Branded Page 19

  “How?” she mutters.

  “You tell me,” he says, showing me the Zippo again. “Since you were the one who caused it all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Brandon

  Past

  November 6th

  After fleeing from the Burrell property during the fire, I didn’t know where to go. Nowhere was safe. Not at home, not at school, and definitely nowhere in that fucking town.

  They’re looking for me everywhere, still trying to hang me for what I did to Derek. Everyone wants to nail me to a cross. As if he didn’t totally fucking deserve it.

  Back at the motel, I turn on the shower and let the water rush over my body. No matter how much soap I use, I can’t get rid of that stench … the scent of burning wood and plants. My body smells like fucking evidence.

  I was there at the Burrell farm fire. And she saw me.

  I chuck the shampoo bottle across the bathroom in complete rage, roaring out loud.

  “Fuck!”

  It doesn’t release the tension built up inside me. Doesn’t erase the pain she inflicted on me. I came to her in desperation, wanting to love her so badly, yet she turned me away. And for what? A family that sells drugs for a living?

  Fuck me, no wonder those twins always looked as if they were rich as fuck, dressing up like they came from London or some other expensive-ass city. They got drug money from Daddy to buy whatever their hearts desired.

  Is that why she wouldn’t leave with me? Because her daddy would buy her whatever she wanted, and I couldn’t give that to her?

  Well, fuck her and her whole fucking family. Or whatever the fuck’s left of it.

  I throw another bottle of gel at the wall, and it splashes all over the floor too.

  I’ll clean up the mess later. I gotta get rid of this rage first, but nothing I do helps. I’m still boiling on the inside. A part of me wishes I hadn’t left the property, and I was still there to face them head on. Maybe that’s the anger talking, but right now I don’t give a fuck.

  Dixie ripped out my heart and stomped on it.

  I don’t feel sorry for her or her dad.

  Not when she admitted that her dad is a racist ass who couldn’t even process that his daughter might be interested in me, let alone be in a relationship with someone like me.

  Fuck. Why does the whole world seem to hate me?

  In full fury, I throw my fist against the cold, hard wall.

  My knuckles crack. It hurts like a motherfucker, but I take it like a man.

  That’s what grown-ups do. They suck it up and move on.

  That’s when I realize I’ve already decided to leave this fucking town. If I can’t take her with me, then I’ll go alone.

  All that’s left to do is pack up my shit and drive away.

  But to do that, I need to gather the courage to return home.

  And face my dad.

  * * *

  November 9th

  It takes me days to actually man the fuck up and go to my papa’s shop. I thought it’d be easy to hop in and out, but he’s there all the time. I even checked while driving by. I really don’t want to confront him, so I went back to the motel again and again until today.

  I can’t stand to wait another second. Not when my ass is on the line. I’m not sticking around just for the sake of it.

  If he’s there, so be it. I’ll march right past him.

  If he isn’t, I’ll grab my shit and run.

  So when nighttime arrives, I park my car in front of the shop and take a deep breath before going inside.

  The little bells sound when I enter the door. It’s pitch black inside with no lights on. Even though it’s almost nine p.m., I’d assume Papa would leave a light on to keep the burglars away or at least to be able to find his way around the place, in case he forgot something.

  Odd.

  I walk through the shop, feeling my way through the aisles.

  It’s so quiet too. I could probably hear a pin drop right now. Is he even home? He never leaves the shop this late at night.

  Suddenly, my toes bump into something hard on the floor, and I almost fall, but I manage to catch myself on the counter. There’s a light there, so I immediately turn it on.

  The counter is soaked in blood.

  My stomach twists into knots as my eyes follow the trail down the counter, all the way down to my feet.

  Right in front of me …

  On the cold hardwood floor …

  My papa’s lifeless body remains.

  I sink to my knees in front of him, grasping his hand. “Papa! Papa?” I yell, shaking him. “Wake up, please!”

  I push aside the piece of wood from a shelf lying on his face, along with all the items that fell off it. His face is bruised, and his eyes and lips are swollen. If I didn’t know it was him, I wouldn’t even recognize him.

  As I look for the cause of the bleeding, my breathing grows ragged, uncontrollable, just as my heartbeat.

  There’s a gaping hole in his stomach.

  “NO!” I yell. I immediately grab a piece of his cardigan, rip it off, and tie it around his body, trying to salvage what’s left of him.

  But no matter how hard I try to bring him back, he doesn’t open his mouth even though his eyes are wide open.

  “Papa! Please, you have to stay with me!” I scream, but my words fall on deaf ears.

  I place my hands on top of his chest and apply pressure. One, two, three, four, five. I repeat this until I reach thirty and then blow air through his mouth. I do it again and again. Countless times. Until the minutes turn into hours, until I have no more strength left in my arms to continue pushing.

  My papa is gone.

  Finished.

  Dead.

  I’m trembling beside his beaten body.

  I stare into nothingness. There’s nothing left of me. Nothing but pain and suffering.

  My heart is empty, my mind full. I feel as though I’m drifting out of this world, like my body doesn’t belong to me. As if I’m not really here.

