Hundreds

by Pepper Winters

  I inhaled again, tipping my head back to allow as much deliciousness into my soul as possible. For an unoccupied house, the aroma smelled suspiciously like home baking and heavenly shampoo.

  Elder froze.

  I bumped into his back, moving forward in a dream.

  He sniffed, his body switching from placid to on guard. “Someone’s been here.”

  His alertness made me nervous.

  I glanced around with new eyes. Shadows that’d been comforting and inviting to doze in were now sinister with men about to hurt us. My feet wanted to dash outside where it was sunny, but Elder reached out and grabbed my wrist. His fingers warm and strong, anchored me to him, granting me protection.

  Ignoring the soft flutter in my chest, I allowed him to pull me forward from foyer to open-plan lounge, kitchen, and dining.

  For a house that’d looked quaint from the outside, it expanded outward in a U-shape with a central courtyard where the sun warmed a wrought-iron patio set and a bubbling water fountain in the shape of a yin and yang.

  Despite Elder’s bristling hostility as he searched for trespassers in his domain, I saw no sign of inhabitants. No empty dishes marring the pristine wooden counter-top or spotless butter-mellow cupboards. No magazines strewn on the rugged coffee table that’d once been a cart-wheel but now had been repurposed.

  It didn’t stop Elder from pulling me through the living room, over thick woven carpets with bright, happy colours, and down a wide corridor leading to an office with an empty desk and lonely chair, a bedroom with a single bed and baby blue linen, past a bathroom with a Jacuzzi bath just waiting for someone to soak, past two more guest bedrooms with incredible views onto the courtyard, and finally to the master where evidence of unwanted guests finally confirmed Elder was right to suspect.

  “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, taking in the suitcase tucked in the corner and the wardrobe door open with folded clothes.

  Women’s clothes.

  My heart sank to think of an ex tracking him down. Of him giving me up in favour of rekindling a romance far less complicated than whatever we shared.

  But before I could excuse myself and rub my heartache, an adjoining bathroom door swung open, revealing the owner of the clothes. She wore a pretty lavender towel and had a shower cap on her head, keeping her black hair dry from the countless droplets lingering to the plastic.

  She didn’t see us for the longest second.

  She moved into the room, pulling off the shower cap and tossing her hair until it cascaded down to her shoulders.

  Elder swore again; only this time, he sounded as if someone had taken a baseball bat to his insides. He stumbled backward, letting go of my wrist to grasp the wall. “Okaasan?” His voice crumbled with disbelief. “Is it really you?”

  The woman screamed; hugging her chest, she clutched at her towel. Her feet left the carpet as she startled, her gaze catching Elder’s then mine.

  In that split second, I noticed she was older than I had originally thought. Lines feathered out from her eyes and around her mouth. Streaks of silver played hide and seek in her black hair, and the skin on her chest wasn’t that of a youthful woman but of someone who’d spent more than she should in the sunshine.

  In the next second, I saw disbelief, shock, and such heartfelt longing it physically hurt to look at her.

  In the final second, her face filled with disgust, ridicule, and rage. “You!”

  Elder braced himself, pushing off from the wall as if fortified by her hate. As if he’d hoped for a different outcome but hadn’t received it and now knew exactly how to proceed.

  “What are you doing here?” His question was innocent, but his tone was not.

  “What are you doing here?” she screeched, grabbing at her towel, totally unprepared for an audience.

  I lingered in the background, fading against the wall. I didn’t want the animosity in the room to find and leach me dry.

  I’d seen Elder mad.

  I’d witnessed him break a man’s neck, hold another for me to shoot, and sinister satisfaction at bloodshed.

  I’d seen him stoned to escape whatever issues he lived with, and I’d seen him torn apart by guilt for forcing himself on me when he shouldn’t.

  But I’d never seen him like this before.

  This twisted up.

  This tangled.

  His body hunched as if he wanted to strike the woman in front of him while his face resembled that of a kid who still believed everything bad could be made good again.

