Chapter Thirty-One
Jed wasn’t entirely in his right mind when he grabbed Thomas’ throat.
It trailed behind him as his body ran ahead, a sort of ethereal spectator to the violence he was ready to commit against the man he once called his brother.
The moment Lila fell out of Thomas’ hands, Jed yanked him over the couch and slammed him to the ground, spurred on by the breathless gasps escaping from Thomas.
“Don’t feel good not to breathe, huh?!”
Jed grabbed Thomas by the collar and yanked him to his feet, only to slam flat of the palm against his chest and release another choked garble from the man he’d once cared about.
Throwing his body forward, Jed flung Thomas across the living room, a satisfying smack ringing out as Thomas’ head struck against the corner of the counter.
Another sound caught his attention–the sound of their front door flying open.
Jed briefly caught sight of his wife sprinting outside.
Lila was tightly grasped in her arms, and through the blood on her face, she met Jed’s gaze with a cold determination.
She was going to protect Lila with everything she had.
His head swiveled back toward the kitchen, catching Thomas’ trembling hand pressing against the counter as he tried to lift himself off the floor. Jed didn’t give him the chance, charging across the cabin and slamming his shoulder square into Thomas’ ribcage.
“Why?!”
Thomas was desperate for a breath, gasping wildly as his flailing hands searched for something of Jed’s to grab. His fingernails raked across Jed’s face, thumbs jabbing toward his eyes until Jed managed to grab Thomas’ neck and slam him against the countertop.
“Why, Thomas?!”
Thomas desperately dug his fingers into Jed’s hand, and Jed slid him across the kitchen counter, jars and platters shattering spectacularly against Thomas’ head.
He shoved the man off the edge, his vision flashing red as Thomas laid sprawled out on the kitchen floor, dusted in shards of glass and broken plates.
Jed’s chest heaved, and he lifted his foot to deliver a swift stomp to Thomas’ chest.
He barely registered a flash of porcelain as Thomas lunged up, his bleeding hand grasped around a jagged chunk of a broken plate.
He drove it deep into Jed’s thigh, but it hardly registered as anything more than an inconvenience.
Bone cracked under Jed's knuckle as he slugged Thomas across the face, and Thomas staggered back, hitting the couch as he desperately flung his arm around it for support.
“You were my family!” Jed cried out, briefly locked in place as grief tore through his heart. “You were my brother! Why?! Why do all of this? Do you really hate me so much? Is sole ownership worth all of this?!”
Thomas managed to straighten himself up, spitting out a mouthful of blood alongside his venomous response.
“Family? You don’t even know what that word means, do you?
!” He caught himself mid-sway, gripping the back of the couch as if it were his only lifeline.
“You turned your back on me first, Jed! You embarrassed me in front of our employees, and then you thought you could just leave me!”
“You sided with killers!” Jed snarled, his fist crashing into the countertop, cracks spidering outward. “You ruined folks’ lives! Honest folks who’d never so much as crossed yer path!”
Something deranged came out from Thomas, taking the form of a rumbling chuckle. “It’s all just collateral. Getting what you want before someone else takes it. That’s just the way of the world, Jed.”
Jed’s vision swam as an agonizing heat radiated throughout his body. “You’re insane, Thomas. Regular folk don’t think that way! They don’t think they’re above what’s right and wrong!”
“Nobody cares about right and wrong, you addle-brained halfwit!”
“I care, Thomas! Just as much as I cared about you!”
The cabin went eerily quiet as Thomas’ expression fell into blankness.
It almost looked as if he were processing too many emotions at once: surprise, disbelief, perhaps shame for the first time in the three decades of his life.
Jed took the opportunity to lunge forward and deliver the knockout blow that would end the fight once and for all.
He caught the glint of a blade too late as it drove into his side.
Jed's hands trembled, hovering around the handle of the blade before a swift punch took him to the ground. When Jed looked up, Thomas looked just as shocked at what he’d just done.
But cold resolve soon overtook his expression, and a spray of blood followed after as Thomas hastily tore the knife free.
Every ounce of pain Jed had mentally blocked out came rushing to the forefront of his mind. A garbled groan escaped him, his hands pressed against the gushing stab in his side.
Panicked. Did Thomas look panicked?
He turned on his heel and stumbled for the door, leaving Jed to try and frantically right the world while it threatened to spin out completely. He blinked, his vision refusing to clear as darkness crept along the corners of it.
