Brian Freeman: Spilled Blood

‘Kimberly died two years ago tonight, Ashlynn,’ Olivia went on. ‘You probably don’t remember.’

‘Yes, I do. Of course, I do.’

‘She was my best friend.’

‘I know that.’

‘She was bald, and she weighed seventy-nine pounds when she died.’

Ashlynn winced at the image. She hadn’t known Kimberly well, but she remembered the girl’s death. Kimberly. Vince. Lynn. Gail. Drew. She remembered each of the St. Croix teenagers who had died of leukemia in the last five years. Every ghost cast a guilty shadow on her.

‘It was a terrible thing, Olivia,’ Ashlynn said. ‘Awful.’

Olivia jabbed a finger in her face. ‘Don’t pretend you understand. You have no idea what it’s like to lose someone close to you.’

Ashlynn couldn’t stop herself. She laughed, which was the worst thing she could do. It was a strangled, tragic laugh that made her face twitch and made Olivia red with anger. She tried to compose herself and defuse the situation before it got out of control. ‘I’m sorry. Please, Olivia, let’s not do this now.’

‘Fuck you,’ Olivia told her in a slurred voice. ‘I hate you.’

Ashlynn simply wanted the confrontation to be over. She wanted to be alone to cry. She turned her attention to the other teenager, who stood off to the side of the swing, staring at the ground. If anyone would help her, it was Tanya Swenson.

‘How are you, Tanya?’ she asked.

Tanya was a moon-faced, curly-haired redhead. She was shy and withdrawn, a girl who trailed in the wake of a smart, outgoing friend like Olivia. She was a Barron girl, but she’d wound up in the St. Croix clique because of her friendship with Olivia and Kimberly – and because of her father. Tanya’s father was the attorney who had led the charge to take down Mondamin Research in court.

That was how it all started. That was how the blood feud between the towns began.

Tanya squeezed her hands in her pockets. ‘I’m okay.’

Ashlynn wanted to see the girl’s eyes. She wanted Tanya to acknowledge the silent bond between them. You know I’m not the enemy.

‘Do you have your car here, Tanya?’ she asked.

The heavy, short girl shuffled on her feet. ‘Um, yeah.’

‘I could use a ride home.’

‘She’s not taking you anywhere,’ Olivia interrupted them. ‘No way.’

‘Is that true, Tanya?’ Ashlynn asked. ‘Really?’

‘I – I don’t know. I guess I can’t.’

Ashlynn sighed in frustration. She had no strength to fight. ‘Fine. Whatever. I’ll sleep in my car, Olivia. Will that make you happy?’

‘Happy? You think we’re here for laughs?’

‘I know why you’re here, but this has nothing to do with me. I’ve been driving for hours. I’m tired. I’m leaving.’

Ashlynn got off the swing, but Olivia shoved her back hard. She spilled off her feet, grabbing the rope for balance. The swing jerked in a crazy circle, and her knee slipped into the mud. Cramps knifed through her abdomen, so sharp that they took her breath away. She tried to get up, but she couldn’t, so she bent over with both hands in the dirt.

‘Please don’t,’ Ashlynn murmured, breathing raggedly.

Olivia was crying. She shouted through her tears. ‘Do you have any idea how scared Kimberly was? She was fourteen, and she was dying. Do you think that’s right? Do you think that’s fair?’

‘No. It’s not.’

‘People like you don’t have a clue how horrible it is. You sit there with your perfect life while the rest of us go through hell. You know what I want? I want you to suffer like Kimberly did. I want you to be as scared as she was.’

Ashlynn thought about screaming back at her – You don’t know anything! – but none of this was Olivia’s fault. She looked away to hide her own grief, but she only made it worse. Olivia misinterpreted her reaction. She thought Ashlynn didn’t care, which wasn’t true. Not at all.

Olivia dug inside a satchel purse slung over her shoulder and came out with something in her hand. Ashlynn’s heart turned over with a thump in her chest. Her stomach seared with pain. Olivia held a revolver, grimy and old, with a three-inch barrel.

Tanya’s eyes widened into full moons as she saw the gun. ‘Livvy! What are you doing? Where did you get that?’

‘Quiet,’ Olivia snapped.

The gun squirmed in her young fingers. She used her thumb to drag the hammer back, cocking the weapon. She aimed the barrel at Ashlynn’s face and held it so close that the metal almost touched her forehead. Her finger slid over the trigger.

‘Scared?’ she asked Ashlynn.

‘Yes.’

‘Terrified?’

‘Yes.’

‘ Good. ’

Tanya’s voice squeaked. ‘Livvy, cut it out. Quit it!’

Olivia stared at Ashlynn. Inches separated their faces. The two girls were both unsure where the line in the sand was drawn between them. How far it would go. How bad it would be. Ashlynn felt something wet in her jeans; it was either urine or blood.

‘Please, Olivia, put it down,’ she whispered.

‘Do you think I don’t have the guts? Do you think I won’t do it?’

‘Killing me won’t change anything.’

Olivia swung the gun at the squat tree trunk, took hold of the butt with both hands, and jerked on the trigger. The gun exploded with a roar that made all of them jump. Bark burst from the trunk in a dust cloud as a bullet tunneled into the meat of the tree. Tanya screamed. Olivia blinked and stared at the gun in shock, as if realizing that she had actually fired.

‘Livvy, my God!’ Tanya screamed.

Ashlynn held up her hands. The burnt smell made her sick. ‘This isn’t like you, Olivia.’

Tears streaked Olivia’s pink face. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’

‘I know you’re better than this. You’re drunk, you’re upset. Let’s just get out of here. I won’t tell anyone.’

‘I don’t care what you do.’

Olivia opened the cylinder of the gun and shook gold cartridges onto the wet ground. She caught one cartridge in her palm and reinserted it in the cylinder. Her despair was etched in her face.

‘Do you know what Russian roulette is?’

‘ Stop ,’ Tanya begged her friend. ‘Livvy, no!’

‘I want you to see what it feels like to have somebody play a game with your life, Ashlynn.’

Ashlynn pleaded silently with Tanya. Do something. Instead, without a word, Tanya bolted away from them. She wasn’t graceful, and she looked even younger than she was, like a panicked child running from a monster. Ashlynn wanted to shout after her and tell her to come back, but Tanya was scared to death and out of her league. Her last hope for rescue fled.

‘Now it’s just you and me,’ Olivia said.

The revolver with the single cartridge in its chamber stared into Ashlynn’s face. Its barrel belched a wisp of smoke. Ashlynn looked into Olivia’s desperate eyes and understood exactly what was going on between the two of them. All of the hurt, loss, jealousy, bitterness, humiliation, frustration, and anger of the past three years had converged on this moment. It was Kimberly dying. It was the lawsuit failing. It was the tit-for-tat violence that had erupted between the two towns over the past year. Olivia had found someone to take the fall for everything she’d suffered. She blamed Ashlynn.

But it was more than that, too.

‘I know what this is about,’ Ashlynn told her.

Olivia’s hands shook like autumn leaves. ‘On three,’ she said.

‘Don’t you want to talk about it?’

‘On three,’ the girl repeated, pretending to ignore her.

‘Olivia, listen, I need to tell you something,’ Ashlynn said.

‘Shut up.’

‘Please, it’s important.’