Page 11

Eleven

that night

chapter-seperator

T hat part of the bayou smelled strongly of magnolia blossoms that time of year. Honey and I both preferred it to the more pungent areas where the gators shit and fishermen cast off fish guts and stuff like that. The sweet scent would forever remind me of death.

It was pretty with low-hanging weeping willows and lily pads in the water, like a scene from a painting of coastal life. The perfect backdrop for nightmares.

The argument that was ensuing was anything but…pretty.

“I’m not gonna let my daddy rot in prison for something my idiot fucking brother did,” Honey spat. “It’s always the fucking drugs, and now he’s got you using them too, Naomi! When does this insanity stop? Don’t try to fucking lie to me. I saw you last night.”

“It was the only time,” I whispered. My answer was meager and rather pathetic, far lacking any conviction. Like all the lies we tell ourselves before the world shows us its true face.

Luke was arrested, Jace was gone, he just left me, he never said a word, not when he’d be back, just nothing. I got to take care of some shit, he didn’t even kiss me goodbye for fuck’s sake! I was freaked out. The first abandonment of many to come.

Her slap shocked me. Honey wasn’t violent; she was sweet, if anything too sweet. The sting lingered like a promise.

As I touched my burning cheek, a tear slid down her face in empathy. “I’m sorry, Naomi,” she said softly. “I’m trying not to freak the fuck out over this godawful mess. But Jace isn’t good for you. I know you can’t see it yet. I couldn’t see it either, until my fiancé tried to beat me to death one night. You don’t belong with him; he’s going to take you down with him and I won’t let that happen, not to the only sister I’ve ever had.”

Was she trying to break my heart and make me hate her at the same time?

It was working, both in equal measure.

When I remained mute and reluctant to help her in her witch hunt of the love of my life—her own brother—she paced away wringing her hands. “Say some fucking thing,” she demanded.

“Some fucking thing,” I replied.

Her eyes scrutinized my face. “Don’t be a smart ass,” she warned. “If you know anything, if Jace told you anything about where the money he stole is, you need to tell me now. Right fucking now, Naomi!”

I shook my head slowly from left to right, never taking my eyes off her. My loyalty to the monster who owned my heart too deep to break.

She was so fucking gorgeous, even when pissed off and sweating in the bayou sultriness. Perfect until the end.

I would give anything to look like her, for people to pay me money to take my picture. Was she out in Hollywood living up that golden opportunity?

Hell fucking no, she was squandering it in this shithole, fucking an outlaw biker and trying to clean up messes that weren’t hers. Some angels try too hard to save the devils.

“No you don’t know anything or no you won’t tell me?” Her finely arched eyebrow quirked even higher on her pristine face.

“Both!” I snapped, turning to walk my way out of there, go home and wait for my boyfriend to come back. Like a good little girl waiting for her monster.

“You think he’s coming back for you?!” she shouted. “Don’t be stupid, bitch!” Her footsteps sounded a moment before she grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around.

“Where is your fucking loyalty, Honey?” I demanded.

That had her taking a step back. “I don’t think anyone can help my brother at this point, after what he’s done,” she said quietly. “But I can help my dad! Why don’t you want to do that? He’s been a good stepdad to you for years. Are you really that ungrateful?”

“I should bend over backwards to help him because he fucks my mother? He doesn’t want Jace and I together!” I stamped my foot, realizing how childish that maneuver was only too late. The petulant child who didn’t know she was playing with fire.

“I’m trying to save the only good man left in this fucking mess, and you’re defending the one who put him there!” she cried. “Grow up, Naomi. This is real life, not whatever dream scenario you have in your teenage brain. You have to do the right thing. Do it for me, please, come with me.”

“To talk to the police?” I shrieked loudly, causing a flurry of birds to take flight from a nearby magnolia tree, startling both of us. Nature itself recoiling from what was about to happen.

No way was I doing that, no fucking way.

I couldn’t do that to Jace. My monster, my love.

“Do you really think my brother wouldn’t backdoor you if given the chance?” she sneered. “I mean you’re too stupid and naive to realize he’s already done that! Did he tell you he was about to commit a major felony?”

Honey kept pacing, stalking away, then doubling back. She was creating a path in the grass and wildflowers that littered the earth beneath our feet. Like an angel trapped in a cage.

He never told me much and I never asked about club stuff. I figured if he wanted me to know something he would share it. Ignorance was my shield.

Was that wrong?

She smirked at my silence then her face sobered and became more sullen. “I’m going back to California,” she said. “You can come with me. Have a fresh start. They have some good colleges out there.”

“I’m not leaving Jace,” I declared. “I would never do that. I love him, he’s everything. Don’t you understand?” My obsession already complete, my fate sealed.

Why couldn’t anyone get it? Nobody understood how it felt to be us, to have everyone against us being together; it made us more determined to prove them wrong, that’s for damn sure. You can’t really be too young or stupid to be in love. Only fools think that way or those too jaded to experience true love for themselves.

“You’re not going to end up with him, Naomi,” she stated firmly. “He’ll get tired of you just like the others. There’s no happily ever after waiting for you. I’m offering you a chance at that. Anyway, say goodbye to him. I’m going to make sure he goes down for what he did and they let daddy out.”

The anger and panic that surged up inside me quickly took over my actions. In moments we were fighting on the ground. It was just a reflex, something Jace had taught me about how to defend myself. I never even thought about it; I certainly never wanted to stab her with the knife I carried in my pocket. Jace had given it to me; it was what they called a butterfly knife. I always thought it was pretty until that night. Until it tasted blood.

It was silver and shiny and quickly saturated in the closest thing I ever had to a sister’s blood. The bayou claiming another sacrifice.

