Page 17

fifteen

Guns n' Proses

Noah

I didn't take any pills last night; I didn't come home and drink, and, for once, I slept without having nightmares.

Now, I wake up feeling better than I've felt in a while. You'd think with everything that happened yesterday—with the café closed and nowhere to go, with Tate's promise that they'd see me tomorrow and that I wouldn't like it—I wouldn't feel like this.

Like I have something to look forward to for the first time in a long time.

I get up, pour myself a cup of coffee, and then get dressed. I comb out my hair before digging through the fridge, agonizing over my food options.

I swallow a lump in my throat and pull out the eggs again, beating them in a plastic cup before pouring them into a skillet to make a cheese omelet. I take out the leftover hamburger from the other day, too, throwing out the bun and toppings before heating the meat and cutting it into the tiniest square pieces on a plate. Once my omelet is done, I give it the same treatment.

I set the plate down on the counter and take a deep breath as I stare down at it from my barstool. I get that feeling again—the one I get every fucking time I do this—like the inside of my mouth is sweating and my throat is closing up.

"It's just food," I say aloud. "You ate food for almost two decades, remember? I mean—fuck! Do you want to fucking die?!"

I jump when I hear the deadbolt turning.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised when Tate and Silas walk through the door.

"Are you killing someone?" Tate asks. "Who is it? The blonde guy? Can we watch?"

"No," I say firmly. "You need to get out. I'm doing something right now."

"You're not doing shit," Tate says, crossing the room toward the kitchenette. "What's for breakfast? Oh, there's more coffee. You want some coffee, Silas?"

"Yeah, I'll take some coffee. It's got to be better than that watery shit at the motel." He hops onto my bed, reclining with his feet out in front of him, and flips on the television.

"Guys…"

"That's a lot of Gatorade, sport . Do you have any fancy creamer or anything?" Tate asks, looking inside the fridge. Since I don't, he closes it a few seconds later, shrugging.

My eyes fill with tears. "Silas…"

"What?" Silas asks, setting the remote aside and jumping up, concerned. "What's wrong?"

"What is this?" Tate asks, stopping beside me. "Why's your food cut up into tiny little pieces like you're a fucking toddler?"

I blink, sending those tears rolling down my cheeks. "Get out!" I shout. "Stop making fun of me and get out! "

"Jesus, Noah," Tate says. "Chill."

"I can't chill! I can't eat—that's why my food is cut into tiny pieces like I'm a toddler. My fridge is full of Gatorade because I get dizzy and lightheaded at work, and I'm afraid I'm going to pass out one day, and they'll call an ambulance. And if they call an ambulance, they'll figure out who I am. I'm starving. Can't you tell? My hair is falling out, everything hurts, and I don't really need my birth control because I haven't had a period in months. " I turn to Silas. "Please, please, I am begging you, Silas, please go. Make him go. I'll do whatever you want. I just need an hour so I can try to eat."

"I…didn't realize it was that bad," Silas says.

"Well, it is."

"Okay," he says, crossing the room toward me. "We'll go." He wraps his arms around me and leans down, kissing the top of my head. "I'm sorry."

I bury a sob into his chest.

"It'll be okay," he tells me, kissing me again. "We'll get through this. You'll get better, okay?"

We'll?

"Let's go," he says to Tate, who follows him out. I feel him look back at me once, but he says nothing before pulling the door closed behind him.

I pull the ribbing at the end of the sleeves of my hoodie over my hand, use it to wipe the tears away from my cheeks, and start the process of mentally preparing myself to take a bite of food all over again.

It's harder this time .

I take a bite of the omelet, grinding it in my back teeth until it's disintegrated to almost nothing, and hold it in my mouth until I work up the nerve to swallow. I repeat the process, and after I swallow the second bite, the door swings open again, and Tate steps inside alone.

"No," I say. "Go away, Tate."

"You know what I like about you?" he asks.

I scoff. "Nothing."

He pulls the other barstool over until it's right up against mine and sits beside me.

"Pfft, come on, that's not true," he says. "I like that you watched me hack your ex-boyfriend to death—that you know I was going to and still might kill you—and you'll still look me in the eye, call me names, and tell me to get out of your house. It's hot."

