The Fall and Rise of Kade Hart: A Hart Brothers Novel (26 page)

“Stop laughing at me. I’m not in the
mood.”

“I can see that. Go inside. You’ll end up
chilled, like you did that other time. Will you want
me
to
warm you then?”

What an ass! “I … you … that was uncalled
for!” I sputter.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Your boyfriend isn’t
here. If you get chilled, what will you do?”

“You are an ass!”

“There are many who would agree with your
observations. However, do you find fault with mine?”

He does have a good point. “No,” I
begrudgingly say.

“Excellent. Now, get inside! I don’t want to
repeat myself again.”

Who is he to think he can boss me
around?

“I know you’re worried about your boyfriend.
What if I offered you a deal?”

“A deal?”

“Yes. What if I sent someone to find him and
report back to me? Would you go inside then?”

“If you find him, will you tell me where he
is?”

“Yes. But you cannot go to him
unescorted.”

“That’s crazy. Who will go with me? Sister
Mary Elizabeth?”

He really laughs now.

“I hardly think …” he begins.

“Exactly. That’s why I’ll go.”

“Then no deal.”

“At daybreak then, I hunt for him on my
own.”

He produces a sound that resembles a growl.
He really does not like it when you disagree with him. Too bad. I’m
my own person and will do as I please.

“You shall do no such thing.”

“Oh? How are you going to stop me?”

“I’m working on it.” He sounds as though
he’s gritting his teeth. I hope he has teeth. I still can’t see
what he looks like.

“Hey, why won’t you show me your face?”

“Need to know.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t need to know. The less you know
about us, the better off you are. I’m not even supposed to be
speaking to you. It violates all codes.”

“What codes?”

“Do you ever stop asking questions?”

“Yeah, when I have sufficient answers. Right
now, I have nothing.”

“And that’s what will save your life. You do
understand this is no game?”

“Listen mister, I understand better than
anyone,” and I poke him straight in the chest. “I’m the one who saw
her family mutilated with their throats shredded and slashed like
something you’d see in a horror flick. Do you think I could ever
forget that scene? I’ll have that embedded in my own hard drive
until the day I die. And you ask why I have so many questions.
Wouldn’t you? Tell me, wouldn’t you?” My voice rings out over the
darkness.

“Yeah, I would.”

He backs away from me with the parting
words, “Go inside,” and then fades back into the landscape. He’s
the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. But I’m going to do what I want
to do, with or without his consent. Because when it comes to Kade,
I have to find him. If he needs help, then he’s going to get it
from me. I’ll see to it.

The Seven

Sabin paces the perimeter of the convent’s
yard while he reflects on his interaction with Juliette. Rafe tells
Andros to take lead on the watch while he and Edge move closer to
Sabin. They know to keep their mouths shut while Sabin thinks. A
disturbance of any kind will likely end up in them getting their
asses handed to them in a box with a bow on it.

Sabin stops, his black eyes pierce the two
of them, and he starts up again. Then he turns and is in their
faces. “She must have a superior IQ. We’ve found that sometimes
when a person has an IQ higher than one forty, their perceptions
are more tightly focused. That’s all I can come up with.

“It’s every time though. Doesn’t matter what
we do or the methods we employ, she gets us. I wonder how accurate
she is. Maybe we could use her as a sniper,” Edge says.

Sabin shoots a look of disgust at him. “Are
you ever gonna fucking grow up? A sniper.” He slowly shakes his
head as his eyes dig into Edge. “She’s a damn girl who’s lost
everything she knows and you come up with that shit! What the fuck
is wrong with you?”

Edge shrugs. “I kinda thought it was a good
idea.”

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna send you to the
school of good ideas, if you don’t straighten your ass out. That
pussy tattoo you said you’d get? I think I’m going to switch it to
‘I Thought I Was Smart But I’m A Dumb Fuck.’ Then he looks at Rafe
and says, “You need to do something about him.”

Edge drifts away from them. He doesn’t want
another ass chewing.

“What did you tell her?” Rafe asks.

“That we protect. She thought I was going to
kill her! Christ. I didn’t even think of that. All this time she’s
been thinking that.”