  His sharp cheekbones matched those of the woman in front of us. His black hair and breeding were similar…

  Wait…

  “What am I doing here?” Elder scrubbed his face, bone weary and looking far older than before. “This is my house, mother.”

  My eyes popped wide.

  His mother?

  Admittedly, Elder and I hadn’t discussed families, and I still had so much to learn. But he acted as if he hadn’t seen her in decades—let alone expected her to be holidaying here without permission.

  “Don’t you dare call me that.” The woman held up her finger, stern as a sword and just as sharp. “I ceased to be your mother the moment you killed Scott and Kade!”

  My heart opened a suitcase and threw everything painful inside. Knowing Elder was a murderer—watching him commit murder—didn’t prepare me for that horrendous piece of memory lane.

  His mother sniffed with her chin high. “Or are you forgetting your little brother and father? Both who loved you. Both who died because of what you did!”

  Elder crumpled, bowing his head. “How could I? I could never forget, Okaasan.”

  “You don’t get to call me that anymore!” She stormed to the wardrobe and grabbed an armful of mismatched clothes. “You’re nothing to me!” With a withering stare, she stomped back into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  It rattled in its hinges as if vibrating with an apology.

  Elder exhaled heavily, but he didn’t turn to face me. He braced himself, never taking his eyes off the door.

  We both knew the confrontation wasn’t over. She’d eventually have to return. More raised voices and awful declarations would happen.

  I wanted to break into Elder’s pain and pull him from the house. I wanted to be brave and stand beside him in the next round.

  But I did neither. I hadn’t earned the right to protect him, and I sure as hell hadn’t earned the right to fight beside him.

  This was his war.

  The room strained with tension, growing thicker and tighter as time inched forward. Finally, a few minutes later, his mother yanked open the bathroom door with murder in her gaze. “I don’t have anything else to say to you.”

  Elder locked his spine, balling his hands. “Well, too bad. I have plenty to say to you.”

  His mother snarled like a cornered cat. “Nothing you say will change anything. Never! You hear me?!” She no longer wore a towel but a black blouse with red cherry blossoms and pink slacks. With her almond eyes and exotic willowy frame, I saw where Elder got his looks. She was a perfect example of beauty that could come from mixed parents. Her features flirted with Eastern with the accents of European. While Elder looked more Western than her, hinting not only had her parents fallen in love with a mate of different cultures but so had his.

  Staring at the irate parent, I couldn’t imagine her having a love affair and ever being happy. She looked pinched and broken and pissed at the entire world.

  Who had she fallen in love with? How did he die?

  Was Elder’s father English or American? Canadian or Finnish? Had his sibling been just as handsome with genes born from different borders or was I just enamoured with Elder?

  “Move!” she commanded, trying to brush past Elder blocking the doorway. “I’m leaving.”

  “Leaving?” Elder stepped away, dragging me with him to give his mother a clear path. “But you only just got here.”

  “Wrong. You only just got here. I’ve been her
e a few days with Raymond. This was supposed to be a vacation.” She threw her hands up in the air as she stalked down the corridor, ignoring the pretty fountain view or plush, colourful carpet. “He didn’t tell me he’d somehow found a place that rents out to low-life’s like you.”

  I winced for Elder even though he didn’t show any pain. He merely trailed after the angry woman, keeping his distance as she entered the kitchen and pulled out a filleting knife from a drawer.

  She brandished it, half with commitment, half with shakes born from fighting with her son.

  A son she despised. A son she would rather hurt than talk to.

  Why?

  What happened?

  Why did she think Elder killed his father and brother?

  Surely, he could never do such a thing?

  After what he’d done for me? How kind and protective he was? It didn’t make sense.

  “Okaasan, please. Can we talk?” Elder held up his hands in surrender. “I won’t hurt you.”

