Blood in the Water (Kairos)

by Catherine Johnson

  Jimmy was coming out of the first room. Paul brought his gun up to aim a killing shot.

  “Shark!”

  Paul spun at the shout to find Rabbit outside one of the room, barefoot and bare-chested, his gun aimed and his finger on the trigger.

  “Brother, don’t!”

  “I can’t let you do this, Shark.”

  “I can’t let you stop me.” Paul didn’t want to shoot Rabbit, to shoot his friend. His arm was slower by minuscule moments than it should have been to raise his weapon. A shot cracked. Paul turned his head, his arm continuing to reach to aim at Rabbit. Samuel had used Shank’s gun to shoot Jimmy in the chest. Another crack and Paul felt fire in his arm. He pulled the trigger of his gun reflexively as his arm went numb. Rabbit hit the ground, blood beginning to flow freely from the hole over his heart.

  Paul’s gun dropped from his deadened fingers as he dropped beside Terry. Blood was soaking the side of his shirt. As Paul struggled to shake his frozen arm out of his hoodie so that he could use it to staunch the flow, Terry rolled on his side and reached for Paul’s forgotten gun. Before he could register what Terry meant to do, he’d grabbed it and fired it before he’d barely wrapped his fingers around it. When Paul turned, almost falling onto his ass in the process and saw Spike fall back. He was clutching the wound in his stomach, but fresh blood was pouring from what had previously been his right eye.

  Paul owed his life to Samuel and Terry. Tag and Sinatra and Dizzy, Chiz and Crash were jogging across the lot. Paul finally got his hoodie off and bundled it against Terry’s side. Samuel scrambled up and went for Ashleigh. Dizzy took over the compress as Samuel drew a shaking and pale Ashleigh out of the room. Paul staggered to his feet, meaning to go to her, but she shrank back with a look of utter loathing. She knew, she’d been told. Spike had probably taken great pleasure in telling her that the man sharing her bed was a traitor. But he had to know how badly she was hurt.

  “Beauty, are you...?”

  “Fuck you, you traitorous fucking bastard. Don’t you dare touch me!” Her voice was hoarse but firm. She wasn’t hysterical, only full of hatred for him.

  He reached out to her, needing to touch her, but Samuel drew his daughter further into his embrace, away from him.

  “This don’t look to be too serious, but we need to get him to a hospital to get checked.” Dizzy called from his position by Terry.

  “Tag, you take Ashleigh, Shark and Terry to Doc Anderson’s. We can’t risk ‘em askin’ questions at St. Raphael’s. Terry, you better hope that bullet didn’t hit anything major. We’ll clean up here.” Only as Samuel issued the directive did Paul realize that his arm was drenched in his own blood.

  “You guys did make one hell of a mess.” Chiz looked around the scene of carnage.

  “What do we do about this? Those shots ain’t gonna go unnoticed.” Sinatra stated.

  “Leave any guns that were fired. Wipe ‘em clean and put someone else’s prints on ‘em if you touched ‘em. As far as anyone lookin’ at this cluster fuck is concerned, it’s a deal that went south. We can set tongues waggin’ about the Chief. We’ve got a few friends who can help with that. It’ll keep the heat off of us.” Dizzy replied.

  “We’ve got some time yet before anyone comes lookin’. We need to get rid of the bodies we took care of. This we can set up.” He motioned at the bodies on the ground leaking blood onto the tarmac. “Explainin’ away four bodies with their necks twisted ain’t gonna be so easy. We’ll dump the bodies in the river, set the rooms to rights and break down their bikes for parts.”

  Paul looked down the bank of motel rooms and tried not to think about the dead mean within them that he’d once called friend and brother, but there was someone else to consider. He turned to Samuel. “Cross had a little girl, Jenny. No mama around.”

  Samuel regarded Paul carefully. From the corner of his eyes he could see Dizzy looking at him intently, too. “I’ll put word out to Eduardo. He’ll make sure she finds a good home.” Samuel answered.

  “Thank you.” The weight of the night’s events was pushing down on Paul’s shoulders, the loss of those that were now dead and those still living felt like a fist in his chest squeezing his heart to pulp.

  Samuel turned to Tag. “I’ll take your bike.” Then he turned back to Paul. “I want you back at the clubhouse at noon. We’ll see what the table says then.”

  Paul nodded. There was nothing else he could say.

  They loaded Terry into the van and laid him out on the floor. Paul sat by him, taking over the job of keeping pressure on the wound. Ashleigh sat on the other side of that dark space and didn’t say one word to him. He didn’t blame her one bit.

  ~o0o~

  Paul sat in his seat at the table in the Priest’s Chapel. They’d allowed him that much while they discussed his fate. He felt wretched with grief and loss, but he would not show it. Despite the gritty ache in his eyes from lack of sleep, he stared impassively at the men who he wanted to call ‘brother,’ the men who held his life in their hands. Not one seat was empty; even Terry who looked ghostly with blood loss was gritting his teeth against the pain to be present.

