Blood to Dust

Shaking violently, I rub my arms and light jog in a patterned circle to raise my body temperature. The mold makes everything cold. I circle the room, wishing I had a stress ball, before I hear it.

Boom.

I strain my ears, somehow knowing that another one will follow.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

It’s steady, angry. I press one ear against the wall, squinting and pressing my lips together.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Whoever it is upstairs that’s doing it, is tearing the place down. Ripping it apart. Furniture crashing, walls banging, wallpapers stripped raw. Whoever it is is angry as hell.

Beat.

I see everything, and I hear everything.

He’s frustrated. Mad. Pissed.

Just like me.

He’s handicapped by Godfrey just as much as I am. We shouldn’t be enemies, we should be allies. A coalition of revenge against these men.

The need to pull him to my side is so overwhelming, I even tried to seduce him in the bathroom. I don’t know what came over me. I usually avoid sex. I usually avoid men.

I scrape the wall with my fingernail as I think about how I got here in the first place.

Camden.

Beat needs to know. He has to know that we’re on the same team. He can’t let them kill me.

“I met him at a charity event seven years ago. I was eighteen and he was thirty, and I basked in this powerful man’s attention, like a lazy cat under the sun. Posh English accent, sharp suit—he wore Dior—and manners to die for. I’d never met a man like him before.”

Beat’s furniture-crashing stops, and I continue into the dusk, my voice hoarse but bold.

“I remember eyeing Camden behind my dad’s shoulder. Howard Burlington-Smyth was talking to Godfrey Archer, and this was a big deal. Archer had a shady reputation, and my dad was the mayor of Manor Hill, a small, affluent town near Blackhawk. He had aspirations of becoming governor, and he needed money to kick-start his campaign.”

Money Godfrey Archer had in spades.

Money Camden Archer wiped his ass with every morning.

“Officially, they were businessmen with properties all over northern California. Officially, this was all legit.”

Swallowing painfully, I look up. I know why the commotion above me has stopped. He can hear me. Thin walls, thin floors. This paper house will crumble under the weight of my truth.

I’m going to rewrite my destiny by luring Beat to my side.

“That night, Camden took my hand in his and we sat underneath the stars, talking. Laughing. Falling. I was studying in Los Angeles and he was going back to England the next day. His dad let him run some of his London-based businesses. You know, keep the kid busy.

“Camden was an average looking guy. Plain, bland even. Ink blue eyes, thin lips and a bony nose. He had a lanky long frame with a hint of a beer belly poking out.

“I was young and impressionable and thought frat boys and college brats were beneath me. I wanted something different. Something dangerous.”

“The day after the charity event, I flew back to Los Angeles, disappointed with the loss of Camden. I thought our encounter would be forever shelved under ‘What If?’

“What if he lived in California?

“What if I’d been bold enough to ask for his number?

“What if he was the love of my life and I let him slip between my fingers?”

Sighing at the young, juvenile Prescott, I squeeze my eyes shut and continue.

“But I soon learned that the Archers don’t live well with ‘if’s’. They are more of ‘when’ kind of people. A first-class plane ticket to London waited at my dorm, along with a warm designer coat for the valley girl who has never had to brave English storms.

“I should’ve seen the red flags back then. They were flipping in the wind of an impending storm, but I was too young to understand what I was doing.

“I’d never been to London, but always wanted to visit. I thought I was falling for a bad boy, when in fact, I got caught in the web of an evil man. The thing about cold-hearted monsters is that in the dark, Beat, their touch is just as warm as any other person’s.

“This was the beginning of my fall.”

I bang my head against the wall behind my bed in a systematic tempo.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

I took it hard when she made me hard. I took it hard and I took it out on my walls and bed and stereo and laptop. It was unfair, yet made uncannily perfect sense that I’d want to fuck the only person who I shouldn’t.

Finally, I was physically attracted to someone. But having her meant getting killed, and with all due respect to my cock and Silver Spoon, I’m sure she’s a good lay, but not worthy of my head.

Then she started talking and my lame reason to keep her captive became even lamer.