Chapter Fifteen
AK
“You nearly got it that time,” I teased. Phebe huffed out a frustrated breath. The tree closest to us was chipped again. Fuck, the bitch was getting better, but shooting wasn’t easy. I would know.
She was doing better today. She had slept for almost a day after all the fucked-up shit she had told me. Bitch had had a kid. And worse, those asshole motherfuckers had taken her away and now she was fuck knows where. No wonder the bitch turned to drink.
My mind drifted to Zane, my kid nephew, and I fought back the fucking shame that filled me too. Phebe had lost a kid, and I had lost . . . everything . . .
Phebe leaned into me and hid her face in my chest, ripping me from my thoughts. She looked up and said, “I cannot even hit the central target at this tree.” She pointed at the farthest tree away. “Who could even hit that?” She shook her head.
I glanced at the tree she was referring to and shrugged. “Me.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You can hit that?” She eyed me skeptically. “I realize you must be a good shooter, but I am sure not even you can hit that.”
I smirked at her disbelief. Bitch had no fucking idea. Taking the gun from her hand, I stepped forward and took my position. I could feel her eyes on me. But I blocked her out. The world fell away around me as I held completely still. I focused my eye on the target. I canceled out everything but the bullseye.
My focus became sharp, unquestionable. I shifted my finger on the trigger, then with practiced ease, sent the bullet flying through the air and straight into the center of the target. I lowered the gun, feeling the same adrenaline rush through me that I always did. I turned and faced Phebe. She was watching me, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.
She looked fucking gorgeous. Bitch was stunning, all freckles and blue eyes.
“AK.” She stepped forward, eyes now on the target. “How . . .? What?” She fought to finish her words. “How did you do that?” She looked down at the gun in my hands, then shook her head suspiciously. “There is something you are not telling me.”
My stomach tightened, and I turned my head away. “Nah, just learned to shoot here as a kid, that’s all. I got good. Got better with the Hangmen.”
I gathered the guns together and headed for the lodge. Phebe followed me as I put the guns away in the trunk, then entered the house. Her hand slid into mine, urging me to stop. Her blue eyes searched my face. “Why can you shoot?” she asked, more firmly this time. I didn’t say shit in response.
She pointed to a cupboard on the other side of the room. “Why is that cupboard locked?” I knew what she was talking about, but I hadn’t even known the bitch had noticed it. “Why are we here in this lodge, AK?” I tried to swallow back the annoyance that was creeping up my throat. I’d seen the bitch through her drinking binge, listened to her tell me about her kid, yet here she was giving me shit?
“Whose boots are by the door?” Her words slammed into my chest. I could feel my walls building back up, pushing the bitch out. She’d broken through, impossibly, but now she was pushing me too far. She might have wanted to bare all her shit out in the open, but that didn’t mean it was time for me to do the same.
“I saw you.” She tightened her grip on my arm. “I saw you cleaning the boots. I saw you hold them to your chest.” Phebe stepped closer. I wanted to move the fuck away, but my legs wouldn’t budge. “I saw you shed tears over them.”
“Leave it,” I warned. My cheek twitched in anger.
“AK, please . . . talk to me,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I . . . I confided in you. Please, confide in me too. I can see the burden you bear.”
Snapping, forced to fly off the fucking edge, I yanked her closer and spat, “Don’t try your fucking temptress shit with me, Red. You ain’t fucking ready for what I’d lay at your feet. You think your tale is bad, you ain’t seen nothing.” I brought her face as close to mine as possible. “So cut the shit and back the fuck off.”
I let go of her arms and grabbed the truck’s keys off the counter. I smashed out of the door, hearing her call my name from behind me. I didn’t stop, couldn’t. I slammed in the truck into drive and pulled out of the cabin. I drove and drove until I reached a store. I bought a shit-ton of food I didn’t need, then got a bottle of Jameson off the top shelf. The cap was off and the liquid running down my throat before I’d even left the store. I sat in my truck, feeling the burn I needed to take off the edge. I laughed with fuck all humor. I’d taken Phebe from drink, but here I was like a fucking pussy, drowning the memories that had increased tenfold since Phebe had told me her story.
That fucking lodge. Those motherfucking boots. The guns, the clothes in the closet . . . that motherfucking locked cupboard.
My cell vibrated in my pocket; I had service now I was away from the lodge.
Tanner.
“Yeah?”
“Finally. Wanted to let you know that Meister’s men know it was us. Confirmed by hacking into their email system. They ain’t done shit yet, but wanted to keep you in the loop. Styx and Ky have it under control, but wanted you aware for when you decide to come back. You need to watch the roads.”
I blew out a breath, feeling the Jameson numbing the dark thoughts in my head. “’Kay,” I said. “Tanner?”
“Mm?”
“You good at tracking folk? Finding missing people and all that shit?”
“Kinda. Why?”