  Samuel banged the gavel three times.

  “Brothers. We’re here to vote for the life of one of our own. Paul came to us with murderous intent hidden in friendship. You all know the penalty he deserves for that.”

  Samuel paused. Paul would not drop his head, would not look away from his President’s gaze, even as he knew he was about to be condemned.

  Samuel continued. “But he saved my life. He played his part in savin’ my girl. He made no move against this club, and he came to me to confess under his own steam, without duress. I want you all to consider that when you vote. Those in favor of Shark meetin’ the Redeemer say ‘Aye’.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  She’d sat in the back of that van on the way to Doc Anderson’s house and hadn’t said a word to Paul. She hadn’t spoken when he’d knocked Doc Anderson out of his bed or while they’d been sitting in his front room while he’d examined Terry and stitched him up. Apparently Terry had been extremely lucky, but the Doc still wanted him to take it easy for a while. She’d been prodded and poked and prodded some more. The only reason that she could even find the smallest thread of sanity to cling to as the doctor checked her over was that he’d been their family doctor since she was a child; the club always called on him when they had an injury that was more than she could take care of and they couldn’t risk inquisitive hospital staff.

  Doc Anderson knew not to ask questions about club business, but he’d had to ask her some so he could care for her and she’d answered as best she could. He’d been legitimately concerned about the state she was in and she’d had to admit, on top of the bruising and the split lip that she’d collected during the course of the night, that she probably hadn’t been taking care of herself as well as she could have done, so she’d let him take a couple of vials of blood for some tests.

  Tag had been planning to take her to the clubhouse, but she asked him to take her to Paul’s so that she could collect her car and go back to her own apartment. Terry had vetoed the idea of her driving, as strenuously as he was able to past the painkillers that the Doc had given him, so she’d agreed only to pick up her apartment keys. Paul had stayed in the van while she’d found what she needed in his house. She had seen the way his face twisted when she came out wearing the dress she’d worn for the funeral, having discarded his bloodstained sweater, but she’d been too exhausted to care.

  Somehow her car had been in the parking space allotted for her building when she’d woken up about twelve hours after her head had hit the pillow. She didn’t care how it got there, or who had put the keys in her mailbox, but she was glad that someone had. It meant that she hadn’t had to go to the house and face him to ask for her keys.

  She couldn’t avoid him now, though. It had been a little more than a week. She hadn’t realized in the first days, mainly because she hadn’t left her bed, b
ut when she had decided to face the world again she’d realized that most of her clothes were no longer in her wardrobe. Lots of her everyday belongings were no longer in her apartment. So here she was, standing on his porch, trying to find the courage to knock on his door.

  She wasn’t afraid of him, only of how much his betrayal had hurt her, and of how much power he still had to cause her pain. Her father had told her that she could be here without fear, but he hadn’t known what her fear truly was. If she had been presented with a magic wand and a word to say that would have transported all her stuff back to her apartment, she would have used it. The next best thing was to ask the boys to get everything for her, but she couldn’t remember what was here or where everything was; and she felt that they’d been witness enough to her stupidity and humiliation. For the second time she had trusted a man who had thrown her away, had broken her. She needed to do this on her own, whether she wanted to or not.

  She’d left it as late as she dared. It was Friday afternoon. He would need to leave for Church in a couple of hours. At least she knew there was going to be a deadline for this torment. It was painful enough just being on the porch. Memories from the first day, the day that Paul had moved in, were vivid in her mind. She could see Chiz in his cast, sitting on the edge of the decking, her father and Dizzy hefting furniture. She and her mother had cleaned this house from top to bottom. There wasn’t a nook or cranny that she couldn’t visualize. Even with the furniture in, she was sure she could find her way around this house blindfolded.

  She lifted her hand and knocked twice.

  Maybe he wouldn’t answer. Maybe he wasn’t home. It was a futile hope. She could see him through the clouded glass, a vague shape becoming larger and larger until the barrels of the locks clicked and the door began to open.

  “Beauty...”

  “Don’t. Don’t call me that. I’m only here to get my things.”

  He stepped back and motioned her into the house with a sweep of his arm. “I’ll wait in the kitchen ‘til you’re done.”

  She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to know if he felt pain or satisfaction. She tuned out the tone of his voice, concentrating only on the words themselves. He was going to be in the one room in which she thought she owned nothing. That was fine by her. She went through the house, systematically checking each room. She even checked upstairs, even though she knew it wasn’t inhabited. The majority of her belongings were in the bedroom. Unfortunately, that was also the room that contained the majority of her memories. She had to concentrate on anything other than what she was doing to work her way through that room. Every time she moved something or shoved a garment into a black trash bag, there was a memory attached, stuck with superglue. There was a lot of history, even for such a short time, that she would be bringing back with her.