"Tate, what do you want? Because I am so fucking serious—"

"I just want to help you," he says. "It's my fault, right? Well, technically, it's Silas's fault, but we both know that anytime he does anything wrong, it's my fault, and if you do something wrong, that's also my fault. You'd probably blame me for global warming if you could—"

"Stop, okay? You can't help me."

He props his head up against his hand with his elbow on the counter, and threads the other hand into my hair, his thumb finding the skin behind my ear again. I lean into it, closing my eyes.

"Maybe I can. How did this happen?"

"I don't know," I tell him, sniffling. "Um, maybe that's not true. I think…I think I just waited too long. I—after it ha ppened—I didn't want to eat. The thought of eating made me sick, and so I just decided that I wouldn't eat until the idea of eating didn't make me feel that way anymore. But then a week went by, and it still made me sick, and everything hurt. I tried, but it had been so long, and I was just…too in my head, and my body didn't cooperate. I kept thinking about the way it felt between my teeth and on my tongue, and the fact that it was in me, you know? And it brought me so much stress, I just kind of stopped trying. I tried to live off of liquid calories for a while, and eventually, really dry carbs were okay, so that's what I settled on for months, but it caught up to me." I wipe my eyes with my sleeve again. "I don't know why I'm even telling you this."

"Nothing helps?"

"Getting drunk. If I can get drunk enough, then I don't care as much. But that's not sustainable, either—not with my issues. My body hurts. My organs hurt."

"Let me stay," he says. "Do you still like The Weeknd?"

"I don't—I guess. I don't really think about stuff like that anymore."

"You don't listen to music anymore? What?"

"No, not really. I mean…do you?"

"Constantly."

"Right. Well, you're probably…" I trail off, deciding not to finish the sentence.

"What?"

"Nothing. "

"No, tell me."

"You're probably happier than I am. You're not alone. You don't have to think about food all day, and no one knows me, just like you said they wouldn't."

"You chose to be alone."

"Wasn't much of a choice, Tate."

He shrugs before taking out his phone. "Blinding Lights" plays from its speaker, and he sets it down on the table. Then he picks up my fork, stabs one of my miniature omelet squares, and holds it in front of my lips. "Open up," he says, the fingers on his other hand massaging my scalp.

I contemplate fighting him again, but maybe if I regurgitate the eggs onto his lap, he'll leave of his own accord. I open, taking the food from the fork.

"Good girl," he says. "Just relax. Listen to the music. What about vitamins? Do you take vitamins?"

Without realizing it, I swallow the food so I can answer. "Yeah, sometimes. When I can buy them, I grind them up and put them in my coffee."

He loads another bite of omelet and a piece of the hamburger onto the fork, holding it out for me, and I shake my head.

"This is embarrassing."

"It's not that bad," he says. "Why would you be embarrassed in front of me, anyway? Huh? I'm not just anyone."

I open and take the next much bigger bite.

"I wish you would have trusted me," Tate says softly enough that I barely hear it over the music. "When you left the apartments, I mean."

I swallow again, surprised that much food goes down with so little chewing. "Tate, why would I have trusted you? "

"I was always there for you, wasn't I?"

"I don't know how to answer that."

He feeds me again, the same amount of food as before.

"That's because you don't like that the answer is yes."

"Except for the times you tried to kill me!"

He raises his eyebrows and points at me with the fork. "You brought that on yourself."

I snatch it from his hand and swallow.

"Nope," Tate says, taking the fork back. "I'm feeding you, and it's working, isn't it? It's helping, right?"

I don't think it's the music or the fact that he's the one feeding me. I think it's more that he's distracting me with how fucking insufferable he can be—with the duality of his entire persona and how fucking confusing it is.

And if I'm being honest, it felt good just to tell someone else what's been happening to me.

Regardless of the reason, I need the calories, so I let him feed me again.

"It's okay," he says while I chew. "You don't have to tell me I'm helping you; I know how much you'd hate that. I'll be quiet now—just listen to the music."

I don't look at him; I don't acknowledge him in any way. I listen to the music, singing along with the lyrics in my head while he feeds me. I realize that it's been so long since I listened— really listened—to music, not just as something in the background at the café or in a movie, and after a while, I'm even enjoying it. Swallowing gets a little easier the way it does when I'm drunk, and I don't have to brace myself. Tate sings along softly, his foot tapping against the hardwood floor .