“Need you to find some young bitch from the cult. Would be fourteen now, called Sapphira. No last name. Same shit as Mae and Phebe.” Phebe thought her kid was safe in another country. But I knew fuckers like Judah, and that cunt never did anything right. I was doubting she was anywhere he said she was. I had to check.
“She’ll be dead, won’t she?” he hedged. “If she was from the cult?”
“She got sent away to some elderly home or some shit. Abroad maybe? Where Prophet Asswipe sent his oldies to die away from the commune. At least that’s what he said. Ain’t sure it’s true.”
“Right,” Tanner said. “Leave it to me. I’ll do some digging.”
“Thanks, brother.” I hung up my cell and tipped my head back against the headrest. I inhaled deep, then took another slug of my whiskey. I thought back to Phebe’s expression as I shouted in her face, her fucking lost eyes and tears as I stormed outta the door, pissed at her bringing all my shit to my door.
“Fuck!” I turned the engine on. By the time I’d arrived at the cabin, I was completely buzzed and my head felt a fuck-ton lighter. And best of all, those fucking thoughts had faded to the background. White noise in my head rather than fucking thrash-metal drums.
Taking hold of the bags of food we didn’t even need, I pounded through the door and completely froze in my tracks. Phebe sat on the floor next to the locked cupboard. Scratch that. The cupboard that was now open, its contents splayed around her.
She didn’t even jump when she saw me standing there, glaring. She slowly held up the one picture I hadn’t laid my eyes on in years. The one that used to have pride of place in this lodge, a copy of the one that sat in Tina and Devin’s home, right above the fireplace.
“This is you as a young man.” Phebe turned the picture so I would have no choice but to look at it. Seeing each one of the smiling faces was a multiple blow to the gut. When Phebe pointed to the central person, suited in Marine blues, with shaven hair and a huge fucking smile, I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“AK, this is you, is it not?”
“I told you not to fucking go in that cupboard,” I said darkly. My hands holding the bags of food shook. Shook as red-hot anger ripped through me. The Jameson burned to fucking vapor in my veins, yet I couldn’t take my eyes from that motherfucking picture.
“The boots,” Phebe said, ignoring the fact I was standing there seething, breaking. She ran her finger over my boots on the picture, then those of the person beside me. The one I could not look at the most. “The other pair of boots too.” When her breath hitched and her lips spread into a sad smile, her finger tracing across Zane’s face, his cute fucking smiling face, I lost it.
I launched the bags in my hand across the room and heard them smash against the wall. The contents spilled and scattered over the floor. My hands curled into fists as I fought to contain the red-hot rage that coursed through my veins.
Phebe, for once reading the danger in front of her accurately, jumped to her feet and backed her way to her bedroom door. Her sun-kissed skin paled as I glared at her. “I am sorry,” she said, struggling to find the knob. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she slipped through the door, like she knew the pain those fucking pictures caused within me. “I am so sorry, AK,” she said from behind the locked door.
My feet were rooted to the ground as I saw the pile of frames and albums that had not seen the daylight in years. The Jameson was on the far side of the kitchen, unbroken and intact, the remaining contents ready for me to take. I took the bottle and threw the cap to the side. I downed the whiskey like it was water. Pacing the floor, I tried to think of something else, to stop the thoughts that came with seeing those faces again.
The faces that had meant the most to me in my life. The people that were my everything . . . my home.
Not realizing I had stumbled—the effects of the liquor—my boot crunched on something glass. I stilled and looked down. The picture that Phebe had been holding was cracked, the frame snapped under my foot. Panicking at seeing it ruined, I stepped back and automatically lifted it off the floor. My eyes fell to the picture and a pained sound ripped from my throat.
My hand was shaking again, but now it wasn’t in anger.
I backed up and backed up until my back hit the wall. My feet gave out as I stared at the picture, stared at us all smiling, happy, Zane in my arms. I blinked as my vision became cloudy, then tear after tear splashed onto the broken frame.
Shouts of “Oorah!” echoed in my head. The sun, sand and blood. Letting the sobs from my throat tear free, I clutched the picture to my chest. When I pulled it back, my eyes fell to the boots. Those fucking boots. Standard, military issue boots.
His boots.
My boots.
Side by side like we’d always planned.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to go back there. But I couldn’t help it. I had pushed it aside for too long, and that shit wouldn’t stay back . . .
The F-15Es came in, blowing up buildings and targeting the insurgents. Bones and I lay low, waiting for the signal to take out any of the enemy left over. Two. There were two, and I sent bullets straight into their heads without thought.
Devin.
I needed to get to Devin.
Running from my position, I sprinted across to the building where I had last seen Devin. Bodies, both Marines and insurgents, were scattered on the ground. “Devin!” I called, turning body after body over, searching from my brother. A hand landed on my shoulder, trying to get me to stop.
Bones.
I pushed him back and commenced my search.
