by Trent Jordan
“Glad you’re OK.”
I just heard that, right? I just heard that? Butch said he’s glad I’m OK?
Butch moved past me to Father Marcellus without another word. But he’d seen the reaction on my face, and I knew Butch well enough to know that he wasn’t so stupid as to not pick up how I felt.
“I’ll be damned,” I muttered to myself.
But then more bikes came in behind me. I turned around just in time to see guns drawn. Never fucking ends!
“GET DOWN!” I shouted, laying down some cover fire from the machine gun.
Gunfire came back, but it was too haphazard and just barely missed me. I hit the deck, but this was not the end of the battle. It was still the beginning.
“It’s them, all right,” I said. “Come to fucking end us.”
Butch nodded to me, his gun at the ready. Lane, with Father Marcellus, ducked and hurried over, staying below the height of the motorcycle barrier as best as he could. He motioned everyone else to follow, and they all spread out—including, much to my chagrin, Father Marcellus, who set up shop on the far-right flank. He needed to stay the fuck out of battle.
“Thanks, Phoenix,” Butch said. “You did well.”
Huh. Bastard knows my new name. Maybe there really is hope for us yet.
“Don’t thank me yet,” I growled. “We gotta clear out these fuckers.”
“Well, you know what to do,” he said. “Unfortunately.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but yes, I knew the drill. I chose to view it as him saying it was unfortunate there was so much violence as to necessitate knowing military combat, and we engaged in trench warfare with the Fallen Saints.
They operated like a swarm of bees, moving in and out on their bikes, their mobility posing a different kind of challenge than us taking shelter behind the bikes. The problem wasn’t so much in shooting them down as it was in their sheer numbers; like a hive with a queen bee and her drones, their numbers just seemed endless.
Luckily, with us hunkered down and a cache of weapons behind us, we knew that we could last some time. And while we suffered a couple casualties, the rate at which we dropped paled in comparison to that of the Fallen Saints.
And for the duration of this battle, I was a Reaper. Not a Black Reaper, not a Gray Reaper—just a Reaper. That’s all that mattered. It wasn’t up for debate which side I was on.
“Cover your ears.”
Butch’s voice broke through the gunfire. I looked at him, saw him pull the pin on a grenade, and got the hint real fast. I couldn’t ever remember using grenades against the Saints, but I didn’t need a fucking tutorial on what would happen next.
Even with my ears covered, the explosion still muted my hearing for a couple of seconds. But out of the smoke that came, I saw we’d accomplished what we’d hoped would happen—the Saints, recognizing that we had the arsenal advantage, had gone into retreat mode. And, for an added bonus, we’d taken out about half-a-dozen of their members before it was all said and done.
“You all right?”
Butch?
I nodded.
“Thanks.”
He nodded back.
It was all that was said, and I knew this wasn’t the end of our hostilities. We were allies of a temporary nature only, brought together by a common enemy; now that that enemy had vanished, we were bound to fight again. But, for now, it was a start.
“Oh, shit...”
That doesn’t sound good.
Lane’s voice told me someone had gotten hit badly. I walked over.
And then I panicked when I saw who it was.
Father Marcellus had been shot.
And this time, the bullet had hit his heart.
Jess
I had the letter completely written and signed.
But I just didn’t know if I wanted to go through with it. If I went downstairs... if I went into the leasing office... if I dropped it off...
I was locked in for another year here in Springsville.
Funny how, once I had made my decision, instead of becoming surer about the next steps, I had actually found myself wavering again. Yes, my father had made some great points about not staying here, but...
I started to distract myself by looking for other things to do. I grabbed my phone. No new messages from Phoenix. Not much of a surprise. By this point, he’d probably deleted my number and moved on completely. It was too bad—I really liked him, still did, and imagined his good side contained a man more than worth having.
My father had sent some casual texts since our intense conversation, but nothing too serious had emerged since. That didn’t bother me, because at least he and I had had the heart to heart to reconcile our differences. Phoenix...
He’s not going to come around. If you decide to stay, you do it because you believe you can best work on yourself here. Not because you think there’s an outside chance for a miracle.
“Damnit,” I said out loud, even though there wasn’t even a pet, let alone a human, to hear me talk.
I decided to grab some fresh air. It was still daylight, and—
TAP TAP TAP.
A knock came at my door. I shook where I stood, startled at the unexpected tapping. Still, figuring it was just a maintenance worker or a delivery, I headed over without too much concern.
I opened the door and gasped.
I hadn’t seen the man in front of me in what felt like forever. I hadn’t even seen a photo of him in quite a bit of time. But I recognized him instantly.
“Dad?”
He had his hands in his jeans, brown dress shoes, a white button-down shirt, and a silver watch on his wrist. His face had wrinkled a bit since I’d last seen him, but he still had the majority of his brown hair. Silver streaks had started to work their way in on the sides, but overall, aside from the wrinkling on his face, he didn’t look too dissimilar to when I had last seen him.
