Page 3 of Skin Deep

He narrowed his eyes at a house in the middle of the block and told me to pull in front of it. “Keep the car running,” he said. “I shouldn’t be long.” As he got out of the car, he reached for something in his jacket.

He knocked on the door, then took a step to the side. A minute later, a guy opened the door, looking out. When he noticed Lachlan, he went to slam the door, but Lachlan blocked it. He took the guy by the shirt, put a gun to his temple, and forced him inside the house, then shut the door.

Ten minutes later, the door opened again, but this time, Lachlan held a woman by the scruff of a fur coat. She was trying to fight his hold, but he kept walking, not caring that she was screaming at the top of her lungs, tears running down her cheeks in black ribbons.

I didn’t realize until they were close enough that she had nothing on under the fur jacket and what looked like men’s oversized sweatpants. Her feet were stuffed into boots too big for her feet.

Lachlan opened the back door, and she tried to turn, but his grip on her coat was too tight.

“Two choices,” Lachlan said, his voice bored, like he’d done this before. “Get in the car or he dies.”

“He’s already dead!” she yelled in his face. “You bastard!” The word “bastard” came out like “bastaed.” She had a heavy Boston accent.

“Not this second,” he said. “And that’s all you have.”

She hesitated, then got in. She crossed her arms over her chest as Lachlan shut her door.

“What the fuck you lookin’ at?” Her makeup-smeared eyes glared at me through the mirror. “They send you to finish the job after I marry the prick?”

When Lachlan slid into the car, she turned her face, wiping her cheeks with the sleeve of the coat. Fresh blood smeared with the running makeup. I could smell it in the car. It was frozen in the air.

I narrowed my eyes at my brother, but he ignored it and used the gun to point at the road. “Head back to the church.”

I refused to move.

He tucked the gun back in his jacket and sighed. “Runaway bride situation.”

“That’s right, you mothafucka! You ruined the one chance I had at happiness.” She wiped her face again, trying to control the tears. “You’re dragging me back to hell with you! You unhappy bastard!” She punched the back of his seat.

“Her or me,” my brother said, ignoring her screams. She had a mouth dirtier than a seasoned sailor. “She made her choice when she got involved with the Craigs for money. Now she’s paying the price.”

“You’ll pay, too!” she screeched. “It’s just a matter of time before you become human-burger!” She looked to her right just as the man who’d answered the door came staggering out. He was beat to a pulp. She pounded on the window, his blood smearing the glass from her coat, yelling his name. “ROD!”

“Put her out of her misery,” Lachlan said to me. “Fucking drive. I don’t want to have to end his life this second.”

The situation was only going to get worse. The last thing I saw of the guy was him dropping to his knees as the car moved farther away from the house. The woman in the backseat cried and cursed, unable to settle on one emotion.

Lachlan glanced at her through the mirror, sighing. “You love Rod?”

She quieted for a second, and I noticed the look in her eyes. Hope. She thought maybe he was going to change his mind. She had no clue. My brother had become someone I didn’t always recognize, but our shared blood cut through the bullshit other people couldn’t get past.

“I do! I can’t marry that prick! I can’t!”

Lachlan sighed again. “If you love Rod, be thankful it’s ending this way and you’re marrying the prick. Hate keeps you alive. Keeps you moving. Makes you stronger. Love? Love will kill you quicker than the bullet in this gun.” He lifted it, showing it to her. “Rod loves you today, but he’ll be fucking Martha in a week.”

“He won’t last a week!”

“Three days then,” Lachlan said.

A piercing scream went through one of my ears and out the other—it wrecked something inside of my head as it passed through. I would never forget it. The desperation in it.

My brother looked at me and shrugged. “People say hate destroys you.” He glanced at the woman thrashing back and forth on the seat, crying the makeup and blood clean. “I’ve never seen it do the damage love has. Look at her. She’s the physical representation of how it fucks us up.”

She started cursing him again, getting more physical the closer we came to the church. Lachlan leaned forward and turned the radio up, listening to some old love song, blocking her out.

As we pulled up to the church, she narrowed her eyes at the two men standing outside of it. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve again, glancing at herself in the mirror, then took a deep breath. When the car stopped, Lachlan didn’t even bother getting out. She opened her own door and walked up to the two men, keeping her chin held high and her jacket pulled close.

“Not a word,” Lachlan said, refusing to meet my eye. “Drive.”

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