by Elena Monroe
“What the fuck is this? Is this what you left behind? This is your end game?” His words spit all over me, sizzling like holy water landing on my skin.
I could barely talk with his hand crushing my throat and pushing on my Adam’s apple. Choking out the words, I let him do what he needed. “Your dad is the reason Braeden is dead. The reason I’m fucked up. Ask him, he knows everything.”
His dad pointed towards the door, and Khaos stopped Iron making sure he knew to exit towards the boats if he wanted to survive a fire. We weren’t here to kill anyone not guilty.
I would have to figure out how to save him from the life I led later.
The gun shook in his hand, not steady at all, not like normal. He swung his arm around meeting the eyes of his own father. “What do you mean, you knew?” Grimm’s voice shook just as much as the gun in his hand.
Dirty little secrets have a way of surprising the people you love.
Stepping in, I knew his father would never admit it, still fixing his belt against all the fake remorse. We were just inconveniencing him being serviced by a fourteen-year-old boy with no choice.
His hands were so dirty, I couldn’t tell if he was simply that villainous or if it was his dark as fuck soul showing through. “He was with my brother the night he jumped the cliffs, weren’t you, Grimm? And why is that?”
Grimm’s dad, Jason Rothschild, was a grade A pedophile and I had been keeping it a secret for my entire life.
Every time I looked at Grimm, I saw the bits of his father that I couldn’t stand: the silent contempt for the world, the inability to connect, the way he did what he was told escaping staining his tattooed hands. That was until Abigail and Daisy, now, he was a different person, but Grimm repenting doesn’t make up for the sins of his father.
There’s no punishment bad enough for those sins.
Not unless it’s the death from a bullet and unmarked grave.
“I couldn’t leave him on a plane. He was barely here fifteen minutes; he couldn’t convince your unstable brother not to jump.” The sound of his belt jingled, and he was out of breath easier than I expected being caught red-handed.
I’m sure Grimm was tracing every memory he had for clues if he had been here more than once while his dad enjoyed a quickie.
“That’s why you medicated your son, right? Make him think he’s crazy, make it hard to remember the truth, make it easy to shape a monster out of whatever was left? Couldn’t have any loose ends. He was the only one my brother trusted with the truth and you just got lucky we don’t remember childhood so clearly.”
Grimm’s eyes got darker like a cloudy sky about to rain, when he grabbed my hoodie yanking me closer like a ragdoll still holding the gun at his own dad.
“Why the fuck wouldn’t you tell me?! You soaked up all the fucking malice like a sponge and leaked out sinister all over our lives! I could have remembered… saved him.” I could feel his anger against my porcelain skin trying to crack me.
He was projecting and I let him. I knew better than anyone that no one can change how you feel, not when it’s this strong.
“There was no saving him! Your dad was here to fuck my brother right into suicide! Your dad is the reason he jumped. You were here by accident, caught him before he took a step off the cliff, that’s it. Your dad medicated you enough to forget, to make you crazy, and it spiraled into a fake fucking tumor to keep you from figuring it all out,” I yelled back, finally saying the only truth we didn’t cover.
I had never seen Grimm cry, witnessing the thick tears drop from his lashes felt cruel.
I was convinced he couldn’t even see through all the wetness when he whispered, “There’s no saving him either.” Right before squeezing the trigger so tightly, a loud pop filled the room and his father dropped.
Grimm wasn’t even looking when he killed his own father. His eyes were locked with mine and his grip on my shirt finally loosened when he bolted from the room.
Rothschild was lying on the tiled floors, head leaking blood too quickly to consider being saved when I squatted down next to him, whispering, “That’s for Braeden, you piece of shit.”
I always thought the priest who admired how much I looked like Braeden was responsible for what happened to him here. After all my digging, it was clear Rothschild was the man responsible. Every summer Rothschild molested my twin brother further into pushing his family away, further down a bottle, further into death until he jumped right into Heaven.
Standing up, Vic's eyes were giving me a sympathetic look. I avoided noticing too obviously. Khaos’s hands reached for me when I pushed them away. “Make sure everyone is safe before we burn it down. I need to give Grimm something before we leave.”
I left the room knowing exactly where he would be, on the cliffs where Braeden jumped. Slowly I approached him trying to give him space and time for my damn neck to heal.
“I didn’t know. He never told me. He knew I would have fought, protected him, tried every way I could,” his voice was broken, and I could hear it being choked out. “This was the last place I saw him. He told me he loved me and wanted to run away, leave our fucked up lives before Patmos. I refused to admit I loved him back. I rejected him.”
“I’m sure he knew you were just scared,” I tried to be supportive when the tips of my shoes reached the edge of the cliff right next to him.
“I didn’t think he would jump. I saw him jump. I was going to jump too, but I got yanked back by armed guards, they stopped me. I never told him I was a lying sack of shit. Of course I loved him.” Big, thick tears poured down his face, but I left the space between us empty.
Digging in my pockets, I pulled out the note he left behind, committed to memory I’ve read it so many times now. Pushing it towards him, he analyzed it carefully.
“That is for you.”
