I can hear the voices of my family, and I once again try to break through the darkness to get back to them. I have listened to all of them on and off for I don’t know how long, but it’s True’s voice that I have heard consistently begging me to come back to her. She goes from begging me to cussing me out to crying and through it all I am fighting to get to her. I am so tired and everything hurts. There are times I wanna say fuck it and just let go, today is one of those days. I am tired, in pain and I fulfilled the promise I made more than thirty years ago. I begin to loosen the hold on the tether that is keeping me here, and slip deeper into the darkness. I find myself in a hallway with a door at the end and begin walking towards it. I reach my hand out to grasp the knob to open the door and walk into whatever is awaiting me on the other side, as soon as my hand touches the smooth metal, a large rough hand covers mine. I’d know that hand from anywhere even though I haven’t felt it touch my skin in thirty-eight years. I remove my hand and slowly turn to look into the emerald green eyes of my father. “Da,” I say as I embrace him in a bone-crushing embrace. Once we release each other my father grabs my face and just looks at me.
“Atlas, look at you! You’ve become a fine young man! I am so sorry I missed so much of your and your brother’s lives. I’m sorry I could not be stronger for you, your brothers, and your mother. I let you all down, and you’ve had to live with my failure. But you still have life left to live and a woman that walked into hell with you and walked out by your side. Let it go now Atlas and go back to our family, this burden was never yours to carry so go live. You made me a promise that night we were all dying in that room and now I want you to make me another one. Alexander says.
“What promise Da?” I ask him.
“That you will fight to get back our family and live this life until there is nothing left to live. When it’s time for you to leave this life I want you to be ready, for you to walk into death’s arms with a smile and not with regret. Now is not your time, your mother, sister and I will be here when it is your time, but not now.
“Sister?”
“Yes, her name is Alexandria, open the door.” my dad says to me. I grasp the knob again and this time the door opens. Standing there in the most beautiful field is my mother, her auburn hair flowing around her shoulders holding my baby sister with a mop of red hair of her own. I try to walk to them but I cannot make it past the threshold. My father walks around in front of me. “It’s not your time yet son, you cannot cross over. Go back to your brothers and your woman we’ll see you soon enough” he says as he embraces me again, I hold onto him recalling all the years I missed his embrace, smile, and voice. We release each other at the same time, and he walks to my mother and sisters’ side and wraps his arms around them. I stand there looking at them until the door closes and I am being pulled but instead of giving up like I was doing I fight to push through the darkness to get back to my family, my future.
I can hear Savvy talking about gumbo, but I do not hear True’s voice, and I swear I can smell the gumbo. Finally, I break through the darkness, through the fog I have been surrounded by.
“I hope you have a bowl for me.” I croak out. Although I haven’t heard True’s voice I know she is there. “Where are you, baby? I say a little stronger. I finally see the most beautiful sight outside of just seeing my parents and sister as she places a straw to my lips. I take a few deep sips of the cool liquid. Before I could lose my nerve or consciousness I ask her to marry me and she says yes. She damn near cusses me out when I suggest fixing my face. And then I hear my baby brother ask me what happened, and I realize I do not know how they knew where to find me. I assume it was True even though she promised me she wouldn’t, but how can I be mad at her when she’s the reason I am still alive. I open my mouth to answer my brother when the nurses come into the room. For the next few hours, I am poked and prodded within an inch of my life.
Once they are done running tests and evaluating me they finally leave me alone with my family. I had a few sips of the broth from the gumbo, I didn’t want to chance eating more. I look around the room at my brothers “I never told you what happened the night our parents were killed” I say to Anson. I made a promise that night as I lay on the floor and bled out as my face was sliced open. I promised our father that I would avenge their deaths. I lied to you all these years about not remembering what happened and I never told the authorities what really happened. I wanted to find the people responsible for the destruction of our family myself. After the last time I tried to unalive myself and Joshua came and talked some sense into me I focused my life on avenging our parent’s death” I say. I go into the truth of the night that changed our lives forever. When I am done with what happened that night I want answers myself. “I take it True told you where to find us,” I say “Even though she promised not to tell y’all.”
“Actually she told me,” Savvy said, “and as far as I know you didn’t make her promise not to tell me.
“When Savvy came up to the room to talk to me and keep an eye on me I decided I really didn’t give a damn what you said I was coming to help you and we’d figure it out after we made it out alive. Cause I would rather have you mad at me alive than ok with me and your dead. After she left the room I …….”
And True begins to tell me how she ended up coming to my rescue.