I kind of like that, too.

"I can't eat anymore," I tell him eventually, shaking my head when he offers me more food.

"There's not much left," he says.

And he's right—almost all the food is gone. I check the time on the clock like I always do.

Twenty-six minutes.

I ate more food than I usually eat in an hour in only twenty-six minutes. I almost cry.

"This is more than I ever eat. I don't want to throw up and have it all be for nothing."

"Okay."

He takes the plate from me, opens cabinets until he finds a storage container, and then he puts the extra food in the fridge before cleaning my dishes in the sink.

And I just…watch him.

"Let's go," he says. "Grab your keys."

I slide off the barstool and follow him toward the door, stopping to step into my boots. "Where are we going?"

He smiles, places his hands on my cheeks and then leans in, kissing my forehead and then my lips. "You'll see. We can fight about it when we get there."

I follow him out the door, where Silas sits on the top step with his hood up. He quietly stands as we step out, stuffing his hands in his pockets, and when I look at him, he lowers his gaze.

"Do you have a car?" I ask.

"We have a car," Tate answers. "But we don't need it right now. "

Tate descends the staircase first, and I follow, linking my arm with Silas's.

"You're upset," I say, my tone hushed.

"I'm fine," he says.

"I know you." Leaning in, I press my lips to his shoulder, and then close my eyes, inhaling. When I open them again, Tate glares at me.

Silas shrugs and doesn't answer, keeping his eyes forward as we follow Tate around the side of the garage and stop in front of Jodie's front door.

"Open it," Tate says.

"What?"

"Use your key; I know you have one."

I do have one. Jodie lets me use her washer and dryer, and I feed her cats and water the plants whenever she asks. Still…

"Why?" I ask. "What are you going to do to her?"

"We're not doing anything to her—she's not here. We're looking for something."

"Well, what are you looking for?"

"Unlock the damn door, Noah, before someone sees us standing out here."

Reluctantly, I take out my keys, flipping through them until I find Jodie's, and unlock the door.

"She's been really good to me," I tell them as we step inside and close the door behind us. "I'd be in prison if it weren't for her."

"Yeah, you're really thriving," Tate says. "Do you know where the guns are?"

"What? What guns? "

"Apparently, she's got a shit ton of guns," he says. "According to her social media history, she collects them."

"Well…why do you need them? Silas?"

"We should look upstairs," Silas says. He starts up the staircase, still refusing to look at me. "I don't think they'd be down here."

"Come on," Tate says to me, inclining his head toward the staircase.

"I don't want to. Can't I just go?"

"Thanks for asking, but no."

I sigh, my shoulders slumping as I follow him up the staircase.

"I'm not going to shoot you, if that's what you're worried about. I wouldn't do that—it's too impersonal."

"Thanks for clearing that up," I reply dully.

He laughs a little. "Guns are easy to sell. It's fast money."

I don't bother replying, crossing my arms in front of my body, and when we get to the top of the staircase, he says, "Oh, and Noah?"

"Yeah?"

"We need to look high and low, so…you should look low."

"No."

"Noah…" He smiles in that way that doesn't meet his eyes and reaches for me, tilting my chin upward with his thumb. "I wasn't asking, baby, and I think you know that. Besides, it'll cheer Silas up to see you crawling around in those tight little yoga pants. Maybe you could rub up against his leg, show him you still have some meat on your ass; that might make him feel better. "

"No," I say more forcefully. "I'm not going to crawl around on the floor."

"You're wasting time," he says. "Don't act like submitting doesn't make your pussy wet."

"I'm not eighteen anymore. And things are different now."

"Nothing is different." He traces my jawline with the back of his hand, trailing it down my neck before wrapping it around my throat, but he doesn't squeeze. "You will always be that eighteen-year-old girl, crawling at my feet. You'll always be nineteen, running for your goddamn life just to end up bent over my knee, getting exactly what you fucking deserve. You will never move on, and I think you know that. I think it's kind of beautiful, don't you?"

My eyes begin watering, and he kisses my mouth, but when I don't kiss him back, he gets angry and tightens that hand around my throat, biting my lip while I gasp for air. Then he shoves his other hand down the front of my pants and inside my underwear, his fingers easily dipping inside me.

