If I Ever

by SE Jakes

  Because that brought the spectra of the disease he was living under into direct focus. Prophet was no longer next in line. He was first in line.

  He was just next.

  So he put himself, literally, on the front lines. It was both freeing and devastating. Any invisible leash that might’ve once tethered him to the edge of caution was cut . . . but that didn’t mean he didn’t learn to self-protect.

  He’d protected John. Stayed safe so he could watch over his best friend. So being a team leader was a natural fit. No one under his watch was getting hurt.

  Remy prompted, “And now, you want to hurt him?”

  “Actually, I’m going to help him.” Saying that out loud for the first time crystalized it for him. Because that’s your job—you retrieve people from hell, and if they can’t come back, you save them from future suffering.

  Remy frowned, attempting to process it all. “Kind of like me with mom. I want to help her, but I don’t want to be with her.”

  “Yeah, Rem. Kind of like that.”

  “So help him then. That’s cool,” Remy said simply. And really, it was that simple. Prophet had let his feelings complicate everything.

  Now, it was back to basics. Remy could read between the lines that John was somehow dangerous. There was no need to tell him outright what Prophet’s definition of helping John was.

  There were some things the kid didn’t need to know. Then again, Prophet thought about the things he knew at that age, which was, at times, more than most adults gave him credit for. At Remy’s age, he’d already been living in Texas, had known John for three years and within the next year, his dad would also be dead.

  Remy got up from the table and disappeared . . . and reappeared with a gun. And a cleaning rod and other supplies. “Mal’s taking me to the range this morning,” he said by way of explanation. “Oh, and I never plan on joining the military. Just FYI, dude.”

  Dude?

  Remy started cleaning the gun on the kitchen table and Tom re-entered the kitchen and stopped short at that sight.

  “No, Prophet didn’t teach me this,” Remy said without looking up from his task. “You grew up where I did, Tom. Dad taught me this for Bayou living.”

  “No gators here,” Tom murmured, but Prophet shot him a look that made his cheeks heat. Remy, thankfully, kept his head down.

  “Mal’s been taking me shooting,” Remy continued.

  Mal? Tom mouthed to Prophet.

  Prophet shrugged. “He’s a good teacher.”

  “Really good,” Remy added, eyes still on the gun. “He should’ve been a sniper.”

  “He was,” Prophet said. “He was our sniper. He didn’t want to leave us, so he didn’t do much formal training.”

  “They would’ve pulled him from your team?” Tom asked, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.

  “Yeah, imagine that,” Prophet said, a wry quietness in his tone. “Imagine that.”

  “I don’t think Mal ever wanted to.” Tom put a hand on Prophet’s shoulder, both of them watching Remy expertly put the newly clean handgun back together.

  He looked up at them and smiled . . . and then teenager-narrowed his eyes and asked, “What?”

  “Good job,” Prophet told him, shrugging off Tom’s hand. But Remy looked down and smiled again at the genuine compliment in Prophet’s tone before moving to return the gun to its proper place in the gun safe. In the locked room that Mal had shown him how to get into.

  To be fair, Mal had turned it into a panic room of sorts.

  “You’re a better father than I am,” Tom told him. “I worry too much.”

  “I just don’t let it show,” Prophet said. “For the record, you’re a great father, Tommy. And it didn’t have to be that way.”

  “Guess we both broke the cycle,” Tom agreed. “We won’t fuck this up.”

  “I thought being a parent meant you got to fuck up. We’ve only got a little time left to do it while he’s still impressionable, so we’d better hurry.” He frowned for a second, then smiled as the idea hit. “I’m going on all his dates.”

  “Yeah, that’ll do the trick,” Tom said dryly.

  The night before they left, Tom finished packing his most important piece of luggage—his go-bag. Prophet had given him considerable help in filling it with several weapons that Tom was grateful for. He zipped it up, put it into the locked closet and away from Remy’s curiosity, and found himself drawn to his dresser . . . and the small box he kept on top of it.