  “Won’t hurt me?” She laughed manically. “You already hurt me more than you ever could.” Tears glittered in her black eyes. “You killed me. You made me a walking ghost with no family—”

  “I’m your family.” He thumped his chest. “I’m still your flesh and blood.”

  “You are not my family.” She spat into the sink. “You will never be my son.”

  Elder pinched the bridge of his nose. I didn’t know if it was to fight back emotion at the sheer hate his mother had for him or to compose his temper that slowly rose to match hers. Watching them together showed me where he earned his volatile moods. His mother was hot blooded and cruel. Blind and deaf to hearing any other argument but her own.

  But I had no right to judge.

  Just because I didn’t know her didn’t mean she wasn’t right.

  If Elder had done what she accused him of what did that mean? Could I believe he had the capacity to kill his own relations? What did that mean for me?

  Chills scattered down my arms as Elder growled, “I am your son. I’ll forever be your son. I’ve done everything I could to make it right, but you banished me. You took away my home, my family. You—”

  “Don’t you dare blame this on me. It was you who took away our home. You who killed any family who ever wanted you!”

  “But I took care of you! I fed us. I committed crime for us.”

  “No.” She laughed like a witch stirring a bubbling cauldron. A cackle. A curse. “You went into crime long before you stole to keep us alive those few months.”

  “I didn’t do it deliberately.”

  “Don’t lie!” she barked. “You knew exactly what you were doing. You might’ve been young, but you had a choice!”

  “I never had a choice!” Elder bellowed. “Why could you never understand that? Do you think I wanted to be the way I am? Otōsan understood that. He tried to help—”

  “Yes, and look what happened to him. Because of you!”

  “I hurt just as much as you do. Knowing I was the cause eats me alive! I can’t change what happened—”

  “And that’s why I can’t stand to look at you!” Tears tracked down her cheeks, almost sizzling from her rage. “I prefer to think you’re dead too; that way I don’t imagine killing you every night for what you did.”

  Elder sucked in a sharp gasp.

  The volley of slurs stopped as he shook his head silently.

  My own tears welled at what a terrible thing she’d said. I couldn’t get in the middle of this, but no one should have to hear his own mother wanted him to die.

  Stepping forward, I called upon every inch of bravery I had left. “You don’t mean that.”

  Elder’s head whipped to me, his face tortured and strained. “Pim. Don’t.”

  I didn’t obey.

  Moving to stand in front of him—just like I had the night Alrik pointed a gun at his chest—I did my best to protect him. “Life is too short to hold grudges.”

  His mother gripped her knife tighter, disbelief whitening her face then livid animosity replacing it. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Absolutely no right to interfere.”

  “I have a right when you’re hurting someone I care about.”

  “Pim—” Elder snapped, grabbing my arm to haul me backward. “Stop.” Pulling me into him, he grunted, “Go wait in the car. Tell Selix we’re leaving.”

  “No.” I squirmed in his hold. “I need to—”

  Remind you that you do have someone who wants you.

  Show you that you might have had no one, but now you have someone.

  Me.

  His mother pointed the blade at me, her wrath changing its victim. “Who are you anyway? Why are you with this heathen? Why are you not running for the police? Do you know what sort of monster you’re with?”

  I shrugged off Elder and marched forward, not caring she had a knife or hate. I wanted to tell her exactly who I was and what Elder had done. To inform her how I would be dead if it weren’t for her son, but words flew out of my head, my heart. I had nothing to reply with. A dried and dusty throat.

  Elder didn’t give me time to figure out how to respond. He placed himself in front of me, once again protecting me in the face of battle. “Don’t talk to her that way.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” His mother waggled the knife, her shakes fading, replacing with more and more loathing. “Get out! Leave or I’ll call Airbnb and tell them how—”

  “Wait,” Elder said. “What did you say about Airbnb?” He chuckled as if he couldn’t believe it. “That’s what you think this is? A rental?”

  She sniffed condescendingly. “That’s how Raymond found it.”

