The Risen: Courage (23 page)

“That’s nice. Rhett here was just asking about Aimes.” I stand letting her see the token I am wearing. “We were all just having a nice little chat about sinners, shooters and hangings.”

To be as manipulative as Selma is, you have to be smart. The colors almost change in her eyes as she figures out what has happened. Her sugary smile never slips.

“I told you,” I continue to nail the coffin on her hopes. “I always take back what is mine. Once, twice and now three times, just as Travis said.” I have given Rhett his chance to come home wordlessly. He can simply just step back letting the line be decided upon, but he stands frozen with his thoughts or his doubts. Both might get him killed.

We wait in complete silence for Rhett to make his decision. His hand trembles, flashing my mind back to the other times he let this little slip of emotion show. I can say all the words in the whole English language but they would never reach him. Selma’s poison has rotted away too much of him and my words do not have a strong enough antidote to heal his pain. This fight is for someone else to win.

“Go to him,” I whisper to Aimes. “If you want him, prove it to him.”

Aimes looks at me with the doubts clearly expressed on her face. Her feet begin to slowly slide forward. The weight of her fears are making them heavy to lift, but slowly she gains speed as she defeats her demons that whisper to her of failure.

She slides up to Rhett, entwining the tall man with her arms and smiles. He straightens with the heat of her body looking to her with blue eyes fighting to keep their thoughts hidden. Rhett is hearing his own demons and they are shredding him as his belief in himself is being destroyed by the evil of Selma in front of him.

Aimes gives him her best pixie smile. The warmth of it is contagious as it crawls up his body and onto his own face. “Throw the trash out, Rhett-stein,” she says.

Rhett trails her small face with his fingertips, spreading his smile to the furthest corners of his lips. He tucks the smile away as he slips from the warmth of Aimes to take the arm of Selma. The two of them exit the room, but I have a feeling only one will be reentering. The most perfect couples aren’t always built around love, but those whose demons understand the other’s the best.

“How did you know?” Aimes asks me as I come to stand beside her.

“Sometimes,” I whisper to her. “they just need to be reminded where home is.”

I can hear J.D.’s dark chuckle but it doesn’t scare me. J.D. was what he was, but without him, I would not be who I am. Like conjoined twins, we are responsible for each other the same way he has molded every man in this room in some way. They all have his strengths, his weaknesses, and his fears, but mostly they all just need to be reminded who to fight for just as he did. If I had learned that lesson sooner, could I have saved us all from him?

“Now what?” Lawless asks, not as moved as I am by what just happened.

“No clue. We let him change the sheets on his bed, I guess. I’m going to go check on Simon.” I tell the room with sincere worries over Simon’s mental state outweighing their needs.

“Tell Dolph hello for me,” Lawless says, still wearing the scars from earlier.

My annoyance with him bubbles up to feed my anger. “Don’t worry Larance, it’s hard to purchase white roses these days.” I let the feel of my words rest in his mouth and he frowns at me. I let it twist that smile of his into a deeper taste of anger. I hope the taste gets stuck in his throat. I hope the acidic bile gags him. I hope it gags him like the way the scent of roses gags me to this day.

“You sure you want to go out wearing that?” Chapel calls from the back of the room where he has stood guard. I can hear how anxious he is over Aimes and I away from his side.

I don’t look back to answer him. My answer is the slamming of the door leaving it all behind me. The subtle thing is completely over rated but the shrapnel is still just as sharp.

CHAPTER
28

A
imes and I travel the corrupted memory lane of the third floor. Flimsy ghosts float around us with their memories haunting us. Every corner, every tile, holds a corner of our mind we have fought to forget. It’s easy to see how the people are so twisted against us when they are stuck in this loop of remembrance. To them, it happened just yesterday and not over a month ago because they still live in the middle of it like a memorial.

Simon’s “apartment” isn’t hard to find. People cross its open door with bowed heads and quicker steps than normal when they pass. Knocking, I cross through the threshold so many others fear. It’s kind of my thing. Bravely going where no smart person would go before. I’m like bad sci-fi without the T&A to promote it.

I can still smell Shelia. Her perfume clings to the plaster haunting the room in it’s own way. It’s so real that I expect to see her come from behind the false wall someone put up to section off the classroom into a living room. She doesn’t, but Dolph does.

