Chapter Twenty

We sit for two more hours, eating amazing food, praising people for their catches, though not the ones who brought Walmart goods. They’re cheaters who caught nothing.

Everybody applauds when Dasan tells them that I caught my huge rainbow trout while spear fishing for the first time. That part was embarrassing.

But overall, we have an amazing night.

Until it’s time to go, the people start dispersing back to their homes and Nokosi offers to drive me to mine. For the first time ever, I don’t want to go home. I want to stay. I don’t want to go home at all. I can’t bear to look at my sister, or witness my mother ignoring us because she finds us too painful to look at.

So, I find ways to drag the night on and pull a large bottle of cherry-flavored gin from my handbag. I wasn’t sure if I’d need it tonight but here it is.

Our small group of friends’ eyes light up. All but Nok’s.

“I’m driving,” he points out, frowning.

“So? Just sneak me into your room later,” I whisper and put the gin back. “I’ll sleep with you.”

He looks excited now and winks at me. “Fine, but no backing out now.”

“Let’s get wasted,” Joseph cheers on a whisper so the adults don’t hear.

“I like this chick,” Bobby, their mutual friend, mutters.

“Let’s go,” Nok yells and we stand.

“Where to?”

“My shed,” Joseph replies, grinning at me over his shoulder. “It has blankets, a light, it’s really fucking cozy.”

I raise a brow. “Is it now?”

When we reach the trees and wander out of sight, using our phones to guide us, I pull the gin from my bag and take a long pull. The others follow suit, passing it around, complimenting it on its sweet cherry flavor.

We race through the forest until the trees clear and another home comes into view. I love the privacy of their houses, no main roads, not too easy to get to so you can guarantee door-to-door salesmen aren’t an issue.

The reservation is much bigger than this with its own shopping complexes and stores that eventually merge with Westoria, but this part of it is private. For the residents only. It’s peaceful and it feels safe.

Joseph’s house is a lot bigger than Nok’s but we don’t go inside to explore. We head around back to the very edge of his yard and past the first row of trees that form an almost uniformed line around his property.

“This must be it,” I say motioning to the shed with its dark windows and rickety-looking exterior. It looks sturdy enough. It could just do with a paint job. And maybe a few replacement boards here and there.

Joseph races ahead, my gin in his hand, and opens the latch on the door with a flick of the handle. The door creeks and I laugh when a furry little animal comes scurrying out. Maybe a skunk. I sure hope not. My sister got sprayed by a skunk once when we were little. We’d been running around the yard playing tag with our matching dollies, in our little matching dungarees.

Mom had to bathe her in tomato soups and purees for about a week. I still joke now that the stench lingers to this day. My sister hates it.

It disappears into the brush and we all head inside, breathing a sigh of relief.

“It’s been a while since we came in here,” Joseph comments. “Being old enough to drink means I don’t really need to sit in a shed and drink these days.” He swigs the gin and I kick an empty can of beer across the floor.

Nok rolls out the blankets and checks them for damp. I sit on a checkered green and black one and lean against the wall, holding my hand out for more alcohol.

“Strip poker, anyone?” Bobby asks, laughing and throwing a deck of cards in between us all.

“No,” Nok snaps, sitting beside me and resting his hands over his bent knees.

“We have to go around the room and say something bad that we’ve never told anyone before,” Joseph suggests, waving a hand flippantly, “I saw it on TV. It looked like a great ice breaker.”

“Sounds good to me.” Bobby glugs three large gulps of the gin and then belches, doubling over as though about to vomit.

“Bobby’s confession,” I announce, cupping my hands to my face, “he can’t handle his alcohol.”

“That’s kinda racist,” Joseph jests.

I frown. “How is that racist?”

“Pale faces like to call us alcoholics and say we can’t handle our liquor.” Joseph is the one who explains this and my jaw hits the floor.

I look around them, waiting for the punch line but it doesn’t come. “Pale faces are assholes.”

“See? I knew I liked this girl.” Bobby plays music from his phone, not so loud that it’s a burden on the atmosphere. “Right. Who’s going first?”

“Joseph should,” Nok states, smirking at his friend who has put the light of a flashlight against a glass bottle full of water. It makes the room glow a soothing green, highlighting everybody’s features in a way that makes us all look kind of eerie and animated. “It’s his idea.”

“Fine, let me think.” He sits and taps his feet on the floor. “When I was twelve, I stole twenty dollars from Elder Gray, because I needed to buy condoms for my babysitter.”

Bobby starts howling with laughter. “You thought you were gonna fuck your babysitter?”

Joseph lifts a shoulder, looking proud of the moment. “She was so hot.”

“I just can’t believe you still had a sitter at twelve,” I comment and Nok laughs in agreement.

Joseph flips me off and nudges Bobby with a foot to his bent knee. They’re both sitting but Joseph is upright with crossed legs whereas Bobby is leaning back on his hands with his legs spread and bent at the knees.

“I once broke this ceremonial birthing jug and blamed it on my sister.”

