“Mama we have to go!” She doesn’t respond. I tug harder and harder but she’s too heavy. More black fills the house. I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m going to fall asleep. “Mama!” Still nothing. I tug and I tug but she won’t respond.
I fall to the ground, feeling like I’m gonna throw up, still holding her hand. A burst of light hits me in my already sore eyes. Two big men shadow the doorway. Before I can think, one of the shadows runs into the room and grabs me. I try to hold on to Mama, but he pulls me away.
“Mama!” I yell, trying to grab at her. The man throws me over his shoulder, taking me through our doorway. I’m helpless as I watch smoke cover Mama like an unwanted blanket. The last thing I see of her is the black smoke engulfing her hand.
Lying among the smoke about to end, I couldn’t help but remember my beginning. As the smoke filled my lungs, the smell of popcorn wafted into my brain. I remembered trying to rouse Mama from her death. I remembered pulling on her limp, lifeless body as black smoke filled the house. I remembered thinking I was going to die at the ripe old age of four.
I remembered the firefighters breaking into the house. I remembered screaming bloody murder as they pulled me out of the collapsing shack we called a home. I remembered thinking desperately that we had popcorn cooking, and if we didn’t salvage it, I wouldn’t eat for a month.
I remembered not wanting to leave her. Even now with the knowledge I had, knowing she was a shitstain on humanity, nothing but a meth-addicted waste of life, I still felt the way that little boy had. Love is funny that way, I guess.
I remembered how Lenny used to think I lied to her.
About everything.
About my past.
About my present.
About who I was.
The thing was, I wasn’t lying. You can’t lie if you don’t know you’re doing it. Sure, okay, some of that’s shit. I lied about a lot of things, but not everything. The point was, I repressed so much of it, I didn’t even realize I was lying. It just wasn’t there.
I’d heard stories of soldiers who came back from the war. To them trees were skeletons, fans were choppers, and kids playing in the street were potential suicide bombers. They were always fighting, the bombs still going off in their head. I knew I wasn’t the same.
I left the war early, then continued to fight for something else, someone I couldn’t even pretend was noble. So I shoved my bombs away in a neat little box and put that box somewhere where no one would find it, not even me.
Maybe if I’d let the bombs go off, the fire would have stayed inside my head.
Smoke curled above me, fire burned behind. From fire to fire, it would be a fitting end, a cleansing end. The world really needed to be cleansed of someone like me. I closed my eyes, then I heard something that curdled my blood.
“Vic?”
“Lenny?” I called back, hoping I was near death and hallucinating.
“Vic, where are you?” she answered, her voice sounding closer.
“Lenny get the fuck out of here, the building is about to collapse.” I waited, holding my breath, but not for fear of smoke inhalation. When there was no response I breathed, or at least did the best I could with the blackening air.
“There you are!” I shot up at her voice and immediately regretted the action. Groaning, I told Lenny to leave again.
“I’m not leaving without you. For some reason the fire department won’t listen to me. They think that no one is in here, but I knew better.” I nearly scoffed at Lenny’s observation. Of course GEM had bribed the fire department into leaving me to die. The firefighters probably had no idea I was in here. The order probably came from so high up they wouldn’t have thought to second-guess it.
Lenny sidled up next to me. She put her hands on my body and started feeling for injuries. I tried to push her off but I was sick with smoke. The gunshot didn’t feel that great, either.
“I can’t see for shit in this smoke.” Lenny coughed, feeling along my abs. When she reached my legs, I knew it was only a matter of seconds until she found the wound.
“So get out,” I said, trying to urge her away. “I’m the one who gave you that black eye, remember?”
“Of course I—oh my god, Vic! You’ve been shot!”
I chuckled. “My problems are a bit bigger than a gunshot, don’t you think?”
“I can get you out of here,” Lenny said. Her voice cracked, betraying her fear despite the determination. “I’ll drag you down the stairs…or throw you out the window onto a trampoline. They still do that right? I probably have time to run out and get the fire department…”
“It’s better this way, Lenny.”
