by Tillie Cole
But it’d all gone wrong.
Because of me . . . because I’d had the seizure.
Throwing the folder across the room, I got to my feet. I looked around the apartment, not knowing where the fuck to go or what to do. My legs were weak as I visualized those pictures in my mind: the torches, the hoods . . . and my mamma looking out of the window, seeing them on her lawn, all there for her.
She should have been gone. Out of the house . . . but I’d had a fucking seizure. A pained fucking gurgling sound cut from my throat as I crossed the room and gathered up the folder. I ran out of the apartment and outside to what had to be Crow’s truck.
Letting adrenaline and hate fucking fuel me, I gunned out of the parking lot. It took five minutes to figure out where I was. The rain hammered down like a sheet of water falling from the sky. The road ahead blurred as the tears ran down my face. Horns beeped and brakes screeched as I cut through the streets and freeways.
I drove and drove until I passed the welcome sign for the town that I wanted to tear to the fucking ground. I cut through the streets that housed the men who murdered my family, took everyone the fuck away at a stroke.
By the time I neared my old home, I noticed there were no fucking birds in the trees. I always noticed that birds never sang when death hovered near. The only sound was the roar of the truck’s engine.
My heart beat too fast as I rounded the corner and the remnants of my childhood appeared. Pain, like nothing I’d ever felt before, smashed into my chest. It carried the weight of a wrecking ball as it shattered my ribs and flattened my heart. I skidded to a stop, the tires slipping on the wet mud. Pools of rainwater spread into puddles on what used to be the path to the porch. The rain snatched the view out of the windshield all too quickly. Hands shaking, I opened the door and stepped into the storm. Thunder cracked up ahead. Lightning forked in the distance. Storm clouds rolled above, and as I looked at the violent sky, all I could think was why couldn’t it have rained that night?
My feet stumbled on the slippery ground as I made my way to the rotting woodpile—all that was left of my house. The rain and wind slapped at my face, lashing my broken skin like leather whips. I barely kept my balance as I climbed over the rough ground. I struggled to see ahead, my view of the house blurring. I wasn’t sure if it was from the storm or the tears flooding my eyes.
I didn’t know where I was walking to, or where I would stop, but that choice was taken from me when I slipped and my knees crashed into the ground.
My body fell forward. My hands sank into the earth, my fingers a sieve for the mud mixed with ash. I closed my eyes, breathing. Just fucking breathing as memory after memory zipped through my head. Of happier times. Of the sad times, and of the night this place burned like a hell on earth. A hell filled with hatred of the unknown—the different and the misunderstood.
“Mamma,” I whispered into the blustering wind. “Papa.” My voice was drowned out by a crack of thunder. “I’m sorry,” I rasped, my falling tears melding with the droplets from the sky.
I looked up at the burned wood. I hadn’t seen their bodies. The coroner said all that was left of them was bones. My grandfather took my mamma’s remains and buried them on his land. My fingers curled tighter into the mud as anger made fists of my hands. My papa was buried communally. I didn’t have a single scrap of money. Nothing to pay for a funeral.
My parents, who’d endured everything together—fought together, loved together, fucking died together—didn’t get the one thing that was their divine right.
To rest together.
No grave for me to speak to them. No holding of hands as they walked to the boatman and crossed over to the Elysian Fields. Just burned bones and teeth, parted, ripped apart, in defiance of the second my mamma had seen my papa across that jazz bar in New Orleans.
“I’m sorry.” I lowered my head to the ground, a fucking silent prayer. A prayer that wherever they were, they could hear me. Hear how sorry their burden of a son was that his illness caused them to die, all because he was late in coming home. “I’m so fucking sorry,” I called more loudly, lifting my eyes up to see nothing but burned wood and charred nails. Hand over hand, I crawled forward and searched through the rubble. I grabbed any pieces of wood that were still intact and piled them at my feet. Gathered as many nails as I could. I didn’t think; I just let my hands start building. Using a hard, short plank as my hammer, I drove a long piece into the ground. Then placing another horizontally, I used the plank to hammer the nails into the makeshift cross. I did the same with the second, ignoring my cuts opening and pouring with blood.
