Rhett darker than normal? I miss all the good party tricks. “What do you mean?’
“He would sit by you for hours. He wouldn’t move. He wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t let anyone else near you. He would just sit there staring at you. Aimes tried her best, but every inch she made, he just rebuilt. One day with Selma, and that’s it. He never looked back.”
“Don’t let me die,” I had whispered to him. “Have I yet?” was his whispered response. His hands were shaking when he held that door for me with Marxx shoving me through it. He sat beside me in the dark, watching over me with my whispers in his mind like his now circles mine. If memories could make noises with their interweaving of connections, the sound would be deafening. Lawless was right. Selma found something, and like the master manipulator that she is, she is having fun with it.
A soft knock on the door pulls both of our attention forward. Aimes with arched eyebrows of hope creeps into the room followed by two larger shadows. “So, how’s it going?” she gingerly asks us with just as carefully placed steps towards the spare cot.
I’m not sure what was supposed to have “been going” so all I can do is stare at her with that question on my face.
“Aimes had bets settled if you had talked Lawless into a hug-it-out yet with Rhett since you’re such the lady and all to save us.” Marxx settles my mental debate with his explanation. He leans against the wall near the door like a supporting beam of the room.
“Once, twice, three times…” Aimes says and her smile is almost painful. I sense a new joke that will follow me. Wonder Bitch suddenly doesn’t feel so awkward.
“From the one who has kept ending up being saved, that’s funny.” I tell the room earning me different sounds of approval. It’s nice to know they have noticed.
“So what are we going to do with our little time bomb?” Marxx isn’t asking me. He’s looking to Lawless for answers with the tune of a score to settle.
“Let him go.” Lawless spreads his arms wide, showing his palms as if asking, what can we do?. “He has to make his own way just like we do. If this is the way he wants to go, let him.”
“Just like that?” Marxx’ gravel is buried in amusement and curiosity. The look he gives me lets me know exactly what he’s curious about.
I shrug, letting his male mind wander down avenues I don’t want to explore with him. His smile widens and I know the avenue is all down hill for him now.
“You’re up and around for one day and the boy is making full sentences instead of just glares. Maybe Travis is right after all.” Marxx stands tall with his smile growing to match his full height. He says, “Maybe we should send you over to play with his crew for a couple of hours.” He winks at me lowering his voice to a fun-filled whisper saying, “I’d like to watch.”
“Hells and Selma?” Chapel asks, shaking his head slowly. “Now that would be something to watch.”
I have nothing really to judge Selma by other than our few minutes of dare-you-dare-me earlier, but she has obviously given the men something to be cautious about. Even Aimes is shadowed with doubts at the mention of the name.
“I don’t understand her deal. Why is she clinging to Rhett so hard?” I ask with no one offering anything useful about the woman other than the amusement to see her fall, which I have to admit that I too share.
“She seems to be Travis’ right hand. No one sees him, or speaks to him, unless she approves it. She just walked in and somehow took over. No one even batted an eye at it.” Aimes is flustered and beyond annoyed, but she’s hiding something. We’ve been friends for too long for me not to catch the subtle hint she is glossing over. It’s just a fact when Aimes is annoyed with someone, they become a pet project of one-liners and stick sharpening, not this hide-and-seek of meetings.
“We can’t control Selma and we can’t control Rhett,” Lawless says, standing to stretch his lean frame filled with stress and anger-filled knots. Ending the debate, he strolls for the door not making eye contact with anyone. The watchful, thrill-seeking lighthouse I once knew is being rebuilt into something much more self-assured and angry. “Just stay out of their way until we figure out what we are going to do next with us. J.D. knew this would never work out for the long term. We should start thinking about that.”
“J.D. made sure it wouldn’t work out for the long term.” Aimes lets the words fall before her mind can stop them. Her eyes dilate with the shock of hearing her speak them. She cringes from the man who has become frozen in front of her and she refuses to meet his gaze.
Marxx and Chapel are already moving forward with neither of them exactly sure what Lawless will do. I watch it all from the cot like a confused bystander, not really certain of what has happened, but nervous from the sudden tension surrounding me.
Lawless is still, like an animal before it attacks. His body is rigid with the coiled anger her words have twisted inside him. His head is only half turned to her, letting his eyes focus on her from a side view as if he too is worried what he may do if he really were to look at her.
“We all make choices.” Lawless’ words are slow and hissed between his teeth. I have never seen him talk to Aimes this way or look at her with such malice and I’m on my feet before I realize I am. His shoulders relax when he hears the cot move. It’s not out of a sudden mood change. He knows I have a death wish and the brightly-colored hero cape to match. Marxx and Chapel might just wait and watch, but my buttons are pressed faster and more reckless than most.
He says to her, “Don’t force me to make any of my own choices. We’ve already had this talk, remember?” He gives her his full gaze now and whatever she sees in it doesn’t bring her any comfort.