“How?” she screamed. “How on earth is this better? Don’t give up, goddammit, Vic!” I smiled to myself, thinking that it was a bit perfect that her fire matched the one raging around us. You could even make the argument that she’d come undone. We’d all come undone.
Or maybe I was just sick with smoke.
“You’ll find someone who doesn’t lie,” I pressed. “Someone who can be better for you.”
“I never figured you for the self-loathing type, Vic.” I could practically hear the eye roll in her voice. “Now is definitely not the time to start.”
“I’m serious, Lenny.”
Lenny moved her hands from my leg to my arm. I felt my blood on them, warm and sticky. She clutched me as she spoke. “I want to spend forever with you Vic.”
“Maybe our forever isn’t supposed to last. Maybe our forever is short and intense and all consuming. We’re a neutron star, Lenny. When I die, I’ll take you with me. I don’t want to take you with me. Let me burn out alone.” For a mercenary, for a killer, for a glorified thug, I thought I’d said my peace well. Her sticky grip slowly slid away, and I thought we were done with it.
Then she slapped me on the chest. “You’re an ass.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say to a dying man.” I laughed, despite the pain in my chest.
“You don’t have to die.” Lenny re-upped her grip, tugging at me so hard I felt it in every crevice of my body. “Get your ass up and let’s go.”
“Lennox—”
“Let’s go!”
“Lenny, I’m pinned.” A beam had fallen from above. I loved lofted and open ceilings. Of course that just meant when the previously beautiful architectural beam fell, it had a longer way to fall—specifically, onto my leg.
Lenny studied me for a moment, blue eyes piercing even through the smoke and the fire, then she lay down alongside me.
“Do you think it could have been different?” Lennox whispered, holding my hand. We stared up at the falling cinders like they were falling stars, bright dots of yellow and tangerine that quickly faded to nothing. In our twisted universe, they were.
I thought on her question as fire raged, black smoke filling our never very happy apartment. “No,” I answered her. “It would have always ended this way. Maybe not today, maybe not next year, but eventually.”
“Let’s pretend.” Lenny gripped my hand tighter. “Let’s pretend for a minute that it isn’t today, but sixty years from now. We’re old, we’ve had a life, we’ve had kids, and we were happy.”
“What were our kids’ names?” I asked. Somewhere something popped and crackled.
Lenny turned on her side, smiling at me. “On the count of three!”
“Seriously?” A smile twitched at my lips.
“One…” she started. I nearly laughed. Only Lenny, amidst absolute ruin, would start a fucking game. “Two…” she continued. On three we both said their names.
“Romeo!” I shouted.
“Ophelia!” she said.
“Ophelia?” I laughed. “Why Ophelia?”
“Romeo?” Lennox scoffed, turning again to her back. “Could you be more cliché?”
“What did our kids grow up and become?” I said, getting away from the subject of my inevitable demise.
“I don’t know…” Lenny sighed. “Fucked up, prob
ably.”
“Whatever they became, you were a loving mother and you supported them. I like to think they were artists.” Yeah, artists because with our genes they didn’t really have a choice. Still, despite her intense self-hatred, Lenny would never have turned it on the children. She would have been a brilliant mother. She would have supported them.
Lenny laughed. “Artists? Okay. Well, I think you were a strict father but they always knew you loved them.” The smoke had made it nearly impossible to see and it sounded like the fucking Fourth of July. When I heard the sound of creaking wood, I knew our time had come to an end.
“I would live any life with you, Lenny.” I gripped her hand, continuing, “But you have to go now.”
“Let’s talk about where we would live,” Lenny said, ignoring me. “Do you think we would have lived in Santa Barbara forever? I’ve always wanted to see Scotland.”
“You don’t have to burn with me, Lenny,” I pressed. “I don’t have to snuff you out, too. Go live in the light. Go be with everyone on the outside.”
