“You’re a masterpiece,” I whisper. God can be very proud of this one. A Davidian beauty. David was flawlessly beautiful, perfectly handsome, and it’s so true of Max in every possible way.
“No, Lee, I believe that would be you,” he teases, pulling a kiss off my lips like he was stealing the moment.
I tug on his shirt before he helps evict it from his body. Max lifts my dress over my shoulders, and I hold my arms up as he slips it off.
I need Max to scrub these inescapable thoughts out of my mind. I need him to scour Mitch off my heart once and for all. Mitch who tried to keep us apart, and here we are, our stomachs fusing together at the touch.
“You’re mine, Max Shepherd,” it strings from me with a quiet laugh. “How did I get so lucky?”
“Maybe you didn’t get lucky.” He pushes in a heated kiss. “Maybe this is how it was meant to be all along.”
“Maybe it was.” I outline his lips with my tongue and try to forget the last few months, the last few years, and pretend it was that night at the party once again—just Max and me in some strange bedroom with no history of grief chasing us down like a sickle but I can’t. There’s no scrubbing this stain from my soul. You have to own the past or else it owns you.
I fall over him with an urgent string of kisses. His hand floats down to my stomach and warms the baby. I roll back on the pillow and hang onto his unbreakable gaze. His eyes glow translucent in this light, inhuman, like fractured glass. His hands track up, cupping my breasts, and I give an audible groan. Max slips his knee between mine and dips his hand between my heated thighs. I’m ready for Max. I’m ready for a future with Max and all it might bring. I’m not sure how we’re going to get there, but if I just keep breathing, if he does, I think we have a fighting chance.
Max offers solid kisses. His heart beats against my chest like a primitive war drum. It lets me know that he would never leave me—that an arm’s length is almost too far.
He trails his lips down my chest and licks a fire line all the way to my belly. He pulls my knees over his shoulders and buries the hot of his mouth between my legs—nothing but an explosion of lust and wanting. His passion detonates as he wrenches an aching groan from deep inside me.
Max loves me with his tongue, his fingers, with his entire body until the sun rises—threading his existence into mine once again as husband and wife.
We don’t take the kids to school the next morning. We shut off the alarm and hold one another, binding each other up with our flesh.
Long after the sun rises, Stella and Eli flop into bed with us and we all fall asleep again until noon in a beautiful tangle of limbs. It’s familial bliss, something we haven’t known in so long.
I love Max and our family. I submerge myself in a world of dreams where only those two things exist, and there is never a choice to make, never a baby to lose.
A thunderous pounding emits from downstairs and the four of us jolt from a dead sleep.
“What the hell.” Max jumps into his jeans, buttons them as he races downstairs.
A pulse of alarm races through me as I spike up in bed not ready for the dizzy rush that follows. Eli starts in on a wild cry that picks up in volume as I pull him toward me.
Deep inside I’m hoping Mitch has miraculously returned.
Max shouts my name, and I hop out of bed.
Mitch
The vibration of footsteps dashing in every direction rattles the tiny house like an earthquake. The lights go out—screaming ensues from all angles. Gao pulls Colt and I out a window near the back. We climb down the backside of the hill and fall into a row of dense bushes that line the property.
“It’s okay,” he offers his false assurance. “Happening all time.”
I meet with Colt’s pissed off expression.
“Reminds me of high school,” Colt says. “But the cops didn’t come armed with assault weapons.”
Gao’s last words hit me like a rock.
“All the time?” I ask.
His dark eyes glint in the night. “Yes.”
We watch as the police patrol the area while speaking to a group of women in the distance, and things seem to calm down a bit. Gao motions for us to stay put and hightails it over to them.
“What’s he doing?” Colt fills in the space between us.
“Self-sacrifice?”
“Admirable,” Colt flat lines. “Now let’s get the fuck out of Dodge.”
“No.” I bring my finger to my lips. Gao is getting animated, distracting the officers while the others slowly back away. No one seems too interested in them anymore, all eyes are on Gao and the clap of thunder emitting from his mouth. The officers laugh—pat him on the shoulder as if thanking him for the show.
A sharp poke in the center of my spine causes me to take a quick breath. I swing my arm into Colt and groan.
Shouting ensues. A man in black, armed with a rifle, motions for us to get up. Colt and I hold our hands in the air and make heavy strides toward Gao and friends.
A look of panic sweeps over Gao’s face. “He gone take us for ride, Mitch.” He says it matter-of-fact before they stuff us in the back of a microscopic patty wagon. It’s pitch black inside, can’t see my hand in front of my face if I tried. We hear the distinct bolt of the door, the truck rattles, and we start to move.
“So at what point will they tie me up and whip the shit out me?” Colton’s voice cuts through the darkness. “Because I’d really like to fucking know. You think they take requests on design formation? People actually pay to have their flesh carved out back home. Personally, I think a dragon would be fitting.”
“Shut up.” My mind is racing. Lee and Stella—I’m doing it to them all over again.
It’s happening.
This is what I get for believing I could ever come back and leave on my own terms—that there was a hole in my destiny that needed to be shored up like a ripped pair of blue jeans. Deep down I thought if I controlled how it all went down that I could go home and put my house in order, starting with Lee and me back in our old bed with the roof I built firmly over our heads.
