Chapter 5 #2
That was the warning in my brother’s suicide note.
I never knew what it meant. Hearing the name of the chapel though…
the hairs on the back of my neck raise. What is the White Stag?
Who are the children of it? Does that chapel have to do with Peter and Maverick?
I don’t realize I’m still staring at the chapel until Braum speaks up and draws my attention away from it.
“And here we are, the Hemmington Recreation Center,” Braum announces. “This is where most patients hang out during visiting hours. Whoever you’re here for will most likely be in here.”
Jerking myself away from thoughts of the White Stag, I turn and look to see where we’ve ended up.
We haven’t gone far. In fact, the administration building is the closest one to us other than the one we currently stand in front of.
This one isn’t nearly as grand as the others.
Though there are flying buttresses and steeples to it, it’s like they were added on last minute in order to make this building more cohesive.
“Who are you looking for exactly? I can probably tell you the room they’re hanging out in if I have a name.” When I give Braum a skeptical look, he chuckles and adds, “When you’ve been here a while, you get to know the other people here and their habits.”
My racing heart picks up the pace and my hands grow clammy. Panic begins to well up, and it tightens the muscles in my chest.
“I, um, I'm looking for Maverick… Maverick Sutherfield,” I manage to get out after a moment of struggling to wrestle the knot from my throat.
I wish I wasn’t here. I wish this never happened and I’d grown up alongside Maverick. But I am here. I’m so close to righting this wrong I can almost taste victory. I’m going to do it; I’m going to best Father and give Maverick a future.
A surge of anger toward Father and Peter chases the panic away. With a steady breath, I use that anger to straighten my spine and prepare myself to be Maverick's savior.
It's then I realize Braum hasn't said anything. I turn to find him staring down at me with a furrowed brow, deep frown, and a glint of something in his eyes I can't quite place. They almost look glazed over.
“Um, Braum? Do you know who?—”
“You want to see Vick ?” he interrupts, his tone a touch sharp. His eyes come into focus again as his head jerks back as if he’s been hit.
I blink in surprise. Vick? Is that what everyone calls him here? “Ah, yeah.”
Braum opens and closes his mouth like he can't quite settle on a proper response. After a second, he nods and plasters a smile on his face.
“Yeah, I know Vick,” he says while stepping around me to continue on our path. “He won't be in here though; he's probably working out in the gym.”
I follow Braum as we continue our walk. Overhead, the clouds are darkening, promising more rain shortly.
“How do you know Vick?” Braum asks suddenly.
“I'm a, ah...” Crap. I fumble with my practiced excuse, trying to remember what I should say. After a moment I give up and admit, “It’s complicated.”
Braum doesn’t seem to notice my hesitation. If he does, he ignores it. “I don’t remember Vick ever having a visitor. Does he know you're coming?”
So Peter really hasn’t been here then. He truly left Maverick on his own. The heat from the anger churning in my chest seeps into my veins. I’ll never forgive Peter for this.
I shake my head. “No, I wanted to surprise him.”
Braum chuckles. The sound is a little twisted, as if he's trying to cover up a snicker. When I look up at his face, however, he doesn't seem anything but mildly amused.
When he catches me staring, he explains. “Vick isn’t big on surprises.”
Surprises might not be Mavie’s thing now, but hopefully my surprise will change his idea of them.
We approach another building, this one clearly a gym. Braum leads me up the steps and opens the front door. I quickly step inside and he follows right behind me.
“He's a weights guy, so he'll be this way,” he explains.
We weave through the first floor of the building until we get to a set of double doors. I can hear the clanging of weights being dropped and grunts of people working out.
My heart is racing too fast now. Spots are beginning to dance in my eyes and my lungs. I drag in a deep breath when I realize they’re empty. The motion helps clear the spots from my vision. It doesn’t, however, actually settle me.
This is it. Maverick is right behind these doors.
Please be okay , I whisper up into The Universe. Please remember me .
Maverick was my older brother's best friend, but he'd been so pivotal in my life that just the thought of him not remembering me threatens to break my heart. Everything I’ve done for the past few months has been for Maverick. This meeting is solely to discuss the final details of my plan to break him out of here. But I don’t know if I can do that if he doesn’t know me.
“Are you okay?”
I look up to find Braum watching me closely. I run a sweaty hand down the front of my dress to smooth it out. The motion gives me a minute to compose myself. When I’m done, I give him a tight nod.
“Y-yeah, yes, of course.” I try to smile and hope it looks natural.
I have a feeling he doesn’t believe me. It's in the way he stares into my face for a long moment before he speaks again,
“I don’t know your relationship with Vick, but just a word of advice, Anastasia—be careful. He’s not all there.”
I frown. Before I can ask him what he means, Braum opens the door to the weight room, sticks his head in, and calls out, “Hey, Vick, you have a visitor!”
