“How many people do you think live inside Rhett?” I ask watching his rapid mood swings with curiosity.
“Depends on the alcohol,” Lawless says with the same lack of amusement for the man that the man now stares at us with.
With my attention focused on Rhett, I missed the fact that Travis has been making his way towards us or to where his ranting has been leading. Now, he stands beside Lawless with a smile that feels more predatory than pilgrim. Have to give the man credit for bravery.
“What is the miracle I speak of? What is this holy icon of His guiding hand for you to reflect upon? For you to grasp in your moments of weakness?” Travis is staring right at me while he speaks and I sense that this all about go wrong for one of us. If Karma holds true to her style of humor, it will be me.
He reaches for me and with that one motion Lawless and Marxx stand. Rhett is now moving towards us from the front, as Dolph is moving behind us. Chapel has already started scooting Aimes further from the eye of the storm; that eye being myself. Karma, she’s a funny one.
Travis is either paying no attention to the tension he has started or simply enjoys the theatrics. He never pauses in his preaching. “Here among us once again is the heroine you have all come to love. This child of God who has placed herself in harms way for your own safety with no thoughts for herself. The one who holds the hearts of these distressed men who are in need of her guidance back to their salvation.” With each sentence, the crowd grows louder in agreement with his revelations. “She, who has been tested by these demons time and again only to stand taller with His love from each encounter. Is it not God’s supremacy over these evils that lends her the courage to fight them? Is it not His halo of golden protection that encircles her like the Angel David to defeat the cruelty of the Devil? What other answer would you have, but His?” The courtyard erupts into shouts of joy with his sudden outburst of a question. The louder they grow the angrier the men around me become.
I bite my tongue against the sharp wit that cuts my mouth. If someone had been taking notes of my life, it’s not Travis. I would place my faith in sadistic irony before a holy, guiding hand.
Travis reaches for me, pulling me to him to further his crusade. Lawless mimics the movement, keeping his shoulder between Travis and I. His hands are a relaxed clasping of his wrist at his waist, just waiting for use while Travis continues his aimed words. “We arrived here at the point in time when she was being tested the most. She was tested in the moment of saving not only you, but also her people as well. She was prepared to give in to the Devil’s temptations of peace.” The crowd murmurs with some imagined fear they feel. “Oh yes!” he tells them, raising their anxiety higher. “She had given over her body to the demons and her mouth to the Devil. Selma pulled her from the wreckage of her destruction only to hear the blasphemy fall from her damned, ruby lips.” He points to the woman who bows her head with sadness letting her black hair fall around her shoulders in condolence. “She said unto her,” Travis lowers his voice to hushed whisper to continue, ““There is no fucking God.” with the Devil’s disjointed moment of evil enticements. But God didn’t give up on her like how easily as she was lured from Him. He sent us here right at that moment to guide her back to Him just as we have guided so many of you back to His love. He saved her with His glory, healing her broken body and soul so that she may return to you tested and tempered. Not once. Not Twice, but three times!” He turns from me, putting his back to Lawless and Marxx who hum a cord from the song with the same theme unmoved by the show.
Travis is counting on Rhett who stands beside him to keep the two men in line for the finale. That mistake might just cost us all.
“Children,” he continues, “my brothers, my sisters, my friends do not judge the ones who pull from Him. Fear not the ones who ache to walk in the shadows of evil. Do not label them in their weakness and black hearts for we are here now. We are here to keep safe with His help what these men could not.”
I felt the shift before it happened. As I lunged for Lawless, his hands shoved against the back of Travis, sending him to his knees. Stepping in front of Law to stop him, I forgot about Rhett. I forgot about the one who no longer caters to our security. So accustomed to him being beside me, I neglected his motives. Rhett, lost in the forward momentum never had time to stop his fist. It collides with my face, crumpling me with his strength and silencing the roar the courtyard had become with Travis’ preaching. Time is suspended with the shock of what has happened. Kneeling on the cement, I have to wonder at what point did I switch from life’s amusement to its piñata.