True & Savvy
Loving these brothers is different, they are stubborn jackasses at times especially when it comes to protecting who they love but the benefits are so worth it. On the flip side sometimes they need help and are too unwilling to ask and you have to step in and take the backlash. Figure out which one this is and do what you gotta do. Get up and get dressed, I’ll be back with lunch, Jaasiel cooked.” she says with a gleam in her eyes. And I don’t blame her that man can cook his ass off. Why he doesn’t have his own restaurant is mind-boggling to me.
Savvy walks out of the room and I really think about her words and I’m gonna go with option B. I jump up and head to the bathroom. I shower in record time and get dressed, all black seems appropriate. I head to Atlas’ hidden weapons closet and put the code in, yeah I watched when he put the code in, so sue me. I grab a backpack and load it up with handguns, knives, and some explosives. If Savvy came to see what was going on that could only mean Atlas went to them, and since I know he didn’t tell them what was really going on because they'd all be going after him, he had to talk to them about something else. Probably asked Savvy to keep an eye on me, but since they don’t know the seriousness of the situation I am sure they are not going to watch me too closely. I took the same route we took the night of the skate date, and we had to sneak in butterball naked thanks to Atlas cutting our clothes off. I make it to the garage to load Atlas’ NSX because it’s fast and I am hours behind him and take off to Victor’s compound.
I am not even close to driving the speed limit, but I am keeping an eye out for police because I cannot afford to get pulled over. I didn’t take the back roads like Atlas does, I don’t have time for that shit I am already behind. The closer I get the more my stomach turns to stone, why did I make that stupid ass decision to not tell his brothers? We need their help. Savvy’s words really hit home, once she left I realized that fuck this life if I can’t live it with Atlas. He is worth it, he’s worth everything and I’ll be damned if I sit here like a wilting violet while he goes off to get killed. I’m coming to help, cause I’d rather he be mad at me and alive than dead. So fuck that, if he dies we die we’re going to do that shit together but we’re going to put up a hell of a fight before we just let it happen. We need his brother's help, do I break my promise to him? Why not I’m already going against his wishes, in for a penny and all that. I activate the phone when it hits. I do not have any of the brother’s numbers and Atlas does not have them programmed into the car.
“Fuck!” wait I think as a slow smile creeps across my face, I do have Savannah’s phone number.
“Where the hell are you?!” she yells as soon as she answers.
“Savvy, I need you to listen, this is important,” I tell her, cutting off her rant. I tell her everything that happened, including the argument and my ultimatum. I tell her Atlas has left to get himself killed and that I am on my way to help him but we are going to need help. I can hear her yelling for Jag, and telling him what I am telling her.
“Where are you? Jabarri couldn’t track you guys” she asks in a rush
“I am almost to the compound in Texas,” giving her the address. “Atlas is already here fighting by himself. We are going to need your help, please hurry” I say and hang up.
My nerves are so bad and I turn the radio on to try to calm them. These last thirty minutes are taking so long and I am struggling to keep my composure. The music comes on and I zone out as I push it to get there. I tune back in as the words to a particular song penetrate my mental meltdown. As I listen a particularly determined tear slides down my face and once that one drops the rest follow. As Andy Grammer sings about not giving up I feel the words down to my bones because I refuse to give up on Atlas. I make it to the compound and park where Atlas parked his SUV that fateful night when he saved my life. It’s like world war 3 here and I am surprised there are no cops on the way but then again he probably owns the cops, plus his compound is pretty isolated. I get out of the car and strap up, a gun on each thigh and hip and one at the small of my back. My weapons belt holds extra ammo, clips and a few knives. I stuff a few grenades anywhere they can fit and head in to find Atlas.
Savvy
“Go get my brother Joshua!” I’m yelling at him in near hysteria.
“Savannah calm down, we are going to help Atlas, and once we get him out of this mess I am going to kill him myself. I told him on repeat to come to me when he was ready, to not try to do this by himself. He is so fucking stubborn and hardheaded. What are you doing, Savvy?” he asks me.
“If you think I am going to sit in this house and wait for you like a good little girl you are sadly mistaken, Joshua Abraham Gideon! Now how are we getting to Texas fast enough to help my brother?”
“You say it like he’s not my brother too Savannah” he whirls around and tells me. He grabs my face and looks in my eyes, “I know you are scared and so am I but Atlas is a tough son of a bitch he’ll hang on until we get there baby, he won’t die. We’ll get to him. Are you ready to go? He asked me.
“Yes,” I say smiling because he has never tried to harness me and he understood that I needed to come with them and didn’t fight me on it. “But how are we getting ….” I never finish my statement due to the sound of the helicopter, scratch that helicopter's landing. When we walk out to get in the chopper Jag and his seven brothers look like every branch of every armed force on the planet. They are some dangerous-looking mother fuckers, we head out of the house and load up in the chopper, and head to Texas.
“And all that lead us here,” True says as she lies in bed with me.
