With the festivities, no one had the time to take us out and keep an eye on us—as if we needed that. It was the typical sneering complaint of the average teenager. And for all that went on in my father’s business, I was still as average as they came. Unforgivably stupid would be another label that fit to a T. Life can be like that, for an adult or a kid. You look away from the road for one moment, one reckless, idiotic moment, and your car is careening directly into Hell. It could be that you go over a cliff or ram a school bus full of children. It might even be convincing your little brother that sneaking your horses out of the back gate for a ride is the best idea since peanut butter and Playboy.
The wall hadn’t been much of a challenge for me, and it wasn’t one at all for the horses. They sailed over it, flowing smoothly as a quicksilver shot of mercury. We’d gone to the far back wall and escaped unnoticed. It was an innate skill. Lock a punk-ass teenager in Fort Knox and given enough time he’d find his way out to the nearest trouble. It was what we were bred for.
“Just like Zorro,” Lukas had said, beaming, his hands entangled in mane.
For my little brother, however, it wasn’t sneaking around. It wasn’t breaking the rules. It was an adventure of two heroes, no more and no less.
We rode bareback, and as I pulled a ferocious mock scowl at Lukas, I felt the warm liquid glide of horse muscle beneath me. “If you’re Zorro, then who am I?”
“My loyal sidekick,” he said solemnly. Our mounts, Annie, the sorrel mare and Harry, the big bay gelding, moved over dry ground and stubby grass toward the path that led down to the beach.
“Okay, I see where this is going.” Narrowing my eyes, I nudged Harry’s sides and propelled him into a trot. “So, if you’re Robin Hood, I’m . . .”
“Little John,” he finished with delight, urging Anna after us.
Counting myself lucky he hadn’t said Maid Marian, I continued the game. “Butch?”
“Sundance!”
“Batman?”
“Robin!” he crowed, laughing at the image of me in green tights.
I couldn’t decide whether to howl in outrage or laugh. I laughed. It was an easier choice to make then—far easier. “No more old reruns for you, Lukasha.” And then we were on the trail and rocketing down it to the beach at a pace that would’ve turned any adult’s hair white instantly. When we hit the bottom we were at a full gallop. Sand plumed in the air and burned pale gold in the December sun. Salt stung our nostrils as we sent Anna and Harry into the water, but it was a good sting. It was the kind that let you know you were alive and made memories that refused to fade. Until the day I died, the smell of the ocean would always be intrinsically linked with the scent of horse. As much as the rest of that memory sucked, the beginning of it I still cherished. It had been the last perfect moment in my life—the last instant I hadn’t been one of the walking wounded. It was the last time I’d been whole.
“Slowpoke,” Lukas called over his shoulder as he raced his mare along the shore to leave me in the proverbial dust.
I let him go, not realizing just how true that was. I let Lukas go, never knowing how permanent a surrender it was. Directing my mount deeper into the water, I hissed at the chill that soaked through my jeans. Harry snorted at the sensation, tossed his head, but kept going. I would chase after Lukas later. After all, we had all day, right? Child that I was, I believed that . . . right up until I heard the first gunshot.
It was the first I’d ever heard. And although I’d heard a few since, the sound would never rip through me like the first. It couldn’t. The bullet didn’t hit me. It wasn’t even aimed at me, but it staggered my heart as if the lead had plowed through it dead center. When I saw Annie fall, I started to suspect that it might as well have. And when Lukas tumbled onto an outcropping of rock, I wished it had. I wished the blood staining my brother’s pale hair were pumping from my chest instead.
I don’t remember how, but I managed to get the gelding out of the water and gallop him down the beach. I was in the water and then I was almost to Lukas, limp on his back, with no passing of time between. I was close enough to see his hand lying half on sand, half on rock. It was turned palm upward, the fingers curling slightly, unmoving; a piece of flotsam washed in with the tide, lifeless and still. As the next shot took Harry between his intelligent, dark eyes, Lukas’s hand was the sight I carried with me.
I wasn’t knocked out, although I may as well have been. Harry took me down as quickly and thoroughly as any tidal wave. The fall crushed the air from my lungs and for several agonizing minutes all I saw and all I breathed in was blackness. Blind and deaf, I struggled against the vise locked around my chest. When the darkness finally parted, I blinked up at an intense blue sky. Not a cloud . . . not one. It was beautiful. The sun was warm and heavy on my legs; so damn heavy. I reached down and felt it under my hand. It was soft, silky, and tickled my skin with the caress of butterfly wings. I frowned. It wasn’t the sun. Warm, yes, but it wasn’t the sun.
Harry.