“Son of a bitch!” Aimes’ voice fills the silence first. The strong arms of Chapel, who she is no match for no matter how angry she becomes, holds her against him. She is going to try to escape him just the same with her rage. “That is Helena you piece of shit! You hitting women now? You get a shiny new piece of ass and forget who you are? Do they even know who you are? Do your new holy rollers know about you like we do?”
“Shut up!” Rhett yells back at her.
“Or what?” she yells back just as loud like the Chihuahua of anger that she is. “You going to march over here and hit me, too? Does it make your new conquest wet to see you beat on your former friends? She sure seems to always be around when you grow brave.”
Rhett steps forward to her and Lawless is there to block him. He stands chest to chest with the taller man and smiles into his face. “Dare you,” Lawless says and they lock eyes with the challenge.
I stand, swaying some with the sudden shift of the earth. “All of you shut up,” I say with more vindication than I feel. “It was an accident. It’s my fault. I forgot that Rhett has turned his back on his family for a piece of ass when I stepped between them.” I look into the blue eyes that turn to me bleeding into shades of sorrow and guilt. “Like I said, my fault for trusting him.” I pull Lawless from Rhett and turn my back on him. “It won’t happen again.”
“See how she calms their beast? See how -” Travis stands, gearing up for another round of Who’s-Your-Savior when my wit finally escapes.
“The snake charming is over for today, Travis.” I lean close to his ear and sweetly say to him, “If you think they have a “black heart”, you had better hope God does reach down to guide me because you haven’t seen anything yet. It wasn’t God who guided me back from death. It was actually someone much, much closer to their nature.”
Travis turns his head to speak to me. “I know of the man you deemed father,” he says and we are talking so close to each other’s face our lips could touch like lovers.
“No, you don’t,” I say to those lips that seem to reach for me with an unnamed hunger. “If you did, you wouldn’t keep poking them like a child. Eventually, I’m going to let their beasts play and then you will really know about the man I deemed father, Travis.” I say his name as close as I can to his lips without touching them and I feel his response. He is hungry, amused and somewhat taken aback by my boldness.
“Mommy’s home,” Aimes says and there is no missing the mischief in her voice.
“…and she’s so damned purdy,” Lawless says pulling me to him with a proud smile.
Rhett watches me walk past him and I don’t even look in his direction. He has made his choice of which side he now lives and sealed it with the mark on my face. When my anger and the pain from his fist fade, I will feel sadness over that fact. Right now, both are hot, burning me in their own way and that heat lends my legs the confidence to put him behind me even if my head is still swaying from the blow.
“Bye, Lover Boy. Say a prayer for me, would ya?” Marxx asks Rhett dousing the exit with brighter flames before turning to follow me with Lawless in tow as they return to humming the song from The Commodores.
My family follows me away from the murmur of the people we leave in our wake, but I hadn’t expected to see Dolph and Simon keeping pace in the reflection of the glass in the windows. I have no idea what this means for them or us and I’m not stopping to gl
ance behind me to ask either set.
I have never learned to count my blessings. I choose to dwell in my disasters. Sometimes I wallow in them. Sometimes though, I hurl them like a Molotov cocktail and watch with enjoyment as they burn everything down around me. It’s amazing the things we can use as a weapon against the ones we love.
My confidence falters as soon as I am past the metal doorway of the cafeteria. I let the pain of my face take me, giving away to the tears that it causes as I sit at one of the tables nearest to me. Aimes drops to her knees in front of me to examine the bruise I know will soon bloom on my cheek. “I guess I should just be happy he missed the nose.” I try to smile, to spread some cheer to the face that clouds with remorse in front of me.
“You know this will burn any bridge he might have held with them,” Aimes says to me.
