Chapter 23
Manas
Sweat trickles down the back of my neck. Fuck, it’s hot.
It’s like New Orleans hot.
Music drifts through the trees from a distance, and I train my ears, listening to familiar voices laughing and shouting down at the camp.
Figures lurk in the brush beyond—searching, guarding… But they don’t see us. Not yet.
With the syringe in my hand, I step closer.
Then he moves again.
I follow, matching his pace so I can disguise the sound of old leaves crunching under my shoes.
He watches the car buried under the canopy of trees, two tons of steel rocking in the night. The naked body of a girl on top of a man just visible through the fogged-up windows.
He creeps.
I inch closer, the rustle of the weeds under me lost in the sound of his own movements.
He steps again. Then again, approaching the car, and I suck in air, launch forward, and grab him, dragging my brother down to the earth.
He growls behind my hand as the needle sinks into his neck.
Wind sweeps through my hair, bringing the scent of a campfire, and I pin his chest to the ground as he thrashes.
Then, he relaxes, and I withdraw the syringe and flip him over.
His head rolls from side to side as he exhales. “She’s here,” he breathes out, the drug working fast as his lids slide closed. “The Dodge…”
Watching him sink into blissful oblivion, I shake my head. His ravings, his obsession, his lack of control… Deacon is a fucking full-time job.
I just hope I found him before he did something really stupid. What was he going to do here tonight? Why was he going to that car?
Removing a ziptie from my suit pocket, I secure his wrists. “Sometimes,” I whisper to him, the whites of his eyes just visible through the slits. “I imagine what life would be like if I’d chosen her instead of you. But you were both out of your damn minds.”
Rising up, I scan the area, making sure we haven’t been detected. The blond guys—Farrow Kelly and Noah Van der Berg—drift in opposite directions, but they move too slowly, pacing. I dart my eyes between them and the car.
They’re keeping a lookout, I finally realize.
Glancing down at Deacon, I squat and check his pulse. “Is that our girl in that Mustang?” I taunt.
I didn’t see the couple get into the car, but why else would my brother be interested in their fucking?
“Did you have anything to do with that?” I tease, dusting off the dirt and grass from his face. “I’ll bet you did.”
I pull duct tape out of my suit jacket. “She’ll love him good.”
I don’t know who she’s with, but she’ll be devoted to him and never make him question it.
I pull a strip of tape. “Unlike Winslet with us…”
Manas, hold me, her voice curls into my head again.
Her breathless whisper still tickles my ear, and I let my eyes fall closed a moment.
“She never loved us well enough to replace what she took,” I murmur, more to myself than Deacon.
He wants her to be alive. I’ll never understand why.
I love you… Her voice, her scent—still perfect memories, though.
I plant the tape over his mouth because he’ll fight me if he wakes up. This isn’t the first time he’s run from New Orleans, and not the last time I’ll have to chase after him. Sometimes he comes here. Sometimes he goes elsewhere to play.
“She’s dead,” I tell him.
Manas… I hear her again.
I repeat to myself. “She’s dead…”
But still, I understand his reluctance to accept it when we’re here. Home. It’s hard not to feel her here. It’s impossible to forget how right she felt, and how neither of us could get enough of her.
She was never a choice for me, though. It was always going to be my brother.
Lifting my eyes, I see the little island, dark out on the lake in the distance. “She’s gone.”
Just then, a shuffle hits my ears, and I jerk my head. A young girl stands six feet away, dressed in some colonial soldier costume. One of the Caruthers, I assume. No one in this town knows us anymore, but we know most of them.
She gapes at me, her gaze dropping to the unconscious Deacon with his wrists tied in front of him and his mouth taped shut.
She takes a step back, but when I don’t chase, she stops.
“Aren’t you gonna…” Her eyes lower to Deacon again and back up to me, “…kill me?”
I hide my amusement. “Aren’t you going to run?”
She pinches her brow. “I was going to, but you didn’t move. Aren’t you scared I’ll tell someone?”
