57. The Jekyll
57
THE JEKYLL
I ’ve been called many things in my lifetime. I can’t say inhumane is one of those things. The first order of the day is for the men to be looked over by a doctor. Although severely dehydrated and malnourished, the doctor tells us they’re fine otherwise and takes his leave.
We’re in the house in the side of the hill where we were only days ago. The house where the Castillo brother’s captor lost his life at the hands of their sister. The men are quiet as they look at us from various positions around the living room, waiting for some sort of introduction. They still don’t know who we are; all they know is they had guns trained at their heads, and now they’re in relative safety. It’s the eldest, Enzo, who finally speaks.
“Who are you? Did Coyin send you?”
“Coyin is dead,” I tell him. A flicker of surprise crosses his face, before he lets out a steady exhale. The men look at each other curiously. Change is here.
“What happened?”
“I killed him,” Attila speaks up. The man is fearless as he faces the sons of the man he killed. He owns his actions. He owns every man’s frailty that besieges him.
Enzo nods slowly, as if agreeing this had to happen. He swallows, a harsh sound filling the room with the difficulty it causes him. He’s swallowing his emotions. His father was not a good man, but he was still his father.
“Who are you?” he asks his father’s killer.
“They call me Attila.”
Enzo nods again. His brothers all lift their eyes to look at Attila.
“Coyin was terrified of you,” Enzo, who has taken up the position of spokesman for the brothers, says. “You were his Bogeyman — he knew you were coming for him.”
“I’ve been hunting him for years,” Attila tells him, folding his arms across his chest as he adds that Coyin did a good job of evading him.
“So if you killed our father, why did you save us?” he asks.
“I saved you because I promised your sister I would.”
* * *
The Castillo brothers are a contradiction of sorts. Where I had been concerned that they would seek vengeance for their father’s death, they’ve done nothing but fall over themselves in gratitude that he is finally gone. They, like Luna, were thrust into a life not of their making. Not of their choice. Given the option, this is not a life anyone would choose for themselves, especially to be someone with a deranged father like Coyin Castillo. Add into the mix the fact that they knew he killed their mother, even though he protested it loudly, and they were glad to finally be rid of him.
Their main concern now was for Luna and her welfare, especially after they learn that she had been the one to pull the trigger on Nestor.
“It’s ironic,” Franco says, as he leans back into his chair at the outdoor setting. “She’s not even his daughter, and yet she’s the one that most resembles him when it comes to being ruthless.”
Attila bristles beside me; I implore him quietly with my eyes to stay calm. The very concept of Luna being anything like Coyin Castillo is ludicrous; anyone pushed to their breaking point is capable of pulling a trigger.
“She didn’t pull that trigger unnecessarily,” I point out. “The man tried to kidnap her. He would’ve raped her, possibly killed her. Luna was in a kill or be killed situation.” I don’t see the need to tell him that Nestor was hanging upside down by his legs when she put a bullet in him. There’s no need for him to have that image in his head.
“His point is she had the guts to do what we were never capable of doing,” Enzo speaks up. “Luna has spirit, but she’s a humanitarian before anything else. She’d never take a life without reason. We know that.”
Enzo fixes his brother with a hard stare, willing him to stay quiet. They’re all different, the brothers. Each unique in his own way. But the one similarity they all share is their love for Luna. Their unwavering support for her. They love her more than they loved their father. And that’s all we need to know to be satisfied that she is safe. Every threat to her that we knew of has been eliminated. Even the dumbass at the bar that night is long gone.
“When can we see her?” Coyin Junior asks. There’s barely two years between his sister and him, but they might as well be twins for all the physical similarities they share. He has the same color hair and the same amber eyes as Luna, and they are so similar in age and height, you could easily mistake them for twins.
“I’ve arranged for her to come here,” Attila says, and this is news to me. But that’s what he promised her; that once he could be sure she was safe, she would be free to leave. It’s not necessarily what he wanted, but he won’t hold her back when she has brothers to consider.
“Gabriel’s staying behind,” Attila tells me, as we leave the men and walk toward the edge of the cliff. “He wants to give her time with her brothers.”
“You think she’ll be okay?”
“Hard to tell. But the brothers are glad to be rid of Coyin, so they have that in common. And they seem very fond of her.”
He turns to look back at the men, watches them quietly as they laugh and chat and Danielo reaches over and messes up Coyin Junior’s hair. They’re more like boys than men, and I realize that could be because in our world, boys have to grow up quickly. They don’t have time to be boys. They don’t have the pleasure of living out their childhood.
“Someone else I know seems very fond of her, too.”
Attila whips his head back and settles his thoughtful gaze on me for the longest time, saying nothing.
“I think we’re past the point of pretending you don’t have feelings for her, Attila. This is the same exact thing I did with my wife Sisely before I married her.”