“Can I go now?” the elemental asked.
I reached out and broke the circle. It wasn’t the kindest way to get rid of a spirit, since it basically sucked them back to the spirit world like they were a dust bunny in the path of an oncoming vacuum, but I wasn’t really feeling that charitable myself.
Once the spirit was gone, I sat there, on my knees, staring at the spot where Cash had been. I knew what he’d done, what he’d tried to do, and I still felt something that I couldn’t explain. There was an emptiness set in the middle of my chest. I looked down at my hands, stained with my blood, and more importantly, Cash’s. His blood was literally on my hands.
The tears came in a torrent. I knew that I had irrevocably changed into something worse than I was, that I was completely and utterly different. Stained, for lack of a better word.
I finally stood, which in and of itself was a feat, and stumbled over to my truck. I grabbed the bottle of rum from my bag, opened it with my teeth, and turned the bottle towards the heavens. I didn’t care that it burnt, that it turned my stomach with each swallow, I wanted it. No, I needed it. I needed it to fill that empty space in my gut.
I got a quarter of the way through the bottle before I grabbed my phone. I stared at it for a moment, my vision blurred, before I finally dialed Sam. He answered on the first ring. He’s that kind of guy.
I didn’t so much as say hello as let out a choked, aching sob.
“Jonah,” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t, at least not yet. I just sat there, making weak, tear-filled gasps and whines into the phone.
“Jonah, talk to me, what is it.”
“I need help,” I said, finally getting myself under some semblance of control.
“What is it? What happened?”
“I did something, Sam. I did something really bad.”
“Jonah, what is it? You’re not making any sense.”
“Come get me,” I said.
“Come get you? Where are you? What happened?”
“I don’t know where I am. I just, I need help.”
“Okay, okay. No problem. How do I find you?”
“My phone, find my phone,” I said.
“Alright. I’m on my way,” Sam said. “Stay put.”
He hung up the phone. I sat down on the ground, next to my truck, bottle in one hand, phone still in the other. I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, but when I saw headlights I was too drunk to be nervous. The bottle was on the ground beside me, empty for quite some time at this point. I was past the point of self-control, and I could see spirits drifting through the air, threads of power coursing through the ground, and a moon that far dwarfed the one most humans were accustomed to seeing. The headlights got closer, stopping a few feet behind my car. Sam appeared a moment later, in silhouette, rushing over towards me.
“Jonah,” he said, then looked me over. “Jesus Christ, you’re covered in blood. What the hell happened?”
I slurred something unintelligible.
Sam looked from me to the bottle, picked it up and shook his head.
“Should I assume this was full?”
“Mostly?” I said, which took a surprising amount of concentration to make coherent.
“I need to get you to a hospital. You’ve probably got alcohol poisoning at this point.”
“No,” I said, flailing weakly. “No.”
“Jonah,” Sam protested.
“No!” I yelled.
Sam sighed.
“Fine, alright. No hospital. C’mon, get up,” he said, wedging an arm under my shoulder. At this point, nothing hurt. Despite being barely five feet and some change, Sam had muscle to spare. He lifted me up with minimal effort and led me to the back seat of his car, a newer model black Japanese sedan, and helped me in. After that everything started spinning and then I said “hello” to darkness, my old friend.
Chapter 25
When I woke up on the couch at Sam’s gym I was in an absolutely bountiful smorgasbord of aches and pains. I’d managed to drink most of them away the night before, to the point that my newest miseries had subsided by the time Sam had picked me up. Now, they’d gotten together, planned an assault, and were in the process of mounting one hell of an offensive. My face stung from the stitches, a relatively minor inconvenience. Each breath felt tight and blossomed as a dull ache across my chest and back. My head hurt the most, a sharp, thudding pain that rested just behind my eyes. I was pretty sure I’d pulled more than a few muscles in my shoulder when I’d beaten…
No.
I was NOT going to think about that.
I wasn’t sure what time it was, and there weren’t any windows to speak of. My internal clock said it was morning, maybe noon, but there was no telling. I heard music. Michael Jackson, actually. “Billie Jean,” no, “Smooth Criminal.” It was turned down low.
When I opened my eyes, which took way more effort than I’d expected, given the hangover I’d acquired, I realized two things. First, I was under about six blankets, the weight of which threatened to crush me. Second, Sam was sitting across from me on the small stools he usually kept near the corners of the boxing ring. He looked tired, his face drawn, concern tugging at his features.
“Morning sunshine,” he said, grabbing a water bottle off the floor and passing it to me.
I didn’t bother sitting up. I didn’t think I could. I opened the bottle weakly, and took a sip. The water was pure liquid nirvana, cool, clean. It washed away the dryness that, until now, I hadn’t even realized had coated my mouth and throat.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Yep,” Sam said, taking a slow breath, seeming to steel himself. “You were in some sad shape, Jonah.”
“Judging by how I feel, I can only imagine.”
“You want to tell me why I picked you up in the middle of nowhere, pissing on yourself drunk and covered in blood?”
“I couldn’t have been that bad,” I mumbled.
