No Justice for the Damned (Tales from the Tarot)

3. Chapter 3

Chapter three

A be’s apartment building, in the heart of downtown New Mason, is a rundown brick building, with ivy growing up one side wall, twining itself precariously around the window ledges and awnings.

And though Abe could afford better with Father’s help, I think he likes the rough and tumble neighborhood, the nondescript nature of the building and all its surroundings.

I park Delilah on the street and sigh, shoving my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket. The wind whipped through me on the drive over and with the chill in the air now, I feel glad to have put it back on. It’s like a security blanket. I feel almost comforted, safe, within its depth. And I need that now more than ever.

Abe is my brother. The person I love most in this world. And yet. I feel a wave of anxiety roll through me as I approach his door. Butterflies in my stomach, tingles in my arms. I’m nervous. And I hate it.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen him. We text sporadically but his life is his own. He’s worked to separate himself from Father and the Operation. I think a small piece of him resents me for the part I continue to play. A wedge has been drawn between Abe and Father somehow—I’ve felt its effects deepen over the last few years. Sometimes I feel like I’m the tether between them, holding onto both of them for dear life, trying desperately to bring them back together.

Father misses Abe. But Abe…

I inhale, exhale, pull my spine straight. And then I knock on the door to his apartment. It’s on the ground floor, number three. It’s late but I know he’s home, can see the light shining from his bedroom window. I hear footsteps approach from the inside and a slight pause before the door opens. Abe’s stunned face blinks out at me, wide blue eyes assessing. He’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen—golden hair trailing to his shoulders, cheekbones that could cut glass, plump pink lips that always look wet. He has a habit of biting them when he’s thinking. And he’s always thinking.

“Kill,” he breathes, then wastes no time in wrapping me in his arms, arms that are so much stronger than they look. His thin frame is riddled with hidden muscles, hard lines from the bones that protrude from under his skin. But he feels so good, so warm. Like home.

I’m not in love with my brother. My adopted brother, no blood relation. So if I were…if I did happen to be in love with him…it wouldn’t be so abhorrent. But I’m not. In love with him. I’m not. Even though the scent of him, the feel of him, the sensation of being near him, is intoxicating. Abe is so much. He’s like oxygen. For as long as I can remember I’ve needed him to breathe.

But none of that matters. He’s my brother. And he doesn’t return those feelings. And I’ll never voice them. Never.

“Hey,” I say, my voice tight.

He swallows, runs a hand through his disheveled blond hair. Stepping back from the door, he moves to allow me inside, to see into the dark, messy room within. “Do you want to come in?”

“Sure.” With my hands deep in the pockets of my jacket, I step up over the threshold and feel myself enveloped by the claustrophobic space, the small one-bedroom apartment that smells like musk and honeysuckle and Abe.

I can’t help but allow my eyes to rove. The clutter and commotion, the piles of clothing hastily strewn about as though Abe was too busy or too distracted to care about putting them where they belong. To the left is Abe’s bedroom, the door ajar, displaying a small twin bed in the corner, tucked against the wall, unmade, because of course it is. Abe has always liked to sleep with his back to the wall, since he was a child. He was afraid of the dark. I wonder if he still is.

I can imagine Abe living in this space, moving about it, interacting with it. I can see the marks he’s made all over this environment and it warms my heart.

“Something interesting?” he asks, a small laugh in his voice. He’s watching me take it all in. Watching me make sense of the place he lives, even though I’ve been here so many times before.

I shrug, my hands bouncing inside my pockets. “You’re a mess,” I say, attempting nonchalance, but he sees right through me.

“I’m sure it gets all the way under your skin, hmm?” He slugs my shoulder with a fist, hitting me without any real force.

In any other circumstance, I might have been perturbed by the mess. I like things neat and tidy. But this place, this mess, it’s Abe. And I’d take him anyway he is.

I huff under my breath and brush a pile of books aside to allow myself to collapse into his beat-up leather couch. He doesn’t respond as the stack crashes to the floor and I settle into the cushions in its place. But as I do, the buttons of my jacket bulge and reveal some of the sheer silk underneath.

A rush of embarrassment shoots through me as I scramble to hide it but too late. Abe’s eyes dart to my exposed skin and then back to my face quick as lightning. Almost imperceptible.

“He’s got you running his errands again?”

“I never stopped,” I say, my tone chillier than I intended.

“But you should.” He settles on the end table across from me, his gaze boring into mine. Not

judging. Never judging. But sad, almost pleading. “It chips away at you more and more every time.”

