stop me, dick wad.” I toe the ground, so tempted. “Nobody’s here except me now, because nobody else gets to hear this. Kind of like all those other things I reserved just for you, man. You remember, right? The secrets we saved just for ‘the brotherhood’?” A harsh spurt gets past my lips, twisting into an unwilling smile. “Fuck. ‘The brotherhood’. The secret handshake. That stupid rules and regulations book. The all-nighter we pulled working on it. You wrote it all down so Mom wouldn’t find it on the computer’s hard drive—on the back of your goddamn algebra homework.” A laugh scorches out. “Can’t believe you didn’t think she’d see it after you racked up that F for not turning it in.” Drop my head and shake it. “But after she bawled about the whole thing, she hugged us like we were going to disappear. Did you ever understand that shit?” Short shrug. “No. Me, neither. And then she drove us out to bum-fuck for a couple of Skyscraper cones at Cliff’s…and you nearly puked on that shit, man.” A scoff echoes on the air. It has to be just the wind, but warmth rushes my chest anyway. “No, asshole,” I argue to the echoing chuckle in the air, “it was you, I’m sure of it. You ordered maple walnut, then inhaled that shit like—”
My throat clutches shut as the wind fully gusts.
I plummet to my ass in the grass.
And here I am, hurling smack at a ghost again.
“Why, Damon?” I straddle the marker. Beg for answers from it with fists clenched atop my thighs. “Goddammit, why?”
Did the crap in those needles and pills feel better than ‘the brotherhood’? Than going for ice cream at Cliff’s?
Those are the easy questions.
Meaning the hard ones are coming.
And grate from my lips as whispered chokes.
“Weren’t Mom and I good enough for you, fucker? Dammit…weren’t we worth fighting for? Living for?”
The wind sweeps across the knoll. Sighs through the grass, swishes through the trees.
Doesn’t bring me any more phantom scoffs or laughs. And sure as hell no more answers.
In the silence, only one sensation remains.
The ice in my veins.
It pushes me to my feet again. Yanks me back from the cement square by a step, staring down at the marker with a brand-new recognition.
I no longer want to kick more mud.
Or hang on to more memories.
Or try to get out any more words, except the ones that well up right from the heart that, for the first time in so long, I can feel beating. Feeling.
Living.
“You know what, brother? Save your answer. I don’t care what it is anymore.” The words are snatched at once by the wind—fitting exactly what has happened to the ice in my veins and the loss in my heart. It’s time now. All of it needs to be taken higher…transformed into freedom. “The thing is…I’ve found an answer of my own. Someone worth my fight. She’s waiting for me right now, and she’s ready to fight for me, too. Hell,”—a smile spreads, and it feels fucking good—“she already has.”
I breathe deeply. The sunshine seeps into my limbs, and the music of the new day fills my senses.
It’s time for this. At last.
“You know what that means, Damon?” I step back over. Stoop once more. Lay a hand to the cool stone slab, letting the damp mud spread up between my fingers…letting it remind me…empower me.
“I’m not coming back anymore, brother. Because you sure as hell aren’t.”
SEVEN
*
Mishella
“Damn.” Doyle mutters it as he and I ride Temptation’s wrought iron elevator from the art décor splendor of the building’s lobby to the glass and dark wood modernism that await six floors up.
“What?” My prompt is soft but stressed. Exhaustion bites at my bones but no way can I relax before Cassian’s return—from wherever.
From visiting yet more ghosts?
And there is the extra burn I did not need, even knowing Doyle will be a sympathetic audience if I need to vent. He probably sees through my thin façade anyway, though is merciful about bypassing the notice to go on, “Sometimes, it’s worth it when Prim gets stressed.”
I do not have to ask for elaboration. By the time we glide past the fourth floor, the aromas in the building provide it. Melted butter. Baked dough. At least three kinds of chocolate, and sugar in twice as many forms. By the time Doyle pushes open the door and we step out, my mouth craves an early breakfast feast of everything I smell.
Sure enough, we round the