Closer Than Blood

“Not the man I thought you would be.”

“That’s not fair and you know it.”

“This isn’t about fair, Parker. It is about whether or not you love me enough to find a way to protect our relationship and ensure our future. I know you’re young, but honestly, you’re not that young.” The last part was a slam. It was meant to remind him once and for all that while they had played at being lovers and had talked about a lifetime commitment and a future together, he wasn’t quite her equal. He was younger. Immature . He was but a boy. He hated it when she played that way. It wasn’t fun. It was cruel and demeaning. It made him feel weak and insignificant. It made him feel like he imagined his mother might have felt when his father kicked her to the curb. Laura tearfully told her son that she wasn’t sure exactly why Alex had chosen Tori over her, but that she felt it had more to do with what she no longer possessed —and Tori still did. The air under the covers was thinning. He couldn’t really make sense of what she was asking him to do. Maybe there was no sense needed. It was about love, after all. Love, she had told him over and over, cannot be rationalized or explained.

“By killing someone?” He finally asked.

“Killing another person is how we protect our love?”

“Oh, Parker,” she said.

“I have made a mistake. I’ve let you love me and I’ve fallen in love with you. But you don’t seem to understand. This is a war we’re in right now. We are going to have to do things that no one would want to do unless they were in for the fight of their lives. History is full of examples. Think about the Donner party . . . did you study that in school?” Her tone was slightly condescending, but he ignored it.

“Yeah, the pioneers who ate each other in California.”

“Right. They did what they had to do to survive.”

“We’re not stuck on a mountain in a blizzard,” he said. She laughed.

“No, but we’re in a war, and you and I are the only people who can defend our futures. The world will try to stop us. They won’t understand. Your dad. Your mom. Whoever.”

“My mom isn’t a part of this,” he said.

“No, she’s not. But you have to understand, Parker, if she tried to get in our way we’d have to do something about it.”

“Hey,” he said, “don’t talk that way. I don’t know if I can do that last thing you want me to do.”

“You have to.”

“It would be like killing you. She looks just like you.”

“That’s right. And that’s why we need her gone.”

“I don’t know if I can do it.”

“It’s time to grow a pair, Parker. I need a man in my bed, not a boy.”

“I am a man.”

“Then you’ll prove it to me, babe.”

“I don’t know.”

“Look, Parker, killing isn’t as hard as you seem to think. I think I’ve proven that. I wish you would have sucked it up and paid attention. I need you.”

They’d had a plan. Or at least Tori thought they had one. Killing Alex was going to be a team effort because she knew that in order for her to succeed that time, she’d need a partner. The subject was first broached as she and Parker sat in her car overlooking an empty expanse of Puget Sound one summer afternoon. They’d found a place for sex at the end of a long beachfront parking lot. She finished him off quickly—which was a pretty easy mission to accomplish with a seventeen-year-old boy—because there had been so much more to do.

“I want you to shoot him in the head,” she said.

“I hate him as much as you do, but, Tori, he is my dad.” She reapplied her lipstick and turned to face the boy, head-on.

“Biology didn’t make him a father. You know that. Tell me you know that.”

“I know it,” he said, repeating her words.

“You’re not getting cold feet on me.”

“No, it isn’t that. I don’t want to let you down.”

“It isn’t about me. It doesn’t matter to me that he’s screwing that bitch at the office and getting ready to throw me away ... like he did your poor mother.” She leaned closer and touched his chin with her soft, gentle hands.

“Getting rid of him is the price he will have to pay for our freedom.” The logic was peculiar. But somehow Parker understood.

“You mean the money,” he said.

“Yes. It is about the money. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot and a liar. I can’t tolerate either of those, can you?”

“No,” he said.

“You will need to be the shooter,” she said.

“I can’t risk it.”

“I thought you said there was no risk.”

“Parker, there’s always a risk. Making love to you just now was a risk. A cop could have come by. Some do- gooder with an overactive moral compass could see us and turn me in for stealing your youth. That is, if they could tell that I was older than you. You look so mature.” She kissed him and he felt that tingling feeling run through his body.

“Do you want me to go over the plan again?” She let her tongue slip between his lips. They kissed again, this time with more passion.

“I just want you inside of me again. I want us to be able to be together forever. I want us to enjoy each other whenever we want.”

“I want that, too.”

“As far as the plan goes, no need to cover that again. You know what to do.”

Parker had never seen Tori look like that before. Her eyes were cold, almost devoid of life. She stood next to his bed in the guest room and spoke in a scary, quiet whisper.

“You little shit,” she said.

“You are backing out on me?” He sat there mute for a moment, before finally speaking.

“I’m sorry.” Her eyes blazed.

“Sorry? Goddamn you, Parker. We agreed to this. You promised me. You said you loved me and would do anything for us to be together.”

“I want to kill him. I want to.”

“I want things, too. Wanting you to live up to your promises was at the top of my list. But you’ve really let me down. You’re like every other man I’ve ever fallen for. They want what I have, they take it, and then when I want something in return, they shove me aside. I expected better of you, Parker.” He stood up. The teenager was taller than she was, but somehow he shrank in her presence.

The carriage house adjacent to the Victorian held the updated mechanical plant that supported the house, including the water heater, the AC unit, and the redone electrical panel. Huddled on a sleeping bag behind the Lexus and a disconnected coal-fired kitchen stove—a relic from two or three remodels ago—was the shaking frame of a teenage boy. He held a gun stolen from the house across the street. Tori’s voice came at Parker with the sweetness of honey.

“Baby, you have to pull yourself together.”

“I can’t do this, Tori.”

“You can and you will. You have to do this. It is the only way we can be together.” He’d been crying and he detested that she knew it, but he looked directly at her.

“You mean, it is the only way we can get the money. If it was just about being together, we could just run off. You and me. Away from here.” She dropped to her knees. She was wearing nothing but a nightgown and the icy air hardened her nipples to eraser points poking at his face.

“Look, I can’t stay here and try to build you up,” she said.

“Try to convince you. You need to pull yourself together.” Her voice began to carry an edge, and she