He gave me a sideways grin and then started to sing an Aerosmith song. His voice shocked me. It came out smooth but had just enough grit.
I should’ve been ashamed of myself. Mitch’s bet afforded me easy money. The small crowd watched as I rose up on my toes,en pointe, in boots that were meant for rocking out, or kicking someone’s ass. I stood that way until Mitch’s eyebrows shot to his forehead.
“Long enough?” I asked. “Or is there a time limit?”
A few guys whistled. It might’ve been Penny who whispered to her friend, “I bet that’s easy enough.”
Violet’s response came right afterward. “You only wish.”
Mitch sat up straighter, running a hand through his hair. “Hot damn. How do you do that, kid?”
“Magic.” I shrugged and held my palm out.
He looked at it and laughed, then gave me a down-low five. “Can I catch you next time? Or better yet, give you four more of those? They’re worth five each.”
“Now you know a man who reneges when you meet one,” Violet said. Her tone came out playful enough, but it wasn’t just me that felt the undercurrent of bitterness to it. Tension lent itself to the mood all of a sudden.
“Next time I’ll get it up front,” I said, easing my feet back down to the ground, attempting to defuse the situation.
The group laughed. All but Brando, who had sunk back into his chair. He lowered his Ray-Bans, covering his eyes, absorbing the autumn sun.
A cool wind blew, rippling the lake and causing displaced leaves to swirl and drift, some of them landing at the water’s edge to float. That morning I had partially pulled back my hair, some of the longer pieces framing my face, and with the wind those same pieces covered my eyes.
I tucked the wild strands behind my ears, turning my back on the group and surveying the land.
Fall had touched the area with chill, but not so much with the vibrant colors that usually follow. My parents were frequent travelers, and I had come to know that as far as seasons went, our little section of the world was not bothered by the distinction of fall and summer. My father’s property included. Not that it wasn’t beautiful, it was, but in its own way.
The land felt more bayou than farm, which meant that lazy oaks rustled in the wind, swaying to and fro, in the loving embrace of the sun. The Spanish moss that somehow weaved itself around their long branches floated, going whichever way the tempest directed, but still holding tight to the anchor of their existence.
The rest of the property was filled with pine trees, long, thin things that perfumed the air with their heady scent and littered the ground with their needles.
No, I couldn’t say that anything extraordinary caught my eye. Instead, it held my attention because I had fallen in love with how secluded it felt from the rest of the world. That alone felt magical. It was pristine—no revving of engines or toots from a horn, no trains or suffocating fumes.
I could settle into silence, get high off of fresh air, and fall in love with nature, not people. And a great love story had bloomed here once upon a time—it felt closer to the heart when my feet journeyed the property.
In honor of that feeling, I walked along the lake, putting space between the group and me. The only reason I had escaped from my cabin earlier was to find Brando, to talk to him, but like last night, he was lost to me.
A perch jumped from the water, probably searching for a mosquito to eat, halting my pace. It jumped twice more before deciding to stay under. I continued my slow stroll.
After our stop at the all-night market, we had stood close, just to make sure the sheriff and his merry men wouldn’t follow us, and after some time, when we were sure they were long on their way, we left.
The silence between Brando and I had stretched, hardened into an iron wall, even after we had made it to the property. Once everyone had been directed to their cabins—Violet insisted that the girls stay together in one cabin and the men in another—I had waited for Brando to come to me.
He never did.
I couldn’t stand the chatter and laughter and everything else, so I took my things and brought them to another cabin, the cabin I had always used while visiting, in the early hours of the morning. Violet didn’t protest; she still flanked Penny as though the girl held every answer to every question she ever needed answered.
The night had not been kind to me.
The vision of Brando being assaulted by Sheriff Stone became a waking nightmare. The memory haunted me, angered me, and downright disgusted me. More than any of those things, it saddened me.
All of this time Sheriff Stone had blamed Brando for Nick’s death when it was me who couldn’t save them. The panic I had felt that night had not been directed toward my brother, but at Brando. Through this “gift” I had tried to save my brother, too. He had refused to stay put.
I had yet to come to terms with Elliott’s death, but I had made peace with the fact that no one was truly to blame. No drunk or sleep-deprived driver. It was an accident—one that didn’t have a villain to blame. If the fault rested with anyone, it was with the city. They could’ve done something to make the crossings safer for people like my brother, but they didn’t.
A pain in my palms made me glance down. Without conscious though, I had balled my fingers into a fist, my nails digging into skin. Just the thought of someone treating Brando the way the sheriff had treated him last night made tears of anger come perilously close to falling from my eyes.
He didn’t deserve that. He had lost too.
