Southern Heart

by Madison, Natasha

  I don't tell her that I know all of this. I don’t say anything because what can I say to her? She put her life on the line when she opened that fucking door. When I hear the door open and then slam shut, I’m already ready to get out of bed and throw her out of harm's way. My breathing starts to come in pants, and I start to get up when she puts her hand on my forearm.

  "It’s Ethan," she says, her voice soft as I look up. "It’s just Ethan." Her eyes go a soft blue now, and she repeats herself. "It’s just Ethan."

  "Well, look at this son of a bitch," Ethan says, coming into the room with his hands on his hips.

  "I’m sorry," I tell him, my voice lowering. "I’m so fucking sorry I brought this to your house." I swallow down the lump in my throat. "I just didn’t know where else to go."

  "Hey," he says, coming to stand beside Chelsea. "You're family," he says. "Where else would you have gone?"

  "Fuck if I know." I shake my head, and I know I’m going to have to tell him everything.

  "The guys are coming just for a debrief," he tells me, and I nod at him. "Did you have something to eat?"

  "He just woke up," Chelsea says to him, and her irritated voice is back. She looks over at me now, and a softer side comes out, "But I can get you some broth." She looks at us and walks out of the room.

  I wait for her to be out of ear shot, before turning to him. "The minute I can walk out of here or walk without bleeding, I’m going to be a memory."

  "Where will you go?" he asks, and I want to say the cabin.

  "Cabin was torched and burned to the ground," he tells me, and my heart sinks and breaks. That cabin was the only thing I had that was mine. The only thing I decided to keep. The only thing I ever held on to, and now it is gone. I knew I had stayed too long in one place and should have moved along, but the cabin brought me peace. It brought me hope that one day I would be able to live without looking over my shoulder. "Firefighters are saying that it was arson. It was empty." He answers the question I was silently asking myself.

  "It was just a house." I say the words. "It can be rebuilt." I don’t tell him that I’m not rebuilding it. I’ll sell the land, and someone else can put down their own roots.

  "Material things can be replaced," he says. "The main thing is you are alive."

  "I’m alive," I say. The front door is opened and then closed. The sound of boots clicking on the floor tells me the men of the family have arrived.

  They stick together all the time, and when you mess with one, you mess with all of them. I watch them walk into the room. Ethan nods at me silently while Jacob, Casey, Quinn, and Beau come in. The three of them stand side by side.

  "You look good," Beau says, and I laugh.

  "You always had a way with words." Jacob pushes him.

  "What am I supposed to tell him?" Beau looks at Jacob and then Ethan. "You look like death."

  "I feel like death,” I interrupt them. My leg starts to move out of nerves, and my stomach gets a burning sensation. It rises from my stomach to my chest and then my throat.

  "There are so many things to say," I start, my finger tapping the bed. The monitors spike from the way my heart is beating faster and faster.

  My mouth is suddenly dry as Ethan talks. "Just start at the beginning," he says, and I look down, gathering all the courage I have. "I don’t even know where to start," I say, looking at all of them.

  "Why don’t you answer the biggest question that we have for you?" Jacob says. "Who did this to you? Who would try to kill you?"

  Looking each of them square in the eye, I answer them. "My father."

  Chapter 7

  Mayson

  I watch the eyes of every single man standing in this room. Jacob, Beau, Casey, Ethan, and Quinn. Five men who stand together, regardless of their differences. Five men who at any time would die for their family. Five men who accepted me with no questions asked. "My father."

  I don’t see her in the room when I talk, but the minute the words leave my lips, she gasps out in shock. My eyes fly to hers, and she can’t mask the tears that well in her eyes. She can’t even stop the tray in her hand from shaking, and it takes one step from Quinn to grab it before it falls to the floor. "Chelsea," Beau says, coming forward and whispering something in her ear.

  She just looks at him and nods her head, turning to walk out of the room, but right before she does, she takes one look over her shoulder at me, and instead of looking at her dead in the eye, I do the coward thing and look down.

