Page 103 of Rising

“This isn’t productive—” Alexiares started. He stood next to Amaia, still treading in the space between her and Seth. Her eyes were daggers, boring into his and silencing him. It wasn’t his place to speak, not right now.

“No,” I growled, putting my hand up. “Let him finish.”

“Wehada family to go back to Reina, we coulda found it. Dad had a plan, told us where we should all go if shit it hit the fan.”

“It was hardly a plan,” I tried. We’d never gone into specifics, but the topic had come up during odd family dinner conversations that formed around books we’d read or shows someone had watched.

“It was!” he shouted. I flinched. “We had a place here, and you tricked me. Lied, tricked me, and then trapped me at Monterey. Kept me from coming here, from seeing if Hunter made it out.”

I grasped at my chest, holding steady on Amaia’s shoulder. The words caught on the tip of my tongue, so badly wanted to creep out. I’d never let them, never let myself replay those moments in my mind. If I didn’t say them out loud, then they weren’t real.

“Seth.”

“What, Reina?”

The memories were still fresh in my mind. “It wasn’t Pansies that got Hunter. It was Uncle Harris. I saw him.” My lip trembled. “He … he came after me, too. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing, didn’t wanna believe it. Hunter didn’t see it coming. He was walking away! Had his back turned. But Harris was awfully angry—I never learned what they’d been arguing about, but Harris was drunk.”

He’d been through Desert Storm, tours in Iraq, Afghanistan. If Uncle Harris was sober, that meant it was time for work. “I screamed. There wasn’t time. I didn’t think, just ran. I made it down to the pond, was outta options but Dad was there. Stopped him, raised his rifle and shot five times. Twice in the chest, once in the stomach, through the neck, and last one in his head. Like it was nothin’ too. Just grabbed me, told me to try for the sake of the family to forget what I saw. That it would already be hard for momma to take another loss … after James.”

Our other brother, he’d died years before we left the ranch. It was a touchy subject. Even after all this time. It had been Seth’s fault after all. “If she knew that Uncle Harris had been the cause of Hunter’s death. A man she’d grown close to, called a brother herself. Well, he didn’t think she’d ever recover from that. So he took care of it himself. Hardly flinched when he did it too, like he’d wanted to do it for some time.”

Seth’s eyes glazed over as if he were recalling a memory. I glanced down, noticing he held onto Moe’s hand. Her eyes glazed as well, sharing what she could to help her family. This was the secret she and Seth had kept these past few months.

Our magic is back.

My body reacted. Grief filled the room. Amaia and Alexiares fell to their knees, buckling under the pressure as I fought to bring it back. To center myself.

Another tear dripped down my cheek. “He told me Uncle Harris wasn’t well, that he hadn’t been for a long time but now he’d taken care of it. There was no reason to worry, that there was no place left in this world for the irrational.”

“A new World Order Cycle is coming.”

“Exactly.” He’d rambled on about it in the days after the world fell to ash.

That it’d been predictable. If we’d paid attention, we’d have seen the signs. Our father had spent his entire life on the ranch, but had immersed himself in a world full of conspiracies, politics, following theories and forming some of his own. It was one of the things that kept me distant from him.

There were certain things I knew we’d simply never see eye to eye on. While a lot of the information he’d read was based on fact, there were always embellishments. White lies that inspired negative reactionary emotions instead of logical thinking.

“He wascalm, Seth. Like he’d done this before. Covered for him. Remember all those newspapers we saw in the attic that summer? In Sloan’s family house attic? About all the strange unsolved murders around town in the ‘80s that suddenly stopped one year. The year uncle dodged town. Now think about how he didn’t come back until everything went to shit. Why’d we always have to go to their house? Why’d they never come back to the ranch? We were out by the pond, arguing about it, when one came from the water, pulled him in, and was attacked. It was so early. Dad had thought if he were bit, he’d turn too … so he made me shoot him. I missed. My hand was shaky, and I missed. Got him near the shoulder. I couldn’t pull that trigger again. He said he’d take care of it, when the time was right. Would keep us from having to hear it, to tell mom it had been swift. I—”

My voice broke, sobbing uncontrollably now. “You admired Dad. A lot more than I’m willin’ to bet you’d admit—Uncle Harris too, at times when we were younger.” The relationship between them had been rocky at the best of times, but Seth had always chased after our father’s approval, respect. “I didn’t know how to tell you. Didn’t have the heart. Didn’t know how to ruin that image of them you had in your head. Yeah I redirected, and redirected. Yes, I got us lost a few times until we were too far to double back. The only person waiting for us here would want an answer, want the truth on what happened to her father. I couldn’t lie to both of you, but I also couldn’t tell you the truth. You’d lose everything, then you would have nothing at all. And for a while, I thought I meant enough to you to stop the rest from mattering at all.”

The gunshots had drawn every Pansie in our area our way. Being a ranch in Montana, we didn’t have many. Lands were wide and people were scarce. But that didn’t mean none were around at all. It just took them a minute to get there, and the promise of food was an enticing offer. Seth had been out riding, came back just ahead of the herd.

Our mother had been in my room, trying to get the words out of me. She’d figured out what was wrong when movement grabbed her attention out the window, seen them all and realized Hunter and our father weren’t with Seth. She loved us, would do anything to protect her kids. Was out the door in an instant, shotgun in hand, picking off Pansies hot on Seth’s tail.

A shotgun was not enough to defend yourself against a herd. We’d learned that the hard way that day.

“We have family here, Reina! Cousins, blood we grew up with, you turned your back!”

My brother had broken my heart. Wanted to trade me for a family he didn’t share nearly as many memories with. Hadn’t celebrated birthdays with, didn’t fight over what to watch on Saturday mornings. They hadn’t been on the other end of his flying elbows or WWE re-enactments. These people hadn’t tolerated his morning breath being blown into their cereal for giggles.

He’d traded me for people who didn’t love him the way I did, and for a man who had never accepted him for who he was.

“I was scared Seth! I couldn’t lose you, too. You hated me, but I couldn’t lose you, so I accepted that. Accepted you would never love me like you loved them. As long as you were alive …”

We wouldn’t see eye to eye on this. I no longer cared. He’d chosen to betray me. Had subjected me to death. I’d come on this gore filled, traumatizing journey to keep him safe, and he’d come to seal my fate.

I looked around. The room was quiet. Moe had let go of Seth’s hand, moved back over to the table watching but saying nothing. Silent tears matching my own. Alexiares let out a loud breath, inflating the tension in the room.

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