by J. J. McAvoy
But I pushed him away and grabbed Wyatt. Gasping, I gripped Wyatt tightly. “Cora…save…Coraline.”
“What?”
“Fucking go!” I hollered at them. “Go!”
Wyatt stared at me for a moment before ripping out of my grasp and running. Finally, slumped into Ethan’s arms, I took a breath.
“How?” Ethan hissed as he looked over the bullet wound on my shoulder. “What happened?”
“Cora was helping me change when someone burst into the room and fired. They missed, and Cora ducked. I fought the first person; from the body and height, it had to be a woman. She was much stronger than I expected. I was worried about your aunt. I got the gun away from the that bitch as we fought on the ground. Cora pushed the alarm. She pulled out a knife, I jumped back but…Cora…fucking…why the fuck did she try to help me? That fucking idiot stabbed her, trying to get to me. I still fought, but then the second one showed up. It had to be a man, and he shot me in the shoulder.”
“You keep saying…she…he… Didn’t you see their faces? Who the fuck did this?”
I glanced up at the only other man in the hall. My grandfather stared down at me, the smallest smirk on his lips.
“I don’t know…but I will kill them for this,” I whispered.
He looked from my arm to my face. “Pray I don’t fucking meet them first.”
WYATT
I got to the room first.
It wasn’t hard to know which room. It was the one with blood outside the bullet-riddled door. I ran in so fast I nearly slipped in the blood. I didn’t land on the ground until I saw her body.
“Aunt Cora!” I called, crawling over the glass, rushing to her. My hands trembled as I tried to feel for a pulse, on her wrist, then her neck. “Aunt Cora! Aunt Cora, come on!”
I tore into her dress, trying to see where the blood was coming from. Finding it, I applied as much pressure as I could. “This small thing? This? You’re going to be okay…you’re going to be okay.”
I looked around the destroyed room for anything, but I couldn’t think. I just couldn’t. I was a doctor. I was a trauma doctor. I’d seen worse than this. I’d done more with less. So why? Why the fuck was everything blank? My mind was only when blank when there was nothing that could be done…and that was fucking impossible.
“Aunty…I’m…I’m going to need you to hold on, okay? Okay? We need to get you to the hospital. I’ll make sure you get there, okay?”
Grabbing a piece of cloth, I wrapped it around her chest as tightly as I could, before laying her down.
She needs oxygen. We’ll take care of the bleeding. I just need to make sure her brain gets oxygen.
Opening her mouth, I bent down to give her CPR, only for a pool of blood to pour out of her mouth.
Fatal pulmonary hemorrhage into the lung.
“C…Cora?”
Glancing up, I could barely see the person who stood there. For some reason, something was blurring my vision. Blinking repeatedly, it just became worse.
“Cora…baby…what…what you doing on the ground like this?” Uncle Declan whispered on his knees in front of me.
Trembling, I let her go, and gently he lifted her into his arms.
Hugging her to his chest, he kissed the top of her forehead. “Baby…sweetheart, you…you can’t sleep here.”
“Un…Uncle…”
“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” he whispered, lifting her off the floor, cradling her in his arms, while her arms dropped lifelessly beside him.
My throated burned with an ache that felt like ash and lava at the same time.
This…this wasn’t real.
Rising, I followed him, everyone else in the hall parting as he went forward. I looked at my Uncle Neal, hoping he’d snap out of this. But he stood there, mouth agape and eyes wide, stunned, too. I stared at everyone, every last face, hoping someone would pinch me, slap me, shoot me, just wake me up.
But all of their faces were all mirrors of this nightmare.
No…no…I…I can still save her.
I can save her! I ran, reaching out for my uncle only to be grabbed and yanked back. I looked up at the one face that didn’t mirror anything, that was void of everything. He’d wake me up. He’d…
“Wyatt, leave her,” Ethan whispered.
My mouth dropped, and I shook my head. “I…I can save her. I’m…I’m a doctor. I can save her…Let go, Ethan.”
“Not even doctors can save the dead, brother.”
“No!” I hollered, trying to yank back my arm.
“Wyatt!” he screamed, grabbing and shaking me. “You’re fucking breaking down. Remember whose mother that is! She needs you first!”
I broke out of his arms, nearly ready to beat his face in. “I don’t need you to fucking lecture me! I know who the fuck that is! I know! Which is why I need to fucking save her! Helen needs me to save her!”
“She needed you to…you couldn’t. Now she needs you to save her. Don’t fail her there.”
“Fuck you,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Fuck you and your fucking wife, this fucking wedding. Fuck this family, fuck everything.” Stepping away from him, I didn’t know what to do.
So, I did what I was used to…I ran.
HELEN
I saw her, and I screamed.
I screamed to heaven.
I screamed to hell.
“Mommy!”
EVELYN
How many times?
How many more?
God, how many more people did I have to grieve, did I have to bury? Was this my punishment?
Was this my hell?
That one by one, I’d watch my family die helplessly around me?
I was tired.
So fucking tired.
Sedric, my love, I’m tired.
