my body into his. We collided so hard that he dropped my wife, trying to protect his body from mine, and as soon as we went down, we started fighting.
He had me on my back in no time, hitting me in all of the spots he knew were weak, missing one vital spot.
My neck.
I could survive the rest.
But not my neck.
I didn’t give a fuck about my life. I had to get my wife help. We were in a cemetery. The land of the dead. She wasn’t going to be one of them. If she was, we’d go together. I’d break open the vein in my neck before anyone lowered her in the ground before my eyes.
He kept landing punches on my back, on my sides, and then he hit me right over the spot in my neck. The wind left my lungs in a fucking wheeze, and rain poured into my mouth as I tried to breathe.
Raff rolled off of me, crawling to get to the gun he’d lost when I’d slammed my body into his. He stood no less than a second later, going for Keely again, and with every ounce of air I could steal, I screamed out his name.
“Raff!”
He stopped and turned to me.
“Fuck you,” I said. “And fuck your old man. He was a pussy.” I whipped out the gun from behind my back, shooting him once in the head and once in his heart.
He fell to the ground as I climbed to my knees and crawled to my wife, who was lifeless on the ground, the rain pouring on her face, trying to wash the blood. It was too much, coming too fast. Using my old man’s stone, I propped myself up, pulling her with me, roaring with pain when I did. I set her against my chest, holding her tight against me, not sure what the fuck to do. Besides her face, I wasn’t sure what he’d done to her. I wasn’t there to protect her. Or those children. Or Maureen.
Our family.
My head swam in and out again, but even in the darkness, all I could see was red.
Blood.
Our blood ran and mixed in the rain.
I turned my head up to the sky and cried out. I cried out so loud that my lungs trembled. “Please,” I begged. “Please.” Lightning lit up the darkness, showing me her face, and I begged once again in Irish Gaelic. “Le do thoil!”
“It’s about time you begged for something, you no-good bastard.”
Lee Grady. The man who was supposed to be dead. A fucking ghost in a cemetery. He stood over me with a gun in his hand.
I went to move my wife, but he shook his head, pointing the gun at her. “She’s going first. After what I just heard, she’s worth more than what you stole from me. You’ll live long enough, after I finish the job Susan couldn’t, to see the life drain from her before it drains from you. Very poetic. Your old man might’ve even been proud you went out this way.”
A whistle sounded. Like a bird. Singing. Or talking to another one. It came and then went when another roll of thunder drowned it out. It came back, closer this time.
I could see Grady in the light of the flashlight Raff left behind, but he couldn’t see who else was out there.
Grady aimed his gun toward the left, toward where the noise was coming from, his eyes narrowing. “Who’s there?” he shouted.
Nothing but the downpour of rain answered him, and then the whistle, which came and went again. My old man might’ve had a simple stone, but big statues surrounded him. Whoever it was seemed to be moving between them, letting Grady know he wasn’t alone.
Grady pulled the trigger on his gun. A flash of light, and then the blast rang and seemed to echo in the night. He must’ve hit a stone, because I heard it crack.
“Who’s there?” he shouted again, ready to pull the trigger once more. Before he did, though, a man appeared out of the darkness and put one bullet in his head and two in his chest. He lay at my feet, his eyes still open, rain pooling in his unseeing eyes.
When the man showed his face in the light, I cleared my throat. “It wasn’t her. I forced her into it. Take her.” I tried to lift her, but my arms felt like they were weighed down with lead. “She needs help.”
“I know you forced her,”