by Tillie Cole
I groaned as I managed to thrust myself back to lie on the bed. I stayed still, holding my breath, until the room fell back into focus. I felt drained and sick and every part of me ached. I was thirsty, and when I looked at the table beside me there was a full glass of water and two pills waiting for me. AK had been giving them to me throughout the day. They helped some, but not enough.
Nothing would be enough.
I concentrated on moving my limbs as I brought myself to a sitting position. I took the pills, drained the glass and realized I needed the bathroom. It took me a full minute to convince myself to move. There was no sign of AK as I exited the bedroom and went down the hall. I used the bathroom, then looked in the mirror above the sink. Dark circles ringed under my eyes. My cheeks were sallow and gray.
I looked a mess.
I had to turn away when a sudden grip of emotion took hold of my heart. Who was this woman?
I had no idea anymore.
I walked slowly into the kitchen, my body protesting with each step. I filled another glass of water, and when I turned, caught the orange glow from a fire outside. I did not want to sleep any more, and I craved fresh air about as much as I craved another drink, so I went outside. AK was sitting on a chair next to the fire pit. The flames were high and the moon was bright, casting a glow around AK, who was staring, lost in thought, at the crackling burning wood.
I didn’t know whether to approach him or leave him alone. I stood for a moment, debating what I should do. Eventually, I stepped closer, strangely unwilling to turn away.
There was a second chair beside him. Still clutching my glass of water, I sat down, exhaling in relief as my pained body found some semblance of comfort.
Without meeting his eyes, I said, “Thank you for the pills and water.”
AK did not speak. I looked at him to make sure he had heard me and found him watching me. His head was lying back against the chair, and one of his hands was across his chest. He nodded silently.
I studied the small wooden home in this light, and found myself feeling more at peace than I had in a long time. Out here was quiet, and as hard as it was for me to admit, it was free of Lilah. It was free from her scar and worse, seeing her with Grace. Seeing her stroke Grace’s hair and kiss her head. Reading to her as she fell asleep, safe.
It freed me somewhat of the pain I could only calm with bottle of alcohol.
“I like it out here,” I said, searching for a distraction from my thoughts. “Is this home yours?” AK tensed beside me.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. I faced him, confused by the tone of sadness in his voice. AK turned his head away from me, looking out at the trees on the opposite side of the clearing.
“AK,” I eventually dared ask. “Why . . . why am I here?”
As I had noticed he did whenever he was nervous or unsure of broaching a topic, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it, taking a long, deep drag. He blew out the smoke into the warm night. “You weren’t yourself. You needed to get the fuck away from the club so you could stop with all the drinking shit.”
I bit my lip in embarrassment, racking my now more-alert brain to remember something from this past week. I had flashes, intermittent memories. But as I gazed upon AK’s scratched skin, I felt my face drain. Images of me and him in his kitchen came to my head. I was against the wall, and he . . . he . . .
“We fucked,” I said. It was not a question. I knew it to be true. I brought one hand to AK’s face. He kept still, but his dark eyes remained on me as I traced the marks, the prints exactly fitting the size of my hand. “And I hurt you.”
“You weren’t yourself,” he repeated tightly. I thought he would knock my hand away, dispel my touch, but he did not. I stared into his eyes, and he stared back into mine. “Why?” I asked, baffled. “Why would you bring me here? I . . . I am no concern of yours.” I lowered my eyes in an attempt to block my building tears. The lack of alcohol was bringing forth the emotions I had long kept locked away, deep within me. “I am not of consequence to anyone but Lilah, I suppose.” My stomach dropped. “And though I do not remember, I am presuming she did not agree . . . with how I have been lately.”
“I got my reasons, Red,” AK said, using that name he had called me when he saved me from Meister. I faced him again, and something swirled in my stomach at the way he regarded me. His dark eyes were soft and kind. “Question is,” he said, turning his body further toward me, “why did you turn to the drink on the first place?”
