“I’m so fucking lost, Dom.” I fist my eyes as the merciless crack ripples through me as it has every single day since he left.
“How in the hell am I supposed to do this without you? The truth is, I can’t . . . but you’re going to make me, aren’t you?”
The breeze blows steadily, and I close my eyes in an attempt to gather myself. Face stinging, I take a few deep breaths, and inside them, somehow conjure an image of a freezing January night. A glimpse of Dom and me a few years after we met, flying down the street on our bikes. The shine on his, which was brand new as he flew past me, arms raised just as it started to snow.
“We’re flying,” he yells, looking back at me, eyes bright, a smile taking up the whole of his face. I’m flying with him. Head tilted up, snowflakes pelting my nose and lips as he whizzes past me—past the streetlight and into the darkness, his high-pitched voice filtering back to me, “Come on, Sean!”
My cellphone vibrates, jarring me out of the most vivid memory I’ve ever had, and I’m strangled with agony at the loss of it as his voice echoes through time and back to me. “Come on, Sean!”
“I’m right behind you,” I whisper in promise, “I’m right behind you, Dom.”
“I’m glad that you loved him, and I’m glad he knew what it felt like to be loved by you before he died, and it’s because of the way you love, Cecelia.”—Tobias, The Finish Line
Tyler
“Ne me pleure pas. Promis moi.”
Delphine’s whispered plea echoes through me as I stand at the large window in my suite. Gaze trailing up the glittering Eiffel Tower to the high beam shooting straight up into the clouds above. Thunder sounds nearby, light rain trickling down the four-squared windowpane as the rumble of my phone follows.
T: What were his exact instructions?
Sighing at the sight of the same message I’ve gotten a dozen times or more, I type my reply.
Working on cracking that top again?
T: Always.
I swear I relayed every word to you verbatim.
T: Humor me and tell me one more time.
In a blink, I’m re-living the day I gave the laptop to him. A day I’ve lived through one too many times.
“Wake up, asshole,” I snap, pushing through the door, still furious about the hand he dealt Sean and me yesterday when he woke up in the hospital. A moment I prayed for every second since he was gunned down on the street and spent a week in a coma. The upset in his eyes when he realized he survived broke me in a way I can’t ever see being repaired. Not after all the loss we’ve suffered.
Sickly pale and dressed in a hospital gown, his head lolls in my direction, eyes glazed over. A glaze that hasn’t cleared a single fucking day in the last year. “I’m awake.”
“No, you aren’t,” I snap, “but you’re about to be.” I drop the machine onto his lap, ignoring his pained wince. It’s a dick move, but it’s the pain churning in my own chest that has me giving zero fucks about my theatrics or his discomfort. It’s past time he acknowledges he’s not the only one suffering.
Sean’s refusal to speak a word to him when he woke—though he sat by his side the entire time he was unconscious—had us close to exchanging blows in the hospital parking lot yesterday. I’ve done nothing but fight for a year and a week since Dom died, trying to salvage what’s left of us.
A year and a week later, and I’m out of fucking patience.
“We’ve lost twenty-five goddamn birds,” I remind him, “and I’ll be damned if your casket is next to hit the ground. It’s time to wake up!”
Lifting the heavy laptop in his hand, he extends it toward me to take it, and I bat it back down to where it crashes painfully against his chest. He curses but doesn’t lash out, and we both know why. His selfish absence has cost us enough.
“Tyler,” he croaks hoarsely, “I can’t. Just—”
“His instructions were clear. I don’t get to ‘just’ anything.”
“Instructions?” He asks, eyes lowering to the sleek machine.
“Yeah, that ‘if the worst happens, I was to put it in the right set of hands.’” Opening the laptop to demonstrate, I press my finger on it, and nothing happens. Gripping his finger, I press the pad in the same place, and it lights up instantly. I lift my palms. “It’s obvious that set of hands isn’t mine.”
“I can’t,” Tobias chokes out in a plea, his voice tethered from the tubing they removed yesterday that pumped breath into him while Sean and I sat back, terrified he would never draw his own again. When he roused, and the realization set in that he’d survived, it was immediately followed by despair . . . the truth was made clear. He wanted to die.
Anger boils over as I lash out at the memory. “Fuck you!”
His eyes snap to mine in confusion, so I set him straight.
“You raised soldiers,” I pound my chest. “And right now, you have an army you’re not fucking commanding. At this point, we’re just as aimless as you’ve been since we buried him! I can’t do this alone. Correction, I won’t do this alone, and you’re not the only one going through shit.”
He stares through me. I haven’t made a dent. Nothing has.
“I’ve lost every fucking thing right along with you, you selfish prick!”
I see it the second it registers with him.
Delphine.
I swallow as what strength I have disperses. Aside from watching the woman I love lose her battle to a sickness I couldn’t fight for her, my brothers are all walking shells at this point. His eyes slick over with grief as he studies me.
“Tyler, I know that I’m—”
“If I don’t ever get my brother’s back, I guess that’s one thing, and maybe, one day, I’ll make peace with that.” I relay, choking on the fact that may be the truth. “But that’s not happening today. So, I’m not carrying out another fucking task for this ink until I have the man back who put it there. Wake the fuck up, T,” I stalk over to the door.
Gripping the long handle, I glance back to see him looking at me. If anything, I’ve earned his attention. “You take for granted the breath in your body while I watched her struggle for every single one. She wanted those breaths because it meant having another day—with me. You want to line up with the rest of your family, go right on ahead, but I will not fucking be there to witness it if you don’t fight for your own breaths anymore. They deserve better . . . I deserve better. So, if you give a fuck about me at all,” I plead with him for the last fucking time, “wake the fuck up!”
To my surprise, Tobias texted me back to the hospital the next day. Sadly, my plan to motivate him with Dom’s laptop and target list bit me in the ass when Tobias was unable to crack into it.
Eight years later, we’re no closer than he was the day I delivered it, hoping it would restore his fire and give him a renewed sense of purpose.
He’s found that purpose and is more determined than ever to see the rest of his mission through. But knowing Tobias, he won’t be able to rest until he’s made good on the promise he made to Dom years ago.