by Tillie Cole
She looked fucking gorgeous. Bitch was stunning, all freckles and blue eyes.
“AK.” She stepped forward, eyes now on the target. “How . . .? What?” She fought to finish her words. “How did you do that?” She looked down at the gun in my hands, then shook her head suspiciously. “There is something you are not telling me.”
My stomach tightened, and I turned my head away. “Nah, just learned to shoot here as a kid, that’s all. I got good. Got better with the Hangmen.”
I gathered the guns together and headed for the lodge. Phebe followed me as I put the guns away in the trunk, then entered the house. Her hand slid into mine, urging me to stop. Her blue eyes searched my face. “Why can you shoot?” she asked, more firmly this time. I didn’t say shit in response.
She pointed to a cupboard on the other side of the room. “Why is that cupboard locked?” I knew what she was talking about, but I hadn’t even known the bitch had noticed it. “Why are we here in this lodge, AK?” I tried to swallow back the annoyance that was creeping up my throat. I’d seen the bitch through her drinking binge, listened to her tell me about her kid, yet here she was giving me shit?
“Whose boots are by the door?” Her words slammed into my chest. I could feel my walls building back up, pushing the bitch out. She’d broken through, impossibly, but now she was pushing me too far. She might have wanted to bare all her shit out in the open, but that didn’t mean it was time for me to do the same.
“I saw you.” She tightened her grip on my arm. “I saw you cleaning the boots. I saw you hold them to your chest.” Phebe stepped closer. I wanted to move the fuck away, but my legs wouldn’t budge. “I saw you shed tears over them.”
“Leave it,” I warned. My cheek twitched in anger.
“AK, please . . . talk to me,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I . . . I confided in you. Please, confide in me too. I can see the burden you bear.”
Snapping, forced to fly off the fucking edge, I yanked her closer and spat, “Don’t try your fucking temptress shit with me, Red. You ain’t fucking ready for what I’d lay at your feet. You think your tale is bad, you ain’t seen nothing.” I brought her face as close to mine as possible. “So cut the shit and back the fuck off.”
I let go of her arms and grabbed the truck’s keys off the counter. I smashed out of the door, hearing her call my name from behind me. I didn’t stop, couldn’t. I slammed in the truck into drive and pulled out of the cabin. I drove and drove until I reached a store. I bought a shit-ton of food I didn’t need, then got a bottle of Jameson off the top shelf. The cap was off and the liquid running down my throat before I’d even left the store. I sat in my truck, feeling the burn I needed to take off the edge. I laughed with fuck all humor. I’d taken Phebe from drink, but here I was like a fucking pussy, drowning the memories that had increased tenfold since Phebe had told me her story.
That fucking lodge. Those motherfucking boots. The guns, the clothes in the closet . . . that motherfucking locked cupboard.
My cell vibrated in my pocket; I had service now I was away from the lodge.
Tanner.
“Yeah?”
“Finally. Wanted to let you know that Meister’s men know it was us. Confirmed by hacking into their email system. They ain’t done shit yet, but wanted to keep you in the loop. Styx and Ky have it under control, but wanted you aware for when you decide to come back. You need to watch the roads.”
I blew out a breath, feeling the Jameson numbing the dark thoughts in my head. “’Kay,” I said. “Tanner?”
“Mm?”
“You good at tracking folk? Finding missing people and all that shit?”
“Kinda. Why?”
“Need you to find some young bitch from the cult. Would be fourteen now, called Sapphira. No last name. Same shit as Mae and Phebe.” Phebe thought her kid was safe in another country. But I knew fuckers like Judah, and that cunt never did anything right. I was doubting she was anywhere he said she was. I had to check.
“She’ll be dead, won’t she?” he hedged. “If she was from the cult?”
“She got sent away to some elderly home or some shit. Abroad maybe? Where Prophet Asswipe sent his oldies to die away from the commune. At least that’s what he said. Ain’t sure it’s true.”
“Right,” Tanner said. “Leave it to me. I’ll do some digging.”
