CHAPTER FIFTY- ALEC
“Stop!” That is my voice. I know it is mine because I can hear it ringing out into the world as the word leaves my mouth. Simultaneously, I see my hand striking at Danny’s weapon, knocking it from its position of readiness. My voice, my movements, my thoughts are happening, I know it, but they are all occurring in some type of fugue state. And though I am no seer and cannot presume to predict what this moment might augur, I do know that in the years to come I will look back on this scene and wonder if I was really there.
As I guessed might be the case, Lars did not leave. Whether he stayed with the intention of confronting me, as he surely knew I would return, or whether he never even really had awareness that I was gone in the first place, I shall likely never know. I would ask him. I would query him and hold him to account for his betrayal of me and his manipulation of Christine in such a state as she was in at the time. I would seek to know the answers to these and so many more questions. I would, if it appeared he could provide any type of response.
But he cannot, it would seem. Because sitting, as he is, in a wheelchair, wearing silk pyjamas identical to the ones in which I was outfitted for the last four or almost five months, he appears in no state to provide anyone with anything.
“What the fuck?” Danny whispers. Or possibly says at full volume but lands on my ear as a susurration after traveling down a long, smoky corridor of confusion and—if I am interpreting my emotions correctly—regret.
The other members of our collective arrive now at our stern and they all stop short. Danny holds them back with his arm. I think. The only thing I can make out for certain is a gasp that sounds like one of Christine’s and an, “Alec?” which is definitely Christine’s. I turn my head to note her expression and I speculate that it is a mirror of my own.
I turn back to see my brother—my baby brother who I never knew that well, who I was charged with caring for after our parents died, and who many years later would attempt to kill me—in a near catatonia, his arms and legs strapped to the wheeled, metallic perch on which he sits. He appears to have been beaten. Badly. His eyes are swollen, and his lips are bloodied. He struggles to take in air. He is a marooned guppy.
“Alec…?” I hear again. Again, it is Christine’s voice. Looking back once more, she appears in need. The Watsons all stand in stock-still silence. I fear that none of us know what to do exactly. We wildly, and some might say foolishly, concocted a plan to come here tonight for our own various reasons. All of us bound by whatever it is that binds people. All of us with our own set of expectations for what we might find when we arrived. We planned for myriad scenarios. And when we materialized here, it looked like nothing we anticipated. And now what’s before us looks like nothing anyone could have anticipated even if you had drawn an explicit diagram of what we would find.
The clicking we heard stops. Placed under the fingertips of Lars’ bound left hand is a pistol, the barrel striking the arm of the chair as it pecked out an anemic call for help, the sound that drew us here. S.O.S. For over a century, the universal code for maritime distress. A nonverbal cry for aid from sailors at sea. How violently poetic.
Christine summons herself forward, passing Danny who tries to take her arm, but she pulls free and stands next to me. After a moment, Danny draws ahead as well and joins us. One of the Watson okes starts, “Do you—?” But I put up my hand and whatever question he was about to ask is stopped short. Now that the tapping has ceased, it is almost aggressively quiet in the house, save for the strained rattle coming from Lars as he tries with only marginal success to breathe.
“Watch behind us.” I don’t turn around to address Eliza and her brothers directly, but I will assume they know I’m talking at them. I take a tentative first step. Christine and Danny step with me. A second step. They follow in kind. A third step and I now see Lars attempting to open a tumescent eyelid. Four, five, six steps in quick succession and we are now knelt in front of and beside him.
“Lars. Lars, man. What the fok, bru? What happened? Bru? Bru?”
His head swivels a bit, his chin tracing his chest like a ghoulish metronome. He makes the suggestion of a sound. It is indescribable and possibly an attempt at words.
“Lars?” Christine. “Lars? Where is everyone? The men who were here? Your men?”
His metronomic head swivel manages five percent more energy, and through a clenched jaw he mumbles out what sounds like, “Aaaawaaaay…” Then a breath in through his nose and, “Nnnnot… nnnnnot…”
“Not what, bru?”
“Nnnnnnnot… mine.”
And it is now all I can do to wrestle down the lightning strike of energy that wants to overtake me. I do. I breathe. I expand. I need to become bigger than I am. I need to consume all the space around me. Danny, spying something that I missed, reaches up to the pocket of the pyjama shirt and withdraws what appears to be a hastily scribbled note.
“What is that?” I ask. He doesn’t respond, just unfolds the note and reads, his brow furrowing as he whispers, “What the fuck…?” Then his entire face contorts into a mask of rage. “Motherfucker!”
The sound of his shout echoing around the emptiness of this place is jarring. Eliza darts into the room. Christine startles and says, “What? What is it?”
Danny thrusts the note at me. I take it. Look down at the slapdash penmanship.
This was David’s gun. He should have had the chance himself. If ye find this and if ye give a shite about this one, you’ll put him out of his fuckin misery. The girl’s a good enough shot from distance. Point blank should be easy. Wish I could see ye now Fortnight but had someplace else to be. Don’t worry brother. Soon.
“Fok is this, man?” I ask, shoving the paper back at him.
He hangs his head. Says nothing. Christine reaches across me and grabs it from my hand. Reads it as well. Whispers, “Brasil.”
“Fuck!” Danny shouts again, standing, looking for something to punch.
None of this makes sense. None of it. Not a fokken thing.
Lars. Lars knows something. Lars has answers.
“Lars,” I say, reaching up for his chin. Weakly, he tries to retract from me. “Lars, man, let us help you. Look, bru, we’ve got some shit to work out, obviously.” I smile a wee bit and try for a laugh. Not successfully, but I try. “But let’s just get you some attention right now and then let’s unpack some of this nonsense, yeah? Bru?”
Again, I try to tilt his chin to get him to look at me and again he tries, with strained effort, to avoid my touch. When I finally manage to take him with both hands and lift his head up, I understand why he resists. Sort of. I don’t know what happened exactly, but his jaw appears somehow glued or wired shut, and the movement of his neck compels him to swallow. Forces him to. I see his Adam’s apple bob, its laryngeal musculature tighten then loosen.
And suddenly, he begins convulsing. His body, strapped to the chair, spasms uncontrollably. Froth begins spilling from his still-clenched teeth and though clearly beaten, ruptured, and without strength of his own, he is now adrenalized into agonizing motion against his will.
… if ye give a shite about this one, you’ll put him out of his fuckin misery.
“What the fuck is happening?” Christine shouts.
I cannot tell if the wrist and ankle guards that hold him in place are creating new lacerations as he struggles or if they were already there, but the brutality of watching him strive and fail to flail free is almost too much to bear. Even for me.
The gun that had been placed under his hand—David’s gun, I reckon—falls to the floor. But only for a moment. Only for less than a second. Because almost before it even lands, I snatch it up.
And I place the barrel against my poor, dear baby bru’s temple and pull the trigger.