What am I supposed to say to them? When they were children, I could just hold them in my arms and let them cry. I would tell them everything was going to be okay, and they believed me. Even though I knew it wasn’t going to be okay.
Now, since they were adults, what was I supposed to say?
I looked at Declan. He was my son. Another woman birthed him, but he was my son. I raised him; I watched him fight every day against all the darkness and pain that weighed on him. Of all my boys, he had been the one to suffer the most, and of all of them, he had only ever asked me for one thing…to love and accept Coraline. She was the only thing he begged Sedric for. All his pain, his anger, his fury…they had nearly disappeared because of her. And now she was gone. Killed in the house that he’d brought her to.
I wanted to hug him.
To hear him scream and weep the way Helen was as she hugged her mother’s body. Because then I would know he was alive. But he didn’t. Darcy knelt at the side of the bed, holding and kissing her hand, tears silently falling from his eyes. However, Declan…he sat off the bed, just staring at her feet. His face was blank and he was not making a sound, not even blinking, barely breathing.
What was I supposed to do?
“Nana.”
Turning around, I found Ethan outside the door. His face was grimmer than I had ever seen despite his best effort. Walking over, I hugged him tightly. He stiffened and stilled for a moment before exhaling.
“I need you to go with us to explain to the guests.”
“What?” I let go to face him.
Sternly he said, “We have guests outside. We are going to tell them some of the children wandered and tripped an alarm. That there is nothing to worry about. No one is to speak of what happened tonight…because nothing happened.”
“Ethan, you cannot be—”
“Are you expecting me to go out there and tell them someone broke into our home and killed one of us, right under our noses?” he asked me angrily.
He was right but...but to act like nothing had happened? “Who’s going to believe that, when Calliope isn’t beside you—”
“Why wouldn’t she be beside me? She’s getting cleaned up and changed now.”
What? “Ethan, she was shot, stabbed, and beaten. And you're forcing her to get cleaned up and play hostess?”
His jaw clenched again, and he took a deep breath. “I did not force Calliope to do anything. We spoke about it. We agreed. Now, I need to talk to Darcy—”
“No.” I stepped in front him, arms stretched out, glaring. “If you and Calliope want to go out there and pretend we are okay, fine. Bury your emotions. You can do that. But do not force that boy—”
“He is not a boy, Nana,” he snapped at me. “He’s a man. He’s a Callahan.”
“His mother just died—”
“And if he does not want the rest of us to fucking die, he will get out here and do what he needs to do. Aunt Cora…” He did his best not yell, but he was shaking, too. “…Is gone. But we are still here, which means we can survive this.”
“You sick son of a bitch!” Helen sobbed and cried as she rushed to the door. “Her body is not even cold yet and—”
“Helen.” I tried to stop her, but instead, another pair of arms grabbed on, holding her still. I looked at Darcy, his eyes…his eyes just like Declan’s when he had first arrived.
“Stay with Mom,” he said to her. “Ethan’s right. We can’t all be missing. They will assume something did happen. So, one of us needs to go.”
“Mom—”
“I’ll be back. Watch Dad, too.” He hugged her before stepping over to Ethan. “I need a second to change.”
“Make sure it’s something similar enough,” Ethan replied.
It was only then that I noticed he’d changed already, too.
Darcy nodded and, without a word, followed him.
It brought back what Sedric had told me so many years ago.
EVELYN—AGE 20
“Why do they call it Ceann Na Conairte?” I asked, stroking my hands through his hair.
He looked as if he was sleeping, but I knew he was awake. So, I ran my fingers over his thick eyebrows, then his nose.
He smiled. “That tickles.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Immediately his face fell. “The more questions you ask, the deeper you go, Evie.”
“Stop calling me that.” I smacked his chest.
“Ugh.” He grimaced dramatically. “Careful there, love, I’m fragile.”
“Fragile my ass…foot—”
His eyes snapped open as he grinned. “Did you just curse? Gasp? You, Evelyn Louise O’ Tierney, cursed? I really am a bad influence.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not all angel, you know.”
“You are. Your halo’s actually blinding. That’s why I close my eyes all the time.”
“Tsk.” I sucked my teeth and pushed him off my lap; however, he just laughed, sitting up to hold me. “Let go.”
“Let go, but it’s not working.” He sighed, kissing the back of my head. “I think I’ll be keeping you for a while, Ms. O’ Tierney.”
“That’s for me to decide, and I like men who answer my questions—” I tried to get up, but he held me closer and kissed me again.
“Ceann Na Conairte,” he whispered, his grip relaxing on me. “It means the leader of the pack.”
“I know that. But why pack? Are you wolves?”
He bared his teeth at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh. He smiled, but that smile didn’t fade.
“No, it’s not wolves or animals. Though everyone loves that symbolism. The title Ceann Na Conairte means…reasonability,” he finally answered, resting back against the tree with his hands. “So many people are fighting for it, killing for it, but they don’t understand that it’s just a burden. It means there are people behind you that you’re constantly required to protect, uplift, and move forward. It is not just you, just the money; it’s about protecting the family, the legacy, the power, and place we have struggled so hard to get to in this world.”