“He isn’t here,” I said when all of the territory had been combed twice. I whipped my head around, the dry air sticking to my skin. “He isn’t fucking here!” My heart raced as I kept searching. Where was he? Where was my fucking brother?
“X,” Bones’s voice carried on the wind.
I heard the worry in his tone. Each step to where he stood was a green mile. The smoke cleared, and I saw my spotter holding something in his hand. A picture. And I fucking knew that picture. I fucking took that picture. Zane. Zane in Devin’s arms.
My hands wouldn’t fucking stop shaking as I took it from Bones and stared down. “Where the fuck is he?” I asked through my thick throat. Bones said shit all. A radio command came through, telling us to regroup.
Bones led me back to the rest of the troop, and we listened as Sergeant Lewis spoke. Six men taken by the insurgents, including Lieutenant Deyes. The entire time Lewis—Devin’s best friend—was speaking, I stared at Zane’s face, at Devin laughing as Zane laughed too. And I felt it. I felt something in my heart that told me nothing would be the same from that day on. I could just feel it . . .
My legs were numb as they lay out in front of me, my hands still clutching the picture. I rolled my throbbing head to the side and rooted through the pictures until I saw the jagged edge of the one I sought most. I pulled it from under an album. The edges were torn and singed. But Zane’s smiling face still greeted me. Devin’s laughing smile still stood proud. I lifted it to my nose and closed my eyes. It still smelled of that fucking desert. That enclosure when everything changed. I still heard the RPGs, the shouting of both enemies and Marines . . . the sound of my rifle firing shot after shot, Bones telling me they were direct hits.
“Dev.” I felt my stomach twist. My head dropped and I cried. I fucking cried and cried, soaking my cheeks and chest. I cried, holding the two fucking pictures.
I didn’t hear her come out of her room, but when I felt her arms come around me, I couldn’t fucking push her away. Scrambling into her embrace like a pussy, I let all the years of pent-up emotion pour from me like a river. And I just fucking held her.
Phebe rocked me in her arms. “I am sorry,” she said in a cracked voice. “I am sorry I looked . . .” Her words just made me fucking break down even harder. But I held on to the pictures in my hands like they were my lifeline. My only link left to the family I adored, would have done anything for.
I didn’t know how long we sat there, Phebe holding me, wiping my cheeks as I fucking broke apart. Her fingers pushed my damp hair from my face as I choked. She moved the Jameson aside without even looking at it.
“Come.” She lifted my head from her lap. I felt heavy. Every part of me felt too fucking heavy. “Lie down with me.” She rose to her feet. I kept the pictures to my chest as I forced my legs to move. Phebe led me to the room I slept in. The one that held too many memories for me to ever sleep well. I kicked off my boots and sat on the edge of the bed.
I couldn’t let go of the pictures.
“Lie back and rest your head.” Phebe lay back first. She held out her arms, and needing someone to just fucking take the lead for once, I lay beside her, my head on her chest. “Shh,” Phebe soothed, running her hands over my hair. “Sleep.”
Using her voice to calm myself down, I closed my eyes.
I was tired, so fucking tired.
“Sleep. I will be here when you wake. I will keep you safe.” I heard her words. But I was already being pulled under by darkness. When I smelled the putrid scent of blood and piss, I knew it was to visit a dream I never wanted to see again . . .
“Four weeks.” My knee bounced up and down in the back of the armored truck. “They’ve had him for four weeks.”
“He’ll be good, X,” Bones said. “He’s strong. He’ll be one of the two.”
I nodded, wanting to believe it but unsure I could. Intelligence had come back to the camp. Torture, the report had said. Four dead—two beheaded, one hanged and one shot through the head.
Two survivors.
Only two Marines left alive . . . but tortured.
Badly hurt.
And we were going in.
I held on to my gun as the truck came to a secluded spot. We filed out and took our positions. Bones and I found the highest point we could—an old derelict tower.
“You got eyes yet?” Sergeant Lewis asked through our earpieces.
“Yes, sir.”
Bones went quiet as I braced myself to shoot. “Three,” Bones said, and I caught the hint of excitement in his voice. He gave me the coordinates, and I sent my bullets flying.
“Direct hit,” Bones said and directed me to another position.
“Direct hit,” he repeated. Then all hell broke loose as the ground men moved in. Guns fired, screams and shouts echoed around the barren town. But I listened to Bones’s commands, firing and hitting, firing and hitting, keeping my focus like a good little sniper should.
“Clear!” Sergeant Lewis said through the radio. Disregarding my orders to keep on my spot, I ran from the tower and into the building where the captives were being held. I ignored Bones’s voice behind me telling me to stop. I couldn’t. That could be my fucking brother in there.
Fellow soldiers tried to stop me as I entered the building and followed the sound of the medics thrashing out orders. The ground was littered with dead bodies, and I heard the sounds of the surviving insurgents screaming and hollering in another room. My heart beat in tandem with my running feet until I came to a back room. I flinched at the smell that met me. Piss and shit and blood.