Out of breath and weak, I sat back and stared at the blackened wooden crosses. I fought the lump in my throat as I took my knife out of my cut and began carving the wood. I choked on the fucking pained rage that left my mouth with each letter.
My knife dropped to the ground, and I stared at the words. “Mamma” etched on one. “Papa” etched on the other. Under both of their names, I scrawled, “Love doesn’t see color. Only pure hearts.”
“I love you.” I reached out and ran my fingers down the jagged wood. I closed my eyes. “I miss you both so fucking much.” My face crumpled. “I don’t know how to do it.” I took a long gasp of breath. “How the fuck to be with them when there are fuckers in the world like the ones who did this to you.” I swallowed. “I can’t save them from the Klan. From white power . . . from people who won’t ever understand—don’t wanna understand. I don’t know how the fuck to get all this from my head . . .” My head dropped along with my arms. I was exhausted. I breathed in and out, and then admitted, “I don’t know how to be me. I have no idea who the fuck I even am.”
Silence answered back; that, and the rumbling storm above. Swaying with bone-tiredness, I lay in front of the only family I had in the world. I closed my eyes and gave in to the dark.
I didn’t even feel the rain.
I didn’t even feel the cold.
I felt nothing, except the comforting dead feeling of hopelessness. And a sense that with these two crosses and their names written in wood, I wasn’t alone.
I just couldn’t fucking face being so lonely anymore.
Chapter Fourteen
Cowboy
The sun woke me, its bright rays making me flinch. I groaned, my body aching from the past few days and my stomach growling for food and coffee. A warm body pressed against my side. Smiling, I cracked open my eyes and peered down at the head on my shoulder. Sia was still asleep, hand on my chest and her breath blowing on my neck. I checked the clock on the table beside me. Fuck. We’d slept through the late afternoon and right through the night. That’s what a fucking kidnapping to Mexico would do to you.
I glanced over to check if Hush was awake. My brow furrowed when I saw he wasn’t there. A weird feeling settled in my stomach at how he had been yesterday, at how he’d seemed after we’d both taken Sia. The brother was obviously bothered by something. The way he’d hovered at the door of the bedroom while Sia cried, instead of getting his ass to bed to make sure she was okay.
Gently lifting Sia’s arm off me, I slid out of bed. She moaned, almost waking up, but then settled back down into the sheets. My chest fucking expanded watching her. Unable to keep away, I leaned down and kissed her shoulder. The knife marks on her lower neck were healing. But the numbers were still as visible as the moment they were carved. Mine were too.
Like with most things in life, I gave zero fucks. Fucker thought he could shame us with those derogatory Klan numbers. I was gonna wear that shit like a damn military medal.
With fucking pride.
I threw on my jeans and walked into the kitchen. Nothing was switched on. I checked the coffee pot where we made the chicory coffee. It was cold. Frowning, I went to Hush’s bedroom. It was empty, the covers on the bed not even touched. I started to turn away, but then I noticed his side table was open a little. I checked behind me to make sure Hush wasn’t around. Everything was silent but for the soft sounds of Sia sleeping
in my bed.
The floorboards creaked beneath my feet as I walked to the drawer. I opened it, and a huge fucking lump clogged my throat when I saw what was missing. “His picture,” I said to myself . . . then my heart plummeted like a fucking rock when I saw his meds.
I backed out of the room and quickly checked the rest of the house. Nothing. Shit! I burst out of the door and ran to the garage. “Fuck!” I shouted. His bike had gone. Heart hammering, I flew back up the stairs. Sia was walking from the bedroom, sheet wrapped around her.
“Cowboy? What is it?” she asked, face pale, wiping the sleep from her eyes. I didn’t blame the bitch. She’d been to hell and back these past few weeks.
“He’s gone.” I ran past her into my bedroom. I threw on my shirt and cut. Sia followed me.
“Gone?” she asked, her face filled with confusion.
“Hush.” I rushed into Hush’s bedroom and grabbed his meds. I stuffed them into my cut. I entered the hallway to see Sia getting dressed.
