Chapter 8 #3
The whole scene burns vivid in my irises, and I think I’ll have an afterimage in my mind every time I blink, like I’ll never not see this; the panicked, shouting bystanders, Tommy’s pure, unadulterated rage, and the blood glistening dark and messy on the grass, on his hands…
It’s like a renaissance painting.
Something about it…
It feels like everything, and nothing I’ve ever known; like a sickness settling in my body, making me dizzy and achy and uncomfortable. Like holding my niece Kira for the first time, and noticing how small she was and knowing that she was mine and mine alone.
I don’t know the name of this feeling, but it feels like that.
I’m… moved.
The realization roots me to the ground. Yosef stays loyally behind me, and the staff members are clearly confused on what to do since I’m not taking action, so none of the adults intervene when Tommy leans over without an ounce of hesitation and picks up a palm-sized rock.
He pins one of Brian’s wrists to the grass with one hand, and raises the rock–
And crushes the Brian’s fingers with the stone. I hear it, I see it, I watch Tommy do it, and I understand the appeal of art.
Everyone flinches back, a girl screams. Someone tries to get Tommy off again, but he bashes them away with his stone.
Brian shrieks and struggles, but Tommy just holds him down and does it again, making sure those fingers are broken. When he lifts the stone a third time, I can tell he isn’t aiming for Brian’s hand. His impossibly dark eyes are burning with bloodlust.
His expression, in this moment, is art. It speaks to me.
He’s about to kill someone. And… I think I might be fine with that.
“Tomm-my-y!” Kira’s weak, coughing cry stops him in his tracks. He freezes, rock above his head, unmoving except his chest, which heaves for air. Blood trickles down his wrists and I don’t know if it’s his, or someone else’s.
“Tommy, please!” Kira weeps. “Please, Tommy, stop, please!”
Tommy looks over his shoulder at her, and she flinches into her friends. Janessa holds her tighter, and Lexie crouches at her side like she’s going to jump in front of her to take a bullet, and they’re looking at Tommy like he’s a monster.
I’m not looking at him like that.
The moment stretches, and Tommy looks back down at his bloody, crying prey, and I see the way he’s tempted. Tempted to keep going, to let out all his feelings. I watch him like every second must be recorded, like I need to see everything he’s thinking right now.
Tommy drops his makeshift weapon and climbs to his feet.
I’ve seen men commit violence countless times, so I know what it looks like and how it affects normal people.
He should be unsteady with adrenaline, shaky from the influx of passionate wrath, or trembling from exertion at the very least, but he’s rock solid.
Stone-cold sober, level-headed. He looks at Brian for a moment. Then he looks at my niece again.
“Kira.” He sounds so forlorn. So sad, but not sorry. He doesn’t say anything else for a while, struggling for words, before finally settling on. “I’ll go pack.”
“Tommy…” She sniffles and looks at the bleeding men on the grass. She doesn’t say anything else.
Without another word, Tommy nods at her. It’s a small gesture, but it holds a wealth of meaning. The crowd is silent and repelled as he stalks toward the house, their fear and disgust so obvious that even I can read it.
That’s when he sees me standing here, staring at him, and he looks right into my eyes as if he’s daring me to be afraid.
As if he’s looking for fear. When he sees me, that spark in his eye returns, but I can’t tell if it’s still anger or something else.
And looking at him like this, in all his glory, fills me up like lightning in a bottle.
Another nameless feeling that is everything, and nothing. Meaningless to me, but significant.
He scowls, heading right for me on a collision course, like he’s about to attack me next. And I have no doubt that if I were to put up my fists or get into a fighting stance, he really would attack me.
I don’t know what I’m feeling right now, but it isn’t fear. And I don’t want to fight him. I don’t need to.
So I just stand there, watching him head-on, and he swerves at the last moment to go around me.
I knew he would. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.
My side tingles as he brushes past, and I hear his harsh breathing.
I can smell lake water and blood on him.
I’m acutely aware of everything about him, to a degree that is maddening.
Once he’s at my back, I’m jolted into the present when Kira coughs again, the sound of it alarmingly wet. I stalk toward her, stepping right over the broken boy groaning and whining on the ground.
“What happened?” I kneel beside her and help her sit up. The movement sends her into a coughing fit, her face getting alarmingly red.
“She almost drowned,” Janessa says, her hands clinging to Kira. “Brian pushed her into the lake.”
I take a second to let that sink in. Brian pushed her into the lake… and now Brian is beaten to a pulp, with his hands crushed.
I snap my fingers at the nearest staff member. “Get the helicopter. My niece needs to be taken to the hospital immediately.”
“Yes sir!”
“And Yosef, take care of that.” I wave in Brian’s general direction. “And make sure his parents understand. Get the videos, too.” More than one young person was filming, and that needs to be taken care of.
“Yes, sir.”
My on-site paramedic skids to his knees beside Brian before Yosef can drag him away, getting grass on his pristine blue scrubs, cussing in alarm at the sight of the violence.
Idiot.
“You!” I bark at them. “You’re my fucking paramedic. You’ll see my niece first. He can wait.”
The nurse flinches, gulps, and shakily leaves Brian to Yosef’s less than tender care, and comes to help Kira.
“She inhaled water,” I explain, biting and terse. “She could be dry drowning right now. He can fucking wait.”
“Yes, sir,” they agree meekly. “Kira, let me sit you up, I need to listen to your lungs–”
I lean back on my heels and ponder the ramifications that this will have on my family, my business, my social standing; Brian’s family is of no small means, and they aren’t without their own unsavory dealings.
Nothing so organized and well done as my brotherhood, but their enemies have been known to commit “suicide” under dubious circumstances.
And Tommy just brutalized their precious only son.
I’m not afraid of them, but I know how they’ll react, and their anger must be planned for–all contingencies must be planned for.
The fact that Brian clearly started it, that he’s been provoking Tommy all week, will mean nothing to them.
They’ll want to hurt Tommy, because to them, he’s nobody important.
I haven’t even heard of his family, so they aren’t likely to be that important or protected. They’ll find a way to get to him.
If he were one of mine, they’d never even dream of going after him.
Huh… if he were a Sokolov…
This changes a lot of things. This changes everything.
A plan takes shape in my mind, one that will make everyone happy and keep Tommy protected from any backlash Brian’s family might pursue. One that will wrap everything in a neat little bow, and tie Tommy to me for a long time.