And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.
~ Revelations 6: 8
June
"I can't bring you into this, June," Cade said. He sat, in my bedroom, his head in his hands, his voice tired. The murders had only happened yesterday, but Cade's face looked like he had aged twenty years. His skin was grey, and the circles under his eyes were nearly black in color. He spoke in hushed tones, glancing toward the doorway. "We should go out there. I don't know if Crunch is okay out there watching Mac. I've never seen him like that."
"I put on a cartoon," I said. "He's on the sofa with her. I tried to tell him he should get some rest, but he wasn't about to let go of her. They'll be okay for a few minutes."
"We need to leave, get back to California," Cade said.
"What will happen to MacKenzie?"
"Crunch's mother-in-law," Cade said. "She's flying in from Puerto Rico. She'll meet us in Los Angeles. You should stay here. It won't be good, what needs to happen. You can't get involved in this."
"I'm already involved in this," I said, the words coming out before I even had a chance to think about the implications. But I knew what the implications were, didn't I? I knew what Cade was talking about.
Revenge.
He was talking about murder.
"I want to kill them, too," I said. I meant every word.
Cade shook his head. "That's what people say," he said. "You say you do, but you don't. People like you, they might say they want revenge, but when it comes to it, they don't really. It'll destroy you, June."
"I've already killed." It came out a whisper, like saying it that way would make it not quite true. As if it would make it not really real. "I've already killed someone. On the operating table."
"I'm sure you killed lots of people, June. Having people die in surgery doesn't count. It's not the same as murdering someone."
I shook my head. "No, not like that. I didn't just lose someone in surgery," I said. "I was operating on this gangbanger, back in Chicago. Came in after shooting at a witness to something the gang had done, I don't know what. The witness was a mom, walking back home from the corner store with her toddler. I couldn't get it out of my head, that they would just shoot at her, no regard for the kid. The kid died at the hospital, and I had this guy, right there, on my table. I'm supposed to save, you know? Heal. The Hippocratic Oath and all that. But my hands shook, and I nicked an artery. He was already close to being gone, and my supervisor stepped in, tried to save him."
"That's not killing someone, June."
"He described it as accidental, the hospital ended up settling with the family, and my supervisor chalked it up to nerves, from the deployment. But it wasn't nerves," I said. I looked up at Cade. I wanted him to understand what I understood about myself. "I nicked that artery on purpose. I did it because he didn't deserve to live."
"June," Cade said. "This isn't the same thing."
"It's a difference of degrees," I said. "I don't give a shit what you say. I'll follow you to California if I have to. But I'm coming out there. Your dad meant something to me. So did April. And you mean something to me. It's not a question - it's a fact. I don't care where it leads, and I don't care if it means I have to kill someone myself."
"You're going to throw everything away, just to follow me out to California," he said, shaking his head. "No."
"No," I said. I'm not throwing anything away. You're my family. And I'll do anything to protect my family."
Maybe it was shock. Or maybe there was just something fundamentally wrong with me. But I knew what Cade was going to do when I saw Stan and April.
I knew what he had to do.
And I knew what I would do.
The image of Stan and April, there in the house, would never leave my head. It was burned on my brain. I kept replaying the scene in my head, like some kind of horror movie on a loop. I'd arrived there first, could hear the sirens wailing in the distance as they approached. I knew they were both dead when I saw them, they couldn't be alive, not with those injuries. But I'd still gone to the bodies, felt for a pulse, choked back the bile that rose in my throat, looking at them.
I slipped, fell, in April's blood that pooled on the floor, and then everything after that was a blur. Someone in a uniform picked me up off the ground, took me outside, asked me questions. I think he thought I'd killed them. Then I saw Cade, running toward me, Jed behind him.
The look on Cade's face....
I'd seen death before, been in the thick of it. But to have someone bring it to my front door, kill the people I cared about... that deserved an equivalent response.
Eye for an eye.