There are a handful of people here, mostly men, but there is an odd woman here and there. A few look up at the booming voice. Scanning the room, I search for Maverick. When I don't see him right away, I take a hesitant step into the room—completely forgetting about Braum.
My eyes slide over everyone, searching for the tall, athletically trim, tanned boy I knew before.
It makes sense he’d be in here. Back in school, he was the pitcher for the baseball team and trained his arms a lot.
God, he’d looked so good in his team’s uniform.
The Golden Honey Badgers had a star pitcher on their team for the first time in two decades—a fact Maverick took great pride in.
When Maverick still doesn't magically appear before my eyes, I tuck my purse closer to my body and begin to inch my way through the room. Eyes follow me, but I ignore the curious stares.
It takes three passes for me to spot him and register it’s Maverick.
The blood leeches from my face as if a drain plug had been pulled.
When I last saw him, Maverick was fit, albeit lanky, with a boyish face, and he kept his hair just long enough to slick back out of his face.
His skin had been golden from hours in the sun, and there was a permanent smile always clinging to his lips—as if he was mere seconds away from falling into laughter.
The man who racks the bench press and sits up before me is nothing like that.
He’s jacked. Veins bulge in his biceps, his traps are thick and well defined.
Maverick's dark brown, curly hair drips with sweat and falls into his face as he lifts his head to spare me a glance.
His dark hair is a stark contrast to his ghostly pale skin.
And his eyes? Those steel gray eyes that were once so full of life and mischief, flash with a malevolence I doubt even the devil could recreate.
The brief flicker of recognition in them is smothered by a loathing so intense I recoil, taking a half-step backward.
So transfixed on the boy I'd grown up loving, I don't even see the guy spotting Maverick until he takes a step toward me.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asks, demanding my attention.
My gaze slides over the large guy with a buzzed haircut.
His eyes are so light blue they're nearly icy white.
The pigmentation of his skin is patchy, some places darker than others, creating a curious pattern over his face, bare chest, and arms. “Get the fuck out of here, bitch.”
I gasp in surprise at the hostility from the man I've never met and inadvertently take another step back.
“That's right, scurry away. Nothing to see here,” the guy urges with a hard sneer.
Not sure how to respond to that, I look from him back to Maverick.
My lungs seize as we stare at one another.
He’s alive . Really and truly alive. The pieces that make up my heart, shattered ever since I learned of his death, tremble as they begin to stitch themselves back together.
He’s different physically, and I don’t recognize the malice in his gaze, nor do I know why I’m on the receiving end of it, but I don’t care.
None of that matters. All that does is that he’s breathing, his heart is beating, and I’ve found him.
Tears well up, but I fight them back. I can’t let them fall. If I do, there will be no stopping them.
“C-can we… talk?” I manage to get out after a moment. “Please?”
The rolled up map in my hand trembles violently as I cling to it like a lifeline.
I’m sure if I let it fall, I’ll end up attempting to hug Maverick.
As much as I would love to do just that, there’s nothing in his body language that says he’d appreciate it.
If I was expecting relief or a warm welcome from him, I've been deluding myself.
There's nothing but a hard wall of muscle and wrath before me.
“Please, Mavie?” I whisper when he still remains silent and unmoving.
Maverick stares at me long and hard without saying a word.
I watch as the tendons in his neck tense and his hands curl into thick fists.
His face turns redder with each passing second, and his whole frame begins to tremble.
The air around him is thick with a pulsating, frantic energy I don’t recognize or know how to handle.
When the silence stretches between us, I begin to mentally figure out how best to tell him my plan in a way that won't tip off everyone in this room.
This is going to be hard. It's not like we grew up with code words or phrases.
Maybe if he could read between the lines and I was super careful about?—
“EVERYONE OUT!” Maverick shouts abruptly, his voice deeper than I remember.
I blanch at the sudden outburst, then brace myself for backlash from everyone around us.
To my surprise, weights are dropped, racked, or taken as the gym clears out almost instantly.
Thirty seconds later, it's me, Maverick, and his friend.
Maverick's gaze doesn't leave my face, but he directs his next words to the guy beside him.
“You too, Nolan.”
The guy, Nolan, looks down at Maverick in surprise before turning a glare in my direction.
Without a word, he picks up a towel hanging off the weight rack behind him and moves toward the door.
On his way past me, his sweaty shoulder knocks mine, causing me to stumble backward.
I turn to glare at his back, but Nolan doesn't see it.
When the door to the weight room clicks shut behind him, I finally twist my body back around to face Maverick.
He remains sitting, watching me with hatred burning in his eyes.
I can't blame him. It was my father who put him in here, and it was my brother, his best friend, who helped cover it up. But none of that was me or my fault.
Letting the tension ease out of my body, I force myself to smile in an attempt to break the thrumming tension between us. Gripping the map tight in my hand, I simply say,
“Hey… you.”