“You know I have been belting myself into cars for nearly a decade and a half now. You don’t have to check my work,” I teased.
“I know. Just makes me feel better to know your safe.”
“Mini-Oz, play Classic Old School playlist,” Tolliver said.
“Mini-Oz reaches to the car?” It made sense. If my health tracker worked off my cell phone, I guess Mini-Oz really could go anywhere. I still wore the bright pink wristband everywhere, and I had no doubt that Oz was really at home fine tuning it so that he would know if I so much as sneezed. I was going to have to start taking it off when I got...frisky. Otherwise, we’d have a repeat of the first night with Tolliver and Sam. As much as I adored the guys, I didn’t need an audience every time I got naked and did the horizontal Merengue.
Mama Cass started crooning quietly about dreaming a little dream, and I relaxed into the plush leather, my head resting against Sam’s chest as he tucked me into his side.
“Sam?”
“Mm?”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
He kissed my hair. “You can ask me anything.”
“How did you get sentenced to hell?”
Wow, Cady. You can’t just ask someone how they got damned. Ace had been quiet the last day or two, and hearing her snark made something unclench inside me.
How else will I ever find out? Besides, after Oz’s accidental pyro story, pretty sure nothing could surprise me now.
Ace scoffed. Still so naive.
“I murdered my family to become chieftain of my clan.”
Well, that was one point to Ace. “What?”
“I was the third son of a war chief of a Viking clan. I was never going to inherit the mantle. I wanted it. I had all the men of my family killed in one night, most of them had their throats slit in their beds. I fought my father fair and square. His last words to me were of pride.”
I pulled away. “Dude that is seriously fucked.”
Sam gave me a sad smile. Pulling away would have stung, but I couldn't make myself cuddle back into his arms right now.
“You have to remember, Arcadia, this was a different time. A different culture. A culture of barbarity cloaked in the facade of civility. This was how generations of Chieftains had gotten their positions for centuries before me. It is how chieftains were expected to die. Indeed, my own cousin killed me not too long after I took the mantle. He killed my children, my wife. He murdered my brothers’ wives and children's, the ones that I had spared when I took the lives of their fathers. That was nearly unheard of; you don’t spare a future adversary.”
“Wow.” I was stunned. I looked at Sam, with his clear blue eyes the color of icebergs in the sun, and saw him in a whole new light. Gone was the model. In his place was a Viking. Someone who had once been coated in the blood of his enemies, as well as his family.
“When was this?”
“Around the same time as Lux.”
“What about you?” I asked Tolliver. Surely, his couldn’t be as barbaric.
He hesitated for a long moment. If anyone would hold back, it was Tolliver.
But eventually he cleared his threat and began.
“I was born in Brazil to a rich plantation owner, powerful and a leading proponent of the slavery movement. They would lure the Japanese people to Brazil with promises of a better life, and then tricked them into slavery. They had no other options. My mother was one of the Japanese slaves that my father had raped. His own wife was barren, so he took me from my mother at birth and groomed me as heir. After he died, he left the plantation to me, and I could have emancipated them all. Or even paid them for their labor. I was filthy rich. Yet I still subjugated my own people for profit. My own mother, though she was never allowed to raise me, worked my fields until she could no longer stand straight. I worked some of them to death in my fields. They eventually overthrew me, cut off my head with a katana. My mother watched emotionlessly.”
His jaw was tense. As was Sam’s. They were waiting for my rejection. Every part of my morality rebelled against their stories. The sheer horror of it.
They were sentenced to hell. Did you think it was because they kicked a puppy?
Ace had a point, but Oz’s story had kind of lulled me into believing that perhaps they were all semi-innocent bystanders to their sins. Even Valery’s story was a sin of omission. Of selfishness. He didn’t starve his fiefdom out of cruelty, but rather self-absorption. I had even forgiven Lux for his sins, and he’d murdered thousands on the order of his general.
