by T. S. Joyce
“No, it’s okay. The boy gave me a good memory. That can be a dress-up chest.”
“I found this too,” Tucker said, digging in his pocket. He pulled out a folded photograph and handed it to Brick.
With a frown, Brick unfolded it. He froze as he looked at the old black and white picture. His dad had his back to the camera, and a five-year old Brick was on his shoulders. He knew because he remembered the striped shirt he was wearing in the picture. One of his brothers was on a horse, walking beside his father, and the other was walking on his right-hand side, holding a stick that he was dragging through the dirt.
Beside him, Trinity gasped as she looked at the picture. “Brick,” she said on a breath. “Look.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened a picture of Brick walking with Tucker up on his shoulders, and his horse beside him.
Chills rippled up his spine. It looked eerily similar to the old photograph. Even the spacing and the mountains in the background. Chest heaving, Brick looked back and forth between the two pictures. “What does this mean?” he asked aloud.
Trinity clung to his arm, and when she looked up at him with those wide green eyes, she looked just as confused as he felt.
She pointed to her phone with a shaking finger. “Was this picture supposed to happen?”
“Tucker, were there any more pictures in there?” he asked.
Tucker was trying to shove an old hammer into a loop on his tool belt, and missing like a champ. “No, I looked. There’s only clothes and tools and that picture.”
Trinity took the phone and did a quick black and white edit on the picture, then handed it back. They looked just the same, just missing two cubs. Brick’s build now even looked like his dad’s back. “Brick, what does this mean? What does it mean that the first picture I take of you looks like that picture? What does it mean that you found it tonight?”
“What does it mean that the boy I get is crow blooded?” he murmured. “What does it mean that I meet you right after Aux paired up? What does it mean that the crows are following us? What does it mean that I don’t hurt you when I touch you? What does any of this mean?”
Head roaring with confusion, he set the old photograph down in a rush. He couldn’t draw a deep breath. Trinity looked frightened and the bear inside of him was growling. When had they even taken that picture? He didn’t remember anything good about his father.
“I need to send those pictures to Aux.”
“I can send them to Gwen. I have her number.”
“What?” he asked.
“She came in to the diner today and introduced herself.”
“Fuck. Okay. Okay.” He couldn’t think straight. “Okay, can you send those to her? Ask her to show Aux.”
“Of course,” Trinity murmured as she took a picture of the old photograph. A few seconds later and she told him, “It’s done.”
Trinity turned around and yanked the fish off the stove, and turned off the heat.
The next two minutes were the longest of Brick’s life as he stared at the phone she’d set face-up on the counter. He’d never reached out to his brother like this, but it felt right.
Two minutes and the screen of her phone lit up. Gwen had sent back a picture attachment.
Trinity rushed to open it, and her mouth fell open.
“What is it?” Brick asked.
Trinity blinked hard and handed him the phone.
It was a side-by-side of two pictures. One was an old black and white photograph of his mom kneeling by a chicken, a handful of grain held out and a smile on her youthful face. The other was of Gwen, doing the same thing, in the exact same position, wearing the same smile as Mom.
“What the hell?” Brick whispered. “I don’t even remember my mom smiling. I don’t remember her like this at all.” He shook his head in disbelief.
A text came through from Gwen. We found this picture in a shoe box in the back of Aux’s closet when we were moving my stuff in. Aux says it looks like we’re playing right into her hand.
Whose hand? Trinity sent back.
It was a full, breathless moment before Gwen replied with a simple word.
Fate.
“Caw, caw, caw,” a crow cried from right outside.
“Caw, caw, caw, caw,” came the answering cries from others.
Brick hunched and snarled as he looked up to the ceiling. The birds were on the roof. He could hear the scritch, scritch, scritch of their claws on the snowy shingles.
And out in the woods echoed the roar of a bear.
Chapter Eleven
It was one thing to be told about the animal inside of Brick. It was a completely separate thing to see the predator in him.
At the cries of the crows, Brick lifted his gaze to the roof, and his face sharpened instantly. His skin thinned, and his cheekbones elongated. His snarled-up lip exposed teeth that were longer, and the look on his face became something she didn’t recognize.
At the sound of the roaring bear outside, Trinity witnessed a look of potent fury ripple across Brick’s face.
That roar—it shook the house. The dishes rattled in the cupboards and the floorboards under her feet shook. Instantly, a chill washed through her blood.
That was the most terrifying sound she’d ever heard. That roar was filled with immense rage and power.
Tucker bolted for her, and she hugged him tight against her legs. “Is it Aux,” she whispered as Brick strode for the door.
“No. It’s Moore.”
Her heart hammered hard against her sternum as she fumbled to text Gwen. Crows everywhere, Moore is in the woods. Send.
She didn’t know why she sent her that. She barely knew the woman, but it felt right to let someone know what was happening. Someone who would understand.
“Come here,” Brick said in a voice that couldn’t pass for human anymore.
He pulled a shotgun off a rack near his front door, cracked it open, and shoved two shells into it. “You know how to shoot this?” he asked.
“I haven’t shot a gun since I was a kid,” she told him.
“Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to pull it.” Brick cocked it. “This makes the shell live. If he makes it past me, you aim this at his head, you understand? Two shots, unload it into him.”
He wanted her to shoot his brother? Terror hummed through her.
“I need you to say you understand,” he murmured.
“I—…” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I understand.”
His eyes blazed a lighter silver as he brushed her cheek with his thumb. “I won’t let him get to you.”
The steel resolve in his expression made his promise believable. But at what cost to him?
“We need you to come back.”
Another roar rattled the house, much closer this time, and the crows went wild with their cawing.
Brick pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. To Tucker he said, “Keep calm for your momma.”
Tucker nodded solemnly and gripped Trinity’s hand harder.
Brick ruffled his hair, then leaned in and kissed Trinity quick and hard. Just a peck, but why did it feel so much like a goodbye? Perhaps it was the way he opened the door with such force and made his way out into the snow without looking back at her.
Trinity pressed her hand to her chest as she saw Moore for the first time, pacing along the edge of the woods. The grizzly was monstrous, his fur was black as the night sky above him. In the halo of cabin light, his silver eyes reflected strangely. Moore stood and let off another earth-shattering roar, but it wasn’t aimed at Brick, who was to the middle of the clearing. Moore was glaring at Trinity, standing in the open doorway.
He lowered down onto all fours and charged. Too fast, he was too fast. Faster than he should’ve been, and her mind couldn’t comprehend his speed. He was charging right past Brick!
Brick leapt into the air, and time slowed. He did a slow barrel roll, and mid-air over Moore’s back, a monstrous brow
n bear ripped out of Brick. He reached for Moore with his massive paws and ripped him sideways. They tumbled through the snow and time resumed. Tree-shaking, blood-letting, snarling, ears-back, war-cry-roaring violence opened her eyes to the power Brick really possessed. He was graceful vengeance.
His brown fur made it easy for her to tell him and the black grizzly apart, up until the crows dove from the roof and from the branches in the woods and began circling the battle.
She couldn’t see. She couldn’t see!
“Mom?” Tucker said from beside her.
“It’s okay. Everything will be okay.” She bolted inside and picked up the shotgun Brick had set on the table for her.
Don’t put my finger on the trigger until I’m ready. Cock it. Wait, he already cocked it. The shell is live. Right?
The gun was heavy in her hands. Could she even hold this thing up?
“Mom,” Tucker asked again.
“What, baby?” she asked, looking up at him.
His eyes were pitch black and scared.
And then her baby boy disappeared. His clothes fell to the ground and a small crow fluttered toward the door, beating its wings clumsily.
A moment of shock consumed her. Tucker? Tucker! That was Tucker? Tucker hopping toward the door, flapping his wings, tumbling back down to earth.
“Tucker!” she screamed as he made it to the porch. Trinity set the shotgun down and ran for him.
Outside, the fight was closer. The air was thick with the birds and the snarling of the bears. Vicious slaps from their claws echoed through the clearing over the caw, caw, caws of the crows.
Trinity reached for Tucker but he flapped his wings fast and catapulted off the porch. No, no, no!
She scrambled down the stairs and into the yard after the little crow. Lurching forward, she grabbed at him again, but he was too fast. She didn’t want to hurt him! He was so little.
Pain rocketed through her scalp as she was knocked sideways by a crow. Tucker, Tucker, Tucker! The little crow was hopping on the ground, wings out and aimed straight for Brick and Moore.
The bears were killing each other, locked onto each other with their powerful jaws and shaking violently, ripping fur and flesh.
Black streaks blurred around her as the crows divebombed her, and she crawled on the ground in desperation to get to her son. She knew the exact moment Moore realized she was so close. His teeth were clamped on Brick’s neck as they stood on their hind legs shredding each other. Those empty silver eyes locked on hers and he shoved Brick back. In a blur, he charged her.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, forcing herself the last couple of feet to grab the little crow. She curled up in a protective ball around Tucker and prepared for agony.
She could hear his chugging breath, smell his fur, and hear the snarl in his throat. But just as Moore reached her, a mass of fur barreled into him with such force, it leveled the clumps of snow around her and stole the breath from her lungs. Moore spun sideways with a furious roar, and Trinity hugged the little squawking crow tight to her chest. The crows were still diving at her, but she couldn’t take her eyes from the bear fight. There was a new bear in the fray, one with lighter fur. He’d kept Moore off her. Aux?
He and Brick were savagely fighting Moore now, drawing the fight away from her.
Move.
She struggled upward and ducked as another crow came after her. Its wingspan was huge as it pulled back up into the sky.
This was war. It was war! Crows and bears and all for what? Something snapped inside of Trinity, and the fear left her body like a rolling fog. All that remained was a fury that they had put her son at risk. That they were hurting Brick. Those were her boys, and anyone who wanted to fuck with them, fucked with her.
Trinity barreled through the door and straight into the bathroom. She settled the little crow inside and shut the door, then, jaw clenched in determination, she strode straight for the shotgun again.
Blood was trickling into her eye and she wiped it with the back of her hand.
They’d done this. The crows. Moore. They’d come into these peaceful woods to hurt the people she cared about.