My heart beat so quickly I could hear its rhythm in my ears. I took a long drink of water, feeling the flames heat my cheeks. I knew, of course. I knew why I had turned to drink. The pain I had lived with since I was twelve years old. The pain that time had not lessened but had only cut deeper with each passing day.
But I could not tell AK what haunted me most. I could not bear the judgment I would receive for what I allowed to happen.
I was a failure, and now I paid the price.
The drink took that away.
So I bared another regret.
“I watched. I watched them trial her. I watched Judah declare her a heretic of our faith. I watched as she cried and received lashes, as the crowd booed her and called her a whore. Then I . . . then her eyes met with mine.” I sobbed, choking, seeing that day as if I were still living it. “Her eyes met mine, and within them I did not see fear, but resignation.” I only realized that tears were falling down my cheeks when I looked at AK and his image was blurred. I blinked them away and shook my head. AK watched me. Watched me with those same kind dark eyes.
“The day you took me to her . . . ” I closed my eyes and replayed how her scarred face lit with light when her blue eyes fell upon me. “I did not know she had harmed herself, AK. I had no idea that she could not bear children due to her ordeal.” I gripped tightly to the glass in my hands, noting idly that the water was swishing from side to side. I was trembling.
AK clearly noticed. “You don’t gotta tell me no more.”
“No,” I protested. “I . . . I have to.” Now that I had spoken, I could not stop. I needed to say this out loud. “I remember them taking her away when she was a child, AK. I remember crying that my sister, my best friend, had gone. But I believed that what they said of her was true. That her beauty was given by the devil and that she was a blight on our faith. And I believed that the prophet would save her. AK, I remember rejoicing that she would be exorcised. I . . . I was happy.
“But that day, when she was tried and I saw her again, more beautiful than I could have imagined, I saw in her eyes that the Rebekah I knew was gone. That something had robbed her of life, the light I knew she had once possessed.” I cleared my throat. “Then I followed her to Perdition Hill and saw what the men of my faith had done to her.” Pain stabbed at my heart. “I saw this, AK. My baby sister. My best friend as a child. When I saw her at her home, revealing she was scarred and unable to conceive, I could not bear it. I . . .” I took a deep breath. “I found the bottle on Ky’s porch, and it made me forget.” Deeper, darker thoughts threatened to break through, but I pushed them away. I could not cope with them all right now. “I did not want to be aware of anything. The drink took it all away.”
“You were a victim of that fucking cult too, you know?” My head snapped to him in surprise. Something passed over his face, and in a move that shocked me even more than his understanding, he raised his hand and brushed the tears from my cheeks. His palm opened, and I rested my head against it.
“I was not a victim,” I said when my tight throat would allow. “I was complicit I watched my sister get hurt and did nothing. I am no better than those who hurt her.” I was talking of Lilah, but I saw something else in my head. I was complicit in something much, much worse. Something unforgiveable.
“You’re wrong, Red,” he said, and though his words found a corner in my heart to burrow in, I could never believe that they were true.
AK held me as I cried. I did not understand why he did, but I took comfort in his kindnes
s. No man had bestowed on me such grace before. I opened my raw, swollen eyes. AK was still watching me, like a guardian angel.
A devil with angel eyes.
“I’ll tell you one thing, Red. Liquor is a good servant but a fucking cruel master. You keep going the way you were, and you’ll be more than fucked.” He slid his hand from my face, and I instantly missed its warmth. Sitting back in his chair, he gestured to the house. “You’re here to make sure liquor becomes your bitch again. Not the other way around.”
Despite the weakness in my body and the emotions dripping from my heart, I found myself smiling at his strange use of words. Perhaps he found it amusing too—I was convinced that under his handsome dark demeanor, I saw the tug of a smile.
A yawn tore from my mouth, and tiredness crashed into me at full force. “You need sleep,” AK said. I completely agreed. “Sleep as much as you can over the next couple of days. If you sleep you won’t feel as bad.”
“You have dealt with this before?” I asked, and by the subtle flinch of his head, I knew it was true. His expression said it all.