“To be called that seems like a great honor. Why do you hate it?”
He cupped my cheek. “Because sometimes it means you cannot be human. When the pack is hurting, you have to be strong and protect them as they hurt. When one goes down, you have to force the others to keep going so everyone else doesn’t go down, too. It means taking out any weakness from within or from far. It is always about the bigger picture. Do you know what my father did when he was told my mother had died?”
I shook my head.
“He finished his round of golf.” He smiled and shook his head. “Why? Because everyone was watching him. He loved my mother. But at that moment, he thought it was better for the world to think he did not care about her than for them to think he was weak. Because that meant there was an opening for someone to hurt us. He finished his round of golf, went to dinner with business partners, and finally hours later, came to see her body. He smacked Killian because his eyes were red and we were in public.”
“Oh, my…how could he do that?”
“That is what I said. And Killian smacked me for being disrespectful. He said our father was right, and I shouldn’t bring any more shame on to the Callahan name.” He tensed his jaw. “I hate the name Ceann Na Conairte because to be the Ceann Na Conairte, you must not show mercy to anyone, not even to yourself. I watched as it made my father heartless and my brother heartless.”
“Is that why you are trying to run away?”
“Yes.” I didn’t expect him to admit it. “I’m trying to follow an angel back to heaven.”
I rolled my eyes, but he held me again.
“It won’t happen, really it won’t, but if by some strange force of nature, I somehow end up as Ceann Na Conairte…please….” He stopped, putting his forehead against mine.
“Please stop you from being heartless?”
“No,” he whispered. “I don’t want to ask for the impossible, just stay beside me and forgive me…please.”
How could I say no when he begged like that?
“Okay.”
EVELYN—PRESENT
That strange force of nature did happen, and my sweet-talking, loveable, charming, Sedric became the Ceann Na Conairte…he became The Butcher. And the world redefined heartless because of him. He tried to change the meaning because he was scared it would turn our sons against one another one day. So, he always told them to be the Ceann Na Conairte, you must not show mercy to anyone but your family. He came up with the Callahan family rules as a guide to teach them how we treated family versus how we treated everyone else.
Am I proud that he could be like this or worried?
I was both.
The light of my halo had gone out a long time ago.
Turning back, I finally found the courage to walk into the room. Cora's face was peaceful, at least. Brushing her hair, cupping her cheek, I smiled as wide as I could.
“Thank you so much for loving my boy, for making his family yours, for giving him a family of his own. Of all of my daughters, you were the very best. I mean it, Cora. Not even Melody topped you. The best decision this family ever made was adding you to it. Anyone could be the gun, not everyone could be the heart. That’s what Sedric never gave you but always meant to. In the end, despite the trouble he gave you, he loved you. I love…loved you, Cora. We all loved you.” My voice trembled, and I couldn’t bring myself to say more. Leaning over, I kissed her forehead. “Goodbye, my dear.”
Rising, I faced Declan, who sat there still frozen in what I was sure was memories and moments he wanted to hold on to instead of reality. Kissing the top of his head, I whispered the same thing I told him when he first arrived, “It’s not okay. But we are going to make it anyway.”
Releasing him, I looked at Helen, who hugged herself, tears falling from her eyes like streams.
“Forgive him for being heartless about this,” I said to her.
She said not a word, walking back to the bed and lying down beside her mother’s body.
Forgive all of us.
DECLAN—AGE 32
“What are you reading now?” I asked, jumping on the bed beside Cora
.
“Wuthering Heights,” she replied, not even looking at me as she read and stuffed a brownie into her mouth.
I frowned. “Who died?”
“Huh?” She finally tore her gaze away from the page and gave me her attention.
“Who died?” I asked again. “You hate Wuthering Heights. You only read it when someone dies. So, who died?”
“I do not read it every time—”
“Do you want me to the list times you’ve done it?”
She made a face at me.
“Whatever, shh. I’m reading,” she grumbled.
“Fine,” I said, annoyed she was ignoring me again for a book. “I’ll leave you to your depressed, whiny, spoiled English characters.”
“Thank you,” she huffed, flipping the page.
Pursing my lips for a moment, I watched her read. I knew it annoyed her, but she’d gotten used to ignoring me even more. So, I reached between her face and the book for a brownie.
“Declan.”
“Hmm,” I said innocently as I took a bite.
She huffed and then just nodded to herself. “Fine, you want my attention. Here, read.”
“No—”
“Read!”
I grimaced. “I hate this book, too, you know?”
“That’s what you get for bothering me.”
“Can a husband ever really bother his wife with his attention?”
“All the fucking time.” She laughed.
Snickering, I gave her my brownie and took the book. Like always, she lay on my chest and leaned back on the pillows.
“Your veins are full of ice water, but mine are boiling, and the sight of…ugh can we pick another book?” I begged. “Not all of us double majored in English.”
“What do you mean, ugh? That is one of the best lines in the whole book.”
I looked down at her. “Are you sure you don’t secretly like this one?”
“I hate the story, not the book.”
“There is a difference?”
“Yes! Hating the story means not liking the events. Hating the book means not liking the fact that it was written.”