Page 61 of Silas

“Yes ma’am, will do. Thanks for setting up the meet with Taj.”

“Of course. Good luck.”

He ends the call and tosses the phone into the cupholder. Glances at me, concern carved onto his features. “How are you holding up, honey?”

“I’m alright,” I say.

He takes my hand. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, babe.”

“What?” I ask, with a laugh. “I’m not…I’m not BSing you.”

“You can curse, you know.”

“I never have. I was never allowed to. Even almost curses like goshdarnit or heck were forbidden.” I shrug. “I see no point in starting now, I suppose.”

“Your call. Just letting you know, you’re allowed. You don’t want to, that’s your choice. But don’t think you have to hold onto anything from your old life. This is your chance to totally reinvent yourself, Naomi. You can be anyone you want to be, do anything you want to do.” He squeezes my hand, and his thumb rubs over my knuckles.

I stare out my window at the fields passing by, now that we’re out of Cincinnati’s suburbia. “Why do you curse, Silas?”

He thinks in silence for almost a minute before answering. “I dunno, honestly. It was just…the way things were. My father cursed like a sailor. Kids at school all cursed. And obviously, everyone in the Cabal curses like it’s going out of style. Now it’s just…how I talk, I guess.”

“Does it…does it help you express yourself, do you think?”

He laughs. “Never really thought about it. But yeah, it does. You’re pissed off, or you stub your toe or something, yeah it does help to just shoutfuck!” He shouts the curse word, loudly and vehemently enough that I jump. “It’s expressive. It feels good. And sometimes, it’s just the only way to put something. ‘Never lie to a liar’ doesn’t have the same ring as ‘never bullshit a bullshitter.’” A thoughtful pause. “And they don’t mean the same thing, either.”

“Would you think less of me if I were to curse?” I ask.

He laughs. “Hell no, babe. I’m not trying to tell you what to do either way. Just making sure you understand that it’s your choice, now.” He glances at me again. “Now. How are you, really? What went down back there was some gnarly shit, honey. It’s okay if you’re messed up about it.”

“I’m not sure how I am, honestly,” I say. “I guess I’m sort of numb, right now. It doesn’t seem real. Like it was a bad dream.”

“It may be that way for a while. At some point, the feelings will be there, and you’ll have to deal with them. I think sometimes our brains push that shit down because it’s just too much to process right away.”

“What was it like for you, the first time you killed someone?” I ask.

He bobs his head from side to side. “It was…well, it was bad. I was eighteen. Sax and I were new. We started as mules, errand boys, shit like that. Finally, after a solid year of hazing and proving loyalty, we got sent out as soldiers. It was supposed to be routine—just bodies and muscle for a deal. We were handing off a shipment of cocaine to a distributor. A rival faction got wind of it and figured they’d hit us, take the product, and be gone before anyone knew what was up. It was just me, Sax, and two other guys as soldiers, plus Maxim, the lead, and his second, Vasily. All of a sudden…gunfire. Vasily went down in the first round and so did one of the other guys. Gunfights are…they’re weird. They happen in a sort of slo-mo, but not exactly. It’s sort of surreal, I guess you could say. Like, I can almost see myself from the outside, doing these actions, but I don’t feel much at the moment. The second the shooting started, Sax and I ran for cover and started returning fire.”

He slumps lower in the driver’s seat, his wrist draped over the steering wheel, his other hand squeezing mine—powerfully, painfully, although I doubt he realizes it; he’s lost in memory, I think. It doesn’t bother me: I’ve experienced so much awful, terrible agony that his crushing my hand a little bit doesn’t even register as pain.

“I popped off a few shots sort of at random, and then finally I saw one of them. He was around a corner, leaning out and squeezing off shots. I waited till he rolled out and was shooting at someone else, drew a bead on his chest, and…bam. He dropped instantly and I realized I’d just shot him. I’d killed him. It didn’t register. Not at first. There was too much going on—I had to survive the gunfight, first. It was later that night, in bed, trying to fall asleep, when it hit me. I kept seeing that moment, the first guy I shot. Over and over and over. The way he jerked, the sudden red on his shirt. He was wearing a white hoodie. North Face, I think. This red circle appeared. It started small and just…spread. I remember his face. He was so…shocked. Like, he didn’t understand what happened… he was confused. I saw that face he made over and over, his confusion. I killed probably two or three other people that day, but even still, I only remember him.”

His voice is distant, his expression vacant.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to bring up a bad memory, Silas. I shouldn’t have asked.”

He gives a little shake of his head, clearing away the fog of memory, and smiles at me. “Nah, it’s all good, honey. It’s relevant. You gotta talk about this shit.”

“Do you talk about it often?”

He nods. “After a fight like that, you talk about it. Swap stories, shit like that. You tell your buddies who weren’t there. They tell you their stories. It helps get it out, I guess.”

“Oh.” I feel a yawn blossom in the back of my throat, and despite trying to stifle it, it comes out, forcing me into a long stretch and a loud yawn. “Sorry,” I mumble. “I’m tired all of a sudden.”

“That’s normal. Post-fight adrenaline leaving your system. It does weird shit to the body.” He smiles at me. “Just go with it, babe. Rest. We won’t make the coast today, so we’ll be in a hotel tonight.”

I lean the seat back and let the exhaustion pull me under.

I’m still holding Silas’s hand as I fall asleep.