"That's what I thought," Tate says, releasing his grip on my neck. My cheeks burn when he pulls them out and holds those wet fingers in front of my face for me to see. "I told you that you're still the same girl. This is the last fucking time I'm going to ask, and then you'll do it, but I'm going to slice this Jodie bitch all the way open and make you watch. I don't like the way you talk about her anyway…like she saved you or some shit."

She did kind of save me, but I'm not going to tell him that. Looking away, I slowly drop to my knees and crawl toward Jodie's bedroom .

"That's not so bad, is it?" he asks, following behind me. "I bet you feel better. It feels good to give in, doesn't it? Just like it did last night."

I drop my head and try to pretend I can't feel my clit pulsing between my legs, that every time he opens his mouth, I don't have to squeeze my thighs together a little more.

"Any luck?" he asks Silas as we enter the room.

"No guns in here," Silas says, sifting through the drawers of her vanity. "But she has a lot of jewelry. Where's Noah?"

"She's on her knees where she belongs," Tate says.

I look up at Silas, meeting his eyes, and watch the muscles in his jaw and throat flex when he looks at me.

He does like me like this. Maybe it will make him feel better.

"Get over here," he says. "Tell me which of these she doesn't wear very often and won't miss for a while."

I crawl over to him, rubbing up against his leg before I lift onto my knees, wrapping my arm around the inside of his thigh, and look inside the drawer.

"Um, well, she doesn't really wear jewelry," I tell him. "If she does, it's something subtle. She probably wouldn't miss any of these bulky earrings or necklaces."

He takes a step away from me and my touch, sitting on the stool in front of the mirror.

"I'm going to look somewhere else," Tate says. "She's not allowed to stand up."

I roll my eyes because I know he can't see them, and when I hear his footsteps continuing down the hallway, I crawl into Jodie's bathroom .

If I have to do this, I might as well take something I want, and Jodie has an entire pharmacy in here.

I don't know who Dr. Samuel Rutherford is, but he sure likes Jodie. She has massive supplies of medications that aren't easy to get your hands on, and doesn't take them enough to notice if I snatch a few here and there.

I stand, not really worried about breaking the rules; Silas would have to speak to me to make me stop, and right now, he won't even look at me. Then I sort through the bottles, careful to remember exactly where I got them from. There's a little of everything: muscle relaxers, oxy, sleeping pills. I dump a few from each bottle into my hand and stuff them into my pocket.

"What are you doing?" Silas asks.

My nerves and his voice in the quiet space cause me to jump, sending tiny white sleeping pills flying across the bathroom floor.

"Shit!" I drop onto my hands and knees and start picking them up.

"Guess you should have stayed down like you were supposed to," Silas says before kneeling beside me and helping me gather the pills. "What's all this? Did I turn you into a junkie, too?"

"No, I'm not a junkie. I don't take them very often—only on really hard days or when I really need sleep. I don't sleep well."

I don't mention the nightmares.

"That's probably my fault, too, isn't it?"

"Not exactly."

Silas scoffs, shaking his head. "Okay, sure. I think we got them all."

He empties the contents of his hand into the orange bottle and takes it from me, replacing it in the medicine cabinet.

"Wait, that's not where it was," I say, standing again. "They're in alphabetical order." I move it to the correct shelf and close the cabinet just before he turns the corner.

"Silas…you can't be mad at me."

He pauses, stuffing his hands into the pocket of his hoodie, and leans against the doorframe.

"Please? I can't take it."

"I'm not mad at you, Noah. I'm mad at myself."

"I'm not." I step toward him, leaning against the opposite side of the doorframe. "I don't blame you. It's not your fault."

"How can you say that? Look what I did to you…"

"Do I look that bad?" I ask, biting my lower lip to keep it from trembling.

"No," he says. "No, that's not what I mean—you're still beautiful." He sighs and takes a step toward me, pushing my hair behind my right ear. "But you're sick, baby. You're suffering. And that is my fault."

I shake my head. "No."

"It is, Noah. You know it's my fault, and you should be mad at me. You were always so fucking special to me and so fucking good to me, even when we were just friends. When the rest of the world was bleak and ugly and…poisoned with sameness and disappointing predictability, you were rare. No one saw it, and you hated it, but I never hated it. I liked that they didn't know you. I liked having you to myself. I've been in love with you for the better part of a decade. Did you know that?"