Fuck.
This is what I get for believing I could ever have a conversation with God—that there is a God. I asked to see if this would be safe, to see the mark I left on people—to stroke my own ego and believe for a minute that I ever made a difference—that I could go back home in one piece like a normal person—that I have any control over life at all. I’m so fucking stupid to have a conversation with my own fucking mind—and to land myself in hell twice in one lifetime. Max would never have been so stupid.
I was right, give a fool enough rope, and he’ll hang himself, and, ironically, I’m the fool.
A part of me still wants to believe it was destiny though. That God loves me—that He’s still in charge and this is just a part of the plan.
“Where are You, and why did You bring me back?” I roar into the void.
A beam of light slivers in through the crack in the door. Without hesitating I grab a hold of Colt and Gao and kick the back open with both feet. I haul them out as the truck makes a hairpin turn and we roll onto the waiting concrete below with nothing but a veil of fog to buffer us. We watch as the doors latch themselves shut again, polite as a whisper, and the car disappears down the road without us.
“Freaking A.” Colt laughs as we dust ourselves off. He points to a death drop to my right. If I had hesitated one more second, we would have rolled into a ravine and either plunged to our deaths or twitched ourselves into paralysis.
“Crazy Mitch.” Gao belts out a laugh so loud that it echoes clear back to the States. I’m not sure I ever heard him laugh in all the years I’ve known him.
We run off into a thicket and make tracks north.
I hope Gao knows where he’s going.
I’ve got an airport to hit in less than forty-eight hours.
Turns out Gao knows jack shit. We spend the greater part of the night arguing over what direction we should head in.
“Let’s spend the night here.” Colt crashes next to a tree and kicks his feet into the ground trying to get the mud off his soles.
“First good idea I’ve heard in a while.”
A loud booming voice vibrates through the woods. Flashlights fill in the void between the branches. An army has arrived, and it wants its prisoners back.
Colt and I jump up as Gao pulls us further up the trail. This time I don’t argue, just keep running until my feet feel like they’re about to fall off.
Trees rush by like shadows. An entire fleet of strange wooden beings create obstacle after obstacle. We hear the voices boom all around. Colton and Gao bolt on ahead while I struggle to keep up. I trip over a rock, slicing my jeans open, and a trickle of warm fluid tracks down my shin.
“Mitch, stop!” Colt’s command cuts through the forest. “Go back—” A dull thud lights up the night followed by a muffled cry.
Shit.
My heart pounds erratic as I propel through the woods, faster and faster until all I see are the black outlines of branches defined against a lavender sky.
“Think of Stella, think of Lee.” Colt’s voice booms across the expanse then the distinct sound of a slap.
Nothing but labored breathing stems from up ahead, sounds like thunder, like the loudest noise in the world. I peer around the burnt trunk of a pine and spot Colt and Gao in the clearing. Four men are on standby with rifles pointed at their skulls. They could kill us right here if they wanted. We’d be a feast for wolves—bones by morning.
Gao and Colt get on their knees while one of the soldiers binds their hands.
Stella and Lee—I’ve made another grave mistake. But this is no time to be a coward. If anyone has the motivation to get us out of this it’s me.
I glance up past the starry hosts into the nebulous eternal realm where I still believe there’s a throne and a higher being who uses the earth as a footstool.
“It’s gonna work out, right?” I whisper.
Go.
I hear it clear as day. I don’t put a lot of thought into it just thrust myself into the open with my hands in the air.
Colt looks up at me and shakes his head. “Crazy fucking, Mitch.”
Max
The house is quiet once I get the kids to school.
After the assault Kat carried out on our front door this morning—her violent incessant urge for a “mall crawl” with Lee—I thought it might be time to spend some quality time with my own sibling. Maybe get some details on the bonehead he hired to carry out the hit.
I park adjacent to the Cadillac graveyard and head toward the house. The sun rides hard over Mono, searing the top of my head like a furnace.
Lee and I set the sheets on fire last night. It felt so damn good, my dick feels like writing her a thank you note. I think we’re finally hurdling Mitch and his last resurrection. Not really looking forward to the next one. I won’t lie. I’m a little partial to his disappearing act. It’s his best trick yet.
A beat up Chevy with the trunk popped open sits in front of Hudson’s unkempt abode. A buffed out man with a long goatee gives me a hard look as I make my way up the driveway.
Candi streams out of the house with an armful of clothes, some of them still on the hangers as she creates a trail of fabric from the door to the car.
I punch a quick text over to Hud and tell him to get here quick before he misses all the f-u-n.
“What’s going on?” I try to sound friendly—harmless. The dude with the goatee is quick to lift his shirt, exposing a piece of metal that makes my balls shrivel to the size of dimes. Nice to be warned when someone’s packing. I take a step back. “Just looking for my brother. You see him?”
Candi comes scrambling out once again, more erratic than before, losing half her loot on the porch.
“What’s the hurry?” I shout over.
“Hi Max.” She waves before dashing in for another run.
