Absolution (The Protectors 1)

“No,” I quickly said. “It’s in New Haven,” I added thinking that the idea of driving me to Connecticut would put a quick end to the discussion. The bottom line was that I was just too raw to deal with the confusing emotions this man stirred in me and spending a couple of hours cooped up in his van seemed like a supremely bad idea.

“It’s no problem,” Mace added as he closed the back doors on the van.

I must have hesitated because Mace came up to me and softly said, “Your friend needs you, Jonas.”

Everything about the statement was wrong. Cole wasn’t my friend and he didn’t need me. But it wasn’t just the words that were messing with me. It was the intimate way Mace said it to me and the way his fingers gently brushed over my bicep as if trying to urge me forward. Maybe if he hadn’t said my name the way he did…like we were more to each other than employer and employee, I would have been able to resist.

We didn’t speak until we’d left the city limits. And even then, Mace’s voice caught me off guard when he asked, “Did you guys go to school together or something?”

“What?” I asked, my body feeling numb as we drew closer and closer to our destination.

“Cole’s sister. She’s the one who passed, right?”

“Um, yeah,” I said. “No, we didn’t go to school together. We met a long time ago,” I hedged, not wanting to have to try to explain how Carrie and I had met. The idea of having Mace know the things I’d done to survive made me sick. It was bad enough that Cole knew the truth about me.

“He mentioned a police report…” Mace probed

“Mace,” I whispered, my throat feeling tight.

“Yeah.”

“Can we talk about something else?” I asked, my eyes glued to the traffic flying past us on the Interstate.

“Sure,” he said. “Why the kids?”

“What?”

“The art studio you’re building. Wouldn’t most artists be interested in displaying their own work?”

“I’ve been pretty lucky,” I said on a sigh, grateful that this was a topic I could handle.

“How so?” Mace interjected before I could even continue on my own.

“While I was in school, I met someone who took a liking to my work. She bought several of my pieces and started spreading the word about me to her friends. She even helped set me up with an agent when I got back to the States.”

“States? You went to school somewhere else?”

“I got a scholarship to an art school in Paris. I studied there for a couple of years and then stayed for a couple of more so I could immerse myself in the culture. But I missed home so I came back a couple months ago. I had enough saved up from the sale of my paintings to lease the studio and fix it up.”

“Why do it for kids though?”

“Because I think about what art gave me when I was younger and I want other kids to have that.”

“What did it give you?”

“A voice,” I said without hesitation. “Even when there wasn’t someone around to hear.” I risked a glance at Mace and was surprised to see him watching me. It was just for a moment of course, since he had to stay focused on the road but I liked what I saw. Like he got what I was trying to say. Probably just more fanciful wishing on my part. I turned my attention back to the passing scenery. “Even if all they get out of it is seeing their art on display, think how they’ll feel for that minute or hour or day.”

Mace didn’t say anything after that and I was kind of glad. Once we got closer to the city, I used my phone’s app to get us to the cemetery and I was glad to see the service hadn’t started, even though we were a couple of minutes late.

“Thanks,” I said to Mace as I climbed out of the van.

“I’ll be right here,” he said with a simple nod. I knew he meant that he’d be there to drive me to Cole’s house for the gathering afterwards and then ultimately to take me home, but I pretended he meant something else. Something that gave me enough strength to stiffen my back and walk up the small incline to where a handful of mourners stood, unaware that the reason Carrie was dead stood among them.

Chapter Eight

Cole

The attendance at Carrie’s funeral was even smaller than I’d expected and I felt another piece of my heart shear off as I realized how little of my sister’s memory still remained in this world. As I scanned the few faces gathered on one side of the flower-draped, silver coffin, I had the insane urge to tell everyone to leave because none of them really understood what we’d lost. None of them got that losing Carrie had set off a chain reaction of events that had destroyed the family we’d been.