Darkest Before Dawn

Patrick grabbed Janine around the waist and parked it on the bed, pulling her onto his lap. The threat of her leaving infuriated him. The thought of never seeing her again was unfathomable. She had to stay. Had to. More than had to, he wanted her to want to stay here, with him. He held her gently, but firmly in place as she wiggled and struggled against him, scraping that delectable little ass of hers against his groin. "Careful woman. You're gonna start something."

"As if!" Janine was infuriated. Patrick's grip on her waist was like a steel band locking her in place. Finally, simply too exhausted and hurting too badly to fight with him, she stilled. Letting her fury boil inside of her like a volcano about to erupt. "I'm so glad we never did!" She smirked, grinding her hips against his obvious erection. "Never will."

"It's not too late. Never say never," he whispered in her ear. Giving the soft, pink flesh of the shell of ear a quick lick with the tip of his tongue. Patrick lifted his hips and pressed Janine's butt firmly against his straining erection. He was a fully functional male in every sense of the word. And he'd had over a hundred years to perfect his technique to an art form.

Janine slapped Patrick sharply with her good hand. Resulting in him dumping her ass flat on the floor. She had never been treated so badly by a man in her life. But, it was tempting to wiggle against that erection and drive them both past the point of reason. Maybe that's what he needed. A good lay. She knew she sure did. Tears of frustration and anger rolled down her cheeks. "What do you want from me Patrick?"

Stunned by her question and her tears, he paused to think about it. What did he want? He wanted her... but what did he want from her? What more did he require that she didn't already freely give? What more could he have from her than he already did? And what could he offer in return? "I don't know. I honestly don't."

"First you're hot and then you're cold." Janine sniffled and wiped at the tears with the hem of her blouse. Their saltiness stung as they rolled across the welt on her cheek. Her face was hot, blotchy, and red. She snotted when she cried. And with these big alligator tears rolling down her cheeks, her nose ran like a jogger in the New York Marathon. "Do you want me or not?"

Patrick helped Janine to her knees and guided her into the cage of his arms and legs. Lifting her chin gently with his finger. Their lips inches apart, he confessed, "I do. I need you." There, he'd said it out loud, admitting it to her. Why not go for broke? Tell her everything? "Janine," he said, swabbing at the moisture on her cheeks with his thumbs, "I love you."

Janine nodded and rested her forehead against Patrick's. The big "But," was coming. She could hear it in his voice, in the hesitation in which he said the words. Janine whispered. She fought to control the urge to press her lips to his. His confession repeated over and over in her mind. He needed her. He wanted her. He loved her. And she loved him. That's what infuriated her the most. She loved and needed him with the same heat and urgency that he loved and needed her. Unlike him, she wasn't afraid of it. "I love you," she blurted out, pressing her lips to his.

"What if I hurt you?" Patrick abruptly withdrew his mouth from Janine's. His arms stiffened around her fragile body. He was so capable of crushing her with mere a hug that it frightened him. He could kill her just as easily as she could kill a fly with a swat of her hand. It was too dangerous, for the both of them to pursue this line of thought.

"I'm willing to take that chance," she whispered. The was chaste, pure and innocent, a sharing of genuine affection and curiosity, the most chaste and harmless and also the most dangerous kiss of her life. Dangerous to her in the fact that one would never be enough. She gave in to her body and her heart, brushing her lips across his slowly. Acting not as the seductress as she'd done with other guys many times before, but only as a girl desperately in love with a boy. Her tongue ran along the border of Patrick's lips, seeking admittance. His stubborn refusal to let her in, practically shoving her away in his haste to be free of the kiss, stung.

Patrick pulled back in horror. He'd never been so repulsed that something so pure had touched his mouth. That he'd tainted her with his foulness. "These lips are stained with the blood of the innocent."

"No, Patrick. No one holds you guilty. Only you. Until you let go of the past. You have no future." She gathered her resolve and got up to her feet. She had to go while she still could. They'd admitted their feelings for each other. But, it wasn't enough. She wished it had been. But, for her, it wasn't. She couldn't compete with the invisible demons of his past.

Janine crossed the room. Patrick's eyes burned a hole on the patch of skin between her shoulder blades. The photograph Alex had found in the archives sat in a manila envelope on the dresser. Maybe, if she could convince him of how far he'd come in the last hundred years or so, he could let the past go and move forward. With her, or without her, as long as she removed the scales from his eyes, that was the important thing. "I have something to show you."