“Cher,” I said. “I’ll take you to Ky’s. I gotta go after Hush.” Because I knew exactly where he’d gone. The only place I knew he would go without me. Our fucking home. I always knew that one day he’d return. He’d kept too much inside him for too long. How much could a fucking brother handle before he exploded? He never spoke about his folks. Or that night. Kept it all inside his head, letting it all build and build until it had become too much.
I caught sight of Sia’s “23/2” brand. Ice cut through me like I’d been plunged onto the Mid-Atlantic. I’d seen him staring at our wounds. I’d caught him clenching his fists, face paling as he stared at them.
Panic set in. What if he’d done something really stupid?
“I’m coming,” Sia said, pulling me from my head. My vision focused on her. I opened my mouth to argue, but she added, “If he’s gone. If he’s hurt.” She winced, as if those thoughts alone fucking killed her. “Then I’m coming.” Sia took my hand. “We’re a team. You, me, and Hush. And I ain’t gonna be benched because I’ve got a pussy.” My lip twitched. She kissed me on my cheek. “I love him. I love you. I need to be there . . . wherever it is we’re going.”
I grabbed my Chopper’s keys and Sia’s hand. “Hope you can ride, cher. ’Cause it’s gonna be a long-ass fucking drive. And I ain’t planning on stopping.”
She pulled on my hand, bringing me to a halt. “I’m a biker bitch, Breaux. I was riding on the back of bikes before I learned to walk.” I winked, laughing at the sass that had been missing far too long, and dragged her out of the apartment. I pulled out of the apartment block and cut up road. Sia held on tight.
We had a fucking date with Louisiana.
*****
I cut like lightning through the old streets. The diner I ate at every day. The tattoo shop where I got my first ink . . . white power. I gritted my teeth just fucking remembering that. Remembering seeing Hush and his daddy being forced from the diner like it was the sixties and black and white couldn’t mix. I supposed this town was the place that time forgot. Stuck in the past. Small minds and even smaller tolerances for anything outside of the norm.
Sia squeezed my waist tighter, as if she knew I was fucking warring with myself. I was a bat out of hell as I tore up the asphalt and joined the back roads that led to where I knew my brother would be. The ground was wet. We’d just missed a storm that had blown in. My body tensed on seeing a familiar set of trees in the near distance.
“Is this it?” Sia asked, her mouth near my ear.
I nodded. For once I couldn’t fucking speak. All I saw were the ghosts of that night. Saw the orange glow from the flames that were ripping my best friend’s world apart as he’d sat beside me in the truck. It had been me who’d taken him to the fucking rodeo that day. If I hadn’t . . . if he’d have stayed . . .
Then I would have lost him.
I shook my head. Because as much as I loved his parents, saw what losing them had done to him . . . I wouldn’t have handled losing him. He thought he was dependent on me. I was missing a fucking limb if he wasn’t with me.
Dread blanketed me as I turned in to the road I used to turn in to every day. It felt cold all of a sudden. Driving down the road made my skin break out in bumps and ice trickle down my spine. Sensing it again, Sia kissed the back of my neck . . . right over the numbers that caused Hush so much pain.
I held my fucking breath as we entered the Durands’ property. The first thing I saw was the pile of wood that used to be their home. Sia’s hands tightened on my cut. My hands tightened on my handlebars. There was a truck parked off to the side.
Then I noticed a familiar pair of boots at the side of the house. I launched from my bike; Sia followed quickly behind. My feet ground to a halt when I rounded the corner.
A fucking wash of tears pricked at my eyes when I saw the scene before me. Hush, on the floor, beaten and fucking covered in mud, shivering . . . between two makeshift crosses.
Love doesn’t see color . . .
I turned my head away for a second and ran my hand through my hair. I fought the fucking iron fist that had just slammed into my chest and put a death grip on my heart.
“Hush,” Sia cried, her voice a damn pained whisper. “God, baby, what have you done?” She bent down and ran her hands over his beaten face. Her tears splashed onto his cheeks. Then she froze. I followed what had captured her attention. In his hand, Hush held a picture. The only picture we’d been able to salvage from the rubble before we’d hitched a ride on a passing truck and got the fuck out of town.