Lawless doesn’t wait for her to answer him. Her mouth is locked with pressed lips and it’s enough for both of them. He leaves the room with Marxx and Chapel close at his heels and the air becomes breathable again. I had thought I had just lost days from healing from the shower. Now, I see I might as well have lost months with so much left being unsaid by hidden threats and glaring eyes. To say the sky is falling is an understatement. It has fallen and we are walking on it like broken glass that twists and tears the flesh we once were. It is leaving cuts no bandage will be able to heal with how deep it is wounding us all.
I have no idea what to say about the little show I just watched. She isn’t offering any guidance either as we stand across from each other in a room that feels suddenly too large. “How’s the shoulder?” I ask her, once again demonstrating why I have the gold medal when it comes to avoidance.
Her eyes are far away but she shrugs just the same with her mind running in two different locations. “Won’t be passing through any security checks at airports, but I’m guessing that is no longer high on the to-do list anyway.”
“Guess Daddy issues are higher these days.”
Her eyes come into focus, looking at me with the weight of a thousand unsaid words. “You have no idea,” she says before slumping back against the spare cot. It complains under the sudden weight and I half expect to see it fold with the amount of noise that comes from the worn springs. Her eyes twitch as she stares at the ceiling above us as if she is reading the words she can’t find to speak. As the silence grows, my patience shrinks.
“So?” I finally ask, breaking the surrounding silence. I might as well have used a mallet with how she jumps at my voice.
“So what?” Aimes returns, still avoiding the conversation we both know is coming.
“So what aren’t you telling me?”
“What I had for breakfast?” she ventures, clinging to the last moments before the truth is out between us.
I don’t say anything. I let the pressure of the silence and my stare build until I know her false strength will shatter. Her record for holding out in our years together is five minutes. It doesn’t take that long this time.
“I had sex with Rhett.” Her words are rushed and stacked on top of one another with such speed it takes me a moment to collect them. Even then, my mind can’t pu
t them in correct order. Surely, I did not hear what I my mind is telling me she said.
“What?” I ask, not willing to trust my ears.
“I had sex with… Rhett….” Aimes holds the name in whispered confession letting the sentence drag between us.
I still can’t believe it. I ask her again thinking it will magically change if I keep asking her to repeat herself. “What?” This time she will say something that makes sense. This time we will laugh over what I think she said.
“Really?” Aimes asks and sits up to glare at me with exaggerated annoyance. “How many times do you want me to say it? I had sex with Rhett. I had sex with Rhett. I totally did Rhett.” She throws her arms up in frustration and her eyebrows almost match the height.
I stutter a thousand responses that catch in my throat. None of them seem correct. They seem as mismatched as the woman and the man she just admitted to sleeping with. I can only sit staring at her until my mind chains something together.
“When?” I ask her and out of all the “W” questions I want to ask, this one seems the most fitting place to start and the least harmful to my brain.
She flops back on the cot making the springs curse with the abuse. A less secure woman would feel nervous over the marked complaint by the bed. Aimes is more worried about the conversation. Her eyes move more rapidly as she stares at the ceiling. The words she was reading now are full sentences as she picks and chooses which way to let this conversation head. This might just take the full five minutes.
“When I finally escaped from Paula, he was like my shadow. He was like always there. If I so much as winced, poof, there he was suddenly doing whatever I was trying to do for me. It was kind of nice at first, but it got old fast.” Aimes says, reading the ceiling again like her favorite novel. “Plus he and Law were always fighting. No matter what Law said, he had to disagree with him. He didn’t just disagree. He dared Law to call him out on it, but Law never did and each time Rhett just grew more angry. It was like he wanted to fight with Law, but Law wasn’t taking the bait. If Rhett wasn’t trying to pick a fight or stalking me, he was sitting in the dark with you. Literally, in the dark. It was creepy.” She pauses like the novel has abruptly stalled at the cliffhanger, and like an addicted reader, I grow frustrated left with my questions unanswered.
“…and?” I finally ask her when her silence seemed to last longer than I could handle.
Her sigh is heavy. Like a high school girl waiting to hear the latest gossip, her full exhale of a sigh only adds to my mounting frustrations. “He was sitting in that dark room with you when I came to check on you one day. He was like, crying. It was so odd and scary at the same time to see Rhett like that. He was so broken.” She pauses, turning the page on the ceiling before speaking again. “I put my hand on his shoulder to give him comfort. It was totally innocent! He pulled me into his lap and….” her words fall off, leaving me leaning in to hear more, “…it just happened. I didn’t go in thinking, hey I’m totally going to go get me some Rhett. It just happened and I let it. After that, he avoided me and Selma went to work on him. She never lets me forget that fact.”
“Wait, you had sex with Rhett while I was lying there?”
“Way to focus on the not important here.”
“…but you did?”
“…but we did.”
“…and now Selma is using it to tear you apart?”
“…and now Selma is using it to tear me apart.”
“Glad we are both in agreement,” I say holding my head with my hands.
How did everything go so off course? How did in a matter of a few weeks everything become too tangled? Why is it with the world ending brutally all around us it still all boils down to who-is-sleeping-with-who in the constant never ending circle of drama? We have people who were once normal turning cannibal, but please, let me focus on how to fix your love life. I have nothing better to do with my afternoon. Kill people trying to eat me, solve love lives and separate male bullshit. Yup, nothing exciting going on here.
