by Jamie Begley
Greer Porter sauntered to the edge of the cliff, looking down. “Damn. I wanted to shove my boot up his ass before you killed him off. I don’t know why I listened to you,” Greer berated Silas as he walked toward them.
“It was an accident.”
“Yeah … sure. That’s the last time I listen to you, cuz.”
Reaper looked back and forth between the two men. “You’re cousins?”
“Shh …” Greer went back to the cliff. “You sure he’s dead?”
“I’m sure,” Silas snapped.
“How? You go down there and see?”
“Why don’t you go down there and check for a pulse?”
“I didn’t bring my hiking boots. Guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”
“Will you two please leave?” Reaper broke into the squabbling.
“I take it he ain’t convinced?” Greer snorted.
“You interrupted just when I showed him.”
“He don’t look convinced. He still wantin’ to take a nose dive into the wild blue yonder?”
“Greer, you’re making me want to take a flying leap. Will you shut up for a few minutes so I can finish talking to him?”
“Go ahead.” Greer huffily folded his arms across his chest. “I ain’t going to say another word.”
“Now that would be a fucking miracle.” Reaper’s head fell back in bitter laughter.
“The boy’s lost it, hasn’t he?” Greer stared down at him pityingly.
Lifting his head up, Reaper caught Greer’s expression. “Don’t look at me that way. That’s how The Last Riders look at me when I can’t take a drink—”
“Why can’t you drink?”
“Because I’m an addict! I let myself have only one drink, when I kill one of the fuckers who … hurt me.”
“Raped you. That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it, Gavin? It isn’t a dirty word … What they did to you is a crime.” Silas sighed, going back to his haunches. “Greer and I both know.”
“Who told you? Am I being gossiped about in town?”
“I was with you, and Greer came to you in the hospital. If you let yourself remember, he helped you cope when you were in the rehab center. We can both help you now, if you let us. You don’t have to suffer through this alone anymore. You never did. You just have to get to the point where you’re willing to allow us in to take the pain away.”
Reaper raised his hands to his eyes, furiously rubbing them as if he could erase the memories plaguing his mind more than any deadly infection ever could.
“Hell, I know how to fix this.” Greer stomped away.
“Sorry,” Silas apologized. “He’s part of the reason the Colemans don’t claim the Porters as kin.”
“I heard that!” Greer bellowed from inside the truck. “It’s the Porters who don’t claim the Colemans.”
Coming back, Greer gave Silas a beer, then gave one to Reaper. Opening his own, Greer turned toward the cliff to raise his beer up in a toast. “Sorry I wasn’t here to shove my boot up your ass.” Greer snickered. “I might come back in a couple of days in my hiking boots and take a piss on your rotting body.”
Silas raised his bottle to take a drink. “If his eyes are open, it’ll be bad luck.”
“I’ll wait a couple of weeks, then. The animals will have picked him clean by then.”
Greer tilted his beer bottle toward Reaper. “Go ahead and drink up. I’ll make sure you don’t go craving it.” Uncaring of getting his pants wet, Greer plopped down on the ground next to him. “How long it been since you’ve had one of these bad mamas?” Greer then took a joint out his shirt pocket. Lighting it, he took a hit, savoring it before handing it over to Silas.
“No, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” Greer lowered his voice an octave, taking another hit. “Pussy.”
Reaper couldn’t help but smile. If Greer wasn’t careful, Slate wouldn’t be the only one lying at the bottom of the cliff.
Heedless of his cousin’s dark stare, Greer held his joint out to Reaper.
“I can’t. I don’t want to get addicted to anything again. I’ll want that high from the other drugs—”
“Ten minutes ago, you were going to take a nose dive off the side of a mountain. Fucking unbelievable.” Greer gave a rude snort. “And now you’re worried about taking one hit?” Taking another hit for himself, Greer again held the joint out to him. His expression changed to one just as grave as Silas’s. “Take a hit, and I’ll show you what I can do.”
Reaper took the joint, breathing in the scent deeply and luxuriating in the smell. Before his kidnapping, once a week, he would grab a beer and share a joint with Rider or Shade just to shoot the shit.
Taking a hit, Reaper closed his eyes, savoring the taste. He held his breath to feel the full effect before releasing the puff.
“Good, ain’t it?” Greer said, taking another hit before giving it back to him.
Reaper took it for another inhale.
“You grow it?” he asked.
Greer looked around as if they were being spied upon and lowered his voice. “Yeah, but don’t tell anyone. I’m an officer of the law. Knox makes me take a drug test, even though I smell it on the fucker when he come in from lunch.”
“Knox is a friend of mine,” Reaper told him.
“He’s still a fucker.”
“I wasn’t disagreeing, just telling you in case you do say something I take offense to.”
Greer laughed, hitting him on the shoulder. “You’re right funny when you get a little green in you.”
Suki lifted her head at the slapping sound, growling at Greer.
“Shut your yap.” While the words came out cross, the tone and gentle hand that Greer used to pet Suki showed the gentler side of Greer.
“Damn, this is nice. Been a long time since I’ve been away from Holly and the brats to enjoy a boys’ night out. We should do this again. Sit around, shoot the shit … drink a couple of beers … talk or not talk about whatever you want. Say … once a week?”
