28. Natty
TWENTY-EIGHT
NATTY
PRESENT DAY
I had texted Pen what I was doing so she could fill in Jameson and Killian. It wasn’t really their fight now that I was recovered, and Killian’s mother was safe. I wanted them to stay out of this, knowing Fable was only coming for me.
Alec and Silas could handle things from here on out, but I still wanted someone to know what I was doing and considering Giles was Jameson’s cousin, it was a good idea to make sure he was aware since it was technically considered his territory.
I was pacing around the front of the shed, trying to keep warm when Alec finally shoved the metal door open and started toward me. He used a rag to wipe off his face and sling. He had dark smudges all along his shirt and jeans that I had to turn away from him.
“The old mill in Gundry.”
Hope soared as Alec walked to the bike and Giles began heading inside the shack. I waved goodbye to him as he yelled back at me, “We’re square, Natty!”
I jogged to catch up with Alec’s long stride.
“We have to go back to the Stone Riders and get them, my club and The Death Raiders all ready to ride over there; it’s the only way to ensure we can defeat his Destroyers. ”
I thought back to what Rachel had said and shook my head. “We go now before he has a chance to realize he’s been compromised.”
Alec paused, inspecting me with his lips turned down. “His army will?—”
“Not be a problem.” I grabbed my helmet and pulled it on. Alec’s hand was at my waist as he gently pulled me toward him.
“Natty, I know you’re worried and even nervous but we’re going to catch him. We will, I promise you, but we have to do it right.”
I pulled away from him so he wasn’t holding my hip, then flipped my visor up.
“We go now.”
He let out a sigh, clenching his teeth. I continued to stare at him while he crawled on the back, leaving his hand on the side of the seat, as if he were ready for me to sit between his thighs again.
“What about Silas?” he whispered in my ear after I straddled the bike and placed my hands over the gears. His hand continued to cup my hip while we sat there.
My chest tightened while guilt prodded around for entry. I didn’t want him behind me, touching me, and I didn’t want to do this without Silas…but I wanted my life back. I wanted my future back, so I would go with my husband’s brother and make this work.
“We’re going to handle this without him,” I said over my shoulder, then started the bike.
Alec’s arm came around me, engulfing my stomach and holding me tight to his chest. I inhaled a shaky breath and silently hoped Silas would forgive me for this and all my other failures later when we finally had a chance at starting over.
It took us forty-five minutes to get to the old mill and nearly a mile out, I shut off the engine and parked the bike out of sight, so we wouldn’t alert anyone to our approach. There was nothing but corn fields around for miles, which made me think back to not very long ago when Silas fucked me in one .
I missed him.
I needed him, but I’d already ruined him by omitting the biggest secret of my life; I had to let him process that.
I wore my property patch, in the form of my leather jacket that fit snugly over my shoulders, and concealed the handgun I had strapped to my ribs. There were many things I wasn’t very good at, but shooting and accuracy was actually something I excelled at…when I didn’t freeze.
“We need to get off the gravel path,” Alec murmured close to my ear, gently pulling my hip off to the side. My boots sank into soft soil but removed the loud echoing sound of gravel crunching. Carefully and quietly, we moved through the corn toward the large silo and lumber yard. There were no lights, no cars or bikes that I could see, and my stomach began to twist with worry over this being a trap. Fable always seemed to be one step ahead of us…and I was hoping that just once we’d be able to have the drop on him.
Alec took my hand in his, keeping me close behind him, and I knew it wasn’t the time to fight him.
The cicadas sang and a few distant frogs bellowed as the stars began to appear and then the silo was directly in front of us, looming to blot out any light.
We snuck through the grounds, which were eerily silent and deserted. The reality that Fable was really alone gave me some hope, especially as we snuck in through a side door to the main part of the mill and there wasn’t a single person in sight.
There was sawdust on the floor as we walked in and suddenly a large overhead light flicked on, making us both freeze.
Tied to a metal chair in the middle of the floor, with his head hanging lifelessly, was Silas. I immediately started running for him, but Alec pulled me back.
“Wait…this is a trap.”
I didn’t care. That was my fucking husband tied to a chair. Was he unconscious?
“Silas!”
Alec continued to pull me behind him.
Silas’s dark hair, soft as feathers, didn’t shift even the slightest. His head just hung there. Fable suddenly walked out from the side, where a wall had concealed him. His silver hair nearly matched Alec’s in texture, and his eyes were so similar to the man in front of me. But tonight, he held that similar ghost-like glare that I’d witnessed so many times in his oldest son’s gaze. That gaze landed on me, severely, as he made his way to the center of the room, clapping his hands in a slow, menacing way.
