Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
“This is Highland State Prison,” a recording says. “Will you accept a collect call from Iron Jaeger?”
“Yes.”
I stare at Macon, the room gone silent. I know he hears the other line because he waits.
“Hey, man,” Iron says, and I almost cry, realizing how much I miss him.
“How are you?” I ask, my voice cracking.
“Still alive.” He chuckles. “Tell Dallas I get it. Having a boyfriend has proved useful.”
I laugh. There’s no need to go to extremes. We have Bay people in there, watching his back. He’s safe.
“How are all of you?” he asks.
I stare at Macon, Dallas and Trace staring at me. “Oh, you know us. It’s no party without you.”
“Yeah …” He’s quiet for a minute, and I almost ask about Thanksgiving on the inside, but I don’t want to know. He continues. “I wish I was there. I don’t want to ever come back here. That’s for sure.”
“Good.” I approach Macon. “We really miss you.”
“Miss you guys, too,” Iron tells me. “You’re telling Dex bedtime stories about me, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Does Macon want to talk to me yet?”
I pull the phone away from my ear and hold it out to my older brother.
I look at him, and he looks at me, the phone suspended between us, because this is my role, isn’t it? The one who cares. Who signed permission slips and went to conferences and took them to the doctor and the dentist and bought their Halloween costumes and what the fuck did he do? Oh yeah. He paid for it, so that absolves him for never showing up.
He doesn’t take the phone, and I pull it back, holding it to my ear and taking a second to clear my throat. “He’s indisposed in his bedroom,” I tell Iron, “with some, um, redhead, I think. You want me to interrupt him?”
“Are you serious?” I can hear the amusement in Iron’s voice. “Don’t you dare interrupt him. Jesus.”
I smile at the brother in my ear as I glare at the one in front of me. “Yeah. Call tomorrow. We can talk more.”
“Okay,” he says. “Take care. Tell everyone I love them.”
“Will do.”
I hang up, tossing my phone onto the couch. I look at Macon.
“He says to tell you he loves you.”
And I rush him.
I slam into his chest, then he falls into the table against the window. Our mother’s handblown glass vase topples, and I grab him as he grasps for me, both of us crashing onto the floor with the vase. I throw him underneath me and get in a punch, digging my fingers into his throat.
“He just needed to hear your voice!” I shout. “What the fuck? What if he dies in there?”
He throws me off him, and I slam into the edge of the coffee table, an ache hitting my ribs.
Macon rises, grabbing the back of my head by the hair before I can climb to my feet. He pins me to the floor, my stomach pressing into the rug as he digs a knee into my back.
“Don’t,” someone says. “They need to do this.”
“No,” Krisjen cries.
I can’t see what she’s trying to do, but she needs to stay back.
Macon grips the back of my neck, squeezing hard.
“Fuck you!” I muster every ounce of strength I have and flip over. We roll, throwing punches, and I’m not even sure what I’m hitting, but I feel his fist in my gut and another in my side.
“Stop!” Krisjen cries. “Please!”
I notice her legs at our side, but she’s pulled out of the way before I can tell her to get back.
“Don’t,” Trace tells her. “You’re gonna get hurt.”
I’m on top, straddling him, but I’m not up there for more than two seconds before my back is bending backward and I’m flying over his body. He flips me over his head, my boots landing on our mom’s figurine table, all of her glass crashing to the floor. Some land with a thud, and some have that sound like ice in a grinder.
A fist squeezes my heart, and I tilt my eyes back to see Macon, on one knee, looking at the table and its contents at my feet. He’s not breathing.
I rise, feeling the tears coming and one spilling. It takes a minute, but I look down at the blue shards that used to be a vase, and the yellow ones that used to be a pitcher.
Trace and Dallas stare at the floor, Krisjen staring at me and then Macon.
“I’ll go,” she tells him.
She moves to the kitchen to get her stuff, but I grab her by the back of the shorts and haul her back into me, her back pressed against my chest. Wrapping my arm around her, I taunt Macon as I press my cheek into hers.
She’s not what’s causing this.
“Dallas?” I say, but don’t take my eyes off our oldest brother.