Reaper saw Greer looked askance at Silas, and Silas nodded in return.
“Once a week,” Silas agreed.
“Sounds like a plan.” Taking the last hit, Greer then stubbed out what was left and tucked it in his back pocket.
“We gotta get busy. Viper and The Last Riders are worried sick about you.” Greer shifted on his ass. “Give me your hand.”
Reaper couldn’t explain why he gave in so easily to Greer’s request. Maybe it was the beer, the joint, or a feeling of inexplicable trust that confounded him.
Greer clasped his hand in his, and Silas took their other hands until they were in a circle.
“Close your eyes.”
He left them open. His trust didn’t go that far.
“Suit yourself.”
Reaper narrowed his eyes on Greer, waiting for a snide comment. It didn’t come.
Greer rolled his eyes at him. “That one, I meant.” Greer’s eyes were filled with laughter. It was the first time he had seen a resemblance to the Colemans.
A feeling of heat tingled in the palm of the hand that Greer was holding as a wind gently started blowing tendrils of his hair around his face. Warmth then began radiating throughout his body, thawing out the cold shield encasing the emotions that were too painful to bear. Disjointed voices from far away neared until he could make them out …
Heal him.
Take the pain away.
Heal him.
Vamp’s gone.
Count’s gone.
Butcher’s gone.
Slate’s gone.
The pain they caused is gone.
Heal him.
You will never be alone.
You survived.
You endured.
You won …
You won …
You won.
“Guess I better be hitting the road or Holly will be sending out a search party for me.”
Blinking his eyes as Greer removed his hand from
his, Reaper felt disoriented. How long had they been sitting there? Suki was asleep and the night was pitch dark outside of the headlights that were still on.
“Reckon it be best if you go on back with Silas and stay at his place for a bit. I ain’t been tested for the infection. Haven’t been sick a day in my life, which don’t meant shit. I could keel over dead tomorrow with the infection, and you’d be blammin’ me. Yeah, best you go back with Silas. I’ll call Viper and tell him you’ll give him a ring tomorrow.” Greer stood up to pull his saggy, wet pants up.
“We come next week, I’m bringing a lawn chair. I’m too fucking old to sit on the damn ground,” Greer complained, going to the edge of the cliff with his back to them.
Reaper’s jaw dropped open at the sound of Greer unzipping his pants.
“What are you doing?” Silas asked, his expression just as astounded.
“What does it sound like?” he yelled from over his shoulder. “I’m taking a piss. That son of a bitch ain’t worth me putting my boots on for.”
Thankfully, Greer zipped his jeans up before turning back around. Hitching up his pants again, he walked to his truck, then honked his horn as he pulled out.
Reaper turned back to Silas.
“You know”—Silas’s lips curled into a smile—“that beer went right through me. I need to take a piss too.”
The thought of Slate’s cold, dead body being the target of the two men’s urine somehow gave him more satisfaction than Slate actually going over the cliff.
When Silas came back, Reaper started to get up and, this time, Suki let him. Wagging her tail happily, she waited for him to pet her.
“Come on, girl.” Silas patted the side of his leg to draw the dog to him. “He can pet you on the way back to town.”
Reaper looked at the dark expanse over the cliff. He no longer saw nothingness. He saw the bright sparkling of twinkling stars.
“Hold on a minute,” Reaper said, going to the edge. “Might as well make it three.”
When he came back, Silas and Suki were already in the truck.
“You weren’t worried about me taking a nose dive?”
“No,” Silas said, reversing out onto the road, then pulling up behind the car that Reaper had driven. Slowly, Silas used his truck to send the car over the mountainside.
“If the fall didn’t kill him, that did,” Silas joked, backing out onto the road, then heading back toward town.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Why didn’t I worry you’d jump?”
“Yes.”
“You’d be too afraid Greer would piss on you.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
The still dark night was without the light breezes that usually fluttered through the trees outside the house. Sitting on the end of the porch with her feet on the step below, Ginny sat, praying to see Silas’s headlights coming up the driveway. Picking up her cell phone, she made sure once again that she hadn’t missed a text from Silas.
“Silas will get there in time.”
Ginny looked up from her phone to stare at Jacob, who was standing at the bottom of the steps.
“Would you believe him, if you weren’t one of us?” Moses said practically.
“No.” Ginny stared up at the star-studded night resuming her prayer.
“Do you think Silas will tell him about us?”
The frightened voice of her baby brother dragged her gaze from the stars to Fynn. “Not tonight, but eventually,” Ginny reassured him. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Gavin won’t say anything if we ask him to keep our secret.”
“But what if he does? I don’t want to be treated like Logan at school.”
“No one knows Logan’s secret,” Moses reminded him. “The only reason Logan gets bullied is because you bully him so no one knows you’re related. Which is the same reason Silas got thrown out for bullying Greer. The difference is Silas and Greer were friends, and Silas wanted to stay home and take care of us. Logan doesn’t understand why you’re bullying him, and if you don’t stop, Silas is going to tan your hide.”
“I don’t like Logan.”
