Children of Vice (Children of Vice #1)(67)

He pulled me along. I could feel my legs walking, but my mind was elsewhere…it was on his previous confession. I knew him? Before now I knew him?

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” Cillian called out from behind us. “Especially after what you did to Eamon Downey?”

“Mr. Downey was a personal messenger, but since you didn’t get it, let me be clearer. Neither you nor your shit-faced brother is good enough for my sister. Look at her again and I’ll bust your teeth in personally.”

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

I jumped, startled, refocusing on him again only to see the power lines around us start to explode, sparks flying off all of them one by one, raining over us like dying fireflies.

“That’s going to be a pain in the ass to fix,” Ethan said, unbothered. “But then again that is no longer my problem. So what are a few sparks between neighbors?”

I didn’t understand what he meant until I walked out from the house, Elroy and his gang sitting on the front porch, some of them lifting their phones, trying to get the signal working, as we walked past the car toward the house across the street. Finally, after holding it in since we’d landed, the sky, as if it knew Ethan was finished with them, unleashed the rain it had been holding back. The thunder rippling through the clouds, the rain beat the earth with a vengeance just as we made it to the only house on the block that now had power.

Note to self. Ethan has a flair for the dramatic.





ETHAN


When we stepped through the door, the light immediately coming on, she pulled away from me gently. In a trance-like state, her blue eyes scanned over the foyer and the horrid wallpapered walls, the old couch, the pink shaggy carpet, and the television…a box television. The whole house was frozen in whatever my mother said the ’80s left behind. It was as tacky as tacky could be, like the house of someone’s dead great-grandmother coming back to haunt them…it was all of that and yet comfortable.

Turning to the left, she walked into the kitchen, directly toward the sink cabinet, pulling out a bottle of wine. She lifted it up, tilting her head to the side like she didn’t expect it to be there. Blinking a few times, she put it down on the counter then reached up, opening the cabinet and taking out two mugs. The first had an owl winking and the other what looked to be a drunk cat. She put them down next to the wine and put her fingers against the back of the cabinet until it opened, revealing a hole in the wall from where she pulled out stacks upon stacks of dusty bills. She didn’t stop until she had about half a million sitting on the counter. Something that would have made a normal person happy, but instead she started to tear up when she turned back to me.

“I remember now.” Her bottom lip quivered. “Everyone called me crazy, they threw rocks at me, and even my father denied it…denied that I ever met a boy in the basement of this house…that boy was you, wasn’t it? This is a safe house, isn’t it? My father hid you guys here, didn’t he…that’s why they died? Because of you…because of me?”

Before the truth came the painful removal of ignorance…my wife was living proof of that.

I’d told my grandmother we’d have to tell her the truth and lie to her. Well, the truth was my family didn’t kill hers. But they did die because of me.





TWENTY


“The future for me is already a thing of the past.”

~ Bob Dylan





IVY – AGE TEN


“Why doesn’t anyone believe me?” I yelled from in front of the house. “I do have a friend! He lives here!”

“Does not!” Rory yelled back at me.

“Does too!”

“DOES NOT!” she screamed, pushing me into the fence.

“DOES TOO!” I pushed her back and started to run. “I’ll show you!”

Climbing over the fence, I looked back over at them, but none of them were coming. “Come on!”

“No, we’re going home.” Rory crossed her arms.

“Yea! We don’t want to be seen hanging out with you.” Megan, one of her friends, along with Rachel, laughed at me, crossing their arms too.

Smiling, I put my hands on my hips. “Fine, but you have to tell everybody you were wrong.”

“We aren’t wrong. Look, it’s all dusty!” She pointed out the house behind me. “No one lives there—”

“I bet you’re wrong.”

Rory paused, thinking about it. “Bet what? Your earrings?”

My hands went up to cover my ears. “No! My mom just gave me these!”

“See, knows she’s lying.” She laughed with everyone.

“I am not!” I yelled again, stomping my foot. “Fine! I bet my earrings, but when you lose you have to say sorry in front of everyone.”

“Fine!” she yelled, climbing over the fence with the rest of them.

Smiling, I ran to the corner of the house where the window was, trying to pull it open.

“If anyone is here, why don’t you just knock?” Rachel whispered.

“’Cause she’s lying,” Rory said again, and I wanted to yell, but I pulled harder. It still wouldn’t budge.

“What are you all doing?”