Steeling my nerves, I stepped into the room and looked to my left. Two men were being worked on by the medics. Both nothing but skin and bones, covered in blood and beaten to a pulp.
But I had to know. I had to know if my brother still lived.
I pushed past the men in my path, and I froze when I saw a familiar pair of eyes staring back at me. Dark, just like mine. But that was all I recognized. His face was black and blue. Knife marks and gunshot wounds marred his naked skin. Some of his teeth were missing, and two of his fingers were gone.
Cut clean off.
“Dev.” I dropped down to the ground. Even as gone as he was, when his eyes met mine, a pained sound came from his chest. I dove forward and took hold of the hand that wasn’t injured. “I’m here, Dev. I’m fucking here.”
I squeezed Dev’s hand and fucking broke when he tried to squeeze back. “I ain’t going anywhere.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the picture of him and Zane. “Bones found it, Dev,” I said and watched his eye that wasn’t swollen shut fill with tears. “I kept it for when we found you.”
“Son,” a gruff voice said from beside me.
“Sarge.” I looked up at Lewis. His face was fucking devastated too.
“We need to airlift him out. It’s urgent.”
“Okay.” I leaned forward to kiss Dev on his head. “I’ll catch you soon, Dev, yeah? Hold on.”
Releasing his weak hand, I placed the picture there instead. Dev’s fingers held onto it as tight as they could. As the medics lifted him, I said, “Don’t let him lose that picture. Make him look at it if things get bad.” My voice was barely there. The medic assured me he would.
“Outside, son.” Lewis indicated for me to leave the room. I did as he said, walking like a damn ghost through the hallways.
All I could think of was the state Dev was in. His missing fingers, his knocked-out teeth, the knife marks, the bullet wounds, and his fucking tear-filled eyes when he saw me . . . when he saw the picture of his son.
Those fucking cunts. What the fuck had they done to him? Hacking him up, starving him, making him lie in his own shit.
Motherfucking cunts!
I came to a dead stop when I heard a noise to my left. The muted sounds of the insurgents came from behind a nearby door. I listened to their fucking muffled voices and felt my blood boil.
They had hurt my brother. They had touched Dev.
I looked at the closed door, and my feet moved without thought. My hand reached into my pocket and took hold of my knife. I didn’t even look back as I entered the room and shut the door behind me. Three men looked up at me. Three men who were tied up and sitting against the wall.
From behind their gags, they started spewing some babbled shit at me, but I couldn’t understand a word. And even if I did, I wouldn’t give a fuck. I just saw their corpses in my head. I saw their blood pooling beneath them on the floor.
I tightened my grip on the knife in my hand. My feet moved forward, and red misted over my eyes as I came to the first man. He started shuffling on the floor, trying to get away. But he was mine and going nowhere.
I raised my knife and sliced it through his thigh, making sure to hit his femoral artery. I slashed the blade across his stomach and smiled as his innards spilled from the wound. I struck again and again. Blood spattered my face as I moved on to the next man, slashing his throat and hearing him gargle on his own blood. Then the third. I hacked away at their bodies, causing them more pain than was possible in the short time I knew I had, and all the time, I did it with a fucking smile on my face.
“Xavier!” I faintly recognized Bones’s voice, but I didn’t stop. Nothing would stop me now.
“Deyes!” a louder voice boomed, then someone grabbed me around my waist, yanking me off my kills. I fought whoever pulled me back until I was restrained on the ground, my knife ripped from my fingers. I looked to the side and smiled wider when I saw the corpses slumped against the wall. Corpses that barely resembled humans anymore. Fuckers that had paid for taking my brother.
“Take him!” Lewis ordered, a note of panic in his voice, and I was carried outside. Blood from my kills covered my hands. I was thrown into a small shack. The door slammed shut behind me. As I sat in silence, I looked down at the blood on my hands and felt nothing but pride. But it wasn’t long before my steady hands began to shake. Wasn’t long before thoughts of Devin and the state he was in hit home. Wasn’t long before the tears came thick and fast, adrenaline fading and reality hitting me.
The door opened and Lewis stepped inside. Sergeant Lewis—Devin’s closest friend and my superior. He began pacing, losing his shit. He kept looking down at me then shaking his head, repeating, “Shit!”
I watched him, numbly. They could lock me up. I didn’t fucking care. Those fuckers were dead. That was all I gave a fuck about right now.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen.” Lewis stilled. His face was red, and his eyes darted from side to side like he was debating something in his head. “All those fuckers were killed in the raid. No survivors.” I blinked, unfeeling and uncaring as he crouched before me. “What the fuck were you thinking, X?”
“They hurt him,” I snarled. “They needed to die.”
“Your brother is the best fucking Marine I know, and, more than that, he plays by the rules, has honor in the flag. He would never have pulled a stunt like that if your roles were reversed. You know what could happen to you if this is found out?”
