Chapter 9: DAMON - A Very Good Bad Idea

And so it begins. On day three, Jade launches her attack. Or her counter-offensive, if we’re counting the epic fail of Ian’s spider-assault idea. Jade’s reaction surprised me. I don’t for a second buy that she liked eating the spider, but the fact that she played it off that way shows more guts than I expected from a Buchanan. It also highlighted that to drive her out, I need to break out the big guns—or bigger spiders.

Jade’s blitz begins at dawn—Sun Tzu would be proud—when the sound of music wakes me up. A synthesized monotone beat resonates up the stairs, reverberates through the walls, and echoes inside my skull.

Loud, grating, terrible fucking music. The kind store owners blast out on the sidewalk to keep vagrants away.

It’s the “Friday” song. The annoying one that played relentlessly on pop radio stations a dozen summers ago by that teenage girl whose name I never knew.

With a deep sigh, I roll out of bed, throw on a T-shirt and sweats, and head into the bathroom. The song ends just after I finish brushing my teeth, and while I tie my sneakers, there’s several seconds of blessed silence.

Then . . . it comes back.

Returns. Regurgitates.

Like bad seafood.

But, it’s fine. I grew up in a boys’ home—dormitory style. I’ve got years of training tuning out all kinds of irritating shit. If Daddy’s Girl thinks this is what’s going to break me, I can’t wait to show her to her face how wrong she is.

When I walk into the solarium a few minutes later, however, it’s not Jade’s face that I see first. It’s her ass.

She’s in the downward dog position, wearing a mint-green sports bra and snug-as-sin yoga pants. And I have to admit . . . it’s not a bad view. Heart-shaped and supple, but toned with a downright bitable curve. Clara used to say, you catch more flies with sweetness than vinegar, and while I’m certain it’s not what she meant—Jade Buchanan’s ass is sweet enough to catch a whole swarm.

She straightens up, revealing a 1980s-esque, battery-powered, cassette-playing boombox on the floor—where the horrible song is currently blasting out.

I move to Jade’s front, pointing at the box and raising my voice so she’ll hear me. “Did you find that here?”

She regards me with cool green eyes.

“Nope. Brought it from home.”

“You brought a boombox from home? Do you have a secret breakdancing fetish or something?”

“No—I just love listening to music. I thought it would help me pass the time.”

The little wheel of the cassette tape spins mockingly as the song whines down to its end . . . and then starts up all over again.

“Can it play anything else?”

Jade gives me a broad, saccharine smile. “Yep. But this one’s my favorite.”

“Your favorite?”

She nods. “I find it soothing.”

I can’t help but bark out a laugh at her unapologetic full-of-shitness. “You think this song is soothing?”

“Sure.” Jade starts to snap her fingers and sways in time to the beat—shifting her hips and rocking her shoulders.

I just nod. “O-kay.”

I head outside for my run . . . and “Friday” follows me the whole time.

* * *

Jade wasn’t wrong when she mentioned the need to have something to help pass the time. Boredom weakens the mind, and unproductivity breeds perpetual laziness. I’m a task-oriented guy—I’m used to being busy—and I’m a junkie for the hit of satisfaction that comes from scratching an item off a to-do list. So when I finish my run, I give myself a project: rebuild the crumbling stone wall that frames the property.

I start at the rear east corner, where chunks of field and sandstone litter the grass, knocked loose by time, wind, and weather. I’ll have Ian bring a few blocks of Quikrete, but for now I just restack the stones, adjusting their placement so they settle naturally and the top has an even appearance. I reach over the wall to grab the ones that landed on the exterior, but keep my ankle with its trusty blinking monitor firmly planted inside the property line. The sun is hot on my skin, and after a few hours of hauling slabs of rock, my clothes are soaked through with sweat. But it feels good—the work—being able to visually see the results of effort is rewarding in a way few things in life are.

I settle the final rock in at the front east corner, lift my arms overhead to stretch out the muscles in my back and shoulders, then head into the house for a well-deserved hot shower.

While the song plays on . . .

The only problem is, after running the water for a few minutes and stepping beneath the sharp shower stream—there is no hot. Or even warm. There’s only cold and fucking colder.

“Goddamn it!” I yell as the water stabs against my flesh like icicle knives and my muscles knot instead of loosening.

I don’t know how she managed it, but I know Jade frigging Buchanan is responsible.

