Orphans of Paradise

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  “Where have you been?”

  Medina was sitting at the kitchen table, Elda and Nadia flanking him on either side. The old woman’s eyes were ringed in red, the thin wisp of a handkerchief edging out from beneath her closed fist.

  “I just went for a walk,” Jax said.

  Rani followed Jax inside, the screen door slamming closed behind her.

  “What’s going on?” she said.

  Medina stood. “We’ve got him.”

  “Him?” Jax repeated.

  “Pascual.”

  “Pascual? He’s…”

  Medina grabbed Jax by the shoulder. “Jax. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “You arrested Pascual?”

  “And Marcum, and Chavo, and some of the others. We haven’t made any arrests within the police force. But we’re making progress.”

  Jax could sense Medina waiting for him to speak. But he didn’t know what to say. Instead he stayed quiet as Medina ticked off a few more names and took Jax through the recovery of the bodies in the industrial district, the ones he’d led them to. He filled the empty air between them with names, dates, and other facts that Jax couldn’t help but see as useless.

  “Jax.” Medina hesitated. “I know what you’ve been through. I know you’re ready to forget about all of this. But I wouldn’t want the last two months to be in vain. If you can, I want you to think about testifying.”

  Jax could feel their eyes on him, everyone waiting. He tried to swallow, to say something. But there was nothing.

  He moved toward the doorway, his eyes on the stairs. But someone was perched there in the shadows, sitting on the edge of the couch. She blinked, her eyes settling on Jax’s face and suddenly the room was falling at a slant, walls coming to a tight apex over Jax’s head. He felt the air rushing past him and through the narrow seam. But he couldn’t move.

  The girl from the basement, the one whose arm had been twisted in his grip, she was sitting there looking right at him. He blinked, waiting for her to vanish, to slip back into his dreams with Pascual and Marcum and Melissa. He traced the shadow bleeding across the floor, following it up the side of the couch, waiting to settle on empty space. But she was still there, her hands gripping the arm of the couch. She was shaking.

  Jax felt Rani’s hand on his shoulder and he fell against the wall, spinning. She tightened her grip, called his name, and then he was running, his lungs spurred as he tore up the stairs.

  Chapter 47

  Rani

  The soft orange glow seeped in beneath the door, pulsating there as shadows flitted through it like ghosts. Rani stepped out into the hallway, her feet finding the solid floorboards. She stood there outside Jax’s door, ear pressed to the wood, waiting for him to call out. But it was quiet. She might have thought he was still sleeping if not for the light still pouring from the door seam. Her hand reached for the knob, the cold brass pricking her fingers. But she stopped herself and knocked once.

  “Who is it?” Jax whispered.

  Rani pushed the door open and saw Jax sitting by the open window. She didn’t wait for him to invite her inside or to ask what she was doing there. Instead she pulled the door closed behind her and spoke.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “So what? You came to see the expert?”

  Rani moved toward the window, stepping between Jax and the breeze.

  “I came to talk to you,” she said.

  “We talked.” Jax reached behind Rani and pulled the window shut.

  Rani anchored herself in the middle of the room while Jax shuffled around her, throwing some dirty clothes in a bag behind the door, closing drawers, avoiding her eyes. She let the words she’d been mulling over, the ones that had been keeping her awake the past few nights, float to the surface. She wasn’t supposed to be feeling this way. He was a constant reminder of what they’d been through, he always would be, and yet all she wanted was to be near him, to let their broken parts assemble themselves into something new.

  “I’m tired of being afraid,” she finally said.

  “Medina arrested Pascual,” Jax reminded her, still looking at the floor.

  “I don’t mean Pascual.”

  “Then what?”

  Rani tried to hold still, to hold it together. But all she wanted to do was move, to replace the space between them with all of the things she didn’t know how to say. All she wanted was for him to look at her.

  “I’m afraid of this,” she said.

  Jax turned away and Rani could see the tension like waves, rolling and rising over his bare back.

  “Is this why you came in here? To tell me you’re afraid of me? To make me feel like a piece of shit?”

  She felt the heat pouring from him but she didn’t flinch. Jax wore his self-loathing like a second skin. She could see that now. But she wasn’t there to fuel that illusion. She wanted to shatter it. Because as hard as she’d tried not to, she’d seen him. Really seen him. That night on the beach, his silhouette hanging over her in the dark, his skin slick against hers as he carried her inside—she could still feel him, the truth of him deep in her bones.

  “I came in here,” she said, “because I‘m afraid of losing you.”

  Jax sunk against the bed, hands flat against his knees, and she watched him wrestle with the words she still didn’t understand. He watched the floor, eyes tracing the place where their shadows converged. But he still didn’t speak. He left her there, alone in that silence.

  She felt her pulse climbing. She felt herself breaking under the weight of all of the things he wasn’t saying and suddenly her hand was on the door. She hesitated, fingers reaching into her pocket, and then she strung the rosary around the handle, beads knocking against the door as she pulled it open.

  “Don’t leave,” Jax breathed.

  But she was already back in her room, curled up on her cot on the floor, the blankets damp with her tears until she finally fell asleep.

