Song of the Fireflies (22 page)

Caleb raised his back from the seat and pointed up ahead. “Pull in there,” he said. “I need to piss.”

Tate took a left at the stop sign and pulled into the parking lot of an old run-down liquor store on the corner. Various beer and whiskey advertisements completely covered the windows. An ice cooler sat beside the front door with a faded polar bear plastered on the side. There was only one car parked outside, on the edge of the building underneath a metal carport. It was probably the owner’s car.

“Hurry up!” Tate shouted out the Jeep window as Caleb walked quickly inside. I heard the faint ringing of a bell when he swung open the door.

The three of us sat in silence for a moment. Bray had almost fallen asleep before we stopped.

“Are you two hungry?” Tate asked.

“No, man, I’m good,” I said and then looked down at Bray as she sat against me with her head on my shoulder.

“I’m not hungry,” she said.

“You sure? I can run in and get you a stick of jerky or something.” Tate offered. He was turned around in the driver’s seat and facing us, with his right hand wedged behind the headrest of the passenger’s seat.

“No thanks,” Bray said.

Tate nodded and turned back around. He tapped his thumbs against the steering wheel and turned the song up on the radio. Awolnation’s “Sail” streamed from the speakers. We were all getting into it, bobbing our heads and singing along to the words.

“I might as well take a piss, too,” Tate said after a minute.

He opened the door and started to take the key out of the ignition, but I stopped him. “Leave ’em,” I said. “This is a great song.”

“All right.” He shut the door and jogged toward the front of the liquor store.

I leaned between the two front seats and reached out for the volume button, turning it up.

Bray and I became lost in the music. I leaned my head back against the seat and shut my eyes. She laid her head on my lap and shut her eyes. We let the music roll through us like medicine, and for a moment it was all we cared about. For that brief moment, we took advantage of shutting off the outside world.

A gunshot rang out, and our eyes popped open. Bray rose upright from my lap. “What was that?”

“Sounded like a shot.”

I looked out the window beside me to see Caleb and Tate running toward us, Caleb with a gun in his right hand.

“Oh shit!” I cried.

We both froze and looked at each other as if to ask,
What just happened?
But neither of us could move.

Tate swung his door open and jumped inside. “Get the fuck in!” he yelled at Caleb.

A second later, Caleb was in the passenger’s seat, and we were speeding away from the liquor store with dirt kicking up behind the Jeep’s tires.

“
What the fuck?
” Tate roared at Caleb, white-knuckling the steering wheel as we got back onto the desolate highway.

“I didn’t mean to shoot him!”
Caleb leaned over and rammed his own head into the dashboard several times.

“What happened? Oh my God, what the fucked
happened
?” Bray said frantically. She rose up behind him, trying to look over his shoulder.

“You
shot
someone?” I grabbed Bray by her waist and pulled her away from Caleb and next to me.

“
Back off!
” Caleb screamed at us.

He looked at Tate, his eyes full of fear and anger and regret. “I-I fucking swear it, Tate. I-I didn’t mean to hit him. I was only trying to scare him.”

“You robbed the store?” Bray asked. “I can’t believe he robbed the fucking store!” She was looking at me again.

I put my hand over her mouth gently. “Bray, please, just be quiet,” I whispered.

She was shaking.
I
was shaking.

Tate slammed his fists down on the steering wheel. I counted six times before he almost lost control of the Jeep and had to grab the wheel to steady the vehicle. We fishtailed in a quick jolting motion until the Jeep straightened up. I could smell the burnt rubber from the tires.

“What are we going to do?” Caleb said nervously.

Tate swerved to the side of the road and came to a sudden stop. I caught Bray just before her mouth hit the back of Caleb’s seat.

Tate fumbled for his cell phone somewhere in the front seat and called nine-one-one.

“A man was just shot,” he said into the phone and then proceeded to give the operator the location of the liquor store.

Caleb got out of the Jeep and started walking down the center of the road. Tate followed. We watched them argue in the street for a moment.