We look to the men huddled together in debate over what has occurred. I’m not sure why there is such an uproar. It really was a mistake, but if the blow had landed on Lawless like it was meant, there is no exaggeration to the chaos that would have ensued. A part of me has to wonder if that was Travis’ goal. He stirred their angst with his touch and enticed it with his words. I just haven’t put the puzzle together yet as to why.
“I think I pulled some stitches when I reached for Law.” My stomach is searing me, cramping me with the pain.
“Sometimes it hurts to be so devoted to the ones we care for.” Selma’s voice startles Aimes and I. She has snuck up on us both from another entrance while we watched the men talk. She smiles seeing our unhappiness with her presence, but to be fair, it is not only directed at her. Leslie stands beside her like a blind acolyte worshiping her mistress with mimicked motions. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Unless that is the foot you are going to take out of your ass, nope, we good.” Aimes smiles with her words like a beacon of goodwill and hospitality.
“I know it must be hard to see the one you coveted with another, but that is no reason we can’t be friends.” Selma has her own well-veiled venom and it shocks me with her suggestion. “Just look at how well Larance and Leslie get along as an example.”
Well, now she just wants to get hit. I stand ignoring the rush of heat-like pain it gives me and ask her, “This is a game to you and Travis, isn’t it? You come into places with your bible verses and fake holy water to stir fear into people so that you can control them. Must really piss you two off we won’t fold like everyone else has for you.”
“You’re wrong.” Selma is calm and collected and she smiles at me. “You’re not important enough to piss me off. You’re not the only one who has been tested by your faith. He has brought me through the fire and I stand firm in His purpose for me and for anything, or anyone, that stands in the way of that. I have already proven my dedication for Him with the triumph over the evil my life became. And now,” she looks to Aimes who has lost some of her smirk when their eyes met, “He rewards me with a man like Rhett to keep me safe during the day and comforted at night.” She leaves no illusions to her meanings. She has all but spray painted across the floor a line from which she wants me to cross. She has said silently that Rhett is hers now and if I want him, I have to come take him. People should really be more careful of what they ask me to do. My mood swings are legendary.
“I think we have all had enough of yours and Travis’ side-show.” Dolph has come to see what our little “girl hour” is about, leaving those with hotter tempers to only stare after him.
“Selma here was just telling us how we could all still be best friends,” I say looking to Dolph, briefing him on the conversation.
Dolph laughs a deep male sound of dark humor, shaking his head. “You might want to rethink antagonizing this one,” he says to Selma. “Travis is right about one thing. She isn’t scared easily.”
Selma smirks, giving me one more look-over before turning to leave with Leslie in tow, but I can’t let her leave that easy. It just wouldn’t be any fun.
“Selma, Rhett has something of mine and I will be coming for it. I always come for what is mine and I always have it returned to me.”
They both turn when they hear me and I level a punctuated look to Leslie. Selma catches it and looks to her new worshiper with questions that I know she will demand answers to when they are from earshot. She won’t allow me to see her curiosity.
I let them slip from view with the bitter taste on my tongue wanting to spread further misery. I wasn’t bluffing with my threat, though. Before I had left Paula’s tender care, I had asked where J.D.’s vest was. Lawless had told me with no joy that Rhett had taken it when they had found me in the shower area and he has kept it along with his vest. Both of these actions are a festering layer to the wound Rhett has caused for the men. His vest is their problem, but J.D.’s vest is mine and I always have what is mine returned to me.
CHAPTER 16
We no longer call the third floor home like the rest of the people who live here. Instead, they had moved to the second floor while I was recouping from my “departure”. Everyone seemed to think at the time it was best to provide some space between the two groups that have now splintered to three – us, them and the ones who hover somewhere in the middle.
“What is their story? The real story?” I ask Lawless when it is just he and I alone in our new room.
“It changes with who is around.” He sighs, slouching to the cot we once shared. “When they first got here, it was just some stroke of luck they found us. That luck became more and more “divine” as time went by.”
“..and Rhett?”
