Page 51 of You Weren't Meant to Be Human
Crane:sorry, I’m sorry
Aspen:Crane?
A missed video call notification, then another. He can’t believe they were up. That they were awake to see the message come in.
Birdie:weve been so worried oh my god we were so scared
Birdie: is everything okay???
Crane:I need to get out I need to leave. Please
And then the address of the abandoned livestock exchange.
His vision blurs. The tiny words on the screen smear into near illegibility. Levi mimicked Crane’s panic and desperation as he begged them to come, said he’d be hiding inside, he’ll be ready at six a.m. and he’s sorry he scared them so much, he’s so sorry.
Crane has never been colder in his life. Not when he plunged himself into an ice bath in high school to keep from panicking over his AP tests. Not when he saw the second line on that pregnancy test. Not when he crawled out of the trunk of Mike’s car covered in vomit and collapsed into the cool grass.
Aspen and Birdie are on their way. The truck’s clock says 5:40. The livestock auction is ten minutes out.
The shotgun is in the truck, the box of bright red shells crammed under the seat.
Crane:don’t—
Levi snatches the phone and sends it after the cigarette. They’re moving fast enough that Crane doesn’t get the chance to watch the off-brand smartphone shatter on the concrete road.
Crane’s hands are held awkwardly, like the phone is still between his fingers. Everything’s shut down, complete disconnection between his head and his hands, his brain and the rest of him.
“First strike was leaving the apartment,” Levi says. “But the second was this.”
The abandoned auction building, the ugly brick thing at the end of a weed-infested concrete lot, is called the Farmers Livestock Exchange Inc., Washville WV, Auction Every Monday, and yes that is the full legal name on all official government documents and nailed in big letters above the entrance. It’s never once run the entire time Crane has been in Wash County. No cars in the lot and no cows in the pens. Just busted-out windows and a front door covered in papers informing trespassers that this is private property, and also deeply unfit for human habitation or use.
Levi holds the shotgun in one hand and the back of Crane’s neck in the other as he leads him into the building. The front door is locked, so he has to yank open the cattle gate, push Crane through, shove him under a metal roll-up door stuck partway open. The place has been abandoned so long it doesn’t smell like animals anymore. It’s all dirt and the residual heat from the end of summer.
The only reason Crane isn’t crying is because everything has gone offline. A computer closing every noncritical function to keep from destroying its processors.
Jess was right. Levi makes you feel crazy. Wears you down until you’re too confused or scared or dead to fight back.
“Considering how shit you are with people,” Levi says as he marches Crane through the maze of dirt floors, concrete and tall ceilings, and wooden supports, “I’m shocked you managed to trick two other people into fucking you.”
Crane’s never slept with Aspen or Birdie. That’s not to say he hadn’t thought about it, or wanted to, or tried. He dreamed of it: letting both of them use him however they wanted. Hell, they’re literally in an open marriage. It’s just that the one time he asked, the one time he typed it into his AAC app, they’d looked at each other and had a moment of long-term-relationship telepathy that must’ve consisted ofabsolutely not.
On moral grounds, apparently. They didn’t want to take advantage of him, and Crane didn’t have the heart to type,But that’s what I want.
“Guess it’s only fair, though. Shocked you figured out the thing with me and Jess.”
They’re not walking where the farmers would follow the cattle to the inside holding pens and auction rooms. Instead, they’re down where the livestock would trundle to sale. A bird flutters through the rafters.
Levi’s still smiling. It’s cracking at the corners.
“If you’d had the brain cells to fuck somebody from McDowell—or hell, even the Ivanhoe hive—we wouldn’t have to do all this. But here we are. We’ve always gotta do things the hard way with you.”
And, of course. The one time Crane wants to break his silence, wants to beg—don’t hurt them, please don’t hurt them.On his hands and knees, plead for him not to take Aspen and Birdie away from Luna, to not involve them, to punish him and not them, not them please.
The one time he wants to speak, he opens his mouth and only croaks.
The door to the main showroom is open. Together, they step into the sunken pit, shoes crunching in the ancient wood chips and sawdustbedding. They’re flanked by towering fences, the auctioneer’s box, the concrete bleachers and old chairs and advertisements for companies that haven’t been in Washville for years. Anything interesting or useful has been picked clean. No computers left in the box, no speakers still anchored to the walls.
“In the interest of clarity,” Levi continues, “I did some research. And as it turns out, they are both—”
