Page 5 of Before Their After

“No. He was just tall with dark eyes in a $400 Patagonia jacket.”

June shrugged. “Same thing.”

We continued in silence along the trail. The towering pines and soothing trickle of water soothing a piece of my soul. It wasn’t so quiet with the creek flowing and the whispering of trees in the wind.

The tranquility of the trail was shattered. A startled scream echoed by an agonizing holler bounced off the trees. I held my breath, listening for what was sure to follow. The cry of a mountain lion was unmistakable. If you heard it once, you would never forget it. Whatever screeched into the stark silent air next was neither human nor animal.

In times of fear, I found there were two reactions that sealed one’s fate. The ability to think clearly, and the hesitancy to respond. One was damning, the other was not. We reached for our phones at the same time. There was nothing we coulddo for them besides call for help. Even with bear spray and a taser, it would be inadequate to whatever had caused that soul-breaching of a scream.

Paralyzed. The bone-chilling alert on the screen of my phone was paralyzing. “June …”

“Yeah?” She trembled in response.

I looked up, shock etched on her face as the pale of her skin turned a ghostly white. “Help isn’t coming anytime soon.”

“Yeah.” June mumbled. “Agreed.”

We stood frozen in place, the earthy scent of the forest bringing me a sense of calm. Grounding me in place. June’s breaths mirrored mine, shallow and uneven. Her dark eyes narrowed and then widened, stuck in an infinite loop between her phone to the shadows lurking in the trees. I didn’t need to know what my little sister was thinking. The panic she was talking herself down from. Our minds were racing, yet no clear plan of action found us. The trail we had walked down so many times now felt like a maze of uncertain doom and hidden dangers.

“What do we do?” June asked, her voice barely an octave above a whisper.

I tugged on my sleeves, nails digging into my palms. “We need to move. Staying put is dumb. We’re sitting ducks. Let’s go.”

Go.Speaking the word was humorous. Go where? Move where? We needed to get out of here. I knew that much. But the rest … the future … that had suddenly become an open-ended question.

Hellbent

Alexiares

Every timeI closed my eyes at night, I worried how much of my humanity remained. In each passing day, the monster I pretended to be, that everyone thought I was, no longer could be claimed as an act. I got it now.The darkest hour never comes in the night.

A funeral. How fucking fitting that this all started after the celebration of the end of a life. I want to take a moment here to highlight the deliberate use of the word.

Throbbing, pulsating, shots of pain radiated through my skull, the loud roar of the Kawasaki humming between my legs. That’s what I got for getting absolutely hammered the night before such an event. For once in my miserable existence, I wished I had been on time so I could have caught a ride with my parents—no matter how insufferable sitting in the car with my father was.

Anything was better than the grinding that came from this souped-up baby I’d worked on during the sleepless nights, Alexander Drakos in mind. He hated the attention it brought.The neighbors didn’t look our way much … until they did. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know we were there. Journalists sat outside our gates like vultures, and my sweet ride signaled to everyone within a few miles that I was headed home.

I didn’t regret shit, but in this decision, I may have a passing thought or two of ‘What if you weren’t such a spiteful dick?’

The slight sensation of vibrations teased against my thigh. Then another.Shit, my phone was blowing up. I leaned to my right, taking my left hand off the handle to pull it out and see what all the commotion was about. If the truth came out about the deal I screwed up for my old man on today of all days, it may very well be my funeral my mother arranged next.

A glimmer of water caught my eye, the bridge not too far ahead. I righted my position. We were only a few minutes off from the house. Whatever was going on would still be a crisis when we arrived. With my mom right behind me, it wasn’t worth the fuss, anyway.

She hated the bike, was uncomfortable with the ‘risk’ I took driving it all the time. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the risk brought me the only sense of freedom I’d ever felt in my life. Driving with one hand, on a motorcycle, over the bridge, while reading whatever was on my phone, would give her a fucking aneurysm.

The smell of burning rubber filtered into my helmet. A distant, imperceptible sound stiffened the bones beneath my skin. I ignored it, shaking it off as an adrenaline rush from riding in the rain. This bridge was slippery as hell when wet.

Everyone that lived on the other side enjoyed the natural privacy the instability of the bridge brought on rainy days. The undeniable, ear-ringing screech of tires shot my heart into the depths of my stomach. I glanced ahead, checking to make sure the road laid out before me was clear before whipping my head around. The blacked out Suburban my parents and my littlebrother Evander were being escorted in swerved out of control as it sped through the entrance of the bridge.

I slid into a U-turn, the water building on the bridge splashed into my boots as I let my foot guide the bike around safely. The SUV jerked back and forth, like someone was fighting to right the path it was flying down. A car sped from behind them, attempting to get ahead of the crash. It clipped me as I swerved around them, sending me from the bike, as it collided with their front end and slid into the windshield.

Rolling against the asphalt, my skin burned, the thin sleeves of my suit jacket not enough against the speed I’d fallen at. Crunching metal sang through the crisp Illinois air. The world stopped spinning. Dust settled. The result of the crash revealed itself.

My parents' SUV rested atop the Ford Fiesta beneath them, the only thing supporting them from toppling over the bridge. There was no one in the car. The driver's window was broken, blood sprayed about the tan cloth seats.Holy fucking …

Muffled, panicked shouts for help sounded from inside the SUV. I raced over, throwing open the back seat door of the Fiesta and locking the tip of my boots beneath the seat. I latched on to the ‘oh shit handle’ above the window of the car for support.

The driver in the front slammed back and forth in his seat, stuck behind his seat belt.Who would’ve thought, Mr. Fiesta, that a seat belt could save your life?He could recover from a seizure. I just had to figure out how to get them all out the car. Taking a look around, I made note of everyone’s condition. Evander and my mother seemed to be in shock but overall okay, my father on the other hand, lay knocked out against the window. Blood dripped from under his dark brows, his lips twitching.

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