“Thanks, brother.” I hung up my cell and tipped my head back against the headrest. I inhaled deep, then took another slug of my whiskey. I thought back to Phebe’s expression as I shouted in her face, her fucking lost eyes and tears as I stormed outta the door, pissed at her bringing all my shit to my door.
“Fuck!” I turned the engine on. By the time I’d arrived at the cabin, I was completely buzzed and my head felt a fuck-ton lighter. And best of all, those fucking thoughts had faded to the background. White noise in my head rather than fucking thrash-metal drums.
Taking hold of the bags of food we didn’t even need, I pounded through the door and completely froze in my tracks. Phebe sat on the floor next to the locked cupboard. Scratch that. The cupboard that was now open, its contents splayed around her.
She didn’t even jump when she saw me standing there, glaring. She slowly held up the one picture I hadn’t laid my eyes on in years. The one that used to have pride of place in this lodge, a copy of the one that sat in Tina and Devin’s home, right above the fireplace.
“This is you as a young man.” Phebe turned the picture so I would have no choice but to look at it. Seeing each one of the smiling faces was a multiple blow to the gut. When Phebe pointed to the central person, suited in Marine blues, with shaven hair and a huge fucking smile, I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“AK, this is you, is it not?”
“I told you not to fucking go in that cupboard,” I said darkly. My hands holding the bags of food shook. Shook as red-hot anger ripped through me. The Jameson burned to fucking vapor in my veins, yet I couldn’t take my eyes from that motherfucking picture.
“The boots,” Phebe said, ignoring the fact I was standing there seething, breaking. She ran her finger over my boots on the picture, then those of the person beside me. The one I could not look at the most. “The other pair of boots too.” When her breath hitched and her lips spread into a sad smile, her finger tracing across Zane’s face, his cute fucking smiling face, I lost it.
I launched the bags in my hand across the room and heard them smash against the wall. The contents spilled and scattered over the floor. My hands curled into fists as I fought to contain the red-hot rage that coursed through my veins.
Phebe, for once reading the danger in front of her accurately, jumped to her feet and backed her way to her bedroom door. Her sun-kissed skin paled as I glared at her. “I am sorry,” she said, struggling to find the knob. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she slipped through the door, like she knew the pain those fucking pictures caused within me. “I am so sorry, AK,” she said from behind the locked door.
My feet were rooted to the ground as I saw the pile of frames and albums that had not seen the daylight in years. The Jameson was on the far side of the kitchen, unbroken and intact, the remaining contents ready for me to take. I took the bottle and threw the cap to the side. I downed the whiskey like it was water. Pacing the floor, I tried to think of something else, to stop the thoughts that came with seeing those faces again.
The faces that had meant the most to me in my life. The people that were my everything . . . my home.
Not realizing I had stumbled—the effects of the liquor—my boot crunched on something glass. I stilled and looked down. The picture that Phebe had been holding was cracked, the frame snapped under my foot. Panicking at seeing it ruined, I stepped back and automatically lifted it off the floor. My eyes fell to the picture and a pained sound ripped from my throat.
My hand was shaking again, but now it wasn’t in anger.
I backed up and backed up until my back hit the wall. My feet gave out as I stared at the picture,
stared at us all smiling, happy, Zane in my arms. I blinked as my vision became cloudy, then tear after tear splashed onto the broken frame.
Shouts of “Oorah!” echoed in my head. The sun, sand and blood. Letting the sobs from my throat tear free, I clutched the picture to my chest. When I pulled it back, my eyes fell to the boots. Those fucking boots. Standard, military issue boots.
His boots.
My boots.
Side by side like we’d always planned.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to go back there. But I couldn’t help it. I had pushed it aside for too long, and that shit wouldn’t stay back . . .
The F-15Es came in, blowing up buildings and targeting the insurgents. Bones and I lay low, waiting for the signal to take out any of the enemy left over. Two. There were two, and I sent bullets straight into their heads without thought.
Devin.
I needed to get to Devin.
Running from my position, I sprinted across to the building where I had last seen Devin. Bodies, both Marines and insurgents, were scattered on the ground. “Devin!” I called, turning body after body over, searching from my brother. A hand landed on my shoulder, trying to get me to stop.
Bones.
