Chapter 3
Bass's POV
Numb. He just feels numb, which is a startling change from the anger he normally feels.
The bar's noise level has raised to an irritating buzz that makes his head throb and if Miles hadn't grunted a sit your ass down and don't move until I'm done grunt, he would've taken his ass back to his room and wallowed before passing out with a bottle of shitty whiskey. But no, instead he's stuck in this sticky bar with the biggest fucking headache known to man while is best friend ignores his ass while demanding he stay put. Fucking peachy.
His mind drifts to the scene that Charlie put on earlier and he feels the rise of nausea in the pit of his stomach when he thinks about the way she described the way she's killed before. He's seen her do it, that's not what's shocking. It's the fact that he taught her how to do it, how he was actually proud of her when they were in the midst of combat and she sliced through a dozen men without hesitation and would shoot him a snarky grin before carrying on her way. At the time he was proud, proud and a little aroused, but now, after watching her talk about what she's done, he realizes he's done something horrendous, he helped turn her into him and Miles. He didn't want her falling apart after every fight but watching Charlie slice that man's neck earlier he now knows that she feels what him and Miles feel when they break and maim and kill. Nothing.
He finds himself stuck in his head, his mind circling, the innkeepers words, Charlie's scene in the bar, Miles face when he saw him, walking away from them two years ago as smoke rose from the town behind them, watching Connor die, three bullets passing through his body before the last one found it's home in his head, those memories, they're all swirling like demons falling from heaven.
The resounding smack on his head makes him blearily jump off the stool he was on, his feet trying to find purchase on the ground as his brain tries to catch up to whatever attack is happening.
He finds Miles looking at him impassively and starts to feel all the built up irritation rise to the surface making his blood boil with impatience and lack of sleep.
"WHAT THE FUCK MILES?!"
Miles just stares at him for a moment, that stupid impassive face he's making boring right into his Bass's face. "You were sleeping."
Bass reaches up to wipe the drool of his face as he looks around and notices the bar is empty and closed before glaring when Miles continues to stare at him indifferently before shrugging and walking away from him.
Bass watches Miles slide into a booth across the bar, settling in before taking the bottle off the table and pouring the brown ember into the glass in front of him. Then he just sits there, drinking and looking indifferent as Bass stands there like an idiot.
Finally Bass makes his way over to the booth, slowly approaching it like a hunter approaches his prey as he slides into the opposite side, meeting Mile's eyes as he tries to relax.
They sit like that for an immeasurable amount of time, Bass waiting for a sign from Miles and Miles just looking at him with hollowed out eyes. Finally Bass has enough and he starts to slide out of the booth.
"You know what, whatever Miles. When you get your head out of your ass, come find me."
He only gets a few steps away from the booth before he hears Miles voice. "What the hell do you get to be pissed off about?"
He spins around, his weariness forgotten by the rage that's taken its place.
"I've just travelled relentlessly this last month to get here and make sure you guys are okay and instead I get what? Threats from Charlie and disdain from you? Thanks but I'm sure I can get that from any place I've been to without travelling ten fucking thousand miles to find you."
"WHAT THE HELL WHERE YOU EXPECTING BASS?!"
Mile's composed face breaks as his voice roars through the bar Bass steps back shocked by the outburst.
"What were you expecting from us? Did you want Charlie to give you a hug and for me to say 'welcome back brother'? You left us. Just like everyone else."
"My son DIED Miles. Do you get that?!"
Miles runs his hand through his hair and looks so broken that Bass almost regrets what he just said, though he doesn't know why. He lost his flesh and blood. Again. Miles out of everyone should know what that would do to him.
"And we lost everyone." Its Miles quiet voice that breaks him out of his reverie and it's broken and raw.
"Yes you lost Connor, I know. I know how losing another child has killed a part of you. Trust me I know. But we watched everyone die Bass, everyone."
"Miles-"
"Priscilla, Aaron's wife was the first to go. She was trying to get medical supplies to our camp when she stepped on a land mine the patriots had planted. She knew as soon as she stepped on it. Did you know Aaron spent three hours beside me watching me try to disarm it? We almost had it too until the patriots invaded our camp. The gunshots…. They made her lose her footing on the mine and bam, she was gone. Right in front of Aaron. One moment she was there telling him some stupid joke about the wild story they'd have to tell their kids and the next she was just…. gone."
Bass raises his hand to tell Miles to stop but Miles carries on, ignoring him.
"We're lucky we had planned an escape route in advance or none of us wouldn't made it out alive. Charlie practically had to drag Aaron away from the camp, he was just comatose, like he lost the will to even function. The next one we lost was Gene that really destroyed Rachel."
Miles sighs and sits back down in the booth, his face looking haggard.
"It was a better day. It was warm and peaceful and almost… Happy, and then Charlie asked where Gene was and we realized we hadn't seen him in a few hours so we went searching."
Bass knows how this story ends but he can't seem to form words to make it stop.
