Page 65 of Cutter's Hope

“Okay, when does this start?” she asked bravely.

“Now,” Marlin swallowed hard and looked a little green around the gills, I could tell this was going to hurt him too. Fuck, what a goddamn mess. The whole thing.

“We’ll stay on the Mysteria Avenge,” Cutter said, naming his boat.

“Can you go by the Scarlett Anne for me, Bro? Pick me up some clothes and shit?” Marlin asked.

“Yeah, let me get Hope settled and will do. You hang in there, Firefly,” he said to my sister and she nodded. We hugged one last time and I swore I would be doing a preemptive lice treatment, we’d be swinging by a pharmacy on the way to his boat. I loved my sister, lived for them both, but the head bugs and the thought of getting them made my skin crawl. I couldn’t help it.

“I love you, Peanut,” I whispered and Faith shook, so frail, and whispered it back…

“I love you too,”

Leaving my little sister in the care of someone else at a time like this killed me. Destroyed a part of my soul I wasn’t ever going to get back. I followed Cutter out to his bike and he asked me…

“Need anything?”

“Yeah, swing by the local pharmacy, then take me home. Do whatever it is Marlin needs you to do and then get your ass back to the boat because I can’t be strong forever and I’m under some extreme load here.”

“I hear you, Sweetheart. Come on, let’s go.”

He took me to the pharmacy, he took me to his boat; he kissed me hard before he went to run the other errands that needed to be done… It was the most agonizing alone time I’d ever spent… waiting for him to get back to me which was rough for the girl who was always alone, who was used to carrying it all and all by herself. It was real damn rough.

30

Cutter…

I made record time, leaping across docks and boats to the other end of the harbor to Marlin’s sport fishing vessel he lived aboard. He was right across the harbor something like ten slips away and yet most of the time he and I were on opposite ends of the planet, which truthfully had never bothered me until now.

I knew Marlin was a standup guy, knew the tragedy he’d come from and how much it affected him, still, my girl had a lot riding on this. On him succeeding this time. I threw a bunch of his shit in a duffel I found randomly in one of his cupboards and slinging it over my shoulder, locked up and dashed back across everything.

I rode back to my house and found Marlin and Faith sitting across from each other in the living room, talking quietly. Faith looked scared, and I didn’t blame her. This was bullshit. Hardcore bullshit that she had to go through this on top of everything else. She looked blasted apart, freaked out but her aquamarine eyes held that glint of stubborn, a subtle flicker of that fire her sister Hope held inside.

“You cool, Firefly?” I asked her and she nodded, not quite looking at me. That was cool.

“Thanks, Man.” Marlin nodded.

“Doc an’ them should be here in the next day or so, I don’t know if he’s flyin’ solo or not.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” he said but he was distracted, his full attention on Faith.

“You call you need to tag out for a minute. Nothing’s got medical training, said you could call him.”

“I got this,” he said and I gripped his elbow he looked at me then.

“I mean it, you tap out if you need to; you feel me?”

“Copy that, Sir.”

I let him go.

“You hang in there, Firefly; see you soon.”

She nodded, and I left, I didn’t want to leave Hope for too long. I rode home and put my bike up in the garage. When I went below deck I found Hope exactly as I’d left her, slumped on the arm of my couch, staring off into space.

“C’mere, Baby,” I murmured and pulled her by her good hand up and into my arms where she crashed and shattered into a million pieces. I held her tight, held her close while the storm raged and like any rainstorm, I waited out her tears patiently because what else could you do?

“Some tough bitch I am,” she muttered brokenly after she’d been calm a while.

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