After shaking hands with everyone, Chelsea is sent out to the RVs to get some dinner. It should feel weird but it doesn’t, walking through the waiting room as people stare at her, whispering. She holds her head high—because she got the job, didn’t she?—and thanks Arlene before heading out across the baked earth toward the shade of the awnings.
There are five people sprawled out on lawn chairs and picnic blankets in the shade around the RVs and tour buses as a tall, skinny teen girl, maybe sixteen with an undercut and galaxy hair, babysits the hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, a phone in her hand. Chelsea is surprised to see that no one looks like a professional wrestler. There’s one tall guy, but he’s thin as a breadstick; one young, muscled guy of average height with a shaved head and blackwork tattoo sleeves; a fit silver fox in his sixties who looks like he belongs on TV; a sad but beautiful Hawaiian woman in her thirties; and a pretty but fake-looking brunette in her twenties with painted-on eyebrows who probably calls herself an influencer. Chelsea immediately feels bad for assuming the worst of her.
“You’re Chelsea?” the teen at the grill asks.
“Yep.”
“I’m Sienna’s daughter, Indigo. You want a dog or a burger?”
“A burger would be great.”
Indigo nods and points to a cooler by the RV. “Cool. We have plenty. Just grab a drink and chill. Should be ready in five.”
Chelsea heads to the cooler and digs out a water. It’s cold enough to make her teeth hurt and drips condensation down her arm. She’s aware that everyone else is watching her, and she hasn’t felt this judged since the first Mommy and Me class she went to with a newborn Ella. She’d thought it would be all about woman power and sisterhood and mommy wisdom but it was more about losing the baby weight and buying the hottest artisan booties. This isn’t an artisan booty crowd, but whatever they’re looking for in her, they don’t seem to find it. Then again, she’s in old cutoffs, flip-flops, and a blood-spattered T-shirt. She wouldn’t talk to herself, either.
All the chairs are taken, so she sits on the blanket in the shade with her back against the RV, next to the sad-looking woman. Out of the six strangers, she feels like she might have the most in common with a sad woman in her thirties because she is also a sad woman in her thirties.
“Weird interview, right?” she says to the woman, because she has to say something because if she doesn’t say anything, she has to remember that she killed her only friend a few hours ago, even if the day feels like it’s lasted a year.
The woman perks up a bit and turns to her. “Right? I’ve never felt so inadequate about my CV. I’m Amy.” Amy holds out her hand to shake, although it’s awkward since Chelsea is on the floor beside her. “How’d you get in?” She motions to the whole group, all of whom are not-so-subtly listening in. “That’s the question of the day. Most jobs, they need definitive skills, but here, it’s a crapshoot. They took me on because I’m an accountant with marketing experience who looks ‘exotic.’ ” Amy makes finger quotes and rolls her eyes.
“Why’d they take y’all?” Chelsea asks, turning to the group to give herself time to answer the question without scaring them all off. If this is a job where they all live together, she wants to be on the best possible terms from the start, and she knows that if she lies, she’ll just get caught.
They’re all listening, of course, because it’s a small group of people in a big, empty field.
The silver fox speaks first. “I’ve done some commercials and modeling. I’m Steve.” He gives a little wave.
“I think it’s just because I’m unusually tall,” the unusually tall guy says, frowning. “And I brought my own leather duster. I’m Matt.”
The punk and the Instagram girl stare at each other uneasily like a badger and a fox facing off, and he finally nods for her to go first. She fiddles with her navel ring, and Chelsea is very glad that Ella never got into the crop top and high-waisted pants trend. “Ugh. Fine. I guess they took me because I’m hot and flexible and don’t mind showing skin and I have a million followers on Instagram. I’m London. And that’s my real name, not, like, something I made up. My parents are ex-pats.”
They all look at the punk guy. His violent exterior—muscles, tattoos, shaved head—is at odds with his meditative, quiet manner. “I’m TJ. I do jiu-jitsu. And the tattoos, I guess.”
“And you do art,” Indigo says from the barbecue. When they all look at her, she says, “He’s famous on TikTok. Like, graffiti and stuff.” He smiles and gives a small nod.
London snorts and flops in her chair like she’s unimpressed.
TJ raises an eyebrow at the display and looks to Chelsea. “What about you?”
They’re in a loose sort of circle, nursing their sweating drinks, and for a moment Chelsea wonders if this is what an AA meeting feels like. She knows there’s no point in lying, since she’s apparently all over the news, so she might as well get it out of the way.
“I’m Chelsea. I think they took me on because I’m on the news right now. My friend and I were driving here, and I stormed on I-4. Woke up and…” She stares down at the red splatters on her T-shirt. “So, that. And I guess I did some drama and singing in high school.”
