by J Bennett
“Ryan died because of me,” I whisper to the empty bedroom. I look up to Avalon, which, thanks to the rusted ladder Gabe scrounged from the garage, now hangs on the ceiling above my bed. It’s just a drawing, and Ryan’s not in there sleeping deep like Arthur. I pull up Facebook and then remember that I can’t log on. My hands are shaking. I need to see his page. I need to post a confession. Ryan died because of me. Because he was walking with me. Because I tucked my hand in his back pocket.
I must take this back somehow, undo the damage I have caused. Even if we can never see each other again. Even if I still get turned into this freak. I need Ryan to be alive somewhere in the world. Breathing and laughing and chewing on his lip. Panicking about a test that he will inevitably ace. Ryan can’t be trapped in a coffin. He can’t be smothered by earth. The song won’t stop in my head. Not for a single second. Not when I need just one moment of peace so I can think and close Facebook before I do something truly stupid.
I dump the computer off my lap and climb out the bay window. I run. Deep into the woods. I’m in jean shorts and no shoes. I leap onto a tree and get my arms around a raccoon who does not appreciate my embrace. It struggles, clawing through my skin. I peel back a glove and drain it quickly, but this snack only heightens the hunger. I drop the limp body and keep running. I recognize the crude metaphor. Running away from the self-loathing and pity that compete for dominance.
Poor Ryan who loved a monster girl. Bad things came for them. He got real cold, and she was flown away to a dark place.
* * *
I make it back in time to pass Tarren’s morning bed check. Then I crawl onto the roof and watch him set off on his run. Long, even strides carry him into the foliage, and his energy calms down at last.
I’m not really feeling better about anything, but a long shower helps clear my head. I want to make an effort; I want to demonstrate that this will somehow work, even if I’m not sure I believe it.
I descend to the kitchen and decide a “thank you for almost being kind” gift is in order for Tarren. I whip up my famous scrambled eggs, famous because they are the only dish I am capable of making without the aid of a microwave or toaster.
The fridge is well-stocked from Tarren’s shopping trip last night. The bins are filled with vegetables and fruits. Milk sits on the top shelf along with packs of Red Bull, protein shakes and muscle milk. There’s a whole drawer filled with bottled water. Eggs sit in the little egg holders that I didn’t think anyone actually ever used. I see a case of beer on the bottom shelf and realize for the first time that I will probably never get drunk again; not even the fun buzz that turns me into a dance genius.
After some searching, I find a battered pan, crack the eggs and listen to them sizzle. I push away my nausea. The idea of putting food, anything except bottled water, into my body contorts my stomach in pain. The smell of the eggs is almost too much, but I want to do this for Tarren. Maybe I can get him to smile that shy smile that makes him look almost human.
Maybe he’ll begin to believe I really am different; that I can help them on their crazy mission, because now this is my crazy mission too.
Maybe we’ll become fast friends, and wouldn’t Gabe be so pleased? Maybe we can find a sliver of the happiness that he is searching for so desperately.
Maybe we could be a family — a cracked up, gun toting, slightly-monsterized family, but a family. Why does that word feel so dangerous? Like a mousetrap luring my weak heart to a deadly prize.
Spring.
The toast comes up.
* * *
Tarren is back from his run, grunting to my cheerful “hello” and up the stairs before I can invite him into the kitchen. No matter. Hum-de-dum, I’m determined to make his fucking day.
I finish up cooking while he’s in the shower and take my time arranging the food on a tray when I hear him walking back to his room. Buttered toast wedges sit on each side of a too-large mound of eggs that I’ve sprinkled with salt, pepper and cheddar cheese that melts into the fluffy folds. Martha Stewart to the max.
No orange juice in the fridge, so I include a glass of milk and a small plate of strawberries on the side of the tray. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Utterly vomit-inducing to smell, but perfect. Without missing a beat, I take my tray up the stairs. Tarren’s had plenty of time to dress. I don’t remember to knock. I’m too excited. Too damn proud of myself for demonstrating such a clear effort to take my situation in stride. Just as I reach his door, I wonder if he locked it. No. I turn the handle and step inside.