"I didn't know that. "

"I'm so fucking sorry, Noah. And…fuck. I was rough with you, and you said your body hurts…" He pauses, pressing his lips together and shaking his head. "You should hate me. You should punish me."

"I don't want to. You're the only person…" I stop, taking a deep breath. "I love you. And I'm sorry I never told you that before, and I don't care what you did. I don't care that I should hate you, and even if I could stop loving you—and I can't—I wouldn't want to. I was terrified when that video went viral, but when you found me, I was relieved. It felt wrong not knowing you, too. I forgot what it felt like to have someone in the world who cares about me. The real me, not the…fake version."

"You shouldn't love me. I broke you. I left you."

"I know." I swallow hard. "Don't do it again."

Silas leans in, kissing my lips, and I hook my fingers into the waistband of his jeans, pulling him in closer while his tongue takes over my mouth. He hitches one of my legs up around his waist and moans against my lips when he grinds between my legs. I slide my hands under his shirt, over his hard abs and chest, and whimper in protest when he pulls back, grazing my lip with his teeth before moving onto my neck.

"Oh, god…" I whisper, rocking my hips against him. "What if Jodie comes back?"

"I put a tracker on her car," he says, tracing the length of my throat with his tongue. His hand slides up my thigh and over my ass before slipping inside my waistband. "We'll get a notification if it moves."

Then he pulls my yoga pants down over my hips and sinks to his knees, pushing my thighs apart with the palms of his hand before slowly tracing my wet slit with his tongue and pushing it inside me.

"Fuck…" I moan, letting my head drop and my eyes fall closed. He swirls his tongue inside me, nuzzling his face against me before pulling back and moving his attention onto my clit. I grip the doorframe and arch my back, pushing my hips forward to give him better access, and gasp at the increased pressure.

"Silas…oh, my god…"

Silas laughs— laughs —while sucking my clit into his mouth, rolling his tongue against it. "I love those little sounds you make," he says, and then he pushes his fingers into my pussy, moving them in and out of me while his tongue swirls around my clit.

And then I can't help it—I place my hand on the back of his head and rock my hips back and forth, riding his tongue. He angles his fingers, matching the pace of my hips while moving his tongue back and forth, side-to-side. I feel that tightening in my core, threatening to come undone.

"That…that feels so good," I tell him, my voice strained. "Fuck! Oh, my god, I'm going to…come."

He sucks my clit into his mouth and moans, flicking it with his tongue, and I scream, gripping his hair in my fist, my toes curling inside my boots.

Goose bumps run up my spine as the orgasm rolls through me. I push back against the wall to stay on my feet while my clit pulses against his tongue until it's too much.

"I can't…oh, god. I can't take it anymore," I say breathlessly.

"I'm not done yet, baby. Not until you stop shaking. "

I clench my thighs around his head, and he keeps me spread open, licking me and pumping his fingers inside me through the aftershocks, through my whining and squirming, until finally, my legs stop shaking.

Silas pulls away, kissing the inside of my thigh.

"I love you…" I say again, my breath heaving. My eyes flutter open, and when I look up, Tate is standing in the bedroom watching us.

There's fire in his eyes and not the good kind.

"Found the fucking guns if anyone cares," he says, his tone harsh. "Let's grab them and get the fuck out of here."

Tate storms out of the room, not waiting for us to follow, and Silas pulls himself to his feet.

"I love you, too," he says. He grabs my underwear and pulls them back into place, then does the same with my tights before kissing me on the mouth. "Let's go, princess."

I follow him toward the door, but he stops me.

"No, Noah. You need to crawl."

Unlike before with Tate, I don't protest. I drop onto the carpet and crawl toward the door with Silas behind me.

"This carpet is going to ruin the knees of these tights, you know."

"If it were up to me, you'd be on your knees so much that none of your pants would have any knees at all, Noah. Don't complain to me when you just rode my tongue, and I can still taste your pussy. Respectfully."

Tate waits in the hall with that same dark look in his eyes, his jaw flexed.

"Where are they?" Silas asks .

"They're downstairs. The bookshelf is a cabinet. It's locked, but it isn't anything special; you should be able to get into it," Tate says.