Matt honks a laugh and rocks back in his folding chair; he reminds her of an awkward goth pterodactyl. “Yeah! I saw that. Like, you threw manure at some old guy and stole his truck. Classic.”
Chelsea looks down, feels her face flush. It’s not something in which she can take any sort of pride. “So they say.”
“Hey, sorry about your friend.” Amy touches her arm briefly, and Chelsea wants to double over and cry. She’s been touched more today than she has in weeks, thanks to her self-quarantine and barricade, and she misses her girls like a punch to the gut.
“Thanks.” It comes out a half sob, and Chelsea has to look away and drink some water.
Steve goes to a different cooler and pulls out a mini-bottle of pink wine. “Sounds like you’ve had a hell of a day.”
Chelsea takes the bottle with a smile of thanks, screws off the top, and learns firsthand how awkward it is to sip wine from a tiny bottle. It goes down in a flash, sweet as soda, and warmth unspools in her stomach. She’s tried to limit her drinking for the last year, after David went after Ella, but God, she’s missed this feeling, responsibility and anxiety sloughing away like a heavy coat on a hot day.
“Yeah, I’ll have one of those, too.” Amy heads to the cooler and comes back with three of the mini-bottles, handing another one to Chelsea. “It’s only like half a glass, right?”
London was already drinking a can of alcoholic seltzer, Steve has an elegant, monogrammed hip flask, and Matt’s brow draws down as he does the math. He strides over to the cooler and comes back with three little bottles of red wine, and Chelsea is pretty sure this guy wishes he was a vampire.
“No drink for you?” London asks TJ.
He holds up his fist to show a big, black X on the back of his hand. “Nah. That shit’s poison.”
London snorts. “Anything can be poison if you misuse it. I know a girl who OD’d on Tums.”
“Then she was an idiot.”
“She was depressed, you asshole!”
“Hey, c’mon.” The teen girl at the grill takes a few uncertain steps toward them, the burger spatula in one hand. “It’s all cool.”
“It’s not fuckin’ cool,” London grumbles, slumping back in her chair and gulping her seltzer, silver rings flashing on all her fingers. “She almost died. They had to pump out her stomach.”
“But she did it to herself,” TJ counters, sitting forward in his chair with the air of an exhausted college professor who’s given this speech too many times. “It’s a series of bad choices. No one wakes up one day and randomly picks up the Tums. If you’re having problems, you should do the deep work on fixing your psyche. Meditate, do yoga, see a therapist, see a doctor, get meds, reach out. Don’t take a bottle of chewable calcium. That’s the coward’s response.”
“So what, you’re a fuckin’ doctor now? A psychologist? You think people can just get fixed by doing some downward dog?” London throws her shoulders back against the chair, tossing her hair and snarling. “Jesus, what an asshole.”
Chelsea can feel it building—the goading, the denial, the insults, the body language, the tension brewing between two strangers in lawn chairs. It’s like watching a tornado coming, knowing she can’t stop it. But she has to try.
“I think we can all agree that there’s nothing funny about depression or being sick,” she says in what she recognizes as the same voice she uses when she’s breaking up a quarrel between her daughters. “But getting in a fight here, now that we all have jobs, isn’t going to help anybody.” Movement draws her eye away from the danger zone between London and TJ, and she gives a tiny smile as she notes Indigo texting on her phone, hoping she’s letting the people in charge know that there’s some weird, useless argument happening out here. Sure, tension is high, but…
“I’ve met so many assholes like you,” London continues, her voice rising. “Like, you’d think with the economy trashed and dead bodies everywhere, you could be, I don’t know, nice. Like, give the benefit of a doubt. But no, Mr. Don’t Drink here knows everything. You think you’re so great?”
“Says the girl who doctors her bikini pics to sell diet pills on her thinspo Insta,” TJ mutters. “Yes, I know who you are, and you’re obviously just here for the attention.”
London explodes from her chair, knocking it backward, seltzer can crushed in her hand. “Don’t you insult my feed, you little turd! You don’t know me! You can’t talk about me that way!”
TJ stands, arms crossed, giving her a look meant to express his disdain—and his lack of fear.
“You don’t get it, do you? People can say whatever they want. People can judge you. You can do whatever you want, but then people can think and say whatever they want about that. You can’t control other people.” He raises one eyebrow like he thinks he’s the Rock.
London stops, close enough to slap him. Steve and Matt leap to their feet, looking like they want to stop the fight but unsure who to help. Amy and Chelsea stand, too, and Indigo has forgotten the sizzling meat on the grill and is straining anxiously toward the interview building, phone against her ear.
“I’m not scared of you,” London snarls with all the bravado of a Chihuahua pissing itself in front of a Doberman.