And another simple pleasure bites the dust.

But I’ll survive. For what this property is going to earn me, a few months of military-style showers is a trivial price to pay.

With my hair still dripping frigid drops, I walk down to the kitchen and pause—sending out my spidey senses to gauge Jade’s location. The song from hell comes from the direction of the library, so I assume that’s where the she-demon is holed up.

With the blender short-circuited, I mix a protein shake by hand in a tall glass. Then I take a sip—and spit it out into the sink. Because it’s like sucking down a mouthful of sand, thick with salt water. I open the tub of protein powder, stick my finger in, and taste.

Yep, it’s been salted.

And we all know how that got in there.

Though it’s tempting, I don’t get mad. Getting even is always the way to go.

I toss the powder in the garbage and calmly grab the kitchen shears from the drawer. I unplug the fridge and snip the electrical cord in half—kissing Jade’s entire food supply goodbye. I also pick her stupid padlock with a straightened paperclip—because you learn how to do things like that in a boys’ home—and leave the refrigerator door open to be sure the cold escapes and her food spoils as quickly as possible.

And even though that stupid song still ricochets throughout the house . . . I feel much better now.

* * *

Once in a while, the guys joke around and call me “The Machine.” Because I keep going—pushing—moving forward, no matter the conditions or circumstances. Until whatever needs doing gets done. Some would call it stubbornness, but I like to think of it as strength of will.

But every once in a while, even machines blow a gasket.

What makes me finally snap later that day? It’s not the boredom, or the cold shower, or the salt in my protein shake—though all of that sucks. What finally pushes me over the edge is . . . humming.

My humming.

While I’m in the parlor, bent over Clara’s ancient television set trying to rig it to play anything that’s not a VHS tape, I realize I’m humming a song.

The song.

The damnedable tune Jade’s been blasting all day to get inside my head and turn my brain to mush. And it’s working. Unacceptable.

So I stand up, drop the screwdriver in my hand, and walk my way to the library. Where Jade is reclining behind the desk, her long legs stretched out beside the boombox, twirling her hair around one finger, reading a book.

I press the stop button on the cursed cassette player and yank it off the desk.

“Hey!” she shouts, scrambling to get her feet under her, while from the corner Cujo jumps to his evil mistress’s defense. He lets out a string of yappy barks that are almost as annoying as the song.

But in the immortal words of Popeye the Sailor Man—that’s all I can stand and I can’t stand no more.

With Jade yelling behind me, I head out the front door and down the path to the gate. Then I swing the boombox over my head like an Olympian hammer-thrower and hurl that sucker onto the beach. It sails through the air, arcing high, before landing in the sand a few yards from the shoreline. When the tide comes in, it’ll be swallowed whole and sunk to the bottom of the ocean where it belongs.

Problem solved.

Jade pokes me in the chest with her finger, screeching, “Who do you think you are? That was mine!”

“Oh yeah?” I shout back, inching closer. “Then go get it!”

She curses a blue streak, condemning me to hell and back. Her chest heaves and her blond hair blows wild in the wind. Her cheeks are flushed and her green eyes glow with unholy fury.

That’s when things get weird.

Because it’s in this moment, up close and personal, that I’m swamped with the sudden urge to silence that sharp mouth using more . . . creative means.

By covering it with my own.

Kissing her so hard and deep that she loses the ability to breathe, to think, and to curse me out. I picture it, in lurid exquisite detail—feel it in every cell of my body. How Jade would resist at first, all shocked and scandalized—how she’d twist and writhe in my arms, yanking at my hair, biting with her teeth. And then . . . she’d give in.

Surrender.

Because beneath all that venom and loathing—she’d feel it too. Want it, against her better judgment. Every bit as much as me.

Then I’d slide my hands down her back, grip her perfect ass, keeping her right where I’d need her. And she’d love it—moaning long and low into my mouth. Then, because Jade doesn’t know how to be passive, she’d thrust her tongue against mine, rough and hot, kissing me back for all she’s worth, and fighting for a dominance I wouldn’t let her have.

But the fight would be so, so good.

I don’t normally despise the women I hook up with. But this is different—unbidden and kind of twisted.

And yet that doesn’t make the idea any less tempting.