Chapter 36

Patrick let Janine position him in front of the mirror. "What is it?" he asked, watching her clumsily slide the contents free of a manila envelope on the dresser. When he'd offered to take the envelope from her hand and remove what was inside, she'd swatted at him with her swollen fingers and shot him a scowl that had him withdrawing his fingers, hastily dropping them to his side.

Janine fumbled with the photograph, carefully pulling the edges, yellowed and crinkled with age, from the envelope. "How old were you when this was taken? Go ahead, tell me, what year was it?" Patrick's eyes widened with apparent shock and the snapshot of himself. His fingers lightly traced the outline of the boy in the picture. Lips pursed, he sucked in a breath. In the quiet of the bedroom an old wind-up clock on the bureau ticked away the seconds, filling the silence with the tick-tock of passing minutes.

Patrick slid the picture free from Janine's fingers and gave it a long, hard stare. He remembered the day he'd been forced to stand still for the photographer as if it were yesterday. Rebellious and angry with the hand life had dealt him. He stood grim faced in front of the camera. It was the first time he'd had his picture taken and the last. His eyes lifted from the image to the reflection of himself he saw in the mirror.

Time passed so slowly for him. Change less noticeable when it happened not in the rush of the second hand of the clock, but in the slow drag of years and decades. Gone was the pudgy-cheeked boy in the picture. His features lean, chiseled by adulthood. Hardened by too much life, his jaw line was sharp and angular. Hair darkened, and skin unearthly pale, from almost a century of hiding from the sun. And his body, no longer awkward and lanky, yet to fill in and widen with bulk, was hard planes and ridges of muscle. His mouth, tucked behind deceptively soft looking lips, was a thin line of suppressed words he'd never said. And his eyes, in the photograph they appeared cold, lifeless, without a spark of warmth to them. They were the eyes of the experienced and the wise, but yet, illuminated by the glow of hope for the future. "Nineteen-nineteen," he answered bluntly. Just after the Sons found him.

Janine nodded. Her grandparents hadn't even been born yet. Patrick's eyes darted back and forth from the photograph to the mirror. She wondered what he saw in the reflection. And who he saw when he looked at the photo. He hadn't noticed the differences in himself between then and now, because no one had bothered to point them out. Life was funny like that. It had a way of getting away from you if you let it. One day, you looked up at yourself and if you looked hard enough, long enough, you saw who you really were, not just who you thought you were. Sometimes, there was a world of difference between the two.

He'd grown up somewhere along the way and hadn't even taken the time to notice. Janine was right about so many things. While she saw only a fraction of the world compared to him, she saw the important things he forgot to take the time to look for. Important things. Things that mattered. She was right on target when she said he couldn't move forward because he hadn't let go of the past. His body marked the passing of time, subtly, but it was there in his reflection. His mind was his prison, not the flesh that housed it.

Patrick wrapped his arms around Janine's waist and pulled her tightly against his body. Her heart drummed along, inside of her chest fluttering rapidly like a hummingbird's wings. Marking time, like the sweep hand of a clock. Someday it would beat no more and time would run out. He didn't want to waste one second more on the past. Ready, finally, to embrace the future and whatever it held. Gently, he ran a trail of kisses across her forehead, down the slope of her nose, and over her mouth. He wanted to let go of the pain. Let it all go: the bastard he thought he was, the son of a bitch he knew he could be, and simply become the man Janine saw in him. "Can you help me?"

Janine exhaled and squeezed her eyes closed tightly. Her lips curved in a smile. Her job was done. Patrick was finally beginning to accept all the pieces of himself. Finally seeing himself for who he was. Putting them together into the bigger whole of the man he was. He was ready to move forward. Embrace the future and hopefully, her along with it. She couldn't promise him anything beyond giving it her best shot. "I can try," she answered softly.

She wasn't sure if she really could live up to what he expected of her. He held the key to his own absolution. It wasn't in her hands to grant it, only to be there as he accepted his own measure of grace and forgiveness. Janine let her body melt into the strength of his arms, standing there, breathing beside him. Each breath in and out, timed with his as if their bodies were one synchronous being instead of two separate entities. "I'll really try."

Patrick dipped his head to land a soft kiss to the side of Janine's battered cheek. This was foreign territory for him. Trusting. Loving. Belonging to someone besides the brothers. Being truly alive, for the first time ever, living instead of going through the motions and being an imposter. Terrifying and exciting, light as air and heavy as a whispered sigh, the future stretched out into the unknown realm of possibilities. He'd never really loved someone before, not even himself. And he was going to try, really try. Give it his all. Do it with everything he had, not just for him. But, do it for the both of them.