I heard Sia’s breath hitch. She took the picture from Hush’s hand and brought it to her chest. Her eyes closed as she cried. Cried for a couple she’d never known. Her shaking hands placed the picture safely in her pocket.
She almost fucking destroyed me. Because the Durands would have loved her. They’d have fucking taken her in just like they did me. She’d have gained them as her family too.
And she’d have loved them.
“Hush,” she whispered and pressed a kiss to his lips. Hush’s leg moved. I walked closer, waiting for him to move again. My blood felt like ice in my veins. Please fucking wake up. Please. “Hush?” Sia tried again. A low moan left Hush’s mouth. He was caked in mud. His lips were blue. I wasn’t sure if it was from the beating he’d taken, the cold, or both. Anger shot through me where I stood, as I thought over who could have hurt him. I wondered if he’d searched out Jase and the rest of the dipshits. Then—
“Sia?” a familiar voice croaked.
It was like coming fucking home.
Sia nodded, unable to speak through the tears. She guided his head to her lap. My eyes moved from my brother to the crosses that were hammered into the desecrated land. A fucking pained noise left my throat when I saw what he’d carved. Mamma. Papa.
He’d never been to see his mamma’s grave. And we had no idea what had been done with his papa. Thrown in with other people who had no one to claim them.
“What happened to you, baby?” Sia whispered. Hush’s eyes were open. Bloodshot, dull, and real fucking tired.
He tried to get up, but he had to hold onto his ribs. Sia looked back at me, her stunning face stricken with grief for my broken brother. My feet slowly moved me forward. I dropped down into the sludge of mud he lay in. His blue eyes found me, then he broke down. Sia held him tighter. The brother didn’t even complain if she was hurting him. Instead he hung onto her like she was the only thing keeping him alive. Sia cried as she held him. Held him in the place that was his fucking hell on earth.
Then a hand came out for me. Closing my eyes, I reached out and clutched Hush’s hand and fucking just held on.
Hush finally pulled away from Sia. He dropped my hand. I moved behind him and helped him sit up. There wasn’t a part of him that wasn’t covered in mud. Hush’s breathing was shallow and pained. His disoriented eyes suddenly started searching all around him.
His photograph.
“Sia’s got it,” I said and watched him still. He breathe
d a sigh of relief.
“We need to get you clean and dry,” Sia said.
Hush met her eyes, but his were blank. Dead . . . it fucking terrified me.
I crouched down next to Sia. “Val.” His blue eyes fell to me. This close, I could see the state of his face. His entire body was battered and bruised. “We need to move you.”
Fucking tears started coming from Hush’s eyes. He looked back at the crosses. “There’s nowhere for me to go.”
Sia stilled, clutching his arms. She looked at me, eyes wide in obvious alarm. I shuffled closer. Hush was just staring at the crosses. “Val—”
“I saw pictures.” He choked on a sob. “They were everywhere. Surrounding them. And Mamma . . .” He sucked in a breath, the air wheezing in his chest. “She was in the window.” He pointed to where the window used to be. “She saw them . . .” he whispered. “She was watching them with their flaming torches and signs that told her she shouldn’t be with my papa . . . that she should never have had me.”
“Hush,” Sia said brokenly.
He blinked. Then looked at me. “Jase . . . Pierre . . . Stan . . . Davide . . . it was their initiation to the Klan.” My blood ran cold when what he was saying finally sank in. I shook my head, but Hush wasn’t finished. He looked into my eyes. “They were coming for me and my daddy.” He tried to move, like he had to flee from the words he was trying to force from his mouth. Sia backed away and let him move. He scrambled to the crosses, clutching the one he’d made for his mamma. His hands ran down her name and the inscription he’d carved. “But I had that fucking seizure,” he continued. “So she stayed . . . and took my place.” He screamed. Fucking bellowed into the air. Over and over again until his throat grew hoarse. “It should have been me,” he whispered and collapsed at the base of the cross.
Sia crawled forward and hugged him from behind. He looked up. “I have no one. No family.” My chest fucking cracked when he spoke those words. Because he had us.