  Chapter 48

  Rani

  She’d felt Breezy and Enzo crawling over her that morning, their steps silent but clumsy. She’d kept her eyes closed and her face buried in the blankets until she heard the light creaking of the stairs and then she waited. The doctor usually came to see Jax early in the morning. He was walking more and spending more time downstairs and Rani wasn’t ready to run into him.

  The hand on the clock was drawing close to noon and Rani could feel her stomach churning. She’d heard Nadia make her way downstairs followed by Medina’s voice, who sounded like he was already in the kitchen.

  Rani finally ventured into the hall and when she saw that Jax’s bedroom door was open, she stopped, afraid to walk past it, past him, still in her nightshirt, her hair thrown up in a mess. But then she remembered that he wouldn’t care either way and she kept going until the room came into view and she saw the bare mattress, the sheets thrown in a heap on the floor, the empty drawers hanging open.

  She took a step inside, examining every corner, searching for the dirty pile of clothes Jax had hidden behind the door, the shoes he’d worn down to the beach. But everything was gone.

  Downstairs the kitchen was quiet. Rani looked out the window and saw her brothers and sisters down on the beach but there was no Camilla or Veronica. And no Jax.

  Something bulky and brown caught her eye by the front door—a suitcase with a cracking leather handle, the seams tight from a stuffed interior—and Rani was pushing through the screen door. The sky was dark, clouds churning themselves into a storm. She saw Medina’s car parked close to the house and she heard the trunk fall closed followed by the light tussle of gravel as Jax was coming up the porch steps. She wanted to run but then he looked up, stopping the moment he saw her.

  “Are you leaving?” Rani felt her stomach tighten. She couldn’t have made that question sound more desperate.

  “Leaving? No.”

  “Oh, I thought…” But she didn’t finish. She didn’t want him to know that she’d been in his room again.

/>   “Rani.”

  A string of lightening broke free down the beach and Rani shuddered as the sound rang through the deck beneath their feet.

  Jax took a step toward her. “Everything I said. I didn’t mean any of it.”

  Rani watched his eyes, the skin above them creasing as he inhaled. He let his fingers slide down her arm, passing over the soft hairs lit up by static, until they were hanging on her wrist.

  The rain came rolling down the beach, beating on the sand in a thick black curtain and the door cracked open as Nadia leaned outside.

  “You two should come inside,” she said. “It’s getting bad.”

  Breezy and Enzo already had their elbows propped up on the window, their faces pressed to the glass as they watched the growing storm outside. Elda was sitting on the couch, resting her bare feet on the small coffee table while Camilla carried a box downstairs.

  “There weren’t many,” she said. “There’s one other box in the basement, but the wicks are all gone.”

  “Hopefully we won’t need them. But just in case,” Medina said, taking the box of candles from her and setting it on the floor. “And since everyone’s here, I just want to let you know that the federal prosecutors will be coming by tomorrow to speak with those of you that are preparing to testify. They’re just going to ask you some questions, the same things we’ve talked about before. A translator should be with them but I’ll also be here in case you need anything.”

  “What time are they coming?” Max asked.

  “In the morning.”

  “Max, you’re not testifying,” Rani said.

  “I want to do it.”

  “No, Max.”

  “Shut up, Rani. I’m doing it.”

  “Watch it Max,” Nadia said.

  “Medina said if we want to testify we can. I’m sick of everyone keeping secrets from me and making decisions for me because they think I can’t handle it. I’m not a kid. I’m doing this.” His steps disappeared up the stairs, each one firm and indignant.

  In the silence, the storm continued to rage up the shoreline, knocking the power out. Night came early and everyone huddled downstairs where the small flames of a few lit candles were all that separated them from complete darkness.

  Medina was showing Breezy and Enzo how to make shadow puppets on the wall—a dog barking, a bird in flight, and a spider sliding down its web—while Max and Camilla sat near the window trying to make out the white crests between the black water and sky. Nadia and Elda were sitting in the corner, their voices low as they spoke about the trial and the lawyers coming the next day.

  Rani watched them, trying to make out the words passing in whispers between them until her eyes were drifting closed. She could feel Jax next to her, their hips pressed together in the dark. The rain finally reached its apex, beating down on the house like gunfire, and not letting up until almost midnight. Rani could feel herself dozing off, Jax’s pulse lulling her to sleep, and suddenly Nadia was jostling her awake.

  She nodded to Breezy and Enzo curled up on the couch and they each scooped one up and carried them up the stairs before tucking them into bed.

  Nadia stopped just outside the door. “Have you thought about it?”

  Rani lowered her voice. “You mean about testifying?”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know.”

  “But the more evidence there is against Pascual, the less of a risk there will be for those who do testify.”

  “Less of a risk?”

  “The more likely it will be that he goes to prison for a long time.”

  “Putting Pascual in jail won’t keep us safe and if we testify everyone will know who we are. We’ll be easy targets. And what does that mean for Breezy and Enzo? We have to protect them.”

  “I am protecting them.”

  “Are you? Or are you just helping Medina? I’ve seen the way you are around him.”

