Bang! Bang! Bang!
The bullets broke through the air at even intervals, the straight, sure shots of an experienced marksman. Richard lowered his gun and waited as his sister jogged to the target—an old soup can—and returned scrutinizing the pierced tin.
"It's passable—"
"Give it here." Richard grabbed the can from her hand and examined the three holes. He was aiming for dead-center on the gold medallion, but had hit it off to the top right edge instead; his other two shots had landed in the E and the second L.
"My turn." Emma pick up the gun and began loading it as Richard replaced the can on the dead stump several yards away.
She squared her legs, lifted the gun, and—
Bang! Bang! Bang!
She had that mischievous smirk on her face, the one that she always had when she knew she was surpassing him. Sure enough, the soup can now held a blossoming clover in the medallion's midpoint, three holes so near each other that they could have been a single shot.
"Told you," she snickered, "I'm better than you."
"I told you," he replied, a weary smile on his face, "that wasn't gonna change my mind."
She set the gun down carefully, always so reluctant to let it go, and took his hands. "Richard," she said softly, her low, honeyed voice music to his ears, as always. "You don't have to do this."
"Yes, I do. They need men out there, Sis."
"That doesn't mean you—"
"Why not me?" He dropped her hands and moved away from her. "I can shoot, I can follow orders. 'To serve honestly and faithfully against all enemies,' that's what counts."
"I know, but—"
"I've made up my mind. I'm going."
"What are you trying to prove?" She took an indignant step towards him, dead leaves crunching underfoot, then paused, closing her eyes as she raised a halting hand between them. "No, don't answer that. I already know."
He crossed his arms, avoiding her gaze as he often did when he knew she was right.
"For what it's worth," she continued, "I love you whether you're brave or not. You can be as cowardly as you like and I won't love you any less."
He laughed, and she took it as her cue to close the gap between them, threading her thin but strong arms around his waist and relaxing when his enveloped her. "It's gonna be okay, Sis," he cooed in her ear.
"I know, but..." She rested her cheek against his shoulder. "I'm scared."
The leaves rustled around them as a sudden breeze broke through their little clearing. Her eyes began to well, and she buried her face in his neck to quelch them. He held her close to him, smoothing her hair with a reassuring hand.
"Scared that I won't come home?"
She squeezed his slim torso with arms grateful to hold him for as long as they could. "I'm scared," she said slowly, "that I won't recognize you when you do."
"Drop it."
That voice, like the richest, darkest wildflower honey. It had been years since he had heard that voice, and his heart fluttered as he drank it in. Last he'd heard it, the magic of it had seemingly melted away, but he could now feel the ghost of torrential emotions he had thought lost to the ages, welling up inside him now like a hurricane on the cold Atlantic. He did as he was told and set his trust weapon gently on the dew-dappled grass and raised his hands in surrender.
"Turn around," she said, and he felt a pang of apprehension—what if this was not the girl he so hoped that it was? What if he was surrendering to a stranger, and hereby sealing his own tragic fate, however deserved it may be? But it had to be her, the timbre of her voice unmistakable; and besides, his weapon was already out of reach, so he had little choice but to face his would-be captor with the bravery indicative of a soldier of his caliber.
If the sound of her voice had proven refreshing, it was nothing to the sight of her so unexpectedly near to him now. He was inclined not to look at her, but he couldn't help himself from running his eye over familiar curve of her jaw and the flash of defiance in her deep blue-grey-green stare. The intervening years had left her milky complexion lined with work and worry, but to him she would always be the most beautiful woman he had ever seen—if only his heart would play along.
"Ri...Richard?" Her voice wavered, but the barrel of her gun remained fixed on his cheek, straight and true as ever.
"Emma." The rough gurgle sounded somehow foreign in her presence, a stark reminder of the deep schism between his old life and new. A flood of questions rushed through his mind—what was she doing in Atlantic City? how did she end up at Julia's?—but he could do little more than wring his hands and try desperately, fruitlessly, to keep from looking at her.
Her eyes quivered, still narrowed at his, and her knuckles shone white in the moonlight, clasped around the firearm. She could have been a child again, angry at him for refusing to play hooky from their chores or shoving a bully who dared to tease her dear twin. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to reach out to her, to bring them both back to the innocence of their youth, before the harsh realities of the modern world had wrenched them apart, but the feeling slipped away as quickly as it had taken hold.
His eye darted around the yard, searching hysterically for an escape route, but Emma's rifle was trained on him and she had always been a better shot.
"You can't run away this time, Richard." Her calm was disconcerting, only her wild eyes betraying her stillness. "Come inside."
He was powerless against her. He carefully lifted his gun, the faces of his kills plodding through his mind in a procession of eternal penance, and lead the way into the house.
Julia awoke to the slamming of the front door, and voices that made no effort to be hushed. The tiny clock, with it's mother-of-pearl face—a gift from her one-time suitor—showed 3:15. She rolled her eyes and rose, wrapping a robe around her thin shoulders to investigate the source of the commotion.
Her father hovered at the top of the stairs, holding a finger to his lips as he strained to listen.
"What am I doing here? What the hell do you think I'm doing here!"
She almost didn't recognize Emma's voice through the biting enmity. Who could she be so angry with at this time of night? Julia rushed downstairs, her father following close behind, struggling to restrain her.
