1. Wyatt
1
WYATT
ONE YEAR LATER
My breath hangs in the frigid air, my footsteps echoing off the uneven paving. It’s the only noise keeping me company, the whole city eerily silent.
It’s as though it knows what I’m doing—the principles I’m compromising. It is a hushed judgment.
I don’t have another choice.
It doesn’t matter. Knowing this doesn’t change the reality. It doesn’t alter the fact that I’m walking along the one path I swore I’d never take—the path through a graveyard, knowing it’s my own end I’ll be meeting. Maybe not the end of my life, but of who I am.
Because who knows what will happen after this?
Icy rain begins to fall, tracking down my weary skin. I don’t flinch. Don’t even blink it away. It can’t break me any more than I already am.
A year ago, my life was perfect. Twelve months ago, I said this was a route taken only by desperate fools.
Now, that’s what I am. A desperate fool who has lost everything. A fool who would stay in bed all day if he could. If not for Jackson, I would’ve given up long ago.
But he’s still here. He’s still fighting.
So I fight too.
I pull my wool coat tighter around myself, one of the few remnants from my past life. It hangs on my too-thin frame where once it’d filled it. I can do this. I can do this.
For Jackson.
After what feels like an eternity, I reach the church of St. Dismas. Dismas, the one who the whole city is named after—the patron saint of condemned men.
That’s what I’ll be after tonight. Condemned. I know this, but it doesn’t change anything. It can’t.
I’ve tried everything else. I’ve explored every other damned avenue, but nothing has worked. The bills have stacked up, and Jackson slips away a little more with each day that passes.
There’s little I care about these days. Jackson is it.
For my brother, I will condemn myself.
Approaching the crumbling eastern wall of the old church, I search out the brick—seventh from the bottom, sixteenth from the left.
With trembling fingers, I reach out. My fingers scrape across the stone, leaving a stinging sensation. I don’t let it stop me. Don’t let myself falter. Breathing deeply, I summon whatever scraps of determination that linger in my mangled soul.
I remove the brick, place the request sealed inside a ziplock bag to save it from the elements, and replace the stone above it.
There. Done.
Oddly, I feel nothing. I expected some kind of zing of emotion. Anything. But no. I just feel resigned.
This is my fate. Perhaps it was always meant to be this way. Perhaps I’ve always been lingering on the precipice of this choice.
I step back, exhaling shakily. I don’t let myself think about what price The Firm will demand. What sins I may have to commit or laws I’ll have to break.
I just think of Jackson. Of my eighteen-year-old brother, broken and fading in his bed.
I’m the only one he has to help him, and even I can’t do that.
Maybe The Firm can.
I wait for the panic to hit, the self-loathing, the utter contempt I thought I’d feel in doing this.
There’s nothing. I’m numb.
I have been for months now, ever since the day of Jackson’s accident. The day when my life began to fall apart.
As I turn away, I spot a raven perched atop a gravestone nearby. It watches me intently, oddly still in the pouring rain.
Ravens symbolize death.
Well, if that’s an omen for me, I don’t really give a fuck.
So long as Jackson makes it through this, that’s all I ask.
I can die for all I care. I’ve lost everything already, what’s my life in the end?
Nothing. That’s all I am at the moment.
A wisp, a ghost haunting the corners around me.
I have nothing to live for. Except him.
* * *
I step out of my car, the rickety thing beeping at me. It needs an oil change but I can’t afford it. Fuck, how I miss my G-Wagon. This hunk of junk has nothing on it. To be honest, I’m amazed it’s still drivable. Shit goes wrong with it every week but it keeps going.
About the only thing that does these days.
My hand slams the door shut and I step across the cracked pavement, trying to avoid the gum and trash littering the walkway.
I don’t quite manage and I feel the squish of something under the sole of my shoe. Fuck. I pull my foot up and spy the orange piece of gum glaring back at me.
“Shit and fuck,” I murmur, scraping it against the pavement. It doesn’t come off. Just gloms on. Like a fucking tick.
Hell. I wish I felt more than mild irritation. I’d even take fury right now. Anything that resembles a real fucking emotion.
Doesn’t work though, so I just take my shoe off and walk up the stairs with only my sock on. Describes me perfectly, half hanging on. Not quite all there.
The apartment complex looms above me, broken windows greeting me home. They’re the only ones who do these days, other than Jackson. It’s so far from the penthouse it’s not even funny. The only good thing going for it is that I share with my brother.