“What’s confusing about it? All a man wants is someone to love him and someone to protect. Selma provided both.”
“Since when does Rhett care about love?” I ask, ignoring the underhanded build up.
“When he had to kill his best friend.”
The silence in the room becomes that weighted burden that conversations seem to fall into. It’s a heavy pressure of a loss of direction, leaving me searching for words to fill it. How about them Braves? “No one had a choice,” is what I say, instead.
“We all have choices.” Most would be swarmed with remorse over what has happened, but Lawless still hovers on the edge of rage that threatens to send him falling from the steep cliff of his anger so like the man we speak of.
“He made his and forced ours.” I keep my voice steady, unsure of which way this conversation will go and worried something I say will be what topples it into something worse.
“I don’t remember you having to do anything,” he tells me and I sigh seeing how fast the toppling has started.
“Go on,” I tell him. “I know you haven’t done this with anyone yet, so let’s go. Tell me all about it.”
He just stares at me from the cot with his left leg bouncing rapidly. I watch his jaw saw back-and-forth with the words that are silently filling his mouth.
“Come on, Law. Tell me how unfair life is. Tell me how no one can possibly understand what you are feeling. Tell me how somehow this is your fault. Somehow, you should have done something to prevent it even though we both know no one could have stopped him. You don’t stop J.D. You just get the hell out of his way.”
“Did you talk to him? They said you talked to him before it happened.”
“We sat in one of the bathrooms. I held his hand while he cried over you. Whatever J.D. was, he did love you. He never settled with the guilt of letting you run out that door without him.”
“Did you know? Did you have any clue what he was going to do?” Lawless is staring at me, searching my face for some help with this wide hole he has been left in. So much has happened and yet this is the moment of time he is stuck mentally repeating. For him, the real reason J.D. killed the children isn’t with J.D. at all. The fault is with Lawless. In his mind, it was him that pushed the man to do the damage that set us on this path.
“Larance,” I ease myself down beside him, fighting against the pain it causes my stomach. “You couldn’t have known. No
one really thought he would go that far. At most, we figured he would rough up a few people after daring them into a fight with insults. Marxx and Rhett would have to pull them all apart while Chapel played peacekeeper; just another Saturday night with the club. No one saw how deep J.D. was lost. Angry, stir-crazy, maybe just full crazy - I don’t know - but not that volatile.”
“You really believe that?” He is staring right at me now. He might as well be kneeling on his knees for me to absolve him from this shame. I’m going to have to lie to do it.
“Yeah, I really believe it.” I don’t blink. I don’t cringe. I don’t even have a smile to spare him. I just say what I have to say to help him through this loop of misery. When your hands are soaked in children’s blood, what’s one more sin to endure? “Rhett was pretty torn up, also.”
Everything about Lawless changes with the name. The soft little boy is gone and the walls of life have replaced him. His eyes cut away from me and stare into a far corner with his jaw working in anger again. I never stop to count my blessings.
“He didn’t mean to hit me. This nice bruise should be yours,” I tell him, trying to make a joke out of the land mine I have not just stepped on, but might as well be twirling upon with ballerina perfection.
“I know. When he hit you, Marxx grabbed me. In that split second I was ready to kill him and he wasn’t even looking at me. He never looked up at me. He was watching you. I saw everything across his face, but he didn’t see Travis. Travis was watching me. It’s what he wanted to happen. He wanted me to go after Rhett because then Marxx would follow, proving to them that everything he is saying about us is true.” Lawless tilts his head to look at me. The dark amber of his eyes catches the light and glows. “What I am mad about most is that Rhett either doesn’t see it, or doesn’t want to see it. Up until he hit you, I figured he didn’t see it. Watching him with you near, I think now, he just doesn’t want to. Something broke inside of him with Aimes. He went darker than normal while you were gone. Whatever it is, they found it and now he’s hiding from it.”
The Risen (Book 4): Courage Page 12