Zane (Inked Brotherhood Book 3)

by Jo Raven

  Rafe’s mouth falls open. He pales. Then without another word, he turns around and gets back inside.

  He didn’t punch me, as I thought he might. As I hoped he might, so that I don’t have to make that phone call and find out what I don’t wanna know.

  My fingers tremble as I scroll through my contacts, find Matt’s number and hit ‘call.’ I reach into my pocket for my packet of cigarettes. Before I locate it, Matt answers.

  “Zane.” His voice is rough as if he’s been smoking day and night. Maybe he has. “Hey.”

  “Hey, man.” I try to swallow, but my throat is bone-dry. “How is everything?”

  Silence stretches like elastic, longer and thinner, ever thinner, until I think my composure will snap along with it.

  “Zane…” Matt’s voice cracks, and oh shit, no. No fucking way.

  “Don’t,” I whisper. No, I don’t wanna know. I don’t want—

  “It’s over. She’s dead. She went peacefully, in her sleep. You need…”

  His voice is fading. The blood rushing in my ears is too loud. I need to sit down. I need to start running. I don’t know what the hell I need.

  “… funeral,” Matt is saying. “Tomorrow morning, in Bolinbrook. The viewing is tonight.”

  Tomorrow. The funeral. Emma’s funeral.

  I try to speak, but no sound comes out.

  “Zane, are you there?” Matt’s voice cracks again, and I close my eyes. I feel as if my head’s gonna explode.

  “Yeah.”

  “Will you come tonight?”

  I nod stupidly, standing on the sidewalk, talking into my cell. “Yeah.” My voice barely comes out, scratchy and hoarse. “Yeah, I will.”

  “See you later, then.”

  The call disconnects, and I find myself standing, yet not really feeling my feet. Not feeling anything. Except my chest hurts. I look down, expecting to see a bullet lodged smack in the middle of it. A gaping wound. A hole.

  But there’s nothing. Nothing on me to show what just happened. How much it hurts.

  Emma.

  I didn’t get to say goodbye. She was barely conscious the whole weekend I was there, and when she was, she didn’t say a word. She did smile at me once. I recall her smile, and my fists tighten.

  Not fair. Not fair that she’s gone. She can’t be gone. She can’t be.

  The cell casing creaks. I force myself to unclench my fingers before I break it, because... I stare at it blankly. Something I need to do.

  Tell Ash. Or Rafe.

  No, that’s not it.

  Call Dakota.

  My lungs feel too small as I search for her number. Breathing is difficult. No idea why. I’m just standing here. Standing still while the world is spinning madly.

  I call, but I get no reply. The pressure on my chest is crushing my lungs. I put the cell away mechanically. My brain is mostly blank. Can’t even recall what I wanted to tell Dakota.

  All I know is that I need to get into my pickup truck and drive to Bolinbrook. Need to see Emma one last time. Need to tell her goodbye.

  I turn away from the shop and start walking, occasionally stumbling. Still can’t feel my feet much. It’s as if I’m floating, and they’re rocks, anchoring me to earth. I drag them behind me like dead weights.

  Say goodbye. Somehow I hope Emma can still hear me, from wherever her spirit is. I’m going to her funeral. I owe her that much. It’s the last thing I can do for her, and I’ll be damned if I lose my shit before I get it done.

  ***

  The viewing is held at a funeral home. I can’t see the kids, and fleetingly, I wonder where they are, but I can’t focus enough to hold on to that thought.

  Emma is laid out in a dark wooden casket. Her small face is powdered and rouged, her pale hands folded over her chest. There are flowers around her. I sit there and look at her. I feel dizzy when I stand, so I just sit and look. She seems asleep.

  Please, wake up.

  People have drifted in and out of the room. Now they’re gone, and it’s just me and Emma.

  “Sis.” I have no tears. My eyes are dry, so dry they ache. “This ain’t fair. You should’ve stayed. You said you’d stick by me.” I stop, because it sounds so selfish. But she’s my family. All the family I have. Except… “The kids will miss you. Matt will miss you. I…” My voice breaks, and I rub my chest. Fucking hurts. “Don’t know if I can do this without you, dammit.”