  Nothing prepares a person for the day their last parent dies. There are no words to explain the anguish of losing both of them too soon.

  An unbridled howl escapes my mouth, but it pales in comparison to the noise inside my head.

  My body wants, no begs me, to cry … but I can’t. I’m shaking violently, unable to set aside the broiling rage igniting the flames inside my heart.

  No matter how hard I try, the tears to quench the heat refuse to roll down my cheeks.

  My papa always said never to cry for the dead.

  He said a lot of things.

  Now I’ll never hear him say them again.

  I didn’t think I’d ever miss him scolding me, but now I do.

  Fuck, how badly I wanted him to be here when I came into the shop, so he could berate me for disappearing on him, for hurting Derek, for ruining my grades, for hanging out with Dixie.

  For … anything.

  I’d trade the world to hear him speak one last time.

  But it wasn’t meant to be.

  Someone took that opportunity away from me.

  I slowly get back up on my feet and take in the carnage in front of me. The hole in his body looks like the size of a shotgun. Nothing about this is natural.

  He was shot in cold blood. Murdered in his own home.

  I ball my fists. How dare they? How dare they come into my house and kill my only fucking family as if he means nothing?

  A part of me wants to scream and let the world know I will kill the son of a bitch responsible. That’s when I notice something shiny lying on the counter next to the cash register.

  A silver Zippo lighter. Just like mine.

  My throat clamps up.

  I can’t breathe.

  I feel violently ill.

  I immediately run into the bathroom at the far end of the shop and throw up in the toilet. After flushing, I wipe my mouth with toilet paper and march back into the shop. There’s a small note on the coun
ter next to the Zippo. With trembling hands, I pick it up and read the text.

  You deserved this.

  Ben & Danny

  The note crumples in my fist.

  I’m tempted to light it on fire along with them, but that wouldn’t be a smart move. No, I’ll keep this safely tucked in my back pocket.

  Still, I can’t believe they did this. They killed my fucking papa.

  All because of that goddamn fire at the farmhouse. The fire I started … the fire the Burrells had to douse … and then blamed my papa for.

  Taking one look at his body makes my mouth dry and my eyes watery, but I refuse to shed the tears.

  He deserved better than that.

  He deserved a nicer death.

  He deserved a better me.

  I can’t believe he’s gone.

  That he was murdered.

  It’s all my fault.

  From the corner of my eye, I spot something glisten underneath his fingers that he kept tightly pressed together.

  I reach out and open his hand. He’s holding the pendant he gave me.

  The one I threw back at him as if it meant nothing to me.

  I wish I had never said those ugly things to him.

  But wishes can’t take back what’s been done. Wishes don’t bring back the dead.

  Nothing will.

  But there is one thing I can do.

  One dark thing I promised myself I wouldn’t do again.

  But promises mean nothing when I’ve lost the one person who kept me grounded. Who kept me from going off the rails.

  I pick up the Zippo and glare at it. It’s stained with dark soil and soot.

  They’ll pay for this.

  With blood.

  Chapter Thirty

  Brandon

  Past

  November 9th

  The first thing I did was call my uncle Josiah.

  He’s the only one I trust.

  The only family I have left.

  When I told him Papa was dead, he didn’t believe me at first. I had to yell through the phone multiple times for him to finally come to his senses. He sounded just as dazed as I was when I found him there lying in a puddle of his own blood.

  Uncle Josiah said he’d come right away, but I told him I was going back to the motel. I didn’t explain but told him where the motel was and what room he could find me in. Then I hung up.

  Afterward, I called 911 using Papa’s cell phone and told them I found a dead body. I didn’t say my name because I didn’t want them to ask questions. I knew they were already looking for me to bring me in for questioning, considering what I did to Derek.

  After I’m finish the call, I leave the premises. I don’t stick around near the shop. It’s hard to leave my papa there all alone, but I don’t want to get caught near his dead body either. It’s too much of a risk.

  With a pang in my stomach, I hop into my truck and drive off.

  I can’t get the image of my papa out of my mind.

  How he laid there with his eyes wide open, pupils dilated, the agony marred onto his face.

  The bloody wounds on his arms and the bruises all over his body.

  That gaping hole in his stomach.

  It’s too much to take. Too many vivid images in my head spiraling out of control.

  I’m never going back there again. Ever.

  That’s a promise I’m making to myself right now.

  I don’t need a reminder of the horrible misery that happened there. And I don’t need a reminder of how much it’s my fault.

  Because it is … completely … my fault.

  My papa died because of me.

  Because I dropped my lighter at that goddamn farmhouse at the Burrell’s. Because I set fire to their precious plants, and they decided to get revenge by murdering the only person who mattered to me.

  My papa is gone because I made the foolish mistake of actually going to see Dixie instead of running off like I was supposed to.

  Fucking stupid mistakes are all I ever make.

  I bang my hands against the steering wheel, yelling, “FUCK!” multiple times.

  It doesn’t lessen the pain.

  The only one thing that does is the pendant hanging around my neck. It’s the only tangible memory I have left of him and my ma.

  All they ever did was love me, and what did I do in return?

  I hurt them. Mentally. Emotionally. Physically. Because they’re both gone, one of them because of my wrongdoings.

