Author: Cassia Leo

I learned to play this four years ago after I found an old record in Grandpa’s study. I remembered him playing Chopin while I read Black Box. At thirteen years old, I had been playing piano for more than seven years. It still took me five months to learn this piece and play it confidently. But that was four years ago. I haven’t touched the piano in over a year. I don’t know if I could even play this anymore. All I know is that the melody pulls memories and emotions out of me that I’d prefer to ignore, so I swiftly change the station again until I find some classic rock music.

Opening the glove compartment, I pull out the black pouch I stuffed in there earlier. That’s when I see the handgun I placed in there two months ago.

I bought the handgun after the trial ended and I received a vague and anonymous text message threat. The text read: We both know you’re not innocent.

Yes, I definitely know I’m not innocent, which is why I’m here now. I should have stood up in that courtroom and told everyone the truth. Instead, I listened to the lawyer my father hired and kept my mouth shut. I was the only person who knew what happened the day Jordan died, and I didn’t have the balls to speak up on his or my behalf.

Reaching into the compartment, I pull out the gun. I was acquitted of the second-degree murder charge, and the lesser manslaughter charge, but I was still cited for illegal discharge of a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling. I can’t get a gun permit until I’m thirty years old. I was surprised at how easy it was to buy an unregistered gun. All I had to do was mention to Tyler, Cassie’s older brother, that I’d been threatened by someone at school and he suggested I get a gun. Tyler’s friend Victor knew a guy in Southie who could get me a clean 92 Beretta. Within eight days of that text message threat, I had this gun.

After what happened with Jordan, most people would think I’d never want to see another gun for the rest of my life. But, just as I grew up with music and books, guns have always been a part of my life. My dad first took me out to the range when I was eight years old. By the time I was twelve, I could hit a three-inch target from fifty yards out. My familiarity with guns only made Jordan’s death seem even more senseless. It’s also the reason I was kept off the stand during the trial. My only defense was to convince the jury that neither Jordan nor I knew how to handle a Ruger .270 – and that I was drunk as fuck.

I shut the glove compartment and lay the gun on my lap, then I reach for the pouch. I’ll use both. I’ll shoot a lethal dose of heroin into my vein, then I’ll pull the trigger.

Unzipping the pouch, my stomach curdles at the sight of the contents. I don’t do drugs. Other than the few times I smoked pot my freshman year, drugs have never appealed to me. And I haven’t drunk any alcohol since the accident. I have no idea what this stuff will do to me. All I know is that it will kill me.

I slip the lighter out of the pouch and test it before I begin preparing the syringe. It sparks a flame on the first try. As I set the lighter back inside the pouch, a flash of lights gets my attention. A dark mini-van pulls into the lot, rolling to a stop between the hedges and the back of the building on my left. I quickly duck down so they can’t see my silhouette in the car through the tiny spaces between the leaves of the bushes. The unmistakable sound of a car door opening is quickly followed by a scream. Instinctively, I pop up in my seat and squint into the glare of the headlights. What I see makes my heart stop.

Chapter 14: MIKKI – April 14th, 3 years ago

The party sucks. I’ve spent the last hour trying to appear comfortable as everyone around me laughs and chats about people, places, and memories I’m not familiar with. I sit on the end of the sofa, refusing offers of drinks and tokes. The smell of the smoke has surely seeped into the deepest layers of my clothes. My mom is going to kill me when she smells it.

I rise from the sofa and Lars looks up at me. ‘Where are you going?’ He looks genuinely disappointed that I might be leaving.

‘The restroom.’ I flash him a tight smile then set off toward the foyer where I’ve seen everyone else pass through on their way to the bathroom.

As I step into the foyer, I glance over my shoulder and no one is looking in my direction. Quickly, before anyone can notice, I head toward the front door instead of the bathroom. I open the door as slowly and quietly as I can and slip out into the cool darkness.

Slipping my phone out of my pocket, I hold it at my side as I head down Ashfield toward Cary. As soon as I turn the corner onto Cary, I’ll call my mom and ask her to pick me up. I should have never come here. I’m not a party person. I’m better off accepting that truth now to save myself more awkward exits in the future.

‘Hey!’

I turn my head toward the sound of the male voice. A guy in a Red Sox baseball cap is hanging out the open passenger window of a dark-blue mini-van. The second thing I notice, which instantly makes me panic, is that the van’s headlights are not on.

‘Hey, you need a ride?’ he asks, and I can hear laughter from inside the van.

I’m frozen as my body aches with fear. I shake my head, but it’s so slight he doesn’t see it.

‘I asked you if you need a ride. I can give you a ride.’

The sound of the van door sliding open snaps me out of my stupor and I take off running for the front door of the nearest house. But I don’t make it. A thick arm locks around my torso as a hot hand clamps over my mouth, stifling my screams. I thrash and attempt to bite his hand, but he headbutts me in the back of the head, stunning the fight out of me.

I’m stuffed into the trunk of the mini-van where a chubby guy waits with a pillowcase, which he quickly yanks down over my head. Then he forces me onto my stomach and ties my hands behind my back with a piece of rope. He digs his knee into my back to keep me from moving as the trunk door slams shut. I try to scream, but the chubby guy clocks me on the side of the head with his fist then presses my face into the floor of the trunk.

