Chapter 46 #2
“ I’ll make him,” Dean growls, rolling up his sleeves as he fast approaches Legion. I nearly slip on the gravel in an attempt to hold onto Dean’s arm when his fist swings down on Legion.
The sickening crack of Dean’s brutal right hook snaps Legion’s head sideways.
“ Get up,” Dean demands.
Legion pulls one more drag from his cigarette and gets to his feet before dropping it on the ground.
“Come on, asshole! Fight me!” Dean stands rigid and waiting as Legion straightens, saying nothing. He only stares back with determined defiance.
Dean throws another punch, a left hook this time, rocking Legion to the side once again. He didn’t lift a hand to block it, or the next hit, or the one after that.
“Stop it!” I continue to shout at them.
Legion straightens once again, dabbing the corner of his mouth with his thumb where blood has begun to pool. Dropping both arms to his side, he stands and waits to be punched again.
“I’m gonna keep hitting you,” Dean practically snarls. “You might as well swing back.”
“ I won’t,” Legion mutters, sorrowful grey eyes shifting to me once more. “Your husband may break my bones, but he will never break my word to you. I am content to stand here and take whatever he?—”
Dean grabs Legion by the collar of his leather jacket and slugs him hard in the stomach, keeling him over before uppercutting him in the face. This time, Legion staggers backward, landing on his back on the ground hard enough to hear the gravel crunch beneath his shoulders.
Dean mounts him, and still, he doesn’t fight back.
“ I told you ,” Dean cocks his fist back again, breathing like an angry bull. “ I told you I’d fucking kill you!”
“He didn’t touch me!” I scream, but rage has Dean in a chokehold. There’s only one thing that could possibly reach him, that would tear through his fury like a blade. “Our son can hear you! He’s in the farmstand! He’s hearing all of this!”
That does it.
Dean’s fist lowers. Chest heaving, jaw locked, he shoves away from Legion and takes a step back. Then another. Then spits on the ground near Legion’s boots before threatening him. “Crawl back to the desert where you belong, or I’ll finish what I started.”
I rush past them, back to the farmstand to pull open the doors. When I do, Ace isn’t at his art table, and my heart sinks. Is he hiding? My poor baby…
“Ace?”
Silence.
I race inside to check behind the counter. He isn’t there. He isn’t hiding behind the shelves or the display cases.
A sliver of light cuts across the floor when a breeze catches the back door and creaks open on its hinges…
My breath escapes on another ragged scream. “Ace!”
Dean charges into the stand while Legion pushes himself to his feet, clutching his stomach and wiping at his bloody mouth as he hurriedly staggers toward us.
“He must have gotten scared and run out the back.” I barely manage to get the words out. My chest feels as if it’s splitting wide open with panic.
“He couldn’t have gotten far,” Dean says, but I can hear the worry in his words as he barrels out the back door, calling out to Ace.
I follow him, looking everywhere at once. I don’t see Ace making his way up the hill toward our home. I don’t think he’d have gotten that far that fast.
“The path in the woods!” I say. “He might have run to the neighbor’s house! He knows the way!”
The three of us tear down the trail, calling out to him. When we reach the clearing, Dean splits off and rushes around the back of the house to cover more ground while I hurry to the front porch.
“Does he know the neighbor? Can you call them?” Legion asks, as out of breath as I am, one hand clutching the lower railing of the porch steps while he winces in pain.
“Meg doesn’t live here anymore.” I nearly rip the storm door off its flimsy hinges and grab the doorknob, trying it just in case. To my astonishment, it isn’t locked! I shove the door open and stumble inside, shouting. “Ace! Where are you?”
Classical music is playing low from upstairs, the end of Vivaldi’s Winter. As I approach the staircase, the song starts over again.
“There!” Legion rasps, pointing at the foyer table.
I recognize the scribbled paper sitting on the table instantly and snatch it up just as Dean reaches us. “He was just working on this one! He has to be here somewhere! Ace! Ace!”
“What the fuck?” Dean grabs the drawing from my hand, turning it over to reveal something that isn’t our son’s scribble, and my legs nearly give out.
There’s a note on the back, scrawled across the paper in jagged, adult handwriting…
You created a monster.
K eegan’s the first of us to bolt up the stairs, Vanna and I following on his heels. My guts twist with every lunge as I take the steps two at a time. The scrawled note…the music drifting from upstairs… Vivaldi of all fucking things … They might as well be warning bells…
I know what’s coming. I should be running out the front door, not up the fucking steps!
The upstairs room is empty, except for a small stereo and another one of Ace’s drawings, this time with the words At least you got the girl , scrawled across it. Keegan snatches something else off the floor. A messy flash of something orange.
“Oh my god!” Vanna screams upon the sight of it, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Jesus fuck,” Keegan barely manages to mutter. “Who the fuck is she?”
When he turns, something white flutters from the long, fox-orange strands of the lace-front wig, landing softly on the carpet. A white, frayed ribbon I recognize instantly…
“What did you say your neighbor’s name was?” I ask, picking up the worn sympathy ribbon. I turn it over, already expecting to find two significant words stamped into the white silk… True Love…
“ Meg. Meg Kaleb,” Vanna hastily replies. “ Why?”
But I’m not listening anymore.
I’m sliding down the banister before Keegan can grab me.
The moment my boots hit the hardwood, I dart out the front door, leap off the front porch, and sprint as fast as my legs and lungs will carry me through the trail…back to my bike.
Every inhale burns worse than the last, but not nearly as much as the inferno of rage building within me.
I grit my teeth and push harder. Keegan’s hot on my trail, and if he catches me now, we may never see Ace again. Pain shoots up my side, hot and white, and I nearly drop to my knees again, but I can’t stop, not with Ace in her hands, not with Vanna’s eyes full of tears somewhere back there.
My bike comes into view through the foliage like fucking salvation, and I cut across the lot, nearly collapsing onto it, sucking in air like it might be my last breath. Every drag through my fucked-up windpipe is an act of punishment.
I fire up the engine, the vibration rattling through the ache in my spine and shoulder blades. Twisting the throttle just as Keegan clears the trail, I peel out, spitting gravel at him and barrel down the road.
When I spot Vanna stumbling from the forest, desperately waving both arms and begging me to stop, I almost do… I almost cut across the field to go to her and explain… But there’s no time…
“I’ll get him back!” I shout to her. And if I have to die to do so, I will. “Vanna, I’ll get him back, I swear to you! I’ll get him back!”