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Only, it wasn't nothing.
It was Miguel.
It was my brother.
His face had been one giant bruise, his left eye swollen shut, his nose crunched to the side, his eyebrow and lip split open. Every part of him was swollen, distorting his once-familiar features.
Blood soaked through his white shirt.
So, so much blood.
Then, of course, there was the giant hole right there in the center of his forehead, making it pointless to look for the rising and falling of his chest, the possibility of him surviving the beating he'd clearly gotten.
The bile rose up, the contents of my stomach forcing their way out.
Maybe I had no right to be so impacted, to feel so disgusted.
As I'd watched the men leave the clubhouse before, I knew what they were going to do. They were going to exact their revenge. On the entire gang.
But, most importantly, on my brother.
I'd known that.
I'd known he wasn't going to live through the night.
I had, in a sick sort of way, made my peace with that.
Maybe I had no right to be so upset by seeing the evidence of his lost life, the torture he'd endured before the end.
But it was there regardless.
My mind flashed back to early childhood memories, shared Christmases, looking for Easter Eggs around the apartment, laughing ourselves to tears when, two days later, everyone realized we'd somehow missed one of the boiled eggs, tucked deep in the toe of a shoe, fermenting, and making the entire apartment smell rotten, birthday parties, ghost stories alone in the apartment when our mom was at work.
There were good memories, once upon a time. And maybe I was grieving for those, even though they were long gone. Even though that boy had turned into a man I'd despised. Even if that man wanted to put my son in danger, turn him against me.
And another part of me was struggling with how to tell my son what happened, what I could possibly say to make something like this make sense?
"What happened?" I could hear my son ask from the backseat, but couldn't seem to respond, my vocal cords and my brain refusing to work in conjunction. "What's wrong with Mom?"
"We're going to explain it all to you, bud," Colson assured him from his position, cramped close to the steering wheel in a too-small car. "But can you let me get you guys home, and shake your mom out of this first?" he asked, genuinely waiting for an answer from Jacob.
"Is she going to be okay?"
"She is. I promise. It might be a couple of days, but she will come around, alright?"
"But what about my Grams?"
"I will hang with you guys to make sure she's okay. And I will have a nurse around to help."
"I can help too," Jacob declared, and there was determination in his voice. He had never been overly enthusiastic about helping with my mom. I think a part of it was because he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. But the other part felt strange about caring for an adult, a part of him unable to grasp her cognitive decline, to accept the fact that she didn't recognize him, confused him for other people.
It was a big step that he was volunteering to help rather than being asked, or only doing so because there was an obvious need and he wasn't a complete jerk who would let his grandmother fall down the steps or struggle to open a jar of food.
"That would be great," Colson agreed. "Alright. Let me grab your mom, and then you will follow us up, okay?"
I didn't need to be carried. Whatever weird shock I was in was slowly wearing off, the fog in my brain starting to clear as Colson led me up my front path, my son following behind.
The guard at the door moved, allowing us in, and Jacob ran up the stairs as Colson brought me into the kitchen, making coffee, getting us each a cup, then sitting down across from me, putting his hands around my hands on my mug.
"Okay," he said, holding my gaze.
"That was Miguel," I said.
"Yes."
"He was dead."
"Yes," he agreed again.
"Someone beat him. And shot him."
"Yeah, babe."
"But who? Why?"
"I have no idea. But if anyone can find out, it's my brothers and Lo's team. They will figure it out."
"It wasn't you."
"No, babe, it wasn't us. We planned to take him out, but we didn't do that. Reign was just as shocked as we were."
"I don't understand," I admitted, shaking my head.
"I don't either. But I can't imagine we are the only enemies Third Street had."
"But why would they drop him in front of your clubhouse?"
"Yeah, that's the question, isn't it?" he asked, looking lost himself. "I don't know. But we will. Eventually. I'm sorry, babe."
"I knew it was unlikely he was going to make it through the night. I feel like a hypocrite for being upset about it now."