  Because of the Burrells.

  Fuck.

  I pace around in my motel room until Uncle Josiah arrives. The triple knock on the door is all I need to know it’s him.

  When I open the door, he barges in and slams it shut. Then he grabs my shoulders, and says, “Did anyone see you come here?” His voice is erratic, and it’s scaring me.

  “No.” My gaze fixates on him, but he’s storming around the room, hastily checking things.

  “You’re a hundred percent sure?”

  He closes the windows and shuts the drapes. Now we’re cooped up in a small, dark room with no ventilation and no lights.

  “I’m sure. Why? What’s going on?” I ask.

  “Nothing.”

  Why do I get the feeling that’s a lie?

  “Who are you trying to protect us from?” I ask as he walks past me to close the window in the bathroom too. It’s as if he doesn’t even see me here. “Josiah, answer me!”

  My outburst is enough to bring him back. He places his hands on my shoulders. “We don’t want the cops to come lookin’, now do we?”

  “But—”

  “You haven’t contacted them, have you?” he interrupts.

  “I called 911,” I say, swallowing as his stern eyes look down upon me. “Papa … Papa said that’s what I was supposed to do.” Just thinking about him makes my throat clamp up.

  Uncle Josiah nods. “Did you tell them who you were?”

  “No. I only gave them the address and left.”

  “Good.” He nods a few more times.

  “I thought they’d see me as a suspect, so that’s why I ran. I know it was dishonorable of me to leave Papa there, but—”

  “You did good,” Uncle Josiah interjects. “Now tell me what happened.”

  “I … found Papa lying on the floor in a puddle of his own blood,” I mutter, shivering when I’m reminded of the scene.

  Uncle Josiah takes me to the bed and sits me down. “What type of wound?”

  “Gunshot. For sure,” I reply, and I immediately grab my stomach as if I was the one who got shot.

  “Anything else?”

  “Some bruises.” I rub the back of my neck, feeling the sick rise again. “He was pretty beaten up.”

  “Did they take anything? Whoever it was,” he asks.

  “Not that I could tell. It was just … ransacked. And there was a—” I swallow away the lump in my throat. “The Zippo.”

  “What about it?”

  I hold it up in my hand and glare at it. I wanna crush this thing with my bare hands. Set it on fire and melt away with it. “This … this was there, on the counter.” I hand the lighter over to him. “But I’ve… seen it before on the ground at the Burrell farm when I went to visit the other day,” I lie.

  I hesitate to tell my uncle the truth. I can’t face my own guilt.

  He takes a good look at the Zippo. “This is one of your papa’s Zippos, isn’t it?”

  I nod, rubbing my lips, unsure of what to tell him and wondering if I can even trust anyone at this point.

  Uncle Josiah narrows his eyes. “The Burrells … you think they did this?”

  “Yes,” I say, grinding my teeth. “I know for sure.” I pull out the note Ben and Danny left for me and hand it to my uncle. “Look.”

  His eyes glaze over it. “I see …” Then he hands it back to me as if it means little to him even though it means a lot to me.

  “If Ben and Danny hadn’t found that Zippo from my papa’s shop on their farm, Pa
pa would still be alive,” I say through gritted teeth while glaring at my own feet. I can’t look him in the eye right now and face what I’ve done like a goddamn man.

  “Look at me, Brandon,” my uncle says, and I do. “If you’re sure they’re the ones who killed your papa, they will pay.”

  He walks off into the bathroom, and I’m left staring at his back, wondering what he means by that.

  “How?” I ask.

  He fishes his cell phone from his pocket and starts calling some numbers without answering me. I remain seated on the bed and continue staring at the lighter, thinking about my actions over and over again. If I hadn’t gone to see Dixie, none of this would’ve happened. My papa would still be alive.

  She saw me, and that implicates me. She knows I was the one who started that fire. And she’s the only one who knows that Zippo belongs to me.

  Did she tell her dad? Her brothers?

  Is that why they came for my papa? To get revenge for the burned down farmhouse?

  The more I stare at the Zippo, the angrier I get.

  This is all her doing.

  There’s no other way. No one else knew I was there.

  Fuck.

  Fuck her.

  Fuck the Burrells.

  How dare they fucking go to my papa’s shop and murder him in cold blood? Does burning someone’s drugs equal taking a human life? Fuck them and the fucking horse they rode in on.

  And fuck Dixie for being the sole reason my papa is dead. I fucking hate her to death.

  I chuck the Zippo so hard it ricochets off the wall and ends up under the bed. Good fucking riddance.

  “Don’t,” Uncle Josiah says after he’s come back from the bathroom, and he plucks the Zippo out from underneath. It’s covered in dust, which he blows off. “You don’t wanna leave evidence around everywhere.”

  “Right,” I say, rubbing the back of my head.

  “It’s okay. You’re a big man now. You’ll learn the ropes soon enough.” He pats my back and tucks the Zippo into my hands. “Now … let’s go.”

  “Where?” I ask, as he opens the door.

  “To the Burrells.” A dirty, wicked smile spreads across his lips. “We’ve got a score to settle.”