Final Debt

by Pepper Winters

I couldn’t love him anymore than I did. I couldn’t ask for any more than I’d been given.

  Whatever he’d done tonight still tainted the air around us. The undercurrent of death and destruction hadn’t dissolved, but the allure of a bright and untwisted future grew stronger every minute.

  It would take time for us to move on. But we would move on.

  All of us.

  Because we deserved it.

  With him inside me, we were inseparable.

  Now and forever.

  He’d proposed.

  I’d said yes.

  We were each other’s.

  For eternity.

  MY HEART COULDN’T handle any more stimuli.

  Not after yesterday’s rush of terrible highs and morbidly low lows. And yet, I had no choice but to endure more.

  In my right hand, I held my sister’s. In my left, I held my fiancée’s, unknowingly passing emotional messages as natural as breathing.

  Last night, we’d become more than two people beneath the spray. We’d become one.

  Things had changed between us.

  There was a new layer to our connection. A deeper, unbreakable bond—an indescribable friendship.

  And as much as I wanted to deny it, I needed Nila’s friendship and support more than anything today.

  Today.

  I swallowed hard, hating the word.

  I would forever remember this day. I would forever despise this day.

  The morning had been blissful. After fucking Nila, I’d tumbled into a sleep so deep, I entered a black hole of tiredness. I didn’t wake until late lunch and only because the gnawing pain of hunger drove me to service my other needs now my brain wasn’t shredded with lethargy.

  Once Nila and I had raided the kitchen for roast chicken sandwiches and crisps, Flaw found us and demanded we follow him to his newly created triage in the east wing.

  There, he’d redone Nila’s soggy cast, and stitched up the tear in my side. He’d also checked my vitals, and given me antibiotics for my fever. Afterward, he’d given me strict instructions to head for a proper check-up with my doctor at the hospital and assured me he’d taken care of the injured from the ballroom and had the aftermath well in hand.

  I normally didn’t give employees such trust. But Flaw was more than that now. He’d proved himself capable and loyal. If he said he had things under control, I would believe him while I focused on more important things.

  Things such as healing and shedding the memories of what had happened between Cut and me. Every time I thought of my father, my heart ached with torment. Was I right to do such things? Was I wrong to regret them after everything he’d done?

  I sighed, squeezing my sister’s and Nila’s hands. I couldn’t think about that.

  Not here.

  Not now.

  Not when the very building I stood in stripped every reserve I had, poisoning me with sadness, grief, and insurmountable helplessness.

  Kestrel.

  Goddamn you, brother.

  My eyes burned as I focused on my best friend.

  Flaw had gotten his wish. I’d returned to the hospital. However, I stood in the basement of a facility dedicated to healing and keeping the injured alive, breathing in the stench of death. Above, the living still clung to hope. But down here…down here, we stood in a morgue.

  A crypt where soulless bodies froze on ice, waiting for their loved ones to determine their fate. A terrible, terrible place where the lingering emotions of destroyed relatives and broken-hearted lovers said goodbye for the final time.

  I don’t want to say goodbye.

  Nila squeezed my hand as I swallowed back a growl, snarl, curse…sob. I didn’t know how to react. I couldn’t unscramble my thoughts from Jasmine’s or Nila’s.

  In the car over here, I’d had to screech to a stop, scramble out, and sucker punch an innocent tree on the side of the road.

  Jasmine.

  She hadn’t told me.

  After Flaw patched me up, I’d searched for Nila. I’d dealt with my hunger and sickness, all I wanted to do was return to bed and spend days hiding from others, wrapped up in the love Nila had for me.

  But that was before the phone rang.

  That was before Jasmine called and told me to join her at the hospital.

  The motherfucking hospital.

  The same place I’d almost died and my brother…

  My head bowed as I tugged my hand from Jasmine’s, squeezing the bridge of my nose.

  Jasmine had received the call earlier. The one conversation no one wanted to have. She’d enlisted Vaughn’s help to take her to the hospital.

  She’d gone without me.

  She’d deliberately left me in the dark that my goddamn brother had fucking died.

