Lust

by Dukey, Ker

  Robbie. My baby brother…

  Arms and hands grab at me, but I pull away, stumbling back and falling on my ass to the muddy ground beneath me. My heart is going to burst through my chest, tears burn my eyes, and vomit chases my soul, vacating my body.

  “Get him away,” voices shout, but everything is threatening to fade out.

  Mother Nature tears the sky apart above, mourning along with me for what I’ve lost.

  My arms reach out, grasping air. “Robbie,” I choke.

  It’s my fault.

  It’s my fucking fault.

  Nothing is real.

  Nothing feels solid anymore.

  The casket is too small.

  This shouldn’t be happening.

  “In the Arms of the Angels” croons through the cemetery from invisible speakers, and the air feels toxic.

  Like I’m breathing in poison and it’s constricting my lungs, choking me. I wish it would crawl up my throat and strangle me so I don’t have to be here to feel this mourning.

  My father sits, controlled and composed next to me, but his knuckles are white as he squeezes his gloves in his palm. Dark shades frame his face, hiding his sorrow behind them.

  Flower arrangements formed into words mock me from the space separating us from his casket.

  Son.

  Brother.

  I don’t even recognize half the people here. Sobs and sniffles sound all around me, and I want to block them out—claw at the mud to fill my own ears so I don’t have to witness their pain. Hear their grief.

  It’s all too fucking much.

  It’s all because of me.

  When the casket begins to lower into the ground, a sound like I’ve never heard before rips from my mother’s lips, shattering the air and causing every hair follicle on my body to rise.

  If death had a sound, it would be the broken wails of my mother. She’s dying, her broken heart ripping her to shreds for all to witness.

  A chill races over my body, dampening my skin in a sheen of frost.

  “No, no, no! Not my baby! Please! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry Robbie…” she howls, grief wrapping her in its tormenting grip and squeezing the air from her lungs.

  Chest pains signal the cracking of my own ribcage as my heart spills free at her feet.

  This is my fault.

  I’m sorry, Mom.

  The sky darkens as grey clouds roll in as If summoned by her pain. Rain pelts down, throwing my mind back to that night.

  “He didn’t make it, son.”

  Tears burn my eyes as I get to my feet and reach out for my mother, but she slaps my hands away, and any soul left inside me dissipates.

  “Don’t touch me,” she chokes out. “I can’t look at you.”

  I stumble away from her, ignoring the voices of my best friend and family members as they try to console me.

  My feet move, and before I even realize it, I’m running.

  Echoes of people shouting at me fade into the distance as rain pours over their words.

  My legs burn, carrying me in the direction of the main road.

  I don’t know how long I’m pounding the asphalt, but my lungs scream for relief. My boots have torn my feet to shreds, and the pain washes out the reality of why I’m running.

  Focusing on the burn of my limbs, I will the images of my dead brother to vacate my mind.

  The casket lowering into a dirt hole.

  I want to feel numb, please, God.

  The rhythm of my heart is erratic and labored by the time I reach the parking lot of where Robbie took Karate.

  I don’t know why I’m here or how long it took me to get here, but the day is turning to night and the rain is dousing me in its memory of his death.

  I’m choking on the downpour coating my lips as I gasp at the air to cool the lava in my lungs.

  Everything feels suspended in time, like slow motion. My steps become heavy and sluggish as I approach the trees and push through the branches, twigs snapping underfoot.

  When I clear the treeline, my body solidifies.

  The tree is still there. It looks unmarked.

  Tall and flourishing like nothing happened.

  My brother’s life ended, and the world keeps turning, life goes on.

  Water cascades down all around me just like that night, and my mind spins and churns. But it’s not just rain staining cheeks. Sobs wreck and ravage me, buckling my knees and bringing me to the ground.

  Everything fucking hurts. My heart wants to flee, but as punishment for what I’ve done, it can’t escape. It’s trapped inside me to suffer in agony.

  “Rhett?”

  “Rhett?”

  I hear my name, but I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not anymore.

  My features pinch in confusion when lights flash and a car pulls up behind me.

  The headlights illuminate the scene, lighting up everything I want kept in the dark.

  “Robbie.” I heave his name, my stomach roiling, and body losing all ability to hold me upright. The darkness opens its arms to me, and I fall to meet it.

  One Month Later…

  Alcohol and coke burns in my bloodstream, giving me a false sense of courage.

  Cheers ring out from the partygoers below, and the pool blurs my eyesight.

  Holding up the bottle of Jack Daniels I have a brief recollection of being handed by my best friend, Baxter Goddard, aka God, I shout, “One!”

  God, from the pool below, shouts back, “Two!”

  The crowd continues the count, calling out, “Three!”

  I down the contents of the bottle and take a running leap off the roof.

  “Ohhh shit,” rings out from below, but it’s too late. The buzz of liquor hums through my veins, air whooshes past me in a flash, and then I’m hitting water, the cold liquid consuming me on entry.

  A jolt sparks up my ankle, zapping a sharp stab of pain through my foot, and then everyone is cheering as I break the surface. Opening my eyes I float in the shallow end of the water.

