Damnable Grace
Page 64

My cell vibrated in my pocket; I had service now I was away from the lodge.
Tanner.
“Yeah?”
“Finally. Wanted to let you know that Meister’s men know it was us. Confirmed by hacking into their email system. They ain’t done shit yet, but wanted to keep you in the loop. Styx and Ky have it under control, but wanted you aware for when you decide to come back. You need to watch the roads.”
I blew out a breath, feeling the Jameson numbing the dark thoughts in my head. “’Kay,” I said. “Tanner?”
“Mm?”
“You good at tracking folk? Finding missing people and all that shit?”
“Kinda. Why?”
“Need you to find some young bitch from the cult. Would be fourteen now, called Sapphira. No last name. Same shit as Mae and Phebe.” Phebe thought her kid was safe in another country. But I knew fuckers like Judah, and that cunt never did anything right. I was doubting she was anywhere he said she was. I had to check.
“She’ll be dead, won’t she?” he hedged. “If she was from the cult?”
“She got sent away to some elderly home or some shit. Abroad maybe? Where Prophet Asswipe sent his oldies to die away from the commune. At least that’s what he said. Ain’t sure it’s true.”
“Right,” Tanner said. “Leave it to me. I’ll do some digging.”
“Thanks, brother.” I hung up my cell and tipped my head back against the headrest. I inhaled deep, then took another slug of my whiskey. I thought back to Phebe’s expression as I shouted in her face, her fucking lost eyes and tears as I stormed outta the door, pissed at her bringing all my shit to my door.
“Fuck!” I turned the engine on. By the time I’d arrived at the cabin, I was completely buzzed and my head felt a fuck-ton lighter. And best of all, those fucking thoughts had faded to the background. White noise in my head rather than fucking thrash-metal drums.
Taking hold of the bags of food we didn’t even need, I pounded through the door and completely froze in my tracks. Phebe sat on the floor next to the locked cupboard. Scratch that. The cupboard that was now open, its contents splayed around her.
She didn’t even jump when she saw me standing there, glaring. She slowly held up the one picture I hadn’t laid my eyes on in years. The one that used to have pride of place in this lodge, a copy of the one that sat in Tina and Devin’s home, right above the fireplace.
“This is you as a young man.” Phebe turned the picture so I would have no choice but to look at it. Seeing each one of the smiling faces was a multiple blow to the gut. When Phebe pointed to the central person, suited in Marine blues, with shaven hair and a huge fucking smile, I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“AK, this is you, is it not?”
“I told you not to fucking go in that cupboard,” I said darkly. My hands holding the bags of food shook. Shook as red-hot anger ripped through me. The Jameson burned to fucking vapor in my veins, yet I couldn’t take my eyes from that motherfucking picture.
“The boots,” Phebe said, ignoring the fact I was standing there seething, breaking. She ran her finger over my boots on the picture, then those of the person beside me. The one I could not look at the most. “The other pair of boots too.” When her breath hitched and her lips spread into a sad smile, her finger tracing across Zane’s face, his cute fucking smiling face, I lost it.
I launched the bags in my hand across the room and heard them smash against the wall. The contents spilled and scattered over the floor. My hands curled into fists as I fought to contain the red-hot rage that coursed through my veins.
Phebe, for once reading the danger in front of her accurately, jumped to her feet and backed her way to her bedroom door. Her sun-kissed skin paled as I glared at her. “I am sorry,” she said, struggling to find the knob. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she slipped through the door, like she knew the pain those fucking pictures caused within me. “I am so sorry, AK,” she said from behind the locked door.
My feet were rooted to the ground as I saw the pile of frames and albums that had not seen the daylight in years. The Jameson was on the far side of the kitchen, unbroken and intact, the remaining contents ready for me to take. I took the bottle and threw the cap to the side. I downed the whiskey like it was water. Pacing the floor, I tried to think of something else, to stop the thoughts that came with seeing those faces again.
The faces that had meant the most to me in my life. The people that were my everything . . . my home.
Not realizing I had stumbled—the effects of the liquor—my boot crunched on something glass. I stilled and looked down. The picture that Phebe had been holding was cracked, the frame snapped under my foot. Panicking at seeing it ruined, I stepped back and automatically lifted it off the floor. My eyes fell to the picture and a pained sound ripped from my throat.
My hand was shaking again, but now it wasn’t in anger.
I backed up and backed up until my back hit the wall. My feet gave out as I stared at the picture, stared at us all smiling, happy, Zane in my arms. I blinked as my vision became cloudy, then tear after tear splashed onto the broken frame.
Shouts of “Oorah!” echoed in my head. The sun, sand and blood. Letting the sobs from my throat tear free, I clutched the picture to my chest. When I pulled it back, my eyes fell to the boots. Those fucking boots. Standard, military issue boots.
His boots.
My boots.
Side by side like we’d always planned.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to go back there. But I couldn’t help it. I had pushed it aside for too long, and that shit wouldn’t stay back . . .
The F-15Es came in, blowing up buildings and targeting the insurgents. Bones and I lay low, waiting for the signal to take out any of the enemy left over. Two. There were two, and I sent bullets straight into their heads without thought.
Devin.
I needed to get to Devin.
Running from my position, I sprinted across to the building where I had last seen Devin. Bodies, both Marines and insurgents, were scattered on the ground. “Devin!” I called, turning body after body over, searching from my brother. A hand landed on my shoulder, trying to get me to stop.
Bones.
I pushed him back and commenced my search.
“He isn’t here,” I said when all of the territory had been combed twice. I whipped my head around, the dry air sticking to my skin. “He isn’t fucking here!” My heart raced as I kept searching. Where was he? Where was my fucking brother?