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Chapter 15

Calax

Iheard my first gunshot when I was seven.

My dad had decided I wasn’t “man enough” for his liking and sought to remedy that. At the time, I hadn’t understood what he had meant. I watched sports, catcalled girls, and even had my first sip of alcohol. What else was connotated behind that term?

He had roughly grabbed me from my bed, hand an iron vise, and dragged me towards the rusty pickup truck already idling in the driveway.

“Today,” he had said in an imperious voice I had learned to hate. “You will become a man.”

There was something in his eyes, a sort of male smugness, that made me bristle. We drove down many twists and turns, across sweeping fields, until we parked in front of an immense forest.

I remembered being frightened by how tall the trees were. They towered over me, the sunlight just barely penetrating the darkness created by their canopies.

My father placed a calloused hand on my shoulder. He hadn’t bothered to tell me where we were going, so I was still dressed in only a tank top and pajama pants. The morning air chilled my sensitive skin, and wet dew drenched the legs of my pajama bottoms. Still, I kept my chin set domineeringly high and trained my eyes straight ahead. I could be a man for my father.

I had to be.

With a loud smack of his bubblegum, he thrust something into my hands. I staggered under the unfamiliar weight, my hackles rising as I considered the long, brown object. I had never held one before, though I had seen Dad cleaning it out on the kitchen table occasionally.

The rest of that morning was a blur.

I vaguely recalled scrambling to keep pace with my father as he pushed branch after branch away from his face. Twigs snapped between my feet. No matter how hard I tried, my lumbering frame could not be as stealthy nor as quiet as my father’s.

I remembered the doe’s face seconds before he put a bullet through her head. So innocent. This was an animal unaware of the dangers plaguing the world. She merely stared at us, muscles tensed as if she was unsure whether or not she wanted to flee. I mentally begged her to.

Run, I wanted to say.

And then the gunshot…

I would never forget that sound. The way it reverberated through the forest, brushing against the keen needles of pine trees and into the empty burrows beneath my feet. The sound was more than just a loud boom - it was terrifying. It seemed to symbolize death. After all, what was the point of a gun if not to kill?

I thought all that as I watched Addie pause. Her hands went to her stomach, eyes widening in shock. Blood cascaded through her fingers, staining the white of the ratty old tee-shirt.

The moment that gun went off, my world stopped.

And then promptly ended.

“No,” I whispered, unable to tear my eyes away. She staggered, barely kept upright by Tamson’s arm.

Fallon let out a roar. A scream. A cry of anguish. Before I could even blink, the man with the gun was dead. I wouldn’t be able to tell you what killed him - a knife? An arrow? Another gun?

Tamson was running towards us, Addie held tightly in his arms. Blood. So much blood.

And when her eyes met mine, I once again thought of that deer. Doe eyes, I thought somewhat incoherently. They shone with an inner radiance and light that had always been able to soothe the darkest recesses of my mind. In her eyes, now, I saw something else, something akin to acceptance.

The truth hit me like a freight train. I would’ve preferred that - would’ve preferred anything besides this unbearable pain as my heart shattered into thousands of pieces. I knew my mind would soon follow.

She was dying.

The girl I loved, my reason for living, was dying. And from the shuddering breath escaping her blood stained lips and serene expression, I realized that she knew it as well. She knew it, and she accepted it. The fight had already drained from her body.

“Grab him!” Tamson was screaming. “Grab him!”

I didn’t understand what he was saying, what he meant. I had a singular focus, and that focus was on the girl still bleeding in his arms.

Asher, thank God, must’ve understood what Tamson was talking about, for he lunged for an unfamiliar male and roughly shoved him into the back of the van.