  “You think I would put that…that I would put anything before my family? Rani, you know me better than that.”

  “I did know you.”

  Nadia looked down, her eyes glistening in the dark. “I thought things were getting better.”

  “They are. But I’m still figuring out a way to trust you.”

  “Rani you’re my sister.”

  “Well I hope you remember that tomorrow before you agree to do or say anything that would jeopardize that.”

  In the dark Nadia’s voice was firm. “And I hope you’ll remember tomorrow too that if I’ve changed, I’m not the only one. You can keep blaming me if you want but I hope you realize that the person who did this to you isn’t standing right in front of you, but he will be sitting in that courtroom and if you want to keep punishing someone why not punish the person who really deserves it.”

  Chapter 49

  Jax

  Jax could see Nadia’s silhouette moving down the stairs and when another shadow floated past his doorway, he reached for it, hooking Rani by the wrist. She jumped, the hairs rising on her arms, but when she that it was Jax she followed him inside.

  “Medina’s been giving me the same shit,” Jax said.

  “I can’t believe he would ask you to do even one more thing for him. What did you tell him?”

  Jax moved to the window and threw back the curtains, searching for the smallest breath of light, but even the lightening had dulled, the last streaks disappearing up the coast three hours into the storm. Now everything was black and Jax fought to pull Rani from the darkness.

  “Nothing,” he finally answered.

  “You mean you haven’t told him no?”

  “Have you?”

  “Those exact words? Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  Jax tossed out the question before it could be asked of him. He knew it was what everyone had been thinking; had been wondering since Pascual had been arrested. After all he’d been through he knew the choice seemed obvious to them. Well everyone but Rani. Testify and finish what you started. Testify and the past two months won’t have been in vain. Testify and do the right thing. But even though he’d been trying, Jax had never been good at doing the right thing. Because it was never the easy thing.

  When he’d agreed to let Medina throw him back into the lion’s den, he’d known the objective. There was a plan and he followed it. It was all to bring the investigation to this point, to send Pascual and the people who served him to prison. But after his wounds had healed and after Rani’s lips, ripped and swollen, could finally form the letters in Jax’s name without a painful pause…suddenly none of it was enough. But maybe there were enough pieces of him left to give just one more.

  Jax watched as Rani felt for the edge of the bed in the dark. He took her hand and led it to the mattress before sitting down next to her, their backs pressed to the wall.

  “Because I’m tired,” Rani said, leaning into him. “The pain, it doesn’t fuel me, it weighs me down. And I’ll never get rid of it.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “And you do? You’ve been holding onto yours even longer.”

  “Because that’s my brother.” Jax felt his throat tighten. “I wish he was a stranger. It would be easier that way.”

  “Is that what’s been keeping you from agreeing to testify? Because he’s your brother?”

  Jax thought of Pascual at the base of that hill, standing over Sam’s body. “Could you do it?” he said.

  The moist glow in Rani’s eyes disappeared as she held them closed. “I don’t know.”

  “You know he’s always been this way and I’ve always hated him. But he’s…” Jax thought about the monster he’d seen that day and how it had grown into something he didn’t even recognize.

  “Your brother,” Rani finished.

  “No.” Jax remembered the feel of his mother’s hands checking the tender ridge of his cheekbone, the way she’d kissed him with mute lips when Pascual wasn’t looking. “He’s my mother’s son,” he said.

  “Your mother. Bu
t I thought she was afraid of him. I thought that’s why she left.”

  “She was afraid. But he was still her son and Pascual going to prison, it’s not what she would want.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “When Pascual was seventeen he had a girlfriend. Her name was Melissa and they found her body in a flooded ditch in the empty field behind her parents’ house. When Pascual became a suspect he ran.” Jax ground his fists into his thighs. “My mother was the only person who knew where he was and when the police came looking for him she lied and said he was out of state visiting our father. I don’t even know who our fucking father is.”

  “Maybe she thought he was innocent. What if he told her he was?”

  “No.” Jax shook his head. “He would bring her by the apartment sometimes. Once when my mom was there we could hear them going at it in Pascual’s bedroom. We were both on edge just waiting for it to be over. But then we heard something fly against the wall and then Melissa was crying. My mother ran to the room and threw open the door and Pascual had Melissa pinned to the wall with his hands around her throat. When he saw our mother he let her go and she fell to the floor. Pascual didn’t even look at her, he was just staring at our mother like he…I don’t know it was like he wasn’t even there, like he was in a daze. Like seeing her see him that way, I mean really see what was inside of him, it paralyzed him.”

  “I’m sure he was ashamed.”

  “Pascual never felt shame. He was never sorry. When my mother finally saw that he was a monster—the reality, the disappointment—Pascual knew he could never take it back. It didn’t make him remorseful, it didn’t change him, all it did was give him permission to keep hurting people. And when my mother didn’t tell the police where he was it only made it worse. It was like giving him her blessing to be who he was because no matter what he did she would always protect him. The fact that he’s her son has always been more important to her than the fact that he’s a killer.”

  “But the fact that he’s her son too. How important is that to you?”