I pushed him back and commenced my search.
“He isn’t here,” I said when all of the territory had been combed twice. I whipped my head around, the dry air sticking to my skin. “He isn’t fucking here!” My heart raced as I kept searching. Where was he? Where was my fucking brother?
“X,” Bones’s voice carried on the wind.
I heard the worry in his tone. Each step to where he stood was a green mile. The smoke cleared, and I saw my spotter holding something in his hand. A picture. And I fucking knew that picture. I fucking took that picture. Zane. Zane in Devin’s arms.
My hands wouldn’t fucking stop shaking as I took it from Bones and stared down. “Where the fuck is he?” I asked through my thick throat. Bones said shit all. A radio command came through, telling us to regroup.
Bones led me back to the rest of the troop, and we listened as Sergeant Lewis spoke. Six men taken by the insurgents, including Lieutenant Deyes. The entire time Lewis—Devin’s best friend—was speaking, I stared at Zane’s face, at Devin laughing as Zane laughed too. And I felt it. I felt something in my heart that told me nothing would be the same from that day on. I could just feel it . . .
My legs were numb as they lay out in front of me, my hands still clutching the picture. I rolled my throbbing head to the side and rooted through the pictures until I saw the jagged edge of the one I sought most. I pulled it from under an album. The edges were torn and singed. But Zane’s smiling face still greeted me. Devin’s laughing smile still stood proud. I lifted it to my nose and closed my eyes. It still smelled of that fucking desert. That enclosure when everything changed. I still heard the RPGs, the shouting of both enemies and Marines . . . the sound of my rifle firing shot after shot, Bones telling me they were direct hits.
“Dev.” I felt my stomach twist. My head dropped and I cried. I fucking cried and cried, soaking my cheeks and chest. I cried, holding the two fucking pictures.
I didn’t hear her come out of her room, but when I felt her arms come around me, I couldn’t fucking push her away. Scrambling into her embrace like a pussy, I let all the years of pent-up emotion pour from me like a river. And I just fucking held her.
Phebe rocked me in her arms. “I am sorry,” she said in a cracked voice. “I am sorry I looked . . .” Her words just made me fucking break down even harder. But I held on to the pictures in my hands like they were my lifeline. My only link left to the family I adored, would have done anything for.
I didn’t know how long we sat there, Phebe holding me, wiping my cheeks as I fucking broke apart. Her fingers pushed my damp hair from my face as I choked. She moved the Jameson aside without even looking at it.
“Come.” She lifted my head from her lap. I felt heavy. Every part of me felt too fucking heavy. “Lie down with me.” She rose to her feet. I kept the pictures to my chest as I forced my legs to move. Phebe led me to the room I slept in. The one that held too many memories for me to ever sleep well. I kicked off my boots and sat on the edge of the bed.
I couldn’t let go of the pictures.
“Lie back and rest your head.” Phebe lay back first. She held out her arms, and needing someone to just fucking take the lead for once, I lay beside her, my head on her chest. “Shh,” Phebe soothed, running her hands over my hair. “Sleep.”
Using her voice to calm myself down, I closed my eyes.
I was tired, so fucking tired.
“Sleep. I will be here when you wake. I will keep you safe.” I heard her words. But I was already being pulled under by darkness. When I smelled the putrid scent of blood and piss, I knew it was to visit a dream I never wanted to see again . . .
“Four weeks.” My knee bounced up and down in the back of the armored truck. “They’ve had him for four weeks.”
“He’ll be good, X,” Bones said. “He’s strong. He’ll be one of the two.”
I nodded, wanting to believe it but unsure I could. Intelligence had come back to the camp. Torture, the report had said. Four dead—two beheaded, one hanged and one shot through the head.
Two survivors.
Only two Marines left alive . . . but tortured.
Badly hurt.
And we were going in.
I held on to my gun as the truck came to a secluded spot. We filed out and took our positions. Bones and I found the highest point we could—an old derelict tower.
“You got eyes yet?” Sergeant Lewis asked through our earpieces.
“Yes, sir.”
