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Samantha

Armed with a steaming cup of chai, a box full of enough chocolate to give myself a stomach ache unless I pace myself — which I won’t — and a trashy thriller novel by some unknown author that I snatched off the clearance rack of a thrift store because it promised explosions, global secret societies, a tempestuously torrid romance, I have everything I need for the Friday night I deserve.

No stress, no commitments, no nothing. Only some vital me-time.

I release a sigh as I sink into the couch that I spent way too much money on and don’t regret buying for a second; the cushions are like clouds. I could sleep, but I’m not ready yet. If I don’t read something engrossing, I’m going to have the events of the last few days at work playing in my head and filling my sleep with nightmares of broken homes, abusive and addicted parents, and the heartbreak of taking a young boy away from his mother.

Sometimes doing the right thing leaves you feeling all kinds of wrong.

I take a long sip of tea, prop myself up in a more wakeful position, and flip open to page one, ready to be whisked away to a world of spies, secret societies, and spicy sex.

Suddenly, there's a frantic pounding at my door that’s so fierce that my door shakes in its frame. A muffled wail that sounds like someone dying follows the banging, and my heart leaps into my throat. I yelp and nearly spill my chai all over my cushiony couch.

Who the heck could it be at this hour?

The pounding continues, more urgent now, and a frightening thought surges through me. Is it be the boy’s mother? The things she swore she’d do to me if she ever found me make my tummy twist itself in terror.

There’s another crack — a heavy bang that sounds like someone is kicking my door.

I have to answer it.

I set my mug down carefully, grab a rolling pin from my kitchen counter because it’s the first weapon at hand, and pad to the door and peer through the peephole.

My stomach drops.

It's my brother, Jake. And he looks terrible.

His eyes are wild, wide, darting back and forth, and there's a sheen of sweat on his forehead despite the chilly night air. He's twitching, his hands shaking like he’s playing maracas as he runs them through his disheveled, matted hair.

"Come on, come on," he mutters, glancing over his shoulder. "Samantha, open up!"

I hesitate, my hand on the doorknob. Jake is my brother and I love him, sure, but it's been months since I've seen him. Last I heard, he was clean and doing well, living in a shared home — a halfway house arrangement that was supposed to keep him on the straight and narrow.

But the man on the other side of my door is clearly not clean, and definitely not doing well.

Against my better judgment, I open the door a crack.

"Jake? What's going on?"

He pushes his way inside before I can stop him, slamming the door shut behind him.

"I need a place to stay," he says, his words tumbling out in a rush like a group of drugged acrobats. "Just for tonight. Please. I-I can't go home. They'll find me there."

"Who'll find you?"

I hesitate to say it — I both need to know, and don’t want to. I’m all too familiar with many of the uglier figures of the Boise underworld, having spent years helping the people hurt by their carelessness, their brutality, and their sinister sickness. Some days… many days… I feel like nothing more than a janitor tasked to clean up the human mess left behind by these inhuman monsters.

“It doesn’t matter. Sam, please, I just need to crash on your couch for a night. It’s not safe for me back at the home. I just need to sleep a little so I can get my head together, figure things out, and then I can go. Can you please help me?”

We’ve done this before, him and I. Enough that I can tell how this is going to go, just as I can tell how that silly paperback sitting unread on my couch is supposed to go. With Jake, it starts with me protesting, then him telling me it’s just this one more time, that he only needs a little help, a little cash, and then, after some more arguing, I capitulate and give him the time, the space on my couch, and the money.

I hate myself, but I do it. Every time.

Because I love him, after all.

Even though I know better, I love him.

Despite all the broken promises, he’s still my brother, my last surviving family member, and I remember how great he was when he was clean. I remember how much fun it was to go hiking with him in the spring and early summer, when the Boise foothills are so many shades of green that it doesn’t seem real.

I remember how he held me at dad’s funeral, when cancer took him so suddenly, later, when a heart attack took mom, and the only thing holding me afloat when it felt like I was going to drown in my own tears, was my brother’s hug.

I still hold on to that memory of him, along with the hope that, maybe with my help, I can have my brother back again.

I want that. Someone who can care for me as much as I care for them. Because that’s what really matters, right? That the person you love doesn’t drag you under, but lift you up.

“Please, Sam,” he says. “ Please. ”

There’s a note I’ve never heard before in his voice, a shivering fear that cuts with razor-sharp sobriety through the druggy haze in my brother’s voice.

I blink.

Then I sit down.

Inhale once, nice and slow, and exhale even slower.

There’s a sinking sensation in my stomach.

It’s moments like these that I wish our mom and dad were still alive. That cancer and a heart attack didn’t take them from us, that they were still here to help with Jake. Could they handle Jake as he is now?

Maybe, maybe not, but I know that, at least if they were around, I wouldn’t feel so alone in dealing with him. I wouldn’t feel like I am drowning all the time.

“What did you do, Jake?”

“It’s nothing. I just need a night here, that’s it. Sam, please.”