Handing it back he said, “It’s for you, not me.”
“Turn it over, Grimm.” I watched him out of the corner of my eye flip it over, and in Braeden’s handwriting it read: PS. Tell Jason I love him. Even in death.
He held the note in his shaking hands and a flood gate broke. No long thick tears but a full on attack of feelings.
“You understand why I hated you so much, don’t you?” he asked without looking at me.
As far as Grimm apologies goes, it wasn’t awful.
“I hate myself for the same reason. All I see is him.” Patting his back once, I left him there to say goodbye. “We gotta go, Grimm, make it quick.”
“Don’t you want to say goodbye?”
Looking over his shoulder at me, I didn’t stop walking backwards when I replied, “How? I’m wearing his face and carrying parts of his soul. It’s never goodbye for me. Not like it is for you.”
Heading back to the cart, I waited for Grimm knowing this island burning was cathartic for us both. The plan was simple: get in, grab the truth, light it up where I had Donte strategically place accelerants.
There was no one to save considering Rothschild only came here under the guise of never being seen here. The island gets emptied out before he even arrives.
Sitting down next to me, he pulled out a joint and pushed a lighter to the end. “I still hate you for all this.”
“You’re welcome for not having a tumor or needing meds. I’m basically Jesus for healing you.” I pushed down on the gas and reached for the matches I had ready to be sparked.
Grimm had been living a lie his whole life, forgetting the parts that mattered. I had been refusing to live because Braeden couldn’t and drowned myself in pain just to make sure I kept feeling instead of becoming a shell of a person.
We were both healed in ways neither of us expected as I scratched the match alive and tossed it past Grimm, watching the flames shoot up enough to fan us with instant heat. I didn’t stop for anything when I looked in the rearview mirror watching the trees catch fire, spreading, ready to eat the island whole the way it did our sanity.
There’s no better way to get rid of your demons
than sending them back to hell.
BOWEN
Six Months Later…
Being fresh out of rehab wasn’t really in my plans but I knew in order to kick my bad habits, I needed help to make it permanent.
Every other rehab stay was a waste of time when you don’t plan to actually get sober.
This time was different, Eve was pregnant and I was missing those moments so I could be the man she deserved forever.
Carrying the box of letters, visitor passes, and trinkets like her panties from rehab, I felt my lips tug at the edges for no reason. I was always playing catch up to my facial expressions now.
The guys took time off from the Clave until I was clean and back to figure out what we were going to do now that we burned away one of the ways they make money. We waited a few weeks after burning the island for our retribution, but it never came.
We expected Zeus or our dads to have to resort to some kind of punishment yet nothing happened.
Eve brushed past me, her round belly brushing mine, with a suitcase handle in her grasp. “I told you I would carry your stuff in.”
“It’s on wheels, Bowey. Let me just bask in the fact that we’re home together.” Placing my hand on her belly, I felt our daughter kick against it. She only kicked for me and it pissed off Eve to no end.
I offered to buy a new house instead of the one where Elias died but she refused. She told me she was done running from the bad shit in her life. That she was stronger than that and I believed her.
I was eternally grateful for Grace and Khaos looking after her while I was doing therapy, group therapy, seminars, meditating, and just learning how to cope without my normal vices from day to day.
None of us knew how things would change or if they would at all. All we knew was that we could handle it a lot better as our best selves instead of worsts.
Closing the front door, I let my body drop onto the couch realizing Eve worked out my bank account by shopping while I was gone.
Retail therapy was a vice I could handle.
I wasn’t even home ten minutes before the doorbell echoed through the house and had me snapping upright. I was already too exhausted and sober to deal with all the guys at once.
Dragging myself to the door, I realized no one ever rings the doorbell like a normal person unless Eve orders In-N-Out, but Grace had been teaching her to drive.
Pretty sure the guilt of teaching Khaos to drive resulting in a near death accident drove her to try again. We all knew she wasn’t to blame but she was just as stubborn as Eve.
Yelling to Eve, wherever she was, “Did you order food?” Pregnancy cravings were a bitch but at least her appetite was back.
I waited for a response before yanking the door open. It was a guy with his back turned and I couldn’t see his face when I shifted my eyes to my gun sitting on the table next to the door, where it stayed since Elias. Even chopped up and disposed of, I didn’t trust he was dead.
Twisting around, I felt like this was some kind of joke when all his features mirrored my own. My chest tightened, my heart folded in on itself and gripped the door with so much force I expected it to break.
Braeden.
My dead twin.
There was a misplaced smirk across his mouth. “It’s done, right? Avenging my death and our demons,” his voice was just like I remembered. Husky and full of anger like the world owed him a lot more than a trust fund.
I was too stunned and in disbelief to actually form any words. I felt like I was dreaming or having a nightmare, my body couldn’t even decide right now.
Whatever it was felt like a way to heal for real this time when I wrapped my arms around his stiff body and took in how real he was for being a ghost.
We were never going to be free of the monster, the machine, the animal, the demons… or even the ghost standing in front of me. No, that shit was embedded in our soul and our souls were promised to hell.
