Chapter 57
Ibang on the apartment door and wait. I drove around Harbor for three hours before the vibrations started—mostly Riona and Boone. I turned my phone off after the third call and chucked it on the floor before figuring out where I needed to go.
“Major?” Landon opens the door, half-awake, and I glance down at my watch.
“It’s four in the afternoon. Why are you asleep?” I snap.
“It’s four in the morning, Black,” he says back with a scowl. I check my watch again—he’s right.
“Where the hell have you been?” I ask him, and he sighs. “What’s more important than Harvey dying?”
“Hey now,” Landon warns, “you’re in the hall screaming like a lunatic.”
“Right,” I walk inside as he steps back. I’ve never actually been inside his apartment, but it’s exactly how I picture it. It looks like mine before Rhea. Neat, simple, boring, and clean. I crave the mess she brings, and it stings like papercuts in vinegar. “Now answer my question.”
“I knew you could handle it,” is what he says to me.
“That’s a load of shit, Sarge.”
“Do you want water?” he asks me, and I nod, finding a spot to sit on the couch. He doesn’t have a TV, but there’s a wall of bookshelves crammed with more books than I've ever seen.
“You read?” I ask, confused and still very pissed off at him.
“I never used to, but it helps pass the time.” He hands me a glass, but I don’t drink it. I just hold onto it like it’s going to save my life. “Why are you here, Bright?” he asks.
“Because you’ve been avoiding us, and I want to know why,” I demand.
“Why are you actually here?” He tries again, and all I can do is fall silent. Anger twists around all my other emotions and makes it hard to decipher what’s real and what’s not.
“I need to talk.”
He stares at me like he’s been waiting for this moment for the last five years.
“Okay,” he says, “let me make a coffee.”
He takes his time, and soon enough, the apartment smells like I made a terrible decision. I shouldn’t have come here with this. I shouldn’t have bothered him. I can handle this on my own.
“Don’t even think about it,” he warns and sets the cup down on the table. “You're such a bolter,” he sighs and mumbles, “worse than a street cat.”
“I can figure it out on my own. I didn’t mean to bug you.” I stare at the cup on the table.
“You needed to, it’s different. Tell me what’s going on,” he encourages as he drinks his coffee. I explain what happened overseas, and talk of the trauma I brought home. How I can still hear them begging me to save them.
Twelve hours of Noah crying that I’d get him home to his baby.
I promised him that I would.
A lifetime of regretting that promise and reminding myself that I was the reason his son is growing up without a dad.
I tell him that sometimes I look at Daisy, and the guilt is so bad that I throw up everything in my stomach.
There are still days when I want to make the scales even because I don’t deserve to see Daisy grow up.
Then I tell him what happened after leaving the church—every single detail of the episode that followed. I avoid using her name because hearing it out loud makes my whole body shiver.
The look on her face when she walked away from me was worse than any nightmare I’ve ever experienced. And you let her go. Boone had come to check on me, and I knew she had gone to Kaia, which made everything worse. Once he left, I got out of bed and got in the truck.
“Alright,” Landon sets his mug down. “My turn.”
“What?” I say.
“That’s how group works, Brighton. You tell a story, you listen to a story. Then you find the points where your stories touch, and you use them to solve your problem. It’s why you’re still a tangled mess. You’ve never admitted you are.” Landon raises an eyebrow at me.
“Okay.”
“I came home from my thirteenth tour, discharged from service because I nearly blew myself up cleaning my own weapon. After the eighth tour, I was drunk more than I was sober and really good at hiding it. Having something like that happen is enough to scare you sober, but it also opens the doors for the sober nightmares.” Landon explains.
“They came on with a vengeance. I had been suppressing them for years, taking them out on people who didn’t deserve it a lot of the time.
Luckily, I was in a place where no one ever asked questions. ”
“Until you weren’t.” I finish his sentence.
“I was home for a week when the episodes started. I thought I wasn’t a man, Bright. Talking to people made my crimes okay, forgave me for my sins. But I didn’t want to be forgiven, I wanted to feel the punishment for those crimes.”
I’ve heard this story a hundred times. Told it to myself.
“Unfortunately, I was not the man I prided myself on. I was a coward, I was sick, and it created a ripple effect that I will never be able to undo.” Landon swallows tightly. “I need you to listen to the next part all the way before you interrupt.”