“Funny, I always thought I would be the one to snuff you out,” she said dryly.
I pulled my hand from hers. “I’m serious, Lenny.”
“I’m not leaving you, Vic!” Lenny screamed. “You light me up. Before you I was just darkness. I don’t care if you take me, because if you leave me I’ll go back to that darkness anyway.”
“Look at me.” I grabbed Lenny’s face but she refused to look. “Look at me, dammit!”
Reluctantly Lennox opened her eyes. Deep blue, probing…for a moment I thought they might wash it all away. “You didn’t leave me,” I said, keeping her chin taut between my fingers. “You were here until the very end. You did everything you could, do you understand?” Tears fell freely from her lids. My sight grew blurry. I’d have liked to say it was from the smoke, but even I knew that was a lie. Water blurred my vision. Tears stained my skin.
“Say it Lennox,” I bit out.
“No.” She tried to jerk her chin out of my grasp but I held firm.
“Say it!” I yelled as more debris fell.
She spat out the words, spit hitting my face. “I was with you until the end.”
“Now you leave.” I let her chin go and shoved her off me. “Get the fuck out of here before you die with me.”
Lennox stumbled back. Refusing to meet my gaze she said, “I hate you, Vic Wall.”
“I know.” Fire was licking its way closer to us, the heat making me sweat. Lenny needed to get out, and quickly. Forget the debris—if she didn’t leave now the smoke would make her drop.
“I don’t want this to be the end.”
“I know.” At that point, I wasn’t sure if it was smoke inhalation or the crushing reality of our situation making my chest hurt.
“Why did you make me love you?” Tears streamed down her face, clearing the skin anew where soot and ash had darkened it. I opened my mouth to answer her, not prepared for what I was going to say. Another beam fell and with it carried some of the second floor. It separated us and then I could only see her shadow.
Her black outline stood unmoving for a few moments, the smoke wrapping around it like fog on a bayou. For a moment I thought I was going to have to throw shit at her or something to make her move, then just like that she vanished.
All the times when we’d been separated, when we’d fought, when we’d clawed at our perilous love like it would really kill us.
All the times I’d thought it was our end.
Had never prepared me for the reality of when it was truly over.
Lenny
The casket was black and polished with silver handles. Black orchids rested on top. A light mist fell from the overcast sky. The funeral procession walked with somber determination. There was only one open grave that day.
That was either good fortune or bad, depending on how you looked at it.
I’m going with pretty fucking terrible.
The preacher opened his book and began to read. Of the five of us in attendance, only four turned to watch him. I remained motionless, eyes trapped on the sky as if it was about to fall in any second. Grace gently touched me, probably trying to get my attention, I don’t know. Eyes up like that I probably looked like a fucking psycho—
“Psycho.”
“Addict.”
Murderer.
“I killed him…” It was going to full on rain soon. I wondered if it would have rained that night, might he still be alive. Probably not. The preacher continued to talk, not bothering with me.
“I am a killer,” I mused as droplets fell on my cheeks. “Add that to my repertoire. Psycho. Addict. And murderer. Is that a hat trick?” The laugh wasn’t supposed to happen, it just kind of did. Like a lot of the shit with Vic and me, it just came out. And soon the laugh transformed into a wet and wailing thing. Or maybe that was the rain.
I took a step toward the casket and oh man, you could just feel their unease. They probably wondered: what is this crazy harlot gonna do now? What hadn’t I already done? That was the question they should have been asking. The preacher clicked his tongue because I wasn’t simply standing and holding my grief inside.
“Sweetie?” Lissie asked, her hand hovering just above my back. Eli stepped toward me and I…I lost it.
“Get the fuck off me Eli!” The words brought me to the ground. I didn’t do it on purpose. I wasn’t trying to display my mourning like a one-woman show. Hey, come check out this bitch as she unravels before everyone in a fucking cemetery! I just needed to see inside the grave. Maybe if I looked I would see…it. That part of me Vic had taken when he died.
