Chapter 69
Chapter 69
I could hear Frank’s echo reverberating off the stone. And I could hear the crack as Frank’s hand struck Bones’s face. Bones had deflected the blows, spun his brother, and ended up behind him, one arm around his neck. Rear naked choke. In two seconds, Bones could put him to sleep. Then I’d have shot those two guys in the corner, and we’d have been out of there.
But Bones didn’t. Just as quickly as he’d submitted him, Bones let Frank go. Yielding his superior position. I’ll never forget the look on Frank’s face. He sat ghost-white. Astonished. The revelation was too much. Frank sat in disbelief. “How did you not tell me?”
Bones strained to sit up, blood trailing out his mouth. “Doesn’t change who you are.”
Frank had laughed a painful, soul-splitting laugh. “‘Male One.’ My name is Male One. My own mother couldn’t come up with anything better than Male One.”
Bones nodded. “Yup.”
“Did she name you?”
Bones nodded again.
“What?”
Bones lay breathing. Tapped himself in the chest. “Male Two.”
Frank laughed. “That’s us. A couple of nobodies from nowhere.”
Bones shook his head.
Frank, his face just inches from Bones’s, shouted, “What?!”
Bones was calm. “That’s not who you are.”
I could still hear Frank screaming. “Then who am I?”
“My brother.” Bones swallowed. “Always have been.”
Frank sat motionless. Finally, turning to me, he demanded, “How’d you get in here?” He wanted to know how his impenetrable fortress had been penetrated.
“I climbed.”
“Up what?”
“The well.”
He turned to Bones. “You leave him a map?”
I answered for Bones. “Yes.”
More pieces were gathering in Frank’s mind. When the last piece clicked into place, he turned to Bones. He could not hide his surprise. And this was the moment that Frank saw the enormity that was and is Bones. The magnificence for which he had no rebuttal.
“You found a way out?”
Bones nodded.
This was inconceivable to Frank. “And yet you stayed in this hell?”
Bones nodded again.
Frank was spitting as he spoke. “Why?”
Bones had opened his eyes and focused on his brother. “You.”
The revelation was too much. Frank had no box for such sacrifice. “You stayed in this hell on earth for me even when you had a way out?”
Another nod.
Frank began punching Bones in the face. After the fourth or fifth time, Bones reached up, grabbed his brother’s hand, flipped them both, and submitted Frank a second time. Frank couldn’t move. Bones had him on his belly, his arms tucked beneath him.
I was still in the dark as much as Frank, evidenced by the fact that I’d whispered, “Snap his neck.”
The next words were a shock to both Frank and me. Bones had rolled off him and lay breathing. “Brother. Every day I climbed down, made my way to the outside, stayed long enough to glimpse daylight, and then returned to Hell Squared. And there’s only one reason.”
Disbelief spread across Frank’s face. “What? What could possibly make you stay?”
Bones turned, held up one finger, and stared at his brother. “You.”
Incredulous, Frank shook his head. “But why?”
Bones looked at me. Then back to his brother. “Because the needs of the one outweigh those of the ninety-nine.”
Frank came unglued. “After all they did to you...”
Bones nodded.
The revelation was sinking in. Frank couldn’t hold it anymore. “But I don’t love you that much.”
Bones eyed the growing puddle beneath him. “I don’t love you because you love me.” He coughed, his eyes rolled back in his head, and his head bobbed to one side. Shaking it off, he focused again on Frank. “Love is given, not earned.”
Frank was shouting now. “What are you saying?”
Bones coughed, the blood frothy. The clock was winding down. His lungs were filling. He grabbed Frank by the collar and pulled. “I love you... because I love you!”
Frank had no box for this. He sat back and studied his brother, shaking his head. For the first time in his life, he was paralyzed by indecision.
Now, I closed my eyes and let the darkness wrap itself around me like a blanket. The air was damp. Smelled pungent. I thought how it was easy to love someone who loved you back. But it was much tougher when they were evil. And in my mind, Frank was and always would be evil. Not so for Bones. He never let himself think that way. He’d always held out hope.
That was the thing that ate at me. Bones had hoped. I had not.
And therein lay the difference between us.
As Bones had been speaking, six men had broken through the door. I shot the two in the corner, released Gunner on the man closest to me with the “Choctaw” command, then turned my attention to the five along the wall. They missed. I did not.
Gunner had his teeth clenched around the man’s throat, crushing his windpipe. The man lifted his rifle and was about to shoot Gunner, but nobody shoots my dog, so I’d sent a single round through the man’s chest.
As the room fell silent, I turned to Frank, who stood in the center of an empire crumbling all around him. The astonishment was something he’d not expected or experienced. He’d lost control. Bones had taken it, and had done so without firing a single round. Bones’s revelation sent Frank tumbling to earth. Kryptonite. His voice took on a pleading tone. “You didn’t leave... when you could.”
Bones spoke with a shallow breath. “You’re my brother...”
“But they . . .”
At Frank’s weakness, I seized my chance. I lunged, grabbed him by the throat, and forced every ounce of my strength, every reserve, into crushing his esophagus. Preventing him from breathing. Forcing him to suffer. As his throat collapsed in my hand, his eyes growing wild and exhibiting fear, his life fading into darkness—I felt a calm hand on my arm.
Bones.