Even if I hated their guts, they were still my brothers. And family always sticks together, right?
I take a deep breath and wait until he’s done pacing. Maybe he’ll figure shit out on his own. After all, he can’t keep me tied up here in the middle of fucking nowhere forever.
His foot taps on the ground, and he scratches his head, sighing out loud.
“What are you gonna do now? Kill me and get rid of the evidence?”
“Just … shut it,” he says, but the look in his eyes softens immediately as if he already regrets being a dick. “Please. I need to think.”
I snort. “Shoulda done that before you actually killed someone …” I roll my eyes. “Untie me, Brandon. You know I’m innocent.”
He mulls it over a few seconds, still nervously tapping his foot.
“Brandon, look at me!” I yell when he’s staring at the ground for so long it feels like he’s forgotten about me. “Let. Me. Go.”
“And then what? You’ll kill me?” he says, shaking his head, still pacing around with the gun in his hand as though it’s a second dick he needs to hold while thinking about me.
“You owe this to me,” I say with the most honest, good-intentions voice I can muster.
But no matter what I say, I don’t seem to get through to him. It’s as if he’s completely zoned out. Away from this world.
* * *
Brandon
My mind is screaming at me.
I’m trying to make sense of things, but the more I think about it, the more my thoughts are becoming one jumbled mess.
I don’t know what or who to believe. Is she really as innocent as she claims to be? Or is she lying to save her own ass? But that wouldn’t make any sense. She already said she doesn’t care if she dies. She’s tried multiple times to make me shoot her.
Biting my lip, I pace around while she watches me. The look in her eyes is killing me, and I try to ignore it, but she makes it so damn hard. It’s as if she knows she’s right, and that infuriates me even more.
I can’t think like this, so I stomp toward her and grab her tight, dragging her to the car.
“What are you doing?” she shouts as I hold her wrists while untying her. Then I tie her again, this time to the car bumper.
“What? No, untie me!” she says.
“Not a chance,” I reply when I’m done tying the knot.
“Brandon …” she says with a threatening tone.
I get up and put my gun away. “I need some time alone.”
“Out here?” She snorts. “You’re nuts.”
I turn around, and say, “I’ll be back soon.”
As I start walking, she begins to scream. “Brandon! No!”
I stop momentarily to pull my Zippo from my pocket and light a cig. The first drag is the best, but the rest feel bitter and shallow. Like the drags don’t do anything for me anymore.
Then I continue walking.
I can hear her bang her head against the bumper, but she’s not going anywhere as her wrists are tightly bound to the car. It’d be a miracle if she escaped, so I’m sure I can safely go away for a while. At least until I’ve cleared my head.
“Brandon! Get back here right now!” she yells, stomping her heels on the soil. “Untie me!”
It’s hard to leave her like that, but what else can I do? If I untie her, she’ll run off.
“Don’t you fucking leave me here alone!” she adds.
But there’s nothing else I can do. Right now, I can’t stay with her. I can’t look her in the eyes. Not without feeling like a complete failure.
I’ve failed everyone who entered my life. My papa. My uncle. Even her.
All this time, I thought she caused my papa’s death, that she picked up my Zippo and gave it to her brothers, but she says she didn’t, and for some reason, I don’t think she’s lying. She has no reason to.
But then how would the Zippo end up at my papa’s shop?
And why that fucking note?
It must’ve been someone close to my papa, or at least someone who knew the Burrells. But my papa never hurt a fly, and he didn’t deserve to die. Not like that.
And if I hadn’t left my Zippo where I did, he would’ve been alive today.
At least, that’s what I assume because if not … I probably wouldn’t be able to live with myself either way, knowing his death was in vain.
All my life, I’ve searched for a meaning. A purpose. And when she stumbled back into my world, I thought I found one: vengeance.
Except things aren’t turning out to be so easy after all.
Do I even have a right to vengeance when I did something horrible too?
Because if she’s right about her brothers … if they didn’t kill my papa, then I’m responsible for the death of two innocent boys. I wasn’t the one to slice their throat, but I made the call. I put my uncle on their tracks. I could’ve reported it to the police. I could’ve done a lot of things, but I didn’t.