  Jasmine’s hand landed on my elbow, her sniffs quiet but distinct as she cried. “I’m sorry, Jet. So sorry. I came to get you. Truly. I entered Nila’s quarters and watched as you slept in her arms.”

  Her touch fell away; her eyes on Kes, her words directed half at him, half at me. “You looked so happy, so peaceful. After everything you’ve been through, I couldn’t. I couldn’t wake you up.”

  Nila let me go, moving to Jasmine’s side and wedging herself where Vaughn kept a subtle touch on my sister’s shoulder. Nila smiled at her twin, wrapping her arm around Jasmine. “We understand. Jethro isn’t well. He needed to rest. You did the right thing—”

  I turned on both of them. “The right thing? How dare you decide what’s the right thing when my fucking brother is dead! I should’ve been here for him. I should’ve held his hand and said goodbye. I should’ve had the freedom to tell him just how much I loved him. How much he helped me. How much I appreciated his friendship even when I pushed him away.”

  The pain at his passing crumpled my heart like a dirty piece of paper, screwing it into a tear-stained ball. “I should’ve been there.”

  Jasmine’s skin waxed white with grief. “He was already dead, Kite. He passed when you were with Cut.” Her eyes popped wide. “Forget that. I wasn’t going to tell you. Forget—”

  “What?” My spine rolled. I punched myself in the chest, seeking relief from the slowly fermenting agony. “You’re telling me while I hurt our father—while I did what I thought was right—my brother died! Is this life’s cruel joke? I stole a life. Therefore, they stole his in return!?”

  I faced my brother, grabbing his ice-cold hand with mine. “Is this my fault?”

  Jasmine’s wheels creaked as she rolled closer. Nila came with her, moving to my side, wrapping me in her sadness and despair.

  “He was my brother too, Jet. Don’t you think I wanted to say goodbye? I would’ve given anything to be there. But we weren’t.” Her voice turned fierce. “And it isn’t your fault.”

  Vaughn didn’t say a word, backing away a little, never taking his eyes off Kestrel.

  “Kes knew how we felt about him. He knew he was loved and wanted. He didn’t die without knowing how much we’d miss him.” Jasmine couldn’t continue; her tears turned to sobs, and my heart cracked with her pain.

  I curled my fists, pressing nails against my palm, wanting to draw blood. I needed to hurt myself so I could focus on a singular discomfort rather than a room full of tragedy. I needed my blade. I needed to cut open my soles and activate age-old salvations so I could get through this.

  But I had nothing with me.

  And I couldn’t leave Kestrel.

  Nila curled into me, wrapping her unbroken arm around my waist, pressing her head against my shoulder. She didn’t say a word, but she didn’t have to.

  Somehow, she pushed aside her grief at Kes’s death and focused on her love for me. Standing in a room full of crippling unhappiness, she gave me a cocoon of togetherness.

  Unknowingly, my body relaxed a little. I leaned into her, kissing the top of her head. “Thank you.”

  She didn’t look up, but she nodded.

  Having a moment of peace, I sucked in a heavy breath and turned to hug my
sister. My back bent, gathering her crying form from her wheelchair, murmuring in her ear. “I’m sorry, Jaz. I had no right to yell at you.”

  She clung to me, crying harder. “I shouldn’t have made the decision to let you sleep. I should’ve woken you. I’ll never forgive myself. But I haven’t moved from his side, Kite. I stayed with him until you arrived. I kept our brother company.”

  Pulling away, I brushed aside her tears. “Thank you.”

  The moment I let Jaz go to touch Nila, Vaughn placed his palm back on my sister’s shoulder.

  My eyes narrowed.

  He glared.

  I didn’t want to feel what he did, but he gave me no choice.

  He liked her.

  He wanted her.

  He hated she was hurting and would be there for her whether I liked it or not.

  The complication of Vaughn developing feelings for my sister pissed me off but there was too much to focus on. And there was another person much more important to fret over.

  Ignoring him, I faced Kestrel once again.