It feels as if the car is making a U-turn to go back into the residential tract instead of toward Cary Street. I can’t breathe. Through the tears and the weight of the guy on my back. I’m going to die.

‘Please. I can’t breathe,’ I plead.

‘Shut up!’ he roars.

‘Ease the fuck up!’ another voice shouts from the backseat. ‘If you kill her you have to get rid of her.’

These words make my entire body convulse with fear. Still, as the chubby guy eases his knee and his weight off my back, I can’t breathe from the guttural sobs wracking my body.

‘I said shut up,’ he threatens me again, but this time he hits me with an open hand. Even with the fabric of the pillowcase covering my face, the blow stings and I cry out.

‘Please stop,’ I whimper.

‘Maybe this will shut you up.’

He reaches under my belly and fumbles around as his thick fingers search for the button of my jeans. I squirm beneath him, but there’s not enough room in the trunk to stretch my legs and get any leverage to kick him.

‘Help!’ I scream in a voice that doesn’t even sound like my own. ‘Help me!’

‘Shut the fuck up! Do you want to die, bitch?’ a voice shouts at me from the backseat.

Though I can’t see anything, I still squeeze my eyes and lips shut, trying to shut out the horror my mind and body are about to experience. Please don’t do this, please don’t do this, I beg silently as he lifts my hips into the air and yanks my jeans and panties down.

I wish I could say that at a certain point I’m able to force my mind to go elsewhere; to mentally escape even if I’m unable to physically get away. But there is no escape. I hear every groan, every vulgar insult, and every second of the shrill laughter that follows. I feel every drop of sweat that hits the pillowcase and seeps onto my face. I smell and taste every disgusting second of it. I scream aloud and silently at every burning rip of my insides. And I die a thousand times.

*****

I don’t know how long I spend in the trunk of that van. I don’t know how many times I’m violated or by how many guys. But when they’re done, I can’t feel my arms or legs. I’m numb and I’m pretty sure it has to do with the loss of blood. I can feel it pooled beneath me. I’m barely holding onto consciousness, but I can feel that I’m alone in the trunk now as the van bumps along down the road.

They’re arguing over whether to drop me off and, after all that, I feel as if I shouldn’t care. I should want them to just kill me. I should want to die. But all I want is my clothes. I don’t want to lie here naked for a second longer.

‘Dude, turn on your headlights or you’ll get pulled over.’

Don’t turn on your headlights, I want to say.

The van sets off again and the chubby guy’s voice breaks through my consciousness like a knife twisting in my belly. ‘Right there! Pull in there!’

Seconds later, the van comes to a stop and, by the shift in the distribution of weight, I’m pretty sure the chubby guy is coming for me in the trunk. I don’t have the strength to scream as he opens the trunk and pulls me out backwards by the restraints on my wrists. As soon as my feet hit the pavement, my legs give out beneath me.

‘Get up!’ he shouts. ‘Get the fuck up!’

The tiny bits of gravel on the pavement cut into my knees and the soles of my feet as I struggle to stand up.

He roughly turns me around. ‘When I take this off your head, you walk straight and don’t look back. You understand me?’

‘Yes.’

‘If you turn around, I’ll kill you and your parents.’

I hear the trunk door slam shut behind me and I jump. ‘Hurry up, man!’ one of the others calls to him.

His hand on the top of my head sends a shiver through me and he swiftly yanks the pillowcase off my head. I blink a few times as my surroundings come into focus. I’m in a parking lot. The sound of his footsteps moving away from me fills me with a sense of relief, but my instinct kicks in and I turn around to make sure he’s walking away. I quickly remember his threat and turn back, but it’s too late. He saw me.

Chapter 15: CRUSH – April 14th, 3 years ago

This can’t be happening. It has to be a hallucination. I glance down at the pouch in my lap. No, all the drugs are still in the tiny plastic pouch. This is no hallucination. This guy just shoved a bloody, naked girl out of that van. And she’s walking very unsteadily in my direction.

My body floods with a surge of adrenaline as I toss the pouch onto the passenger seat and take the gun in my hand. I leave the engine running, and as soon as I reach for the door handle, another scream pierces the air followed by a sickening thump. He’s beating her while she’s lying naked on the asphalt.

Every second feels like an hour as I climb out of the car and round the hedges. ‘Get away from her!’ I bellow.

He lands one more kick to her head before he looks at me. The Beretta is pointed straight at his head and he glares at me.

‘You can keep her.’ He pushes her onto her back with his foot and begins to walk away.

Her face is unrecognizable as a human face. It’s covered in blood, as are both of her legs and her torso. How was she even walking a second ago?

I can’t stop myself. Every muscle in my body contracts around that trigger.

The shot hits him in the side of the head when he’s a few feet away from the van. He falls to the ground and the van door slides shut in a flash. The van skids away, but not before I send three more bullets through the back window.

What the fuck have I done?

I killed a man.

My entire body trembles as I stare at his lifeless body, mesmerized by the way the moonlight glitters on the blood as it forms a pool on the asphalt under his head.

I killed a man.

Vomit bites at the back of my throat and I swallow it down as I tear my gaze away from the man’s body. The moment I turn back to the girl, the vomit threatens to come back up. I’ve never seen a human being more mangled, more devastated by evil. I have to get her to a hospital.