“You mind telling me what’s going on?” It’s clear as crystal what’s going on. I’m just trying to make nice with the pistol packer before he lodges a bullet in my brain.
“Moving day.” There’s something in his mouth. Metal. My adrenaline spikes. It’s the fucking guy who shot Mitch. At least it might be, if the gold tooth fits, but I let it go for now. I’d hate to help him with his target practice by picking him out of a lineup just yet.
“I’d better get going” I take a few steps back.
He whips out his gun and starts tossing his head around like he’s having a seizure. “You don’t know when to shut up!”
“Shit,” I whisper. Running sounds good, but bullets are faster.
“Duane!” Candi screams, dropping another load into the overflowing trunk. “That’s my brother-in-law,” she says, struggling back up the porch with her pregnant belly and scooping up the leftovers.
“Going to be ex-brother-in-law,” he corrects.
“Help me shut this,” she says as she dumps the final load into the trunk
“He’s gonna call the cops. I can tell by looking at him.”
“He ain’t calling nobody. He’s a good one.”
“Thank you, Candi.” I give a slight wave, still making my way down the property.
“Get the hell back here.” He waves me over with the barrel, and I pull forward like a magnet. I should have run. I should have ditched behind one of those monuments to the god of rust and let him empty out his cache, so I could drive the hell out of here.
“Listen,” I say, holding out my hands. “I don’t even like my brother. You can rob him blind. I really don’t give a shit. I’ll help you hoist the safe in the backseat if you want. But I’ve got a wife and kids, and I just want to get the hell out of here right now.
He twitches his fingers. “Gimme your phone.”
I pluck it out, and Candi snatches it from my hand. He flashes his gun and waves it around with a greasy smile. “It’s just for fun.” There it is, that gold tooth, front and center. Knew it was him. “Get in the house until we take off. Crack open a cold one on your dear old bro.”
I don’t resist the invitation. Instead I mock him internally as I make my way into the well air-conditioned mini mansion.
“Max?” Candi tosses me my cell, and he groans at her stupidity as if there weren’t a phone in the house to begin with.
“Yeah?”
“I’ll have my lawyer contact you ‘bout the ranch. You’re not mad, right?”
“No, honey, it’s okay.” I take a breath. “My brother drives people to do interesting things.” What ranch? I’m thinking she means vineyard but with the way Townsend has turned into dirt overnight I can see the loose connection.
“Glad you understand.” She blows me a kiss.
They argue over who gets to drive as I shut the door behind me. I look out the window in time to see a plume of dust burn up on the horizon. They jump out of the way as it barrels right for their car, exploding into it without mercy—head-on.
Looks like Hudson finally decided to show.
25
Birthday
Lee
The sky above the outdoor mall is a pretty windswept blue. The clouds dot the atmosphere in a series of feathered wings. It makes me feel safe as if the angels themselves were observing us. Max dropped the kids off for me, freeing up the entire afternoon.
Kat and I bicker whether or not to go into the bookstore or eat.
“We can have nacho pretzels first, then go in for coffee,” she points out.
“I love how every move you make these days has less than six degrees of separation with your digestive system,” I say, following her to the concession stand. “You’ve got—”
She snatches at my shoulder and gives a hard squeeze. “Lee?” Her face fills with worry as she cradles her stomach.
“What’s wrong?” I lead her over to a nearby bench and dump our packages onto the floor. “Is it a contraction?”
“I just felt a knife dive bomb my stomach,” she pants into her words.
<
br /> I sweep the hair from her forehead, her lips are so blood red and full I think they’re going to burst. “It’s probably just Braxton Hicks.” God, I hope it’s just Braxton Hicks.
“No, this was real. I’ve had those before, and I could hardly feel them. This was bad, scary bad.” Her face glows a bright pink. “Shit!”
“Oh God,” I whisper as a million thoughts fly through my mind. A horrible sense of fear sweeps over me. I know triplets usually come early, but I think it’s a little too early.
“It’s okay, just breathe through it. We’ll get you to the hospital—they can always give you something to stop labor.” I’m pretty sure seven months is a danger zone. Even if its not, I’d hate to take any chances. I help her back to her feet and saddle up with all the bags, trying to hoof us to the nearest the exit.
We make it a few short steps before she grips the railing and heaves her chest over the balcony. Kat lets out a howl that rivals wolves in heat everywhere.
“Kat.” I snatch her back like pulling her out of a fire. “What the hell are you doing?” A whole slew of frightened bystanders stare up at us from the first floor.
“I’m in pain.” She squeezes her eyes shut before falling to her knees.
“You are causing a scene,” I grit it through my teeth as I try to drag her to the exit. “Women have babies all the time. Get it together. Use those fruit-loop breathing techniques you promised would see you through Armageddon, and let’s haul ass to the car.” I force her up by the elbow. I’m hoping my impassioned plea to get her into the passenger’s seat worked and we won’t have mall security shooting Tasers into us before the hour is through. We continue another few steps before she plants herself on a piece of random mall art that she’s decided to use as a stool.
“Hey, Sweetie.” I try and soften my tone. She’s crying into her hands muttering obscenities. “What’s going on?”
“I’m having my babies at the mall,” she blubbers.