But Sam had willingly, of his own volition, murdered his kin. Tolliver had knowingly enslaved his own people and worked them to death. There was no escape from the culpability there.
But they had changed. Hell had changed them. I was changing them. They were not the same people they were in their former lives.
I repeated this to myself, as I wrapped my fingers in Sam’s, and leaned forward to squeeze Tolliver’s bicep.
“It's a lot to process. Who you were is not as important to me as who you are now.”
Sam nodded, but turned to look out the window, and Tolliver’s jaw tensed periodically, but he too was silent. Although, eventually Sam cuddled me back into his side, he didn’t speak, too lost in memories.
Chapter Nine
We reached farming country after a couple of hours. “Turn up here. At the Turner’s Dairy sign.”
Tolliver turned down a dirt road.
“Who lives out here?”
“Ewan and Ethel Turner. Fourth generation farmers. They had three healthy, strong sons who would take over the farm when they retired. But then 9/11 happened, and all three sons enlisted. Two died in Iraq. One was critically wounded and lost a leg and an arm. Now Ewan and Ethel are in their late seventies, and the farm is about to go under, like so many other farms around the area. Years of profit have been eaten away by medical bills. The house has been re-mortgaged. The dairy employs most of the young people in this town. If it went under, it would be catastrophic to the town and its economy. Lieutenant Austin Turner can’t afford correct fitting prosthetics, and his life is a shadow of its former self. We can do a lot of good here, if we can convince them to accept our help. They are proud people.”
Tolliver threw his phone over his shoulder to Sam. “Call Eli and get the name of the best prosthetics specialist in the country. Then call that guy and get the son an appointment. Then call the lawyer and see if we can’t buy their debt from the bank.”
“Say what now?” Sam asked. Tolliver sighed. “Just do the Eli part, I’ll handle the business while I’m waiting for you two.”
We drove through a gate with a Turners Dairy sign on the front, and pulled up in front of a ranch style house.
Sam and I slid from the back of the car, just as the Turners walked out onto the porch.
“Can we help you?” Ewan Turner asked, eyeing Sam's ninja mask with something between suspicion and humor.
“I hope we can help you.”
“I've heard about these guys. They go around handing out money, hoping to get famous probably.” The younger Turner sounded bitter. A bitterness that can only come from the knowledge that life does not care about you and your feelings. I knew that kind of bitterness. I'd fought it back when I was a teen, and again when my parents died. If it hadn't been for Ace giving me a proverbial ass kicking, I probably would have wallowed in it forever.
You're welcome, by the way.
I rolled my eyes. Don't expect self-deprecation from a fallen angel.
Sam slid off the hood of his outfit, revealing his face. All the moment was missing was dramatic keyboard music.
Ethel patted her sons arm. “I don’t think he's doing it for the fame, Austin dear. Even I know who this man is. Though he is slightly harder to recognize fully clothed.”
Oh, Ethel is a salty one. I like her already. I had to agree with Ace.
Ewan shook his head at his wife bemusedly. “What can we do for you folks today?”
“We are,
uh, looking to invest in the Connecticut dairy industry, and we were hoping that you might be open to a little cash injection for a small stake in the company.”
“How small?”
“Uh, like one cow worth? But I get to name it.” I was totally going to name the cow ‘The Ozinator’. Ace groaned.
“They want to give us charity, Pa.” Austin said, still eyeing us suspiciously. He subconsciously rubbed his thigh where his prosthesis was strapped to his leg.
“Oh, now there are people much more hard done by then us. You should use you money to help some of them.”
Tolliver slid out of the car and walked over.
“Oh my, it's the Armani model too. I need to call Cathy and Sue. They will never believe I had two boys from those billboards in Hartford on my farm.” I was surprised that Hartford had Armani billboards.
Sam gave her his most winning smile. He should probably turn it down a notch or he was going to give Ethel a heart attack. “We’d prefer you didn’t, Ma’am. Our identities are meant to be a secret. We don’t want the press. We just want to help people and be on our way.”