“I did it to get money to pay Rocky!” Caleb yelled. “So you wouldn’t have to use all of your savings!”

“And robbing a liquor store makes it better?!” Tate roared. He hit Caleb in the face.

Caleb stumbled backward and almost fell, but he didn’t hit back. “I was only trying to scare him! I shot but I aimed at the wall! I didn’t mean to
hit
him!”

“What are we going to do, Elias?” Bray asked, her whole body trembling.

“I don’t know, but we can’t stay with them.”

Just then Tate jumped back inside and Caleb followed. Before we could even protest, the Jeep lurched into forward motion. We fell heavily against the seat and then forward again.

“Let us the fuck out!” I tried to shout over the radio and Tate and Caleb screaming at each other in the front. But I don’t think Tate even heard me, he was so blinded by rage.

“I’m not doing this anymore with you, Caleb!” Tate said. “This is it! I’ll always love you. You’re my brother. But I never want to see you again!” Then his voice began to rise. “What the fuck, man! I just pulled the same stunt they did!” He pointed at us. “I fucking ran to protect your ass! What the fuck was I
thinking
?! I’m not going down for you! Not anymore!
Not like this!
”

We sped by a maroon-colored minivan.

“Slow down, man,” I said nervously from the backseat. “You’re going to get us all killed.”

Minutes later we pulled into another convenience store parking lot. Bray and I jumped out quickly before Tate even put the Jeep into Park. I grabbed her hand and pulled her next to me.

Tate and Caleb started fighting in the front seat. Tate was on top of him, pummeling Caleb with his fists. But this time it was far from being a harmless brotherly squabble. Tate was a merciless animal, raining down blow after blow after heavy, bloody blow onto Caleb’s face. I was afraid he was going to beat him to death.

I let go of Bray’s hand and she screamed at me as I ran around to the passenger’s side of the car and opened the door. Caleb fell out halfway and I grabbed him by the arms and helped him out the rest of the way. Tate was outside of the Jeep and standing over Caleb on the asphalt before I even had a chance to pull my arms from underneath his.

“Back off, Tate! You’re going to make a bad situation worse!” I put up my hand, hoping to get him to back down. His balled fists hung bloodied at his sides. His face was twisted with rage. His tats almost looked alive as the muscles in his arms hardened and became more pronounced against the white backdrop of his shirt, also stained by Caleb’s blood.

“Please, man, just back off,” I pleaded one last time with him.

Tate’s conscience took control of him again and he took two steps back. His chest rose and fell with heavy, deep breaths that he could hardly steady. I finally let go of Caleb and stood back as he picked himself up from the ground. Blood streamed from both of his nostrils. His left eye was already swollen. He reached up and wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth with the side of his hand.

I looked over to see Bray running into the convenience store.

I ran after her, and I could only wonder what the hell she was doing. I followed her to the ladies’ restroom facilities and without a thought, I barged right in. I didn’t give a damn if there were other people inside. I was worried about Bray. I was worried about what she was capable of.

The stall door shut with a vociferous
bang!
and seconds later I heard her throwing up. I wondered why she didn’t just throw up outside, but it was such an insignificant curiosity that I didn’t bother to ask.

“Baby, are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll be OK.” She threw up a few more times and I went over to the sink to wet some paper towels for her.

Bray came out of the stall and I started wiping her face and mouth.

“What are we going to do?” The floodgates opened and she broke down in tears, pressing her arms against my chest. I wrapped one arm around her back and the other behind her head.

“I think three days is too long,” I said. “I think it’s time we went home.”

She looked up at me, and I kissed her forehead.

“I’m not going home,” she said softly. “I never planned to.”

I shook my head. “W-What are you saying? Bray, we have to go home. There are no other options.”

“I love you, Elias, but I’m not going home with you. I’m not going to jail.”

We were interrupted by a few screams inside the store and then I heard, “
Everybody get on the floor!
”

It was Caleb’s voice.

And that was how we ended up here. In this moment. Holed up in the back of a convenience store with cops surrounding the building.