I would have sensed how high Tarren’s energy was pulsing if I wasn’t distracted by the smell of the food. I might have even heard the breaths of anguish stealing in and out of his body. Instead, I blithely walk inside and open my mouth to announce a cheerful good morning. It catches in my throat.
I drop the tray.
Chapter 23
Tarren stands in front of his closet, shirtless, looking at himself in the mirror on the inside door. He has a runner’s lean physique. Wiry muscles stretch across his tall frame, and I think the Greeks would have been proud to sculpt him if it wasn’t for the network of scars that curve and writhe all across his skin.
I don’t understand at first what I am seeing.
There is no beginning or end to the wounds. They snake all over his body, crisscrossing each other, extending around his torso and down past the waist of his jeans. Pale pink streaks hash across his back. Deep gouges down his arms. X’s and S’s. Pricks and wide sweeps. Thin cuts and thicker furrows where the skin has grown over. One long jag starts at his right shoulder blade and travels down his back. I follow it through the mirror as it curves around, crossing his abdomen. Different knives. Small, playful cuts just to tease and prod and many much deeper. Burns too. Mottled, shiny stamps across his shoulders and chest. A purple-yellow sweep of bruises down the right side of his ribs.
The mirror is cracked. I trace the source to a web of splintered glass up high on the right with long tentacles running down, splitting Tarren’s face into broken fragments.
And his eyes, looking at me, reflected in those fragments, a deeper blue than I’ve ever seen them. I don’t think to hide my shock, because I don’t understand how this could have happened to him. Car accident? Wild animal? Did he do it to himself? Crazy self-flagellation?
My eyes flee away. His room is so bare. Not a single poster on the wall. No pictures. No books except for one. A copy of The Odyssey sits on his nightstand, battered in the way books get when their pages have been turned and scoured many, many times.
I don’t know what to do, so I look at Tarren again. Quantum queen of tact. Our eyes lock through the mirror, until his slide away. His head drops ever-so-slightly.
“Please leave,” Tarren whispers.
“I…breakfast,” I stutter. “I’m sorry. I thought…” I stop.
He doesn’t speak, and this image latches into my mind with barbed hooks: Tarren standing there in front of the mirror, water rolling down the back of his neck from his damp hair, his aura so dazzlingly bright that I lose my vocabulary. Now I learn what his shame looks like. Now I know why Gabe tries so hard to make him laugh.
“I’ll just,” I kneel down to try and deal with the mess of cheesy-gooey eggs and spilled milk now decorating his carpet. Then I realize that I’m still in his room; that he’s still staring at me through the mirror.
“Never mind,” I murmur and escape the room, pulling the door closed behind me. I can still feel his energy vibrating through the whole house, or maybe it’s just the heavy clang of my own heart.
Chapter 24
The afternoon rain has just let up, leaving the grass beaded and fresh. The wind brings moist breaths and the smell of damp things. I sit outside on the back porch steps dipping my legs into the noon sun and hoping Gabe won’t leave me with my thoughts for too long. My body opens to the sunlight, taking in the thin stream of sustenance. I watch the trees, instantly attuned to the flickering nods of energy scurrying along the branches. Th
e other noises of the day are a choir of disjointed notes that I’m learning to sort and dim as best I can.
The back door opens, and Gabe eases down beside me. He hands me a bottle of water and sets a case of beer between us.
“Find any angels today?” I ask.
“Few suspicious deaths, probably nothing,” he answers. “Just need to keep my eye on it.”
We sit together in silence while Gabe pulls out the first bottle of beer and takes a long drink.
“So, the scars,” Gabe wipes his mouth and shakes his head. “We, uh, we don’t talk about it. Not ever.” He gazes out into the trees, eyes searching for something far away.
“You wouldn’t believe it, but growing up Tarren was the shyest kid you’d ever meet. Afraid of everything.” Gabe smiles to himself.