  My heart beats in my chest, and I’m going to ignore that it's for her. Instead, I’m going to pretend it’s because, in a matter of ten minutes, these men who I look up to are going to know all my secrets. I’m going to lie bare to them and hope they still look at me with respect.

  I watch Beau walk out of the room with her, and Quinn puts the tray down on the table beside the bed. "I take it you aren’t hungry." He smirks at me as I just look down, waiting for Beau to come back.

  "Not now, I’m not," I answer, and I want to get up while I have this talk, but I know I can’t move. I look at the men in the room and see all the questions written on their faces. Questions I’ll have no choice but to answer. Beau walks in with his head down. "She okay?" I shouldn’t care, but I do.

  "She’s just shaken up a bit," he answers honestly. "I don’t think she was expecting that answer."

  "I mean, why would she?" I laugh nervously.

  "Can we get the show going?" Ethan now says with his hands in his back pockets as he looks at me.

  "I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in a single-wide trailer that had seen better days." I start as far back as I can remember. "My mother tried her best to make it as clean as she could, but it was a losing battle even from the beginning." The busted windows held together by a garbage bag and duct tape. That used to have to be replaced every few days because the wind would rip it apart.

  "I knew how we lived was wrong, but at seven, all you know is what is presented to you." The memories start to come back as if I’ve opened a box that has been sealed. "I don’t think I ever saw my mother without a bruise on her face or her arms." I swallow now, not sure this was such a good idea. "She hid it as much as she could. Made sure she didn’t have any friends she had to explain herself to." I hear one of the men hiss, but I don’t stop. "He was always drunk. Under stress." I laugh. "That is what she used to tell me as if it was an excuse to beat your wife. Every single time, she would try to do whatever she had to do to keep him happy. Regardless of the hell that she was living. She made sure she showed me whatever love she could." I shake my head. "Every fucking Sunday, she would dress up in her only fucking dress. Pack on a pound of makeup and take us to church. I never fucking understood it. We would go to this place, and he would give us stories of hope and happiness." I shake my head. "It was the opposite of how we lived." Closing my eyes for a second, I see her smiling at me. "If I think about it now, she was probably praying for an escape." I look up now, blinking the tears away. "She got her answer when I turned fifteen and she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Of course, we were in the hospital because my father had busted her head open with a frying pan." I don’t tell them he did that because she ran out of food to cook him because he had taken his last paycheck and used it to get drunk and then fuck a hooker.

  I close my eyes and can see her in front of me as if it was yesterday, sitting in the middle of the bed. Her body almost a skeleton as she tried to fight "They didn’t catch it fast enough, and in three weeks, it had taken over her whole body." The lump in my throat is as big as a boulder. "It took three weeks for her to get diagnosed and to pass away."

  I look at the men now as they stand there. Quinn shows on his face the anguish that I felt all those years ago. "My father didn’t even claim her body."

  "Motherfucker,” Jacob says, shaking his head and looking down at his feet. Beau hisses out now. Casey and Ethan stand there with nothing on their faces. Both of them are trained not to show emotion.

  "So they buried he
r in an unmarked grave," I tell them. "Now with my mother gone, there was nowhere he could get rid of 'his stress.'" I use air quotes. "It started slowly at first." I see his face in my head. "A punch in the ribs. A kick in the back when I was walking away. A backhand slap when I didn’t look up at him. A punch in the head when I looked up at him too long."

  I see that Quinn is crouched down with his back against the wall and his hands in front of his mouth.

  "When I was sixteen, I ended up in the hospital with a broken arm in two places." I look down at the scar that is now covered with my ink. "They knew I didn’t trip on anything, but at that point, what were they going to do? Get CPS involved when I was close to being an adult."

  "They could have helped you," Beau says, and Ethan laughs.

  "You think they are going to help a sixteen-year-old boy?" Ethan shakes his head and looks over to me. "Nothing they could have done would have helped."

  "So I kept my head down. I made friends with the janitor at the school, and he would allow me to stay with him while he cleaned the school. I would hit the gym while he cleaned. I stayed there until it was dark out, then snuck in when I knew he would be passed out in the single recliner."

