by S. Massery
He was a damn good shot. They say his shots heralded the start of a fight. He was never close enough for us to hear the gunshot—he liked to stay at least eight-hundred yards out, and the sound wouldn’t travel that far—but inevitably, a man fell from a roof and landed at our feet, or a car window shattered, blood coating the interior, or someone tumbled from a window, a doorway, a balcony. They called him the Morning Star. Something right out of a legend. The Devil.
My temper frequently frayed, exhaustion making it easier to let go. Blood Sky. I grew up well away from oceans, but some said that a blood-red sky at night called for good weather to follow. Others whispered that seeing the sky red in the morning meant bad weather was on the horizon. Sometimes I liked to think that I embodied the good fortune, but I knew it was the opposite. Where I went, death followed.
I saw red, and nothing could stop me. I slaughtered people for Scorpion Industries. We raided militant homes and compounds. We emptied our gun chambers into cars speeding in our direction. I shot a woman who wouldn’t stop limping toward us, leaning on an automatic weapon like a cane.
For every person we got to safety, there were a dozen who haunted me.
It wasn’t until we got back home that I realized all of that had unwound a piece of me. For all the good we did, there were still the bad deeds. It was these moments that made me promise to turn over a new leaf in the States. To help people with no return. I had enough money. I needed a balm to help me sleep at night. Guilt was my constant companion, and shame was its shadow.
And part of that balm meant fracturing my relationship with four of the five guys who had become my brothers. Mason felt the way I did. He dragged along with me, back to civilization. Spike healed his wounds, but I didn’t have someone to fix me, to release my guilt and blame.
Not until Delia.
Someone grabs my shoulders and hauls me out of the car. I groan as I slide across the pavement. Glass falls around me. My eyes won’t open.
Finally, my movement stops.
“Not your day to die,” a voice grunts.
“Wyatt?” I mumble. My head lolls to the side.
Hands shove under my shoulder, rolling me onto my side.
“I’m calling you an ambulance,” the voice says. “Stay with me.”
“You’re dead. Am I dead?”
“You’re very much alive.”
Darkness threatens to suck me under, but I open one heavy eyelid and catch the corner of a face. “Damn,” I mumble. My eyes close before the man looks back at me.
“What?”
“I thought you were my brother,” I say.
The man’s hand presses against my right cheek. It’s the only thing that doesn’t hurt.
“Dream of him,” he says.
I drop into unconsciousness and I do as my savior suggests: I dream of Wyatt Pierce.
The man was a warrior. Crucial to every mission we went on. It made sense that he was promoted to squad leader two months into our deployment. It made sense that the rest of us followed his orders without question. He was smart and cunning. He had a knack for languages.
And sometimes, he was the weirdest motherfucker I’d ever met.
One time we were packed into a helicopter that saved our asses. We had never run so fast. Our guns were empty. Our water was gone. The woman we had been attempting to smuggle out of Iraq had been shot, and she was slung over Zach’s shoulder. The radio we used to communicate with the local military base—in case of emergencies only—had been shot to hell about a mile back. The enemy was creeping closer, hunting us in the middle of the wilderness.
It was pure luck that the helicopter was returning from a heli-paramedic run. Even luckier that their patient was dead before they got there, which meant it was empty except the four soldier paramedics. We signaled it, the helicopter did a quick sweep of the area and got close enough to the ground to drop us a ladder.
They couldn’t land because of IEDs. I still shudder when I think about it.
Zach climbed up first, the woman barely holding on to him. Blood fell from her shoulder.
It was a long flight back to base—at least an hour—and we were exhausted. Half of us ended up running IV fluids, and the other half nursed bottles of water. The medics worked on stabilizing the girl while we zoned out. I stared at the needle in my arm, the tape keeping it steady. It wasn’t the closest we’d come to dying, but it was damn close.
Wyatt shook his head at one point. “I wouldn’t be able to bear it.”
He startled us out of our own thoughts. We looked at him.
