Scratch the Surface. Amy Lee Burgess

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      Hartford was a relatively small city dominated by tall buildings which housed insurance companies. The safe house was in the Asylum Hill neighborhood—which was rather apt, I suppose. Located on Farmington Avenue, the Great Pack owned it in conjunction with the Regional Council of New England. It dated back to the late 1800s and had five bedrooms and three baths upstairs, while the downstairs was divided into a large front room, a small kitchen, a half bath, a dining room stuffed with Colonial furniture and two conference rooms, one rather larger than the other.

      I remembered the larger conference room vividly. I’d spent hours there going over the accident with Councilor Allerton and the Regional Council. One awful day had been spent with my pack—and one and all said vicious and hateful things about me. Even Callie, my best friend besides Elena, had not defended me. She had not added any vituperative fuel to the fire, but she’d sat there in a silence that indicated she did not disagree. She had studiously avoided my gaze.

      My pack had painted me as the quintessential party girl, someone who didn’t give a shit about anybody but herself or about anything except the next opportunity to have fun. They said my contributions to the pack funds were minimal because I refused to get a steady job and instead only wanted to play my harp for money. I wouldn’t even go to the parks and play for tips. No, I was too superior for that. I would only play for weddings and business parties. I wouldn’t even deign to teach.

      It didn’t matter that when I did have a gig, which wasn’t as sporadically as Jonathan made out—I brought in more money for four hours’ work than most of the pack brought in for a week’s. They were all in retail, except for Grey and Elena. Elena had gotten Grey a job with the game developers. He had been a beta tester and she, a designer. They had both worked from home. The company was based out of California. I could have been a beta tester too, but Elena and Grey wanted me to spend my time practicing the harp. We’d talked about me teaching, but as Elena had indignantly said every time Jonathan made a snide comment about my work ethic, between us we brought in more than three times than the rest of pack.

      In exchange for my flexible work hours, I was the one who had cooked for our triad and I’d been responsible for most of the housework and laundry. I’d run errands and done the shopping.

      But the way Jonathan characterized it, I had been a lazy-ass bum supported by my hardworking bond mates and the rest of the pack.

      Even Vaughn hadn’t stuck up for me. Vaughn was the only other member of the pack who knew his way around a musical instrument. He was pretty good on the piano and the two of us used to spend many Sunday afternoons playing duets. Sometimes he’d gone on gigs with me and I’d arranged that, but he’d never said a word in my defense. He’d even agreed that my musical contribution to the pack had been negligible. Playing music wasn’t work. It was an indulgence—a hobby.

      I hadn’t played the harp since the accident. I didn’t even own one anymore.

      After the funeral the pack had gotten together for a somber gathering. I had definitely not been invited. I’d taken a cab home, wishing we’d get into an accident even as I’d clung to the little strip of leather above the passenger door, skin coated with a cold sweat of terror. All I’d thought about during the funeral was how I’d wanted to go home and play my harp. I’d wanted to channel my grief and anger through the strings and release some of the more toxic elements of it through the notes. I’d wanted to mourn through music.

      The front door of our rented house in New Britain had been yawning open and inside the living room and the bedrooms had been a shambles. My harp had been strewn around the living room carpet in hacked-up pieces along with Elena’s computers, Grey’s CD collection and nearly everything else we’d owned.

      Upstairs in the master bedroom, the bed pillows and the mattress had been slashed with a knife, stuffing and feathers everywhere. Someone had taken ketchup and mustard and squirted both all over the walls and ceiling. The stains had still been wet and dripping. The damage had been done during the three hours I’d been gone for the funeral.

      My clothes had been ripped to shreds. Even worse, so had been Grey’s and Elena’s.

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