Page 86 of Overkill

I roared.

Griff lunged and took me to the ground, his elbow hitting my nose. We wrestled and tumbled, groaning and fighting.

And he wasn’t Griff in that second, he was Ma. She was calling me a sinner and a blasphemer. She was using the words of God, saying I should honor my parents. But they weren’t my parents. She was my mother, but he was never my dad. Nor was the guy who came after, nor after, nor after…pastors and Pharisees. I didn’t even believe anymore, but the hand of God and this storm were real, and both were bearing down on me because I was born in sin.

I slammed my forehead on his; the crack was loud, painful, and blurred my vision. We both yelped and stilled as we shook the haze from our heads. He had the bigger brain, sure. But I bet he regretted that right now.

I squeezed, he tried to shimmy from my hold. Griff tried to break my arm, and I was trying to cut off his air. He held me in a half arm bar while I squeezed him into a rear naked choke.

I loved her.

If there was a word of God, of any god, then it would be that love was all. It was a choice; it was a blessing. It was everything.

“I love her.”

We both went limp.

Tired and exhausted, our breaths were labored, and our old bones less limber than the last time we’d done this—when I’d confessed to having slept with his wife and hadn’t known it until that morning.

I’d felt remorse then. I’d felt remorse in the five years after.

But being with Melody?

I wasn’t guilty of that. I was proud of it. Privileged.

And this was a fall from far higher than any skydive. Higher even than when we had hurtled from 35,000 feet into Taliban-controlled territory.

Melody was my everything. Her kids, her house, and even her dented truck, they contained a world that was now lost to me, and I had to grieve that, damn it! Whatever wrong I’d once thrown at Kai Griffith was nothing compared to this.

I stared at the metal ceiling as rain pounded against it, almost too loud to even hear myself think. Thunder shook the barn, but no water leaked in. At least I’d done an alright job on this place.

Nothing else was alright, but I’d done a fine job on fixing up this barn that had tilted to one side the first time I’d slept here two years ago.

I would have fixed Melody’s tilted life if she had let me. If I hadn’t fucked things up.

A phone rang, and Griff grunted. He was on his back too, fishing in his ass pocket for his enormous, not-even-a-year-old iPhone.

“Yes, Dar?” He put it on speaker and held the phone out to his side, as if his arm was too tired to even hold it to his ginormous, egotistical head.

“I’m trying to find Vedder!” She was screaming through the phone. Probably at the car’s Bluetooth.

“He’s right here.”

“Finally, you son of a bitch. When I call, you fucking answer!”

“What?” I sat up and groaned. I yelled over Griff and into the phone at his side. He moaned, lifting his arm until the phone was in front of my face. “Where’s Melody?”

“That’s what I was calling about, you fucking idiot!” She let out a flurry of Ukrainian curses. “Someone took her!”

“What?” Griff and I said in unison as he sat up, too.

“I was going to get her, but there was a car ahead of me that pulled over. She got into the car before I could get there. I thought she was fine, that maybe she knew him, so I was going to drive on home.” She paused, but I needed her to talk faster. “But then I saw he had a gun.”

“Where the fuck…what…who?”

“I don’t fucking know! A towny!”

“Where are you?” Griff asked. “Your tracker on?”