Huntsman by Cambria Hebert
25
Earth
“People are looking for you.”The rushed, whispered words practically hissed through the phone into my ear.
“Who?” I demanded.
“There’s been some quiet inquiries, strange eyes on the street.”
“Who?” I demanded again, my voice harsh but low.
“I don’t know.”
“Lies will get you killed.”
“This call could get me killed too.”
I paused. “Then why make it?”
“These are our streets.”
He was scared.
“You should probably disappear for a while.”
“Okay.”
I started to pull the phone away from my ear, but he spoke again. “They’re like you.”
A chill crept down my spine, but I said nothing.
“Did you hear me?” he whispered, anxiety hanging off every word.
I made a sound.
The call disconnected.
The sound of my phone snapping shut was like a gunshot in the silence.
I covered my tracks. Vanished to the other side of the world. I told myself that they’d likely given up, but it was a lie, and deep down, I knew that all too well.
I could escape, but I would never be free. The only freedom I would get from my past was death.
Some weird Freudian thought penetrated the shit I really needed to think about to whisper, Perhaps that’s why you really kill, searching for the freedom you will never be allowed.
“Or maybe I’m just an asshole,” I said out loud.
What difference did it make anyway? Choices had already been made. And now, potentially, I was found.
I started to put the cell back into the drawer, pausing halfway. I knew I should destroy it, but a piece of me hesitated, a piece of myself I didn’t recognize. How odd. I still wanted to listen.
I debated for long moments. My sigh echoed around the room when I pulled on my leather jacket and stuffed the dinosaur of a phone in the inside pocket. I’d give the kid a few to get out of town before I cut off all communication.
I felt like I owed him because he called to warn me even though he shouldn’t have.
Stepping over the mess still literally all over the office floor, I stepped out into the bar, boots freezing when I saw I wasn’t alone.
Our eyes locked and held. A brief, odd sensation of weariness stole over me, but it was quickly vanquished by the fist ramming into my jaw.
Head snapping back, I felt my teeth gnash as red tinged the corners of my vision.
Upper lip curling, I slowly turned toward Neo. “That’s the last hit you’re gonna get for free.”
His fist came hurling at me again, but I caught it with one hand and used the other to deliver a punch of my own.
He staggered back a couple paces, glittering eyes narrowing into slits. “You put your hands on my sister.” A growl rumbled deep in his chest, and then he rushed me.
Arms locked, feet planted like trees in soil, we clashed, bending and swaying against the wind of our grudges. I understood why he was pissed, but I was pissed too.
He was pissed I dared enter his sister’s tower, and I was pissed he dared to lock her up there.
Neo made a move, pivoting out of the way we were deadlocked, twisting as if he might come up behind me, but I anticipated his move and countered it with my own.
Dropping down, I rammed into his middle, lifting him off his feet and using the force of our momentum to drop him on the bar top and pin him there.
Breath whooshed out of his lungs the second his body slammed into the wood. My palm was heavy against the center of his chest, and I ignored the spastic way his heart raced.
Leaning over him, I taunted. “If you didn’t want me near her, you shouldn’t have invited me into the cage you keep her locked in.”
“You son of a bitch,” he intoned. “I trusted you to keep her safe.”
“The one hurting her right now is you.”
He shoved me back and leaped off the bar, straightening to meet my steady gaze. “You putting that kinda shit in her head?”
“Her legs might be out of order, but her mind works just fine.”
Neo’s fists balled at his sides. My back muscles tensed as if readying for another punch. “The fuck you just say?”
“Come off it already, asshole. You know I’m not insulting your sister. I’m speaking the truth, and that’s what pisses you off, isn’t it? I can accept that her legs don’t work, but you… you can’t stand it.”
He charged me, and I let him. I took another hit, not bothering to stop it. It wasn’t me he was hitting anyway. It was himself. All these years of guilt had done nothing but fester. So he put it all on me. He could hit me. He could rage and blame.
I would give him a few more free hits after all.
They weren’t really for him anyway. They were for Virginia. She was just as trapped by Neo’s anger as he.
I felt blood trickle from my lip down the center of my chin. The side of my jaw ached, and my eye socket felt like it was on fire.
Inside me, the huntsman roared to retaliate, but the brother in me? He understood.
Neo drew back his arm again, fist so tight his knuckles were stretched taut over bone. There was blood smeared across his fingers. I braced for another punch, but his arm dropped like it was too heavy to swing anymore.
“Why aren’t you hitting back?” He launched forward and shoved me off balance. “Hit me back, you son of a bitch!”
“No.”
His eyes flared, stubborn indignation lighting their depths. “I told her you’re a killer.”
And just like that, all the breath in my body was siphoned out, the little bit of light she’d lit my darkness with snuffed out as if it hadn’t been there at all.
The all-encompassing darkness was startling despite its familiarity.
“She’ll never want to lay eyes on you again.” Neo sneered.
My knuckles split with the force of the blow, the newly torn flesh stinging with the same ferocity I’d thrown into the punch. Neo was bent over a nearby table, and when he stood, a rivulet of blood dripped down his cheek, a bruise already forming at his eye.