The weight of the shotgun was heavy in her hand as she walked outside. Fueled by rage, she lifted the barrel of the gun and aimed for the crows that were diving for her.
Boom!
Two crows fell, and the others scattered. The sound of their cawing was deafening. Trinity cocked the gun. One shell left.
Brick and Aux had torn Moore up. The big black grizzly was backing toward the woods, bleeding openly. The snow she stepped on was painted red from the fight. She aimed at Moore. “You don’t belong here,” she gritted out.
The monster grizzly limped badly. He roared at the edge of the light, and his teeth were coated in blood.
Brick backed toward her and paced in front of her tightly as Aux pushed Moore farther into the dark woods. The crows lifted into the air and aimed for the clouds, and in a matter of seconds the battle was done.
A heavy silence descended on Brick’s woods. All she could hear was the hammering of her own heartbeat and the roaring in her ears. As the adrenaline in her body crashed, she sagged under the weight of the shotgun. A sob escaped her, but it wasn’t from being scared or being emotional. It was from relief that they’d survived.
Brick’s monstrous bear turned on her and changed back into the man she adored in a moment. He reached for the shotgun, took it from her, and caught her up in a hug. “He’s gone. He’s gone,” he chanted in a gritty timbre. “It’s done. He’s gone.”
“Tucker…”
“Where is he?” Brick asked.
“Inside. He’s a…he’s a…”
“It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay. You did so good.”
She’d done good? There were two dead crows on the lawn, their eyes staring blankly at the sky. She’d done that. Were they only animals? Or were they people, too? Did she know them from town?
Brick was clawed to hell, but the wounds weren’t seeping. They looked like they were already healing. The deepest gashes across his torso and the puncture wounds at his neck looked bad, but he didn’t favor them at all as he pulled on his discarded jeans in the yard.
He pressed his fingertips against the small of her back and guided her past the dead crows and inside.
Tucker was sitting on the couch, all dressed in his clothes again. His eyes were round and scared. “I’m sorry.”
“There isn’t anything to apologize for,” Brick murmured. “Did your crow want to fight with the bears?”
Tucker shook his head slowly. “No. I wanted to fight for you. I wanted you to be okay.”
She’d never seen Brick look so stunned. He swallowed hard and nodded, then put his knuckles out. Tucker bumped his fist.
The smile on her boy was more powerful than a sunrise.
Trinity sank down onto the couch and dragged him against her. She reveled in the warmth of Brick’s voice as he told them how good they’d done.
Tears in her eyes, Trinity reached for Brick. He scooped them both up on the couch and crushed them to him. He swayed gently, and the growl in his throat softened.
“I chased Moore to your territory line,” Aux murmured from the doorway.
Brick gripped the back of Trinity’s neck and kissed her forehead before he eased away and lifted his silver gaze to his brother. “Moore isn’t as strong as I remember.”
“Moore is just as strong as he always was. It’s you who changed,” Aux told him as he pulled a t-shirt over his clawed-up chest. “That’s what he didn’t want us to know. That’s why he pushed that oath so hard. Pairing up makes us too strong.”
It was so strange seeing Aux here with Brick. She’d never seen him before tonight. They both looked almost identical. Just different scars, and different haircuts.
Both of the men jerked their attention to the door, but Trinity didn’t see or hear anything.
“It’s Gwen,” Aux murmured. “She had to follow in the truck
, but it’s a long drive. I think the war is done for now, but it won’t hurt for us to post up here tonight just to be safe.”
Brick huffed a tired laugh. “Would’ve never thought I would be okay letting you stay in my territory, but I sure appreciate it. Thanks for the back-up.”
Aux nodded. “I think that’s what brothers are supposed to do.” He looked over to Tucker and Trinity. “It’s nice to officially meet the two of you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Trinity said, offering her hand for a shake.
He hesitated on touching her, and she apologized. “I forgot the rules, I’m sorry.”
“No.” Aux grabbed her hand and shook it. “Old habits. That was an unbreakable rule for so long.”
Tucker offered him a knuckle bump because that’s apparently what Tucker did now that he’d gotten one from Brick. The boys left to clean up the crows outside, and Gwen came in a couple minutes later with a giant duffle bag, a little black and white pig on a leash, and a blow dryer she introduced as “Billie”. Trinity had a laugh in a heavy moment and it lifted so much weight. She wasn’t alone. Sure, she shocked, but never alone. Gwen came in and filled the room with happy banter, and Tucker was excited to talk about his inner crow with the both of them, and she realized how much he’d been having to hide. There was this potent relief in her boy. And in her, too.
When she had Tucker all cleaned up and sleeping in the loft bed upstairs, she looked over the rail at Aux, and Gwen, and Brick. Her Brick.
They had built a fire in the hearth and were talking easily. Brick was looking up at her like she was something. Like she was valuable. There was a softness in his eyes that made her heart thump a little harder.
He twitched his head. Come here.
With a smile, she descended the stairs and let him pull her into his lap. As the drone of easy conversation relaxed her, she decided Brick was right.
This wasn’t a life she would’ve ever imagined…
But everything was going to be okay.
Epilogue
The Oath of Bane had been broken twice over now.