“That’s a lie,” I combat, raising a brow.

“Is not,” he responds, raising his chin.

I laugh. “Did you get away with it?”

“Umm… yeah, duh.”

Looking at Nokosi, I raise my nose a fraction, signaling that it’s his turn.

“No, you,” he instructs.

I cross my eyes and try to think of something, anything. But nothing comes to mind. In fact, not much of anything comes to mind. I look deep into the recesses of my brain for the memory of a birthday party, or a Christmas with my family.

My head starts to pound, like a battering ram is hitting it from the inside of the skull. The more I search for information, the worse it feels. How can I not remember anything?

But then my hand goes to my temple and the tender bruise still there beneath my skin.

Could the knock to my head have hurt me in such a way that I no longer remember my past?

“I held a group of men in a gas station at gunpoint and robbed them,” I say quickly, simply to skim over my turn so they don’t look at me so expectantly as I suffer this inner turmoil.

“No fucking way,” Bobby breathes.

“She so did,” Joseph states with pride and winks at me. “We were there.”

“I kicked one of them in the face while they were already down, that’s my confession,” Nokosi adds and cringes after a swallow of the gin. The bottle is a quarter gone already.

“And you enjoyed it,” I bait and his eyes flicker with the same thrill he felt that night. I see the same shadow in his eyes that I saw then. It’s intriguing and so fucking sexy.

“How did that happen?” Bobby looks perplexed, terrified, but also impressed.

“It’s a long story.” I bring the bottle to my lips and pass it off.

“We have time,” Bobby pleads, his eyes wide.

We let Joseph tell it because I’m not much of a storyteller and I’m still in turmoil. I shift away from Nok subconsciously, wondering the extent of damage that his tantrum has caused.

He notices my withdrawal and pulls me back with an arm around me. I lean into him and rest my arm along his thigh.

I’m being stupid, I’m just tired. It has been a long week… a long year.

“No fucking way. They just found and confirmed another body!” Bobby cries with excitement after his phone pings. He scrolls rapidly down the screen with his thumb, reading under his breath for a moment. He’s a fast reader.

“That serial killer guy? The school one?” Joseph asks, moving to look over Bobby’s shoulder as Bobby nods a yes.

“Bobby has a strange fascination with him,” Nok whispers and bites the lobe of my ear.

“So does my sister,” I mutter, feeling nauseous. “I don’t like it. It makes me ill and anxious.”

“Where did this one happen?” Nokosi asks, trailing his fingertips up and down my bicep.

I try to relax, but how can I? My memories are gone and they’re talking about… I just can’t even think about it.

“Denver, Colorado,” Bobby replies, even more excited now. “That’s really not all that far!”

“It’s like a twenty-hour drive,” Joseph says, laughing loudly.

“Road trip.”

“You’re vile,” I state, shaking my head with judgment. “How can you be so blasé about death?”

“It’s interesting.”

“It could be you.”

Bobby and Joseph look at each other, excitement evident once again. I roll my eyes but can’t stifle a small laugh at their expressions. These are the kind of people who go looking for danger. We’re more alike than I thought.

“Do they have any evidence pointing to who it might be?” Nok asks the question I too was thinking.

“Not that they’ve said. Apparently, suspects have been arrested and released.” He clicks his fingers. “I personally believe that it’s not just one person, I believe it’s many.”

“Many killers?” Joseph asks his enthusiastic friend, gulping the gin like it’s water. I follow suit, cringing when the liquid touches my lips.

“Yeah, like maybe it’s just a bunch of jilted girlfriends trying to throw off the cops?”

I roll my eyes at their conspiracy theories and drink more alcohol. I’m feeling buzzed already, but not so much that I can’t control myself. Though I don’t let Nok know that. I want him to think I’m thoroughly intoxicated.

I press my lips to his, eager to forget this night in his touch. He kisses me back, growling when I hold tight to the front of his shirt.

My sister comes to mind, her concerns that he might hurt me. She spoke of it again this morning and I know she’s wrong. I know that I was wrong about him.

Sure, he’s a bit of an asshole, but is he so much an asshole that he would hurt me if given the chance?

“I think,” I mutter against his lips and hiccup convincingly, “that I’m a lil bit drunk.”

He grins and holds out his hand for the bottle, closing his strong fist around the neck. “Then I should catch up.”

I kiss his sweet, cherry gin lips and then taste it on his tongue with mine.

“What is that devious mind of yours concocting?” he whispers as his friends laugh and joke about murder mysteries and reservation police and how they’d all protect themselves like olden times. We shut them out, letting our eyes pass the communication between us.

“How we can get rid of them,” I whisper and guide the bottle to my lips.

The drunker he thinks I am, the better.

“Boys,” Nok yells suddenly, his eyes on mine, pupils dilated with arousal.

They both fall silent and look at us.

“Leave,” he barks and sucks my lower lip into his mouth.

They laugh as they go, taking the rest of the gin with them, wishing us good fun and good fucks. Little do they know.