The two of them walk down the staircase, and I stop, debating whether I should ask if I can stand. But the idea of asking permission is a little too much for me right now—especially when Tate is in this mood—so I turn and crawl down the steps backward.

When I reach the bottom, Silas is already working on the lock. I crawl over to the couch and sit at Tate's feet, leaning against his leg.

"You must know you're in trouble," he says.

"Yes," I tell him. "But I don't know why."

It wouldn't be because Silas went down on me. That's never been a problem for him before, and he watched me suck him off last night and kissed me afterward.

He wouldn't just change the rules like this.

Tate leans forward, petting my head. "Because you're a bad girl, Noah," he says. "You're a sickness for me. And I'm going to have to do something about it. I'll have to punish you for it."

I turn, resting my head on his knee, and look up at him. "No, I'm not. I'm not bad, Tate."

"That's not going to work on me," he says as he strokes my hair.

"Got it," Silas says, opening the cabinet behind the bookcase.

And there they are. I don't know anything about guns, but there are at least ten different weapons, ranging from small handguns to rifles with scopes on them .

Tate stands and walks toward them, looking in as if admiring them for a minute before laying a blanket out on the floor in front of him. "We'll wrap them in this and take them out to the car," he says.

"No," I say. "She loves that blanket. Her daughter made it for her, and she died a few years ago. She'll notice if that's gone—trust me."

"Go get a couple of towels from the bathroom, then," Tate says, stuffing two of the smaller guns into the waistband of his jeans before Silas does the same. "You can walk."

I do as he asks, my heart pounding as I walk to the bathroom and return with a couple of towels from the linen closet.

"I have a bad feeling," I say as I lay them out on the floor.

"Yeah? Well, I am a bad feeling," Tate says. "Get over it."

"You'll be okay, Noah," Silas says. "I just checked the tracker. She hasn't left that house yet."

"And if she comes home, I'll just kill her," Tate says coldly. "Help us carry these to the car."

I sigh, grabbing one of the rolled-up towels, and follow them out the back door. I lock it behind me, and then we walk around the backside of the garage and through a small wooded area to where a grey sedan waits in a side alley.

"You know where we can find ammo in this shithole, Noah?" Tate asks.

"Um, I'm pretty sure they sell it at the drug store."

Tate laughs. "Of course, they do. Did you hear that, Silas? They sell ammo at the drug store."

"Yeah, I heard. "

Silas opens the truck, and I dump the guns inside, relieved to have them out of my hands. "Now what?" I ask.

"Now, we're leaving," Tate says, snatching the keys from Silas. He moves to the driver's side of the car, shoulder checking me as he passes. He doesn't look at me and climbs into the vehicle, starting the engine.

"Well…where are you going?" I ask Silas.

I feel that tightening sensation in my chest again. They're leaving? What does he mean by leaving? Like…forever?

"We're staying at a motel a few blocks away," Silas says. "We're going to take the guns back there—that's all, okay?"

I nod, and he leans in, kissing my lips.

"I won't leave without telling you," he says.

Which is different than I won't leave you. All I can do is nod.

Tate doesn't want me. He was so good to me this morning, and he still doesn't want me. He's going to kill me or leave me again, and I'm not sure which is worse.

I cross my arms in front of my body, attempting to make myself smaller somehow.

Silas must mistake it for cold—and it is cold—because he runs his hands up and down my upper arms, as if trying to warm me, and then holds me against his chest.

"I love you, baby," he says. "You can text me, okay?"

"Okay."

But I'm pretty sure he and Tate share a phone. I don't think I will.

"Bye. "

He kisses me and then walks to the passenger side of the car. I stay there in the alley, watching them pull away before I walk home alone.

When I get inside, I slip off my shoes and crawl into bed. And I just stay there. Without work, without them , I don't have a purpose. I don't know what to do with myself.

Hours later, there's a knock on my door. My heart jumps, but when I open it, there's no one there. Confused, I look around before noticing a delivery driver walking through the parking lot of the café toward his car. When I look down, there's a brown paper bag at my feet.

It's heavy; I smell Mexican food—my favorite—before I even open it, and my stomach rumbles, even though I'm not sure if I'll be able to eat much more than just the chips and rice.

The burrito looks really good, though.

I put on some music, like Tate did for me earlier, and make a plate.