Chapter 37

Danielle smiled triumphantly at her husband. Turning to glance in the back of the truck to look at the loaded shopping bags fluttering in the gusts of air rustling them about in the bed. Smugly, she readjusted herself in the passenger side. "See I told you we'd make it back well before dark." Tapping on the dash, she pointed to the clock's digital display. "You won't miss Wheel of Fortune after all."

"Yeah, we got lucky. You only went to three stores today." Three stores, four hundred dollars, and one pair of aching feet later, he'd finally herded her back to the truck. Robbie was going to have the nicest towels in the city. A whole set, including those damned little towels that were too big to be washcloths, too small to be body towels, and too thick to be hand towels.

Danielle had also purchased a bath mat, a fuzzy thing that wouldn't wash worth for shit in a washing machine. And a robe, thick and soft, the same color as the towels and the bath mat. Not to mention one of those irritating covers for the toilet. Yeah, his little girl was going to be shaving her legs and taking a crap in style.

"There goes the rest of our retirement fund," he grumbled, glancing at the dashboard. Somewhere just past the exit off the interstate, the warning light for the brakes had lit up with the orange glow of a Halloween pumpkin on a dark night. They were so close to home, less than ten miles from the driveway. The Old Girl would hold together till they made it back.

Careful not to let his wife see, Robert shifted his wrist to block the light. She'd panic like she did every time an idiot light blinked to life, make him pull over, and call a tow truck immediately. Then he 'd be out another hundred bucks or so and he'd miss Wheel of Fortune. All the while stuck on the side of the highway waiting for Bill to get here from the towing service, listening to her nag, nag, nag about how he should take better care of their only vehicle.

"It's all for our little girl." She sighed as she looked out the window at the new green of the summer scenery that passed by. She glanced up a scream building behind her lips, "Bob, watch out!" she saw the semi barreling down the southbound lane, headed right for them.

The semi driver was finally on the way home for a few days of R and R after his fifth straight day on the road. Guts irritated by rest stop vending machines and greasy fast food, he belched and pressed down on the accelerator. This late in the evening, just before dark, there was little traffic on the stretch of two-lane road ahead of him. Country music blared through the speakers of the cab. And he drove with the air on full blast and the windows down to keep him alert. Eager at the prospect of a hot meal and a little alone time with the girlfriend, he just wanted to get home. Bleary eyed and exhausted, his lids drifted shut and popped back open...then drifted shut again, and stayed shut.

Bracing herself against the dash. One hand and clutching the seatbelt and the other helplessly flailing for the emergency brake, Robert pumped uselessly on the brake pedal. he let loose a curse, his foot crunching down on the brake, hands tight on the wheel, steering them as close to the shoulder as he dared. The truck squealed as it connected with the flimsy metal of the guardrail meant to protect them from a twenty-foot drop in the ravine down below. The semi barreled down on the truck, pinning them like a deer, frozen in the proverbial headlights. There wasn't time to get out of the semi's path. There wasn't anywhere for him to go, if he could have steered clear of the fifty some odd thousand pounds of machinery headed straight for them. There was time to grab Danielle's hand one last time before the crash and darkness took him down.

*******

Lucien gripped his head and dropped to his knees. From the bedroom Patrick cried out in anguish panting, moaning, and falling to the floor. It was as if every brother wailed a hollow echoing cry of pain and loss simultaneously. Dozens of voices sounded as one in a scream, mind to mind, locked as one. Lucien stumbled to his feet, gripping on to Alex as she struggled to help him. "Something has happened, something very bad has happened."

Kore leapt from her perch in the trees. Smiling a self-satisfied little grin. She couldn't have planned it better if she'd tried. The smell of death, fresh as a daisy in the air, along with the sweetness of blood and charred flesh, so thick it made her stomach grumble eagerly.

She should mourn her deceased relatives, no matter how distant they were. But, oh well. She wasted no time on the dead. Not when there were so many living left to play with. Picking through the unconscious semi-driver's pocket she found a cell phone and did her civic duty, dialing 911, right before she sent him to join her recently deceased family.

Laughing like a schoolgirl on prom night, she went out in search of her brother to tell him the unfortunate news. His little family had been reduced to one lone straggler. It was time to get this party started at last.