“Bear what?” To me, we had already borne the extremes of humanity—the highest of highs, the lowest of lows. One stunning birth that stands out like a bright star in the night. Saving innocent people. Countless deaths.
“If I die, I don’t want you fools coming and wasting your time mourning me.”
Zach rolled his eyes. “You’re going to die of old age. You’re going to outlive us all.”
Wyatt was the best of us. We all knew that. He was calculating and cunning, but he had his gentle side.
“No,” he laughed. “I’m going to get in trouble and get myself killed. Just you wait.”
“And you don’t want us attending your funeral?” I asked. “For real?”
Wyatt just patted my knee. “You’ll understand when you’re older, Jackie boy.”
That got a laugh out of Griffin. “Well, if I’m not allowed at yours, you’re sure as hell not invited to mine.”
Wyatt nodded. “Done.”
Dalton shook his head. “You are out of your damn minds. Funerals are your loved ones’ last chance to say goodbye.”
“Aw, he’s saying he loves us.” Zach chuckled.
“Shocker,” Mason said.
“You guys are my brothers,” Wyatt said. “There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you.”
Griffin rubbed his face. “Well, that’s true for me, too.”
I snorted. “You guys suck. We almost died for each other, and we’re not allowed to go to each other’s funerals. We’re not allowed to mourn each other. And now you’re saying you’d die for us all over again.”
Griffin blinked at me. “Well… yeah.”
“Ridiculous.” I sighed. “Okay. No, wait. Mason is invited to mine. You make sure I’m cremated. And I don’t want Spike to be alone.” Their relationship was still blooming, still new, but I had high hopes for them.
Mason met my eyes. “He won’t be.”
Dalton grimaced. “Enough of this talk.”
“Not until you agree,” Wyatt said, his gaze on the woman. She was unconscious, yet she had survived it. “We celebrate our lives until the day we no longer can. You guys take a shot for me when I die, and let that be the end of it.”
Zach nodded. “Agreed. If only to make you drop this fucking topic.”
“Agreed,” Griffin said.
“Fine,” Dalton growled. “We’re all going to die alone, anyway.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “Except I’m going to Jackson’s funeral because I’m in love with his brother.”
It was the first time he’d admitted that out loud. Joy swept through me, but I tried to keep it contained. None of them batted a goddamn eye, and I hoped it put Mason a bit more at ease. Griffin’s smile widened.
Their eyes turned to me.
“Agreed,” I said.
That was that—until Wyatt died and Mason and Dalton broke their promise.
It’s as if someone snaps their fingers, and suddenly I am conscious. I jolt upright as searing pain ricochets around my body. I gag, my stomach revolting.
I bend over and vomit on the pale-yellow tile floor.
“Great,” someone says from the doorway. “That’s the third time you’ve done that.”
I look up at Griffin and scowl. My body has been through a blender and come out on the other side. “Done what?”
“Puked your guts out.” He checks his watch. “Those anti-nausea meds should’ve kicked in by now. How
do you feel besides the rolling stomach?” He comes to the clean side of my bed and lifts my wrist.
I wait until he’s done counting, even though his eyes are focused on me.
I’ve only been on the receiving end of his care a million times… but it feels worse knowing I ran out on him. Guilt overtakes the physical pain. My heart picks up speed, and he grunts.
“This was easier when you didn’t have a visceral reaction.” He lets go of my wrist and moves to my neck. Two fingers press into my throat.
“What’s the difference?” I grumble.
“I’m comparing your radial pulse to your carotid. Shut up.”
I watch the clock.
“Normal,” he says after a few seconds. He glances at the machine. “Don’t say I’m an overprotective shithead. I’m just going to put that out there now. You say that, and I’m walking away.”
I tip my head back and ignore the apology that wants to fall from my lips. “So, I’m in a hospital?”
He nods and sits on the edge of the chair next to my bed. “You’ve been here for two days. They put you under to do surgery to stop the internal bleeding in your abdomen.”
