Richard

/> “Man, when someone puts in a call, you guys sure do come a-runnin’, huh?”

Tom Stoggins smiled at me. He was one of Gunner’s best friends in the department, apparently, and here to keep an eye on me until my stepbrother could get back. I guessed Gunner had gone easy on the details—it wasn’t like him to broadcast a torrid affair with his stepsister to all his friends.

I wondered how much he knew about the other thing, though. About my stalker and all the threats he’d made.

Poems about roses and flying worms. Shit, dude, could you vague that up for me?

“Hey, when a brother asks for help, might as well be the tones soundin’,” he said, and I stepped aside to let him in. “Nice digs you got here. Guess if you gotta hole up somewhere on account of a crazy stalker, this would be the place.”

“The room service is what sold it,” I said, locking the door behind him. “But the view’s not bad, either.”

“Whoa!” Tom trotted to the window and stare wide-eyed over the city. “You sure you can’t rent out your stalker? Nice hotel room, gets me away from the wife and kids_._._._I’ve had worse gigs.”

“You want a mimosa?” I asked him. “I was thinking of having room service come up again_._._._”

“Oh, none for me, doll. Thanks,” Tom said, flashing me a winning smile. “I’m good.”

I put the paper menu away and slipped my hands into the pockets of my shorts. I’d heard Gunner talk a little about Tom, though I’d never met him. From all the stories he told, I figured the guy would’ve been older. But he was about Gunner’s age, or maybe closer to my own. And he talked like one of those guys from the FDNY—that stereotypical accent, the hardness of his words. Dude was weird. Like some kind of paradox.

Maybe that was why Gunner liked him so much. My stepbrother sure did love complicated shit.

“Hey, there was this guy out there,” Tom said, squinting at the sidewalk below. “Came up to me on my way in. He was real weird. Like the kid in high school used to write poetry about all the girls who wouldn’t suck his cock and then stash it under his bed.” He turned and looked at me, hands on his waist just above his belt. “You think that could’ve been him?”

A chill slithered down my spine. I hadn’t seen the guy’s face—at least, not that I knew of—but Tom’s description fit when I imagined he was like: some hypersensitive, entitled, Elliot Rodgers type. From both life as a woman and working as a stripper, I knew one simple truth: lonely men were usually the most dangerous.

“Maybe,” I answered. “This guy_._._._my stalker_._._._he’s really into poetry. Some guy called Blake.”

“William Blake?” Tom said with a laugh. “Oh, shit. Yeah. That guy’s one of my favorites. Learned about him back in college—they don’t teach real art like that in high school.”

He cleared his throat, then very dramatically recited,

“I was angry with my friend;

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.”

Tom chuckled once he was done. “How about you, Tanya? You ever been pissed at somebody?”

I frowned. There was something stirring in my guts—a sense of unease, of suspicion and distrust. Was William Blake really that popular? Maybe he was, but for a firefighter? Really?

And he just_._._._knew all that off-hand?

“I_._._._guess so,” I answered, taking a step away from him. I tried to make it seem casual, like I wasn’t eyeing the spot I’d laid my burner phone.

“You guess so?” Tom stared at me, his face scrunched. “No, no, Tanya. You’d remember anger. It’s that thing that strangles you in the night. Haunts your dreams. Taints your memories. That hangman’s noose that just won’t let go.”

When I didn’t answer, he sighed, kind of like I’d disappointed him. He paced in front of the window, shaking his head.

“It’s like a poisoned tree. You let it grow and fester inside you. Feed it with your hate. Any fruit it bears might be sweet, but ultimately, it’s poisoned, too. It can only cause hurt and pain.” He stopped moving and stared at the ground. “Took me a while to figure that last one out, but now that I know, I ain’t gonna forget. I had plans for my anger, but now I think I’ll have to change ‘em.”