“You should be scared of me,” TJ explains with aggressive, Zen-like calm. “I’ve got more body mass than you and I’m a brown belt in jiu-jitsu. I could literally kill you. And what are you going to do to me?”
London shoves him, and he takes a step back but doesn’t show any emotional response, doesn’t even uncross his arms. It’s weirdly fascinating to Chelsea, watching a grown man goaded by a woman, who doesn’t seem the least bit interested in hitting her or choking her, who may say cruel things—cruel, but true—but doesn’t seem to want to cause harm. London is out of control, and TJ might be an asshole, but he’s giving off the aura of a yogi.
And it’s only making London angrier. She owns some sense of safety, of untouchability, that Chelsea has never known. It’s a privilege to act this way and know you won’t be attacked.
“I’ve killed people, too, you dick!” London growls. “I beat a guy’s head in with a wine bottle at a club and went right back to dancing, so don’t you act like I’m nothing!”
“I’m not acting like you’re nothing,” he responds calmly. “I’m being honest because that’s my right as a human being and because I believe in truth and authenticity above all things. If I wanted to act like you were nothing, I wouldn’t be talking to you.”
With a grunt, London shoves him again, her hands pressing against his crossed arms, her perfect ombre nails spread like cat claws. He steps back and shakes his head sadly at her.
“Why are you doing this? I’m not your enemy.”
“You keep saying that, but you also called my friend dumb and you think I’m dumb for drinking and you insulted my feed and you’re just an asshole!” She shoves him again, and his arms uncross.
He doesn’t hurt her, though, doesn’t make a move toward her. His hands hang at his sides, easy, and he takes a deep breath and cocks his head at her.
“You’re the one acting like an asshole.”
London’s hands go to fists, and she’s about to punch him or slap him or something when a loud voice booms, “Stop right there!”
Everyone, even London, turns to focus on the figures walking briskly across the fairgrounds. It’s Harlan, Chris, Sienna, Arlene, and the tattooed brunette from the waiting room. Harlan leads them, striding across the field like an action hero, long hair and scarf blowing behind him as if he’s led by his own personal fan. London relaxes, the fight gone out of her as she focuses on the approaching group. TJ’s posture doesn’t change. Harlan steps forward, close enough that he could grab both of their heads in his gorilla hands and slam them together, if he wanted to.
“First rule of the VFR is we don’t fight for real. You want a job, you shake hands and sit back down.”
TJ immediately holds out his hand to shake. London stares at it resentfully and looks back to Harlan without shaking.
“But we’re allowed to insult each other and get away with it?”
Harlan shrugs. “I can’t make people be good. I can just set limits for what behavior’s allowed on my property. If you want this job, if you want to get paid, you’ve got to get along, just like any other job. Did he hurt you?”
“He said—”
“I didn’t ask what he said. Did he physically hurt you?”
“No.”
London’s got to be in her twenties, but she sounds like she’s five, sullen and resentful and anxious for everyone to know it.
“And did you hurt him?”
“No.”
Harlan looks to TJ.
“She shoved me. It didn’t hurt.”
With a sigh, Harlan squats to pick up London’s dropped seltzer can, which sits crumpled in a little puddle. He stands and gives her the saddest look, a look of disappointment and pity. “I guess you’re out.”
“But I—”
“If you shoved him, you leave.”
London’s face wrinkles up like a bulldog. She clearly doesn’t hear the word no a lot and doesn’t like it. She looks like she wants to talk back to Harlan—not apologize and beg for her job and make good with TJ, but argue and get up in the huge man’s face. Harlan is even less intimidated than TJ was as he stares sadly down at her.
“Go on now, honey. It’s over.”
But London bares her teeth, going full Veruca Salt. She fiddles with one of her rings and holds her hand up to her face, and Chelsea is about to ask Amy what the girl is doing when London’s eyes go completely blank and she lunges at the grill, grabbing the wood and metal spatula and swinging for Harlan.
Chelsea goes cold down to her toes.
This is it.
This is the Violence.
She’s experienced it at least twice, but she’s never seen it like this before.
Never watched it happen, not in real life.
It’s just like on the YouTube videos but more real, more terrifying.
London, the girl, is gone.
Her body is a weapon, and its only aim is to kill Harlan Payne.
She swings at his face with the spatula, slicing sideways like it’s a knife.
She doesn’t make a noise, doesn’t growl or grunt or scream.
She simply attacks.
Harlan gets his hands up in time to fend off the first blow, but the spatula slices into his forearm with the thick thunk of metal on bone and sends blood flicking against the side of the RV. Harlan dances back, uncertain, clearly not wanting to hurt the much smaller girl. His face wasn’t made for confusion.
But then an odd thing happens.
