“Just the same,” I said, “I’d like to go back to where you found me. I need to bury him. I can’t stand the thought of him…lying there like that”—I swallowed—“I can go myself if I have to, but if someone could—”
“Say no more,” Elena cut in, touching my wrist. “I’ll have a group take you there. You can bring the body back, and we can bury him here.”
I turned back to the balcony.
“I…I’m sorry, but I need to be alone,” I told Elena and Edgar. After a moment, when neither responded, I added, “Please.” I sensed their reluctance.
“Okay,” Elena finally said. “We’ll go right now and get a group ready to take you. Are you going to be all right?”
“Yes. I’ll be fine.”
Seconds later, I heard the door to my room shutting softly.
My ghost legs finally gave out on me and I collapsed onto the stone floor as air rushed into my lungs. But I could not cry. And my eyes did not burn. I could never cry again—I knew I could never cry again. In these many months, I had cried all that I could, and there was no time for that anymore. Because I made a promise. And in the world I knew I had to live in, the one I was determined to shape even with the smallest of hands, there was no place for tears. There was no room for weakness.
I pulled myself up, and I looked out at the city, but all I saw was the memory of Atticus’ face. He saved me. And he loved me. And he forever changed the landscape of my life, paved the way for my future. Atticus Hunt was a hero. A great man who sacrificed everything for me. He was the love of my life. And I knew that I would never, could never, love another again.
PART
IV
~THE BITTER TRUTH~
73
ATTICUS
One week earlier…
The eerie sound of laughter filled my ears; it was eerie because my instincts woke me during my dream, telling me I needed to open my damn eyes, and open them now, or—I didn’t know; I just knew I had better listen.
Expecting sunlight, I shielded my eyes in preparation, but was surprised to see it was night. My hands were covered in blood, and I could taste it in my mouth and feel it on my face. The voices were far off, but getting closer, the laughter carrying over the field to find me lying half-alive somewhere within it, legs sprawled out, my clothes soaked with blood and water, a bullet buried somewhere in my back.
Dizzied and weak and in excruciating pain, I tried to roll over onto my stomach, but Thais’ body lying next to mine stopped me.
“Thais…” I whispered, choking back a sob. I pressed two fingers to the vein in her neck, but felt no pulse; I did the same to her wrist, but with the same results. Tears burned to the surface, and they tumbled down my face and onto hers and into her bloodied hair. “Thais…I love you”—the words rattled out of me in a desperate and broken shudder—“Goddammit, I love you!” I kissed her face all over, and I held her close and I was ready to die with her. “Why did You take her from me?! Why did You take her and leave me here?”
The voices were getting closer, maybe thirty-yards or more, and I was picking up their words as they carried over the field. I gripped Thais’ body tighter. I was ready. I wasn’t going to fight—I had no fight left in me anymore. I closed my eyes and imagined Thais and me arriving in Shreveport; I thought of her smile and her laughter and her stubbornness, and more tears streaked down both sides of my face and settled in my ears. I moved my fingers through her hair and I pressed my lips to her forehead and I cried like that little boy again, huddled in the corner.
Yes, I was ready. Take me away from the chaos…from all of this death…I’m ready.
The eerie laughter grew, and instinct was still there, pressing relentlessly on my fight-or-flight response. But why? Why did a part of me feel the need to run when in my heart I was dead-set on staying right where I was? I wasn’t afraid, so all I could be was confused by the conflicting emotions.
“I know what I saw,” I heard one man say; the squeaky sound of wheels carried with his voice.
“If dat true, den where da fuck are dey?”—he croaked out another laugh—“Ain’t no goddamn vultures flyin’ ‘round up dere. Dey ain’t just gonna leave like dat.”
“I think they were crows, not vultures. Maybe they don’t circle at night. And they would leave if whatever was dying managed to get up. Or maybe a dog or something got to it first, dragged it off somewhere, hell if I know. But I saw them, up there circling. And I’m sure it was around here somewhere. We gotta check. I’m not going back without food. Not today.”
“Well, all right den, but I ain’t stayin’ out here another damn night. Goddamn ants ate the shit outta me last night. And all dat gunfire in the mornin’ kept me awake, too. What you thinkin’ dat was all about? Sounded like the Battle of Abilene out dere.”
“I doubt they were shooting animals; probably at each other. Maybe one of them got away. Maybe that’s what the crows were circling.”
“Well, I don’t care what it is. Let’s find the damn thing and haul it back. I miss my tent. And my pillow. And I’m fuckin’ hungry.”
Savages…
Adrenaline raced through me, raging in my pulse as realization dawned—my fight-or-flight instincts weren’t for me, but for Thais, who lay dead in my arms.
“I won’t let them have you,” I whispered onto her hair, moisture blurring my vision. “I won’t let them take you…”
Against every other part of me wanting to hold onto her until my last breath, I let her go. And I used strength I didn’t know I had to drag my battered body with my arms, across the moonlit field to get as far away from Thais as I could, and I went toward the men with their squeaky wheelbarrow.
I won’t let you take her!
Sobs and anger and determination choked and suffocated me. But I pressed on, forcing myself over the tall, wet grass, pushing through the unforgiving pain of my injuries tearing apart my insides, Thais’ death tearing apart my soul.
“Take me,” I said, but my voice was so weak and strained I doubted they heard me. “Take me…”