“What happened?”
“A car ran a red light and hit you going forty miles per hour. The EMTs on the scene weren’t sure how you got so far from your car, but judging from the drag marks—”
“You were there?”
He shrugs, unable to meet my eyes. “I stopped by.”
“And then you stopped by here.” A slow smile spreads across my face.
“Well, you almost died.”
My smile drops. “At least Dalton would’ve come to my funeral.”
“Are you so sure about that?”
He’s got a point. “Shit. I’m sorry, Griff. I just…” I grimace. “I got angry. He was pushing all the right buttons.”
“He’s difficult on a good day,” Griffin agrees, chuckling under his breath. “Yeah, well. Mason was tracking you on the cams. He caught the accident. They’re going to get the son of a bitch who hit you and drove away.”
“It was a hit-and-run?” My mind spins, trying to collect the fragmented pieces. “Someone pulled me out of the wreck.”
He seems tortured by it, a lot like the first time we met.
He grunts. “Yeah, that was out of frame.”
“So, uh, Mason and Zach and Dalton—”
“You’re so transparent, Skye. They’re in the waiting room.”
“How’d you get in here?”
His smile is familiar. I smile back at him. He doesn’t even have to answer: he snuck in. It’s something I would’ve expected out of Dalton, too, but then again… he’s pissed at me. Just maybe not irrevocably so.
“Dear Lord in Heaven.” A nurse sweeps in. “Griffin Anders, get out of this poor man’s room.” She looks at me and then to the floor. “Ah, hell.”
We watch as she spins on her heel and marches back out.
“What’s the diagnosis?” I ask.
Griffin rolls his eyes. “I was wondering when you were going to ask. A charming laceration to your left temple. A plastic surgeon took a look at it, so you shouldn’t have much of a scar. Bruised ribs. A concussion—thus the vomit. Nothing is broken. Then there was the surgery to fix the internal bleeding, as I mentioned. Your doorframe was bent in like a jackknife, though, and it got some heavy damage from rolling.”
You got lucky.
He doesn’t say it, but I sure as hell read it on his face. My stomach twists. He folds down the blanket to my hips and lifts the gown, showing me a taped gauze pad on my stomach. He carefully undoes a side of it and shows me the stitched incision. It goes from my pubic bone up to my belly button.
“It looks good, but recovery can take up to six weeks. Oh, and they removed the stitches in your arm.”
I’d have to be here for six weeks? No. Now that I’m awake, all I can think about is getting out of here. Delia’s face floats in my mind. I should have gone after her. “Think you can sneak the guys in here?”
Griffin’s face lights up. “I thought you’d never ask.”
I eye the puke as another hospital worker trudges in. “Maybe give them a minute.”
He laughs. “You got it, chief.”
I zone out after he leaves. My eyes close.
Seconds later—but probably more like an hour, since the sky is now various shades of dark—Dalton clears his throat.
“You still in a mood?” I rasp.
He coughs. “Well, fuck you, too.”
His fist does a poor job hiding his smile, and I let go of the breath I was holding.
“You scared us.”
“That’s part of my job description,” I say. “You guys don’t worry when I’m off fighting wildfires.”
Mason shoves in behind him, Zach bringing up the rear.
“That’s different,” Mason tells me. “Because we know you’re not actually fighting them, you’re being an ass ordering everyone around.”
I shrug. My gaze goes down to the IV.
Wyatt.
I sit up straighter. “Mason. You said you couldn’t see who pulled me out of the car?”
“Rub it in,” he says. “Sorry, man.”
“It was Wyatt,” I blurt out.
“Dude,” Zach says gently, “Wyatt is dead. Does he have memory loss?”
I cover my head with my hands. “I know he’s dead.” I groan. “I swear, though, I saw him.”
Mason frowns. “Dalton was at his funeral. It’s been a year. If he was alive, don’t you think we would be the first people to know?”