“Alright,” I say, digging my heels into the carpet.
“I was home alone with my oldest daughter and my son after convincing my wife that I would be able to handle it for an hour while she took our youngest to the doctor.” He inhales slowly.
“I wasn’t always the best father, and every tour made it harder to be one.
I got mean, Brighton. I'm ashamed to admit that, but I don’t omit it from my life because it’s the truth. ”
My brows furrow, and my palms are sweaty against my thighs.
“That day, my son was hitting pucks; he loves hockey.” Landon smiles to himself. “He’s gonna be huge one day, he’s talented.” The reminiscing makes me sick to my stomach as the wall of realization hits me.
I recognize those eyes.
Sure, more tired, less vibrant. But the same deep green and angry shape.
Please don’t.
“I was cleaning my guns in the backyard, and in hindsight I should have never even been allowed to own them…” he trails off.
“He was doing great, the sun was out, and he never misses the net even at that age. My daughter’s painting—maybe drawing, I don’t know—the details get fuzzy because I hear a gunshot.
Loud and clear. And I’m back there. Staring down the barrel of a gun.
Ten feet in front of me in the grass is a man with a gun.
Threatening everything. I move in quick, tactical steps and snuff out the threat.
But I’m not fast enough, and there’s a second gunman. ”
Landon pulls up his shirt to show me an ugly scar on the side of his stomach.
I can’t.
I want to get up from the couch so badly, I need to. I need out of here, away from him. Rhea’s devastated eyes flicker across my memory, and I grind my jaw together to keep from moving or saying anything.
“The pain knocked me from the episode, and she was standing there, her tiny hands shaking around the gun, and my son is unconscious beside me in the grass,” he says, and I shoot from the couch. “Sit down, Bright.”
“You knew,” I bark. “You knew that day at the bowling alley. It’s why you’ve been avoiding me. Avoiding the guys. You saw her.”
“I did. It was the first time in thirteen years I’d seen her, but I’d never forget that face.” He stands to match me. “I just don’t know if it’s the right time to—”
He raises both hands when I charge and slam him back against the bookshelf. It rattles under the blow, and a few books fall to the floor. “I should fucking kill you.” My voice is low and violent.
Her voice still shakes when she tells stories about you—like she can feel your hands on her, like she can still smell the gunpowder on her skin. I’m vibrating with unchecked rage. I don't know what to do with it.
Landon doesn’t even flinch. “You should.”
The omission is worse than him trying to talk his way out of it. It means every horrible thing he did to them, to her, is true.
“Does she know you’re still in Harbor?” I ask him next, and he shakes his head.
“Listen to me right now,” I say, and tighten my grip on his shoulder, pressing my forearm into his throat.
“I don’t know what the fucking point is in telling me that story.
What twisted game you're playing, but if you ever even contemplate the idea of ever going near Rhea, I will make sure it’s the last time you ever do. ”
“I’m not that man anymore, Bright,” Landon says. “You know me.”
“I don’t know you,” I snarl. “Were you going to use me to get to her?”
He doesn’t say anything, and I scoff.
“If I'm being honest, I don't know. But I had to make sure you were a better man than me,” he finally says.
“That’s the problem. All you’ve taught me tonight is that I’m no better than you. We’re a mirror. Rhea’s better off without either of us.” I spit.
“That’s not true.” Landon shakes his head and tries to get air, but I push harder. “You came here ready to talk after how long? And you did it for her.”
“Don’t you fucking play some moral high ground bullshit with me,” I bark.
“I might not deserve a second chance,” he says, and I shove him.
“You won’t get one,” I remind him.
“But you do,” he says. “Don’t let my daughter think she failed a second man. Protect her from this, from me.” He whispers the last part, and I realize how serious he is about it.
“This is a fucking joke. She didn't fail me, and she can protect herself. She's been doing it long before I barrelled into her life.” I snap. “She told me about you, she barely sleeps…”
“Are you going to tell her about this?”
“She has a hard enough time moving through the mess you made without having to look over her shoulder, so no.” I can barely look at him anymore. “I trusted you.”
“Trust that you’ll never become me.” He tries, but it just pisses me off even more.
