by Trent Jordan
“You do not need to worry about that,” I said with as much conviction as I had ever said anything in my life. “If anything, him taking Lilly home has only further cemented my desire to kill him. I want to be part of the group that strikes at Lucius’ house. Otherwise, I request no further changes to the plan.”
Lane nodded.
“Does anyone object or have any concerns?”
I bowed my head. I didn’t want to influence the outcome one way or another. No one said a word.
“Good,” Lane said. “Now then, to plans for the evening. This is an all-hands-on-deck, all-systems-go type of operation. The Saints have crossed a line in attacking Cole’s apartment that must be dealt with through overwhelming force. The time for dancing around each other, the time for pushing up on but avoiding crossing boundaries has ended. If you see a Saint, you kill. I cannot state that strongly enough. We must become inhumane monsters tonight if we see a Saint.”
We must unlock our darkest parts of ourselves to do this.
“We will strike in two units. One will attack the Fallen Saints’ clubhouse. That unit is to eradicate any existence of that place. Kill anyone who has a Saints cut on them, take all their weapons, and blow up their buildings. Butch, Patriot, Phoenix, and Axle, I am looking to you four to lead the charge on that. Can I count on you all?”
“Yes,” they said together in their respective baritone voices.
“Good,” he said. “Gather half the men we have. I will leave the logistics up to you. I trust, Axle and Patriot, that your military backgrounds will guide the best action for you, and that Butch and Phoenix, you will lead the men with the two of them. You are free to leave if you like.”
The four of them stood up and walked outside. Seconds later, we could hear them barking at half the men to line up and prepare. Lane continued to speak over the commotion outside.
“For the rest of us,” he said. “We will be launching an insurgency against Lucius at his home. We know where he lives; it is not a secret that he has a gated home on the far east side of town. We must, however, be prepared to suffer casualties along the way, and we must be prepared for tricks up his sleeve. We are going in there to end the Fallen Saints once and for all; we cannot expect them to roll over.”
And we must expect him to use Lilly for defense somehow.
But I’ll be ready. I’m ready to go into combat with my brother.
As I looked at Lane, I knew what he was saying was not to look macho or to look detached. And likewise, what I had said was not to sound tough or to make it seem like I belonged.
We both had come a long way since that ugly day when my father died. But we had ultimately circled back to our true selves. It sucked that it had taken so long and had involved so much difficulty along the way, but... well, better late than never.
Lane laid out a few more logistical details, including how we would attack, who would attack where, and what would happen once we got inside. We were expected to treat it like a full-scale invasion; this was not going to be a brute-force attack so much as it was a sweep of a building. Things would get ugly, bloody, and fatal.
But we were ready. I’d almost died, and we all knew anyone could be next. Death did not scare me enough to deter me.
“Any questions?” Lane said at the end.
No one said a word. Not Owen, not my other officers, not any of the Black Reapers members. No one.
We knew what needed to be done.
“Be ready to roll out within fifteen,” Lane said.
The room cleared. I grabbed Lane’s arm and held him back. A couple of other people hung back momentarily, but I didn’t even need to look at them to get across that I needed some privacy.
“What’s up?” Lane said.
There was no debate in my mind. I knew it was time to just “be” with the truth.
“Lane, before we go into this, before we face the possibility of death, I feel like I need to tell you something,” I said. “When I was out, when you came and rescued me, I had... call it a dream for lack of a better word, but it was something so much more than that.”
I proceeded to recount everything in vivid detail, sparing nothing, including how time froze, how it was right at the moment when our father’s house was being attacked, how our father and mother had spoken to me in my head before speaking to my ears, and how the whole place more or less collapsed into a beam of light.
Now that I’d had some distance from it, it did sound like the kind of vision someone would probably need mushrooms or some psychedelic to experience, but, hey, I’d experienced it. I didn’t need to rationalize or apologize for it.
“One of the things I took away from it was that I have known the truth all along, I’ve just been afraid of it,” I said. “As fucked up as it sounds, maybe I am afraid of being loved. Maybe I am afraid of attachment. I don’t know. But while I feel like I know, I still want to ask you something, something that I don’t think we’ve ever discussed.”
“Of course,” Lane said.
“Do you forgive me for Mom dying when she gave birth to me?”
I instantly knew the answer by his expression.
“Yes,” he said. “I was hurt, Cole. I was hurt badly by it. I didn’t know where to turn my blame, so I turned it on you. It was just the stupid action of a stupid kid—”
“Not stupid.”
Lane didn’t look like he knew how to respond to that, so he kept going.
“And I should have forgiven you a long time ago, but it wasn’t really until the past couple of months that I did. I don’t... I don’t know why.”
“Because it was the story you had in your head.”
Lane knew. He knew even if he didn’t say out loud that that was true.
“I’m working on the story in my head. It’s a real fucking bitch. And I’m not here to have a therapy session with you, because we need to fucking kill Lucius right now. But I just wanted to know.”