  It held odds and ends, things from his life before Prophet and also present-day trinkets. Coins from countries he’d visited. An old bullet slug taken from his Kevlar vest—the first time he’d been shot at on the job. Old motorcycle keys. He also kept the bracelet Prophet gave him in here too, because he didn’t want anything to happen to it. Now, he put it on his wrist, over the tattoo, and finally found what he’d started this hunt for.

  It was a key—nondescript. Brass. Round top, with the number 456 on it. That didn’t matter. It was actually a key to nothing, and something he hadn’t looked at in a long time, something he’d always seen as a kind of talisman before moving in with Prophet and realizing he had a living, breathing blond one with him the majority of the time.

  “What’s that?” Prophet had come up quietly behind him and was now looking over his shoulder.

  Tom stared at it, feeling slightly stupid. “It’s nothing. It’s just . . . Ollie . . . you’ve heard me talk about him, right? He was my unofficial mentor at the FBI.” Unofficial mentor was putting it lightly. Ollie was probably the reason Tom stuck it out for so long, was probably the closest thing to a real father Tom had, because his real father was for shit.

  “Yeah, you’ve mentioned him.”

  “Well, before he left, he gave me this. He told me that when I didn’t think I could do something, to remember I was the key to my own challenges.” Tom fingered the key and turned to face Prophet. “Corny, I know. I can’t believe I kept it.”

  “I can, T. You should bring it.”

  “Really?”

  “Something made you seek it out.”

  “I used to carry it everywhere. I was carrying it when I met you.”

  “Maybe it’s a sign you need to do so again.” Prophet gave him a small smile and hadn’t made him feel stupid at all. Tom slid the key into his wallet and tucked it back into his pocket.

  Remy sat with his sketchbook, taking furtive glances at Prophet as he worked on his laptop. Remy had a book of tattoos next to him, and he pretended to be drawing them, but he was actually drawing the man who was trying to adopt him. Tom would let Remy sketch him—had already—but Prophet wouldn’t and that made him an appealing target.

  It was also hard as anything to capture Prophet. Remy likened it to catching the ferocity of a storm in motion, and something that changed and moved constantly was hard to capture. It was more complicated, like a 3-D drawing come to life. So he’d settled on trying to draw several pictures of Prophet in motion, like a time lapse. Maybe he would make a flip book to animate the energy.

  Or maybe he could slow down and work on one portrait at a time.

  It was what he remembered his dad saying out loud, to himself, when he was deep into one of his paintings. His father had been tattooing since before he was Remy’s age, and he’d taught Remy. But Remy had no one to practice on now, and he was afraid of getting rusty.

  “Hey, Proph?”

  “Yeah?” Prophet’s eyes didn’t move off the screen.

  “I need to practice my tattooing. It’s been a while and . . .” He trailed off because Prophet didn’t have any tattoos.

  “Can you do something small that will heal fast?”

  Remy was almost afraid to look up. Was that a yes?

  “Rem?” Prophet prompted.

  “Yeah, I can do something small,” Remy told him.

  “So what are you waiting for?”

  “Wait, you want me to do it right now?”

  “Unless you’ve got othe
r plans.”

  Remy collected the things from his room—his father’s tattoo guns and ink. He’d use black ink because it would heal fastest. He also grabbed alcohol pads, gloves and salve.

  He laid it all out on the table, where Prophet had closed and moved his laptop over. “You know this is permanent, right?”

  “I’ve heard that’s how it works,” Prophet said, but there wasn’t any sarcasm in his tone.

  “This is your first,” Remy said. “Maybe . . .”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “Rem? Do I seem like the kind of person who does things he doesn’t want to?”

  “No.” Except for people you care about. Remy swallowed the weird lump in his throat. “I know what I’ll do. It’s not tiny, but thin lines. Easy healing.”

  “Where?”

  “Shoulder.” Prophet pulled his shirt off and Remy studied the skin there. “Over the scar.”

  Remy studied the thin, light-pink line. It was maybe an inch long, but barely raised. Still, scars were always tricky and he really didn’t want to mess anything up. “It’s still pretty new . . .”

  “Just give it your best shot. You can always go over it again when we get back, right?”

