Chapter 10 #2
And I realize—standin' there in my jeans and leather jacket, smellin' like cigarettes and motorcycle exhaust—I realize… I make her happy.
It’s me that makes her smile.
Just my presence. Just bein' here. Just showin' up when she calls.
I light somethin' up in her that's been dimmin', and I don't know if that makes me her salvation or her damnation, but I know it's true.
"Legion." My name in her mouth sounds pretty today. "Thank you for coming."
I nod. Don't trust my voice.
She gestures to the backdrop—seamless black rollin' down from the ceiling, spotless and pure, waitin' to be filled with whatever image she's got in mind. "Stand there for me?"
I nod.
The time for candid shots is over. She's been done with the stolen moments captured through telephoto lenses from two hundred yards away for years now. She's over the secret documentation of a feral boy she's been stalkin' since he was too young to understand what her attention meant.
She wants to make some art.
She wants to turn me into art.
She wants to photograph me properly. Wants to create somethin' intentional instead of somethin' stolen. Wants my permission, my participation, my presence as her subject instead of her prey.
I get it. When I’m here. When I’m with her, it really does all make sense.
So I walk to the backdrop without question. Step onto the black. Turn to face her.
This is the only thing she wants from me. The only gift I can give her. My body as her subject. My presence as her art. The chance to create beauty out of the broken Kane boy nobody else sees.
Eleanor lifts her camera and begins directin' me.
"Turn this way." Her voice is soft. Professional. "Lift your chin just slightly. Good. Now look at the light—not at me, at the light."
I follow her instructions. Every word a command I obey without hesitation.
"Take off your jacket."
I shrug out of the leather. Let it fall.
"Your shirt."
I pull the black t-shirt over my head. Stand there bare-chested, tattoos on display—the biblical war inked across my back and arms, the tally marks near my collarbone that nobody asks about, all the evidence of violence and devotion permanently marked into my skin.
Eleanor's breath catches. "Beautiful," she whispers. Then, louder—"Turn around. Slowly."
I turn. Let her see the descent of angels on my shoulder blades, the chain-binder demon down my spine, all the mythology I've wrapped myself in like armor against a world that decided I was damned before I learned to walk.
The shutter clicks. Once. Twice. Over and over, the sound punctuatin' the silence between us like a heartbeat, like breath, like the rhythm of creation itself.
"Face me again."
I do.
"Your jeans. You can leave the rest, but—"
I unbuckle my belt. Unbutton. Unzip. Push denim and boxer-briefs down together and step out of everything, standin' completely naked on back paper under hot lights while Eleanor Ashby—mother of the girl I've been fuckin' in secret since we were teenagers—photographs every inch of me.
No shame. No hesitation. Just givin' her what she needs.
The shutter clicks. Methodical and professional. Eleanor workin' with the precision of someone who's done this ten-thousand times, who knows exactly what angle catches light best, what pose reveals truth instead of hidin' it.
She circles me. Captures me from every direction. Every line. Every scar. The tattoos. The muscle. The evidence of hard labor and harder livin'. Everything.
I stand any way she wants me. Patient. Present. Lettin' her create whatever she needs to create.
Minutes pass. Maybe an hour. Time stops meanin' anything under the lights, with the shutter clickin', with Eleanor hummin' softly to herself the way artists do when they're lost in their work.
Finally, she lowers the camera.
Satisfied. Complete. Whatever she came here to capture, she got it.
"Thank you," she says, and there's tears in her eyes now, though she's still smilin'. "You have no idea what this means to me."
I want to ask why. Want to understand what she sees when she looks at me through that lens. Want to know if she's photographin' Legion Kane or the ghost of my father.
But I don't ask. Just nod. Start pullin' my clothes back on while Eleanor packs up her camera, saves the film, makes notes in a leather-bound journal about exposure settings, and lighting ratios, and whatever technical details matter to her.
And standin' here now in her underground-bunker archive, surrounded by the aftermath of her life's work, I actually do laugh. Because I just realized somethin'.
If Eleanor had been alive when I went to prison, my whole world would've fallen apart.
Because I would've never went to prison if Eleanor was here to stop it.
She would've moved heaven and earth to get me off, even if I begged her not to. Would've hired lawyers, called in favors, leveraged every connection the Ashby name carried. Would've made it impossible for me to give up three years of my life to a man who was gonna betray me anyway.