  He lay stiffly on the metal table. His skin looked fake, his hair dull, his form unwanted. His arms remained dead straight beside him, the inked kestrel on his flesh glowing morbidly under the lights, while a white sheet covered his nakedness.

  He still looked like my brother, but at the same time, completely different. His skin was no longer warm and pink but lifeless and cold. The pure heart inside him and huge capacity to forgive, heal, and protect had moved onto a different form, leaving us but not forgetting us.

  He’d been so strong. So brave. I’d taken him for granted, expecting him to be there beside me as we grew old and grey.

  Yet, now he’d forever remain young. Frozen in time, immortal to the end.

  I wanted to collapse to my knees and confess everything to him. I wanted to tell him what I’d done to Cut. I wanted to purge my sins and have him carry them for me.

  But I couldn’t.

  I would never speak to him again.

  And I couldn’t grieve.

  Not yet.

  Not after the destruction of yesterday.

  And in some strange way, I felt as if Kes already knew what’d happened in the barn. As if he hadn’t died because I’d taken a life and another Hawk must forfeit. But because he sensed he no longer had to fight against our father.

  He was free to go.

  Free to be happy.

  You’ll always have my gratitude and friendship, Kes. No matter where you are.

  A ball lodged in my throat, but I didn’t break down. It took all of my remaining strength to stare dry-eyed at my brother and whisper farewell.

  “He died without pain,” Jasmine murmured. “The doctor told us his heart gave out from his injuries. He was still in a coma…he wouldn’t have felt it.” Jaz looped her fingers with Kes’s lifeless ones. “He’s at peace now.”

  My back locked as Kes remained unmoving. His bird tattoo didn’t jerk, no feathers quivered over his muscles. I kept expecting his eyelids to flutter, his lips to twitch. His laugh to explode and an elaborate hoax to be unveiled.

  But unlike his prankster illusions from his childhood, this wasn’t a deception.

  This was real.

  He was dead.

  He’s truly gone.

  I hugged Nila closer. “He didn’t die alone. You’re never truly alone when you know you’re loved by another.”

  Jaz’s tears wouldn’t stop, and I wouldn’t force her to dry her eyes until she was ready. I’d purged and sewn myself back together in the lake after coming apart with my father’s death. Today, I would help my sister do the same thing.

  Nila cried quietly beside me. Her heart sorting through so many memories, so many complexities even though she’d known Kes only a short while. They’d bonded. They’d loved each other. They would forever be linked by their own relationships as well as the family tie Nila would form by marrying me.

  I’m sorry, brother.

  I looked at his face, his cold body and vacant shell, and said a private eulogy.

  I’m sorry I wasn’t there to say goodbye, but this isn’t goodbye; it’s just a postponement. I’ll miss you, but I won’t mourn you because you were too good a friend and brother to remember with sadness.

  Time lost meaning as we all stood beside Kes one last time.

  The moment we left, we’d never see him again. The only way we would look upon his face was to stare at pictures from happier times or watch videos trapping his soul forever.

  None of us wanted to leave.

  So we stayed.

  The room quieted from emotional strain until we all hovered in the same thoughts. We relived our special times with Kestrel. We rifled through memories; we smiled at antics and shared childhoods.

  “What are you doing here?” I looked up as the locked door to the prison cell swooped open. I’d been at the mental institute for two nights and couldn’t stand another fucking minute.

  Kes slinked through the darkness. “Busting you out.” Holding out his hand, he grinned. “Time to leave, big brother. Time to make a run for it.”

  He’d tried to help me escape that night, just like he’d helped me escape so many times in our childhood.

  “Now, what are you doing?”

  “Focusing.” Kes sat cross-legged on the floor of his bedroom, his hands on his thighs in a yoga pose.

  Throwing myself beside him, I rolled my eyes. “It’s not working. Your thoughts are just as horny.” At seventeen and fourteen, our hormones had kicked in, and Kes was a terrible flirt.

  His laugh barrelled through the room. “Least I can talk to girls.”

  “Yes, but I can feel them.”

  “Not in an interesting way, though.” He winked. “You feel their silly concerns while I—” He flexed his fingers “—I feel their tits.”