I cross my arms over my chest, my right leg over my left knee. My foot twitches. I hate talking about it. Especially with him. “I’m fine. I like it.”

He huffs, shaking his head. “You don’t. I know you.”

Rolling my eyes, I glance up at the ceiling and lean my head back on the couch cushion. “I’m fine, alright? Really. I like to do it because Father asks it of me. And I like…”

“Making him happy?” My eyes flash to his face to see a strange look there. It’s the same one he always wears when we talk about Father. Father is a wedge between us. Soon, Abe will shut down.

“Is that really so bad?” I sit up. “Making the man who raised you happy?”

He snorts. “The man who raised me.” As if it’s not true.

“He did. You act like it was the worst thing to ever happen to you.”

“What if it was?” His words slap me in the face.

“You don’t mean that.”

He settles back, studies me, a brow raised. I meet that gaze, unwavering.

“What?” I ask.

“Did he tell you to come here?” His voice is soft, his blue eyes narrowed, suspicious.

I stall, my heart beating fast. I don’t want him to shut me out. Don’t want his walls to crash down around him and separate us. “Abe.”

“Did he?” He’s insistent, his throat bobbing.

I can’t lie to him. Never could. “He did,” I say. As lets out a gruff sigh, I ease to the front of the couch, closer to him. I reach out. Graze the hand that rests on his knee. He allows me to take it in mine and hold it. I burn at the contact. “But I didn’t come here just for him. I came because I…we…miss you. We both do. It’s been weeks since you’ve been home.”

“Home,” he sniffs.

“Home,” I repeat. “With Father. And me.”

He turns away. Like he can’t look at me anymore. Like my words, my very presence, makes him sick. My stomach clenches. I’ve said something wrong. I’ve made it worse.

“Come home,” I press. “Come to Mass. Father wants you to be there.”

He stiffens. Clenches his jaw. “I’m sure he does.”

“So come.”

“Is that an order?” His eyes snap back to mine. A challenge.

I want to give him the same response I gave Eli, to assert my authority, to force him to bend.

But this. This is Abe. My little brother. The one I’m supposed to protect. So, steeling myself and forcing myself to calm, I say, “No. Of course it isn’t. It’s a request. Because he loves you. We both do.”

He glares at me for a moment, gaze unwavering, unbreaking. Then, surprisingly, he smiles.

“Fuck you. You always did think you could boss me around.” All the heat is gone from his voice now. He shakes his head and runs a hand through that thick hair. I watch it cascade as it falls back over his shoulders, tips just long enough to brush the fabric of the flannel he wears, loose and casual.

“Call it my brotherly duty.”

“You call it brotherly. I call it fucking annoying.”

“If you could have kept yourself out of trouble, I could have kept myself off your ass.” His smile is contagious. I feel it mirrored on my own face.

“You liked it there, admit it.” He’s joking, but my cheeks burn hot. I turn away, hoping he doesn’t notice and I’m rewarded when his body slumps down next to mine on the couch. I catch my breath at our proximity.

“There are places I liked better,” I say tersely, withdrawing slightly to the opposite side of the couch. He eyes me, lips quirking.

“You deserve better, you know?” he finally asks.

I swallow and shake my head, turning my gaze to the small space. “So do you. You really like living like this?”

He grimaces, his eyes following mine as they sweep the room. “It’s fine. It’s all I need. I’m free here.”

As children, we were wards of the Church in a way, altar boys, orphans, children of God and of Father. We lived under Father’s roof, and though I don’t have many memories of that time of my life, I know it wasn’t an extravagant life. It had been one of piety and devotion and admiration for the man who cared for us. A lifelong study of how he moved and behaved and conducted himself. A childhood spent in his thrall. Thankful for what he gave me. Perhaps it was too stifling for Abe. Abe, who always had wanted to break free from his cage and fly.

I look at him now, at his glimmering blue eyes and golden hair like a halo and can’t help but sigh. Abe was always meant to fly.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” He asks, grinning.

I feel my cheeks flush, my eyes darting away unwittingly. “Like what?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Like you’re trying to make sense of me.”

I can’t help but smile. “Is that what I’m doing?” Something about being around him makes me feel lighter, more at ease, than I have been all day. I’m myself with Abe.

“You ever think about getting out?” he asks suddenly and I feel my breath catch.

“Out?”

“Away from him? On your own. Your own place and no one telling you what to do.” He sighs. “It might be good for you.”Out. Truth be told, I have thought about it. But it always takes shape the same way in my head. A dark cloud of abandonment and despair. Without Father, I have nothing. I am nothing.