My sacrifice only worked because she was already gone.
That's the only reason I'm here, soaked in dirt that smells like blood.
Because my angel, it turns out, wasn't Savannah Ashby.
It was Eleanor.
Savannah moves to an antique safe built into the wall. Early 1900s steel, fireproof, surrounded by cinderblocks like it's holdin' nuclear codes instead of photographs.
She knows the combination by heart. Spins the dial, memory guidin' her fingers through the sequence.
The safe door swings open with a heavy metallic groan.
And there it is.
Red leather. Hand-bound. Thirteen by thirteen inches. Five hundred and twelve pages of my life rendered into art by a woman who saw me when nobody else did.
Savannah lifts it out with both hands. Reverent. Careful. Like she's carryin' something sacred that might shatter if she breathes wrong.
She turns and extends it toward me.
I take it.
The weight surprises me—heavier than I remember, thick with paper, and memories, and Eleanor's relentless documentation of a boy who wasn't supposed to matter.
I carry the book to a velvet couch against the far wall and sink down into cushions. Savannah settles beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch.
I open the Book of Legion.
First page: me at maybe two years old. Dust-streaked skin, messy blond hair catchin' sunlight. I'm holdin' a Matchbox car, blue eyes wide and bright, smilin' at somethin' off-camera.
Turn the page and find more of the same. There are no skips in time in this book. Every day, it feels like she was there, takin' my picture.
I grow up before our eyes.
Me at four or five, standin' at the edge of a school playground. Alone. Watchin' other kids play. The composition's perfect—Eleanor caught the isolation, the loneliness, the way even then I stood outside lookin' in.
Me at seven, climbin' a fence. Scraped knees. Torn shirt. But the light—God, the way she captured the light turnin' my hair almost white, makin' me look like somethin' celestial instead of just another throwaway kid nobody wanted.
I'm smilin' now. Can't help it.
Page after page, Eleanor documented moments I forgot existed. Me runnin' through fields. Ridin' that dirt bike I bought at fifteen. Standin' by my motorcycle at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen—always alone, always watchin', always waitin' for somethin' I couldn't name.
Then the pictures shift.
Me and Savannah together.
Fourteen and twelve, sittin' at the silo entrance. Just talkin'. Eleanor must've been hidin' in the trees with a telephoto lens, because we never saw her, never knew we were bein' captured.
Fifteen and thirteen. My arm around Savannah's shoulders. Both of us laughin' at somethin'.
Sixteen and fourteen. The kiss. Our first real kiss, the one Eleanor showed me years later when she came to the garage. But here it's different—not just one shot but an entire sequence. Before. During. After. The way we looked at each other. The way the world disappeared.
Tears start fallin'.
Not sobbin'. Not breakin'. Just water spillin' from my eyes like my body needs to release somethin' it's been holdin' in for twenty-five years.
I turn to Savannah.
She's cryin' too. Tears so big they fall down her face in streams, catchin' light from the overhead fixture, turnin' her into somethin' otherworldly.
"She loved me," I say, and my voice cracks on the words. "Eleanor loved me."
Savannah nods. Can't speak.
"My mother never took a single picture of me.
" This truth is somethin' I never allowed myself to acknowledge.
That my mother never loved me. Not the way a mother should.
"Not one, Savannah. Not one damn picture.
All she wanted was to forget who I came from.
Forget what Matthias left behind when he disappeared. "
I turn another page. Another memory Eleanor preserved.
"But Eleanor was there. Preserving every moment. Like I was worth rememberin'. Like I mattered."
The pages progress. Me at nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. The tattoos spreadin' across my skin like armor, like prophecy, like the visual representation of everything I was becomin'.
Then the studio portraits begin.
Professional shots. Composed. Intentional.
Me shirtless. Back turned. Angels descendin' across my shoulder blades.
Me facin' forward. Chest bare. The war inked into my flesh on full display.
Then me completely naked. Every angle, but instead of being exposed, I am covered in just the right amount of shadow.
Art made from flesh, and ink, and light.
I blow out a breath and tap the picture. "All these were at her studio in Glendive."
Savannah sniffles. "I didn't even know she had that studio until after she died. It was in the will. I…" She stops to cry for a moment. "I never even went to look at it. I just… had it sold."