“I know,” Lane said. “And not that it was your fault, not that it was your fault at all, but if there is any part of me that holds you responsible for Shannon dying—which, again, I will swear up and down here is not your fault, it’s just something I feel I need to say—then I forgive you for that as well.”
That touched me. I bit my lip not because I was on the verge of crying, but because I could begin to feel the early stages of my eyes starting to water.
“And I forgive you for being a massive douche right after.”
Lane laughed and punched me, and just like that, whatever void was left between us had vanished. We were brothers-in-arms not just in the metaphorical sense, but now in the familial sense too.
For so long, we’d tried to find “the middle ground” between us, thinking that there was some magical spot of compromise where we’d find all of our answers and live happily ever after as co-Presidents. But that just wasn’t true. At best, such a place existed temporarily, but time had a way of eroding even the strongest of truces.
But instead of trying to find that mystical middle ground, if we approached each other from a place of understanding, forgiveness, and empathy, it didn’t matter if the distance between our positions was five feet or five hundred miles. We’d figure it out because we loved each other without reservation. We gave each other the benefit of the doubt.
“Well, you’re going to forgive me even more when I admit this to you,” he said. “You know I sold the house right after everything happened. You know that I made no attempt to reach out to you, to get you your half.”
“It would’ve been impossible to reach me.”
“Fair, but you know what I mean. Anyway, even though that was a shitload of money... I never could spend it all. I gave myself various excuses, like I just hadn’t gotten around to it, I just didn’t know how I’d use it, it was dirty money, whatever. But now, well, no more fucking excuses. When this is all said and done, Cole, you’re going to be a whole lot fucking richer than before.”
“Sweet!” I said, and then we both
laughed.
Because what more could we do?
What more could we do than express ourselves with the most joyful action of all, a good, well-founded laugh?
“Now then,” Lane said.
“Finish the job?” I said.
Lane nodded. He rose and offered his hand.
I did him one better.
I pulled him in for a hug.
“Let’s finish this.”
“Together.”
“Together.”
Lilly
I didn’t pack any bags.
I didn’t grab any clothes, any toiletries, or anything at all.
Hell, I didn’t even move from my bed.
Perhaps this was just stupid defiance, but with guards posted on my balcony and outside my door and with my father running around the house, commanding his men to be ready, I thought that the best form of protest was to do nothing. Not to flee, not to prepare, but to just not do anything. I had no idea if it would work.
A few times, I stood on my bed and looked out the window facing toward downtown Springsville. Somewhere out there... maybe Cole was still alive. Maybe he was injured, but coping. Maybe he had…
Maybe he was dead.
No. Cole wouldn’t die that easily.
And what makes you think that? You don’t know him. You haven’t seen him in battle. You’re just making blind wishes.
Damnit…
Each time that I had that thought run through my head, an acknowledgment that I didn’t know what had happened and had no basis for thinking, I just slumped back down to my bed, now unable to do anything. Eventually, I would regain the strength to “do something,” and in feeling that way, I would actively refuse to get ready.
The third time I stood up and looked out my window, a knock came at my door. I ignored it.
“I know you’re in there, Lilly,” my father said from the other side. “I’m not going to barge in because I assume you are getting prepared, but we leave here in fifteen minutes.”
I almost said “OK,” but even that felt like I was giving my father too much of a response, so I just kept my mouth shut and turned my eyes back to Springsville. It wasn’t much from here; no one would ever mistake this small town for Los Angeles or even, say, Long Beach. But all of the individual places, from Bottle Revolution to Mama Sue’s to even small places like the government buildings or the park or the hiking trails... I’d never get to see them again.
It wasn’t like I had sentimental attachments to any of them individually. But collectively—
A fireball went up about four miles south. Seconds later, the sound of an explosion reached the windows, followed by several of the men at my father’s house yelling expletives.
“Reapers!”
“They’ve attacked the clubhouse!”
“Get ready!” my father yelled.
“Sir! Reports state there’s about twenty of them heading this way!”
Is Cole among them? I couldn’t believe that thought crossed my mind. Even if Cole was, there was no guarantee how he’d react upon seeing me. Maybe he’d think me being back here was a sign I’d betrayed him. Maybe—
CRACK!
I jumped as the door to my bedroom splintered open. My father’s foot retreated, and his hand reached into the hole and opened it up.
“What are you doing?!?”
“There’s no time!” he said. “The Reapers are coming here and they’ll be here any minute. It’s too late for us to flee.”
“What are you doing?!?” I repeated, now more fearful than angry.
“Keep your mouth shut,” my father said as he firmly grabbed me by the hand and dragged me away.
I screamed for him to let me go, but he ignored me, pulling me with the kind of strength I realized now he had never before had to use on me. Now that I was in his grip, not only was there no escape, trying to escape would just get me hurt more. Realizing I had no choice, I followed him downstairs, keeping my head low as the guards got in position.