“Stay away from her, Landon,” I let him go finally, backing away toward his front door. “And me.”
He nods, his jaw ticking shut tightly as I reach for the doorknob.
“Fuck.” My entire body wracks with tremors as I shut the door and storm back to my truck. I dig my phone out from where I threw it earlier and turn it on to dial a number I should’ve forgotten a long time ago. They answer after the first ring. “Hey, you wanna meet up for a drink?”
“Do you remember when Huxley tossed that grenade at Noah and he thought it was unpinned and wrote him up?” Jackson rolls back in his chair, drunk off about six too many shots and teasing everyone he can think of.
“Noah didn’t even look in his direction for a month,” I laugh, slamming back another shot. I lick the whiskey off my bottom lip and shake the burning aftertaste down.
Jack had been a troublemaker with a secondary squad on my last tour.
He was one of the only guys in the area who knew the boys that I had.
The only problem was that his only hobby was drinking.
I hadn’t touched an ounce of liquor since getting sober, but I couldn't erase the way Rhea looked from my mind.
I knew Jack would be down to get day-drunk with me if I called.
“Man, those were the days,” Jack recalls. “What have you been doing these days?”
“Boone and I own the Hollow in Harbor,” I tell him.
“No shit,” he slaps the table, “I’ll have to come by!”
“Please don’t ever come to my bar,” I start laughing again as Jack slides me another shot.
“I’m offended, Bri!” He fakes it and takes back the shot. “You got a girl?”
And just like that, she’s back.
I see her, standing there, staring at me with those sad brown eyes and disappointed frown, and I wonder what God I pissed off to have her so briefly and lose her so violently.
“Yeah,” I hear myself say, the whiskey lingers on my tongue. “You should see her. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Jack. Tall, covered in tattoos, with big brown eyes and a mouth on her. Fuck.” I swallow tightly. I miss her. “She’s an angel of death,” I say, and he laughs.
“You sound like you're in love,” he jokes. I raise my dizzy gaze to look at him, and I can hear the laughter growing louder, but I’m tripping over his blurted statement like he’s tied a wire around my ankles.
My head snaps to the song playing from the jukebox, and I start to lose it, laughing as Absolutely pours out of it and over the bar. Yeah fuck you too, I say to the ceiling, talking to anyone who will listen.
“Is your little sister still hot?” Jack interrupts my thoughts.
“Yup—and my hands still fit around your neck,” I remind him, and he shakes his head.
“She’s gotta have some pretty little friends you can introduce me to,” he pokes.
“I gotta be real sick in the head to let you near any of them, Jack. Stick with your cougars, they respond better to your bullshit.” I slap his face, and he rolls his eyes before he calls the waitress over.
He took me to some small shitty dive bar in Lorette, and I don’t care where we end up, as long as it’s far away from Harbor.
She leans over the table, and Jack’s hand teases the back of her skirt as she talks to him, but there are two guys at the bar watching angrily.
“Might wanna keep your hands to yourself,” I warn him, and he only pushes it up higher. The second problem, Jack loves to fight.
“There’s no fun in behaving,” he smirks at me as the two men slide from their stools.
I’m drunk enough that his enthusiasm hits.
“Fuck it,” I laugh as they charge us, spewing sentences of bullshit.
The girl rushes back from the table as my hand connects with the face of the first guy.
Jack doubles over, taking a shot to the stomach, and I kick my foot out, catching the bigger of the two in the knee.
We’re both too drunk to be fighting. Our movements are clumsy, and I take a hard, closed fist to the side of the face as they get the upper hand.
“Duck!” Jack slurs and smashes a beer bottle over the top of the guy's head as I charge the other.
I wrap him around the middle, slamming him hard against a nearby table, and he swings on me, clipping me in the ribs before I can tip him over to the ground.
We both end up rolling around on the floor until the front of the pub is lit up with red and blue lights.
We sit in the drunk tank for six hours before they let either of us make a phone call, and it’s a lot of pained groaning from Jack as he rolls to his feet to call his friend. I stare at the phone, knowing that Boone’s going to kill me, but I shrug, too drunk to care, mind quiet for once.
I feel unchained from the nightmares.
I dial the number to the Hollow.
“Boone speaking.” It sounds busy, and I swallow my pride.
“Can you come get me?” I slur.