Page 57 of Mason

“You’re a Giambelli,” I spit out, forcing a wedge where there desperately needs to be one. She’s losing sight of what I am. Of who I am. I’m not her savior. I’m nothing more than a babysitter, and let’s face it, if Dixon hadn’t taken her from Down Under, she’d be long dead and I wouldn’t know any differently. I didn’t want her then. I shouldn’t want her now. “You can’t be trusted.”

And I leave her.

I leave her there in a pool of bedding in the middle of the floor, choking on tears.

I leave the only person I look forward to seeing anymore broken and confused.

But it’s for her own good.

I want her to be free. I won’t stand in her way.

* * *

Halfway into the city, my phone rings.

I stab at the answer button on the steering wheel, so frustrated that I want to ram into the car in front of me, its bumper a testament to a life of running 5ks, going vegan, and yoga.

What I’d give to see that driver in my shoes right now. My world would devour them. Gut them from the inside out. Shit inside their fucking heart.

“What is it?” I bark.

Let it be fucking Grady. I’m ready to put his goddamn head through a window.

The junkie’s hollowed head joins Spencer’s every time I blink, forming a reel of horrors that didn’t need to happen.

“Where are you?” Dixon croaks.

“I-10.” I encourage the healthy living fuck to move out of my way, getting right on their bumper-stickered ass and laying on the horn to Make my point loud and clear.

“Road rage, much?” Dixon seems annoyed, and there’s rustling on his end. “You have time to visit?”

I speed by the car once the driver finally takes the hint. I’m touching eighty, but it can’t get me away from Emily fast enough. “Where?”

I haven’t spoken to him since checking in outside of the hardware store after the rainy adventure with Emily. We’re overdue to compare notes, though mine include nothing useful. Nothing that’ll bring us any closer to putting a bullet in the asshole that kicked off this insanity. The one that paved the road for my self-destruction.

“Cute little farm. I might retire and grow squash that look like cocks out here someday.” Dixon’s bright and chipper, a far cry from the faint moan lingering in the background. One of suffering. Misery. Death.

“Why the fuck are you out there? What is that sound?”

I can’t handle anymore death today. The junkie filled my quota. I need to visit Spencer’s grave and chat with him. Ground the thoughts swimming in my head before they drown me.

I shake my head at the thought. Poor bastard can’t even rest in peace. He’s still my sounding board. The wise older brother with all the answers, even if he doesn’t answer back.

The city flies by, the rail yard and billboards mixing in a haze. I hit one-hundred with ease. No one’s holding me back now. I could skip my exit. Drive until I’m states away from the bullshit. Start over and never look back.

“I found something that you need to see,” Dixon insists. “Someone, actually. I’m not sure how long he has.”

* * *

The address Dixon gave isn’t one I recognize. I never venture this far west, leaving behind the gray bubble of suburbia and the city for the rolling green hills farm land.

The sun’s setting when I pull into the gravel driveway. The little farmhouse on top of a hill in the distance isn’t Dixon’s usual backdrop, but halfway down the winding path I spot him stepping out of a barn, the weathered building’s red paint curling back like it smells the trouble surrounding it. Now this is Dix’s element.

I park just outside the barn, noticing the blood smears on his gray jacket and jeans as soon as I step out of the vehicle. Something is wrong. He never goes out like this. He’s careful. Methodical. “What the fuck happened to you?”

He slides the barn door open and waves me inside. The moaning I’d heard during our brief phone call comes rumbling out. “Nothing happened to me.”

I follow him into the dimly lit barn, my fingers itching to grab my 9mm. This is Dixon. I can trust him. But the instinct is still there. This scene screams mob hit. There isn’t another house nearby that’ll hear a gunshot, just pastures of roaming dairy cows. Pastures one could easily be buried in and lost forever under cow shit.

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