TJ leaps on top of London from the back, throwing her to the ground with his full weight. She’s flat on her belly, the blood-spattered spatula still in her hand, and he’s pressing down on her, legs over her legs and arms over her arms, one hand wrapped around the wrist that holds the weapon. She’s bucking underneath him, every line of her body filled with tense potential and this strange, silent rage, taut and furious as an animal pouncing.
And then an odder thing happens.
Matt throws himself on top of TJ. And then Steve throws himself on top of Matt. And then Chris and Sienna add to the dogpile while Harlan backs up, panting, staring at the deep cut on his arm.
Chelsea doesn’t know what to do, but she has to do something, so she scurries over on hands and knees to pry the spatula out of London’s hand. The girl doesn’t register her, doesn’t even see her; London only has eyes for Harlan, and her pinprick black pupils in the field of green iris are trained on him, unblinking. One of her eyebrows is tragically smudged. She looks like the love child of a zombie and a broken doll.
“Pile on,” Sienna calls. “We need everyone. The more weight and pressure, the better.”
Amy leans onto Sienna, and the teen girl creeps forward and reaches for London’s grasping hand, catching it in both of hers.
“Get her other hand,” the girl says to Chelsea, and Chelsea tosses the blood-covered spatula far away and takes London’s hand, noting the open poison ring flecked with black dots of pepper.
“What is happening?” she asks no one in particular.
Harlan squats down beside the knot of people, one hand over his wound.
“This is how you stop it,” he says, gently. “Restrain them like this for long enough, and they go back to normal. But it takes a lot of weight, a lot of heat, a lot of tightness. There’s power in groups. You didn’t know?”
Chelsea shakes her head.
Harlan snorts softly. “Yeah, they’re not putting it on the news. Can’t sell a thirty-thousand-dollar vaccine if there’s a cheaper alternative, can they? Not that this’ll help you when you’re alone with someone else.” Their eyes meet, and Chelsea feels…seen. Harlan’s gaze goes soft and inward, and Chelsea wonders who he was alone with, who was beside him, dead, when he woke up from the Violence.
Judging by the grief written across his movie-star features, it was someone important.
He stands back up and walks to the RV. “I need a bandage,” he says apologetically.
And he does—blood is running down his arm, and Chelsea can see meat and a thin line of bright yellow fat.
“I’ll sew that up for you once we’re done,” Sienna calls. “Don’t you mess with it!”
Somewhere in the pile, Chris chuckles. “Thank God we have a medic on staff, right?”
There’s another chuckle, and Steve murmurs, “Jesus, you’re bony. It’s like lying on a box spring.”
“Well, your damn beard tickles, so don’t think it’s any fun lower in the pile,” Matt shoots back, but in a friendly way.
“Every single one of you must go on a diet,” TJ says, muffled, from way down on the bottom.
And then they’re all laughing the mad, giddy laugh of people who live in a world this insane. The pile is shuddering, people shifting this way and that and then steadying themselves.
“I did not sign up to play Twister,” Amy calls amid the frenzy, and Chelsea starts laughing, too.
Is this all it takes, to stop the madness? What amounts to a heavy, full-body hug?
“What the fuck?”
Everyone shifts aside as London struggles to get out from under them, cussing and shouting. “Get off me! Freak! What the fuck? What are you people doing? I am going to sue you to the fucking moon.”
Everyone slides off, easing back to standing or sitting in the chairs. Clothes are askew, hair is mussed, faces are red. Finally TJ is revealed, and he takes a deep breath and sits back on his knees as London flips over and sits. She looks utterly disgusted.
“What the fuck?” she says again.
Sienna grabs her hand and holds up the poison ring.
“You peppered up, that’s what. Now get out of here, you little shit. You could’ve killed someone.”
London’s face goes from surprise to cunning to disappointment as she works through what happened. “So I didn’t kill him?”
Harlan stands in the door to the RV holding a wad of bright-red paper towels. In their short acquaintance, Chelsea has seen him look amused, pleasant, charismatic, professional, sympathetic, and haunted.
But now he looks furious, and it’s terrifying. There is nothing scarier to her than an angry man. She shrinks back, heart thumping like a rabbit’s leg as Harlan steps down to the ground like he’s walking into a wrestling ring, staring murder at the crumpled girl on the ground.
“No, you didn’t. Get out. While you still can.”
London stands, her face stricken, and looks from person to person as if hunting for empathy. There is none.
“I am so going to sue your ass.”
Harlan sighs and looms. “Yeah, well, get in line.”
When he takes a step toward her, London scrambles up and runs for the parking lot.
The mask of rage falls off the biggest man Chelsea has ever seen, leaving him smaller, diminished, woeful. Harlan goes to the cooler and gets a beer and slings himself into a lawn chair, which creaks in protest as blood drips down his arm.
“Welcome to the VFR, everybody,” he says, popping the tab.