by Cole McCade
“But hope, maybe,” she murmured. “It’s a risk. It’s a bigger risk than anything I’ve ever done in my life, even if it’s necessary. But the unknown ahead of me, ahead of us…” Us. Just like that. Because she’d chosen him. She’d chosen herself. She’d chosen them, and in the end she’d chosen to save him, rather than return to a life she didn’t know how to fit into anymore. “It could be anything. I could make it anything, if I figure out how.”
“You can still turn back.”
“I killed a man, Priest.” She laughed, brittle and borderline hysterical. “I killed a police officer to save your life. And I made that choice. Not for you. For me.” She trailed off, pensive heaviness weighing her lips closed, making her words small when she managed to speak. “There’s no going back from that. There’s only going forward.”
She watched him from the corner of her eye, and wondered. Wondered at the future ahead of them. Wondered if his promise was true, and wondered that she wanted it to be. Because in the man who had kidnapped her, stolen her from her old life and borne her into a new one…was another whom she could come to admire. A man of honor, strange though it was. A man who understood her, and who had shown her how to understand herself. A man who had opened her eyes to the complexities of the world, to nuances of gray and color deeper than any she had ever known before. A man who pulled on her heart in strange ways, and tangled her up in desire and need and longing and something she wasn’t ready to look at, not yet.
But she’d stay until she was ready.
Until then, and maybe beyond.
“Going forward,” she continued softly, “and looking for home.”
He offered her that smile again—that sweet, unguarded smile, so tentative and yet so promising. A promise that for her, he would be human. For her, he would be tame. For her, he would heal as best he could, and start over. “I have a few ideas,” he said.
“Yeah?” She found her own smile creeping over her lips, when she’d thought she’d never be able to smile again. “All right, then. Show me the way, Priest.”
“Vincent,” he said, speaking his name shyly, his thumb stroking over her knuckles.
“Okay,” she said, her smile growing as the shade of the trees fell over them, and danced in dapples of sungold light and the coin-shaped shadows of flickering leaves. “Show me the way…Vincent.”
“Come desidera, firefly,” he promised, and lifted her hand to his lips. “As you wish.”
EPILOGUE
GABRIEL HART WOULD NEVER GROW tired of watching the sun rise over the Mississippi.
It crept like a thief, skirting the edges of the horizon and sending furtive bursts of light to make the river glitter like the shards of a broken mirror before skulking behind the low, Spanish moss-draped trees to vanish again. He’d watched a hundred sunrises over the Mississippi, and would watch a thousand more; it wasn’t the Corvus, wasn’t the river he’d earned his sea legs on and would always think of as home, but it had something the Corvus didn’t: the taste of freedom.
And Leigh.
Through the open door of the houseboat, past the wheelhouse that had been converted into a bedroom for Elijah, she was a tuft of white-blonde spilling out of a rumple of blankets that just might hide a woman somewhere next to the scraggle of orange fur that might be Tybalt or might be seventies shag carpet. Leigh slept so quietly, tiny and delicate with those exhausted hollows under her eyes that, to him, only made her look stronger. More lovely. She’d only gotten in from work a few hours ago, this tired pale little bundle who’d kissed his cheek and stroked his stubble and then crawled in to burrow under his arm like the little mouse she was before passing out cold. He’d long ago given up on telling her not to work so hard. Not to worry so much. She seemed to think she had years to make up for, when it came to caring for Elijah. And Gabriel wasn’t going to tell her how to raise her son.
He just let her sleep as long as she needed to, even when he crept out to watch the dawn.
Elijah stood at the railing, rubbing sleep from his eyes with one small, soft fist, the other clutching his little boy-sized fishing pole, watching the sky with a thoughtful gaze. He had Leigh’s eyes, dark brown and introspective and thoughtful, and they tracked the little ink-squiggles the seagulls made against the rising light as they winged their way toward Lake Pontchartrain. It’d be pelicans next, dipping slow and ponderous, finding their way from their nests in the river swamps to catch hungry fish who surfaced with the dawn to snap insects from the air only to become a meal themselves.
