Song of the Fireflies

“Did you report what you overheard?”

“Fuck yeah I did, right after I confronted her myself—it was the one time I really wanted to punch a girl,” Tate said as smoke streamed out of his nostrils. “I told Caleb’s lawyer and the police, and I tried to get that now ex-friend of my sister’s to stand up in court and tell everyone what she was told, but she denied it.” Tate shook his head, smiling disappointedly, as if to this day he still couldn’t believe it. “Long story short, Caleb was sentenced and served some of his time. His girlfriend of five years left him, and that was the end of Caleb’s life. Wearing a bright f**king rape badge on your chest is pretty much a life ender, even if you didn’t really do it. After that, Caleb wasn’t the same anymore. He got out of prison and he was changed. I didn’t even know him anymore. I still don’t. When I look in his eyes I don’t see my little brother anymore, and I don’t think I ever will.”

I thought about Bray then, about the possibility of her going to prison. “You think the time in prison made him that way?” I asked.

“Nah,” Tate said, wrinkling his nose. “He wasn’t in prison that long. I think it was a combination of everything. Losing Cera. Being convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. Facing a bunch of asshats when he got out. Some people did everything short of stoning him to death in the street. He lost his job and a lot of his friends because they all believed he was a ra**st. Shit like that can really mess with a person’s head.”

I leaned my back against the concrete beam and crossed my arms. All I could picture was Bray, dressed in an orange suit. And after hearing about what Caleb went through, I became even more hell-bent on keeping her out of prison when I thought I couldn’t possibly be any more determined than I already was. Suddenly, I was terrified for her. The system failed Caleb Roth. I knew, with every fiber of my being, that it was just as likely to fail Bray.

She was right all along. She was right to be afraid. She was wrong to run, but her fears were absolutely justified.

“Go ahead and come with us to Texas,” Tate said. “Use the ride there and back to figure out what you two are gonna do.” He pointed at me briefly. “But my advice, if you want it, you need to talk that girl into turning herself in.”

I was confused, and I know I must’ve looked that way. After what Caleb went through unnecessarily, I thought Tate would know Bray would probably go through the same thing.

“She thinks it’s too late for that,” I said. “And I can’t say I disagree with her.”

“Maybe so,” he said, “but that’s some serious shit right there. You kill somebody, accidental or not, it’s not something that’ll ever get swept under the rug. The longer you run, the harder they’ll hunt you down, and the more you make yourself look guilty as hell.”

“Yeah, I know. Trust me, I know. I’ve thought about nothing but that since we left Georgia.”

Jen pushed the back door open, her eyes, wide with worry, framed by her long, cascading blonde hair. “Elias, I think you need to get in there with your girlfriend. She locked herself in the bathroom.”

Fearing the worst, and knowing what Bray was capable of, I rushed past Jen and ran back into the house.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Elias

I rapped harshly on the bathroom door. “Bray?”

I could hear her sobbing, but she wouldn’t answer, so I knocked and called out her name again. Jen and Tate came up behind me, but I was too busy trying to get the door open to pay attention. I twisted the knob both ways, knowing it was locked but hoping by some chance it might still pop open. “Bray, open the door, baby, please.” My heart was thrumming in my throat.

“I heard her crying when I walked by,” Jen said from behind. “I stopped and asked if she was OK, but she didn’t answer. I dunno why, but it just kinda freaked me out.”

“Bray! Open the damn door!” I pounded on it harder with my fist.

“Move out of the way,” I heard Adam say in a calm manner, as if he had it under control.

I stepped to the side and Adam went up to the door and stuck a thin L-shaped piece of metal in the doorknob. The door clicked and popped right open. Adam stepped away and I wasted no time rushing in there. Bray was sitting on the bathroom floor next to the pedestal sink with her back against the wall, her knees drawn up and her head atop them. She rocked back and forth on her backside, her body a trembling mess, her arms pressed together against her chest. I checked her over from afar, at first afraid to approach her.

No blood. There was no blood, and a great sense of relief washed through me like a crashing wave. As relieved as I was, I felt guilty for thinking she would ever do something like that after she promised me that she wouldn’t. I wasn’t giving her enough credit.

I sat down beside her on the floor and glanced back at everyone standing in the doorway.

“Let’s give them a moment,” Tate said and reached out for the doorknob. Just before the door closed he added, “I hate to rush you, especially right now, but we have to head out in fifteen minutes so Jen can make her flight.”

I nodded and he closed the door the rest of the way.

Immediately, I turned back to Bray. Placing my hands on the sides of her face, I tried to lift her head. She fought me at first, but I managed to get her to raise her eyes to me. Her face was streaked with the black mascara she had borrowed from Jen. I tried to take her hands, wedging mine between her thighs and her chest to reach them, but she refused, jerking them away. Her dark hair fell over her shoulder and further concealed them.

“Why are you hiding them?”

That feeling in the pit of my stomach began to twist deeper.

“Elias…” Her voice was soft and pleading.

She didn’t want me to look.

I clenched my jaw so hard that pain shot through my teeth and I reached in and grabbed her by one wrist, feeling the coarse hemp rope material her bracelets were made from scratching against my fingers. I expected them to be moist with blood, but they were dry. She screamed at me and thrust her body backward, accidently hitting her head on the wall, but I wasn’t about to let go. Her eyes were feral and imploring.

“Stop, Elias, please!”

“No! What are you hiding?!” I wrenched her wrists into view and forced my fingers behind the bracelets, pulling them apart so I could see her skin. Still no blood. No cuts. I looked at the other one. It was the same, but as I moved a little to the left and the light in the ceiling filled in the shadow my body had been casting on her, I saw that her wrists were red and inflamed. Red streaks stretched from just below the balls of her thumbs downward to the center of her forearm.