“Dun dun duunn.” Aimes sings the classic song for trouble in my ear with his arrival.

He doesn’t offer a greeting, a question, or an accusation as we stare at each other. Leave it to our resident smartass to break the deadlocked conversation.

“I heard you two made out,” she says tilting her head with mock curiosity.

“I heard we had sex,” Dolph replies with his eyes a shade so like my own bearing down on me.

“Nah, you’re to cranky for the sex rumor,” Aimes says and I could hit her – with a bus.

“I’ve heard Simon isn’t doing well.” I stop the train before it goes any further off track. As it is, there is sharp turn ahead and there is no telling how well the wheels will hold.

“A lot of people talking about things they shouldn’t,” Dolph answers, still blocking the manmade entrance.

I kick the door closed with my foot letting force slowly seal it. “You done?” I ask him with just the three of us now closed inside the room. I’ve had about all I can handle with male drama. Their egos are softer than fresh baked bread and are almost as much fun to tear apart.

Dolph relaxes some once the door is closed. While our group has been managing our own fall out it seems there has been one up here as well. “Just tired,” he says trying to excuse his behavior towards us. “I’m tired of it all.”

“Choir, man,” Aimes relaxes in one of the chairs arranged near us, “and the refrain is getting really old.”

“How bad is it?” I follow Aimes’ lead and take the chair next to me.

Dropping his guard, Dolph joins us and I see how weary he is. “Travis has them all riled up about the “end of days” and only those who are “devoted” will survive to see the world restored. Some are completely lost in his mess while some are over it.” He leans into the little sitting area lowering his voice as he shares his fears. “I’m not a leader. I never wanted to be. Richard and I, we came from another group before we found this place. I’ve seen what happens when no one knows who to trust. Once everyone starts turning on each other, there is no stopping it.”

“…and that is exactly their goal.” Aimes shares the conclusion we have reached upstairs.

She fills the gaps with what we have heard exhausting every avenue before Dolph finally caves. It doesn’t matter who we are, we all try to desperately believe the best of people. We hope to see in others what we can’t find in ourselves and we are always so bitterly disappointed when they show they are just as faltered as we are ourselves.

“I haven’t told Simon any of it. He is barely even aware anymore. He lives in the past, constantly recalling things they did as a family or things we did as friends. Travis uses it as further proof of how dangerous times are now and how only the strong will survive.” Dolph lets his head hang low. This is not the man who met us at the gate with sharp words and watchful eyes. I don’t know who any of us are anymore.

“How do we snap him out of it?” Aimes is twirling a strand of her white-blonde hair with her thoughts. It’s never a good sign.

“You mean to snap him out of losing his wife, daughter and a good friend back-to-back?” Dolph asks putting the irritation back into his voice.

“Exactly!” She smiles at him. Aimes is going to need more than just a little snip to back down. She’s slowly crawling her way back to her inner-self and her attitude is blooming again.

“We have to get him out of this room. He’s surrounded himself with what he has lost and forgotten what he still has.” I suggest remembering how hard it was for me to walk down the hallway. I can’t even begin to understand the pain he must be feeling with it constantly pressed to his mind.

“Where?” Dolph asks thinking about what I have said. We both know where the only place is for them both to escape and it just might be a different ring of hell.

“There is only one place in here where Travis isn’t brave enough to visit and has no memories for Simon?” Aimes is asking if she’s thinking of the same place as I am without having to actually say it. She is. “Do you really think that is a good idea?”

I arch my eyebrows with the question. “Why not?” I ask. I know why not, I just don’t care about the tiptoeing around egos and property anymore. Another boxing match might do them all some good. We are running out of bikes to drop or to find.

“I agree with her. Do you really think that would be wise?” There is something hopeful in Dolph’s eyes when he asks me his question, something that stirs my heart just a little too well.

“You scared?” I ask him. Whenever you want a man to agree with you, doubt his manhood. It works like a charm and I wear it like a favorite bracelet.

“No.” It’s one word but his body is filling in the rest of the sentence. He might not be scared, but he isn’t happy either. He walks with a new resolve as he leaves the chair. “I’ll meet you down there later.” He doesn’t ask for help and we don’t insult him by offering it. I’ve done enough damage. At least I have until the real fun begins.

“What have you done now?” Aimes asks me as we leave the room.