“Damn.”

“And here we are, going on and not knowing.
We’re more worried about how she can see us. We don’t understand
what she goes through every day. Her eyes. You should’ve seen
them.”

Rafe adds, “I guess we were too focused on
staying in the background.”

“She told me I could have the necklace.”

Rafe chuckled. “She has no idea, does
she?”

“None at all.”

“So, what’s next?”

“Just keep her safe. Now that she knows
that’s what we do, maybe it’ll be easier.”

After Sabin’s second chat with Juliette, he
sends Drey out to look for Kade. “Find out everything you can. I’m
not sure where he’ll be, but she’s threatening to look for him
herself, and we can’t have that. Understand?”

“Yes sir.” Drey leaves and says he’ll report
in as soon as he finds something.

Sabin looks at Rafe. “We can’t have her
running around all over the place looking for Hart. Her danger
level increases to the red zone if we do. She’ll need several
escorts, and I’m almost tempted to bring whoever escorts her, out
of hiding.”

“You’re serious?” Rafe asks.

“If she’s out at night, trying to find him,
yeah, I’m serious. Let’s see if Drey finds him.”

They don’t hear from him all day.

Kade

During the flight home my head is filled with
a cesspool of things my father did to me. There were times he
forced drugs into my veins. That’s not to say the drugs weren’t
welcomed, but he would threaten to give me an overdose.

“
You love this shit so much, here, let me
help you with it.”

His bully would hold me while he’d tie a
tourniquet around my arm until my vein would surface.

“
The question is, Kade, do you love it
enough to die for it?” The sting of the needle would pierce my
skin, plunging into my vein, as he pushed the heroin into me. “Want
me to fill you up until you can’t take anymore? Until your veins
bust open with this shit? Is this what you want? I can make
everything go away.” His voice would taunt me.

Truth was, I never knew if I’d live or die
after one of his visits.

Why am I thinking about all of this now? I
thought I had purged all of this from my mind … from my soul. My
spirit rages within me, fighting to rid itself of these awful
memories, the depravity of my former life. Was it being with my
family that triggered it all or is it my insecurities over
Juliette?

Home. I need to get home as quickly as
possible. I need those comforts surrounding me.

The plane can’t land fast enough. I sprint
to my truck, which is parked nearby. My hands are shaking when they
attack the steering wheel. It’s a good thing I don’t live that far
from Centennial Airport, but the drive seems endless. When I pull
into my driveway, I slump in my seat. Sitting here, I collect
myself before I get out. Coming home is what I wanted, wasn’t it?
But what I thought would feel great feels like a cold, empty space.
I walk directly to my room and begin to unpack, but I’m hit with
that urge … that fucking urge that I know will calm me and take all
this shit away.

Oh, God, no! Stop! I can’t go through this
again. I can’t. My ass hits the floor and I want to tear my fucking
hair out. Why now? After all this time? What the hell is wrong with
me? This room … this bed. It should be my sanctuary. My place of
perfect peace. But all I see is Juliette. Naked, writhing, and
moaning my name between her lush lips. And she wants
me
. She
thinks I’m the man who can be there for her. And I’m not. I am
nothing. Nothing but a helpless shell, not worthy of her.

I grab my hoodie and get the hell out of
here. I can’t stay here. This place haunts me. Fills me with such
remorse over what I’ve done to her … made her feel and think. Why?
Why did I do that?

My brain is filled with voices. Voices of
Langston. Escaping is my only choice. I do the only thing I know.
Disappear.

My feet are my friends. They know what to
do. They carry me where they want and I don’t have to tell them.
And soon I find that place where my mind can hide, my blank slate
where the monster can’t touch me. My haven. It’s a place I resided
in for years until music saved me. But right now, I need to expunge
everything. The barbed wire is too much for music to soothe. It’s
ripping into my guts, my organs, tearing jagged pieces of my heart
out. Can anyone see them, lying about? Can they hear the cracking
of my ribs, my bones splintering, as my heart is torn out?