There was nothing we could ever do; not even burning down an island was going to clean off the stains the Clave left behind.
We would always be theirs.
We would always be cult-like even if we changed the rules.
And I didn’t just match with Eve anymore...
BOWEN
It was hard to not wake up at the break of dawn when my rehab stay still lingered around my sleep habits. I was up before everyone, making coffee and reminding myself how to stay clean for everyone around me.
When I left rehab, finally taking what they said to heart, I believed them when they said it was a daily fight to keep your sobriety. It was, not because I didn’t love my family, but because I did and parts of me still never felt deserving of their love.
Juniper thought she was tiptoeing into the kitchen while she held the plastic case that would house whatever stray animal she saved today. Constantly saving everyone from everything like the world was dangerous and only she was considered safety.
Slipping below the island, I waited patiently for her to round it, put her case down, and dawn her gardening gloves she kept under the kitchen sink before braving our backyard. As soon as she rounded the island to open the bottom cabinet, I wrapped my arms around her small body and picked her up into the air while she squealed.
Juniper was special—quiet and easy to love when she’s precious in ways we never got to be.
Finally setting her down on her feet, I waited for it, the second you let her go she comes right back. Hugging my legs tightly, she squeezed every ounce of doubt I had about deserving this life from me.
Watching her run into our backyard from the window in her teal gardening gloves with her enclosure ready to make a wild animal her pet, I smiled picking up my coffee mug with only coffee. It was weird, and I didn’t love the flavor of coffee without Henny.
Not liking coffee was just one symptom of being sober.
My phone violently rattled against the countertop when I saw the number was blocked, electing my brows to sink and debate not answering it. After it proceeded to ring under my glare a few more times, I finally decided to pick it up, letting the person hear me breath as their cue to speak.
A voice I recognized hit my eardrum with so much conviction I almost rolled my eyes at Vic’s son, Blaz, when he said, “I want to speak to Juniper.”
He was all business when it came to my daughter, and it wasn’t comforting. He was nothing like Vic—Blaz was troubled, demanding, distracting, already swearing, and often made it clear it’s his way or no way.
Vic and him clashed to say the least.
“Blaz, why are you calling me?” Normally I was only called when it was life threatening at the end of a very convincing Uncle Bowey that I just knew was going to lead to bail money in the future if I didn’t shut down being their favorite.
No one told Khaos so I’m playing it low-key so we don’t have to deal with the melodramatics.
“Maybe if you weren’t such a d-bag and let Juni have a phone,” he sassed back like a fucking pro on the other end.
I was the only parent with rules. Many rules—none extending to wildlife, though.
No phones.
Monitored internet time.
Limited TV time.
I was forcing her to be the kid we didn’t get to be and it worked for us. Juniper valued manners, the things in life that didn’t cost her any pieces of herself, and she slayed my baby grand better than I did.
“She doesn’t need a phone, you little shit. She barely speaks, what are you going to do, listen to her nod her head?”
We tested Juniper for everything and everything came back negative. There was nothing keeping her from speaking normally yet she chose not to.
She seldom spoke, and from what we heard of her voice, it was angelic, no lisp or distortion at all. It went unexplained and Eve kept reassuring herself that she would speak when it mattered.
“Yeah, duh, she can fucking hear old man. Tell her I’m calling,” he whined in a way that I knew his body was bouncing up and down demandingly the wa
y he did.
“Well, she’s busy roaming our backyard like fucking Crocodile Dundy so leave a message.” Blaz was not the person I wanted Juniper to be friends with, but she picked him, or he picked her. Whoever picked, picked wrong.
Opposites.
Good vs. Evil.
The great parenting debate.
Too many walls between the people they are.
I could hear him sigh before he hung up but not before I heard him whine out for Justice. No doubt to tell on me for swearing or calling him a little shit inside my head. Blaz was great at pulling focus off himself if it meant avoiding jail time.
He was an expert at avoiding trouble even though he reeked of it.
Eve sauntered into the room the second I dropped my phone on the counter and shook my head at my latest odd interaction with Blaz. And it would for certain not be the last.
“Let me guess, Blaz called again?” She had to stop herself from imagining the conversation and laughed as her silk robe fell open to reveal a baby blue set underneath that instantly made me forget about my daughter having an affair with the next generation’s bad boy.
Eve was digging through our fridge to find her creamer for the coffee I now hated when I wrapped my arms around her slim waist pulling her into my chest. Showering her exposed neck and where her robe fell down with kisses, I held on tight like I did every morning.
Holding on tightly to what kept me sober, happy—full instead of famine.
“Wait, again? What do you mean again?” My mouth halted against her warm skin drenched in a morning glow.
Sticking to her like glue, she spun around pouring her coffee and dumping too much creamer into the mug. “He calls me every day, but I guess not picking up this morning left him desperate enough to call you.”
Fuck my life.
He was as committed as I was to being Eve’s forever. That was going to be a problem.
Finally pulling away from Eve, I took my coffee to the piano to start warming up before Juniper arrived at my side. She had a routine: brave the wild of LA, save an unbeknownst creature, then let them be serenaded into being a part of this family.