Page 26 of Antihero
Idly I toy with a dead leaf, looking down at it over my crossed legs. I lean forward, bracing my hands in the dirt, digging my fingers into the dry grass that’s grown over the grave, letting it get under my nails. I don’t need words for that, for missing her, for wishing and wishing. But wishing never changed a thing.
Only vengeance matters now.
Maybe that’s what’s drawn Tristan and me together, nothing more.
He killed his sister. And I buried mine.
***
I neverdon’tbreak into a cold sweat as the MRI machine closes over my head, my body, my everything. Maybe this is what being in a coffin feels like.
“Aren’t we lucky to have one of these ourselves now? No more having to make trips to the mainland!” The tinny voice comes through the speaker while I try to steady my breathing. The machine hums and buzzes like it’s about to digest me.
“Mm, lucky,” I murmur, clutching my hands on my stomach over the clinical gown. My feet are numb, my hands icy. This never gets less horrible, being pricked and prodded every month. Packed into this machine twice a year. One day I’ll just stop coming, let whatever tumour that’s going to sprout its ugly head just come and take over, like it’s going to, anyway.
An hour and a million years later, I’ve got a little cotton bud taped to the inside of my elbow and all kinds of samples, in all kinds of jars. I sit in the cold doctor’s office, dreaming of finally curling up in front of my fire until my skin feels hot to the touch and I can feel every digit again.
“All clear, again! You’re doing great,” Doctor Goodry tells me, like this is something I’ve achieved and not just dumb luck that’s going to run out, eventually. “Now remember, these things get more likely to pop up as you get older, so keep coming back, okay?”
“Mm.”
The doctor purses his lips, eyes on my face. He’s older, like most on this island, a skinny man with big, wrinkled hands, grey wispy hair and bright blue eyes.
“Paige. These are precautions we must take. With what you were exposed to…”
“I know.”
“We know harmful waves were used, given the markers in your blood, and other factors.” They were precise, though. The same radiation that has rendered my womb ‘inhospitable’ left my ovaries untouched. Dr Goodry assures me of this regularly, as though that’s a consolation prize. Maybe that’s true. At least my hormones are fine, and I’m a regular woman in every way.Except no babies, and probably an early death. “But we can catch what comes up early, okay? It’ll be alright.”
Last time, what came up was benign. Maybe they’ll all be benign.
“Sure,” I intone, feeling like the sullen teenager I was when I first started coming to him. It was hard for me to trust doctors after everything. He was the one who picked up my case, and the only doctor I’ve spoken to since. Even when I had to catch the boat to the mainland, Goodry would come, bringing along a handful of others, usually older patients, to supervise them through the MRI and such, as well.
Sometimes, I think the stress of coming to this clinic, of not knowing, is what’s really going to give me cancer. Don’t they say stress kills?
These paper gowns, the faceless masks, all the cold and sterile implements, they’re what fill my nightmares, fuelling them anew with every visit. I can never escape those fractured memories from so long ago, the reason I can’t have children, the reason I’ve got all these ‘markers’. So long as I come here, they can never fade away and leave me in peace.
But the pain and fear serve as a reminder. I might not have long. That’s what the last time showed me, a scare that turned out to be benign. I realised then that if I wanted justice for Molly, for me, for the countless others, I’d have to get it myself. No one else was moving to make these people pay, to tell the world what they did, and what they let happen. By the time they get around to it, I’ll be dead.
So, I set about taking care of it myself.
Chapter seven
Needler
The minute I can move my shoulder without pain, I figure it’s time to pay my Cutthroat a visit. Of a kind.
I watch her from the other side of the street, by the newspaper stand where I pretend to be engrossed in the latest junior sports champs of White Rock. Through the mirrored backing of the café seating area, I can see her and the back of her companion’s head.
They’re in the back of the café, out of sight from most of the other customers who come and go at this time of morning. She wouldn’t want to be spotted with too many people who then go missing or show up dead, I suppose. How will she get this one alone? It doesn’t escape me that most of her targets so far have been old leches too blinded by their cocks to be at all suspiciousof her motives. Which also means they’re probably not the finest of humans in other areas of their lives, either. So this one is likely to be more of the same.
These men might deserve a lot of things, but I’m yet to decide if it's straight-up death. Until I can be sure, I’m going to, at the very least, get in her way.
The old man from the club washed up near the marshes three days after Paige attacked him. Half-eaten, they nonetheless identified the cause of death to be strangulation and the subsequent impact. The Wraith is suspected. His name was Frank Elvin. With very little digging, I found—without an ounce of surprise—a connection to the White Rock Home for Girls. He’s noted, rather obscurely, as an investor. But who the hellinvestsin an orphanage? How is that ever going to earn returns? Despite that, about five years after that capital was given, according to public company reports I trawled on the library computer, he appears to have gotten very rich. The how of that, I’m yet to figure out.
Back at the café, I can spot what Paige is doing, even a street away and through a distorted reflection. She’s there with her notepad and pen, acting interested, jotting down answers to whatever questions she’s asking. It’s a tactic that works best on men, I’ve found, getting them to trust you by having them talk about themselves. Ideally, something they’re proud of.
It’s not even very difficult to do; just fake being a journalist, or a student, with a passion on a subject they’re experts in. It doesn’t matter what specifically, it just works.