His hands are shaking, and I think that’s only partly because of the drugs coursing through his needle-pricked veins; every so often, his eyes drift to the door and he tenses, as if expecting someone to burst through it at any moment and take him away.

“Jake, if you don’t tell me what happened, I am going to call the cops and you can sober up by spending the night in a jail cell.”

“You wouldn’t. You can’t.”

“I can.”

“Please, Sam.”

I grab my phone off the couch and my fingers hover over the screen, ready to make a call. “Talk.”

“If you do, he’ll kill me. I won’t be safe there, Sam. He’ll kill me and it’ll be because of you.”

“Jake, tell me: what did you do?”

“Please, don’t call the cops. Some of them are in his pocket. And if they don’t get me, it’ll be someone else in the cell. I just need a place to stay, to figure things out for a minute. Please, Sam, you need to help me.”

Jake sits down on my couch in such a confused, jittery motion that he misses the couch entirely and hits the floor. He stays in that position, pulling his knees up to his chest and rocking, while shuddering breaths fill his chest and his eyes dart around the room like dragonflies.

I’ve never seen him like this. This deep, this far gone.

I sit down beside him and put my arm around him. He smells like the streets that he’s probably been living on for longer than I want to know.

“I want to help you, Jake. I’m your sister, and I love you, but you need to help me, too. You need to tell me what happened. I know people. Good people. I can make sure that you’re protected, but there’s nothing I can do if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“If I tell you, will you let me stay?”

“Yes.”

There’s a long silence. With each passing second, my stomach and nerves get so knotted I wonder if they’ll ever get untied, or if I’ll be doomed to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for a monster.

“Talk. Now, Jake.”

“I was supposed to do some stuff. Run some errands, make some deliveries.” Jake pauses, leans his head back against the couch and shuts his eyes. “But I messed up. I messed up bad. Now, he’s after me. This is a guy that you don’t want to owe anything to. Not even a fucking penny. And he works for someone even worse. If I don’t figure this out, Sam, they’re going to kill me, and they might even come for you, too.”

Outside, the wind howls and rattles a window, making me flinch. I bite my tongue and repress the urge to hit my brother. “Me, too? Why me?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. They’re really bad guys and they have a reputation for… going after families.”

I want to hit him so hard. Hit him and tell him to get out of my life.

But I know I won’t.

Because the pessimistic side of me doubts it would do any good. It really wouldn’t make me feel better, and it wouldn’t teach him anything. Violence doesn’t solve problems like this. It just makes them worse.

“You can stay. But only if you tell me who you owe money to and where I can find them.”

His eyes shut. Behind his eyelids, I can see his eyes zipping back and forth, as if they are two animals racing to escape their cage.

“That isn’t a good idea, Sam. You should just let me handle this. All I need is some sleep and a minute to think, that’s it.”

“It sounds like you’ve already gotten me involved in this, Jake, considering whoever they are might try to kill me if you don’t come through. I should know the names of the people who might murder me, right?”

“Sam…”

His voice shakes and he opens his dilated eyes to look at me as if I should feel fear. I suppose, deep down, I feel a little, but it sits right next to the frustration that I feel over him dragging me into a mess. And neither my fear nor frustration is greater than the sense of same-old, same-old that I feel, because this will not be the first time I’ve had to talk to a dangerous person and get them to see reason. It won’t even be the first time this week.

“Jake, this is your choice: either tell me their name and where I can find them, or I’m calling the cops.”

“His name is Grub. He runs Club Sin. That’s who I owe. That’s who’s going to kill me if I don’t figure this out.”

Grub. His name — nickname, I hope — is Grub. Not Titan, not Eye-gouger, not Throat-slitting Bob.

His name is Grub.

I take another look at Jake, see the deep haze floating in his eyes, and release a sigh. Whatever worries he has about Grub, they’re probably the product of whatever’s floating through his veins instead of reality.

“You can stay. And tomorrow, I’ll go to Club Sin, and I’ll talk to Grub, and maybe we can sort this out.”

“Are you fucking crazy, Sam? Don’t do it — he’ll kill you.”

“I know what I’m doing, Jake. Now that I think about it, I’ve even helped a few people who worked at Club Sin.” My speech slows as those words come out and memories come to the forefront… two separate women, two separate cases, the same haunted look; they were little more than shells — emotional, physical, and mental wrecks with the same haggard, hollow look in their eyes that made my heart break. Sort of like how my brother is now. I guess bad things — including visits to Club Sin — really do come in threes. “Tomorrow, I’ll go to Club Sin and I’ll talk to Grub and I’ll take care of this.”

“Sam, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Jake says.

But it’s a half-hearted protest, we both know it. This is what he wants: a bail-out. And that’s what he’ll get.

Already, my nerves are calming; I’m sure that tomorrow this will all be over. Because, with a name like Grub, how dangerous can this guy actually be?

“No, Jake, I know exactly what I’m doing.”