I smiled at him as I turned away just enough to put my left hand out of his view. “I’ve known a lot of that, sure. I mean, my dad—well, Gunner’s dad—was a real bastard. Is,” I corrected myself. I was starting to slip—to stutter. “Is a real bastard. Far as I know.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tom seemed interested in me again, though his eyes were distant, glazed. “What’d he do to you?”

I inched toward the end table. “The usual. Screaming. Yelling. Telling me I was no good. That I’d never amount to anything. How I was useless. How nobody would ever love me. Blaming me for my stepbrother takin’ off on us_._._._”

Tom narrowed his eyes. “He beat you?”

“Gunner, more than me,” I divulged. “But yeah. Sometimes. Never where anyone could see, though. Then everyone would know what kind of drunk, piece of shit monster he was.”

I was so close to the table. Just inches away. But I couldn’t just reach out and grab the phone. I had to make it look like I was doing something else. Something innocuous. And since I was barefoot, the old tyin’-my-shoes trick wasn’t gonna cut it.

Instead I took a hairband out of my pocket like I was going to tie my wild locks back into a ponytail. Then I let it drop to the ground and bent to pick it up with a little “oops.”

Eye-level with the phone now. I’d just have to scoop it into my hand when I stood.

“I had a dad like that, too. Seems like these days, everybody does. Mom wasn’t much better, though. But she liked to hurt me in a different way.”

“I’m sorry,” I replied, reaching for the phone.

“Anything sexual?” Tom asked me after a pause. “He ever, y’know_._._._touch you, while you were sleepin’? Play with your tits? You ever wake up with his cum on your face?”

My stomach turned so violently I thought I would puke. “No. Jesus, no.” I swallowed my bile and grabbed the tie with my right hand and the phone with my left, standing back up. “It wasn’t like that.”

“You sure?” he pressed me. He gave me an appraising look. “C’mon. You’re tellin’ me Daddy never fucked you?”

Keep calm. Play it cool. It was easy enough to think it—lots harder to pull off. My hands were shaking. My stomach was a mess. Tom was playing with me—if this even was Tom. Maybe it had been Tom all along, my brother’s best goddamn friend, but I had no way of knowing. And he knew that, the bastard.

He was the cat. I was the mouse. He had all the power here—the size, the killer instincts, the claws. Best I could hope to do was outrun him. He seemed to sense my thoughts, stepping between me and the door. I felt a bead of sweat form on my nape, sticking to my hair.

“Never,” I told him, shooting him another quick, but shaky smile. “Jim was an asshole, sure. But he never_._._._”

Tom frowned. “Huh.” Then he cocked his head. “So where do you think you get it from, then? The whole sex thing. Y’know, with Gunner?”

He shocked me so bad that instead of gently lifting the phone cover, I snapped it open. That click might as well have been a gunshot. I saw his eyes dart to my hand.

Clumsily, I tried to cover it with a, “What_._._._?”

But Tom was on me with an open-hand slap, one that got me right in the cheekbone and made me see stars.

You ever been hit like that before? It spins your fuckin’ head. Boggles the mind. Takes you off guard. Off balance. My vision was blurry and at the same time, way too sharp. Colors were too bright. My neck hurt from the way my head twisted at the impact, a warm pain that bloomed all the way up into my skull.

“Fuck—”

I tried to pull away, tried to jam Gunner’s number into my phone, but Tom grabbed my arm and slammed my wrist into the table. A new arc of pa

in sizzled through my bones. I held tight to the phone, curling my fingers around it.

“No!”

He struck me again, but when my grasp didn’t break, he brought my hand to his mouth and bit. Hard. Right on my knuckles. I screamed when he broke the skin, dropped the phone, and came at him with my right hand, the one with the bandages on it. I was operating on animal instincts. I didn’t think about the consequences. When I slapped him, it only hurt me worse, and that moment of hesitation when the pain took me over gave Tom enough time to grab my hand and twist it, bringing it to my knees.