Jade uses my moment of perverse paralysis to get the jump on me—and the anger must give her super-speed. Because she practically flies into the house, reaching the kitchen first and sweeping my canned food and sack of rice off the counter and into her arms without missing a beat. She doubles back through the dining room, just out of reach, and dashes back out the door to the gate.

Just in time to toss the whole stash over the wall and out onto the sand of no man’s land. Those cans might as well be on the moon.

She hops up and down. “Take that, fuckerface!”

I exhale harshly, like a pissed-off dragon. “Is that how you want to play, princess? I can play rough too.”

Then it’s back to the kitchen—not to destroy any more of food—but to take possession of anything edible forgotten in the back of a cabinet or that Gunther left behind after his departure. We’ve got eleven days until Ian and Piper show up. And sure, a human being could survive that long without food—but it wouldn’t be fun.

If I can’t drive her out of the house, I’ll starve her out.

I open the first cabinet and score a pack of Werther’s Original butterscotch candies and a half-empty box of Cap’n Crunch.

Jade spots the cut cord and open door of the fridge—and immediately catches on to my plan. From the corner of my eye I see her tearing open cabinets and drawers—shoving a sleeve of saltines down her sports bra, and then a small jar of honey.

I hope it gives her botulism.

On a shelf in another cabinet are two jars of peanut butter, and we’re each able to snatch one. Then we grab the handle of the last unexplored drawer at the same time, pulling with double the force and yanking the bastard right out of the frame, sending it skidding across the floor.

Inside lays a lone, unopened, one-pound bag of licorice. And it’s the black kind—not even good licorice.

But does that matter? Oh, hell no.

We dive for it, grappling on the floor like two sugar-crazed third-graders beneath a newly busted piñata. I get a hold of one end of the bag just as Jade grips the other. Grunting with effort, we tug back and forth and back again. Until it rips open, sending us sprawling on our asses, and pelting our faces with disgusting little black squares. I scoop the scattered shrapnel off the floor and stuff them in my pockets. Jade shovels them into her mouth—looking like a deranged blond chipmunk.

We get to our feet, fists clenched, eyes clashing, and breathing hard. Then, a second later, we run—in opposite directions—dashing through the house away from each other to hoard and hide the only food we’ve got left.

* * *

We avoid each other for the rest of the day.

Feeling like a paranoid nut job, I strategically hide little piles of my food stash in different locations around the house, so if Jade discovers one spot, she won’t get it all. Under the mattress, inside the grandfather clock, in the back of a drawer in the parlor. I check my back every few seconds to be sure the witch of Shore Haven isn’t spying on me.

Then I go back to working on the television, because once I start something, I finish it.

A couple hours later—I don’t know what time it is anymore, but it’s dark out—I walk up to my bedroom, tugging my shirt off over my head and tossing it on the bed before coming to a screeching halt.

Because in the middle of the room, a mere inch from the toe of my shoe, is a puddle.

“What the hell?”

A distinctly Chihuahua-sized puddle.

“Jade!” I bellow, moving to the doorway. “Jade! Get your ass in here! Now!”

She takes forever. I yell twice more, and am just about to go find her and toss her over my shoulder to carry her in here, when her royal pain-in-the-assness graces me with her presence.

Strolling down the hall, extra slowly and glowering, toward my room.

“I came purely out of one-time curiosity,” she hisses. “But if you ever summon me again, I’ll stab a pencil through your tongue.”

I jab my finger toward the puddle. “You need to clean that up.”

Her eyes follow my finger and then her nose scrunches. “Why would you think I would ever clean that up?”

“Because your dog pissed on my floor! That makes it yours!”

She crosses her arms. “How do I know it was Precious? How do I know you didn’t do that yourself?”

“You think I’d piss on my own floor?”

“At this point, I wouldn’t put anything past you!”

My right temple pulses and I think I’m developing a facial tic. “If that pointy-toothed rat comes near my room again, I’m going to shove a spit down its throat and roast it for dinner.”

“What kind of person even thinks something like that?!” Jade shrieks in my face. “You’re an animal!”

I stalk forward, making her shuffle back quick until she’s pressed against the bedroom wall and I’m looming over her, so close I can smell her. Cinnamon and spice and so very, very nice. Jade pushes a hand against my chest, trying to gain some space—the touch of her palm burning like a brand on my bare skin.

I dip my head and growl into her ear. “Baby, you have no idea.”