I left AK by the fire. As I entered the house, I glanced through the kitchen window at the mysterious man that had somehow become my compass in this outside world.
His body slumped in his chair, and his head was in his hands. For a minute, I thought I saw his shoulders shaking as though he were breaking apart into tears. But I was sure it was just the trick of the light. AK was a strong man with, I believed, a beautiful heart. I was sure nothing could make him crumble. I wished I had a morsel of his strength.
In minutes, I was in my bed and drifting to sleep. My burdens felt slightly lighter somehow. And there was only one man to thank for that: the devil’s man with angel eyes.
Chapter Fourteen
Phebe
I woke to the now-familiar sounds of birds chirping and the breeze rustling through the leaves. I braced myself for the sickness, for the exhaustion I had felt every day since we had arrived, but I smiled in relief when I felt only muted tones of those pains today.
I had been sleeping on and off for two days. I slept, ate, showered, then slept again. I had purged more than I ever thought possible, and slowly, I began to feel better. I breathed more easily, walked more easily, talked more easily. Everything just felt . . . easier. The weight in my chest a little easier to bear.
I showered and dressed in my favorite one of the dresses AK had packed for me; it was olive green. I ran a comb though my hair, then made my way outside, where I knew AK would be. Since our arrival, he had spent most of his time outside. It was as though he could not stand to be inside this home. Sometimes, when I had awoken to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, I had seen him outside, awake in a chair by the fire pit. Not sleeping again.
He was sitting at a table at the side of the house. A large rusty trunk sat beside him, and several pieces of black metal and plastic were strewn about the tabletop. His hair was pulled back off his face and tied back in a bun. I could not recall ever seeing his face so clearly before.
His concentration was fully on the task as he cleaned the pieces in front of him with excruciatingly meticulous detail. I walked to where he sat and saw him flicker his brown eyes to me. “You look better,” he said and carried on cleaning the small, fat piece of metal in his hands.
“I feel better.” I looked down at the worn trunk at his side. It was full to the brim with shapes I thought I recognized. A thick layer of dust lay over each one.
“Are those guns?” I asked in confusion, wondering why he owned so many.
AK stopped cleaning, but he didn’t meet my eyes. “Yeah.”
“They look old,” I said, wanting him to speak, needing some form of conversation. He had been so quiet and subdued since we arrived here. I did not know him that well, but I sensed that he was not usually this quiet.
AK shrugged. “’Bout fifteen to twenty years old. Some are newer, ’bout seven years.” His expression was tight, as were his muscles. Each one was corded and strained. He was dressed in a black tank and dark jeans. As he recommenced cleaning, I allowed my eyes to scan over his skin. His tattoos were many, boasting many different images. A large depiction of a gun, not too dissimilar to the one he was cleaning, stood out most.
“You like guns?”
AK’s lip hooked up at the corner. “Could say that.”
“Why is that amusing?”
AK laid down the final piece of metal he was cleaning, and then, at a breathtaking speed, proceeded to join all the pieces together. His gaze was intent on his task, his lips pursed. Even when a strand of hair fell from his bun he was not distracted. In what felt like seconds, the random metal fragments that had once littered the tabletop had morphed into a gun. AK pulled something on the top of the device, and it clicked into place. He placed it down on the table and sat back, sighing deeply.
“That was . . . impressive.” I could not help but smile. I had never seen anything like it before.
Seeming suddenly shy, AK lowered his eyes, but I saw the flicker of a smile on his lips. He leaned back in his chair. “You know what this gun is called?”
I shook my head. “I know nothing of guns at all. The prophet’s disciples would carry them in the commune, but the females did not touch them. They are only for men.”
“One”—he held up a finger—“they ain’t just for men. And two, this here gun is called an AK-47.”
AK-47. Realization dawned.
“AK,” I said, feeling as though I had just solved a huge mystery. “You were named after a . . . a gun?” I was confused. Who would do that to a child?