Not that he contributes anything, for obvious reasons. With my savings nothing more than dust, we’re more months behind in rent than I’ll ever admit to Jackson.
An older woman exits the building, and I step inside the corridor. It smells musty in here, like mold and tobacco. I hold my breath as I take the stairs two at a time, making my way up to the fifth floor. A tragic level to live on, especially when the elevator doesn’t work most days and my brother can’t move on his own.
My hand shoves into my pocket and I hastily pull out the silver key, slotting it in the hole and twisting, hearing the creak of the door as it’s pushed open. It’s musty in here as well, the cough coming from the bed indicative of something infesting the walls. Probably the floor too.
It doesn’t help that Jackson lost his leg, but he’s losing the ability to breathe as well.
Not that I can afford an inhaler or even a doctor’s appointment.
Everything is fucked.
Rubbing at my eyes, I flick the lock and toe off my remaining shoe before walking toward the single bedroom—the one Jackson occupies. I sleep on the couch, a certain spring in the cushion my mortal enemy every night. But I don’t think about that as I step into the room and see Jackson sitting up in bed, an old gaming controller in his hand. An echo from the past, when I could afford things, when I had money in the bank.
“Hey,” he says with a small smile, his face pale. “I didn’t know you’d be home so late.”
“Yeah, I got busy with job searches.”
“Oh, how did that go?” He sets the controller down and folds his arms across his thin chest. He didn’t used to be this gangly, but with each passing week, more and more of who he used to be disappears.
The same with me.
I have nothing now. Everything was at my fingertips and within days, it was gone.
All of it.
Evaporating into the air around me.
“Good,” I lie. “Really good. Have some prospects.”
“Anything as good as your old job?” he asks, a brow rising.
“Yeah. Even better.”
He cocks his head and stares at me, and I know he knows I’m lying. It’s a game we play. Sad and depressing, but we do it nonetheless.
It’s the only thing that keeps us sane, I think.
“Right, okay. Well, that’s good, I guess.”
His fingers touch the controller gingerly and I hear his stomach grumbling.
“I’ll make you dinner.”
“You don’t need to. I don’t need to eat.”
He goes ignored as I step back out into the kitchen area. My hands pull open the cabinets and I stare at the dusty insides.
Soup it is , I think as I pull out a can and grab a dented pan. I place it on the stove and empty the contents inside, waiting for it to boil before grabbing some ramen and making a bag for myself. It’s what I’ve been living on recently. Ramen, rice, and beans.
And still, the stress of this is making me wither away.
I rub at my chest and feel the way my ribs protrude. To think, a year ago I had a six-pack and now here I am, skeletal. Withering away just like my brother.
Hopefully not for much longer.
That’s if The Firm even grants my request.
They have to, right? I’m sure they don’t give a fuck what they give away, so long as they get their pound of flesh in return.
The boiling water tells me it’s time to add the noodles and deliver the bowl of warmed-up soup to Jackson. He’s thankful when I hand it to him, and I watch as he greedily slurps it up.
I sink to the edge of the bed and run a hand down my face. He notices but says nothing. There’s nothing to say. I had it all and now I have nothing.
No fiancée. No job. No money.
I can’t even afford in-home care for my brother who desperately needs it. Our parents decided that they didn’t need to renew his insurance. Eighteen-year-old boys don’t get hurt tragically.
But he did. And now here we are. He’s in my care, missing out on his senior year of school while I try my best to keep him alive.
To keep him on track to success.
But I’m failing. I’m not doing well at all.
He’s better here than with those fuckers who call themselves parents, I remind myself. Here, Jackson is fed, warm, and cared for. I may not be able to give him everything he needs, but it’s more than what those fuckers were giving him.
They haven’t even called to ask about him. Their silence is louder than any insults they hurled at me growing up.
“Where’s your dinner?” Jackson asks.
“Shit,” I murmur as I head back out to the kitchen and see it almost spilling over. I quickly turn the burner off and set it aside, the stress of my day making me more nauseous than hungry.
I’ll save this for Jackson. I don’t even want it anymore.
My forehead hits the fridge and I let out a shaky breath. The Firm will fix it. It’s what they do.
I just have to hope that, whatever they ask of me, it doesn’t take me from Jackson.
I’m all he has.