The mulish set of Fynn’s jaw had Ginny rolling her eyes in the darkness. Anyone with a set of eyes could see the resemblance between Fynn and Greer. The only reason no one in town had was because no one was aware of the ties that had been hidden for generations. Those who did know had died out or were to senile to be believed.
The Colemans had known about the family tie but had remained silent until Tate had figured it out when his new wife started an ancestral chart and found a branch on the family tree leading to them.
Ginny’s family were experts at keeping their secrets. At the age of four, their secrets had been easily explained away as a figment of her imagination, or tricks that her brothers or Leah could perform. As she grew older, their secrets had been harder to hide or explain away. To give them credit, they had waited to explain their gifts until her eighth birthday.
Ginny still remembered that day vividly. Her perception of the world had irrevocably been changed, and she had never been able to see her brothers in the same light again.
On her birthday, Silas and Freddy had sat down on their fireplace to explain to her the gifts that had been given to them.
Each of the Colemans had an element of power that had been handed down through the generations. Each generation had become wiser about how to handle their gifts, learning to hide them when they had been called witches, warlocks, and an even more terrifying name—demons. They had shielded their secrecy, using the very mountain they were born on to remain isolated from those who would try to destroy what couldn’t be understood.
As the generations learned to use and harness their powers, they became so strong that they grew afraid that those who had gifted the power would seek to destroy them when one of women exhibited powers differently from theirs.
Freddy’s ancestor had used the power to save two of her nephews who had fallen ill. Her husband and child had fallen ill soon afterward, and her penitence was to watch helplessly as they were taken with the same illness that had saved her nephews.
After being widowed for several years, she had fallen in love again and wanted to marry. Knowing she would use her power if any other family became deathly ill again, the family had removed temptation from her path, giving her and new husband a plot of land on the other side of the mountain. Distancing her and her new family, they kept to themselves until the memory of Coleman and Porter branch of the family tree was forgotten by the Porter side. The Colemans had kept the knowledge alive, though, afraid the intermingling bloodline would create a child that would have limitless power.
The strategy had worked. No other healer had been born into the Coleman’s line after that … until Leah.
Along with finding out the Colemans’ secret on her eight birthday, Ginny had been given her mirrored circle star chart that Freddy had made for her. Freddy’s power had been the ability to see the heavens and read the stars, like others could read and understand road maps.
Her mirrored star chart showed the stars overhead when she had been born in the center of the circle, then Freddy had told her the stars surrounding hers were the stars of her soul mate on the night she had been born.
“I have a soul mate?” she asked Freddy breathlessly, in awe of what he was showing and telling her.
“Yes, you were created just for him.” Freddy picked her up and sat her on his lap.
“What’s his name?”
“You have to find that out for yourself. It won’t be any fun if I tell you everything.” Freddy twisted his face in a comical look.
“How am I supposed to recognize him?”
Freddy placed his hand over her heart. “Souls don’t have names, and sometimes other souls try to trick you into believing they’re your mate because they lost theirs, or they’re tired of looking, but you’re a Coleman, and you’re strong enough to wait for the one who belongs to you.”
“I am?”
�
��Yes, you are.” Freddy’s face grew so serious that Ginny had to lean against his chest, shivering at the faraway look that had come into his eyes. “You have to be very strong, Ginny. The strongest you’ll have to be in your whole life. When you find him, you’re going to have to be very brave. Promise me?”
The last time she had made a promise, she’d had to leave her family and ….
“Do I have to go down in another airplane?”
“I ain’t going to lie to you; scarier than going down in an airplane. But in return, I promise you that Silas and the other boys will be there to help.” Freddy laid his cheek down on top of her head. “Leah and I will be helping you in a different way, but you’ll know we’re there with you.”
Straightening off his chest, she puffed her chest. “As long as I know you and Leah will be there, too, I won’t be scared. I promise.”
The promise she had made still rang in her head. Was this what Freddy meant about her being brave?
Dad and Leah, Ginny resumed her prayer, please keep Gavin safe. Please, I swear I’ll keep my promise to be brave, just bring him home. Let Jody be right that Gavin will change his mind and Silas can save him. Please.
Her mind went back, replaying the day of her birthday. Leah had been at her mother’s, and they were saving the cake and ice cream until after Freddy had picked her up. To keep her mind off the cake, Freddy had taken her upstairs to hang her star mirror on the wall.
Bouncing up and down on the bed must have driven Freddy nuts, but he had patiently nailed it, ignoring her exuberant behavior.
“Now I have one just like Leah’s!” Ginny clapped in enjoyment. “I can hardly wait for Leah to come home.”
Freddy went to shut the door before sitting down on the bed beside her. “Yours and Leah’s are different. Just like you’re different from the rest of the youngin’s.”
“How come?”
“Leah doesn’t have a soul mate. Not everyone gets one. And don’t be telling her. It’ll make her really sad.”
Tears came to her eyes. She wanted Leah to have a soul mate, like her. Her eyes lighted on her dad as an idea occurred to her. “I can share mine with her.” Ginny laughed in delight.
Freddy laid a gentle hand down on top of her head. “You know how I told you all the youngin’s have gifts that make them special?”