“I have a name, Phebe. AK just became my nickname at the Hangmen. ’Cause I’m good with guns. Styx’s old man saw me shoot, and my road name was born.”
“That is why you have so many guns, because you are good with them?” He nodded, but stiffly, as if that was not the entire story. “So what is your real name?” I asked.
AK shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Xavier. Xavier Charles Deyes.”
“Xavier.” I smiled. I liked how it sounded on my tongue. “I like this name.” I repeated it in my head once again. “I prefer it to the gun name.”
“But I ain’t that person no more, so I go by AK now. Suits who I am now. Xavier died a fucking long time ago.”
“And who are you now?” I asked, confused by the dark turn this conversation had taken.
“A Hangman. And not Xavier fucking Deyes.” AK leaned down, clearly ending the conversation, and took another dusty gun from the trunk. With the same speed as he had put the other together, he pulled it apart. I watched in silence as he made quick work of cleaning it and putting it back together. He placed it down, and I saw that he had a pile of glistening guns on a blanket to the other side of his feet.
“You like to shoot?”
My question stilled his movements. “Yeah.” He cocked his head to the side. “You?”
I laughed. I could not help it. “No,” I sputtered. “I have not even held one in my hands before. I would not even know where to begin.”
AK picked up a gun from the pile beside him and laid it before me. I stared at the large gun and screwed up my face. “I would have no idea how to operate such a thing.”
AK took another gun in his hand. “Then I’ll show you.” He got to his feet, and any awkwardness he had harbored minutes ago seemed to have disappeared. He was confident with the gun in his hand, transformed. He picked up the gun he wanted me to use. “Come with me.”
I rose from my seat and followed his retreating form. AK led the way through the trees, stopping at the edge of a small field. Five trees were in the distance, a brightly painted wooden plaque affixed to each trunk.
“Targets,” AK said, as if reading my mind. “You aim, shoot and try to hit one.”
“Impossible.”
“Not at all, Red. You just need a good teacher.”
I turned and smiled. “Are you that good teacher?” I asked teasingly. His eyes flared at the smile
on my face and humor in my voice.
“Too right I fucking am.” He came closer and took one of my hands. His palm and fingers felt rough in my own. He works hard, I thought. Worked with his hands. A sudden image of those hands on my breasts slammed into my mind. More memories followed—of his fingers cupping my behind as he thrust into me, of his fingers stroking along my core before slipping inside and making me scream.
My cheeks heated at the memory, and when I looked up, AK had closed in until he was just an inch away. His put his finger under my chin and lifted my face. “What’s got you blushing like this, Red?” He stroked that finger over my cheek. “Like all your fucking freckles have joined up.”
Avoiding the truth, I said, “I hate my freckles.”
It was a pathetic attempt at distraction, so I was struck mute when he leaned in even closer, his hot breath over my face, and said, “I fucking love them.”
I swallowed, feeling my nipples harden and my breathing become erratic. “You do?”
“Mm,” he murmured and stepped closer still. I had to stop a moan from escaping my mouth when I felt the bulge in his jeans harden. My breath hitched, and a slow grin tugged on AK’s lips. He brought the gun in between us and placed my hand on top.
I felt dizzy with heat as he stepped back. Hands on my shoulders, he turned me to face the targets on the trees. His mouth came to my ear as he stood at my back. I shivered. “Concentrate,” he said, his voice low.
I closed my eyes. “I . . . I am finding it difficult to do that with you this close.”
AK’s deep, rough laughter split through the air. He did not respond, but instead lifted the gun higher in my hands. He moved one of my hands to the underside of the gun and the other to a switch. “Trigger,” he said, guiding my fingertip along the smooth metal. “Barrel.” He ran his fingers over my hand that was placed on the underside of the rifle. He made sure the bottom of the gun was tucked under my arm. “Hold it firmly, like this.” He ran his hand up to my hair, guiding my head with his palm. Another glimpse of a memory flashed before my eyes. Me between his thighs, kneeling at his manhood. I swallowed, suddenly able to taste him on my tongue.