“I don’t care. They fucked with him. They deserved to die. Don’t give a fuck about what happens to me now.”
Lewis ran his hand down his face, exasperated. “Clean up. I gotta figure all this shit out. We all gotta get our stories straight. Forget this ever happened. Yeah?” I got to my feet, not saying shit. Lewis grabbed my arm and wrenched me back to face him. “Dev saved my ass more times than you’d know. That’s the only reason I’m going against every ethical and moral code here, X. I owe Dev, and after what’s happened, I’m sure as shit not gonna have you court-martialed.”
I stormed through the door, only to see the building that had held my brother on fire, flames licking high and smoke tunneling into the air. “Fuckers lit it up when we arrived, but we managed to get our men out first,” Sergeant Lewis said from behind me. I knew that was the cover they were using to hide my crimes.
But as I washed off the blood from my kills in a nearby stream, I couldn’t help but feel pride at the deaths. Those assholes had deserved to die. And if I’d had more time, I knew I would have done much worse . . .
I gasped awake and shot upright. I looked at the end of my bed. There they were. Lined up to visit me again. The fucking insurgents, dripping in blood, their innards falling out and throats slit. They stared at me with black voids for eyes. “Go away,” I ordered and scrambled to the head of the bed. But they didn’t move. They just stared. They always just stared.
And then I saw them come up behind, ripping my heart in two. These ones I cared about. “No,” I begged, arms outstretched. “Please. Please don’t come to me again . . .” My voice faded to nothing as they took their usual space beside the insurgents.
They all stared at me with dead eyes, their skin gray and crepe-thin. “Please.” I felt the last of my resolve, my strength, break. My cheeks grew wet as I faced them all, the terrors that hadn’t left me in years. My guilt come back to life. “Leave me alone,” I screamed. “Please . . . just leave me alone,” I croaked, no energy left, and tried to breathe.
The door to the bedroom flew open and Phebe came running in. “AK?” She looked about the room in panic.
“Take them away.” I pointed at the end of the bed. “Make them go away. Please . . .”
“Who?” she said softly.
“Them.” I pointed at each of their fucked-up faces. “The blood is all over the floor.”
“AK,” she whispered, then carefully climbed into bed.
“Where were you?” I asked as her hand came to my face.
“I was getting some water. I had only just left the room. But I am here now. Calm . . .”
I looked into her blue eyes, and confessed, “I killed them.” Phebe tensed beside me.
“Who?”
“Them,” I said and pointed at the end of my bed. “They hurt my brother. They nearly killed him, so I killed them too. I killed them like they deserved. But now they won’t go away. They never leave. Neither do they . . .” I pointed my shaking hand at the two people that haunted me most.
“AK, you are not making sense.” She moved closer to my side. She took my hand and squeezed it tightly. I looked down at her slim fingers in mine.
“He had PTSD,” I said, my voice barely loud enough to hear. “They took him to a hospital in the months I was still serving out the rest of my tour. I couldn’t see him—he was brought back to Texas. I didn’t know how bad it was until I got back home. And I came back to find my brother was fucked up . . . beyond fucked up.”
Phebe kissed my hand, and I looked up into her face. “I didn’t know what to do. He was there in body, but he wasn’t there in his head. He drank, but worse . . . he was on heroin. I came home to find my brother was a junkie, had been for fucking months and no one had told me shit. He was still living in Iraq in his head. Still in that fucking room, losing his mind. Living the torture day by day. It never ended for him.”
“I do not understand,” Phebe said.
“My brother.” I felt the pain from simply saying that word. “I killed my brother, Phebe. The boots . . . his boots are by the door, his guns are in the trunk. This is his cabin, the one he brought me to as a kid. He’s dead, and it’s all my fault,”
I cast a glance to him standing at the bottom of my bed, his wrists and throat dripping with blood, his body too thin and frame weak. His hand was held out for me to take, but no matter how many times I tried to take it, to keep him safe, my hand just fell through thin air. I couldn’t reach him.
“It was all my fault,” I said again. “I fucked up. I lost everything because I fucked up.”
Phebe’s hands tightened in mine. “Then tell me. Tell me what happened. You need to, AK. I am here. And I will not let you fall. I will not let them hurt you.”
I stared into her eyes and, having no more strength left to fight, told her it all. For the first time in my life, I told someone.
I told it all—joining the Marines, the kidnap, the torture.
What I did.
And then . . .
She waved at me as I came through the airport. I shifted my bag higher on my shoulder and smiled when I saw the little man break away from Tina’s legs. Zane darted through the crowd and threw himself into my arms.
“Zane!” I hugged him tightly to my chest. “I missed you, buddy!” Zane squeezed me back.
“I missed you too,” Zane said.
I drew back my head to look at him. “Shit! How big have you gotten?”
He shrugged. “Pretty big.” The kid wasn’t kidding. I couldn’t believe how much he’d changed in nine months.