Present Day

Caleb has been holding me, Bray, and five other people inside the store for the past two hours. The store clerk and two customers have been sitting in the candy bar aisle just feet from us. I can smell urine. I think the woman with the brown hair and wearing a long, flowered dress pissed on herself at some point. Bray and I haven’t moved from the wall in the hallway next to the restrooms.

My mind is overloaded with… with a little bit of everything. A part of me wants to feel absolutely numb to all of this, but it’s only a small part. The rest of me is fearful but focused. I have to stay focused to get Bray out of here unharmed. I don’t think Caleb will hurt us. I really don’t. But I’m still afraid of what he might do, how far he will go.

Tate never made it into the store when the cops swarmed the parking lot and jumped out of their cars, drawing their guns. Caleb told us that he had pushed Tate away when Tate tried to follow him inside. He didn’t want Tate to go down with him like this. Whatever that meant.

I still have a bad feeling sitting sour in my stomach. As if what’s already happened isn’t enough, I still feel like the worst is yet to come.

“Bray?” I try again to get her attention.

She doesn’t answer. She appears stoic. Vacant.

I try another approach, with Caleb at least. I feel like Caleb is the one I need to fix first. To keep Bray safe, I have to talk Caleb down. An hour ago, I tried to talk him into giving himself up, but it was useless, as I had a feeling it would be.

I push myself to my feet. The gun in Caleb’s hand is pointed right at me the second he notices.

I raise my hands out at my sides. “It’s just me.” He starts to lower the gun. “I just want to talk.”

“
Five more minutes!
” an officer’s voice on a loudspeaker calls out. “
We’re sending him back in!
”

He’s referring to the man—a cop of some sort—Caleb agreed to let in thirty minutes ago. He wanted to hear Caleb’s demands and I’m sure to assess the situation inside for the officers outside. Bray and I stayed by the restrooms, out of sight.

“Talk about what?” Caleb says acidly.

His eye has turned blue and purple over the past two hours, and it’s so swollen the skin is raised nearly an inch over what is normal.

“You say you’re not going to hurt anyone,” I begin, “so just let everyone go. Show them you mean it. You keep these people in here like this, they’re hostages.”

“So fucking what?” he says. The woman in the dress looks up at him but is afraid to meet his eyes. “They’re already gonna charge me with having hostages. Doesn’t matter now.”

“Then let them go. You didn’t intend to have hostages, so let them go. I’ll stay here with you. But let Bray go, too.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bray finally speaks from behind me.

I turn around to see her looking up at me from her sitting position on the floor. I leave Caleb carefully, backing my way away from him so that I’m not making any sudden movements, and I go straight over and kneel beside Bray.

“You need to get out of here,” I say.

“No. I don’t,” she says simply. “If I go out that door, I go straight to jail. I told you, baby, I’m not going to jail. And I meant it.”

My heart is racing. Time is running out, and all I can think about is what’s going to happen when it does. Every possible scenario has run through my mind like a wide-awake nightmare, each of them ending with Bray facedown in a pool of her own blood.

Five minutes later, the guy in the casual clothes who somehow still reeks of cop reenters the store with his hands raised above his head. And just like before, Caleb keeps the gun trained on him.

“Where is my brother?” Caleb asks.

“He’s still outside waiting for you,” the man says in a calm voice. “He’s worried about you, Caleb. He just wants you to come out of here safely so that you can go home.”

Caleb laughs. “
Home?
Are you fucking
kidding
me? You think I’m fucking stupid? I won’t see home for a long time.”

“No, you won’t,” the man says, still with both hands where Caleb can see them at all times. “But you will someday, and the longer you stay in here like this, the worse you make it for yourself, the farther away the prospect of seeing home becomes. What about these people?” He points at the male clerk and the two women sitting in the aisle. “
They
want to go home. They haven’t done anything to deserve this.”

I wonder why the man didn’t include Bray and me, why he’s acting as though we aren’t sitting here several feet away and as much a part of this as they are.

Just as I think that, the man looks at us, his dark eyes peer at us underneath dark, bushy eyebrows.

