Page 91 of Dirty Roulette
I walk in. Something snaps inside my brain. It’s like I’m in overdrive and no longer in control. Vibrations of the drums beat inside my chest. There are people everywhere. A guitar breaks out in a solo and I can’t hear anyone talking.
I worm my way through people. It’s dark. Cigarettes burn with yellow embers. It’s heavy here. Orange lights flicker against black walls, and pentagrams drawn with red spray paint glow under the dimness of the hell I walked into. There are several bathroom doors, people coming in and out, then there is one with two silhouettes moving underneath the threshold of a closed door with the tilted bathroom sign.
I grab the doorknob and wiggle it. Locked.
Someone smacks my hand off the door with nasty-looking nails and cheap pony bead bracelets. “Get in line.” A girl with multiple hair colors, and most of it shaved off on one side, points to the line wrapping around the hallway.
I ignore her, grab the doorknob, and bang my shoulder into the door.
“Fucker, I told you there was a line!” She screams in my face, veins in her eyes are bloodshot. What the hell is wrong with her? It’s like she’s on acid. I bang into the door again.
“Someone, come grab this dude! He’s trying to break down a door!” The bitch keeps hollering, and grungy-looking people creep over.
“I don’t want to!” Screams rip out behind the door. It sounds like Charlie, sobbing. There’s a shuffle. Something breaking. Shadows move under the door’s wide gap. “Please! I’ve changed my mind. I can’t! I can’t!”
“Who’s in there?” I ask. “Open the door!” I smash my fist into the wood. That’s when someone brave enough grabs my wrist, pulling me back. I crank my shoulder, elbowing someone in the jaw.
I turn around, pushing another junky to the floor. Profanity, screaming, and a crowd of people flood every inch around me.
I bang my shoulder into the door. It doesn’t budge.
“Open the damn door!”
Everything becomes tense. Someone else pulls my shoulder back. I swing around, his face eating my fist, and falling into the crowd behind me. Pressure builds like a dormant volcano erupting for the first time in decades. My knuckles crack the moment I clench my fists. I jiggle the handle, pounding with a fist. Thuds and bangs hit on the opposite side of the door and I hear it unlock. I fling it open. “I don’t want to do this!” I watch Brody swivel her around, pinning her to the sink.
Satan injected me with gallons of lidocaine. All emotions left, there is nothing there. Everything drains from my face – I’m numb and cold inside.
A ripped condom wrapper sits between Charlie’s boots. Brody’s jeans are dropped to his waist. My sister’s shorts are down to her ankles.
“Please stop!” She struggles with Brody. “Get off me. I can’t! I don’t love you anymore!” She elbows him in the stomach, turning around, trying to grab her shorts. He does it again, he grasps her wrists as she claws her nails into his chest. Her eyes hemorrhage with tears, and he covers her mouth with a hand. “Come on baby, you know you miss this.”
I don’t know how, but everything goes dark. My brain turns off like a light switch, and it registers brief seconds. Pain sears into my knuckles like someone lit me on fire. I snatch him by the collar of his shirt and lose it on him.
“Stop!” Someone else and a group of people yank on my arms. Nothing pulls me off. Straddling Brody, I pummel him with my fists.
I’m not behind the steering wheel. I have no control. I’m on the edge of a cliff, and my grip slips away. Everything is black, but I’m yelling expletives. My throat turns to cotton, and the taste of metal lingers at the tip of my tongue.
“Ryder! Stop!” Charlie heaves out a hysterical sob.
I blink.
And I’m wide awake.
My consciousness comes back and leaves again every few moments. Charlie’s ebony hair is stuck to her flushed cheeks, drenched with tears. Something dark and red covers my hands. It’s wet and dry, and it smears onto my shirt as Charlie yanks on the fabric. It reeks of iron. Brody lies on the floor, unconscious. A pool of blood flows out of his mouth and nose. It drips from my hands.
They’re soaked.
My knuckles are raw. The flesh scraped off like someone took a vegetable peeler to them.
My chest hurts. My lungs crumbled like an empty soda can.
Charlie pulls up her shorts, her legs tremble, and she can’t even stand. I lift her up into my arms and sprint down the hallway. She burrows her head in my chest. Everyone steps out of my way, but they stare, sipping their red cups as I march out of the exit and into the parking lot.
Payton pulls herself out of the Jeep, running over to me. “I’m sorry!I’m so sorry!” She cries. Somehow, I make it to the Jeep, open the back door, and slip Charlie into the seat.
“It’s all my fault! I... I... I didn’t stop him!” She doubles over, heaves and pukes again.
“Get in the Jeep! Let’s go!”