Jed wasn’t sure how much time had passed.
All he knew was that he had to get up.
Jed put every ounce of energy he had left into his legs, a pained cry hissing between his teeth as he finally managed to stand.
His side was completely soaked, and the upper thigh of his pantleg wasn’t far behind.
Jed forced one foot forward, biting back the cry of agony that threatened to tear through his body.
Jed locked his jaw tight and took another step.
He stumbled outside, his strength sapped by the shock of coolness to the night’s air. Jed forced himself forward, locking his sight onto the barn as a furious scream rang out from within.
“Let go of me, you rotting crawler!”
A loud clang rang out, followed by the sound of hay being tossed around.
It fueled Jed onward, and he’d managed to make it halfway before Maeve came sprinting out of the barn door, hefting a shovel in her hands.
Her face lit up when she finally caught sight of Jed, but his twisted up in horror as Thomas came rushing up behind her.
“Maeve–!”
Her body twisted around at Jed’s outcry, the shovel’s head aimed directly for Thomas’ side.
It struck him with another heavy thud, but Thomas managed to grab its handle and yank it free from Maeve’s grasp.
She spun on her heel, only to get snagged around the waist and pulled back into Thomas’ grasp.
A flash of steel caught the moonlight as he pressed it against Maeve’s neck.
“Stop!” The desperate plea came screaming out of Jed, and he stumbled to his knees, barely able to hold himself upright anymore. Again, the world spun around him, and when he finally managed to lift his head again, he was greeted with Thomas’ demented grin.
“Well, look at you! You just couldn’t wait for me to get back, huh?
” He shifted his grip on Maeve as she tried to thrash away, the knife biting against her flesh and pulling a thin line of blood from her.
Whatever guilt, whatever ounce of shame Thomas had felt before had receded back behind his mask.
He had to be in control no matter what. Even if it would cost him his very soul.
“She ain’t g-got nothing to do with this!” Jed cried out.
Thomas’ laughter scraped at the inside of Jed’s mind, and he finally put it together; this was his real laugh.
For years, Thomas had forced something pleasant and charming into facade.
But now, reality was crashing down on Thomas.
A perfectly curated personality wasn’t necessary; not when the only people to see him break it were going to die.
“Wives always inherit their husband’s burden,” Thomas sneered. “But you wouldn’t know that, would you? Poor, brainless Jed, who couldn’t talk himself out of a paper bag–!”
Thomas let out a wet gurgle as Maeve threw the back of her head against his face.
A sickening crunch signaled the shattering of his nose, and he flailed, sending the knife’s blade slicing upward.
It nicked the underside of Maeve’s chin before she managed to pull back and bite down on the arm holding her in place.
At Thomas’ pained shriek, she immediately dropped to her knees and slid around him, positioning herself perfectly behind his legs.
Jed took everything he had left and threw himself forward one more time, slamming the full weight of his body into Thomas’.
The blade went flying into the night, swallowed up by the tall grass as Thomas went stumbling over Maeve.
She quickly rolled beneath Jed’s legs as the men went crashing to the ground, then sprang to her feet and grabbed the hem of Jed’s jacket and pulled with everything she had.
He staggered up and to her side, unconsciously marveling at her strength as her frame completely supported his.
“You should’ve gone for that knife!” Thomas shrieked, scrambling to his feet as he prepared to charge the pair once more.
The crack of a gun came on a slight delay, followed by Thomas’ hand shooting to cradle the side of his head with a pained cry.
Jed blinked, leaning further into Maeve’s grasp as he tried to make sense of the scene. Before Thomas completely covered it with his hand, it had almost looked as if his ear had been completely blown off.
Hooves came thundering over the land soon after as dozens of riders crested the property’s hill. Leading the posse was Samuel himself, one hand loosely clutching the stock of a rifle.
“I ain’t legally allowed to play with fire no more, sir!” Samuel flipped the smoking barrel upright, easily lining up his next shot with only one hand. “But I’m awful familiar with this here firearm, and would love any reason to prove it.”
He cocked the gun loudly, followed by a dozen more cracks of other gun hammers.
Jed couldn’t make out the details of Thomas’ face anymore.
He couldn’t really make out anything, what with how dark the night had suddenly gotten.
But he had a sense, a gut feeling, that even as he raised his hands and became swarmed in blurry figures, Thomas Gedney still wore his signature smile.