I turn back to my brother, picking up the syringe, capping it, and slipping it back into my pocket. “No.”
“What does that mean?” she blurts out. “I could tell somebody if I wanted to.”
“I know.” I soothe her pride. “I’m just not concerned about it.”
“Why?”
I heave a sigh and stand up straight. “We’re all living on luck, and mine will run out just like yours someday.” I spin toward her. “If today’s the day, I’m ready.”
“Have you killed a lot of people?”
She thinks my brother is dead.
“I’ve never killed a child,” I say, skirting the question. “It’s one of the many lines I won’t cross. So go tell someone. Whatever happens to me, happens.”
She doesn’t move, though, leaning to the side so she can see around me. I’m not even disappointed. I can still make people run from me, but I have no interest in scaring a kid.
“What will you do with him?” she asks.
I’m not even sure yet. Take him out of state, most certainly, but I can’t take him back to New Orleans right now. Too easy to escape. “I like your costume.” I smile instead. “What are you doing out here so late?”
“My dad said to wait in the car.”
I chuckle under my breath. Their family seems to breed and nurture independent women. Aro Marquez, Dylan Trent, and even shy, quiet Quinn Caruthers. I move between the kid and the car, so she doesn’t catch a glimpse.
I hold out my hand. “Manas Doran.”
She moves in closer and shakes it, not the slightest bit timid. “A.J.”
I see the resemblance now. “You look like your father,” I tell her. “Your brothers look more like your mom.”
She tilts her head, quizzical. She’s going to ask her dad now if he knows me, and he won’t have the slightest clue who she means.
Turning back to my brother, I search the area, making sure we didn’t drop anything. “What does A.J. stand for?”
“Adalia Junior,” she says. “After my dad’s nanny.”
“Adalia.” I nod. “I like it. You should go by that.”
“I tried, but it’s hard to retrain people.”
I laugh again. “I hear that.”
Glancing up, I notice Farrow Kelly moving behind a tree. He’s protected my and Deacon’s home on Knock Hill from anyone who wanted it, but for some reason he stepped aside for Quinn Caruthers. He was right to.
“Maybe when I leave for college, I’ll change it,” A.J. tells me. “I want to go to Tulane. My grandma lives in New Orleans.”
I stop, lifting my eyes to the island beyond. “Is that right?” I whisper.
I didn’t know the Caruthers had family there.
“Interesting.”
“She always brings me pralines—a little lagniappe that she doesn’t give the boys.”
I nod and start to haul my brother up off the ground.
“Are you both from there?” she asks. “Or just you?”
I halt, crouched and still. How the hell did she know—?
“Your suit,” she points out. “It’s seersucker. It’s what southern men wear in the summer.”
Pivoting, I meet her eyes, level with mine.
“And you didn’t ask me what a lagniappe was.” She smirks a little. “Because you already knew and no one knows what that means.”
Eyes locked on her, I can’t move all of a sudden. How old is she? Eleven?
Seven years, and she’ll be on her way to college.
“We’re from here,” I finally admit.
And then I get an idea.
“Can you keep a secret?” I ask her.
She jerks her chin, nodding.
“Do you want to keep a secret?” I press.
I know I’ll speak to her again, but I don’t know when. I want her to be ready.
She tips her chin down once.
I lower my voice. “When your siblings and cousins all show up in New Orleans looking for me someday—whether you’re with them or you’re already there—you come find me, okay?”
I dig my keys out of my pocket and unhook the keychain, handing it to her. A bronze fleur-de-lis dangles from a bronze chain, and she takes it, studying it. Chimney Wind is etched into the back.
She offers me a skeptical look. “What makes you think they’ll all go to New Orleans someday?”
I smile, rising, and drawing in a long breath. “Because you’re all smarter than I thought.”
Spinning back around, I grab my brother off the ground and throw him over my shoulder.
Turning, I bid her farewell. “Until next time, Adalia Junior.”
I leave, moving right, and keeping my eyes on the little island out on the lake for as long as I can till I’m too far away.