  I punched him in the arm, so damn grateful he was my brother.

  God, I would miss him.

  He was gone.

  It was time for us to go, too.

  Moving for the first time in hours, I placed my fingertips on Kes’s icy forehead. His skin seeped my warmth, stealing it the longer I touched him.

  Pulling away, I had the incredible urge to touch life after touching death. To hold onto something real. Gathering Nila closer, I hugged my sister and nodded at Vaughn. Flaw would come to pay his respects tomorrow. He was close to Kes; his death would be hard on all of us.

  Somehow, two Hawks and two Weavers had come together in shared grief, mourning a man who died far too young.

  But that was life.

  It was cruel. Unjust. Brutal. And dangerous.

  Good people died. Bad people lived. And the rest of us had to continue surviving.

  A week passed.

  In that week, things changed a lot and none at all.

  My fever finally broke, my wound healed, and my strength slowly returned. My body was still exhausted but every day, I pieced myself back together.

  Nila had a lot to do with that.

  The day after seeing Kestrel’s body, I returned to the hospital on my own. I sought out the nurse who’d brought me the cell phone while I healed and paid her a thousand pounds for her trouble. She’d gone out of her way to give me the means to contact Nila. The least I could do was compensate her.

  While there, I submitted to a full examination and the doctor’s instructions to take it easy. I was cleared of any concussion or long-term maladies. I also singlehandedly arranged the transfer of Kes’s body to the crematorium. As part of Cut’s meticulous upbringing, all his children had Last Wills and Testaments.

  Kes was no different.

  I’d found his file amongst the others in Cut’s study. The bones of his dog, Wrathbone, lay in the coffee table as I scattered paperwork and skimmed through Kestrel’s final wishes.

  I already knew he wanted to be cremated and scattered on Hawksridge grounds. We’d shared many a late night conversations as young boys about how unappealing the thought of being buried and eaten
by weevils and worms sounded. We were both slightly claustrophobic, and I understood his wish to be sprinkled as dust, prisoner to the breeze, and weightless as the sky.

  I wanted the same ending.

  However, what I wasn’t expecting was a note addressed to me—penned almost five years ago. The strangeness of holding a letter from the grave clutched my stomach.

  There was also one for Jasmine and Daniel.

  My heart suffered thinking of Daniel’s remains. He wouldn’t be buried or cremated, but perhaps, he would be happier away from Hawksridge and on his own with no delinquent comments of unwanted belonging.

  Respecting Kestrel’s privacy, I burned Daniel’s letter. Never to be read. The words remaining between two dead brothers forever.

  I delivered Jasmine’s to her room, leaving her to read on her own. And I took my envelope onto my Juliette balcony off my office where I’d spied on Kes and Nila as they’d galloped across the meadow.

  Squinting in the winter sunshine, I slipped out the rich vellum and read my brother’s parting words.

  Hello, Jet.

  I’m guessing if you’re reading this, bad things happened.

  I must admit, I didn’t see myself dying before you. After all, you’re the old bugger, not me. But if I died to protect you or help in some small way, then I’m glad. If I died from sickness or doing something stupid, then so be it. At least I’m free from whatever pain I was in.

  I do need to ask something of you. And I need you to do it, Jet. Not just nod and pretend you will. I truly need you to do it.

  Don’t mourn me.

  Don’t think of me gone, but imagine I’m still with you because I am. We’re brothers and I have no intention of leaving you. I’ve been your support for too long to leave you in the lurch.

  So even though I’m physically gone, I swear to you I won’t leave spiritually. Scatter my remains on the estate and whenever the wind blows, I’m there telling you a joke. Whenever it snows, I’m there covering you in frost. Whenever the sun shines, I’m there warming your chaotic soul.

  And when you finally meet a girl worthy of your love, I’ll exist within her. I’ll teach her how to help you. I’ll guide her how to protect you like you’ll protect her. Because you’re the best goddamn friend a brother could ever ask for and whoever the girl is who steals your heart, I know she’s worth it.