens sound close, and finally, a cruiser speeds down the alley. As soon as it stops, two officers run toward Jax and Tess. Because of Tess’s loud wails, neither officer sees Winnie at first. But, as soon as they do, they’re on the radio, giving word for backup.

Ace and I were in a car accident once. It was pretty bad, and both cars were all mangled up. Since it was late at night, a ton of cops showed up, and Ace got a Breathalyzer even though he’d only had one drink. They interviewed us, too. To make sure our stories all matched. The whole situation played out like in the movies. I guess you could say it was organized chaos.

But an accident isn’t the same as a crime. This is ten times more intense than that car accident, and as I watch the ambulances pull up and cop car after cop car surround the scene, I wish it were more like that accident and less like this crime.

I bend down and reach for Winnie’s hand before she’s encircled by strangers. I want her to know that I’m here. That, no matter what happens to her, I care enough to stay. In case she’s already gone, I look up into the air above her and search for angel wings, but I don’t see anything.

Two people turn into six and then ten, and I’m pushed out of the way and taken to one of the cop cars. I walk sideways the whole way there, unable to take my eyes completely off Winnie. When she’s completely surrounded and I can’t see her body anymore, I focus on the edge of her shoe barely sticking out. I try to forget about the fact that it hasn’t moved once since I’ve been watching it.

The officer with dark hair and eyes stands in front of me. His lips are moving, but the words coming out aren’t making it to my ears. Like I’m underwater, every sound is muffled, and all I can do is concentrate on the red and blue lights ricocheting off the white building. They go around and around every second, chasing the sirens as they spin.

“…crime…”

“…assault…”

“…weapon…”

“…shock…”

“…gun…”

What happened to Winnie? How did she get between a gun and a bullet?

I lick my lips and swallow, and then I stare at the officer. Even though I have no idea how this happened, there’s really only one thing I need to know. “Is she dead?”

As soon as I say it, I realize I don’t want to hear the response.

“They’re doing all they can,” he tells me. “Is she your sister? Friend?”

“She’s Winnie,” I tell him. “She’s my girl—” I stop myself.

She’s only my girlfriend in my head. I’ve never had the courage to actually ask her. I thought, if I waited long enough, it would happen on its own. But, now, that might never happen.

The officer listens to me and jots down pieces of what I’m saying onto his notepad. “Keep going,” he says. “Any information you have will help your friend.”

I tell him about the trailer, how I was babysitting, and how Winnie came by unexpectedly. The officer asks about her mood, what she said, and how she acted when she left. I tell him every detail I can remember—the way her lips quivered as she spoke, how upset she was about going to The Whip, and that I was scared she was about to do something she’d regret. I told him, if I hadn’t been with Lydia, I would have run after her and taken her home with me, so she wouldn’t have to get on that stage and take her clothes off. He seems surprised about the dancing but only for a split second. Then, his emotions disappear, and he’s stone-cold again.

“Tess and Jax aren’t good people,” I tell him.

Maybe he goes to The Whip and already knows that for himself. A lot of guys his age spend nights there. All my time gets spent in the kitchen, so I never see any faces I’d remember.

“I believe they’re known at the station.”

Known.

It doesn’t surprise me. Someone in Carillon is always in trouble. Maybe that’s why Winnie’s always worried about the cops being at her house. There’s a chance this officer has been inside Winnie’s trailer. It’s a stupid thing to get jealous about, especially at a time like this, but I am. I want Winnie to trust me enough that she lets me see both the good and the bad.

Suddenly, the crowd of people around Winnie stand, and she’s being pushed into the ambulance with her body strapped to an orange board and little wires stuck all over her. One medic is holding a bag of clear liquid in the air, and I follow the line all the way into her arm. It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, but it means she’s alive.

I take a step around the officer, and he grabs my shoulder.

“I need to see Winnie before they put her in the ambulance.”

He seems satisfied with the information I gave him and hands me his card. “Give me a call if you remember anything else, okay?”

I don’t answer him because, when I turn round, I see all the people who have gathered around The Whip. The usual night crew is standing in the lot, and the alley’s full of nosy people from the park, trying to get a look at Carillon’s latest drama.

I manage to push through a line of people being held back by yellow tape, and then I duck under the barrier set up to keep people away from the ambulance.

“Winnie!” I yell, unsure if she’s awake or still passed out.

I’m steps from the back of the ambulance when a female officer grabs my arm and tries to pull me back onto the other side of the tape. I pry her fingers off my skin and spout off a bunch of nonsense about how I belong here. Who the hell says they belong on the scene of a shooting?

When she won’t listen to me, I grab her arm like she grabbed mine, and tell her, “She’s my girlfriend. Let me see her. I was just with this officer.”

I hold up the card he gave me, and her eyes soften the slightest bit.

“Stay with me,” she says.

I nod and then let her lead me toward the ambulance. The EMTs slide the gurney into the back, and I barely catch a glimpse of Winnie’s cheek before the doors close. I didn’t get to touch her, couldn’t talk to her, nothing. And, just as I press my palms against the window, trying to peek inside, the ambulance pulls away.

“Why are you still here, Jasper?” Ace’s hand grips my shoulder and squeezes.

All the tension has drained his voice of emotion, and I can tell he’s barely holding it together.

He looks like he’s on the verge of passing out.

“A cop interviewed me, and I didn’t get to see Winnie.”

The ambulance turns the corner, and we watch the colors from the lights dance off the building. Winnie’s on her way to the hospital, and I have no idea if I’ll ever see her again. The last words I had with her were about The Whip, not about how much I cared about her. If I had been able to stop her from leaving or convinced her to stay until my mom showed up to watch Lydia, she never would have run into the path of that gun.

Another round of screams surrounds Tess and Jax. We watch as they’re each placed in separate cars with their arms bound behind them.

“Did Tess shoot her, Ace?”

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Tess isn’t coming back. She’s going away for a long time.”

I thought things were as bad as they could get, but if Tess gets locked up, I’ll never see Winnie again. Even if she survives, it’ll be like she didn’t. They’ll ship her off to some foster home, and she’ll become the property of the state.

“We have to get her back, Ace.”

“Talk to Trey,” he tells me. “I have enough to fix around here tonight. It’ll be a miracle if I still have a job in the morning.”

Trey left for a reason. He’s calculated, and I guess that comes with the territory. Nobody actually knows what he does or where he goes at night. They just know he’s out there, always watching and waiting.

That’s why I have to find him.

Trey’s my only hope to keep Winnie in Carillon.

And that hurts almost as much as seeing her on the ground in a puddle of blood. Because I know she loves him.