Shoot him, Bronson.
I tilt my head, knowing he’s reaching for words, but I’ve had enough of waiting. “Now!” I howl. “Tell me!”
“I’m sorry, young man.” The man swallows, and I concentrate on his words, not on the laughter. I squint at him. “We put all the bio-waste in the freezer. Together. I mean, we. . . we cremate them. Together.”
The laughter dies.
“Bio waste.” I drop to my knees. My hand presses on the floor, the gun tightly clasped inside resting on the tiles. My body hangs hunched and weak. Tears I didn’t know I still had inside me spring from my eyes as my shoulders gyrate with violent sobs. “Bio waste. . .” Vacantly, I talk to the floor, hissing, “Leave. Now.”
I will myself not to look at him as he quickly shuffles past me, followed by at least five more sets of feet. I will myself not to gun them all down, will myself not to lay them in a freezer. Bio waste. To be cremated.Together.
I climb to my feet, stumbling further into the clinic where my girl lost her baby. Where I lost my future. Where I can be closer to him.“Good things don’t happen to people like me.”I can hear sirens in the distance as I search for the freezer.
When I open a white door and step into a surgical room, my eyes become trained on the gurney. I imagine her laying there. Alone. Scared. I wince. As I turn my back on the room, my eyes get snagged on something.
I stare at an ISO tank.
At an oxygen tank.
Cremated.
I back up until I am outside the room, thinking about my boy and how his daddy will be the one to cremate him. Only a Butcher is allowed to send off a Butcher. His daddy will be the one to do it, knowing he never even took his first breath. . . I snarl, point the gun at the first tank with the image of my face by her belly, her fingers in my hair, and I shoot.
The canister explodes.
An angry vortex of sparks and metal and gas swarm the room. I shoot the other before the air is too thick with white clouds that I can no longer see the tank.
Flames come at me.
I fall back.
The inferno howls around me. Heat. Roaring. The entire room billows with flames and smoke, and my skin suddenly stings. I crawl along the floor, coughing and whispering, “Daddy loves you. Daddy won’t forget you.”
I crawl along the ground, through the sliding door. The grass under my knees suddenly stills me, and I register that I’m outside. My lungs are scorching, filled with heat and ash and gas.
I roll on the lawn as heat climbs up my back and arms, moving through my leather jacket, real and painful and everything I deserve for all my sins. At the sound of another explosion, I sit up on my heels and watch as the building bleeds. Slowly, piece by piece, it crumbles. Debris spits out. The walls and roof crack. And I watch my peace swallowed up and incinerated.
Peace.
Hope.
Bio waste.
Shoshanna
Present day
I let my sorrow flow,let the tears drop onto his chest, let myself wallow in his grief and mine.
“I spent two nights in hospital, chained to the bed. Under arrest.” His fingers comb through my hair. “I knew I still had you. That was all I thought about. Dad stayed with me the entire time, the fucking big softy. . .” He pauses, swallowing hard, the next memory seemingly too painful to say or hear. “Jimmy came for us. He sorted everything out. The courts deemed me unable to stand trial for reasons of mental health. Then he drove me straight to you.” Bronson’s fingers freeze in my hair, and I still my worshipful exploration of the scars marring his side. “We watched all your furniture being hauled out and put in a truck. Jimmy sat with me for an hour. In silence. I’ve never seen him that way before, and I never fucking did again.”
A whimper escapes me, a curdling sound that mixes with the tears tightening my throat. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” he admonishes, pressing his lips to my forehead. “It wasmyfault. I left you alone in that park. We promised each other a future, that we would go through life together and I broke my fucking word to you.”
“No.” I sob, peering up at him as he stares straight ahead. It’s as if he’s seeing the memories projected on the white ceiling. Or seeing nothing at all.
“Yeah. That night, I took my vows. I sliced open my palm, swore on Saint Jude. The saint of fucking lost causes.” He chuckles coldly. My heart twists, because it’s not true. He is so many great things, my Bronson Butcher. Strong. Loyal. Generous with his time. Nothing about him is a lost cause. “And I became the youngest made-man in history. I wasn’t going to break another promise, baby. Not to anyone. So I’ve spent the past decade keeping it. I gave my entire life to Jimmy. And now, well, fuck, now I’m going to kill him.”