“And what about Brayelle Bates and Elias Kline?” he says and my heart stops.

How did they find out so soon?
I think to myself, but then it becomes obvious. We’ve been on the news. It wasn’t hard to figure out. But still, his saying our names like that took me by surprise.

Bray has the same reaction. Her eyes grow wide. She looks at me for a split second before giving the man her full attention.

“They still have a chance to go home,” the man goes on, though he’s looking right at us, making sure that we get the message he was sent in here to give. “Everybody knows that they’re scared. But no one is accusing them of murder. Innocent until proven guilty. They want to go home to tell everyone what happened that night on the river, tell their side of the story, to have a chance at life.” He looks at Caleb again. “But you have to let them go home so they can do that.”

“I’m not keeping them here,” he says. “And
she
doesn’t
want
to go.”

The man looks at Bray. “Is that true?”

“You’re not in here for me,” Bray says. “I’m the least of anyone’s worries. Leave me out of it.”

“I’m afraid that’s not something I can do,” the man says.

“He’s the one with the gun, you asshole,” she snaps. “Just leave me alone!”

The man turns to me. “And what about you?” he asks. “Are you a part of this?”

“Wait a damn minute!” Caleb shouts. “What the fuck is
that
supposed to mean? You accusing them of being a part of this?” He points the gun forward at the man. “See, fuck the system! Fuck ‘innocent until proven guilty’! They already think you’re guilty, that you are as much a part of this as I am, even though I’m the one holding the gun to his fucking head. See how the system works? They send innocent people to jail every fucking day while murderers, child molesters, and
real
rapists are set free because of some stupid goddamn technicality.
Fuck
you and your system, you piece of shit!”

The man takes two steps back and raises his hands a little higher. He’s getting worried that Caleb might get trigger-happy. So am I.

“No, I’m not accusing them of anything,” the man says in surrender. “But it looks bad on them if they stay in here when they have a chance to be set free. It makes them look even guiltier of Jana McIntyre’s death than they already do.” Then he adds, “And I know about your rape sentence, Caleb. I’ve seen men get sent to jail for rape, men just like you who don’t fit the profile. It happens all the time. You’re not the only one.” He looks at us once more. “And accidents happen all the time, too. Sometimes people run when they’re scared. It’s the worst thing you can do, but it happens. All the time. None of you are alone.”

“Are you saying you believe us?” Caleb asks. “Or is this your way of gaining trust?” He doesn’t give the man a chance to answer. Caleb already has it set in his mind what he believes and nothing this man can say will ever change that. He laughs. “That’s exactly what it is. You come in here wearing your stupid fucking running pants and your stupid fucking running shoes, trying to look like a civilian, when really we all know you’re just another cop trying to fit in with the little people. Gain our trust. Make us believe your bullshit lies.”

“Your brother is outside right now, Caleb,” the man cuts in. “He’s worried. He told me to tell you that he will visit you every single day while you’re locked up. He said that he didn’t mean what he said before, that he never wanted to see you again. He wants you to know that no matter what, he’ll put you first and visit you every day until the day you get out. Because he loves you and nothing can keep him away from his little brother.”

I hear Bray rupture with sobs and I look down at her. It’s as though what the man just said struck a nerve.

Caleb’s eyes are now brimming with tears, too. His mouth is twitching at the corners, his nose wrinkling under the deep setting of his eyebrows as he tries to hold the tears back. But he can’t hold them in and they begin to run down his cheeks in rivulets.

“Is my brother in trouble?” Caleb asks, the gun, still shaking, pointed at the man. “Is he going to face charges for running with me? It wasn’t his fault! He wasn’t even thinking straight when he ran out of that liquor store with me! He had nothing to do with it! He only ran because
I
was running!
He wasn’t thinking straight!
”

“Calm down,” the man says, motioning forward. “No, listen to me, Caleb, I’m sure I can get him out of it. He did run, yes, and he shouldn’t have, but he called nine-one-one, and the man you shot is going to live. Your brother is going to be fine.”

