Callahan
It’s a dream. I know it. There’s a texture to it. An echo in the sound. I know it and it still doesn’t make a difference.
This fucking nightmare, this chapter of my life, will always own me.
Except that this time, something’s different. But I can’t figure out what it is. The marble is cold beneath me as I watch the blood circle widen.
Deep red on pristine white.
They’re already here. My brothers. My father. I can hear them, but I can’t open my eyes to see.
I hear her too. My mother.
I drag my eyelids open. The first thing I see is my own reflection in the mirror of blood. My face white as the marble should be. I should have died. Why didn’t I die?
They’re on their knees. Michael’s already dead. His eyes are open but he’s already dead.
That echo comes again and then I hear it. I hear him tear her dress.
See her pushed to her knees in my periphery. See her hands slip in Michael’s blood.
She’s wearing a red dress tonight. She wasn’t wearing red that night. But maybe that’s blood on the dress and I can’t see straight.
I want to wake up. I want to wake the fuck up. Too much whiskey. My uncle was right.
“I figure if l’m drunk enough, it won’t hurt as much.”
No. That’s wrong. That’s Portia’s voice. She doesn’t belong here. Not in this dream. No.
But she’s here and she’s crying. Sobbing. Calling for me. Asking for help. Pleading for it.
And I can’t move. But when I open my eyes again, I see him. I see Fernando on her and all I can do is lie there in my own blood. All I can do is watch him do it just like the last time.
“… won’t hurt as much.”
But it’s not my mother on her knees before him. It’s not her in the red dress.
I claw at the floor, hands slipping in my own blood. And she’s calling for me. She’s begging me to help her. To make him stop. And I can’t fucking get to her.
“… won’t hurt as much.”
He hurt her. That’s why she’d drank so much the first night because she expected pain. I remember it now.
I wouldn’t have hurt her.
“Portia.” Does she hear me? “I’m coming for you, Little Kitten.”
But I’m not. I can’t. All I can do is watch her face lying in Michael’s blood. Tears streaming from her eyes as Fernando moves behind her.
Until the end. Until the very end when he brings the knife to her throat and whispers something I can’t hear. Something that makes her mouth fall open as he grins like Satan himself and slides the knife across her throat.
And I swear I hear it. I hear the ripping of skin.
Hear the pouring of blood.
“No!”
I jolt upright and the moment I do, it’s like I rammed my head into a fucking brick wall.
“Fuck.”
I look around. Remember.
After I left the house, I went to a strip club. I don’t even know why. I’m not even a little interested in those women. And then there was whiskey.
A lot of whiskey before someone called my uncle and he came for me. I tried to strangle him when he called Portia a whore. He pulled a gun on me.
Which explains why I’m in my room at the Naples house with a fucking pounding headache. I’m actually not sure if I’m hungover or still drunk.
I get up and have to hold on while the world rights itself.
“I figure if l’m drunk enough, it won’t hurt as much.”
I get to the bathroom, take a piss then wash my hands and my face. I look like hell. Like death barely warmed over. I’m surprised the mirror doesn’t crack.
“I figure if I’m drunk enough, it won’t hurt as much.”
Portia’s voice repeats that sentence for the tenth fucking time. I remember when she said it. How I thought it sounded odd. And I think about last night. About how I felt when I was inside her. When I realized the truth.
Betrayed. That’s the feeling. It hardens you.
“I figure if I’m drunk enough, it won’t hurt as much.”
I open the medicine cabinet and swallow four aspirin. It won’t help, I already know.
I’m just walking out of the bathroom when the bedroom door opens. My uncle is standing there with a strange look on his face. He’s not dressed in his usual suit but in his pajamas. I’m not sure I’ve seen him in anything but a suit since I was a kid.
“What time is it?”
“Early. Seven.”
I glance to the window. The sun is a line of deep orange in the break of dark clouds that still dirty the sky. I turn back to my uncle, sobering up as I take in the pajamas, the expression on his face.
Warning bells ring in my ears. Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.
“What is it? What’s happened?” I hear myself ask.
“There was a problem.”
My heart races as my brain processes. “What problem?”
“You should have told me where you were going.”
“What. Problem.”
“Sit down.”
“Fucking tell me.”
“There was an ambush.”
“What?” My stomach bottoms out.
“All the soldiers are dead.”
Dead. “Portia?”
“They were probably looking for you.”
“Portia?” I ask again through gritted teeth.
“It’s a good thing you weren’t there.”
“Portia!” I demand.
“She’s gone.”