“Good afternoon Gentlemen, Ma’am.” Tolliver gave a half bow. Sometimes his old world manners reared their head. “I’ve been discussing with my lawyers, and we believe it would be best if perhaps we entered into a co-operative arrangement. You would be in charge, and the company would remain in your name. You would continue to have full ownership of your farm. We would just like first rights to part of your product and the option to add more companies to the co-operative.”
I frowned. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, but I just had to trust that he wasn’t screwing these hard working people over.
“What percentage of the profit would they receive?” Austin asked,
“While they are the only farm in the cooperative, they will get 100% of the profit, minus lawyer’s fees. When more businesses are added to the cooperative, profit distribution can be agreed upon as they see fit, but I would suggest by production levels and sales percentages.”
Austin nodded. “Seems fair. Let’s go inside and talk it over.”
Tolliver nodded, and we all followed Austin into the house, to the formal living room, where overstuffed lounges and threadbare rugs fought with photo frames and knick knacks.
I walked past a photo of three boys, barely out of their teens, in their uniforms, smiling widely for the camera. Such a waste.
I sat down on a large sofa between Tolliver and Sam.
“Would you like some coffee? I just made cake?”
I smiled politely. “No, thank you. We have a picnic in the car for the way home. Wouldn’t want to spoil my appetite for this beautiful countryside you have around here.”
Tolliver steepled his fingers. “I have one condition.”
Austin frowned. “Let’s hear it.”
“You go and see the prosthetic specialist that owes me a favor. Your parents deserve to enjoy their retirement, and this place will need proper hands on management. You can’t do that in the poor quality prosthetics that the VA has given you. I’ll pay, and consider it an investment in the co-op.”
Austin raised an eyebrow. Tolliver's roundabout talking wasn’t fooling him. He looked set to decline.
“Take the offer. Only a fool turns down free medical care, especially when so many people are relying on him. If you won’t accept the offer for yourself, do it for your folks and this town. Your suffering doesn't make their deaths any more meaningful,” I told him.
“What would you know of it?” Austin snapped, hurt making him angry.
“I know more than you think.”
Ethel looked between Sam and Tolliver's faces, understanding lightening her expression. “Oh dear. That's… I’m so sorry dear.”
I smiled at the lovely old woman. “It is what it is. Can’t change the way things are. You just have to believe that things will get better.”
Both Ewan and his son looked confused and Ethel rolled her eyes. “Men are so dense sometimes. You would think they'd get more wise with age, but I can promise you that isn't the case. She's dying, you numpties. Look at their faces. You would think that if anyone could recognize devastation, it would be us”
Confusion gave way to embarrassment on their faces, finally to settle on pity, as it always did. My guys just looked sad. I squeezed their hands three times. It would all be okay.
“Actually Ethel, I think I might take that coffee after all.”
We spent the afternoon talking and laughing with the Turners. I met my one cow, the Ozinator, and the name didn’t suit her at all. She had big, dark, shiny eyes, and she chewed so slowly that I thought the hay would fall from her mouth. She wasn’t likely to stomp anyone into the ground, though I still took a photo and sent it to Oz.
By the time we finished the tour of the plant, I was dead on my feet.
Ethel hugged me tight as we left. “You stay strong, okay? God doesn’t give us more than he thinks we can handle.”
I wasn't so sure about that, so I hugged the old woman back just as tightly. She smelled like violets.
Austin smiled and shook my hand. He looked years younger, and so much more handsome when he smiled, that I was a little dumbstruck. Tolliver gave him a cool look and hustled me into the car. Apparently his ability to share only extended to his fellow Sins.
I waved out the window as we drove off in a cloud of dust.
“Do you think they realize you essentially just gave them the money? That there'll never be another member of the co-operative?” I asked Tolliver sleepily.
“Never say never, Arcadia. But yes, Austin at least knew what we were doing, but it was a solution that wouldn't prick his pride too much and kept everyone happy. I think he would do just about anything to make his family happy again.”
