20.
Bear
I was dressed again, my clothing like an armor that might protect me, though deep down I knew nothing was going to protect me. I was going to break her all over again, and I didn’t know if she would ever get over it.
She had said she still loved me—why couldn’t that be enough for me? Why did I want to risk it by telling her the truth? To chance that she might turn away from me.
Clearly I was more stupid than I had once believed.
I wasn’t sure where to start, or how. Or whose story to begin with. There were so many things that needed to be said. So many things that I needed to unburden myself of. Each one would be a knife to her body, and I knew I was being a bastard for telling her any of it. Because what did I hope to achieve?
Her hate, or her love?
Because surely she couldn’t forgive me for what I was about to say. Even if it wasn’t just my story I was going to give her.
“Matt?” she said, and I nodded an okay, even though I was anything but.
We were sitting inside the small cabin, the scent of Rocky around us, and it felt right to tell her everything here. His story, and mine.
“I don’t know where to start,” I admitted, staring down at my clasped hands.
“At the start,” she replied, and I could tell she was desperate to hear it, but there was real fear there too.
I nodded okay and took a deep breath before beginning.
“Back then,” I began, my gaze still on my hands, my mind a thousand miles away, “my brother got mixed up in some crazy shit. He was always getting into stuff like this, but it was different this time. He’d always been happy that I was removed from it all, away from him in a lot of ways. He always said that there wasn’t enough good in our blood for both of us, and I never really got it—at least not until I did.”
Dahlia reached across and placed her small hand on mine, and I raised it to my lips, kissing the back of it, feeling like my heart might break in two. Telling this story was crushing me, but letting it live inside me was worse.
“The night…that night,” I said, finally looking at her, “he called me. He said he needed my help, that he was in trouble. I didn’t know what to do. Sebastion was my big brother, and he’d never asked me for help. It had always been him helping me. He’d paid all my college fees, and he’d helped me with the deposit for my apartment. He’d send me money all the time, and I never questioned it even though deep down I knew he wasn’t earning it the right way. I was just grateful for it.” I let go of her hand and stood up, feeling sick now as I spoke about it. Feeling like an asshole that I had just accepted his money without question, knowing what I knew now.
“Go on,” Dahlia urged.
“He called me and asked me for help. He didn’t sound right. He said he’d gotten mixed up in some stuff and that he needed any money that I had because he had to leave for a little while. That I might need to find my next college payment myself. I panicked because I didn’t know how I was going to do that, and you and I had just talked about getting somewhere together. He asked me to bring any money that I had over to his house as quickly as I could, that he was in danger and needed to go. So I withdrew what I could and I headed down there. Only when I got there, he wasn’t alone.”
I paced the small cabin, my memories of that night still as clear as the night they had happened. Nothing had faded over time. Not the fear or the anger, not the blood or the violence. It was all still there, so raw and clear, like a nightmare I could never escape from.
The sound of fists hitting flesh echoed through the walls of Sebastion ’s small house. The grunts and the laughter, the yelling and the crying. The violence that escaped through the walls and the windows into the bleak night air filled my lungs and I gasped as I heard Sebastion plead for his life.
“I’m sorry, I swear, it was only that one time. I’ll never do it again, just trust me, please. You don’t have to do this.”
“Trust you? I wouldn’t trust you if we were on the Titanic and you were manning the last lifeboat, you piece of shit. You’ve been stealing for years. Taking the boss’s money like it’s your own, like you’re owed it.”
Another serious of grunts and fists and yelling.
I stood, crouched outside the house, the small rucksack of cash in my hand, listening to the sound of Sebastion being beaten, fear trembling through me at what would happen next.
“You’re going to be an example to others, motherfucker.”
“Please,” Sebastian called, “my brother is on his way. He’s bringing your money back.”
I stared down at the bag, knowing I could end this by going in there, but terrified of doing so. But he was my big brother, and I had to help him. I stood up, ready to face whatever came next side by side with Sebastion , just like he would do for me.