“Hey stranger.” I turned to see Tina standing beside us. I smiled at my sister-in-law, but quickly lost my smile when I really looked at her. She was thin. Her face was drawn, and fuck, she looked tired.
“Hey.” I looked around the airport for Devin. “Where is he?”
Tina looked away. When she looked back, her eyes were filled with tears. My heart sank. “Daddy’s in the hospital,” Zane said, and I froze.
“What?” I asked Tina.
She took hold of my arm. “Come home. I’ll explain everything there.” I followed her through the airport. We stayed silent in the car, letting Zane tell me about the last nine months and what I’d missed. But all I could hear was “Daddy’s in the hospital.”
When we got home, Tina sent Zane into his room. I sat down in the kitchen, and Tina made coffee. She leaned against the counter, and it wasn’t until I saw her back shaking that I knew she was crying.
I jumped from my seat, still dressed in my fatigues, and spun her around. I towered above her, but her tiny body leaned into my chest. And she fucking broke her heart. She sobbed and sobbed until she was able to breathe enough to say, “He never came back, Xavier. The man who returned was not my husband. He was not your brother.”
I clenched my eyes shut, remembering him on that floor in the back room of the insurgents’ building. “What happened?”
“He came home, but he would sit at our door every night with a rifle in his hand. He said he knew they would be coming back for him. He said he was gonna kill them before they got to us.”
“Fuck,” I said and heard my own voice crack.
“It got too much. I had to take Zane to my sister’s. I had no choice. Dev was making our boy too scared to come home, so I sent him to Claire. I tried, X. I tried to help him, but it became too much.”
“So they locked him up?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“Claire and Tom had him evaluated. He was put in a hospital. He’s been there ever since.”
“Which hospital?”
Tina told me. I jumped on my Harley, and I tore out onto the road from the house to the hospital. Hospital staff thanked me for my service as I ran through the hallways of the wards, still dressed in my fatigues. I wasn’t supposed to visit, but when I told the nurses I’d just got back from Iraq, they let me in.
The smell of bleach hit me as I pushed through the door of the room. Everything was white and cold-looking. Devin was in the nearest bed. My heart fucking broke when I saw his lifeless eyes just staring up at the ceiling. “Dev?” Slowly, I approached the bed.
His head rolled to the side. His hair was still cut short, but that was all that was normal. My brother was half the size he’d been when he was healthy. Scars marred his skin, but worse, the life was gone from his eyes.
Like Tina had said, he was there in body, but not in mind. My hand shook as I reached out and took hold of his fingers. Devin didn’t even flinch. He just kept staring as if he wasn’t seeing me at all.
I felt my lips shaking and my vision blurring with tears. “It’s me, Dev. X. I just got back off my tour today.” Dev breathed, he stared, but he said nothing. I stared up at the clear bag beside him, wondering what the fuck they were pumping into his veins. Then I saw the inside of his arms and the scars that were there. Mark after mark showing where he had injected himself with smack.
“Dev, fuck.” I slumped down to the bed. I ran my finger over his hand. “I got them, Dev,” I said quietly. “I got them all. They’re dead. I made damn sure of it.”
I looked up at my brother, my motherfucking hero, but his eyes were just as lifeless as they had been since I’d walked in. So I sat in silence until the nurse came in and told me my time was up. I kissed Dev on his head, then got to my feet. Just as I was about to leave the room, a sound came from the other person in the room. I looked over to see a kid, around my age, maybe younger. He was strapped to the bed by his hands and feet, just like Dev. I found myself walking closer to his bed, reading his name chart.
Josiah Cade.
His eyes were wide open, and so fucking black they didn’t look real. He had drugs keeping him sedated too, but still he fought against the straps as I stood by his side. “What the hell brought you here too?” I asked, and the guy stopped thrashing. When he stilled I saw he had slashes on his arms. A fuck-ton of slashes. But his eyes were on me. Like he was trying to say something to me with his black gaze.
And I couldn’t take it.
None of this shit.
Turning on my heel, I left the hospital and drove to the nearest bar. A biker bar.
One week later I was the newest prospect for the Hades Hangmen. And then things got even fucking worse . . .
“You do not have to keep going.” Phebe pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“It got worse,” I said and let Phebe hold me tighter. “I fucked up, and that’s when things went completely fucking wrong.”
“AK—”
“No! I . . . I want to tell you.” I looked up into Phebe’s blue eyes, and I knew it was time. I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore . . .
“We got your lodge, yeah?” Vike asked as we snuck into the grounds and below the window.
“Tina’s gone to the coast with her sister and Zane. She won’t be there all week. She’ll never know he’s gone.”
Vike nodded, then held out his hands for me to step on. “Come on then, asshole. Let’s get your brother out.”
I hauled myself through the window of my brother’s room and heard Viking follow behind. “Shit, that’s him?” Vike said as I approached the bed that held Dev.