“Thank you, Natty, for being so zealous about locating me. This was exhilarating for me. It really was. Getting to watch how close you got, and when you thought you’d found me on your own. You don’t think I planted that information in those men, knowing you’d go out of your way to dig this little hole you’re in? And my sons, the puppy dogs obsessed with protecting you and ensuring you’re safe. I taught them better than this.”
My hands shook as I watched him walk to Silas and grab his hair, lifting his face. Blood poured from his nose and lip, but otherwise, he seemed to be okay.
“You’ve reduced them to this, Natty.”
I saw Silas open his eyes, and then it felt like two blue moons inspected every inch of me, then ever so slowly they moved to his brother and froze.
“It was you all those years that kept Silas from truly focusing on the vision I had. You that had come between the brothers, and why Alec refused to join the Death Raiders when I asked him to take Silas’ spot. You have single handedly ruined everything.” Fable yelled.
My stomach dropped like I’d fallen off a rollercoaster, barreling out of the car and plunging to my death.
Alec pushed me again, until I was completely behind him.
“Oh what Alec, you don’t want me to play with the toy you’re hoping to get to keep?”
Alec didn’t reply, which was probably best because Fable was just provoking us.
But I couldn’t stop my mouth from opening and questions spilling out. “What do you want?” I wasn’t even sure why I asked it. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me and to punish his sons.
He pointed at me, smiling as if I were a student who just asked the right question.
“You. I want my sons to watch as you breathe your last breath, cry your last tear and say your last words. Will you save them for Silas or Alec?”
Alec shifted the smallest bit on his feet, as if he were preparing to fight. I tried to focus on that instead of the fear braiding itself around my limbs, freezing me in place.
Silas started laughing and the eerie way it slid through my rib cage had me moving again. Even shifting back to avoid whatever was coming next. I’d never heard this sort of laugh come out of him.
Fable glared at his son, then swung his gaze back to me.
“You think this is funny, Silas? Is it hilarious to think that I’m about to murder your wife?”
Alec scowled over at his brother, the two of them seemed to speak without using words.
Fable still held onto Silas’s hair, bending at the waist to scream in his face.
Silas just continued to laugh, manically so, as if this was all so funny. But I knew…deep down, I knew this was the madness that his father had sewn into him, stitch by stitch all those years he forced Silas to do his dark bidding.
“You touch her and you die,” Alec warned, reaching for my hand but coming empty because I’d folded them across my chest.
Fable let Silas’s head go, and I saw the thick column of his throat, covered in black ink, glisten under the lights.
“Don’t start acting like you’re her savior, Alec. It wasn’t long ago you had her cuffed to you, sleeping in your bed. You coveted your brother’s wife, and now you assume if you step in and play hero, she’ll want you?”
Alec’s jaw flexed, but that’s when Silas stopped laughing and the air in the room seemed to shift. “Never assume your enemy’s weakness.”
Fable’s focus swung over right as Silas stood from the chair, as if no rope had bound him there to begin with. It forced Fable to stumble back a few steps, being caught off guard while Silas advanced with a murderous expression on his face.
“Never take your surroundings for granted,” Silas yelled, dipping down to grab something from the ground. It was a metal rod.
Fable’s eyes grew wide, and while he was so focused on his son, I slipped my hand into my jacket and pulled out my gun. Alec noticed and shook his head.
I ignored him and aimed at Fable.
Silas continued to move toward his father, now flipping the metal object around in his hand, as if he’d wielded it a thousand times before.
“Never show mercy.”
Fable tripped and was now on the ground. Silas was only a few feet from his father, and while I knew he needed to be the one to kill Fable, I couldn’t bring myself to lower the gun. And that’s when everything seemed to shatter, like a piece of glass under too much pressure. Silas lunged forward and shoved the rod into Fable’s chest, muttering a few incoherent things that Alec and I couldn’t hear.
I lowered my gun, realizing Fable was no longer a threat. I could feel Alec even relax next to me as Silas continued to mutter angrily over his father’s form.
It was over.
I released a shudder as I returned my gun to my side, seeing Silas stand. When he turned toward me, his shirt bloodied and his face strained, my gaze caught on the smallest movement on the ground. Fable’s hand came up, slow and measured as if time had slowed, just for this moment. My face must have betrayed my fear because Silas stopped mid-step.
My focus went to the gun in Fable’s hand, and how it was aimed directly at me.
Silas swung his gaze to Alec, and I wished I hadn’t seen him ever look like that. The fear and utter horror stamped into his features would stick with me forever…because I never thought I’d witness Silas succumbing to defeat.
We’d lost.
I was about to die.
The gun went off. The echo from the vast room was like an arrow to my ears. Loud, unforgiving, and life-altering.
We’d never come back from this.
Silas screamed. It was a horrible sound, so guttural like his heart was being pulled through his chest.
I closed my eyes and pictured our pond. I saw Silas when he was ten, fishing without a care in the world, and me, watching him while I sat on that brittle dock, soaking in the summer sun.