  “Raymond lied to you.” Elder laughed coldly. “Like I said before, this is my place. He knew that. I told him you were welcome anytime. That my door is always open. That I built a fucking yacht big enough to house all of you. That I wanted my goddamn family back. I told him to tell you so many things once you cut off all communication. But he never replied. Never came. Not one phone call or email. Nothing. And now you’re here and you’ve probably brought them right to my door. You should’ve stayed hidden, Okaasan. They’re still watching. Did you think they’d be satisfied with Otōsan and Kade’s death?” His voice lowered to a terrible whisper. “They’ll never stop.”

  “They’ll stop once they’ve killed you.”

  Elder nodded sadly. “Perhaps. But you know as well as I do that they’re ruthless in revenge.”

  His mother matched his laugh with an almost identical one. No one could deny they weren’t related. Their mannerisms were similar, their syntax, their hate. “Their revenge stops at you!” She stabbed the counter with the knife. “The sooner they find you, the better for all of us. And stop lying! Always lying! There is no way this is your house. Know how I know? Because Raymond would never stay in a place that’s linked to you. We all prefer you dead. Why would he risk bringing your memory back to life?”

  She looked around the space as if it were a dungeon and not the pretty thing it was. “This could never be yours.”

  “Never?” Elder stormed toward a large buffet cabinet with a small red padlock hanging from bamboo scrolled doors. “Not mine?” Inserting a key from his pocket, he yanked it open, flinging the doors wide until the contents were revealed. Each and every one. “How do you explain this then?”

  His mother stumbled backward as pictures of two young boys and a brown-headed father appeared. Milling, laughing, swings and seesaws, beaches and sunshine. Both children looked so similar with jet black hair and lanky limbs; one taller, one shorter, one older, one younger. And there, in many of the happy portraits, was the woman clutching her knife, a younger version of her laughing for the camera, her arms around her two boys while the man kissed her neck, hugging her from behind.

  A family.

  Elder’s family.

  No one said a word for a pregnant second. It throbbed with the promise of shattering into forgiveness or morphing into malice.
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br />   I tore my gaze from the cabinet of memories back to Elder’s mum.

  Silent tears cascaded down her cheeks, her skin white as snow. I expected her to crack, to admit that feuding between loved ones were useless when both were hurting. But her hate was too long festered. She turned into a predator, hissing with contempt. “You dare have their photos? After what you did? You dare show me?”

  A sob escaped her, sounding more like a gasp for help than breath for more disgust. “How could you?”

  “I dare because I loved them too, Okaasan. I miss them so fucking much it kills me.”

  She screamed. A short, sharp wail for him to stop. “How dare you look upon their faces? Do you do it because you think they still love you? That they’ll forgive you? You stupid, stupid boy.” She threw the knife onto the counter, letting it scatter and clatter as she swiped at the waterfalls painting her face. “They would never forgive you. I’ll never forgive you!”

  Elder stumbled back a step before a black shadow fell over his face. He went from accepting his mother’s rage to no longer permitting her to hurt him.

  Watching such a transformation, seeing emotion drain from his eyes brought me more agony than I could stand.

  “Never is a long time.” I broke my silence. “Forgiveness can be given for even the worst of crimes.” I couldn’t stand by and let her do this. No matter what had happened.

  Don’t meddle.

  My inner voice cautioned.

  You don’t know what happened.

  My common-sense begged.

  You would never forgive Alrik for what he did to you.

  My logic reasoned.

  Don’t ask another to forgive when you don’t know the crime.

  I knew all that, but it didn’t stop me from bracing myself. Blindly showing faith in Elder and hoping to God I wasn’t fighting for the villain.

  Elder’s mum pinned me under her angry-tear glare. “You’re right. Never is a very long time. An eternity to live without my husband and son. A lifetime to live each day alone and miss them so much my heart is breaking.”

  “You still have one son.” I stood my ground.

  “A son who stole everything I ever loved.”

  “You loved Elder,” I urged. “Once upon a time.”