I shook out my hand, not even remembering the burst of movement, but the aftermath made it crystal clear.
“Does that make you feel better?” I spoke, deadly calm and words like ice. “Knowing that I’m far worse than you will ever be? Knowing you took away something—” I stopped. “Proving to her you’re the hero and I’m just a villain.”
“That’s not what—”
My rude sound cut him off. “It is, and we both know it. But it’s not a lie, and I’m not denying it.”
Neo took a step forward, his face flickering with more than just anger for the first time since he’d walked in. “Earth…”
“Don’t,” I said, stopping whatever he was about to feel guilty about. “You have them both, Ivory and Virginia. We don’t have to keep doing this. You told her the truth, and now it’s over, whatever it was. I hoped maybe we could work things out, you and me. But it’s obvious some betrayals are too deep.”
I righted a barstool as I walked by, continuing my way behind the bar.
Maybe it was time for me to cut ties and go. The past was getting dangerously close, and the present was too complicated to fix.
I had a fleeting thought of Fletcher, and my heart lurched a little. Maybe I could keep in touch with him.
Maybe he can keep me updated on Virginia after I’m gone.
I felt Neo still standing there even as I worked behind the bar. Finally, I turned, taking in his rumpled flannel, bloodied face, and scraped knuckles. I chose to not see the grief in his expression.
“It’s fine. Don’t add this to the list of shit you heap blame on yourself for. This is all me. I made my choices, and you’re right to protect your sister.” My heart constricted at her mention, and I tried not to think about her face when Neo told her what kind of man I really was.
She probably regrets that kiss.
I never will.
Clearing my throat, I had one last thing to say. “Ease up on her a bit, though. She has too much light to be locked up in the dark all the time.”
Neo shifted like he was about to speak, but I thought of something else to say.
“And just because she’s partially paralyzed doesn’t mean she isn’t all woman. Someone will love her… if you let them.”
“Earth.”
“Get out.”
I felt him hesitate, but I’d had enough.
“Out!” I roared, the demand punctuated by the sound of a glass hurtling through the air and bursting on impact as it hit the wall.
Pop! Shards of glass splintered everywhere, raining down onto the floor and scattering across a nearby table.
“Family doesn’t turn their back on family even when they turn their back on you.”
Snort, who’d been by the bar this whole time, scurried out, and then there were footfalls on the stairs.
Beau burst into the room. “Did a fight break out?” His green eyes widened when he saw the empty bar with just me and Neo. “I take it things aren’t going well.”
“He kissed my sister,” Neo informed him.
My hackles rose.
“She could do worse,” Beau retorted.
I glanced over my shoulder at my last remaining roommate. He shrugged.
It’s okay to be worried about her, you know. His words echoed in the recesses of my mind. He knew. Somehow he knew how I felt about Virginia, and he was the only one who didn’t care.
“You’re taking his side?” Neo was incredulous.
“Family doesn’t have sides.”
Beau must have felt my stare drilling a hole in the side of his head because he half smiled, glancing in my direction. “I might sit behind a computer all day, but I’m not blind and I’m not stupid.” He glanced at Neo. “And you aren’t either.”
The room fell quiet, but the silence wasn’t long. The ringing of a phone cut through, making my entire body tense.
Concentrating on the weight of the secret phone tucked inside my jacket, I expected to feel it vibrate with the ring.
The second I realized it was not that phone, some of my tension ebbed away.
“It’s not me,” Neo said, glancing up from the phone in his hand.
“Mine’s upstairs,” Beau said.
I reached into the back pocket of my jeans, pulling out the ringing device.
Neo turned to finally leave.
I glanced down at the caller ID.
“Wait,” I demanded, accepting the call.
“Virginia?” I asked into the line, heart pounding with wonder she would even call.
Heavy breathing and nervous tension filled my ear. I straightened. “V? What’s wrong?”
Nearby, Neo and Beau straightened in attention.
A low, plaintive whimper was her reply.
Flashes of that crudely drawn mark and the recollection of the ominous call I’d had just minutes ago slammed into me, and I reached out blindly, closing my hand over the edge of the bar.
“Virginia!” I demanded. “Virginia, what’s happening?”
I could barely hear over the thundering of my pulse and the rush of blood in my ears. Adrenaline spiked so fast inside me that my head swam as I clutched the phone, practically screaming for a reply.
“H-h-help.” Her call was ragged, breathless, and filled with fear.
“Is that screaming?” I yelled. “Who’s screaming?”
I didn’t notice Neo so close until he tried to snatch the phone out of my hand.
I reacted as if he were the threat, grabbing his hand and twisting his arm at an awkward angle behind his back.
“Virginia!” I hollered again.
The line went dead.
I pulled the phone away from my ear to look at the flashing screen.
“What is it?” Neo demanded, still hunched over from the way I had him pinned.
I let go of him, rushing toward the door. “We have to go. They found her!”
Neither of the men questioned my words as we rushed into the night because the urgency there was all they needed to hear.