Page 97 of Preacher Man

Preacher grinned and rode off to meet with the boys and Genty.

Just you wait until I’m home, tiny dancer.

Just you wait.

This girl who had him strung out in his own damn skin was benevolent, strong as hell, fierce. She was a fighter. She was everything.

She was fucking stubborn and he might just lock her up her when he got hands on her again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“Only I can hit this big grizzly Adams, got it? Touch a brother, and I bury you six feet under with the fishies.” - Red Light.

Stalked by the dead.

That's how Preacher felt most days. Like he could sense the cold touch of ghosts on the back of his neck, death prowling through his life alongside him like a shadow. His brother and teammates trekking in his footprints leaving grenades of sorrow and regret.

And don’t let anyone tell you differently; ghosts made the most fucking monotonous companions.

He accepted it that this was life now, but hated it. The bitter taste in his mouth was the only invisible barrier between his life then and his life now.

Shit. Some days, for real, he was sure he was going insane when Shane seemed more genuine than actual people he could see and touch. That's when shit got crazy scary because if Preacher couldn't determine the reality then what hope did he have?

His brother was dead. Logic deemed it so no matter how much he wished it different.Dead was dead, son, his commanding officer would have told him.

Logically he understood. He recognized and accepted it was his long-seated grief not allowing him to move on, he wasn't Hawk-demented, not yet anyway, that day was breathing down his neck and if it came he'd happily take a seat next to his brother and sing some kum ba yah shit, but until then, he fought against the neurosis of his own sorrow and tried to accept what he knew, Shane was gone and staying gone.

He grasped it as tight as he could on a daily basis.

And allowed the dead to stalk alongside him.

He thought he deserved it so didn't make that big of a deal about it. When you know, you've done wrong, done bad, then it's just a case of accepting what the universe hands you and having enough pockets to carry it around with you.

Everyone seemed to have moved on and Preacher was stuck in one moment of time, walking through life, hating himself. Forgiveness was for those who warranted it. Preacher’s mind used to be a combustible engine, now its mechanism was rusted.

He'd love a good sleep. A good all night all day uninterrupted sleep. The kind of sleep you wake up exhausted from and needed a nap.

He rationed sleep like it was being sold on the open market for a song, the same as he had with the smoke's giving them up two years ago. A little at a time was enough to keep his body ticking over without something shutting down, but it was never enough, his brain was forever pulling through sludge. He was afraid to sleep too long and afraid to not sleep at all.

A fine balance that he didn't always succeed in, but he was passed a year now and no episodes. Touch wood and spit on the floor. Or whatever that mumbo jumbo good luck thing was. His mom carried a rabbit's foot. It wasn’t lucky for the fucking rabbit having his foot cut off.

Tiny's death had been one giant assfuck trigger and he was back to square one of second guessing his every bodily reaction. A hand tremor here, a headache there, all of it manifested into a self-diagnosis of fucked up proportions. Any more medical jargon he was gonna claim himself a doctor.

And that wiki-you’re dying bullshit was never good. Slightly terrifying.

He was his own walking talking obsessing medical Wikipedia.

He diagnosed Pretty-boy that one time when he was being a giant A-hole. Nailed it in one.

Standing outside, the sun shining down on the top of his hair, he thought about a packet of smokes, how the nicotine made him feel.

Those addictive sticks he kept buying even when he didn’t smoke them. A bad habit he wasn’t willing to break fully away yet. He’d given up … mostly. That was enough. A man needed some vices and he'd been a willing slave to those tobacco sticks for a long time.

If he racked up the scores of lives he’d taken over the years, Preacher could concede he probably merited his head fuck status.

Tit for tat and all that junk.

He’d killed. Recently in fact. That raid on the Raging Rebels MC last year. He’d taken his fair share of the blood that night. So why should he have a happy life when his brother was dead, his two teammates were dead. It should have been him. Three lives for his.

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