“He’s going to live?” Caleb asks, his voice desperate and nearly breathless.

I see the relief wash through him beneath all of that anger and rage and fear.

“Yes,” the man says. “He’s in stable condition. It was a shoulder wound.”

“And my brother? You fucking swear on your life he’s not going to be charged?”

“Caleb, I’m not going to swear it,” the man says, “because I want to be completely honest with you. But his chances are very good. The only thing he did wrong was run, but he didn’t go far. He did everything else right. I believe he’ll be fine. And I’ll do everything I can to make sure that he is. I know he’s innocent. He’s got a good heart. I’ve been doing this for a long time and I know a good man when I see one.” He pauses, looks at me and then back at Caleb. “I’m looking at two good men right now. And one good woman. People who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. People who have screwed up and who will have to face charges no matter what, but people who still have a chance to prove that they’re good people.”

The woman in the flowered dress breaks into sobs of her own. The clerk holds her next to him.

“Let them go, Caleb,” the cop says.

“I will,” he says. “You go back outside and I’ll send them out after you.”

“What about you?” the man asks suspiciously. “Are you going to give yourself up?”

“I want to think about it,” Caleb says. “But I’ll let them go.”

The man nods, accepting what Caleb gives him. He leaves the store.

Caleb paces back and forth in front of the drink coolers, staying out of sight of the front windows. Then he stops and points at the three hostages.

“Go,” he says motioning his free hand toward the front doors. “I’m sorry that I put you through this. I’m so sorry.”

The woman in the flowered dress raises her eyes to him and then immediately bolts out of the store sobbing hysterically.

“Bray,” Caleb says turning to her, “I’m sorry for being such a dick.” He looks at me. “I really am.”

“I know,” I say.

Bray just sits there quietly with her back pressed against the wall. Her tears have dried up, her face devoid of any emotion.

Caleb goes to the door and opens it enough that he can yell out, “
I’m going to come out! I’m going to surrender!
”

Bray gets up, and her movement surprises me. She walks past me and goes toward the end of the candy bar aisle.

I follow behind her.

“Put the gun on the floor and come out with your hands up!”

Caleb sets the gun on the floor right in front of the door, raises his hands high above his head, turns around, and pushes the glass door open with his back.

The second the door closes, I see Bray’s dark hair whip behind her as she runs toward the door. I panic inside when she falls to the floor and grabs Caleb’s gun and then backs herself against the bread display.

“What are you doing?” I approach her carefully. My heart is hammering against my rib cage. “Baby… please… please don’t—”

She shoves the gun underneath her chin, pushing her head back against a loaf of bread, and her finger rests on the trigger.

I fall to my knees, tears streaming down my face. I feel like I’m going to throw up my heart is beating so fast.

“God, please, Bray…
please
… if you do this, if you take your life in front of me it will kill me. I love you
so fucking much
. I always have. I always will.” I’m choking on my tears, and the back of my throat burns. “You remember that pact we made when we were kids? Best friends always. Do you remember?” I inched closer on my hands and knees. My hands are shaking so badly I can hardly hold my body up. Bray’s face holds no emotion. None. She just looks at me through glass eyes, but the more I talk to her, the more I remind her how much I love her, the more I see the faintest of emotion flicker inside the glass. I see the Bray I’ve known and loved since I was nine years old, the one stronger than the darkness that lives inside of her. “I know you remember. But you’re more to me than my best friend. You always have been. My heart beats for you. If you die, every part of what makes me human will die.”

Her hand begins to shake. It makes me nervous. Her finger on the trigger… I don’t want her to shake.

“God damn it, Bray…
I love you! Don’t put me through this!
”

“I can’t be locked up!” she screams. “I can’t live like that! Away from you! You’re all I have in this world! All I’ve ever had!”

“I’ll be there!” I scream back at her with every ounce of emotion my body can produce. “I would never leave you alone! Do you understand me?!
Never!
I don’t care how long it takes, Bray, I will wait for you!”

And then the significance of the moment hits me.

“
I will die for you, Bray! I will die WITH you!
”