“If we are going to stop hiding then we have to start fighting.”

“You really think Dolph and Simon are going to take up the banner of hell-no-we-won’t-go?”

“You really think they have a choice?” I leave her silent as she thinks about my question.

None of us have any choices left to us. If this is truly our home, then we are going to have to fight for it or we might as well run now and watch it burn as we abandon it. I don’t run well and I’m not just talking physically.

Fighting I have learned to do very well. It’s not a matter of who is right or who is wrong when the truth can be blurred with a simple tilt of the candle. Truth is a personal virtue. It’s something of importance only when laying in the dark with your mind as your only companion. I’m not scared of the dark anymore. I’m not impressed with people’s truths either. I just want to survive. Even if it means letting go of the virtues I once fought to keep.

I know the reindeer games I am going to have to play to bring us all together. I know the road I will have to travel. I also know the person I will have to become. I’m not proud of any of it. I only pray I don’t succumb to the darkness as J.D. did. I pray that when everything has settled, I can still call my soul my own. If I can’t, I at least pray it goes somewhere where I can find it again when this is all over. Now I lay me down to sleep. Should I die before I wake, I pray that someone’s life it doesn’t take.

CHAPTER
29

D
inner was blissfully uneventful. Aimes sulked without Rhett making a villain-defying return. I had a feeling he wasn’t ready to let the ship named Selma sink. Knowing Rhett, he’s going to go down like the Titanic, iceberg and all. Travis sat with his new “God Squad” as Aimes dubbed them watching us and of course the men had fun with that. I wasn’t even aware they knew so many versions of “Kumbaya”, and when they did run out, Lawless was more than happy to apply his gift of wit to a few lines. I’m pretty sure the Lord never did such things with strippers as Lawless hinted with his new renditions.

The after dinner show, now that was a bit more climatic. Dolph and Simon were waiting for our return in our assembled loft area. I felt the mood shift like a sudden burst of static in the air. It set the hair on my neck on edge and my stomach fluttered before I could swallow against it. With one look from Law’s golden-hazel eyes, I knew the thoughts circling him. I saw his tongue slide across his teeth under his clamped lips. I heard the sudden inhale. This is act one of the play I have been dreading since I casted the actors earlier today. Lights. Camera. Execution.

“Not running,” Law whispers to me even as he closes down around the edges. He is not going to run, but he’s not going to be cooperative, either.

“Wasn’t my idea,” Dolph tells him as Law takes one of the seats near him.

Law lounges, putting on a show of contentment. He sits with complete disregard for Dolph and I suppose it’s one of the more polite roads he could have taken, even if all of it is obviously just for show.

“Do we get the tape now, or later?” Aimes asks with a mockery of a whisper. She is teasing them about their last attempt at being friends and how long it had lasted.

“Wasn’t my idea, either,” Dolph says again. He wears a half little smile this time as he looks to Lawless. Law returns the smile with a bit more menace.

“It was mine.” Simon’s voice is a husk of what I remember. All of his confidence has eroded, reducing him to a sliver of the man he once was. “It seemed like something that would have helped at the time. I didn’t think your group would be so willing. A few of my ribs still hurt.” Simon smiles wistfully with the memory.

It’s as Dolph had mentioned, just more tragic now that I see it before me. This was a man who could have out charmed Law if he had wanted to. He stood up to J.D. with grace where so many before him had shrunk with fear. He had navigated the waters of leader, husband, father, friend and foe only to end up on a distant, deserted shore.

“Shelia had a much better bedside manner than Paula did over that.” Chapel is hoisting the white flag between the two sets of men. It’s just what he does.

Simon stares at the gold cross on the chain around Chapel’s neck. It might as well be flashing a private message to him with how he watches it glow from the many-lighted candles. “Shelia liked to save the verbal beatings until we were alone. Once that door shut, all deals were off.” His voice is monotone. It never climbs in pitch or lowers to accent any of his thoughts. He just stares as his mouth moves reciting the memories. “How is Paula?” he asks Chapel as if the woman has been gone for some time and not just downstairs preparing for breakfast tomorrow.

“We don’t talk much anymore.” Chapel lets us glimpse his not-so-secret secret.

“No one really does.” Simon’s words drift off like a toddler fighting sleep. He wants to stay in the now, but his mind is fighting to let go.