  "How big did you get?" Casey asks me.

  "I went from a scrawny one-hundred-and-ten-pound, five-foot-six boy to a six-foot-two, one-hundred-and-sixty-pound man," I tell him. "It happened so fast that I don’t think he was expecting it. Doesn’t mean he didn’t try to push me around. He did."

  "It must have been harder for him," Jacob says with a smile on his face.

  "It was, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t try," I say, swallowing. "He broke my leg with a metal pipe when I was sleeping." I look at Quinn, who hasn’t moved since I started my story. "I should have known it was coming. It took over six months to heal because"—I look down—"I couldn't go to the hospital."

  "What?" Quinn asks me.

  "I was almost eighteen. It was going to make another case, and I didn’t want it. I had made a plan by that point, and I just needed to be on alert every single day." I swallow. "So every single day, I got just a touch stronger. Every single day, I waited. Every single day, I also wondered if it would be my last." I look down at my hand. "He was becoming more unhinged as the days went on. He lost his job, and the money was not coming in. I don’t know what he was doing at the end, and I can only imagine how low he must have gotten. But I didn’t care because it would be only a matter of time until I would be gone."

  "What happened next?" Beau asks me, his jaw tight as he bounces on his heels.

  "He came home loaded and drunk," I say as the last day comes back like a movie playing over and over again. "Walked in or actually stumbled in." If I close my eyes, I can still smell him faintly. "Tried to turn on the lights, and they had been cut. I was sitting down in the dark trailer with just a little candle lit." I swallow now. "The rain had just started very much like two weeks ago. I sat watching him toss things around in frustration that he couldn’t control the situation. I remember the sound of the rain hitting the tin roof, the pitter-patter of it, and the light from the lightning coming into the trailer. I knew the minute he looked at me that it was going to be that night. I knew that it was no turning back. He came toward me, calling me every single name in the book. He couldn’t even speak. All his words were slurred. I was no good for nothing. The biggest mistake of his life. It wasn’t the first time he’d told me that, and unlike when I was thirteen, I didn’t shut my mouth on this day." I smile as the tears roll down my face. "I gave it right back to him. He was a spineless piece of shit." Casey smiles with me. "He was not a man. A man takes care of his family." I look at the men who actually do everything that I’ve just said. "He did not like that!"

  "I can imagine," Jacob says, and I swear I see his chest puff out proud.

  "I got up then to stand in front of him." Another tear comes, and I just let it drop onto the covers. "I don’t think he realized I was a little taller than him at this point. He pushed my shoulder. I remember telling myself to let it be. I was going to just take my shit and go, but then he looked me in the eye and told me that I should have died with that piece-of-shit woman he got stuck with." My eyes fly to Quinn, who has his own tears running down his face. "I struck him for the first time in my life. Punched him straight in the face. He stumbled back and then touched his jaw, turning to spit blood out of his mouth. He sneered at me, and I knew he was high. Instead of walking away, he walked toward me again. This time, I swung with everything I had. My fist connected with his jaw at the same time as the thunder rolled in. He stumbled back, falling over his ratty recliner, and instead of just grabbing my bag and walking out, I went to him. Hitting him over and over again, I knew in that single trailer where I grew up, I knew only one of us was walking out alive, and the other person would be left to die. I hit him until my hand was broken." Looking down at the hand, I open and close it. "I left thinking he was dead." I look at them. "The next day, Mayson Carey was born, and Braxton Michaels was dead."

  Chapter 8

  Chelsea

  "The next day, Mayson Carey was born, and Braxton Michaels was dead." I put my hand against the wall as my knees give out on me. The tears are flowing like a river down my face. I can’t imagine what it must be like. "I thought he was dead." I put my hand to my mouth in order to stop the sob that wants to rip through me. "Left him for dead, and then I joined the military. Never," he says, his voice going down. "Never did I think he was alive."

  "Did you check his pulse?" Ethan asks him.

  "No," he says. "There was no way I thought he could survive."