  “Right,” Remy told him, bolstered by Prophet’s confidence in him. Reminded him of his dad. Reminded him how lucky he’d gotten to have both Prophet and Tom in his life, despite the unluckiness that’d taken his dad away from him forever.

  He heard his dad talking in his head, something he used to say to customers who came in with scars—usually much bigger than this one on Prophet’s shoulder—and wanted them covered. Some scars never heal . . . but we cover them with other things and we move on.

  Prophet had switched the chair around and leaned his chest against the chair’s back. “This okay?”

  “Yes. But you can lie down too.”

  “I’m good.”

  “You’re busy though . . .”

  “Rem.”

  “Okay.” He wondered if maybe he should do a stencil first. It was too important to mess up . . .

  “Don’t worry about that,” Prophet told him, jarring Remy into realizing he’d spoken his fears out loud. “If you mess up, you can always fix it. Life’s never perfect—that’s what keeps it interesting, right?”

  As the needle buzzed against his skin, Prophet wondered about the parenting rules of letting the kid you were trying to adopt tattoo you.

  Ah, fuck it.

  He could see why this was Tom’s jam—the slight, constant buzz of pain.

  “You’re leaving soon,” Remy said quietly over the noise of the small machine.

  “Yes.”

  “To where?”

  “Africa. To Dean’s. But you can’t tell anyone.”

  “Except Mal?”

  “Except Mal,” Prophet agreed.

  “And this John guy will stop hanging around here?”

  “He’ll follow me.”

  “Like hide and seek.”

  “You’re a lot smarter than I was at your age.”

  “Can I visit your mom?” Remy asked suddenly and Prophet forced himself not to tense up.

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  Prophet sighed. “Let me think about it.”

  “That’s parent for no,” Remy informed him.

  “No, it’s Prophet for let me think about it.”

  “Fine.”

  Christ, teenagers were moody.

  “It’s done.” Remy was wiping a layer of salve across his shoulder. “I’m going to wrap it for a while. I’ll clean it later.”

  “Thanks, Remy. Now you’ll be with me every step of the way.”

  Remy blinked a few times. “And that’s important?”

  “You have no idea how much.”

  Tom let Prophet herd him, out of the house, into the airport and onto the plane, because it was easier than arguing. Being bossy was Prophet’s natural state, and if it helped to take his mind off what they were headed toward, even for a second, Tom would allow it.

  Their plane was next in line for takeoff. The pilots were Mitch and Jin, the ones who’d taken them to Dean’s before, the last time he was kidnapped. Except this time, it wasn’t a plane LT commandeered, mainly because Dean didn’t want his brother hovering over him, asking questions. LT’s protectiveness had kicked up, understandably so since the kidnapping, but Dean was a grown man. It was a battle Prophet wasn’t getting in the middle of, he told Tom as they settled into their seats.

  “And Dean trusts them to not tell LT?” Tom asked.

  “They like Dean better than LT.”

  “I knew I liked them.” Tom’s phone beeped and he saw Remy’s text.

  “Everything okay?”

  “It’s from Remy.” He looked up. “Proph, I’ve got something to tell you about your mom.”

  “Okay,” Prophet said warily.

  “She’s gone from her facility. She checked herself out. Remy got the call off the machine a few minutes ago.” He wanted to ask why Prophet wouldn’t have gotten the message on his cell phone, but Prophet always had his reasons.

  “What exactly did the message say? Word for word? It’s important.”

  “Hang on.” He texted Remy and a few minutes later, thanks to the teen’s fast fingers, Tom had a transcript. “‘This is Mary Lambert, a night supervisor from the Ward Home and Health Facility. I’m calling to let you know that Judie Drews checked herself out today at 6:34 p.m.’” Prophet checked his watch and Tom kept reading. “‘Since it was a voluntary hold, we could not keep her—she declined to leave a forwarding address and you have been contacted, as per our agreement, after she left the facility. Thank you.’”

  “Okay.” Prophet breathed the word, as if something made sense to him. But fuck, none of it did to Tom, least of all Prophet’s reaction.