  “Zane.” Matt appears at the door. “It’s past nine. They’re closing up here, and you should go to bed. You look awful.”

  He does, too. Not that it matters. I shake my head. “Talking to Emma.”

  “Emma’s dead,” he bites out, and I bend over, his words a punch to my stomach. “Look, you have to come to terms with that, man.”

  The chair creaks when he sits down next to me. He puts his hand on my shoulder, and I flinch hard, almost falling down. He withdraws it.

  “Zane… I’m sorry. I love Emma. I know you love her. I know this is hard. But you have to rest, or you won’t make it to the funeral tomorrow. You don’t look well, man.”

  I concentrate on breathing, getting air into my crushed lungs. My heart is banging in my chest. “’M okay.”

  “Come on.” He pats my arm and stands up. “Let’s go home.”

  Home. Home ain’t here, not anymore. I let Matt haul me to my feet and drag me toward his car. I’m thankful I don’t have to drive. Not sure I can.

  I let him drive me to their house, and once there, I drop on the sofa and spend the night staring a hole into the ceiling.

  She’s gone. Emma’s gone.

  Dammit all to hell, but when reality comes crashing down, it really doesn’t hold back.

  ***

  Matt drives us to the cemetery. The kids are riding in his mother’s car, he tells me. His mother. Keep forgetting Matt has parents, unlike me and Emma. His parents are here, and as it turns out, also some cousins. Maybe that’s good. More people to say goodbye.

  Goodbye to Emma. A knot is stuck in my throat, and I can’t swallow. Can’t speak.

  The casket is there. There’s a hole in the ground. They’re gonna put Emma into a fucking hole in the ground. I can’t…

  Matt’s hand on my arm brings me back from the brink. “Ready?”

  The fuck I am. How can I ever be ready to put my sister into the ground?

  But I follow him out of the car. There are chairs. There’s a priest. He waits for all of us to sit and starts talking. He talks and talks, words, and words, and more fucking words, washing over me like soap bubbles, pretty, light and just as empty, bursting into nothing.

  I’m not alone, I tell myself as they lower the casket into the earth. I’m not. I have my friends. I have the kids. I have Matt. He said we’ll always be a family, ever since he started dating Emma.

  I glance at him. He’s, what, twenty-six? But he looks old, emaciated and bent, his mouth thin.

  One by one the people get up to leave. I stay seated. Don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Where I’m supposed to go. Nothing makes sense.

  “Zane.” Matt is suddenly in front of me. I blink. “Come home with us. You need to sleep. I don’t think you slept at all last night.”

  Maybe that’s what I should do. Besides, I can’t think, so I might as well follow his lead.

  “Your friends know what happened?” Matt shoots me a glance as we walk toward the cars.

  I don’t answer. I don’t understand what happened myself. I slow down, look back at the fresh mount of earth over the grave. Why am I leaving already? I can’t leave Emma here alone.

  “Zane.” Matt grips my wrist and jerks me back around. “Snap out of it.” He sighs. “Listen, man. I have to tell you something. I decided to take the kids and move closer to my parents. They need all the love they can get right now, and they need someone to take care of them.”

  “What?” I rub a hand over my face. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s not too far. They live in Missouri. You can come
visit sometimes.”

  “Where are the kids?” I turn in a circle. Everyone’s gone.

  “My mom took them home. I couldn’t—”

  “You can’t take them away.” I’m wheezing. “You fucking can’t. They’re Emma’s kids. You have no right.”

  “Dammit, they’re my kids, too, man. I have every right.” His hands ball into fists. “You think I’m not grieving Emma, too? She was my wife! But I have to think of the kids first, their needs, their wellbeing. Put yourself in my place, and tell me you—”

  “Fuck you.” I spin on my heel and head toward my truck.

  “Zane, wait.”

  What for? There’s nothing left for me here. Matt is fucking leaving, with the kids. I think of little Mary and her baby brother, Cole. How we kept each other company almost every weekend for more than half a year now. How Mary would sit next to me on the sofa, so I could read her stories. How Cole would fall asleep as I sang AC/DC songs—softly, as a lullaby. They are my family.

  They’re gone.