  "He found you," Quinn says, and I stop breathing as I hear him answer.

  "Might as well get Chelsea," Mayson says. "She saved me from dying, so she should hear how it happened."

  I get up slowly and walk to the kitchen to grab a glass. Turning around, I head straight to the cabinet where I keep my grandfather’s special drink. I untwist the top and pour two fingers in the glass. Ethan walks in at the same time as I pick the glass up and take down the gulp.

  The burning makes me cough, and I put the back of my hand in front of my mouth. "Did you hear?" Ethan says, looking at me, and I just look back at him.

  "You can’t leave him here," I tell him, and he just looks at me. "I’m not kidding, Ethan. You can not keep him here."

  "Because of his past?" He glares at me, and I glare back at him.

  "You fucking know what that man just dished out." I point toward the hallway, ignoring the tears rolling down my face. "What he just put out in that room. He needs help." I put my hand to my chest as his words play over and over in my head. I can’t save him is the only thing I can tell myself.

  "He needs you," he says. "Look at what you did for him so far. You don’t have to do anything else but make sure he stays alive," Ethan says, and we both stop talking when we see Quinn standing there.

  "She heard?" he mentions with his chin toward me, and Ethan nods. "Something tells me that what is coming next is going to hurt even more."

  "Let’s go find out," I say, pouring another shot and then taking it and coughing again.

  "How many is that?" Ethan asks me.

  "Not enough that I can still hear his broken voice in my head," I say and walk into the room.

  I look over at my father, who is about to step forward to come to me, but I give him a silent shake of my head, and he stops. My eyes fly toward Mayson, and I move them away, seeing that they are red. I want to ask him all the questions. I want him to know it doesn’t matter what happened. He’s still himself.

  "Well," I say, looking at him now, putting my hands in front of me. "What are we talking about?"

  "You can stop pretending you didn’t hear everything before," Mayson says, and I look at him.

  "You're in my house, and the walls are not soundproof." I look over at my uncle Casey. "So yeah, I heard."

  "Good," Mayson says. "Saves me time to rehash it." He tries to sit up, but he winces. The day after he got
here, Casey showed up with a hospital bed. I was shocked that in thirty minutes, my old bed was out, and the hospital bed was in. To be honest, it was more convenient for me.

  I walk over to the side table and grab his glass of water and hand it to him. "This will help." He nods at me and takes a couple of sips.

  "I joined the military as Mayson." He continues his story. "Every single day, I was petrified they would find out what I did. Every single time I got summoned, I thought this is it. I’m going to jail for murder." He smirks now. "But nothing. No one knew or found out. I made sure I never got a credit card. I paid for everything in cash. Stayed in a motel to avoid getting an apartment so they wouldn’t do a background check. I went back to the trailer park and found that the whole park had been wiped out. Turns out, that night a tornado had come through and wrecked everything."

  "Did you check for a death certificate?" Uncle Casey asks him, and he shakes his head. He takes the phone out of his pocket typing something into it.

  "I had just come back from my last tour. Three weeks ago, I guess. I walked into the cabin and knew right away something wasn’t right. Felt it in my stomach and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up." He looks down as his hands start to shake. "For the past eight years, I’ve been leaving things in a certain way to make sure no one surprised me." He looks at Ethan, faking laughing. "Must be the training." Ethan laughs with him. "He swung the bat before I was able to grab the gun," he says. "Knocked me out."

  "How long?" Ethan asks him, and he looks down.

  "Long enough to drag me out behind the cabin," he says, looking at him, "and tie me to a tree."

  "Wait a second," I say, stepping forward, and he stops talking. My heart speeds up as I think about him locked up, not only for an hour but a week. "Are you telling me that you were locked up for a whole week?"

  "Five days," he corrects me.

  "It’s fine," he tells me, looking me in the eyes. He tries to smile at me, but it’s a sad fucking smile. "He tied me to the tree, and every day, he would come out and knock me around." Quinn hisses, and I look over at him, and he shakes his head and holds his neck in his hand. "Three," he says the number. "Always three knocks in a row."