“He hated ‘the mission.’” Gabe makes quotes with his fingers. “Everything about it. Refused to carry a gun. Hardly went to karate lessons and never hit back when we fought. He’d be in his room all day long reading our dad’s old notes and any other chemistry and genetic textbooks he could scrounge. When we went on a mission, he’d just read his books in the car and wait for us till we’d done our killing. Did the driving when he got tall enough.”
“We?”
“Mom and Tammy and me. When we were old enough, Mom took us on the road to hunt angels.”
“What about school?”
“Home schooled. Our mom was a college professor. Classic literature and mythology, but she was real smart about everything. Taught us history and science along with evasive driving, fighting, picking locks, that kind of thing.” Gabe smiles again his sad smile. “I would have liked to go to prom though. They always make a big deal about it in the movies.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. Our mother didn’t raise us traditional, but she gave us a purpose and taught us how to believe in something.” Gabe takes another long sip of his beer. The wind has died down, and bugs flit through the scraggly grass. Discarded shell casings wink in the sun.
“They were twins you know. Tammy and Tarren. Fraternal, of course. Completely opposite in personalities, but close as could be. They could finish each other’s sentences. Tammy, she took care of Tarren, stood up for him. She always knew when he was in one of his moods. Tarren took everything the hardest — the traveling, the training, the isolation, but he adored Tammy. Followed her around like a puppy. All the boys did anytime we stopped long enough. Every one of ‘em was in love with Tammy.” Gabe sets his bottle aside.
“What is it?”
Gabe starts at my voice, as if he’d forgotten my presence. “It’s been so long since I’ve spoken about her,” he muses. “Tammy was fearless. Reckless, Mom said, but I looked up to my big sister. A smile from Tammy was worth... You been in the garage yet?”
I shake my head.
“There’s an old motorcycle in there. That was Tammy’s. Our mother was the only one who could ever control her. Then Mom got sick.”
Gabe’s eyes travel up to the sky, and he dotes on the wispy clouds stretching overhead. I rub my legs with my gloved hands, sip at my water and wait for him to continue. When he does, Gabe’s voice is quiet. I catch a tremor beneath his words.
“Mom died. That was six years ago. We buried her, and Tammy went wild. She would disappear for days, weeks, hunting on her own. She liked hunting, and she was good at it. That’s when Tarren finally started fighting. Sometimes I think the only reason he did was to keep an eye on Tammy, to protect her. Now of course, things are different…but anyway, one day Tammy came back from a solo mission saying she had a lead on Grand. She wanted to go after him.”
Gabe sets down his empty bottle and pulls out a second. The glass sweats heavy in the heat. “You have to understand, Grand still wanted revenge for the death of his father. We’d also managed to kill his younger brother, Lux, the year before Mom died. Grand was always hunting us, and we were always running like hell to slip away. It’s just the way things were. Grand was too strong. He’d heal from bullets in hours. Could smell you coming a mile away. He has abilities we don’t even know about.
“Mom always said he was too dangerous to hunt. She would know, after everything she went through. But Tammy thought this was our chance. I knew it was a trap. He’d tried to lure us out before. Tammy and I…we had a terrible fight about it. I, uh,” Gabe laughs and shakes his head. His fingers tap the sides of the bottle between his hands.
“I called Tammy a stupid cunt. She called me a coward and other things, threw a plate at my head. Tarren was there, but he didn’t say a thing. I said…I said,” Gabe takes a deep breath. “I said something I’ll regret for the rest of my life. Next morning when I woke up they were gone. Tarren knew it was suicide, but he would follow Tammy to the gates of Hell if that’s where she wanted to go.”
Gabe’s voice is shaking. “I would’ve gone with them. Even if it was a trap.” His fingers tap, tap, tap the glass as he gathers himself, tries to push through.
“You can’t know what it was like. Their phones went straight to voicemail. I had no idea where they were. I thought I had lost everyone. I wanted to die.”
“Gabe.” I put my hand on his arm, and he doesn’t flinch.
“I was eighteen,” he says quietly. “I thought that was the worst day of my life, but it wasn’t.” He shrugs away my hand. “This is so stupid,” he mutters. His eyes are wet, turned a warm honey in the sunlight.