  It’s all gone, and I need to leave before I lose my last shred of sanity. Was this what Matt had meant all those weeks ago—when he asked if someone had my back?

  My friends. Dakota. They’re all I have left now. I need to get back to them before I forget why the hell I’m still alive.

  ***

  I somehow make it back to Madison without killing myself or anyone else. It’s nothing short of a miracle, because I barely remember the route and can’t even tell how fast I drove. Weird snatches of memory, like images from a dream, inform me that I stopped at some point and peed by the side of the highway. I also stopped at a liquor shop, flashed my fake ID and bought two bottles of whiskey. It has to be real because, as I park at the front of my building, I see them in a brown paper bag at my feet.

  Why the hell did I buy them? I’m thirsty, but my stomach churns, making me wanna puke. I’m sweating, and I’m cold, and it all seems surreal—a man crossing the street with his dog, the cars rolling by, the skyline. The colors are muted. The world has turned black and white.

  Strange.

  I grab the bag, open the door, and half-climb half-fall out of the truck. Dakota must be home. It’s just after noon. But when I ring the buzzer, nobody replies. Where can she be?

  Fumbling with my key, I almost drop the bag twice. I’m okay. I can do this.

  Why shouldn’t I be able to? A dark mist gathers in my mind. Something… something bad happened.

  Emma.

  I groan to myself as the memory returns. Dead. She’s dead. Oh fuck.

  Pushing the main door open, I stagger into the building and up the stairs, clutching the rail and cradling the brown paper bag under my arm. It’s like walking underwater, my feet heavy, the air like molasses around me. It takes me forever to reach my apartment, and then another forever to open the door and step inside. Padlocking the door behind me, as if that can keep the world out, I shuffle inside.

  The whiskey bottles clink when I put the bag on the coffee table. The sound shatters the stillness like a gunshot. Echoes come back, and I shake my head slowly to clear my ears. Clear my head.

  Not working. I sink down on the sofa. Something is digging into my ass, and I pull out my cell. A light is blinking on top. Missed calls. I check them. Rafe. Asher. Erin. Dakota. I hit ‘call’ on the last one.

  My hand shakes when I bring the cell to my ear. I close my eyes and wait as her line rings and rings, then stops.

  “The phone you are calling,” an automated voice says, “is currently out of the service area. Please try your call again later.”

  I lower the cell, stare at it. Whatever. Fuck you, too, machine. My fingers spasm around the phone, itching with the urge to throw it against the wall.

  I need… I don’t know what I need. What could make the mess in my head better. I suck on the barbell in my tongue. The emptiness of the apartment is taunting me. Reminding me of what I’m trying to forget. Being alone isn’t a good idea right now.

  So I call Ash. My fingers drum on the armrest as his phone rings and rings. I call Rafe, and the call goes directly to voicemail.

  “I don’t wanna fucking leave a message,” I yell into the phone and try to draw a breath through my nose, try to calm the hell down.

  What the hell is going on?

  I call Dakota again. Same result. Breathing hard, I lean back and close my eyes. What the hell is happening? Where is everyone?

  Everyone’s gone.

  No, dammit. No.

  I scrub my hands over my face, trying to erase the image of the coffin, the flowers, Emma’s still face.

  Fuck this. I reach for the paper bag and draw a whiskey bottle out. I unscrew the lid, tip the bottle and swallow.

  A hiss leaves my throat as liquid heat slides down my throat, coating my insides. Pushing away the cold. I upend the bottle, gulping the whiskey down.

  My vision blurs, and I wipe a hand over my eyes. Better. Yeah, fuzziness is good. Everything inside me, the razor-sharp edge of every thought and feeling, begins to dull, so I drink some more.

  I can do this. Stay here, wait until Dakota or Ash or Erin or whoever calls or comes back here. Just need to hold on to sanity a little bit longer.

  Someone will come. Someone will call. I know I’ve been walking around like a loaded gun for the past few weeks, snapping at everyone or avoiding them.

  Shit. Dakota will come. She will.

  I drink more, the warmth of the alcohol spreading in my stomach. The room tilts, and I fall back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. It spins in lazy circles. I need to… Fuck, I don’t know anymore.