The past few days there had been nothing. I’d thought I knew what nothing felt like, but I was so naively unaware. It was as if I was walking through the world without color, without sound, and without warmth. Everything was shadows now.
Vic had held a vital spot inside me. When he died it was torn out. I was bleeding and everyone was giving me flowers and casseroles to fill up the hole.
Did you know you won’t immediately stop asking for them? I was saying things like “Oh, I’ll go get Vic,” or “Let me ask Vic.” Even as we prepared for his funeral, I was about to ask Vic if he wanted something. Something for his own fucking funeral.
My head was in my hands and the pretty black dress Lissie had lent me was getting wet and muddy; it was probably worth thousands too. I felt their hands on me, trying to comfort me, but it wasn’t right. It didn’t fit. That wasn’t what was supposed to go inside the hole.
We had to finish, though. We had to finish this funeral.
I stood up and flung a hand at the preacher, because fuck that guy. Wasn’t this his job? Why was he acting like I was the first person to ever mourn in front of him?
He couldn’t have had much time left in his sermon, but that place I lived in now, you know the one, the shadow place? Well, that place existed beyond time, so I felt their small worried glances at my now torn up knees. I saw the hurried glances between them as they wondered at my red eyes filling up with unshed tears. I saw all of that, and I felt it spread on and on.
Then the preacher closed his book, and suddenly time was too fucking short. The sound was like a judge’s mallet when the pages kissed. I should have been better prepared, I fucking know that okay? Obviously a funeral ends. I’m not living in a Tim Burton film where the whole thing is some weird homage to a funeral. I get it.
Still, when he closed the book, and the guards raised the guns, and the casket started to lower, the last bit of me snapped. I screamed and flung myself on the casket. Don’t try and ask me why. Reason had left the building. I was a sobbing, heaving, mess off loss.
I knew Vic wasn’t inside the coffin
He was ashes.
Well what the fuck ever. All I had left was inside the coffin. All I had left were squished orchids. All I had left was about to disappear beneath six feet of earth.
I wasn’t ready. I could never be ready. Life didn’t even prepare you for the l
iving, much less when the living ended up dead…
Lissie, Zoe, Eli, and Grace all grabbed me by my feet, my hands, my waist—anything, basically, and pulled me off the casket. I didn’t fight. My fight had died with the man in the box. I fell back into them, limp and broken, my eyes speaking the words my tongue refused to acknowledge: I wanted to be inside the box.
I should never have left.
I should have died with him.
There was something supernatural about watching my own funeral. But now, standing on the loose dirt of my own grave, I felt more alive than ever. Cocking my head to the side, I read my headstone. It protruded from the ground almost ostentatiously.
Vic Wall
Beloved Lover, Brother, Friend
Grace must have picked that out. I couldn’t imagine Lennox choosing something so…clean. No, that wasn’t the right word. Formal wasn’t the right word either. It was traditional, which Lenny wasn’t.
I tilted my head more, scrutinizing. “Vic Wall” was etched in big, bold letters. My name taunted me from the grave.
“We might have to live with a goddamn chink because your cunt is broken, but don’t mean I have to call him that. He’s Vic. It’s a good, strong American name.”
I shook my head at the memory and turned to walk away. There was no way for any of them to know I wasn’t born “Vic.” And I guess I’d never thought about who I would die as until it was glaring at me, etched in granite.
It didn’t matter, either way.
My feet sunk into the wet grass as I walked farther from my grave. Seeing my headstone was a risk not worth taking, but I thought seeing my etched name might cement my determination. The funeral had made me waver and question what I’d done. They even had the honor guard. It was more than I expected…more than I deserved.
I remembered when the man had opened his book, Lenny kept her eyes up. When Lissie had gently touched her, trying to get her attention, she still kept her eyes on the sky. Her lips started to move, but it was impossible to hear what she was saying from where I stood. By the way the preacher’s eyes had narrowed with contempt, it wasn’t good.
Come To Me (Owned Book 3) Page 12