“Hi, Jess.”
“Dad...”
Was I dreaming this? Was this... this couldn’t...
“Oh my God, Dad,” I said, the emotions starting to get the best of me.
I held my arms out and fell into his, sobbing. What in the world... was this some sort of hallucination? What else could it be?
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “I imagine you have a lot of questions you want to ask me.”
I nodded against his shirt, apologizing for the tear streaks I was making on it. I pulled back, dabbed at my eyes, and let him enter my apartment.
Once the door shut, I still felt profoundly emotional, but a new mood started to set in—curiosity.
“How did you... how in the world did you find me?”
He gave what looked like a guilty but compassionate smile.
“Don’t be mad at me, but I’ve actually known where you’ve lived for the past five years,” he said. “I... I never told you much about me, because I just wanted to know how you were, but I’ve been working as a police officer for the last few years.”
“Seriously?” I said.
Of all the jobs I would have pegged my father to take, cop was the last one. Granted, that assumption was largely based on my father, the raging drunk, and less on my father, the man who’d been sober for several years now, but still. Going from a man who couldn’t stop himself from twisting a cap off to a man who could pop a cap of a very different kind was just too...
“I have so many questions.”
“And that’s why I came here in person.”
“Wait—OK, let’s start there,” I said, anxiety now becoming the new emotion of the moment. “Why are you here? Did something happen? Are you on the run?”
“No, no, no,” he said, shaking his head, uttering a gentle laugh. “Well, nothing bad.”
He took a seat on my couch, leaned forward, and rested his forearms on his thighs. His eyes... they looked both so old and so invigorated at the same time. Like he had finally found what he’d been looking for over the course of many years.
“After our phon
e call, I realized that so much of what’s happened between us since you ran away has happened of your accord. You reached out to me. You confessed how you felt. I was here trying to pretend things were great, and sure, they were better than before. But I knew after you talked to me last week, I had to be a better father. Better than any standard I had set for myself so far.”
He chuckled.
“Admittedly, it’s probably not a great idea to surprise a young lady at her house like this, but as soon as the idea came... I thought it would be helpful for both of us.”
“It is,” I said, putting my hand on my heart, relieved that this was not a meeting that would have tragic undertones.
“And besides, I realized I had invited you to come to me, but that would just continue the trend of you carrying the weight of this relationship, and that’s not very fair to you.”
“I see,” I said.
I was still just... what in the actual world? Like, what? My father, my father! Right here? I didn’t think it would ever make sense. Even a week from now, it would still seem like some sort of dream.
“Can I, um, get you some wine or something?”
My father laughed, and I put my hand over my mouth when I realized what I had just offered.
“I mean, no, no, no, anything but—”
“It’s OK, your words won’t make me relapse,” he said. “Just a glass of water. Relax, Jess. Let’s just talk. I want to make things right on my end.”
“OK,” I said.
I really wanted a glass of wine, if only because being a little buzzed would probably make this situation somehow make more sense. But I felt like that was bringing a deck of cards to a gambling addict, so I poured myself two glasses of water and sat on the other side of the couch of my father.
“I don’t want this to seem like it’s all about me,” my father said. “But I know that I have pushed you away too much. So... let’s make this the Walters panel, huh? Like Walters Cronkite, maybe?”
“Oh, heavens, Dad,” I said, rolling my eyes.
But even that—even that terrible joke—was still funny because my father was actually in the room. Not on the phone. Not in a flashback. Not in a photo.
Living, breathing, physically present.
Something that hadn’t happened in years.
This still didn’t make a lick of sense. And for how little it made sense, I was starting to think water wasn’t going to be enough.
“Well... let me ask you then. How has life been for you since I ran away? I know you got sober. I know you say you’re in a good mood. But tell me the real truth. The real deal.”
My father smiled, but I could see his eyes starting to water.
“It’s harder than I could ever put into words,” he said. “Don’t feel bad for me, though. I did it to myself. When your mother died, I didn’t handle it well, that goes without saying. But her death was obviously neither of our fault. It was just a cruel twist of fate, a major tragedy in our lives we had to deal with. But when you left, it felt like I was responsible. And though I got sober, I was really, really hard on myself for some time. What you didn’t see was how fat I got.”
“I can’t even imagine it.”
“I got the dad bod before the dad bod was cool!”
I laughed way harder than the joke called for, but what could I say? I was in a stress-relieving mood. Dad jokes were actually funny when you heard them in person.
“But anyway... yeah, it was... not fun. But I am very happy that we’re here now.”
“How about dating? Have you been able to meet anyone?”
“Oh, nah.”
“Dad?”
I knew that of all the topics my father didn’t want to talk about... but of all the topics my father did need to talk about...
“I haven’t really put myself back out there, to be frank,” he said. “I’m afraid of getting hurt, mostly by my own actions. So, I don’t. Or if I do, I find an excuse to end it before it gets serious, even when I think it has potential.”