Dev’s eyes were just as spaced as every fucking time I came to see him. Months and months in this hell and not one bit of progress had been made.
I took the IV from Dev’s hand and threw back the covers from his body. I leaned down and scooped him in my arms. He weighed fuck all. “Come on.” I moved to the window.
Just as I was about to leave, I heard a noise come from Josiah in the bed opposite. When I looked over, he was watching us, those black eyes lost. In all the months I’d been visiting Dev, I hadn’t seen one person come for him. To see him. The fucker was alone.
“Vike,” I said on impulse. “Take Dev.”
“What?”
“Do it,” I ordered. Vike took Dev and climbed through the window as I crossed the room and freed Josiah from his restraints. I climbed out the window, leaving it open behind me so the kid could escape. We ran across the field and into the hidden truck. In the cover of darkness, we gunned it to the lodge and carried Dev inside.
We put Dev in a room. He was out like a light, too pulled under by the drugs to communicate. I sat beside him, holding his hand. But the longer I watched Dev, all I could think of was that Josiah kid we’d left behind. “You think he got out okay?” I asked Vike who sat beside me.
“Who?”
“Josiah. The kid I untied.”
Vike shrugged. “No idea.” He pointed at Dev. “So what the fuck so we do now?”
“We gotta wean Dev off whatever he’s on.” We watched Dev all night, but he hardly made a move. Then as night turned into a new day, I called up a prospect and told him to come watch Dev while I made a last minute run.
When the prospect arrived, I walked into the living room and found Vike sitting around the kitchen table. He raised his eyebrow at me and shook his head. “We’re gonna go find that fucking Josiah kid, ain’t we?”
“Gotta check on him. If he’s like Dev, fuck knows what state he’ll be in alone. I can’t in good conscience just fucking leave him. Something in his black eyes told me the fucker was crying out for help, but had no way to fucking ask for it . . . his fucking scarred arms, the way he just stares at nothing. Don’t think he has anyone who gives a shit about him. And I, for one, can’t let that shit go.”
It wasn’t long before we found him in an alley near the hospital, ripping up his arms with his blade. The young fucker eyeballed us as we approached, lips pulled back over his teeth as he growled. I held up my hands, watching his unfocused eyes try—but fail—to stay on me. “My name’s AK. I’m here to help. Get you the fuck out of this place and away from that nuthouse. They’ll find you if you don’t come with us and you won’t be getting out again.”
It had taken a fucking long time to get him to move—the kid clearly couldn’t be touched if his freak out when I tried was anything to go by. The brother glared at us from the corner of the alley, body tensed. But when the remainder of the drugs in his system pulled him under, knocking him the fuck out, we took him and got him back to the lodge too.
Vike carried Josiah into the spare room. I laid him down on the bed and Vike took the first watch of him. I went back to Dev, and I sat beside him, praying that when he came around, he’d be back to the brother I knew.
We’d be X and Dev once again . . .
“But he was not?” Phebe said. I shook my head.
“It got worse. Josiah, Flame, came around. He was fucked in the head, but he could be talked to. And I don’t know if it was gratitude or what, but he listened to me. Vike took him to the Hangmen compound, and he became a prospect too. But Dev . . .” I trailed off and looked to him at the end of the bed. My chest tightened. “He couldn’t stop living in his head. He would talk to me, eat. But I would find him outside in the middle of the night, waiting for the men who tortured him to come back.”
“AK.” Phebe pressed her hand on my forehead. “You are burning up.” I took hold of her wrist and brought her hand to my mouth. I kissed the palm and used the beat of her pulse to try and calm my heart. “AK?” she said. “You are worrying me.”
“I got called back to the Hangmen. The war had started with the Diablos, and the prez, Styx’s old man, needed me. He sent a prospect to watch my brother. I had no choice but to go. I was the Hangmen sniper. I was AK. I had to go.”
“What happened?” I caught the tremor of dread in her voice.
“He got free.” I closed my eyes. “He got out . . .”
“You heard from Bird?” Vike asked, talking about the prospect who was watching my brother.
“No.” I tightened my hand on the steering wheel. “He missed today’s check-in.” Flame shifted on the back seat, his knives in his hands. He was never away from me now. Me or Vike. Brother was completely fucked, but he was my brother now too. Fucked or not.
I pulled into the lodge’s driveway only to see the truck was gone. Ice filled my veins and a strange feeling crept down my spine. “Where’s Bird’s truck?” I jumped out of the truck we were in. Vike and Flame were right behind me. I held up my hand, slowly approaching the open front door.
I saw the blood before the body.
“Fuck,” Vike spat. Bird’s hacked-up body lay lifeless on the floor. I ducked down and felt the blood—it was still warm. My heart kicked into a sprint. “He’s only been dead a couple of hours max.” I got to my feet. “Fuck!” I screamed, hands on my head. “Dev!”