Gabriel listened to the gulls’ calls and waited Elijah out; waited until he was ready to speak. He’d learned that lesson with the boy early on. Let Elijah speak in his own time. He was a strange and quiet boy, but in some ways loving his mother made it easier to love and understand him, and wait until he was ready to accept Gabriel on his own terms. He was starting to feel as if they had an understanding, in these quiet moments of breaking light, when Gabriel baited and cast his line and showed Elijah how to keep his feet on the bobbing and swaying deck, how to hook a fish, how to reel it in, how to gut and scale and all those little things that made fishing so quietly satisfying. He’d never be Elijah’s father.
But he thought, perhaps, they could be friends.
Elijah looked back over his shoulder, watching Gabriel with a measuring gaze, then said, “I don’t want to fish today,” in his clear, quietly precise voice.
Gabriel tilted his head and leaned back, propping one boot against the houseboat’s railing and resting his pole against his knee. “Why’s that?”
“I don’t want to kill anything.”
“You don’t like killing the fish?”
“We have enough.” Elijah leaned his pole against the wall of the cabin, then clambered up onto the folding deck chair next to Gabriel’s. He was so small his feet barely poked past the seat of the chair, but he carried himself with the gravity of a very, very serious adult, and Gabriel had to bite back a smile. “I don’t like to kill more when we have enough to eat. I’ll fish again when we run out.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Elijah peeked at him warily, almost suspiciously. “You’re not mad? You won’t make me?”
“No, Elijah.” Gabriel reached over to rest his hand atop Elijah’s head, gently ruffling his hair, keeping his movements slow. He only knew of Elijah’s father from what Leigh had told him, but he’d learned early on that the man had taught Elijah to be wary, to be obedient, to hide like a small animal in the brush. It would take more than three months of Leigh and Gabriel spoiling him rotten to break past that, though sometimes Gabriel was less interested in breaking past Elijah’s barriers and more interested in finding the man who’d made him this way and breaking his face. “You have your reasons. As long as it’s not something where I have to be the adult, I’ll try to respect those reasons. Okay?”
Elijah squinted, but after a moment relaxed under Gabriel’s touch. “Okay. Can I stay out here with you?”
“Sure.”
“Good.” Elijah scooted his chair over closer to Gabriel’s, then leaned against the side of it until he could snuggle against Gabriel’s arm. “I like the seagulls. They sound like the crows at home.”
Gabriel chuckled. “I think the crows would be insulted.”
“Do you ever miss it?”
“Miss what?”
“Crow City.”
“Sometimes,” Gabriel said. “But it’s in my blood. It never really leaves me.”
“Can we go back some day?”
“Some day. When you’re older, maybe.”
Gabriel didn’t know how to tell Elijah that some day might be never. He was a smart boy, quick for his age, and he knew already the secrets they had to keep, the reason he’d be starting school late, why they’d dyed his hair white blonde, not to talk to anyone without Gabriel or his mother present. Not unless he wanted to be taken back to his father, and when they’d asked his eyes had gone dark with fear and he’d shaken his head so hard he’d
nearly shaken it off. He didn’t want to go back. And after seeing that flicker of raw terror in the boy’s eyes…Gabriel doubted he’d let anyone take Elijah without one hell of a fight.
Bum leg or not, he was still a pretty good shot. And the Sig was getting lonely in the closet, disassembled and abandoned where Elijah couldn’t accidentally hurt himself.
But with luck, it would never come to that.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, paired with the grinding growl of some angry punk rock song Leigh had set for his ringtone. He groaned and dragged it out. He hated the damned thing, but she’d insisted in case anything happened to Elijah while either of them were at work—especially the late nights when she tended bar in the French Quarter. The screen flashed unknown number, and he swore to God if it was some scammer calling at dawn pretending to be from Microsoft tech support, the only thing that would keep him from getting cursed out would be the little ears at Gabriel’s side.
He swiped the screen and lifted the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
A voice he’d never expected, dark and accented and low, rumbled in his ear. “Hello, Hart.”
He stilled, his chest tightening. “Priest.” Fuck. He’d thought the man would be dead by now, with the way he lived. “How did you get this number?”
