Across from me, Sulli digs the second grave, and near her, Akara rests on the ground. Forearms to his knees, he catches his breath from his shift digging. He’s on “break” since we’ve only got two shovels.
Night air is thick with death. Among spruce trees, we found a grassy clearing for the graves, and two cougars lie lifeless, bleeding into the dirt and grass beside us. I’m more used to death than I’d like to admit.
But it still knocks me back. Almost losing Akara, then Sulli, that sucker-punched me. Thinking about how close I was to the brutal loss now is like an invisible hand around my windpipe. Every so often I feel the ghost of a hand clench tighter.
Christ, I’ll take a hundred more migraines. Just don’t take them.
You hear me? I look up at the sky, then back at the dirt. Shoveling once more.
Only thing that keeps my mind right and snapped to is feeling the smoke run down the back of my throat. Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Each word pumps into my head as I suck in the nicotine.
“I thought you quit.” Sulli’s voice sounds loud in the night. Ever since we began digging hours ago, we’ve been quiet.
“I did.” Plucking the cigarette from my lips, I keep it pinched between my fingers and skillfully dig the shovel into the dirt again.
Akara and Sulli share some sort of look.
I don’t stare too long to decode it.
While Akara fits on a baseball cap backwards, he tells me, “I don’t even know why you brought cigarettes on this trip.”
“For nights like this.” I heave the shovel back into the ground. Loose dirt comes up. “When bad shit goes down, the only thing that sounds like heaven-on-Earth is a good smoke.”
“You passed that point like five cigarettes ago,” Akara says with the wave of his hand to me. “Now you’re just chain-smoking.”
I flip him off, but I can’t really disagree. Once I start, it’s hard to find the will to stop. It’s buried too far beneath the dirt I shovel.
“I’m digging a fuckin’ grave, Akara. Let me have my moment.”
He makes a cross sound, verging on a laugh. “Sure. Tomorrow they’re going in the lake.”
Sulli flings dirt to the side. “I’ll fucking help.”
“Yeah, you would,” I say, wiping sweat off my brow. “Drawn to the water, aren’t you?”
Her smile flickers in and out. Like she craves to feel weightless, but the situation is just heavy weight, dragging us all down. She stops digging suddenly.
My jaw hardens in a deeper frown. “Sulli?”
“What’s wrong?” Akara asks.
“What if this whole trip was a bad idea,” she whispers, more to the empty hole at her feet than to us. “My dad might’ve been right. I’m named after his best friend who passed away at twenty-seven. He was your age, Akara—to think that this wouldn’t have been cursed from the start…”
“This trip is not cursed, Sul,” Akara says. “You and I might be surrounded by death, but Banks isn’t. Hey, he’s like our very tall good luck charm.”
Fuck.
I must wear my devastation on my face because Akara immediately says, “Banks.” Like my name is made of glass and he’s cradling the damn thing in his hands.
In the tense silence, I find the empty water bottle where I’ve been tossing cigarette butts. Careful not to start a forest fire while I’m at it. With their concerned eyes pressed on me, I take one more long drag and ditch the cigarette.
Ghost hands wrap tight around my throat. Harder to breathe, harder to think.
I’ve never had to tell this story out loud. It’d been a gift to go this long without unearthing that kind of pain. But it’s also agony keeping it buried in this moment.
Either way, I’m going to hurt.
“I had an older brother,” I mutter those words. I wonder if Thatcher explained this better to Jane. How perfectly did he unleash the past we share? I lift a shoulder. “He died when he was fifteen. Quarry accident. Drowned. I was twelve.”
Sulli takes in a breath. “Banks, I’m so fucking sorry.”
I shake my head. “It was a long time ago. I have mixed feelings about everything, so I like to leave it in the past.”
“That’s why you didn’t tell me?” Akara asks, hurt cinching his face. “Thatcher never said anything either…”
I bob my head. “We silently agreed to never speak about it.” I pause to meet his eyes. “I’m gonna be honest, Akara, I never planned on telling you or anyone, really.” I don’t add that I’d always hoped it’d come up between him and Thatcher, and I’d just let my twin brother explain it all.
“Why?” Akara frowns.
“Because that’s what we, Moretti boys, do.” I force the shovel back into the ground. “We bury the back-breaking, head-splitting shit and don’t ever speak about it.” I ache for another cigarette. “Maybe because we love each other so damn much that it’s hard enough feeling my pain—do I really want to feel Thatcher’s on top of it?”
It’d cut me open tenfold.
It already does.
I add, “And then after a while, it takes too much energy to speak about the painful thing. So we don’t share with anyone until it’s more painful than the thing we buried.”
Akara stands up. “Hey, you know I’m here, man? Whatever you want to share with me, I appreciate.” He steps closer. “And I can’t imagine keeping my dad’s death a secret from my friends. That couldn’t have been easy.”
I let out a hoarse laugh. The ghost hand clenches tighter around my throat. “Easier than it probably should be.”
“What was his name?” Sulli asks, then cringes. “You don’t have to answer that. Fuck, you said you wanted to keep it in the past. I’m bad with words—”
“His name was Skylar,” I say quickly. “And I like your words.”
She lets out a soft breath. “One day, if you want to talk about him, I’ll be here to listen.”
“Me too,” Akara says.
Pressure eases off my windpipe.
I breathe in. “Thanks,” I say into a strong nod. One day, I hope I can tell them more. How my parents’ divorce is wrapped like a vice around Skylar’s death. How everything goes back to that one moment. How one night changed my whole world.
Tonight could’ve done the same thing.
Maybe it already has.
Like the turn of a car, heading in a new, unexpected and unknown direction. One we didn’t plan or map out, but one that was meant for us.
For whatever reason, we’re here together.
I lean the shovel against a tree to pluck another cigarette from the pack. “So we’ve got Adam Sully…” I put the cigarette between my lips. “My older brother.” I light it with a Zippo and suck on the end. My eyes hit Akara and blow out smoke. “And your dad.” With the cigarette pinched between fingers, I motion between the three of us. “What does that make us? Some sort of Death Brigade.”
“The Death Brigade,” Akara repeats with a short laugh and peeking smile.
“We all just made it out alive,” Sulli tells us. “Maybe that actually makes us the Life Brigade.”