I knew the feeling. A deep sense of satisfaction filled my soul. Tolliver would be fine. So would Sam. I’d done enough. I wouldn't be there every step of the way, and I would never see what happens at the end, but I’d set them on the right path at least.
“Don't forget our picnic,” I told Tolliver. I'd never been on a picnic in the country before. The closest I'd come was hotdogs in Central Park.
We pulled over at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, which had a barely used pathway from the car park down into a heavily treed area. Sam grabbed the cooler filled with lunch, well afternoon tea now, and Tolliver grabbed the picnic rug from the back. Then he tucked my arm in his and we walked down the track.
It was beautiful. So quiet and peaceful. There wasn't the sound of city traffic that was a constant buzz in the back of your head. There weren't any people yelling, or construction sounds, or the smell of dumpsters and pollution. It was fresh and pure.
We walked fifty feet before we heard a stream and the track dropped steeply, so that we had to climb down an embankment to continue. Tolliver went down first, his feet nimble like a mountain goat. He reached up and wrapped his large hands around my waist, lifting me down. Sam scrambled down after us, a little less gracefully. The track turned sharply left, and there through a thick stand of trees was the stream and the world's most perfect picnic spot.
A huge tree spread out its branches over the banks of a small stream that was not even six feet across. Tolliver laid down the blanket under the canopy of the tree, out of the harsh late afternoon sun. I took off my shoes, and sat on the edge of the embankment, my toes only just touching the surface of the stream. Sam unpacked the cooler as Tolliver came to sit beside me, his pants rolled up his calves.
“It's beautiful out here,” I said inanely, but it was true. There was a peaceful calmness out here that I could never achieve in NYC, even in the luxury of our home. It was easy to lay out here and pretend that we were the only three people in the world, and that life was some idyllic painting.
“Come and eat before the ants beat you too it,” Sam called, and I walked hand in hand with Tolliver back to the rug.
If spending the day in the company of the Turners had taught me
anything, it was that life was too short to stew on past mistakes and what-ifs. I'd come to terms with the guys pasts eventually, and until that point I was only going to judge them on how they were now, not how they were in another life, and in Sam’s case thousands of years ago, before being sent to hell.
“What was hell like?”
Sam groaned. “Geez Cady-Lady, you aren't holding back today, are you?”
I shrugged. “My time frame to ease the answers out of you just got reduced. I don't have time to go gently-gently anymore.”
Tolliver was tense, but he answered. “Worse than you could ever imagine. But the longer we are away, the more the particulars fade from our memories. Now you just get this crawling feeling under your skin when you think about it. Like thousands of ants are trying to burrow into your bones. Your body is instantly on high alert from muscle memory of the trauma. But I know, with utter conviction that I never, ever want to go back.” He had become more agitated as he explained.
I ran my hand over his hair, trying to sooth the ravages of memory.
“I’m sorry.” I grabbed a strawberry from the container in the center of the rug and held it to his lips. “No more hard questions today, I promise.”
Tolliver took the berry between his teeth a bit down, making strawberry juice run down my fingers. He grabbed the stem of the strawberry from my fingers and threw it over his shoulder, then he took my fingers, still dripping with strawberry juice, and sucked them into his mouth. His eyes held fiery heat, and as my fingers popped out of his mouth with a loud smack, I crawled across the rug towards him and into his lap, wrapping my legs around his back. He kissed my temple, my cheek, the corner of my mouth before plunging his tongue between my lips. My fingers curled into his hair as he branded my mouth with his own.
A heavy sigh behind us made me look over my shoulder at Sam, who was packing the food back into the cooler.
“We’ll want this after we’re done,” he grinned, leaving the strawberries and chocolate dipping sauce out. Tolliver grabbed my jaw, turning me back towards his lips, kissing me again, his hands sliding up under my shirt to wrap around my ribs, his thumbs venturing up to rub over my nipples through my bra.
The Redeemable: Part Two Page 7