  Need to fit into this fucking new world order.

  My eyes fall on a pair of scissors on the table. I grab them, test the edge. Yeah, they’ll do nicely. I lift them, see my wild eyes reflected in the shiny metal. Hands shaking, I get to work, cutting through my Mohawk. It’s like cutting through cardboard. Like cutting through my childhood, through my past, through all I am.

  Bad idea.

  The scissors clatter to the floor, and I run my hands over the chopped tufts. My head feels too light—but the heavy feeling in my chest is only getting worse. Grabbing the bottle, I chug down half of it in one go.

  Bile rises in my throat, and I swallow hard. The room spins. I’m not sure what I’m doing here.

  I need to call Dakota. Where’s my cell?

  Turns out it’s lying by my side on the sofa. A symbol is flashing on the screen. It’s a tiny receiver. You have a voice message.

  This is funny, and I snort. Who leaves voice messages nowadays?

  Bad news, the voice in my head whispers. More bad news. Don’t listen to it. Drink some more.

  I take another swig from the bottle and another. The room is still spinning, and my cell is still blinking. My fingers move of their own accord, tapping on the cell screen and opening the message. Swallowing hard, I bring the phone to my ear.

  This message was received yesterday morning, a robotic voice informs me, and then it plays.

  “Hello?” A man’s voice I don’t recognize. “Dakota, you said to call here. The hospital gave the final diagnosis…” The line breaks with static. I frown. “…her results came in. I’m afraid the cancer is back. It’s not looking good. They…” The line breaks again. “…come by…”

  The line goes dead.

  The cell drops from my fingers and smashes to the floor, pieces skittering across the room. I stare at the far wall, not seeing anything. Ugly words are ringing inside my head. Final diagnosis. Cancer is back.

  She’s dying. Of cancer. Like Emma.

  No. No fucking way. Dakota would’ve told me. I would’ve noticed if she was sick.

  Only with Emma I didn’t know until she was hospitalized.

  The room spins faster. My stomach roils, and it all comes back up. Bending over the armrest, I lose my—dinner? Something I don’t remember eating—on the floor.

  I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand and lean back. My body feels like
a block of ice. I clench my hands, but I don’t really feel them. The light dims.

  Shit. Dakota.

  I’m losing it, sinking so fast I can’t grab hold of anything. This is it, I think. This is where I lose everything. My breath catches in my throat. If I break down now, I don’t know if anyone can put me back together.

  Dakota doesn’t deserve this. She can’t… She can’t die.

  “Why?” I lurch to my feet and throw the bottle at the wall. It lands with a satisfying crash. But it’s not enough. Not nearly. “Why her?”

  I kick the chairs, grab the ashtrays and hurl them at the walls. Hurl them at my framed drawings, smashing the glass, tearing the paper to shreds. The frames drop to the floor, breaking to pieces.

  Still not enough. Not enough destruction.

  Lurching back to the table, I grab the other bottle from the bag and unscrew the cap. I drink, swallowing so fast I barely stop to breathe. It doesn’t burn quite as much going down as before. Maybe if I drink enough, it’ll black out my memory, strikethrough my thoughts. Erase everything. Change everything.

  Except everything has already changed.

  I clench my fingers around the bottle. No. I won’t let anything happen to her. I won’t. Except…

  Nothing good ever lasts. You should know this by now.

  “No!” I shout at the empty apartment. “I’m not giving up on her! I’m not fucking giving up. I love her.”

  I grab the lamp and throw it against the window, lifting my arm over my face as glass rains down. As if it matters.

  I love her.

  “I won’t lose you, too,” I say into the deafening silence. “I can’t.”

  But there’s no answer. There never is. No answer. No miracles. I’m raving and ranting alone, and fate doesn’t give a damn.

  So I drink until my stomach turns itself inside out again, and I puke my guts on the floor. And then I drink more. Not sure it’ll be enough.

  Or maybe it will. My vision is going blurry, and no matter how much I blink it doesn’t clear. I dimly realize I’ve dropped to my knees. After a while, everything goes black and quiet, and it’s like flying. But I can’t fly, so I guess I must be falling, and it almost feels the same.

  Chapter Fourteen