“I thought that was the worst day of my life,” he says again, “until Tarren called. The car was covered in blood, and he was barely conscious by the time I got to him. I don’t know how he even managed to get as far as he did or how he hotwired that car. It was…it was,” his voice cracks, “God!”
Gabe stands up and leans against the wooden beam supporting the overhang.
I close my eyes and see it all over again: Tarren gazing at his disfigured body in the mirror, the plumes of shame and anger glowing all around him. All of his scars are crystalized in my mind. I blink, but the image doesn’t go away. His eyes, points of pain locking onto mine; that bead of water rolling down his neck. It turns red. His scars rip open, pulse blood through his tattered clothes. Tarren slumps forward and watches his life drip onto the wheel.
In my mind the story continues, propelled by the images Gabe’s shaking voice imparts.
“I’ve never seen so much blood in my life,” Gabe whispers. “I had a towel in the trunk, and I tried to clean him up. His clothes were in shreds…”
Gabe wrenches open the car door, catching Tarren as he falls. He tries not to cry, struggles not to let the fear overwhelm. Tarren gazes up at his brother, whispers something Tarren-esq like “you shouldn’t have come.”
“…he wasn’t coherent. I kept asking where Tammy was, and he wouldn’t tell me. The towel was soaked in blood. The things I saw on his body. I thought he was going to die.”
Tarren lies against the passenger-side window. Eyes blinking slow. Gabe asks over and over again, “Where is she? Where is she?” Tarren mumbles, but his words are senseless. Blood smears the window as he presses his hand against it.
Shaking hands. Gabe grips the sticky wheel, puts the car into gear and wipes his tears away as he drives. “You’re going to be okay,” he says, because what else is there to say? “You’re going to okay, you’re going to be okay,” he chants like a mantra.
“…I couldn’t even take him to the hospital,” Gabe’s voice narrates across the scene. “I didn’t know if Grand was following him. Where Tammy was. Tarren passed out, so I drove like hell to Dr. Lee. I didn’t think he would make it…”
The long miles stretch out ahead of them. Gabe tries to take the turns easy so Tarren’s head doesn’t bang against the window. Gabe is so young. Even skinnier than he is now. Shivering, trying to force his gaze forward on the road, but inadvertently glancing at his brother over and over again. He takes Tarren’s wrist, searching for that weakening pulse. So, so, so afraid.
“…All those cuts. All that blo
od,” Gabe croaks.
Without warning he hurls the empty bottle, and it shatters against a tree in a spectacle of exploding glass. The sound echoes through the trees, snapping me back to reality.
Gabe’s aura rears up and engulfs him, so bright that it hurts my eyes. The skin rips away from my palms, and the orbs lift up, pushing against the fabric of my gloves. With a shudder, I turn away and press my hands down hard against the porch. The song reaches all through me, echoing in weird ways inside my head until Gabe speaks again.
“We kept Tarren pretty dosed on pain meds those first weeks. I was afraid he’d kill himself.” Gabe lays his forehead against the post and closes his eyes.
“He told me what happened. Once. Grand caught them both. It was a trap. He took them to one of his ‘labs’ to have some fun. Tammy was the one who killed his brother Lux, so Grand decided to repay her the favor. He cut up Tarren in front of her eyes. Real slow. Burned him too. When Grand got bored, he killed Tammy and then let Tarren go.”
“Just let him go?”
“Yeah.” Gabe opens his eyes, stares out across the lawn. “Far as I can guess, Grand wanted to track him back here, find our mother. He didn’t know she was dead. Tarren shook him somehow. Even half dead, Tarren can still lose a tail.”
Gabe pauses to steady his voice. “And then Tarren was different. As soon as he could get out of bed, he was running every morning. Working out. Shooting and fighting. We went back to hunting angels, and he was relentless. We killed more that first year then the past three combined. He used to read all the time. Play video games. Drink beer on the porch. He doesn’t do any of that anymore. It’s always training. Always searching for new hunts. Always killing. He even had a girlfriend once, if you can believe it. Real sweet girl in Pueblo.”