Page 28 of Marlin's Faith

“I need a cigarette,” I mumbled and got up heading for the back door. Cutter let out a sharp whistle and I turned.

“Nice try, Man. Why don’t you blow smoke out front? Where you can’t go lookin’ up at windows.” He raised his eyebrows at me and I felt mine crush down in return, that hadn’t been my fuckin’ intention… I strode to the front door and went out. Who the fuck was I kidding? It had too.

I pulled a cigarette out of the pack with my lips and my lighter out of the little pocket in my jacket under my cut. I wanted to go for a ride somethin’ fuckin’ fierce but Faith was up there feelin’ like shit on a kind of me and I didn’t want to leave until I knew she was doin’ better. Fuck, I’d hated shutting her down like that.

The door opened and shut as I sucked in that first drag and felt my nerves settle marginally.

“Hope you’re done bustin’ my chops, Cap. I’m not sure I can handle much more without putting my fist somewhere it don’t belong.”

“Oooh, baby! Sounds fun, but I’ll pass.” I turned sharply and squinted into the dim light of the porches overhang at Hope.

“Sorry,” I grunted.

“Don’t be,” she sighed and leaned back against the door.

“How she doin’?”

“Physically, fine. Mentally and emotionally, a fucking train wreck.”

“Look, Hope, you gotta believe me when I say, I didn’t expect her to –“

“What? Like you?”

“Kiss me.”

“Same thing at this point,” she said, waving her hands ineffectually in the air between us. Her casted arm bulky, making what would have been a graceful movement on her part quite a bit more awkward, but Hope didn’t seem to notice or care.

“When’s that thing come off?” I tried to divert the conversation onto something else that didn’t make me feel like a total tool bag.

“It’s only been around a month, six to eight weeks they said. Don’t change the subject.”

I exhaled a plume of smoke and said, “No ma’am, wouldn’t dream of it.”

We were silent for some time and finally I asked, “She hate me?”

“No, but I wouldn’t call you her favorite person right now.”

“Ain’t giving up on her, you know that right?”

“Ha! If you did, I’d have to whoop your ass again.”

“Again? Oh, you think you can take me, huh?” I looped an arm around her neck and hugged her sideway, rubbing my knuckles against her hair; not near as hard as I would if she were one of the boys, but yeah. Hope had proven herself. She was, in all reality, one of the guys; which was only slightly weird as fuck. She fit with us, and it was like she was made for the Captain. She’d probably keep him busy for the rest of time with how much of a challenge she put up for him.

“I don’t know what to do, Marlin.” Hope was staring out at nothing, her dark eyes distant.

“She looks fine, like she’s filling out and gettin’ back to healthy, but her brain chemistry is still a mess from that shit. Not just what happened to her, but the drugs are still fucking with her. She’s still in withdrawal. You gotta remember that. This is the hardest part, right here; ain’t no cure for it but time. Time and no access to what made her sick in the first place.”

Hope huffed a bitter chuckle and looked up at me, “At least there’s that. She wouldn’t know how to get her hands on it if she tried.”

“Makes our job easier, but it doesn’t do much for hers. She’s still gotta live with the cravings and shit.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she does.”

We lapsed back into silence until finally, Hope sighed.

“Where do we go from here, Marlin? How do I save my sister?”

I took a thoughtful final drag off my cig, a long, pensive, deep one, and told Hope the truth; “I don’t know, this is about as far as I got with Danny, but I do know one thing, ain’t you or me that’s gotta do the saving, Hope; it’s Faith. At some point she’s gotta stumble out there on her own. All we can do is be around to catch her, when and if she falls.”

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