I nod. “Yeah,” I say slowly. “That would make sense.”
“It would also make sense that a good Samaritan would go help you,” Zach says. “Not all of us are assholes.”
“Well, all of us are assholes,” I say. “It just felt so real.”
Griffin shrugs. “You have a concussion. That can cause hallucinations if you get hit hard enough. Did the person say he was Wyatt?”
I press my lips together. “No. It was more of a feeling—”
“A hallucination,” Mason mutters. “You were in a crazy accident. No one blames you.”
“I blame him,” Dalton says. “If he hadn’t stormed off—”
“If you weren’t such a dick—”
“If you weren’t afraid of—”
“Stop!” Mason yells. “Fuck. What would Wyatt think of you two going for each other’s throats while Jackson lies in a hospital bed? He’d beat your asses.”
Dalton turns away. “I need a cigarette,” he mutters, storming out of the room.
“So, when am I getting out of here?” I start removing the pads on my chest.
Mason tries to grab my arm, but Griffin pushes him out of the way. He undoes the tape from the IV and slides it out of my vein a lot more gracefully than I would have. When the monitor shows a flatlining heartbeat, Griffin silences the machine.
“What are you doing?” Mason snaps.
“We aren’t meant to linger in hospitals,” Griffin answers.
“Yeah,” I manage. “Although I could do with another dose of morphine before we go.”
“I have some in the car. Keep it together till then.”
Zach brings in a wheelchair from the hallway while I slide sweatpants under the hospital gown. My jeans had been cut off at the scene, apparently, as well as my shirt. They help me get my arms through the sleeves of a dark-gray zip-up sweatshirt. I look down at my bare chest and try not to wince.
I’ve seen it black and blue before. Cracked ribs are a bitch. Flailing chest—yep, I’ve suffered through that, too. It put me out of the game for a few weeks. This isn’t the worst pain I’ve felt, but my skin is every shade of purple, blue, and red. The gauze pad is eerily clean against it.
They hoist me up, and my head spins. My stomach heaves.
They jerk away from me when I gag.
“You shouldn’t be leaving,” Mason mutters.
“No, it’s fine, I just—”
“Dear Lord.” My head jerks up as my brother saunters into the room.
“I was wondering how long it would take you to try and break out,” he says.
My friends put me into the wheelchair, and I grimace.
Spike comes closer and bends down, gaze scouring my face. “You’ve always been reckless, Jackson. How is it that your actions always manage to disappoint me?”
I laugh. “You’ve always lived too cautiously, Jeremy. How is it that you always manage to bore me?”
Spike winks and hugs me lightly. It feels good to hug him back, even if the motion of stretching up makes me wince. I crush him into me.
“Thanks for coming,” I say when he releases me. “Mason called you?”
“Nah,” he says. “Your boss did when you didn’t show. It only took a little digging to find out where you’d gone.”
“You? Dig?”
“I am a cop,” he says, seeming vaguely insulted. He crosses the room to Mason and kisses his cheek. “We’ll talk about the fact that you withheld this from me later,” he promises him.
Mason swallows.
Spike always manages to command a room. He spins in a slow circle and takes note of Griffin and Zach. He’s met Zach before, and he raises his chin at him. Griffin and Spike stare at each other for a minute.
Spike turns to me. “Well, let’s get on with it.”
“With what?” I ask.
His grin turns wolfish. “Breaking you out.”
21
DELIA
Long ago, I thought of the idea of marrying James.
It was a dirty idea that had been planted by Margaret when I was sixteen, but it festered. Part of me was horrified. Another part took comfort in knowing I wouldn’t be alone forever. Being alone was somewhat of a phobia after my mother’s death.
As I grew up, the idea swelled and receded with the change of seasons. My father often left James to collect me and return me home when he was done teaching me lessons. After the first lesson—a knife drawn across my ex-boyfriend’s throat—James drove me home in silence.
He broke it only long enough to say, “We all make choices to better our families. To protect our families.”