Eventually, numbness pervades, suffuses, but
not enough. I crave. Intensely. I am Kade Hart, the drug addict. My
haven disappears. The walls shatter like glass. His voice returns,
like an ice pick, ripping out my spine, vertebra by vertebra.

“
You know you want it, don’t you? Just
admit it. Go get it. Find it, you spineless bastard, because that’s
what you are. You’re Kade Fucking Hart, drug addict
extraordinaire.”

I am that person. I will always be that
person.

I look around. I’m in a park and it’s
daylight. Did I pass the entire night here? Probably not because I
would’ve frozen to death. I cram my hands in my pockets and the
corners of my lips curl. Unlike old times, I feel cash. A good bit
of it.

Time to seek out what I need. What I want to
ease this shit I’m feeling. I take a good look around and find I’m
not in the best part of town, but not the worst either. But that’s
where I’m headed. I know where I need to go. Where I can find what
I need. My problem is I don’t know who to buy from, but with cash,
that shouldn’t be an issue. I have one thing on my side.
Experience.

It takes longer than I would’ve liked, but
by late afternoon, I finally have a connection. Except it lands me
in a bit of trouble. The dude thinks I’m an undercover cop. His
groupies frisk me and I end up taking a beating. Nothing that I
can’t handle, though. This time, unlike when Langston’s bullies
went at me, I give back as good as I get. When the dude is
satisfied I’m okay, we make a transaction. I tell him he could’ve
just looked at my arms. “Ever seen a cop with old track marks like
this?”

We part ways and my cache burns a hole in my
pocket. Smoke it, snort it, or inject. What to do? No injecting.
Too risky. Probably smoking. But do I really want to?

I start to analyze things. Something clicks
in my head. This will be it. I know if I do this, I die. Is my life
so unbearably bad, that I would sacrifice myself for this?

My wanderings keep me moving for another
night. I spend this night amongst Denver’s homeless. I’m in a
T-shirt and a hoodie, and it’s freezing out. But I barely feel the
cold. There’s a young boy with his mother, who is shivering next to
me. He must be six or seven. I was that boy once, shivering in my
padded cell, locked away where no one could find me. He needs my
shirt more than I do. So I take off my hoodie and slip off my
T-shirt.

“Give this to your boy. It might help keep
him warm.”

She eyes me suspiciously. The homeless are
like that. No one offers them much. “Go on, take it. It’s warmer
than what he has on. It’s a heavy T-shirt.” It’s thick, and
long-sleeved. He’ll swim in it, but that may work to his advantage.
If it weren’t late December in Denver, I’d offer him my hoodie too.
As it is, I’m nearly freezing myself.

“Thank you,” she says and puts it on him. A
small face smudged in gray looks at me over her shoulder. Then he
smiles. That makes it all worthwhile.

I put my hoodie back on and settle in for
the night. And it’s a long one. I can’t sleep because I’m afraid
the monster will fill my dreams with his vileness. I’m also
frightened that I’ll see Juliette’s face and guilt will render me
helpless.

My craving is now matched by my urge for
music. I need to play, but I know if I return home, Juliette will
be there. I have no words for her. I’m a terrible person for
running off like I have. Selfish. Loveless. Faithless. Mack will
think I’m a failure, and I’ve finally lived up to Langston’s
expectations. I am nothing. Not worthy.

By late morning, I know where I need to go.
The heroin still burns a hole in my pocket, beckoning, calling, but
before I cave, there is one last place I need to visit.

I’m exhausted, hungry, filthy, and not fit
to enter, but I do anyway. And that sense of peace I always feel
here permeates through me, seeping into my worthless flesh and
bones, but more importantly, my soul. I’ve never been a religious
person because I’ve always thought God abandoned me. But when I’m
here, it feels special for some reason.

Climbing the stairs to the choir loft, I sit
and stare at the organ for a moment, before I divert my attention
to the beautiful stained glass cross. I need answers. And fast. My
cravings are leveling out, but they aren’t going away.

A nun comes and goes and I think about
Juliette. Is she worried about me? What am I doing here? Does God
have the answers or do I? Are they in my heart, my head, my soul?
Or am I so irreparably damaged that there is no help or answers for
me?