“No. You literally pissed on yourself. You were that bad,” Sam stated, as matter of fact. “Then you threw up in the back of my car.”
“Ouch. Sorry,” I said.
“Six times. I seriously debated taking you to the hospital. Every time I mentioned it, you managed to gain enough clarity to call me an asshole and tell me, and I quote, ‘Fuck you, you fucking fuck stick. I’m not going to any goddamn hospital. Take me and I’ll piss on your cat.’”
“You don’t even own a cat,” I said.
“I’m aware.”
“I, uh. Wow. I really am sorry.”
“Yeah, you’re going to be. You called me during date night.”
I winced.
“Andy’s fit to kill the both of us. I can’t say I blame him,” Sam continued.
“Well, that’s just stellar.”
“No, it’s really not,” Sam said, matter of fact. “I changed your dressings, wrapped up your ribs. A few are probably broken. I’m gonna stand by my recommendation of a hospital.”
“Yeah, I’ll pass.”
“So what happened?”
I closed my eyes, turning my head away from Sam. I didn’t want to talk about it. I knew I owed him an explanation, but just thinking about what I’d done sent my stomach wheeling towards an already perilous tipping point and woke up that same empty, stained feeling.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, finally, my voice barely a whisper.
I shook my head, fighting back tears. After a moment, I sat up. This, of course, ignited a whole new plethora of discomforts, from new and exciting aches and pains to a roiling, cold nausea.
“Sam. I’d like to talk to my boy, if that’s alright,” came a voice from the far end of the room.
“Yeah, sure,” Sam said and stood, walking to get his coat off one of the corner posts of the boxing ring.
I turned and saw my father. Behind him, Melly sat on the edge of the ring.
“I appreciate you picking him up and I’m sorry about your car,” my fa
ther said.
“Nothing to be sorry about. That’s what friends do,” Sam said, throwing his jacket on. “Mind helping me get his truck?” he asked Melly.
“Not like I have anything better to do,” she said. The two of them both turned, heading out.
My father sat down on the stool across from me and for a long time, just stared at me. I couldn’t read what he was thinking, but the way he looked at me, the mixture of sadness, of desperation, and of love, made me feel like I was a kid again, when I couldn’t stop repeating the lines I’d heard on a TV show, using them like some kind of mantra to keep myself focused under the onslaught of seeing two worlds simultaneously. It was the look he gave me when he knew it wasn’t me making me do the things I did, it was something else, something outside of my control.
“What are you doing here,” I asked, finally breaking the silence.
“Sam called me. Told me you were in a bad sort.”
“I’m alright,” I lied.
“Piss drunk, covered in blood, puking and pissing all over yourself? Sounds to me like a far cry from alright, Jonah.”
“Pop—”
“Don’t Pop me, Jonah. You’re in some shit. That much is obvious,” my old man said, his voice calm and even.
“I can handle it.”
“Yeah? That why I have to play babysitter for that poor girl out there? Why I had to stitch you up after almost shooting one of Hank Carver’s sons in my kitchen?”
“What happened to her isn’t my fault,” I said.
“Yeah? But she called you, you got involved. How’d you meet her, Jonah? She’s the bartender at the Carvers’ bar, ain’t she? That says to me at the very least, you been going down there enough to make pals. Judging from the shape you’re in most of the time when I see you, if I see you nowadays, you’re frequenting that establishment at least semi-regular. I’m guessing a handful of others, too.”
“Not this again,” I said.
“Was I done talking?” my father asked. This time the dam broke and the emotion that came through was pure frustration.
“No,” I said, petulant.
“That’s what I thought. Now, thing is, most folks don’t go to the Poor Confederate because they want to tie one on. They go because they’re into no good. So, you want to tell me what kind of trouble you’re in?”
“Look—” I started to say.
He cut me off.
“The next words out of your mouth better be truth, or I’m going to barbecue your ass in molasses, you hear me?”
I opened my mouth to say something.
“Don’t you lie to me, Jonah. Don’t. I’m not playing around with you on this.”
I sighed, deflated.
“Your mother, after your sister passed, she kept secrets. She kept secrets right up until she left. I ain’t gonna let you drown in that too, you understand me? Now, start talking.”
I closed my eyes, trying to think past the thudding inside my skull. I honestly believed my father wanted to help. That he’d do whatever it was in his power that he could to help me. I just wasn’t sure I could tell him something like this. I wasn’t sure I could handle the look of disappointment, of disgust. Of all people in the world, it was his disapproval I couldn’t bear. I was already a disappointment, I knew that much. If I told him, I was going far past the point of no return. Then again, if I didn’t, I would be, in a lot of ways, like my mother. I would be abandoning him the same way she had after my sister’s suicide.
“I did something bad, Pop,” I said, finally.
“Alright?”
“No, real bad.”
“So, enough with the prelude. Just tell me.”
The tears came again, harder this time. Within seconds, any semblance of restrained emotion was gone, and I was doubled over, my hands over my face. My father sat down on the couch next to me and put a hand on my shoulder. That was enough, that one gesture, as simple as it was, spoke more in that moment than any words he could’ve said to me.