As if he can read my mind, Abe clears his throat and says, “You have so much more to give than just what he asks of you, Kill. So much more.”

I meet his eyes, feel that sentiment hanging between us. His words are kind. He means well. But he doesn’t know what he’s saying. Because he doesn’t know the real me. The me I hide within. The me that likes killing, that likes being used. The sadist lurking within.

“Didn’t know you were so sentimental.” I try to brush off the feelings that have settled in my soul. But Abe is unwavering, unflinching, unapologetic. His emotions come naturally to him, he’s so much more open. It’s times like these that I realize how different we are.

“Do you remember back when we were kids, you used to come up with the most insane ideas. All those stories you’d create. It was like you had this Rolodex of them inside your brain. Every night a new one. I could have listened to you talk for hours. I thought for sure you’d grow up and become a writer, tell the world those stories. But then you stopped telling them.”

“You stopped asking to hear them.” When he pulled away. When everything changed, when he began to rebel, to drive that wedge in. To separate himself. But not from me. Never from me.

Abe shrugs, pursing his lips like he wants to say something else. I can see the mask slipping, the wall falling between us again. I won’t let it.

“What is it?”

He blinks as he looks back at me. “What?”

“There’s something you want to say. Say it.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Abe.”

“Kill.”

“How can I help you if you won’t let me in?” He scoffs, and a thrill of annoyance shoots down my spine at his sardonic tone. “What?”

“I love you, Kill. But anything I tell you will go straight to him.”

It’s as if he’s stabbed a pick of ice through my heart. “That’s not true.”

But the way he looks at me now, the coldness, the disappointment, steals the warmth from only moments ago.

“Isn’t it?” His voice is soft, almost a whisper. His eyes are wet with water. I want to reach out and brush them away, prevent them from falling down his face. But he rubs at his eyes before I have a chance.

“Anything you tell me stays between us,” I say, my throat tight. “I promise.”

I watch his hands clench into fists, watch him swallow. Watch the warring need to trust me battle with his desire to shut me out.

“I…I’ve been having these dreams.” His brow furrows as he speaks, forcing the words out like bile. As if doing so is against his better judgment.

My heart stutters. A coincidence? My mind flashes to my own dream, the man I met outside Orpheus, whose face was reflected in that strange world. “Dreams?’

“They feel so real. So damn real. Dreams about…my parents.”

I still. Abe’s parents gave him up as a child. Abandoned him to an orphanage. Just like mine. That’s where Father found us both. “Your parents?”

“I was young. Really young. And they were holding me, both of them together. They loved me. It felt so real. More like a memory. I just…I thought they really seemed to love me, you know? Why would they give up a baby they loved?”

“Abe,” I start, but he stands, pulling away, putting distance between us again.

“No, I know how it sounds. Stupid. I know. A dream. It’s not real. But, it felt real. I saw them, Kill. I saw them as clearly as I see you right now. I could make out their features and what they were wearing. I could see our house. I think we had a dog. I don’t know.” He runs his hand through his hair again, a fickle little movement born out of stress and anxiety. Frustration.

My heart clenches. I feel for him, feel the emotions he so obviously wants to withhold inside. They seep out of the cracks in the walls he’s built to keep everyone out. “It doesn’t sound stupid,” I say. “It sounds…”

“Pathetic,” he scoffs. “A pathetic kid still hoping that somewhere, somehow, his parents are still looking for him. But that’s pathetic.”

“It isn’t.” I stand too, watch him even as his head falls to his hands and he avoids my eyeline.

“Have you,” he whispers. “Have you ever…” He trails off and I stall, feeling my heart ache.

“What?” I ask. “Had a dream that felt real like that?”

He lifts his head, swallows, nods.

“Yeah, I had one last night.”

His eyes widen as he looks at me. Whispers, “What was it about?”

“I…,” I stumble, embarrassed almost, at how silly it seems now. “I was dancing around a fire. Under a full moon.”

“And?”

“And, that was it. It was just a dream. It felt real. But it wasn’t. Lots of dreams feel real. Maybe they’re reflections of what we’re feeling or what we want. But they’re not real. Even if you want them to be.”

Abe bows his head, his eyes falling closed as he accepts the dejection, the defeat. He longs for a family he’s never known and I realize I’m not good enough for him. Though I’m his brother, I’m not his blood. I’ll never be enough to fill that void inside him. That void of uncertainty. Of the unknown.

“You really believe all the things he’s told us? All the things about our pasts?” There’s a sharpness to his tone now, as though he’s simply speaking whatever comes into his mind to say.

“What’s not to believe?”