  The checking took longer than the actual collecting. She filled two bags. They were almost overfull, but she didn’t want to have to come back in after she’d taken these to her car. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to step through the door more than once. He came into the hallway as she reached the door. He’d been true to is word and had stayed in the kitchen. If she hadn’t known he was there, she might have been able to make believe that she’d had the house to herself. He hadn’t made a sound.

  Her hands were full, fists gripping the necks of the bags. He moved quickly, almost startling her, as he went to open the door for her. But his hand paused on the handle.

  “Please. Isn’t there a way, some way that you and me can be right? You know I’m stayin’. I’m payin’ my debt to the club tonight. Isn’t there somethin’ I can do to make us right?”

  She shook her head. She couldn’t lift her eyes from the spot on the floor just in front of the door. “No. I can’t trust you.” She whispered. She just wanted to leave. She had some major rebuilding to do.

  He wasn’t giving in easily. “Please, beauty. I’d do anythin’ to get back what I had with you, what we were buildin’, what we could have had. A home, family.”

  Her heart cramped. She’d wanted that too, and now... She looked at him then and let anger fill her eyes.

  “No. You were goin’ to kill my father. I can’t forgive that.”

  He shook his head adamantly. “No I wasn’t. Yes, I don’t deny I came with that intention; but from that first day, the day I moved in here, I knew I couldn’t do it, that I wasn’t goin’ to do it. Everythin’ about that day changed me. Everything. No one has ever taken care of me the way your family did, the way your mama and your father did. I still see you in every corner of this house. I wanted to find a way out. I looked so hard for a way out. But I knew I couldn’t carry on livin’ a lie with you. I went to your father ready to accept the judgment of the table, and that’s what I’ll receive tonight. Your family, the club has forgiven me, can’t you?”

  The tears that had been building steadily, making her eyes burn, finally spilled over. “No. I saw everythin’ you saw. You showed me everythin’ I wanted, everythin’ I could have had. It was wonderful and it was beautiful and it was all a lie. Nothin’ was true. You used me.”

  His face twisted into a grimace. “No. It wasn’t like that. It was never about that.”

  She was struggling to draw air past the lump of pain that her heart had become. “No, it was all false...”

  He interrupted her with a kiss, although ‘kiss’ was too tame a word to describe the way his mouth came crashing down on hers. She wanted to resist, but she couldn’t. The truth of it was that she missed him. She missed his scent surrounding her, missed the million casual touches that made up their day, missed the way he’d made her laugh and smile, and she’d missed the way he’d made her moan. She’d missed the weight of his body on hers, the way his muscles moved like steel covered in silk under her touch. She’d missed the way he made her feel safe, cherished, loved.

  Her head was a cacophony of noise, her mind shouting, screaming that she should back away and get the hell out of her before the last pieces of her soul were shattered. But her limbs weren’t listening. Without thought or command her hands were letting go of the bags and were clutching at his shoulders. His arms were around her, those massive limbs that had made her feel so secure and cared for were crushing her to his chest.

  He didn’t let up his assault on her mouth, as if he knew that if he gave her just an inch of space that sense would return and she’d bolt out the door. As if to further prevent that, he turned her and backed her up, trapping her between his body and the closed door.

  She knew the tears were still falling as her hands, having been without the touch of him too long, tried to fill themselves. They were moving greedily over the curves and planes of his body as his were moving over her. Conscious thought fled in the onslaught of the physical sensations, his scent, his taste, his touch. When he lifted her she wrapped her legs around his hips as a reflex, instinct.

  She wasn’t sure how it happened, how her dress had ended up bunched around her waist, how her underwear had been pushed to one side, but suddenly he was there, his steel shaft hot and hard against skin that wept from the loss of him, and then he was filling her. It was urgent and frantic and the sob broke free as she felt again what it was that she had lost; what it was that she was losing.

  “I didn’t want to love you.” The words were almost lost in her tears as they broke free from her mouth before she could snatch them back.

  He thrust again, the slide of his cock inside her felt like nothing on earth, like nothing she would ever feel again.

  “I know and I’m sorry, so sorry, beauty.” It was a hoarse, strained plea.

  Over and over, he drove into her as she flexed, trying to draw him deeper, each thrust of his hips shoving her against the door. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, feeling her own gasps returned to her heated by his skin.

  “I don’t want to love you.” Her words were punctuated by a sob.

  He paused then, still buried deep within her. Her body writhed, unconsciously s
eeking that delicious friction. He stilled her with the arms still holding her, supporting her and with the weight of his body. He caught her face so that he could see her eyes, she couldn’t look away. His own pain was clear to read in his face and in his voice.

  “I love you. With everythin’ that I am I love you. I’m nothin’ without you. Empty.”