  “Oh fuck! There’s blood,” someone cries out, and next thing I know, I’m being dragged out of the pool by God.

  My blood? I think to myself, but the reality of what’s happening doesn’t penetrate my drunken haze.

  “Fuck! Call an ambulance!”

  Laughter cackles from me, rattling my entire body.

  I don’t feel human right now.

  Am I losing my mind?

  A burly white dude with a skinhead and tattoos up his neck kneels in front of me and rubs his chin. “That’s pretty grim, man. The bone pierced through the skin.”

  “You in any pain?” God asks, and I snort, pushing at him playfully.

  “My brother’s killer was given a fucking fine. I’m numb,” I tell him honestly, and then the laughter turns to sorrow, and I can’t stop the tears and desperate hands tugging at my sanity.

  Someone’s knocking on the door to the recesses of my mind, and it’s the old me, begging me to let him take back the wheel.

  Fuck him.

  Slouching back, I close my eyes to shut out all the faces looking down on me.

  A throb begins to pound behind my eyelids, and everything swirls around inside me like a tornado, dragging me under into the calm of the storm.

  It’s too quiet.

  Eerie.

  I’m in the middle of the road. The asphalt is wet, but it’s not raining.

  “Rhett.”

  My name is whispered on the gentle breeze rustling through the trees, and my breath hitches.

  “Where are you, Rhett?”

  My heart rate is elevated, pounding through my chest, beating through the skin.

  Placing a hand there, I search the treeline for someone…for him.

  “Don’t forget about me, Rhett.”

  “Robbie!” I shout.

  “I’m here.”

  My entire frame jolts, and I brush at my ear, certain the whisper echoed there.

  My eyes spring open, and I’m propell
ed into consciousness.

  A dull yellow glow lights the room bringing it into view.

  The shadows shift and move until a figure steps out from them, and I exhale an unsteady breath.

  Emotion, heavy and weighted, pushes down on my chest, and tears burn my eyes.

  My mother comes to stand at the base of the hospital bed I appear to be in.

  “Mom?” I croak.

  My mouth feels like it’s been left open for a week and moths have taken up residence.

  “Do you know how terrifying it is to get a call informing me my son is in the hospital?” she says, shaking her head, exhausted.

  Her brown curly hair matches my own, messy and chaotic, and full lips tug down her pretty features. Red-rimmed eyes pin me to the spot, and guilt cloaks my body like a blanket.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “So am I, Rhett. I can’t stick around and watch you self-destruct. It hurts too much. I’ve lost too much. Suffered more than…” she chokes, but there’s a resolve in her tone that leaves a pit in my stomach.

  My mouth opens, but words fail me.

  Her hand comes to rest on my leg, and it’s then I notice my other leg is suspended in the air, hanging in a sling with a cast from my shin to my toes.

  “You snapped the bone. Ruined your football career before it even took off.”

  She swipes at a stray tear and sniffs, shaking her head again.

  “Your grades are slipping, and the school is worried about you graduating.”

  “I don’t care about any of that shit anymore,” I tell her honestly.

  Her features transform from sorrow to anger, and she rounds the bed, coming to stop right next to my head.

  “You better start caring. You lived, Rhett. You didn’t die that night, Robbie did, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to watch you piss your life away in his memory. You owe him more than that—more than this!” She punctuates each word with a pointed finger to my chest.

  Guilt, rooted all the way to my bone marrow, infects me. It’s like an illness inside me I can’t recover from.

  “That son of a bitch who killed him got a fine—a fucking fine! He was over the limit!” I weep, tears brimming and falling from my eyes. I know it’s selfish of me to put all my anger and pain on her. She must feel a million times worse than I do.

  I hate it. I hate this. I hate him. I hate myself.

  Closing her eyes, she hugs her arms around her waist like she needs to hold herself together or she’ll crumble to dust.

  “The system is full of injustices. Instead of becoming part of the problem, become part of the solution,” she snaps. “Make your life count for something.”

  Without another word, she leaves the room.

  Our house.

  Our town.

  She leaves me.

  2 months later…

  Order pizza. Working late. Dad.

  I snort at the note left on the fridge. It’s the same one that gets reposted at least four nights a week.

  He’s hardly ever home, and that suits me just fine. I swipe the twenty he left and stuff it in my pocket.

  He’s tightened my allowance these days and took my credit card as punishment for renting out an entire hotel for my friends and me after our prom.

  It was worth it. If I can live in the illusion of who I used to be before Robbie’s death, it helps me forget—if only for a moment. I long for those moments where I get a sliver of reprieve from the anger, the guilt, the goddamn sorrow.

  Locking the front door behind me, I jog down the street, keeping my steps light.

  God meets me at the bottom of my road with a gas can and tube in his hand, a cocky smirk on his face.

  “I ain’t doing the sucking,” he informs me, handing me the instruments for tonight’s activity.

  “You always suck,” I gest, taking the jab to the arm he gives me.

  His brown, almond-shaped eyes clash with mine, a mischievous gleam shining through.