Aimes walks to Simon, kneeling in front of the man who stares right past her as if she were a ghost and not the family he is longing for. “I miss Shelia, too,” she tells him and his eyes do move to her.

A single tear travels along his face. It falls along the contours of his dark skin highlighting the path it takes. He doesn’t say a word as he stares into Aimes’ eyes. His face expresses more than any string of vowels he could form.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers to him pulling him deeper into his unspeakable dictionary.

“We all are,” I tell him as he stares at Aimes. “They didn’t deserve what happened to them.”

“You don’t know how this feels.” Simon whispers his first string of words with emotion. “You don’t have the right to talk about them. They would still be alive if it wasn’t for you.” Simon sees us. Simon sees the whole room and he’s not happy with anyone in it. Dolph hangs his head with shame too.

“I might not have the right, but everyone here knows how it feels.” I keep my voice a steady line of volume. If I am to bring them together, to really break past this male ego of dominance, I am going to have to break more than just their pride. “Chapel lost his family. Aimes lost her parents. Lawless lost his dad. We’ve all lost someone, somehow since this started.”

Marxx retreats into his chair deflating his chest with whatever memory he has yet to share with us just as I have kept mine hidden behind locked doors. Those doors rattle now with excitement with the hopes of freedom. Pandora’s box held just a fraction of what I might unleash if their curiosity pushes me.

Lawless becomes unsettled as Dolph stares at him. It’s hard to remain tough with your scars exposed. It’s harder still when the scars are still fresh and red-rimmed sores.

“What’s your story?” Lawless asks when Dolph refuses to look away.

“Richard and I worked construction. It paid the bills and left time to do what we wanted if we didn’t want the job.” Dolph melts back into his chair. His southern drawl is soft as he recalls how this nightmare started for him. “We were doing this one job, a new office space or something, and this man just walked right onto the site. One of the guys went over to tell him he couldn’t be there and the guy just bit his face. He tore the guy’s nose clean off. After that, they were everywhere. People were being attacked all around us. We got in Richard’s truck and we never looked back. We were on our own for a bit but hooked up with this other group. It was good for a bit until it wasn’t. One night the guy who was supposed to be on watch just upped and left. When they came, everyone who could run did, including Richard and I. I kept hoping we’d come across some of them. Haven’t seen any. I keep thinking, what if we were the only ones who made it out?”

“No family? Wife?” Aimes gently asks.

Dolph shakes his head with his lip a thin line of tension. “Wasn’t that guy,” he says.

Simon looks to me with a flicker of life behind his eyes. He asks me, “What did J.D. lose?”

I know what he is after. I know what he is asking with a hidden innuendo of an idea. Before I can answer, Lawless does.

“His life,” Lawless answers with a voice that dips low with a warning.

The tension in the room escalates with the abundant dare. As Dolph becomes protective of Simon, Marxx mirrors that attitude over Law. Trust was a long, hidden hope, but a truce I thought was attainable. Watching how easy they can set the other off, I’m not sure anymore. The common thread I had hoped to pluck to unravel their hate is holding strong in its weaving and of course Fate with all of her antics sends Rhett into the room at this moment.

The metal doors scream as they open with so little being said around us. A slow smirk-like laugh spreads across Rhett’s lips as he becomes the center of attention. “I took care of the trash. Now I’m going to bed. Fill me in on this later?” Wearing that same smirk, he simply walks past the showdown, but when he pauses in front of me I should have known he wouldn’t let this chance slip past him. “So,” Rhett leans into me with a sly smile, “whose bed are you in tonight?”

“Whose bed did you just leave?” My voice escapes like a whip.

“Damn, I’ve missed you,” Rhett says, laughing as he continues on his way down the hall. It echoes along the walls making him sound louder than he really is.

Dolph stands, helping Simon with his still lost mental state. “Going to call it too.” He wants to escapes from whatever Rhett’s words have left. He understands how much he needs this truce as well as I do. Sitting here would only layer more damage to that hope, risking its complete destruction. It’s not hard to throw the first punch. It’s hard to walk away from it when it’s thrown. Watching Dolph walk away now, I have no doubts which role he has silently played in his life.

“Why are they here?” Marxx asks the question Lawless is too afraid to. Law’s face might be blank but his eyes are burning.