  “Prophet, do we need to send someone to go find her?”

  “No. She’ll be all right, T. Promise.”

  “You said that without her meds . . . Remy’s worried.” Maybe that would get Prophet’s attention.

  “Please tell Remy for me that I swear on my life he doesn’t need to worry about my mom. And I’ll explain it all when I can. Come on, Tommy—you used to trust me with shit like that.”

  “I trust you—”

  “There’s a ‘but’ in that sentence.” Prophet put his head back. “Go fuck yourself then. Go home if you can’t handle it. I don’t need your shit.”

  Not the response Tom was expecting at all, but he had a feeling that everything that would happen on this trip would exceed expectations. Everything was changing rapidly, sides were shifting, and Tom felt like he had to hold on to something steady because the ground underneath him was constantly threatening to swallow them both.

  Instead of fighting about it, he closed his eyes—and shut Prophet out purposely, in reaction to the shut-out he was feeling. After takeoff, Prophet was moving around restlessly. Tom glanced over, hoping it wasn’t another flashback and found Prophet pulling his shirt sleeve up and trying to look at a bandage on his shoulder. “What’s that from?”

  Prophet glanced at him. “Shit, my tattoo. You’ve got to clean it.”

  “Your what?”

  “Are you going to just sit there with questions or will you help me?” Prophet demanded. “Remy gave me stuff to—”

  “Wait, you let Remy tattoo you?”

  “He was worried about getting out of practice.”

  Tom stopped himself from saying anything further about that. “What did you get?”

  “I don’t know—he picked it.”

  “You don’t know,” Tom repeated.

  “Are you done playing parrot?” Prophet asked irritably.

  “Asshole.” Tom ripped the tape off without ceremony and stared at Remy’s creation.

  “So.” Prophet continued trying to look at it over his shoulder, like a dog chasing his tail. “What is it?”

  Tom f
elt an odd sense of satisfaction settle in his chest. “Nautical star.”

  “To guide me home safely,” Prophet finished quietly.

  “He didn’t fill it all in.”

  “I told him it had to heal fast.”

  “He left parts of it to finish when we get back.” Tom took a picture of it and showed Prophet his phone screen.

  “He’s good.”

  “Very.” Tom stared. “Normally, I’d let it out for the open air, but I think we’ll go old-school for this, and wrap it for a couple of days. You’ve already taken something?”

  “Yeah, Doc put me on antibiotics anyway before this. You too?”

  “Yeah,” Tom confirmed. “So, a piercing and a tattoo. You’re finally coming out of your shell.”

  That made Prophet laugh, longer and harder than Tom could remember in a long time. Then he told Tom, “Sorry—about the Judie thing. It’s just . . . a lot.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I promise it’s fine. Not unexpected. It’s just . . . now, more than ever, I’m really going to need you to take some leaps of faith. And I’m the last one who would handle that well if roles were reversed. But this . . .”

  “It’s the culmination of all those years you spent searching,” Tom finished. He leaned in and kissed Prophet. It was meant to be quick, but Prophet pulled him in hard, until they were full on making out, Prophet maneuvering into Tom’s seat, Tom’s lap.

  The plane banked a hard left. Prophet cursed into Tom’s mouth and they both heard the pilots laughing over the speaker system.

  “Assholes!” Prophet called, then grumbled, “Ruining my fun.”

  “There’s always the bathroom,” Tom suggested as Prophet sank to his knees. “Proph—”

  “Shut up. You need the distraction.”

  “And you don’t?” Tom managed as Prophet yanked on his cargos until he’d carefully freed Tom’s dick, piercings in full view.

  “This definitely helps,” Prophet murmured, fingering the metal, making Tom shiver, and when Prophet put his mouth on him, the plane could’ve flown upside down and Tom wouldn’t have cared. For all he knew, it did.

  Cillian was in his own apartment, packing, no doubt getting ready to try to find Prophet. Why, Mal didn’t know, because no one had invited Cillian . . . and Mal thought that maybe killing him would stop him from going. It was definitely the best option, but then there’d be a lot of blood to clean up and Remy was still in the apartment . . .