I couldn't see behind the vehicles to the house.
I heard Jed call to me, but everything was on mute, soundless as I squeezed through the handful of medical personnel and cops near the vehicles. The air smelled acrid, smoke from the barn still billowing up behind the house, but I could barely hear the crackle of the flames and the rushing sound of the fire.
Someone put a hand on my chest, tried to push me back from the house. "You can't go in there, sir."
"It's my father's fucking house." I pried his hand off my chest. "Move out of my fucking way."
Jed's hand was on my back. "Cade, don't," he said.
"Don't fucking touch me," I said. Then, yelled. "Get the fuck off me."
And suddenly, June was there, in the doorway, running toward me.
Covered in blood.
Blood on her hands, splotched on her tee-shirt like some macabre design, stark against the white fabric. She stood in front of me, inches away, her eyes red.
"June." I touched my hand to her hair, and pulled it back.
Blood on my fingertips.
I don't understand.
"Cade," she said, her voice choking.
"Are you hurt? You're hurt. What happened?"
"Cade." She put her hand to my chest, and shook her head. "Not me."
I looked behind her, at the EMTs, who weren't rushing to take anyone to the emergency room. At the medical personnel seemed to have stopped in their tracks, looking at me, then down at the ground.
No.
This is not happening.
"No," I said.
"Cade." June shook her head, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. "I tried. I tried to save them, but I couldn't. There was nothing I could do."
No.
I couldn't hear anything except the blood rushing in my ears. It drowned out everything, leaving my head swimming. I stepped around June, and felt her catch my arm.
"Don't go in there, Cade," she said. "Don't."
I yanked my hand away, and heard her scream at Jed. "Stop him. For fuck's sake, don't let him go in there."
I had to go inside.
I needed to see it for myself.
Inside the doorway, I stopped short. April was in the kitchen, her body still, eyes open. Her face looked calm, peaceful even. Not like the rest of her body.
I heard one of the medics beside me. "Gunshot wound to the chest," he said. "She would have died quickly."
I couldn't look in the other room. I knew what was waiting for me there. I didn't want to face it. "Did she-" I swallowed hard. I couldn't look below her waist. I didn't want to know what those animals had done to her. "Was she -?"
"We don't know anything yet." One of the medical personnel - or was it crime scene investigation? Someone in a jumpsuit, with lettering that blurred in my eyes, stood beside me. "It's best if you wait outside."
"Where - " My voice faltered. "No. I'm not leaving. Where's my Dad's - " I couldn't bring myself to say the word.
"Cade," June said. "It's not good." She put her hand on my arm.
"I need to see him."
I felt like I was walking through quicksand as I made my way to the living room, like my limbs were made of lead, weighing me down as I tried to move. And then I entered the living room, and everything was still. Silent.
There he was.
My father.
Tied to a chair in the middle of the room, his head hanging down on his chest.
Beaten.
Covered in blood.
Nothing else mattered, not June trying to stop me as I ran toward him. Not whichever cop tried to hold me back, keep me away from the body. I dropped to my knees in front of his body, clawed wildly at the rope holding his feet to the chair.
He couldn't be like this, tied to a chair, beaten beyond recognition.
I felt a dam burst inside me, a cry of anguish that rose up from my soul, loud enough to startle anyone within earshot. It sounded like it came from someone else, not from me. And I collapsed there, my head against his legs, racked with heaving sobs I couldn't control. There was so much I had left to tell his man, so much more I needed to apologize for. He couldn't be gone.
Not now.
I reached out to touch his battered face where it was cut open, the wound still oozing freely. Tears stung my eyes, but I wanted to remember his face. The face of the man who raised me, the man I secretly aspired to be. I wanted to tell him I loved him.
I felt someone's hand on my shoulder, pulling me back.
"Cade," June said, her voice soft. "You have to stand up. You can't be here."
I nodded, numb and rose to stand there, beside June.
I stood there, before his lifeless body, my fists clenched so tightly I could barely feel my hands. The only thing left now, the only thing I felt, was rage, pulsing through my veins. The Inferno Motorcycle Club had taken everything from me-my soul, my honor...
And now the life of the man who meant everything to me.
Mad Dog had done this.
This eclipsed everything else.
They would pay. He would pay.
I would burn the club to the ground.
I would kill them all.
VENGEANCE
I entered on the deep and savage way.
~ Dante's Inferno, Canto I (Longfellow's translation)