There was a fevered rush of breath against my mouth and a confession. “I love you.”
My eyes opened as tears rushed forward. Alec was staring down at me, holding me with his good hand…pain twisted his features as his eyes lowered to my lips.
Why was he in front of me?
My hand went to his jaw, confused, right as we started sinking to the ground together.
That’s when I felt the sticky blood begin to coat my chest, but it was coming from Alec’s.
Fable started to scream again, from behind Alec…and Silas must have returned to him to finalize his death.
“I’m so sorry, Artie. You have to forgive me…I messed up so bad. I just didn’t know how else to ge t your attention. It was like that first time we met.” Blood coated his lips as he began coughing and choking.
“Alec,” I whispered, so shocked and confused that I held his head in my lap, still trying to figure out what had happened. He’d spun in front of me.
He’d moved so that the bullet hit him instead of me.
Understanding finally dawned, creating panic.
“Alec!”
Silas was hammering something into Fable’s lifeless body. There was blood, so much blood… I couldn’t look.
“Artie, you have to forgive me.”
My hands were in Alec’s hair as he continued to rasp his broken-hearted confession, and I was shaking. My head, my hands, my entire body trembled as I slowly processed that Alec was about to die. Silas ran over, coming to an abrupt stop next to us, and dropped to his knees, helping me hold Alec up. I didn’t look to see if he was covered in blood. I focused on the gray thunderclouds that were starting to dim in Alec’s gaze.
“I saw you on that dock, hunting frogs, and I thought you were the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. Then I looked up and saw Silas glaring at me, and I knew right then and there you’d always be between us. You took my heart just as you took his, but you only gave yours to him. But I think at Christmas, you gave me some pieces too. I have to believe that I found my way in there, Artie, before I leave this earth. Please tell me I did.”
I stroked his hair, then traced his nose and eyebrow. “Alec, stop…just save your breath.”
He smiled as more blood spurted out.
Silas touched his brother’s chest affectionately. “Let him say it, Natty. Whatever’s in his heart, let him say it.”
“Because I’m about to die.” Alec had tears sliding down his face, and my heart cracked in half. How could I take another loss this close to the others? I wasn’t built for grief. I was sunshine, and the only darkness I could ever withstand was from Silas. This pain was too much.
Please don’t take him. Let him live.
Alec coughed, forcing more blood to come up.
“It was always his, Alec.”
He laughed, and then coughed. “Well then, at least I’ll take a chunk with me into the grave. I can see the way you’re trying to hold me here, while death is hovering above me. I’ll die, knowing I’ve claimed some part of that heart.”
I couldn’t speak, so I just continued to stroke his hair.
“Seeing you felt like finding a pair of wings. But there was only one of us who could fly, and I’m glad it’s Silas. Just promise me that you’ll love each other after this. Whatever happened, push it behind you and finally be together. Start a family.” He was wheezing now, and I was sobbing.
“She’d be the most beautiful mother, Silas. Have you pictured it…her pregnant, smiling down at her swollen belly. Her laughing and creating more sunshine.”
I looked up at my husband and saw he had tears sticking to his lashes, as he answered, “Yes, I’ve pictured it, Alec.”
“Good. That’s good. Artie, bury me in the same cemetery as my mom, okay? Promise me that I’ll be next to her…and maybe one day I’ll be near you and my brother.”
Silas picked up Alec’s good hand and held it tight. “I promise we’ll be together, Alec. I promise you.”
“Good because I was a shit brother to you, Silas, but you were the best big brother. I love you. I may have wanted to kill you just so I could have Artie, but I loved you. I’ll always love you. I need you to know that.”
Silas leaned down and pressed a kiss to Alec’s forehead.
“I know it, Alec. I love you too.”
Alec’s eyes suddenly froze, staring up at the ceiling. For some reason, I kept waiting for him to say something else and my mind couldn’t seem to accept that he was gone.
“I promise, Alec.” I bent down and kissed his forehead, sorrow bleeding from my raw voice. I was sobbing, tears and snot were all over my face, but Silas pulled me into his arms anyway.
“We need to get out of here, Caelum.”
I looked over his shoulder and saw Fable with a metal stake jutting from his brain, and a hole cut into his chest. There was so much blood .
Silas tipped my chin, so I wasn’t looking anymore.
“I have no way of knowing if anyone is going to show up. We have to go.”
“What about Alec?”
Silas began pulling me away. “I’ll call his club and have them come for him, but I’m not risking you out here.”
“Promise, Silas. Promise that we’ll do right by him.” I tugged on my husband’s hand until he cradled my jaw and ducked to look me in the eye. “I promise you.”
I went with him, leaving my bike behind, and for the first time in my life, wishing I’d hear that stupid nickname just one more time.
Artemis would be buried with Alec and that meant part of me would too.