I freaked out. “I’m sorry!” I screamed. “Oh my god, oh my god no!”

She grabbed my hand, stilling my attempt to pull it out. “Don’t, leave it,” she commanded, her voice steady even as her life leaked away.

I thought I heard a noise on the backroad we’d driven down to get to this particular piece of bayou. I should have known Honey was trying to butter me up for something by bringing me to our favorite spot. Should have known paradise always hides snakes.

“What are we going to do? I’m so sorry,” I sobbed. I couldn’t stop my sobs, the way my chest wanted to burst or cave in completely; I wasn’t sure which. I hurt her. The first blood I’d ever spilled.

I never wanted to hurt her, never.

Oh god, help us, please help Honey. I sent a silent prayer up to whoever was listening up there as I cried and panicked hysterically. But God had abandoned this place long ago. He’d abandoned me one night when I was a little girl and my mother brought home some bikers who took us from my home and never let us return. This is what was left, this was all that was left for that lost little girl.

But she was calmer than me, comforting me, as the noise grew louder. “You can drive me to the hospital if you calm down, Naomi,” she said softly.

She looked in my eyes and I burst into fresh hot tears again. “I’m so sorry. I love you so much. I’m so sorry.”

“I love you too. It’s going to be okay, just breathe sis,” she commanded gently, wiping at my tear-streaked face. Her touch gentle even as death approached.

I finally managed to fill my lungs with much-needed oxygen when I heard a car door.

I looked around. “Did you hear that?”

“Maybe they can help us?” she offered with half a smile. Her last act of innocence.

Why hadn’t I thought of that?

I sprinted away from her body propped up next to her Jeep to beg whoever it was to drive us to the hospital in Baton Rouge. My desperation making me blind to the danger.

Who drives a plain unmarked van this deep into the damn bayou?

Fucking poachers hunting gators out of season?

That thought only lasted until I saw the masks they wore, one of them carrying a shotgun. The kind they wear in winter in places where it actually gets cold enough to need them. The faces of nightmares approaching through the mist.

I tripped over my own feet getting back to Honey who was trying to stand up. She took one look at my face and asked, “They don’t plan on helping us, do they?”

She could read the fear on my face that fast. “I don’t think so,” I whispered.

“Help me up, Naomi. Now,” she begged. Her blood painting my hands as I tried.

She hunched over awkwardly with the silver knife handle still protruding from her abdomen, moving closer to the passenger side door of her vehicle. We’d rode out here with the windows down and the music up. I no longer cared that she was lulling me into a false sense of security to drop her little bombshell on me.

I just wanted to get us the fuck out of here. But darkness had other plans.

But it was too late. The masked men cleared the trees, intent on us. Predators scenting blood in the water.

“Ouch, that looks like it hurts,” one of them chuckled.

“Ya think?” Honey retorted with her best ditzy blonde California voice as he stepped nearer. Playing the angel one last time.

Blood spilled from her wound and his eyes, which were the only aspects of his face we could see, widened with shock as she plunged the blade into his chest, all the way. Her final act of defiance.

The next moment she reached inside the open window and pulled her revolver out and shot him before he was done cursing in pain over being stabbed.

Bam!

Bam!

Two shots, masked assailant number one went down, but we didn’t get the opportunity to climb inside her vehicle and haul ass out of there like we both desperately wanted to do. It was written as plainly on her lovely features as it was reflected in absolute horror on mine. The moment hope died.

“I’ll blow this bitch’s brains all over that perfect face,” the deeply southern voice intoned behind me as something blunt and metal tapped the back of my skull.

A slow hot trickle of urine released from my bladder down my legs to pepper my flip-flops. I was afraid to die. I could see something in her honey-colored eyes I never wanted to see again. The same eyes her brother had, now filled with a different kind of darkness.

It was almost like goodbye.

I wasn’t fucking ready!

Where was Jace? What was he doing at that moment the world was ending? While his monsters claimed new victims.

People worry and fear the end of the world, but they are thinking on a cosmic scale. The world ends several times a day; it’s a broken record. Knowing it’s your final few moments on this earth makes some people brave, but not me.

I was terrified. I didn’t want it to all be over yet. I didn’t want to see my sister being fearless in a way I never could. The angel preparing for her final flight.

“Don’t shoot her yet,” the other one called out as he moved closer cautiously. “This bitch is fine as fuck even bleeding. I want some of that. I bet she’s a screamer.”

As I was pushed to the ground, a weight on my back so intense I could scarcely breathe, two of them ganged up on Honey. The predators closing in for the kill.

“You can fuck my corpse, you piece of southern fried shit!” she spat. She got off two more shots before they pinned her to the ground. Fighting until the end.

She wounded them, but not enough to save either of us. I blocked out the sound of the shotgun, the visual of losing my sister, my friend. Of these evil fucking men turning someone supremely beautiful into something hideously fragmented to the point I couldn’t recognize her anymore. The moment an angel became meat.

Nothing else mattered after that shotgun blast destroyed Honey. It destroyed me too; it was the first step and it was a fucking doozy. The birth of a monster written in blood.

I screamed and sobbed for her for hours until they found some creatively painful methods to silence me. Each scream a prayer to a god who wasn’t listening.

They dragged her body out to the water for the gators and I couldn’t do a thing except burn in horror at the knowledge. I could hear them speaking as the van bounced up and down over the rough road. Tied up in the back with their bleeding out buddy. The beginning of my descent into hell.

“Don’t look at me like that, man,” one voice said. “The bitch was dead already. Did you see how much she was bleeding?”

“We don’t kill them right away,” a solemn voice answered the question that may have just been rhetorical. A promise of horrors yet to come.

The bayou swallowed angels and spat out demons. I was about to learn exactly how that transformation worked.