  Most people who don’t know us assume we’re related with our similar looks and brotherly bond.

  We’re both tall and athletic, dark hair and eyes, full lips and chiseled jawlines.

  We’re a dynamic duo.

  “Why can’t we just go to the gas station and fill it up?” he moans, looking up and down the street to make sure no one is around to see us syphoning gas from my neighbors’ cars.

  “Because we don’t want to be on any video surveillance that can be used as evidence,” I tell him again. We’ve already been over this a few times.

  Losing my scholarship was crushing once it really sank in.

  My mom’s parting words at the hospital after my stupid accident really struck a cord with me, and since she’s been gone, my old man’s been a thorn in my fucking side.

  Using money for school as a tool to keep me in line.

  Fuck him.

  He’s been flaunting his ass all over town, making a mockery of his marriage and my mom.

  I fucking hate him and can’t wait to be out from under him.

  “You sure you want to do this? I can speak to my dad for you.” God pulls out his cell phone. “This could be a hoax,” he grumbles.

  “Or a test,” I remind him.

  Rumor has it someone has proof that a secret society, The Elite, is in fact a real thing.

  To most, it’s an urban legend, whispered about amongst high schoolers, but to those of us who know it exists know becoming a member brings opportunity, belonging, wealth, knowledge, and status.

  God’s father, Baxter Samuel Goddard IV, or Four, as his friends call him, bears the mark of The Elite in form of a tattoo, yet he’s yet to confirm he’s in fact a member to his own son.

  That’s how secret and elite this society is. However, I fucking know it’s true.

  When I was twelve and staying over at God’s, one of God’s favourite pastimes was daring me to do shit. This one night, he had dared me to sneak into his father’s office and replace the “good” bourbon his father kept in there with cheap stuff he paid some hobo to buy for him in town. God’s always had issues with his father, like I said; we’re cut from the same cloth.

  I was just about to exit Four’s office after completing the dare, when I heard his heavy footfalls approach. I had to find a place to hide. Lucky for me, Four needed a big office to fit his huge ego.

  6 years ago

  I dart across the room my head swivelling in all directions until I notice a slither of space down by the couch along the back wall.

  The door opens and my eyes scan his movements. I can see him clearly, his cell glued to his ear.

  My eyes track him as he goes to the huge self-portrait of himself positioned in the centre of the main wall.

  The artist who created it had missed out a few of Four’s chins but captured the greed always alight in his eyes.

  When he opens the frame like a door it causes my mouth to pop open, a safe is displayed behind it built into the wall.

  That’s freaking cool.

  Punching in numbers it beeps and releases the safe door.

  Reaching inside he pulls out a book of some kind; it has an emblem of a skull covering the front with words that I can’t make out from this distance. With his cell to his ear he frowns and then speaks down the line.

  “With her inheriting all his businesses it’s even more imperative that we recruit her into The Elite.”

  Taking a few heavy breaths he shakes his head slightly before continuing.

  “That was college. She’s made a life for herself since then, maybe we give her a little incentive. I want her name in this book.” He grunts, plonking the book down on his desk and straining his ass into the seat before grabbing a handful of candy from a bowl on his desk, shovelling them into his mouth like he’s never going to get a meal again.

  “I’m leaving this to you, get it done.” He almost chokes through the sugar in his mouth before chucking the phone down.

  Inquisitive by nature my hands become jittery with a n
eed to see this book. It looks like something you’d see in a Jumanji movie, a treasure of some kind.

  Picking up a pen, he flicks through the pages until he finds what he’s looking for and strokes his wrist over the surface, adding ink to the paper.

  Closing the book he strains to stand back up and groans when his knees click under the pressure of his weight. I move further back until I’m flush with the wall. He locks the book back away and waddles past the couch I’m hidden next to and disappears out the room.

  Present.

  It was two years later when I finally got to see the book.

  God’s parents were away on business and my best friend had a bad habit of needing to chase adrenaline highs. Stealing his father’s brand new Bugatti Veyron would give him just that.

  The car cost a cool two million so the keys were kept in Four’s office safe.

  Little did I know God had worked out the combination a year earlier.

  There was a lot of fortune in that safe, but my curiosity was on one thing. That book. “What the fuck you want to look at a book for?” God snorted. I remember his nonchalant shrug as if it was yesterday when I told him to give me a few minutes with it.

  4 Years earlier.

  “Whatever, just hurry up, Jasmine and Angela are waiting for us.” He grins.

  Reaching inside the safe I pull out the book.

  It looks thicker since the last time I saw it, but that could just be because I’m seeing it up close.

  It’s heavy, weighted by the leather and metal woven into the front cover.

  A skull wearing a crown is raised from the surface, I run my fingers over the detail feeling like I’ve found something otherworldly. Secret. Precious.

  Roman numerals adding up to seven sit beneath the skull and words written in a language I can’t read are scrawled beneath them.

  UNICENDUM NATUS

  Opening the book the first page makes my heart stampede.

  Members of

  THE ELITE SEVEN SOCIETY.

  Pages and pages of businesses and familiar names fill the paper.