Eric read the names on the headstones as he walked through the old cemetery.
Ryan Jackson. Elizabeth Wilkins. Edward Deb. Abraham Walker.
Jonathan Myers.
All were dead before they'd turned twenty.
He was the reason they'd died.
Eric could see himself and his brother, only a year older than him, running around town. Getting into trouble. Stealing what they could to survive. Trying to get away from their mother and stepfather who never seemed to care about them.
Their friends had called them the "Barrow Brothers" due to their resemblance to the infamous Depression Era outlaws. Jonathan had been laidback like Buck was said to have been while Eric was hot headed and strived to be the best just like Clyde.
The friends, Eric, Jonathan, Liza, Ryan, Elaine, Abraham, Tom, and Eddie, had considered themselves to be a new age Barrow Gang. They'd done it to survive, yes.
But also for fun.
Eric would be lying if he said he didn't get a rush every time he stole a car or robbed a store.
But everything changed that night.
Liza had been the Bonnie to his Clyde. She'd come from a good family, but wanted a sense of adventure. She loved the thrill of the chase and considered seducing older men in order to steal from them to be fun.
If only he's convinced her to stay home.
Jonathan and Elaine had wanted an out. They were only eighteen, but had wanted to get married and start a family. At the time, no one knew she was pregnant with Jonathan's child.
That's why she'd decided to stay home.
Eric had seen a new car he wanted. A brand new Ford Mustang. (Oddly enough, the same car he'd pulled HER over in years later.) And he'd do anything to get it.
If only he'd known what it would cost.
He and Tom were in the car behind. Liza had wanted to see just how fast the Mustang could go.
But no one saw the gunman until it was too late.
A shot was fired. The Mustang went off the road. The explosion that followed left no survivors.
It left a trench in both the ground underneath the car, and in his own soul.
At night, alone, was when he heard explosions.
That night was when he'd agreed to go to the prep school. It was when he started cutting deals with the devil, his mother, and ran from the broken boy he'd been.
They said "nothing could kill him. No grave could hold him." He was the storm interrupting the still ocean of the rich.
He was used to guns at his head on the streets, yet he'd never feared his own death. His worst fears came true. He'd lost his best friend.
He was on the razor-wire fence between life and death since the day he was born.
He was the ghost of the "New Age Barrow Gang." Only three of the eight were left and he and his brother had started it, after all.
The ticking never stopped. It would be drowned by noise, but it was always there. It was the ticking of a bomb. The ticking of the bomb that nearly killed him and his team when he was a Marine. The war didn't start overseas, though. It started right in his hometown. On his street. When he started committing petty thefts with his older brother.
He'd been considered a rogue. A lawless man. He soon learned that everything he did, every deal he cut, was with a blood-stained hand. And the blood never seemed to go away. His brother's blood never went away.
When he left the Marines and joined the Silver Guardians, he was still considered a rogue. But that came to be his advantage. No gun shot could kill him. No grave would hold him. He'd died that night in that car with his brother.
After all, you can't break a man already broken.
Then she came in.
Taylor was loud, arrogant, hot tempered. But her heart was bigger and more loyal than any he'd ever seen.
Eric turned away from his brother's grave to see the beautiful blonde standing there with ten dark red roses in her hands. She was in a simple yellow shirt and black jeans, but she was still the most stunning woman he'd ever seen.
Deep down, all those years ago, he'd known Liza was more in love with the thrill he gave her than she was with him himself, but Taylor wasn't like that. She loved him despite his faults. She knew his past yet she still stood beside him. She didn't try to fix him for she was broken, too.
The man gestured for his fiancée to come to him. Wordlessly, she walked over and handed him the roses. He took five and left her with the rest.
"Ryan," he spoke much softer than usual. "You never deserved the live we roped you into. You came in bright-eyed and busy-tailed and went out with a bang. In your own words, 'Godspeed, my friend.'" Carefully, Eric laid the rose on the grave, Taylor silently following suit behind him.
He did this for Liza, Eddie, and Abraham before finally coming to a stop at his brother's grave. No longer could he hold the tears back, and no longer did he want to.
"Jonathan. You taught me everything. Not only were you my big brother, but also my best friend. I should be in this hole in the ground. You should be with your daughter. She looks like you. I know Elaine comes with her all the time, but I wish you could see her. I wish I could trade you places. I love you, Buck. You were a wonderful brother, and I know you would've made an amazing father. Goodbye."
As they laid down the final flowers, Eric looked at his fiancée briefly before wrapping her up in his arms.
She never tried to make the broken man whole, but just her voice, just her presence, helped him become a little less broken.
He needed someone to just be there. That someone wasn't perfect, but at least they were already broken together.