Bones went quiet as I braced myself to shoot. “Three,” Bones said, and I caught the hint of excitement in his voice. He gave me the coordinates, and I sent my bullets flying.
“Direct hit,” Bones said and directed me to another position.
“Direct hit,” he repeated. Then all hell broke loose as the ground men moved in. Guns fired, screams and shouts echoed around the barren town. But I listened to Bones’s commands, firing and hitting, firing and hitting, keeping my focus like a good little sniper should.
“Clear!” Sergeant Lewis said through the radio. Disregarding my orders to keep on my spot, I ran from the tower and into the building where the captives were being held. I ignored Bones’s voice behind me telling me to stop. I couldn’t. That could be my fucking brother in there.
Fellow soldiers tried to stop me as I entered the building and followed the sound of the medics thrashing out orders. The ground was littered with dead bodies, and I heard the sounds of the surviving insurgents screaming and hollering in another room. My heart beat in tandem with my running feet until I came to a back room. I flinched at the smell that met me. Piss and shit and blood.
Steeling my nerves, I stepped into the room and looked to my left. Two men were being worked on by the medics. Both nothing but skin and bones, covered in blood and beaten to a pulp.
But I had to know. I had to know if my brother still lived.
I pushed past the men in my path, and I froze when I saw a familiar pair of eyes staring back at me. Dark, just like mine. But that was all I recognized. His face was black and blue. Knife marks and gunshot wounds marred his naked skin. Some of his teeth were missing, and two of his fingers were gone.
Cut clean off.
“Dev.” I dropped down to the ground. Even as gone as he was, when his eyes met mine, a pained sound came from his chest. I dove forward and took hold of the hand that wasn’t injured. “I’m here, Dev. I’m fucking here.”
I squeezed Dev’s hand and fucking broke when he tried to squeeze back. “I ain’t going anywhere.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the picture of him and Zane. “Bones found it, Dev,” I said and watched his eye that wasn’t swollen shut fill with tears. “I kept it for when we found you.”
“Son,” a gruff voice said from beside me.
“Sarge.
” I looked up at Lewis. His face was fucking devastated too.
“We need to airlift him out. It’s urgent.”
“Okay.” I leaned forward to kiss Dev on his head. “I’ll catch you soon, Dev, yeah? Hold on.”
Releasing his weak hand, I placed the picture there instead. Dev’s fingers held onto it as tight as they could. As the medics lifted him, I said, “Don’t let him lose that picture. Make him look at it if things get bad.” My voice was barely there. The medic assured me he would.
“Outside, son.” Lewis indicated for me to leave the room. I did as he said, walking like a damn ghost through the hallways.
All I could think of was the state Dev was in. His missing fingers, his knocked-out teeth, the knife marks, the bullet wounds, and his fucking tear-filled eyes when he saw me . . . when he saw the picture of his son.
Those fucking cunts. What the fuck had they done to him? Hacking him up, starving him, making him lie in his own shit.
Motherfucking cunts!
I came to a dead stop when I heard a noise to my left. The muted sounds of the insurgents came from behind a nearby door. I listened to their fucking muffled voices and felt my blood boil.
They had hurt my brother. They had touched Dev.
I looked at the closed door, and my feet moved without thought. My hand reached into my pocket and took hold of my knife. I didn’t even look back as I entered the room and shut the door behind me. Three men looked up at me. Three men who were tied up and sitting against the wall.
From behind their gags, they started spewing some babbled shit at me, but I couldn’t understand a word. And even if I did, I wouldn’t give a fuck. I just saw their corpses in my head. I saw their blood pooling beneath them on the floor.
I tightened my grip on the knife in my hand. My feet moved forward, and red misted over my eyes as I came to the first man. He started shuffling on the floor, trying to get away. But he was mine and going nowhere.
I raised my knife and sliced it through his thigh, making sure to hit his femoral artery. I slashed the blade across his stomach and smiled as his innards spilled from the wound. I struck again and again. Blood spattered my face as I moved on to the next man, slashing his throat and hearing him gargle on his own blood. Then the third. I hacked away at their bodies, causing them more pain than was possible in the short time I knew I had, and all the time, I did it with a fucking smile on my face.