“We owe Simon.” I’m exhausted and hurting. I’m too much of too many things to go into the depths of the plan I hope will unfold itself for me. Because I said so, would be such a wonderful thing to be able to say right now.

“He totally needed to get out of that area. It’s like a wake up there,” Aimes says from the chair the man we are speaking about just left.

Marxx nods, understanding but I can see his thoughts still forming. He asks, “You think we can give the man some kind of closure? He blames us.”

I laugh, not out of joy but from the irony. “How do you give someone closure? If we knew how to offer that, a few of us right here wouldn’t be such the mess that we are.”

“We?” Law asks. I’m not sure if he is asking if I meant him or me. I meant us both and I don’t mind letting him know.

“Yeah, we,” I say again closing my eyes as the exhaustion covers me like a heavy blanket.

“Do I need to remind you about the little list of theirs?” Lawless leans in, almost whispering his concerns as if Dolph or Simon may be listening. “You really think you can trust them?”

“Do I need to remind you about our little O.K. Coral act? If anyone should worry about who to trust it’s not us.” I close my eyes again. “I think you guys have proved time and time again how well you can handle yourselves.”

“So we are the monsters now?” Lawless grows defensive with my lack of empathy.

I look to Marxx and watch him as I quote him. “No Law, we’re not the only monsters. We’re just more honest about being the monsters. We are going to need that honesty if we want to survive this.”

“Survive what?” Aimes has one eyebrow cocked in her normal fashion.

“Everything. If we want to survive everything,” Chapel answers for me. Of all of us, it’s Chapel who has learned this truth the most. He started out the passive viewer of the club to now becoming one of the main voices of reason. If anyone has learned how to embrace the truth of what this world makes of people, it’s him.

“You’re up to something,” Marxx says half amused and half worried. I can’t blame him. I’m not known for stellar planning skills.

“Who, me?” I ask lacking the strength to open my eyes, but my lips still curl.

I hear him chuckle and Lawless sigh. They stand on two different sides of my adventures. Somehow I always end up dragging one with me and the other I always leave to cope with being left behind. I don’t plan it that way. It just happens. I did mention how wonderful I am at this?

“I noticed how you didn’t offer up your own story?” Marxx asks and he sounds miles away as I drift.

Sleep comes for me in hues of greys and silvers with the flickering of the candles. I haven’t reached the pure blacks of the abyss yet, but I crave it. “I noticed how you haven’t offered yours, either,” I tell him from my rocking boat of slumber.

“Nope. You can’t offer me closure anyway.” He uses my own words against me to keep his secrets. He’s right. I can’t. So I don’t try to argue with him.

“Just promise that you’ll clue us in on what you are plotting before you go running into any Risen? Your track record isn’t holding as strong as it once did,” Chapel asks and I hold up a three-finger salute mimicking another all boys’ club from the past.

A shadow blocks the dancing, darkened hues and I hear Lawless say, “Let’s go Sleeping Beauty.”

“I’ve upgraded from Snow White?”

“Yeah,” he says, “we are down a few dwarves.”

“Don’t worry, Lawless,” Aimes says with a retreating voice from somewhere behind me down the hall, “you’ll always be our Grumpy.”

“Ask me what your name is!” Lawless shouts over my head. His only answer is high-pitched female laughter.

I let Lawless help me from the chair that has grown rather comfortable with its plastic arch. I even let him help me down the same hallway everyone has retreated through. I think this is what is worrying him the most out of the whole day.

“How hurt are you?” he asks lowering me to the cot.

I smile, trying to cover the truth to shield some of his fears with how bad it really is. “I’m just tired,” I tell him even as I wince with my movement. Guile is not my strongest asset.

“Right,” he answers and I know how thin my attempt was.

I let him slide off my boots and roll the thick socks to fight against the winter’s strength from my feet. I don’t even argue as he nonchalantly removes the jeans or when he pulls the vest and shirt from me. I watch as he stares at the long gauze on my stomach with pain leaving me finally feeling vulnerable.

“I can put one of your shirts on…” I leave the offer hanging between us. Sleeping in his shirts has always been soothing to both of us. He enjoys seeing me in them and I enjoy the feel of them on me as they wrap me in his scent, allowing me to feel that much closer to him.

“No.” his voice is hoarse with the thoughts he is hearing. I can see the guilt boldly written on his face and I know exactly where his mind is taking him.