Page 24 of Nine

Suddenly I have this urge to know more about the man behind the gun.

“Were you and your mother close?” I ask. Trig nods. “How about you and your brother?” Trig nods again.

“My mom used to bring us out here all the time when we were kids. We’d run and jump off that dock into the lake like idiots and tear up the place.”

“What about your dad?”

“I don’t know. I never met him. He left my mom after I was born.”

“I’m sorry for that, too,” I mumble.

“Don’t apologize. He’s a tool for leaving. It was his loss.”

I awkwardly look away when I think about my own parents. They were too damn high and too selfish to take care of me. I would have been so lucky to at least have a good mom. I find myself a little jealous of Trig for that very reason. He had what seems like a happy childhood, and yet the look on his face tells a darker story.

“What happened to your brother?” I ask, remembering that Bones said that he had died. The Savior also mentioned him a few times when speaking to Trig.

“You sure ask a lot of questions.” He side-eyes me.

“I could say the same about you. Are you going to answer me?”

“If it shuts you up.”

I wave my hands about.

Trig licks his lips and takes a deep breath.

“Victor happened,” he says, as he pulls a pack of cigs from his back pocket. He takes a cigarette out and lights it up. I can see his hand is unsteady.

“Victor killed your brother?”

Trig sits up straighter.

“Those drugs we were looking for, they belonged to The Savior. My brother used to work for him. He was doing a big delivery one day and Victor ambushed him. He shot up the car my brother was in, and then he stole all of the drugs. The Savior lost a lot of money and I lost my only brother.”

“Oh my god. That’s terrible.” I pause to think about it. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say. He’s dead now. An eye for an eye, right?

I look down at my legs. I’m not sure if I agree with the whole eye for an eye logic, but then again, I didn’t have a brother who was murdered.

“Why work for somebody like The Savior? He wasn’t a good person.”

“And you think I am?” Trig chuckles.

“I don’t know. I guess you could be if you wanted to,” I reply.

“I told you I had to work for him.”

“If you’re going to be a killer, why not work for yourself,” I question.

He snaps his neck to look at me.

“Do you think I really liked murdering people? I didn’t used to wake up in the morning and say, you know what would be fun? I’d like to slice someone’s throat today, or put a bullet in their head, or better yet, suffocate them with a pillow.”

“I’m just trying to get you. That’s all.”

Trig takes a few puffs from his cigarette as he looks up at the sky.

---