On Midnight Wings

“You never even hesitated. Just sliced and diced and kept on fighting like a good little programmed monster—even at twelve or thirteen or however old you were at the time. Wells and Moore were so goddamned proud of you. Even though she punished you for”—Purcell put air quotes around the next word with his fingers—“? ‘grieving’ afterward.” He shook his head in disgust. “Fucking little psycho.”

Fucking little psycho.

The jackhammer slammed home.

Cracks splintered in every direction across the dam’s broken face with breathtaking speed. Dark water began to trickle from a few of the deeper rifts.

Reality took a slow, sideways roll as Dante remembered Purcell.

Strapped into a straitjacket, Dante hangs upside down from a gleaming hook. Purcell stands beside the man whose face Dante can’t see as anything but a headache-inducing blur. Purcell nudges Chloe’s cooling body with the toe of his polished shoe, then glances at Dante. She trusted you. Guess she got what she deserved. . . .

“She was eight years old and you slaughtered her,” Purcell now said, stating facts. “Just like you’ll slaughter Violet and Heather and anyone else who gets close to you. It’s what you do. It’s who you are.”

“Fuck you,” Dante whispered, voice raw, rough.

“No,” Purcell replied. “Fuck you.” Glancing at his men, he said, “Do whatever the hell you want with him. Just make sure he’s breathing and aware again by the time I get back from NOLA.”

“With pleasure, sir.”

Without another word, Purcell strode from the room, pausing long enough to switch off the room’s camera. The camera’s green power light winked out. The drill whined to life. Dante flexed against the restraints one more time, frustration a cold coil in the middle of his chest. But neither steel nor canvas nor drugs would give an inch.

“This, you bloodsucking son of a bitch, is for the human being you turned into a goddamned meal. His name was Josh Bronson.”

At that moment—the worst moment possible—an old commercial Dante had once seen on YouTube decided to pop into his head, some candy commercial where sharks on a taste test panel discovered that the guy they’d chosen as the yummiest among the contenders had eaten one of the candy bars before becoming a shark snack.

Steve was delicious, one shark says.

So was Josh—minus candy, but Dante decided to keep that opinion to himself.

Molten pain whirred into Dante’s shoulder. He gritted his teeth as warm blood spattered his face, refusing to cry out, refusing to give the bastards the satisfaction. The baseball bat thudded against his ribs, knocking the air from his lungs.

Reality wheeled.

Black water poured in an eager rush from the ever-multiplying fissures in the dam’s crumbling face.

Purcell and his men swarm into Dante’s water-soaked cell and blast Orem’s box-spring funeral pyre with a stream of white foam from the fire extinguisher. Darts from Purcell’s trank gun hit Dante in the throat, chest, and hand—but not before Dante snatches the fire extinguisher from the wielder and beats the man to death with it, furious tears gleaming in red-streaked eyes, blood freckling his pale face: Orem’s mine, motherfucker. Mine. I ain’t letting you touch him.

The dam began to fragment. Water geysered, a roaring waterfall. Concrete tumbled away into star-spinning darkness.

Stepping over Papa’s bleeding body, Dante goes to the sideboard and grabs up Mama’s leather purse. The other kids watch him in stunned silence, their faces pale, eyes wide and dark. He dumps the purse’s contents onto the blood-spattered oak floor—cinnamon Certs, wadded bits of tissue, keys, cell phone, bobby pins, a clutch of crumpled store coupons—and scoops up the wallet with blood-sticky hands.

He divvies up the cash—several hundred that he himself probably earned down in the basement—and credit spikes among the others. Jeannette, the ashy color fading from her dark cheeks, wraps her fingers tightly around her share of the money, and steps forward, gingerly avoiding the bits of blood, bone, and brain smearing the floor.

What about you? she asks. You didn’t keep nothing for yo’self.

Reality wheeled.

Dante struggled to block the overwhelming flood of memories, fought with savage desperation and every bit of strength the drugs hadn’t stripped from him to remain here-and-now. Shielded himself with promises made, promises to be kept.

As lost as I get, I will find you, Heather. Always.

I ain’t leaving you there in that place, ma p’tite ange. I will come for you.

Found you, mon cher ami, mon pere, and I ain’t never losing you again.

You’ll always have a clan in me, Von, mon ami, in us. You’ll never ride solo.

J’su ici. J’su ici. J’su ici. J’su—

Electricity surged through his skull, arcing along his spine, disintegrating his shields. Dante’s vision whited- out. His muscles locked as the seizure battered his convulsing body against the steel restraints. Wrenched loose his stubborn and desperate hold on the here-and-now.

Reality wheeled.

Orem burns on a torn mattress. . . .

Humming happily, Chloe brushes Dante’s hair while he practices printing the alphabet. . . .

She trusted you. Guess she got what she deserved.

The dam gave way, collapsing in on itself in an avalanche of concrete and foaming black water. The past swallowed Dante whole, a hungry beast carried in on a dark and unforgiving tide.

I’ll make sure you regret every breath you’ve ever drawn.

No escape for you, sweetie.

How does it feel, marmot?

What’s he screaming?

Kill me.

Trapped in the belly of the beast and overwhelmed, his consciousness fading, a savage and desperate fury torched Dante’s heart.

Not fucking yet. I have promises to keep.

His song rose, pale and burning, a ghost. His canvas-bound fingers tingled.

Not so fast, dere, p’tit, the past said in the gravelly tones of Papa Prejean as it/he shoved Dante’s head under and held it there. Time for penance, you. Time to take yo’ medicine.

The past carried Dante, drowning in memories, down into the shattered depths. Something stirred in the whispering darkness as he plummeted toward its heart, something shaped of smoldering embers and razored steel. No, someone born of straitjackets and meat hooks, of shallow graves and shovels, of endless nights spent handcuffed in a dank basement while pervs played their sweaty little games.

Someone uncoiling from the ashes, pale skin crawling with droning wasps.

Someone Dante knew well.

There’s my Bad Seed bro.

S laughs: The truth is never what you hope it will be, yeah?

Yeah. And it usually carries a motherfuckin’ shiv.

Beneath his blood-soaked straitjacket, power danced cool and electric along his fingers.

“Fuck penance,” S whispered, opening his eyes.