I flew to the truck and pulled out of the driveway fast as I could. I broke every speed limit along the way. I tried to get Tina on her cell. No fucking answer. “Dev, don’t have done something fucking stupid,” I said to thin air.”
An hour later I pulled into the driveway to see a truck there . . . Bird’s truck. The blood rushed from my face when I saw the back door was open. There was no sound at all. There were no neighbors for miles. Right now, there was just me and whatever lay in this house.
My stomach rolled when I saw Tina’s SUV in the driveway, Zane’s car seat in the back. “No,” I whispered. I pushed through the door.
My feet were light as I crept through the small farmhouse, searching every corner. I stopped dead in the doorway to the kitchen. A trail of blood, fresh blood, snaked along the floor.
My legs shook, but I forced them to keep going, to step into the room. A sound ripped from my throat when I saw Tina on the floor. Tina’s lifeless body, slashed at the neck and wrists, stab wounds though her heart. Bile climbed up my throat as her dead eyes stared up at me, her face frozen in an expression of shock. Tina . . . fucking Tina. My sister . . . my second mother.
No . . .
Panic took over . . . Zane. I shot through the house, searching everywhere I could think of. The final place to look was their bedroom. The door was shut. My heart pounded so hard it was all I could hear as I turned the knob and slowly opened the door. I saw blood again. Blood from beside the bed. I walked around, bracing myself for what I might find. The gargled sound of choking on blood hit my ears. I flew around the rest of the bed. Dev was slumped against the side of the bed. His blood poured from the gashes that sliced across his wrist and throat. I dove down and took him in my arms. “Dev! No!” The blood kept coming and I couldn’t fucking stop it.
“Dev!” I called out, sobs racking my chest. “What have you done?”
“Safe,” he managed to push from his throat. “Safe . . .” I clenched my eyes shut. “No!” I rocked him in my arms. “Don’t leave me,” I begged as his eyes began to glaze over. “Dev! Don’t you fucking dare leave me!” But he began to still in my arms. His blood was everywhere, on my hands, on the floor. “Dev? Where’s Zane?” I asked as his body started fitting. I held him closer and counted the seconds until he grew still.
Thirty-two seconds.
Tears fell down from my cheeks and mixed with the blood on my hands. “Dev,” I whispered, rocking him back and forth. My chest was caved in, my heart ripped from it. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t fucking breathe!
“Shit,” a voice said from the doorway. I turned my head, not letting my brother go. Vike and Flame stood there, staring at the blood. “Brother,” Vike said in a hushed voice, the fucker serious for once.
“He killed her. He killed himself. He thought he was still there. That they were gonna come for him again . . .” I squeezed more water from my eyes. “I think he thought he was saving her, saving himself. He wouldn’t . . . he’s not a murderer . . .” I glanced down at his dark eyes. “He’s my fucking brother . . .
. . . He’s my fucking hero . . .”
“No,” Phebe whispered as she rocked me in her arms. “AK, no . . .” she said again and I knew she was crying too. She wiped my tears, kissed my skin as she held me close to her chest. “Zane?” she asked. “Where was Zane?”
“His Aunt Claire’s. She had taken him for the afternoon.” I blinked and looked into Phebe’s blue gaze. “If he had been there . . . he would have killed him too, Phebe. He would have. His own kid.”
“And where is he now?” She looked at the picture of his young face still in my hand.
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“Claire banned me from seeing him. She moved away. He . . . he didn’t even go to his own daddy’s funeral. Claire and Tom buried Tina separately, calling my brother a murderer. I buried Dev alone, only Vike and Flame beside me. He didn’t even get a military service.” I rolled onto my back and tried to breathe. “That kid was my whole fucking life, and I ain’t seen him in years.” I looked at the picture of us all on my graduation from the Marines and didn’t even recognize those people anymore. I didn’t recognize me. “He’d be fifteen now.” I ran my hand over Zane’s face. “And I don’t fucking know him. I never will.”
“AK.” Phebe laid her head on my shoulder. “I have no words to say to you. I do not know how to be of help.”
I felt her in my arms. “You are, just by being here,” I said. “You help because you understand. No other person has ever understood me like you do.” I held her close. “You understand me, and I get you.”
Silence stretched as I stared at the ceiling, completely drained. “AK?” Phebe’s sleepy voice finally asked.
“Yeah?”
“Are they still there?”
I tensed and looked at the end of the bed. I knew what she meant. The terrors. I braced myself for seeing those fucked-up faces . . . but then I exhaled a long, long breath. “No,” I said hoarsely, seeing only the darkness of the night. “They’ve gone,” I said, a sudden lightness creeping to my heavy heart. “They’ve gone.”
“Mm,” she murmured and rubbed her cheek against my chest. “That is because you are not to blame either.”
I glanced down at Phebe’s red hair and took in her words. You are not to blame either . . .
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but that night I slept. For more than two fucking hours.
And I didn’t dream at all.