Quiet laughter rolled over the line. “You know me better than that.”
Gabriel hesitated. He hadn’t heard Priest laugh that way in a long time. Not since they were young and fresh and stupid; not since they’d thought they were hard, this elite unit with a dozen covert missions under their belts and a zero fatality rate. Not since before they’d learned that kind of luck was just that: luck.
And luck was just another word for tempting fate.
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I do.”
“How are you enjoying New Orleans?”
Gabriel groaned, dragging a hand over his face. “Sometimes I hate how well you know me.” He trailed off, lost for an answer. “It’s…” He looked down at Elijah—tucked against his arm and drowsing, his eyes half-open and his thumb creeping toward his mouth, dipping and wobbling in a clear struggle of sleepy will between wanting comfortable familiarity and being a big boy. Gabriel smiled faintly. “It’s home. They’re home.”
“Home,” Priest said, something lost and strange in his voice. “I like the sound of that.”
“Priest…?” Gabriel asked softly, then amended, “…Vin.”
There came an audible hitch of Priest’s breaths. “You haven’t called me that in years.”
“You haven’t sounded like Vin in years.” It was like talking to the dead, come back to life. Priest had been lost for so long he might as well be with Serafina, Richard, the others: rotting in the grave, so far out of reach. And yet here he was, and something in his voice, something in the fact that he had called Gabriel, said maybe…just maybe he was ready to let go of the monstrosity he’d made of himself. “What changed, Vin?”
“Do you remember you told me to find something to love? Anything?”
“Yeah.”
“I listened,” Priest said softly. “And found myself again.”
Gabriel closed his eyes as relief swept through him with the force of a shockwave, punching the breath from him. It was long moments before he could find it in him to speak. To even know what to say. Finally he managed, “I’m glad.” Inadequate, but as honest as he could manage to be. He took a deep breath, rubbing at his chest. “So what now?”
“I need to disappear. Many people want me dead, Hart. I can’t keep her safe as long as I exist. And I have put her in a precarious position.” He said it with a fierceness Gabriel had thought he’d lost; with a love that spoke not of the vicious killer, but the man Gabriel had once called brother. “We both need to be…elsewhere.”
“For how long?”
“Forever, if possible.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He opened his eyes, looking down at the tousled little head resting against his arm once more, and wondering if one day Elijah would grow up to face the same trials, the same pain; if it was his lot in life to pass through the crucible to discover who he was meant to be, and nothing Gabriel or Leigh could do would shield him from that. He sighed, and leaned over to press his lips to the top of Elijah’s head, murmuring into his hair. “And Priest?”
“Si?”
“Welcome back.”
Priest’s only answer was a laugh, before the line went dead.
Gabriel sank back in his chair and watched the screen dim, then go black, until there was nothing but his reflection on the glossy glass, watching him with thoughtful eyes that burned with a thousand questions. Wondering what Priest had come to love, to find his way back to himself again. Wondering at himself, that he could accept it so easily and trust the man after what he’d done, what he’d become. But some bonds couldn’t be broken. Some faiths couldn’t be shaken.
And he could put his faith in Priest, he thought, if it meant seeing his last surviving friend once again whole.
Slim arms draped around his neck from behind; warmth pressed against his back, slight and sweet. “Hey,” Leigh whispered in his ear.
He tilted his head back against her chest, looking up at her. She smiled down at him, her sleep-mussed hair falling down in a tangle to frame her face, and he reached up to cup the nape of her neck, draw her down, taste her lips for a perfect, lingering moment before he made himself let go.
“You’re up early,” he said.
“I heard the phone.” She leaned away from him to scoop Elijah up, propping him on her hip. “Hey, little man.”
He made a sleepy sound of protest, then blinked at her, only to fling himself against her with his arms wrapped tight around her neck and a happy little burble of “Mama.”
She laughed, bouncing him gently. “Good morning to you, too.” She returned her gaze to Gabriel, watching him discerningly. “Everything okay?”
“Think so.” He tapped his phone against his knee, frowning. “That guy who does fake IDs. He still around?”
“I know who to ask to find him, if I need to. Why?”
