Page 14 of Fearless
His life is yours to take.
Their lives are yours. Reap what has been sown.
Six
MARIPOSA
“Come on, sugar.” Reaper patted the side of my hip. “I want to show you something.”
“More surprises?” I was content to stay snuggled up against him on the picnic blanket, but he was practically shoving me off his lap.
“Yes, but unfortunately the view isn’t as nice.”
He corked the wine and gathered up the food containers while I shook out the blanket and folded it up carefully. Once everything was packed away, he grabbed my hand and led me wordlessly toward a barely-marked trail I didn't notice before.
"Watch your step,” he murmured, pausing to wait for me as the trail became steep, like we were hiking down into the canyon itself.
I kept a firm hold on his hand as I carefully maneuvered my feet over rocks and areas of loose sand. My mind buzzed with questions, but I kept quiet. He was showing me something for a reason, and his own quiet demeanor today told me that seeing with my own eyes would explain better than words ever could.
The ground finally leveled out again as we came to a small valley. All around us, the striped ridges of the canyon decorated the horizon. I spun around in a slow circle, still awed by the view. Texas had nothing like this, and I never ventured outside of my home state until after I began my adventures as a medic.
"Are weinthe canyon?" I asked, my breath still stolen.
"Sort of," Reaper answered. "Not at the very bottom or anything. That's still another ten-mile trek."
When I finally tore my eyes away from the breathtaking cliffs, I realized we appeared to be in some kind of campground. Broken-down RVs, pop-up campers, and every kind of travel trailer imaginable laid out alongside a wider path in organized rows. Further back, I could see cabins and what looked like more permanent structures.
"What is this place?" I took a few steps forward, the silence and stillness of everything but us gave me an unnerved chill.
Reaper took a few moments to answer, his footsteps following me on the dirt path between the trailers. "This is where I grew up."
I turned to look at him, stunned. "Youlivedhere?"
He nodded in a way that was almost defiant. "Me, Noelle, Daren, our mom, dads, and about twenty others."
I continued walking through at a snail's pace, taking in every detail of the now-abandoned miniature ghost town. So this was the matriarchal community where women were in charge and had multiple male partners.
I noticed one area had three trailers arranged in a semicircle, like each family member had their own space. Near the door of the biggest RV, a large bin still had toy buckets and shovels for building sandcastles. Their once-bright colors of pinks, purples, and greens were now bleached out and faded by years of sun exposure.
In the middle of the three RVs, a central fire pit still had grey ashes in the circle of stones. The rusted out frame of a folding chair had been knocked over and was halfway buried in the sand.
"What happened?" The question tore out of me painfully. I didn't know if I'd be prepared for the answer. Children and families once lived here and from the looks of it, they all vanished.
"I wish I knew." The ache in my voice was nothing compared to the pain in his.
"Reaper." I turned to him, my arms reaching, but he was already there.
Strong arms pulled me close, enveloping me in security. I stood to the side so we could keep walking through together as his head bent low to tell me.
"I first moved out when I was seventeen," he began. "For the usual shit, you know? I was tired of being around my parents and neighbors all the time. I took Daren with me and we got a shitty place together with Jandro, who was also sick of being around his family all the time.”
"No Noelle?" I asked with a tiny smile.
"Nah, we were tired of being bossed around by women. That was the whole point. She was kind of being set up to become the new head of our family here, anyway."
"Really? At what, sixteen?"
"Fifteen. Other communities like ours had been raided by rogue cops and military, so no one really knew what the future held. Anyway, Jandro, Daren, and I worked odd jobs to pay rent and buy weed, then rode motorcycles every free chance we got. We wanted to play at being adults, but had no idea what that really meant."