He led me through the main atrium, down the hall, and paused just at a spot between the bathroom and one of the memorabilia rooms. He pressed something on the thermostat, and seconds later, a part of the wall pulled back and shifted to the side.
“What the hell—”
“Stay in there,” he growled. “I’ll be there in a bit.”
“Dad!”
But before I could say a word more, he had shut the door again. I was left in complete darkness, with no preconceived notion of what this room looked like.
“Dad! What the hell!”
One false step... I was in a panic room, that much I knew. But what else was in this room was a question I feared the answer to.
“Dad…”
I turned.
And then a light came on, presumably from the motion of my body. And what I saw stunned me.
There was enough food and water in here to last the two of us probably three months. There was a shotgun, a rifle, and a pistol, each with seemingly infinite amounts of ammo boxes by them. There was even a spare motorcycle in the corner.
I didn’t want to know how thick these walls were or what the various contraptions were here. My father had seemingly left no stone unturned, as if he had feared all along that the day might come when he’d have to remain in here for weeks on end. There was even a bathroom tucked into a corner, though it had no bath or shower. Apparently, hygiene was not part of a room like this.
And then I could hear gunfire outside.
However thick the walls were, they were actually pretty good at muting the sound. Instead of rattling and threatening to rupture my eardrums, it sounded more like books falling off their shelves, noticeable, but not paralyzing. But the frequency of them, as well as the screams of Saints that were getting hit…
Seconds later, the door opened again. My father stepped inside. He pulled one of the bricks aside in the room, pressed something, and the door shut behind him.
“We’re safe in here,” he said. “I know this because you never discovered this room in all the time you were here. So we should be good.”
“And what? Everyone else is going to die?”
My father’s answer chilled me.
“Of course.”
It was said with absolutely no emotion. He did not give a damn of even the smallest degree about any of the men outside. Cruel and criminal as they may have been, to just consign them to the jaws of the Reapers seemed like a horrible fate that went beyond their sins.
“You can’t just let them die!” I said. “You say the Reapers are evil men who will kill and rape? Then maybe we should protect some of our own men.”
But my father was having none of it.
“I have failed in my quest to make the Fallen Saints the dominant club in the town, and as a result, there will be retribution coming to me from places you cannot even imagine,” he said. “The best thing that we can hope for—yes, we—is for everyone in the club to be slaughtered. Let no one here who has been a part of this club live to tell those who come for knowledge about us.”
“What the fuck are you even talking about, Dad?”
But my father shook his head.
“Things extend beyond Springsville, Lilly,” he said. “I got myself tangled far too deep into the webs of some men who are far worse than the Reapers. Your life is at risk if they ever learn of my failure.”
What did you do, Dad?!?
“The more blood that gets shed, the better our chances of survival when we leave tonight,” he said. “We will ride this out—”
“No way,” I said.
This was where I made my stand against my father. Not a stand of walking away, running away, or hiding away, but of fighting back.
“Whatever mess you got into, we can get out of it. If we need to pull the Reapers in to help, so be it. But I’m not—”
“Do not speak of what you do not know, Lilly!” my father hissed. “You are speaking of men who would slit their mother’s throats for a penny. You speak
like a child.”
“Maybe it’s because you’ve never given me a chance to grow up!”
“You will be quiet, or you will be punished.”
That was it. I’d had enough. I grabbed the shotgun and pointed it at my father. My father went wide-eyed and then laughed at me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Lilly?” he said.
“You will get as many of our men in here as possible.”
“Or what? You’ll shoot me with air?”
I bit my lip, but there was no reason to try and maintain the façade of certainty. I didn’t know if these guns were already loaded, and my father’s words gave me no faith that they secretly were.
“Put the goddamn gun down, Lilly. I know this is a lot to take in and you have plenty of reasons to hate my guts. But we can fight as much as you want when we get to Oregon. Right now, you need to shut the fuck up and stay alive.”
I shook my head, but I knew this was pointless.
And then I got an idea.
I lowered the gun and made toward putting it back where I had found it. My father turned momentarily, seemingly trying to jigger some of the settings in the room. It was all the opening I needed.
I didn’t have time to think about if this failed. I didn’t have time to think. I just lunged forward, raised the shotgun, and struck my father across the back of the skull with the butt of the gun like it was a club.
The first hit dropped him to his knees. The second knocked him out.
“Holy shit,” I said.
I just... I just knocked out my father.
Now what?
I pulled his body back to the corner, amazed at how heavy he was. When I had enough space, I went over to where he had hunched over, looking at a keypad with no instructions whatsoever. I might as well have been tasked with decrypting hieroglyphics.
I just pressed individual numbers at first, but after punching in “4” I got a loud buzzing sound, followed by a screen with four spaces. I prayed this meant it was a four-digit password. Figuring it had to be a year of some kind, I typed in the year that my parents had gotten married. That wasn’t it. I typed in the year I thought my father said he was born. I typed in my own birth year.