Gabriel couldn’t help smiling, and reached up to catch a lock of her hair, coiling it around his finger. “We’re going to have company.”
“Priest…?”
He arched a brow. “How did you know?”
“The way you smiled.” Her brows knit, and she tightened her hold on Elijah protectively. “But…isn’t he…?”
“He was. Something’s changed.”
“Do you trust him?”
“I do.” Gabriel couldn’t help drinking her in; drinking them in. She’d left him, once. Run away. And then she’d come back—by her own choice, by her own need. He couldn’t imagine his life without them, now…when once, not so long ago, he couldn’t imagine his life lasting longer than the next morning, the next Vicodin, the next time he cleaned the Sig and pressed it to his temple and told himself to do it. He caught her hand, and laced their fingers together: hers so small against his, pale and soft and fitting just right. “We got our chance to start over, little mouse,” he said, and drew her close as the sun finally broke, bright and full, over a river that became a sheet of molten gold. A new dawn; a new day, and a fresh slate waiting with the quiet promise of things to come. “And I think that’s a chance everyone deserves.”
THE END
AFTERWORD
[Trigger Warning: Extensive, graphic discussion of rape / sexual assault, including mentions of CSA, PTSD, and homophobic slurs.]
SAY THE WORDS “RAPE” AND “FANTASY” together and you’re likely to get some pretty disgusted and / or confused looks. The idea of a rape fantasy is considered somewhat taboo, despite the fact that a large number of people have them. The idea of a rape fantasy from a man is a bit horrifying, if it’s written from the perspective of the rapist, and let’s be blunt and clear: I have nothing to say to people who fantasize about raping other people. I’m sorry, but this conversation is not for you, and I’m not sure that’s a c
onversation I want to have.
But people tend to have a pretty visceral reaction to the idea regardless of the POV; at best you’ll get a tepid, uncomfortable laugh and a reference to the prevalence of normalized non-consent in bodice-rippers from the 70s and 80s. At worst you’ll get horror, disgust, and a rapid shutdown of the subject. Hell, while I was writing this I saw a comment from another author fly by on Twitter, something along the lines of calling some unnamed a book a “gross rape fantasy.” It’s not an uncommon sentiment.
But all I felt when I saw that comment, from a fellow author no less, was pain and isolation—and I couldn’t help thinking “Wow. Wow. Thanks for shaming and deriding my coping mechanism. Thanks for making me feel dirty.”
Now, I don’t know full context for that comment. The book in question could have been a frightening mess written from the POV of the rapist and embodying everything that makes rape culture what it is. But I know that because it didn’t distinguish between rapists and rape victims, that comment hit me right in the heart, and made me feel like I was disgusting for writing stories that make it a little easier for me to breathe without clawing my own skin off, when I think about sex.
Because that’s why I write things like this, in the end. As a coping mechanism for the trauma I experienced as a rape victim, and the way that trauma completely destroyed how I relate to my own existence as a sexual person. And the reason I publish them, share them, is for others who can relate to them as rape survivors. Others who have the same trauma, the same need, the same quiet ache of being misunderstood as sick when we’re trying to say no. No, we’re not sick.
We’re just broken, and this is helping us hold the pieces together.
If you haven’t experienced sexual assault, you might not understand how it can shatter you. It’s not something you can just get over and move on from. Rape and PTSD are directly linked. If it happens at a young age, it can completely and permanently rewire the neurological pathways of your brain to change your relationship to your developing body and understanding of your sexuality in ways that will affect you for the rest of your life. If it happens when you’re older, it can obliterate any sense of safety you had in yourself and your environment, and turn your body into an alien thing that feels like it no longer belongs to you—but instead belongs to your assailant. Even when they’re long gone, you can feel them: imprinted in your skin, controlling you until you feel as if you can’t enjoy pleasure without their shadow hovering over you. You can’t be physically or emotionally intimate with someone without the damage left behind becoming an ever-widening chasm between you. You can’t know when something will push just the wrong button and suddenly you’re reacting in ways you don’t want to but can’t seem to stop, your emotional tripwires reprogrammed until you don’t understand yourself anymore.