“So, what are we going to do?” Aimes asks me with a voice as deflated as I feel.
“Don’t know.”
“Where was he buried?”
I’m startled by the sudden change in conversation. Like a scratched record, my mind is still skipping over her confession of having sex with Rhett and it keeps repeating her words. “Buried who?” I ask her with the confession silently looping.
“J.D.,” she says it as if I should have known who she was talking about and I roll my eyes with her annoyance.
“We didn’t bury him. We burned him just like everyone else.”
“You should have buried him.”
“What difference does it make?”
“When you bury people there is a spot to go to remember them. Now, there is nothing.”
It seems Lawless isn’t the only one with “daddy issues”. It’s amazing how a man who lived a life’s mission based around revenge can still be missed. I suppose I shouldn’t throw rocks when I live is a glass house so haunted by the past.
“You want me to take you there?” I hold my breath after I ask the question with hopes she will say no. I’m only kidding myself. I know what she is going to say.
“They wouldn’t take me. They said it wasn’t worth the risk. How would we get past them?” Aimes asks and for the first time I can hear the hint of mischief returning to her voice since we were left alone.
In depth planning is not really my strong point. I prefer to run blindly into the thick of it and pray it works out. So far, for the most part, it seems to be working. Why change it?
“I’ll think of something,” I tell her and it’s the best plan I have at the moment.
“We are so going to get in trouble,” she says smiling.
“It’s what I do best,” I tell her.
Trouble and I have a complicated relationship. Like an addict who swears to never touch the substance again, I always do. I always end up right back at the very rock bottom I swear to avoid. As much as people complain about me being there, my addiction to trouble is what makes them always come to me for help first. I won’t shy away from doing what has to be done because I’m not afraid of the fall. The long, dark tunnel that trouble leads us down doesn’t frighten me. I’m comfortable in its darkness. That is what frightens me. When the darkest corners of humanity become your home, what does that say about your soul?
CHAPTER 17
Slipping past the main guards was easy. The fact the guards are made up of members of the new religious high order, and not our crew, is most likely what made that fact true. The fact they are the new home team favorite, and not Lawless and sidekicks, should worry me. Maybe because we are doing exactly what will bring their anger down upon us, and that I am once again blowing Death a kiss-laden dare. I don’t think about the oddity of it. Some blessings come with the sparkling bows of obvious. Some slip past you only to become an afterthought. Whichever this one is, I’m just going to bow my head in silent thanks and worry about it later. I hope someone is taking notice because slowly, and one scar at a time, I’m learning.
My heart is in my throat as Aimes and I cling to the rough mortar of the grey bricks on the outside courtyard wall. The snow is slush under our boots. The weather in our part of South Carolina hardly ever reaches the cold temperatures needed during the day to keep it powder fresh. There is great irony in the truth of feeling like we are in hell in the summers only to be surrounded by slushies in the winters.
The blade I am gripping in my hand has become as much a part of my limited apparel as the boots now protesting against the watery abuse. My other hand is extended, palm flat against the bricks like a blind woman searching for answers as to what is around her. Unless the bricks are dripping with blood or hold the stains of murders past, they can’t help me decipher any clues as to where the Risen might be lurking, but I cling to them just the same.
Aimes is my shadow. Her feet root into each print I am leaving. She slides along the wall as i
f she is a reflection of me. Her eyes are just as wide and scan the wooden barrier of the forest with the same determination as mine. We both know the risk we are taking. I just wonder if the man we are risking it for is worth it.
“It’s just a little further,” I whisper, worried over how far the winter wind will carry my voice. In the truck, it didn’t seem this far. Now, we might as well have marked a place near Grit for the miles that seem to stretch to the little piece of land we used.
“You don’t look so hot,” Aimes whispers, staring at me as we slide along the wall.
“I’m fine,” I tell her, remembering another woman who once called me on that lie.
“You look like you are half dead.”
“I’ve been half dead. Compared to that, I’m fine,” I tell her, ending the debate. She’s right, though. I’m not fine. As I stare at the make shift marker for J.D., my body is slick with sweat from the nausea and pain. My stomach feels like it is on fire and aching at the same time from the wound. The two sensations are dueling to compete for my suffering like a badge of victory. I’m willing to call one a winner if it would lessen their battle. I point to the marker ahead of us and say, “Right there.” It’s not as exciting as anything Columbus might have said, but he didn’t have flesh-eating people hiding around corners.
Aimes takes the lead now with her fascination for finding the spot like a knight looking for the Grail. I follow slowly behind her, already knowing what is there. She stands staring down at the ground covered in the disguise of snow that allows for it all to look so peaceful. I know what that lie is covering.
The sheet burned away quickly with its worn cotton threads. The heat of the fire, even with the accelerant of the gasoline, never reached the required heat to fully burn the body we left behind. Hiding underneath the thin layer of snow is J.D.’s scorched remains and I pray the sun is not cruel enough to melt the lie.
The Risen (Book 4): Courage Page 13
