Atticus shut his eyes.
“I shot Casey where he stood in the backyard; just put my gun to his forehead and I shot him dead. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t look back. I didn’t think of him as I walked away. I killed a man who, as far I knew, had never hurt anyone. I took a man’s life based on guilt by association and my ‘bad feeling’. How could he be innocent? I asked myself as I raised the gun on him. If I didn’t kill him, he would’ve committed the same crimes. I believed it in my heart.” He paused. “But I judged him. I played judge, jury and executioner—I played God—and I killed that man in cold blood. I lost my mother, my sisters, and myself all in the same night.”
He collapsed his fingers around my small wrist, lowered my hand away from him.
(I didn’t want her forgiveness and understanding. I didn’t deserve it.)
“Atticus,” I whispered, “you said you believed it in your heart that he was just like the rest of them—”
“No,” he interrupted; shook his head with condemnation. “Don’t do that, Thais”—he pointed his index finger upward—“Don’t try to plead my case for me; don’t forgive me or tell me that what I did was acceptable because it wasn’t, and in your heart, you know it wasn’t.”
He dropped his hand back down.
“I had no proof he was guilty—a gut feeling is not justifiable proof for cold-blooded murder. What I did was wrong and unforgivable—what I did was wrong. That man wasn’t Private Masters or Mark Porter—with Casey I had no proof. It was wrong. It always will be. It can’t be undone. And I never want to talk about it again, until it’s my turn to die and I’m standing in front of my own judge, jury, and executioner and must face the consequences.”
I felt the semi-dampness of the grass against my bottom as I sat in front of him, closer in case he needed me.
“I tracked the others down in Blacksburg,” Atticus went on. “Found their camp about fifteen miles out, and I waited until they were asleep in their tents before I made my move on them in the night—slit every one of their throats, one by one, all eighteen of them. Rafe found me the next morning. I was sitting outside the tents, covered in the blood of those men, and of my mother and sisters—I still had the knife in my hand…”
ATTICUS
“What have we got here?” Rafe said, looming tall over me, blotting out the early morning sun.
“Looks like a fuckin’ lunatic,” said one man with laughter.
I heard the men shuffling around inside the tents, the clanking of items being tossed, the rearranging of boots on vinyl, the zippers on the dead men’s backpacks sliding open.
“A goddamn crazy person,” said another man. “This was a slaughter!” He sounded delighted.
I never raised my head. I didn’t care that there were more than thirty men standing around me, gawking at me like amused spectators in a freak show circus. And I didn’t fear death—I welcomed it.
Rafe, who wore military boots and camouflaged pants that were the only part of him I could see, crouched in front of me. Then I saw a gun dangling between Rafe’s legs from a big, rough hand. Still, I didn’t raise my eyes, and there was no fear in my heart. I hoped the giant man would kill me—I couldn’t do it myself.
“No,” Rafe said to the men, “a crazy man didn’t do this—a vengeful one did. And I’ll fucking bet every last one of them deserved it. I’ll fucking bet this man felt the lash of God before he killed these men, that motherfucking lash that comes out of nowhere, striking a man across his back for being innocent—a goddamn martyr. Well, you know what I say?” He leaned in closer, and still, I didn’t stir. “I say fuck God and his lash and his slaughtering of innocent people.”
I felt the heat of Rafe’s hand on my shoulder; Rafe added with a mock smile in his voice: “Who did they kill? Your girlfriend? Your wife? Your sister?”
Before Rafe could say “Your mother?” he found himself flat on his back looking up at the sky, an enraged lunatic standing over him.
“No! Leave him the fuck alone!” Rafe ordered the men who’d grabbed my arms from behind and pummeled me with their fists. “Let him go!” He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth where I had punched him.
I hit the ground after the men released me; I braced myself on my hands and knees. I spit blood onto the dirt.
I heard laughter in Rafe’s voice, and then saw his hand pushed into my view, reaching out to me. I didn’t accept it, but Rafe left it there anyway.
The laughter faded from Rafe’s voice and he said grimly, “I know the look of a man whose family was murdered, I know it all too well.” He pushed his hand into my view closer, insisting I take it. “This is what the world has become, my friend, and we can either let it have us, let it make us weak, let it kill us—or we can take back what is ours, and tell the Man Upstairs that He’s no longer welcome in a world He refused to protect.”
“There is no God.” My voice, and the sheer malice in my words, stole the smiles from the other men. Rafe’s smile broadened in his behemoth face. He knew a monster-in-the-making sat before.
I stood, on my own, and without Rafe’s help.
“I stayed with them in Lexington City until the day I left with you.”
I lowered my head.
“Whenever I thought of my mother after that, I resented her; I hated her for asking me to do what I did. I joined up with bastards like Rafe and William Wolf and Private Masters and Marion, and I became a part of them—I even blamed my mother for that, as if having to put her down was the final straw, the last horrific event that would change me.”
THAIS & (ATTICUS)
I shook my head; I wanted to tell Atticus he was wrong, that he was nothing like those men, but he would not let me speak.
“I didn’t resent my mother in my heart—I loved her,” he admitted, and looked away. “The truth was I only resented myself for not being there, for not being able to protect them. And I—.” He stopped abruptly.
I took both of his hands into mine; he looked into my eyes; his mouth trembled on one side.
“I hated myself for not being able to go with her. I was going to end it in that moment. As I sat against that wall, considering my mother’s plea, I told myself that after I shot her, I’d shoot myself too. There wasn’t anything left for me—my whole family was dead, and I didn’t deserve to live.”
His strong fingers pressed into the palms of my hands. Why is he consoling me?
“After I shot her I put the gun to my temple. But I couldn’t pull the trigger. I couldn’t pull the trigger…”