Then—
The smoker: I say we just take them out now. Kill the fucking faggot before he goes any further with this.
He’s here, I think. He’s here and he knows I was there that night. He knows I was listening.
For each thought I have, each voice that goes through my head, another second ticks by. I can hear them counting off in my head and it’s one and it’s two and it’s three… until I realize that I’m still staring at the reader which is shouting: TRAYNOR TRAYNOR TRAYNOR.
“There a problem?” I hear him ask, an edge to his words.
“No,” I say, sounding remarkably calm. “No problem. It just didn’t read it. Shouldn’t be but another moment.” I swipe it again. The screen lights up brighter than it ever has before, saying TRAYNOR, shrieking TRAYNOR. It’s trying to tell me what I already know. Get it together, Benji, I tell myself. Focus. Get it together and fucking do your job. He’s waiting for you to fuck up. He’s waiting for the look on your face. Do your fucking job.
I plaster a smile on my face, the skin feeling tight. I turn back to Traynor, who is watching me with a scowl. I hand him back his ID, which he snatches out of my hand. I ring up the smokes. “That’ll be $7.86,” I tell him evenly.
He hands me a ten. “You know, you look a little nervous.”
Fuck. Calm. Calm. No threads. Cal, stay away. “Just tired,” I assure him as I make his change. “Been a rough couple of weeks.”
“Is that right?” he says, holding out his hand for the change, hooking his fingers up. I can’t help but think how much like a bear trap it looks.
I nod and drop the dollars and coins into his hand. And just like that, the trap closes, his fingers encircling my wrist, vise tight. I know he can feel my pulse, the blood rushing in erratic beats of my heart. My hand is clammy and my breath lodges in my throat. It’s like the world has gone silent around us, as if we’re stuck in a vacuum. I don’t know if I could call out even if I tried. No, Cal. Stay away. Stay away.
Traynor has a shrewd look on his face, as if he can see inside my head and knows every single damn thing I’m thinking. There’s so many weird things going on in this town that I banish Cal from my thoughts just in case Traynor can see inside. These are some strange days, I think frantically. I’m expecting his eyes to start twitching back and forth and his head to cock to the side, like he’s a bird stalking its prey.
“You okay, there, Benji?” he asks, deceptively soft. “You getting sick?”
“Might be the flu,” I say weakly, the first thought in my head. “Been going around town. May head on home when the shift change gets here in a few minutes.” There’s no one coming in, but he doesn’t know that. At least I don’t think he does.
If he’s worried about my words, he doesn’t give a reaction. He grinds his fingers into my wrist and I bite back the whimper that threatens to rise. “You know,” he says, “faggots can find themselves in a world of hurt if they don’t mind their own business.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you don’t,” he says, squeezing my wrist again. “But you look like you need a reminder, just in case.”
Anger is rising and I do nothing to stop it. I try to jerk my hand away, but he outweighs me by a good seventy pounds, and his hand is a steel trap. “Get the fuck out of my store before I call the cops,” I growl at him.
He laughs. “The cops? You want to get the sheriff in here, boy? Well, that might be the best idea you’ve had in your short, short life.”
The bell rings overhead as the front door opens. Traynor stiffens and immediately drops my wrist, leaning back on his heels. He doesn’t turn away from me.
“Everything okay in here, Benji?” Fuck.
“Everything’s fine, Abe. Just selling this gentleman his smokes. He was just on his way out.”
Traynor sneers at me. “That’s right. Just got my smokes. Hey, Benji?”
I say nothing, pulling my hands into fists at my sides.
“Remember what we talked about, okay? I would hate to see something happen to someone so young. Seems to me there’s been enough death in this place.” He smiles as he says this last, and it’s all I can do to keep from launching myself over the counter and ripping his fucking face off with my bare hands. I want to cause him pain. I want him to hurt.
He snorts and brushes past Abe none too gently and walks out the door, the bell ringing overhead. He gets into an old Mazda and waves at me as he backs out onto Poplar and drives away.
“What in the hell was that about?” Abe asks, rushing over to me. “You okay, boy?”
“I’m fine,” I mutter. I try to hide my wrist, but it’s too late. He grabs it and pulls it up to his face. The ache is deeper than the red marks, easily seen as fingerprints. It’ll bruise later, mottling my skin into deep blues and greens.
“You’re not fine,” he snaps at me. “Who was that man?”
“Just some guy,” I sigh. “Friends with the sheriff.”