There was laughter. “That kid brother of yours bringing half a mil with him, is he? He just casually bringing it back from New York in a duffel bag?”
My heart skipped a beat.
Half a million?
Five hundred thousand dollars?
There was barely five grand in the bag.
“You know what? Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter. You’re going to learn the hard way what you can and can’t get away with in this life. Boys, teach him a thing or two about stealing.”
“No! Please, no,” Sebastion called out.
The sounds of violence broke out again. Only this time they didn’t stop. They continued long after my brother’s begging and crying had stopped. They continued until the sun began to rise and the sounds of fists on flesh sounded wet.
The front door opened, and footsteps echoed out of the house. I peered around the corner of the house, seeing five or six men getting into different trucks and then driving away. I stared at the bag in my hand, wondering if I could have stopped any of this from happening if I would have gone inside.
I stood up and rounded the house. The door was wide open, and I could smell the blood before I even saw it. I pushed the door open wider and walked inside, seeing the crimson violence sprayed against the walls and furniture, and the unmoving body of my brother on the floor.
“I went to him, but he was already checked out. His face unrecognizable. His chest was crushed. Bruises from boots and fists covered his body, his eyes so swollen they didn’t even look like eyes anymore. I thought he was dead—I wished him dead, but he was still breathing. He was still alive, barely. He held on like that for twenty years. Some place between life and death. Never giving up, but never quite living either. He couldn’t talk. Couldn’t walk. Couldn’t breathe on his own. His eyes opened but there was nothing going on in his head.”
I stopped to catch my breath, the scent of his blood in my lungs, and I heard Dahlia crying from somewhere in the room.
“My brother died that night, but I couldn’t let him go—I didn’t want to. I blamed myself as much as I blamed those men. So I kept him alive in the only way I could. I wouldn’t let the hospital switch off any of the machines that were keeping him alive. They breathed for him, they fed him, but I knew he wasn’t really there anymore—not really.” I sat back down on the small sofa with a heavy sigh and a sickness in my stomach. “I couldn’t come back for you, Dahl, no matter how much I wanted to—and trust me when I say all I wanted to do was come home, crawl up onto your lap, and let you tell me that it was going to be okay. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know if they were looking for me and the money. I wanted to keep you safe. Somehow, through all of that, I found the Kings—or, they found me—and I patched in. They protected me all these years.”
“Did they ever find out who did it?” she asked, her voice small in the quiet cabin.
I nodded. “Yeah. Didn’t take long either. JD gave me the honor of killing the men that destroyed my life, and that of my brother.” I waited a beat, forcing the words out of my mouth even though they made me feel sick. The burn of my muscles from the violence of that night of vengeance was what kept me awake most nights. “I took each of their lives in the same way that they had taken his.” I finally looked up, needing her to see what an evil man I truly was now. I saw the realization of what I was saying pass over her, and she nodded, her skin paling.
“So you—” She couldn’t finish the sentence, and who could blame her.
“Yeah, I killed each of them with my bare hands in the same way they killed my brother.” I looked down at my hands, at the scars that danced across my knuckles from where bone and teeth had drawn my own blood, and I felt the pain that I often got in my shoulders from the damage done that night. I looked back up at her, forcing myself to look her in the eye when I spoke next. “Four hundred and ninety-seven blows was all it took to wipe them from this earth, and I hated every single one of them. But I had to do it, and I don’t regret doing it, no matter how many nightmares I still have.”
Horror filled her face and a hand went to her mouth. “Oh my God, Matt.”
I tore my gaze from hers and stood back up. I felt sick and dizzy, as I often did when I thought about that night, about the animal that I had become. I had changed forever. Something snapped and broke inside me, and when it had repaired itself, I was a different man. My mind had splintered as it learned to deal with the violence of it all.
“So you see, Dahl, I couldn’t come back to you. It would have put you in danger, and when the danger was gone, I had become a monster, and I knew a monster like me didn’t deserve love.”