Page 48 of The Souls We Claim
We grab a side each, then swing it back and forth three times before letting it fly.
Glass shatters, slivers flying around us. Saint had the foresight to grab a small plank of wood, and he runs it around the jagged edges. I pull my cut off, then my hoodie, which I wrap around my hand to brush enough glass away that I can jump through the opening.
Something explodes at the other side of the house. Probably the gas canisters my dad kept for the outdoor grill. The walls shake, and a crack appears down one wall.
“Hurry up,” Saint yells.
The fire truck pulls onto the lot, but I don’t stop.
I begin handing Saint and Spark anything worth saving, starting with the laptop from Dad’s desk.
“Keep it dry,” I shout as I hand it to Saint. When I return with the fireproof box that Dad kept his important papers in, I seeSaint wrapping it in my cut and moving it out of the way of the jet of water aimed at the opposite end of the house.
“You need to get out of here,” a firefighter yells.
“Two minutes.”
What I need is one second.
One second to gather myself.
To think.
To make the right decision.
I open the gun case that has my birthday as the code before pulling out Dad’s weapons. Some aren’t legal, and I don’t need the police finding them. I drop them into the black sack next to the case. The one Dad would use when he was out on a job.
I’m going to need them all if I’m going to take Collins out.
As I hand it to Spark, there is another explosion. A second gas canister.
Bits of the ceiling fall to the ground.
“Halo. Get the fuck out of there,” Spark yells. He offers his arm in my direction to help me out.
On impulse, I open Dad’s desk drawer and tug out the framed photo he kept tucked away in there. Sentimental bastard missed Mom, for all he said he didn’t. Which is why the photograph of their wedding day was never far away.
I concluded while I was here the other night that Dad spent his entire life spouting about being a free man, but the truth was, he was a broken man who realized he’d thrown away his chance of being married to the woman he loved.
It’s now officially the only photograph I have of my mom.
I climb out the window while listening to the whoosh of flames and the sound of thousands of liters of water being sprayed into my childhood home as it burns.
My patience evaporates.
“He’s going to pay,” I say to no one in particular.
King and Clutch arrive in Clutch’s truck. King pulls me into a tight embrace. “Sorry, brother.”
His voice is rough. He spent a number of his childhood days here too, playing on the tire swings Dad built out back. We spent hot summers sipping on beer and smoking cigarettes I bought for him and Clutch. On the table out back, I told him and Clutch I was enlisting with a goal to become a SEAL.
They saw me as their older brother, but I saw the two of them for what they were: my future president and vice president.
“I need to kill Collins,” I tell King. “I got messages before I took your call.”
King tips his chin back up the driveway. “Vex is going straight to the clubhouse so he can watch everyone’s house while we’re here. Give him your phone or whatever the fuck it is he needs to trace that shit. I don’t like the idea that whoever the fuck did this could still be loitering around, waiting to pull some shit on one of us or our families.”
Clutch rubs a hand through his beard. “We need to call lockdown.”