“Doesn’t it bother you that there are whole gaps of time that you just can’t remember? Days? Weeks? Where there’s nothing? It’s all so sporadic. I have memories. But they’re more like images. Fragments. Shapes. Nothing tangible.”

I blink, furrowing my brow. He’s mentioned this before but I didn’t know it bothered him so much. “Lots of people can’t remember their childhoods, Abe.”

He huffs a sardonic laugh. “That’s not it. And you know it. We’re missing things. Father tells us what to believe.”

“Father tells us the truth.”

“The truth.” The way he says that word makes it sound like poison. “The truth is you’d believe anything he tells you. You’re obsessed with him.”

That knocks the wind out of me. “Obsessed?”

His lips seal in a thin tight line. Like he wants to take it back has too much pride to do so.

“If I’m obsessed, so are you,” I retort. “Every conversation we have ends up turning to him. We can’t even spend time together without you thinking I’m reporting back to him. You think about him way more than I do. I came here to spend time with you. And you twist my good intentions with your assumptions.”

His expression contorts into a grimace of shame.

“What’s going on with you?” I press. “It’s more than these dreams. More than that. You’re hiding something. I want to know what.”

“So you can tell him?” he snaps.

“So I can help.”

We stare at each other, obstinate and stalwart. Both too stubborn to be the first to withdraw from the other.

“You can’t,” he finally concedes.

I cock a brow. “Are you going to say something dramatic like no one can?”

He shakes his head, the hint of a smirk pulling at his lips before it vanishes as if it never was. “Nothing that dramatic. But you can’t help me, Kill. I know you want to. But some things I need to figure out by myself.”

“So that’s why you’re pulling away? Because you need space to figure things out?”

“Yes,” he says. “I need space to make sense of things.”

“What things?” I try again.

“I wish I could tell you. I really do. But right now, I can’t. Can you give me some time? Please?” He implores me, looking at me with those big blue eyes that won me over again and again when we were children. Those eyes that only needed to blink to wrap me around his finger. I’m right back there again, just a kid determined to protect his little brother. To do whatever it takes to make sure he’ll be alright.

I’m not happy about his secrets. Nor about the distance he’s put between us. But if it’s what he needs from me, I’ll do what he asks. “I’ll give you time,” I say. “But you need to promise me that you won’t try to be a hero. You won’t keep secrets so big they overwhelm you. You’ll come to me if you feel like it’s too much. And you’ll talk to me. If you feel yourself start to build a wall up, you’ll talk to me about it.”

He studies me for a moment, stunned brows hiked high. And then his smile breaks through. “Didn’t take you to be so sentimental.”

I roll my eyes but feel my heart lighten. “I just don’t want to have to bail you out of another mess.”

“Messes are what I’m best at.”

“You’re so annoying.”

“And you’re a pain.”

We smile at each other and it feels like all is right again, even though the cloud of doubt still hangs over my head. The one that questions everything he revealed to me. Everything he won’t say. The fear that lingers in the back of my mind, warning that I’m part of what Abe thinks he needs to figure out. That I’m part of what’s causing his restlessness.

What if one day, he stops opening the door to me? What if one day I come to check on him and he’s gone? Without a word? Would he do that? Would he leave me?

As if he sees something in my face, something of my worry, he moves in and wraps an arm around my shoulder, pulling me into him so our chests knock together and my chin rests on his shoulder. He’s taller than me now, when once, as children, our positions had been reversed. But it feels good to be held by him, my one refuge in a dark, cold world.

When he pulls back, his eyes are wet. He brushes a hand over them and grins. “I think I should go to Mass. Might be good for me.”

I blink, disbelieving what I’m hearing. After everything, all the resentment and anger and hostility, now he decides he’ll attend? “What changed?”

“Nothing. I just thought…maybe it would help me figure things out. Things that don’t make sense.”

“Didn’t think you were religious.”

“I’m not.”

I decide not to ask. That’s good enough for now. It will please Father. It will allow me a few more moments to be near my brother, to be in his presence. To keep him close.

“Don’t question it. You’re getting what you wanted, aren’t you?” he asks and I return his boyish grin. A conspiratorial smile and it’s like we’re children once again. Two orphans, abandoned by the world, let loose in a fortress where we can run and play and be. A simpler time, before we realized our place in the world and how cruel it could be. Before he became a recluse and I became…whatever I am now.

I was just his brother back then and he was mine. Even the most fleeting glimpse of that feeling is good enough to settle my soul. I bask in the moment, allow myself to be swept up in it. For now, it feels right. It feels good. Good like so few things in this world can feel.

Good like only Abe can.