Sixteen

My mother’s screams cut through me like a sword through my heart, and I wanted to drop the phone. But I didn’t. I would not push away her anguish. It was ours to share, and the ringing in my ears was fitting penance for failing to save him. Though it was nowhere near enough.

It would never be enough.

The phone clattered against wood, and Michael was back. “Faythe, hang on. Let me get Owen.” Michael took the phone with him and though I couldn’t hear the door squeal open over my mother’s hysterical screaming, I heard Michael shout for Owen. As would everyone else in the house.

He was there in an instant. He’d probably started running the second he’d heard our mother scream, because our mother never screamed. Not when she was angry, not when she was hurt, not when she was excited. She was as steady as the earth’s rotation, if a bit less predictable lately, and I’d just thrown her completely off her orbit.

I was hurting, too—we all were—but I knew I could never completely understand the depth of my mother’s pain until I’d lost the love of my life, my husband of thirty-three years and the father of my five children.

“What happened?” Owen’s normally soft voice was almost unintelligible, and it faded into nothing as he moved away from the phone Michael still held, probably to comfort our mother.

“Michael, what the hell happened?” Owen repeated, louder this time.

My mother was still screaming, and now starting to go hoarse. I couldn’t stand it. Hearing her agony—and being unable to ease it—sent biting pain through my chest, like my heart was literally being shredded.

“Here, I’ll take Mom,” Michael said. “Talk to Faythe.” Something scratched the receiver as the phone was passed, and my mother’s cries changed when Michael held her. I wished I was there with them. We should have been able to grieve together. They should have been able to talk to my father before he died.

My father should not have died.

“Faythe?” Owen’s voice was thick with dread. “It’s Dad, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” I’d buried my face in one hand, but looked up when the door opened. Marc came in wearing a fresh shirt but still barefoot, carrying our bright red first-aid bag. He knelt on the floor in front of me as Owen’s breath hitched in my ear.

“How did it happen?”

I sighed, wishing I were anywhere else, doing anything else. I’d rather fight a dozen rogues at once than have to tell anyone else about my father’s death. “Malone brought guns.”

Marc tugged my robe hem open to expose one leg, and I jumped when his hand settled on my thigh. His palm was rough and warm. I wanted to melt into his touch—into his comfort—until there was nothing else in the world. But then liquid sloshed and something cold touched my leg. Flames scorched a path through my skin, tracing gashes I’d almost forgotten about, in light of the more immediate, emotional agony.

I forced my attention back to Owen as Marc continued to clean my exposed wounds. “He arrested me, Marc, and Jace, and we had to either fight or run. We got rid of most of the guns, but Dean still had his. He…he shot Dad. In the chest.”

For a moment, there was only silence over the line—Michael had quieted our mother somehow—and I refused to break it by hissing over the vicious sting in my leg.

“When?” Owen asked finally.

“Just a few minutes ago. He wanted me to tell you how proud he is of you and Michael.” And Ryan? He’d said to tell “my brothers.” Did Ryan even count anymore? “He gave me a message for Mom, too, but I’ll wait until she’s…ready to hear it.”

“That may be a while….” Owen sniffled, and because he and Ryan had inherited our mother’s fair coloring, I knew his face and eyes would already be red from the tears I could barely hear. “I can’t believe this. It doesn’t feel real.”

“I know.” It didn’t feel real to me, either. Not yet.

“So…now what?”

Owen was the first to ask aloud the question that had been chasing its own tail in my head. “We’re still figuring that out. Uncle Rick thinks he can work out a cease-fire. Then I guess we’ll bring Dad home and talk about the rest of it when we’re all together.” I twisted to one side, wincing over the stiffness settling into my overworked body as Marc stood to pull down one shoulder of my robe, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide in hand. “We have a lot to decide, but it can wait a couple of days, I think. Dealing with this is enough for now.”

“Yeah. I guess I better go…help Michael. And tell everyone else.”

“Okay. Listen, tell Kaci that if she needs to talk, she can call me. And with any luck, we’ll be home tomorrow.”

“I’ll tell her.”

In the background, my mother was crying again. Heavy, full-body sobs, which were somehow worse than the heartrending screams. Sobs spoke of the beginnings of acceptance, and I knew from experience that it was usually easier to wallow in denial.

After Owen hung up, I slid my phone into my pocket, and Marc settled onto the mattress next to me. “They’ll be okay,” he said, as I pulled my right arm out of my robe so he could reach the lowest gashes.

“No, they won’t. None of us will. We’re still not okay with Ethan dying. How the hell are we supposed to handle this?” Not that I expected an answer. Marc lifted my arm by my elbow, and this time when he pressed peroxide-soaked cotton to my cuts, I welcomed the sting. Pain was infinitely better than numbness. Pain proved that I was still alive, in spite of the gaping hole in my chest where my heart used to be.