"We found him five miles from our safe house laying in the ditch. He had been stabbed nine times. We realized he had probably been helping out in town at the medical center and had gotten some kind of goods as payment. Charlie actually found him first and tried to get to Rachel before she saw him. That's Charlie ya know? Always trying to save people the pain that she's experienced. I mean it didn't do any good, Rachel actually threw Charlie to the ground in the struggle to get around her to see Gene. You should've seen her Bass, I know how much you hated her, but she broke right in front of me, right in front of us. Have you ever seen someone break in front of you? The way the light fades from there eyes and they collapse in on themselves and the noise they make, it's the kind of noise that takes a piece of you with it."
Bass can't meet Miles's eyes and he grasps the edge of one of the tables for support. He was fucking stupid to believe that they would be okay.
"Rachel…" Bass's voice trails off as he looks wearily into Miles haunted eyes.
Miles's mouth tightens at the mention of Rachel's name but Bass watches him force the story through his lips anyway.
"Gene's death really wrecked her. I mean Rachel wasn't the stablest person to begin with after the bombs dropped but Gene dying broke her. The kind of broken that can't be set and wrapped to heal. Rachel and Charlie had gotten better, good even but Gene dying sent her into a tailspin. She started saying how Ben and Danny were waiting for her and how peaceful she thought it would be with them. It really messed Charlie up Bass. Imagine having your mother leave you when you're seven and then trekking halfway across the country to save your brother. Then to lose your brother, watch the bombs drop as your mother has a mental breakdown. Lose a few people as they die in front of you. Lose a few more and then have no one but your mom, a hermit of a man who never leaves his house and alcoholic uncle and then hear your mother say how she wishes she was with her dead son instead of her daughter who's standing right in front of her."
Bass's dormant heart aches for Charlie and he feels something raw for her and a familiar hatred for Rachel.
"Anyway, Charlie and I had gone out hunting earlier in the day. We had started to run low on fresh game and there was no happiness around Rachel. It's like she sucked all the light of a room by just being there. Charlie didn't want to go. I convinced her it would be good for us."
Miles rubs his hand over his face and he can feel Miles entering a headspace where he isn't really present in their conversation anymore.
"I uh…. I came home and went upstairs to find Rachel. I walked into our bedroom and in the old porcelain tub Rachel was lying there, soaked in her own blood. She slit her own wrists. Used one of my swords to do it. She left a note, 'I'm going to find peace. Tell Charlie to be strong. I'll see you again one day.'"
Miles takes a long drink from his glass finishing it before fixing Bass with that indifferent stare.
"Miles I …. I didn't know. When I left I wasn't thinking. And I sure as hell didn't think that this would happen. I just –I needed to get away. Everywhere I looked I was reminded of Connor, even Charlie. Looking at her reminded me of him. "
He watches Miles sigh and then stare at his drink in earnest.
"I can understand why you left. I don't forgive you for it, but I understand. Charlie doesn't understand and she sure as hell won't forgive you. "
"What possible reason could she stand by? Charlie out of everyone in this entire fucked up world should get why I left."
"Bass, I get it because I lived it with you. I lived it when you lost your family. I lived it when you lost Shelly and the baby. I lived it when you lost Emma. Charlie lost everyone she ever cared about. How old are we Bass? How many people have we lost? Charlie's lost that many if not more and she's only what, 22? And yet she's still here, still standing. She can't comprehend you leaving because as much as she wanted to do just that, she didn't. It killed the Charlie that I used to know, but she still got up every morning and kept going. She kept going for the both of us. Imagine that, she lost her mother and she had to hold me up because I couldn't pull myself together and think about the fact that she just lost everyone who mattered to her? I mean what does that make me?"
Bass feels a weight on his body like lead in his bones and he sinks into the booth, grabbing the bottle of whiskey and taking a long draw from it that burns like fire when he swallows.
"She really took Rachel's note to heart huh?" Bass asks, watching as Miles nods, looking exhausted and older than 45.
"I used to think Charlie was made of fire, but the Charlie I know now is made of steel, she doesn't let anything in, doesn't let anyone in. I'm only here because of her. How she is still here is beyond me because she got here all alone."
Bass frowns, "What about Aaron?"
Miles shrugs and his face clouds with something that closely resembles anger. "He doesn't leave his house. Charlie stops by once a week to drop off fresh game and vegetables. She used to stand out there for hours thinking that he was too courteous to let her wait outside but this one time he left her out there in a thunderstorm and she waited for two hours, you know how stubborn Charlie can be, before finally giving up. Nearly caught pneumonia. That's when she finally just started leaving whatever she brought for him on his doorstep and let him do whatever the hell he wanted to do."
"So what do we do now?" Bass feels a kind of panic rising up his throat and takes deep breaths to try and steady himself.
Miles expression quickly shifts back to indifference and he picks up his glass. "No one's keeping you here. Whatever you came back for doesn't exist. If you can't live with that then there's no point in staying."
With that Miles gets up from the booth, placing his glass on the worn countertop of the bar.
"If you decide to leave, we won't be chasing you. Not me, not Charlie. We're done chasing after ghosts."
He gives a long look at Bass that makes Bass shiver with how empty his eyes are before walking out the door with a murmured 'lock up when you're done.' Leaving the bar without a goodbye.