“I killed him. I killed that son of a bitch,” I admitted. “I killed him, Pop. I had to. He was going to set me on fire. Hurt you, Melly. I had to.”
“Wait, what?”
“I had to do it, Pop.”
My father shook his head, trying to take in what I was saying.
“Slow down. Tell me what happened.”
I laid the whole story out for him, at least the parts he needed to hear. I started all the way at the beginning, with the money I’d borrowed from the Carvers to fix his shop. I told him about the parking lot and the beating they’d given me. I told him how, after we’d argued on the porch, I’d left and Cash had jumped me outside my house and drug me out to a field with the intention of turning me into a briquette. I told him about killing Cash and burying him under a dirt road out in the middle of nowhere.
When I’d finished, my father squeezed my shoulder again, then stood. He paced back and forth for a few minutes while I sat there, tears drying on my cheek. I didn’t feel any better. I didn’t feel any worse. I just felt that I’d become something different, something I wasn’t wholly okay with in the slightest.
“Damn it, Jonah,” he said. “Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it.”
“Pop, I—”
My father stood up, running his hands through his hair and started walking. He’d go a few steps then turn, pacing back and forth while his brain worked. I’d seen him do this a million times. Usually when I screwed things up. I’d learned a long time ago it was best to let my old man pace and keep my mouth shut until he settled down. After a few minutes, he seemed to deflate, the anger draining out of him.
“Pop?” I asked finally, after watching him pace.
“You did what you had to do,” he said finally, “You didn’t have a choice.” My father’s voice held a weary resignation that I’d never heard before. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself every bit as much as he was trying to convince me. “I don’t like it. I get it, but…damn, son. The Carvers aren’t going to take this light in the slightest.”
I hadn’t really been expecting that. When he sat down on the couch beside me, he did it with a stare so intense that it brokered no room for argument or comment.
“Listen to me, and listen good. This is the last you speak of this; you understand me?”
“Uh, I—”
“Do. You. Understand?” he asked, enunciating each word sharply. “Never a word.”
“Yes, I get it.”
“Good. Now, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m gonna go talk to Hank Carver and get you time to get this straight. I don’t care how you do it, but you fix this mess. Anyone asks you, you ain’t seen that Carver boy since he was at our house. That’s a mess we can’t clean up. There’s going to be hell to pay. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they won’t put the two and two together to get Jonah.”
“I get it,” I said.
“I don’t think you do, but that’s not important. Once you get ahead of this, I want you to pack a bag.”
“What?”
“Pack a bag, because I’m slapping your ass in rehab.”
“You’re what?” I asked.
“You heard me. I’m putting you in rehab. God knows you need it, and this will get you off the Carvers’ radar until I clean this damned mess up.”
“That’s ridiculous. I don’t need rehab.”
“Yeah? Let me ask you something? You think Gretchen were to see you like this, she’d be happy with what she saw?” my father asked, and instantly I felt barely more than a few inches tall. The whole reason my father was here, alive and reaming me a new one, was because of Gretchen. Shamans, by their nature, were healers. My father had had lung cancer. He hadn’t known it at the time. She took it from him, pulled it into herself and saved him. A few months later, I was holding her hand when, after chemo, losing part of a lung, she just couldn’t fight anymore.
I opened my mouth to say something and my father gave me a look that set my blood frigid.
“Try and ar
gue with me,” he said, finally. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
I knew that there wasn’t any argument I could wage that would end up with me being the victor of this situation. A part of me also knew he wasn’t wrong.
Outside, I heard the familiar rumble of my truck. My father didn’t say a word. He simply stood, and marched off towards the door, throwing it open. Sam came in a second later, followed by Melly. Sam cast a glance over his shoulder as my father passed and then tossed me my keys. They hit me in the chest and fell on the floor.
“I taped some plastic over the window.”
I stood, albeit weakly, and realized I was wearing a pair of Sam’s pajama pants. They were too small, too tight, red, covered with little palm trees, and left a good four inches of my calves exposed.
“Your old man brought a change of clothes. I’ll get them for you. Your phone was dead, it’s on the charger in your truck,” Sam said. “I think you have a cane somewhere around here, too.”
Chapter 26
I said my goodbyes to Sam and Melly, my mind wrestling with everything my father said as I walked outside to my truck. He was right, of course, getting me out of here for a little while would put me out of mind. Maybe the Carvers would forget about me, at least enough that they wouldn’t come asking questions about Cash. Still, I’d seen my father put down his fair share of the sauce, and he wanted me to go to rehab. It wasn’t fair and it sure as hell wasn’t his call, nor his place to start passing that kind of judgment.
Sam had taped clear plastic over the window Cash shattered, which was kind enough. It would keep the wind and the rain out, but I couldn’t see a damn thing through it. I checked under the seat and found my bag where I’d left it, everything still intact. I scooped my phone up off the seat, disconnected it from the spiraled cord and turned it on. I grabbed a few sips from my emergency flask in the glovebox while I waited for the fun dancing logos, the main screen popped up…along with seventeen voice mails. Every last one of them from Lysone, save for one from Gus. I listened to that one first.
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