Even when I think it has potential...
Like father, like daughter…
“What about you?” he said. “You’ve grown into a beautiful woman. I’m sure the men out here are throwing themselves at you.”
“Hah, don’t be ridiculous, Dad,” I said. “I work as a bartender here. Any girl working as a bartender is going to get hit on. But, to answer your question...”
Was I actually going to answer his question? To do so just seemed... it didn’t seem natural to be talking about dating with my father. But, then again, talking at all with my father, let alone having him in my actual house, didn’t feel very natural either!
And I’d already mentioned Phoenix before.
“There was the one guy I mentioned on the phone...”
Yeah, just talk about it.
“Really funny and charming. Sweet guy. Like I told you, I mentioned recently that I was thinking about moving, and as soon as that happened, it was like I broke his heart.”
“Are you still planning to move?”
I hesitated for a split second.
“Look, it doesn’t matter, actually,” he said. “It sounds like he doesn’t want anything to do with you now?”
I grimaced.
“I still think he’s a great guy.”
“And if he came back to apologize, do you think you’d forgive him?”
Oh yes. Absolutely.
“Probably.”
My dad sighed.
“Jess, your old man doesn’t know a lot of things, but one thing he does know is that he loves you very much and supports you in whatever you do. I’m sorry I haven’t always done that and haven’t always been there for you, but I swear to you, from here on out, I have your back in whatever you do.”
Such a simple statement, I felt, shouldn’t have had such a profound impact on me.
But as soon as I heard those words, I immediately felt like if I saw Phoenix again, however it turned out, I would feel fine. I didn’t need the validation of a man of any kind to make myself feel whole; I finally had that from my father, and his was unconditional.
In a way, maybe it would make my relationship with Phoenix even better—if it ever came back to that.
And if it did not, well, my father had just given me something that Phoenix never could have, or likely never could have.
“Thanks, Dad.”
Our conversation shifted to far lighter topics, and we spent the next several hours just chatting away about everything from the last time he’d been to Disneyland to what my favorite type of customer was. But lurking in the back of my mind, underlining everything that happened, was a sense of relief and confidence that I’d been searching for far too long. It was certainly better late than never.
And wherever Phoenix was, whatever he was doing, I hoped that he was having that too.
Who knew?
Maybe things weren’t so dead after all.
Phoenix
“Hang on, buddy, we’re taking you to the hospital right now!”
As soon as I saw Father Marcellus on the ground, I had lifted him up and carried him to the nearest van. This was no time to call 9-1-1, no time to call Kaitlyn or one of the medical staff; we had to get him to the hospital.
It was quite possibly the only chance to save his life.
“Phoenix, remember what I said?” Father Marcellus said, groaning and gritting his teeth as every movement seemed to sap his life. “Some things in life... you must let go.”
“Shut up,” I said. “Save your strength and don’t move or talk.”
“Phoenix,” he said in a chillingly calm tone. “I have told you everything I must.”
By that point, I had turned on the van. I didn’t wait to see if anyone else was following me; I was sure they would, anyway. I put Father Marcellus in the passenger’s seat and sped like a fucking demon on the roads. I didn’t even check to see if anyone was coming the other way or across at us. I trusted that the sight of a white van going eighty
miles per hour in a small town would give them the fucking clue something was wrong.
“Phoenix.”
“Shut up!” I yelled, not understanding why he just couldn’t keep quiet.
We were going to save him, damnit. He was fucking Father Marcellus—the chaplain just didn’t die from violence. He was too good a man, too virtuous a soul to meet an end by bullets.
“You know how to defeat the Saints,” he said, his face growing paler by the second. “You did it tonight. If you want to emerge victorious... unite the clubs. As you did... tonight.”
As I did tonight?
But I didn’t—
We pulled up to the hospital and I immediately jumped out of the van.
“Help!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “He’s been shot!”
A gurney was wheeled out seconds later, but it still felt too slow. They needed to be ready to go—someone should have fucking called in to say that a gunshot victim was coming. Why the fuck had no one from the Black Reapers done that?
I followed the medics to the operating room, but the doctors and nurses wouldn’t let me in. About thirty seconds later, the entire officer corps of the Black Reapers showed up. Thirty seconds too slow.
No. Not their fault.
We’re all too slow.
“How is he?” Axle asked.
I didn’t answer. I had no fucking idea. And besides, the question barely registered as something I needed to answer. I was just praying, hoping, doing everything I could—which was basically nothing—to try to get Father Marcellus through the night.
“We’re losing him!” one of the nurses shouted in the room.
“No!” I screamed, pounding my fists on the glass window before me.
Someone put their hand on my shoulder. They were damn lucky I didn’t throw an elbow or a punch in response. I was too... I couldn’t even find a fucking simple word to describe how I felt.
First my father... and now Father?
It couldn’t fucking be.
No. No.
No!
It wasn’t his time. He was the only link between the two clubs. He was the only one willing to fucking cross lines.