Another voice, low and muffled, emanated from the kitchen. "What does it matter?" Emma replied, exasperated. "I'm here, aren't I? I took a train halfway across the country to get to this God forsaken town, for you."
Julia rushed through the dining room, swinging the door wide. There he stood, shoulders hunched and eyes downcast.
"Richard?" She started towards him, but Paul gripped her arm and pulled her back to him.
"Give them a minute to get reacquainted," he said in low tones. She protested, but relented in a huff.
Emma stood opposite her brother, arms folded and fire in her eyes. She didn't acknowledge the Sagorsky's presence, her focus solely on the masked man before her. He twisted his fingers in his hands and avoided eye contact, a tic Julia recognized all too well.
"Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
"You. Shouldn't be here."
"Like hell I shouldn't."
"I don't. Need you. I'm. Fine."
"You sure as hell don't look fine." This was an understatement. His eye was hollowed with what Julia assumed was lack of sleep. The color had drained from his face and he was more jittery than usual, quite a feat for someone as restless as he.
"I don't need. Your help. You should. Go back to Plover."
"And then what? Let you run wild out here, blowing people's brains out every chance you get? This is not why I taught you how to shoot—"
"I'm not. Running wild."
"Oh yes, silly me. The Artemis Club must've been an accident."
"I don't need. My sister. To rescue me."
"Well, someone needs to save you from yourself, and unfortunately for both of us I'm the only one up to the task."
He turned away from her, gripping the countertop with his head bowed.
She took a step towards him, pointing a slender finger at his breast. "I will not let you run from your problems, Richard. You want to be treated like a man, then you'd better damn well start acting like one."
"You. Don't know. What it's like."
"Bullshit. You don't know what it was like waiting for you, spending every waking moment worrying that you might never come home only to have you disappear when just when I'd finally gotten you back. You don't know what it's like back home, being the only one left to keep our family alive while you're galavanting along the boardwalk like some sort of vigilante. You don't know what it's like for me."
"It's. Not the same. You didn't see. What I saw. Over there."
"It is the same! You are not the only one who got hurt in that war and you know it." She turned and hurried for the door, tears in her eyes. Julia and Paul stood back to let her pass. They all jumped when the front door slammed behind them.
Julia looked at Richard, searching for the right words. The thrill of seeing him again paled in comparison to her anger at losing him, in the first place. He offered her a weary glance and a shrug, then pushed past her to follow his sister out the door.
She could feel him behind her, though he kept a wide berth. She supposed he was purposely giving her space, ever accommodating her needs, though it was also likely that he just didn't know what to say. Whatever the reason, she pushed it from her mind; she was suddenly so angry with him that he was the last person in the world she wanted to see, yet she found an odd comfort in his closeness all the same. The great mystery of her adult life had been solved, and as much as she resented him, she couldn't shake the flood of relief that washed over her at every renewed realization that he was really here, alive and as well as she could have hoped for after years of nightmares and dread.
Before she knew it, her feet touched the wood of the boardwalk. The sky was a hazy indigo, the world awash in a deep blue glow. She stopped at the rail, the ocean roaring before her like a great beast beckoning her to its waiting jaws. How easy it would be to continue on into the waves, to let them swallow her whole like Richard's insecurities had swallowed him so long ago. But she was a bigger person than that.
"Is it true, then?" she said finally, her voice strong enough to carry over the din of the waves, but soft in the calm of her relentless love for him.
He approached the rail, mere inches from her, and gripped the wooden beam as if he might go flying off of the world at any given moment. She heard a strange hum escape his lips, as if he were at a loss for words, and suddenly his otherness was grotesquely apparent.
"The Artemis Club," she continued. "Was that you?"
A long pause, and then, "Yes. It was me."
She felt lightheaded, the pit in her stomach extending to her weakened knees. "Twenty people," she breathed.
"Fifteen."
"Jesus, Richard, as if that makes it better."
"I needed. To rescue. Him."
"Tommy?"
"Hm."
"And was he your's to rescue?"
"It was. A whorehouse. No place for him."
"You didn't answer my question." She stared out into the inky blackness of the Atlantic, the horizon fading into the sky as if the ocean never ended and simply curved up around them, enveloping them in an underwater prison. "You enjoy killing people, don't you?"
"I'm. Good at it."
"I can believe that. Remember the night in the barn?" He had to remember; he couldn't possibly have forgotten, not when the memory visited her so often. They had always been connected.
"Of course. I remember." His growl still startled her. She missed his voice, higher than a man's should be but honey to her ears. She'd only had a month to adjust to this new, rough timbre before he'd disappeared. "You don't know. What it's like," he continued. "I do. What I have to do. To survive."
"Kill people?"
"Sometimes. I can't. Get a normal job. Not just. Because of my face. But because I'm. Different. The war. Made me different."
"When did you decide this? To become a criminal, I mean."
"When I got. To Chicago. I met a soldier. Tommy's father. He needed. A hitman."
"And that was you."
"Yes."
"So how did you end up all the way out here?"
"Jimmy. Brought me. He offered me. A job."
"As a hitman."
"As. Protection."
"Let me make sure I'm understanding this." She pushed herself from the rail and wrapped her thin arms around her torso, guarding against the morning chill. "You ran away to Chicago, then followed a stranger to Atlantic City because he offered you a job? You had a job back home."
"I couldn't. Stay in Plover."
"Why not? Because you couldn't fulfill your bloodlust, slaughtering chickens?"
"No." He looked at his feet. "Because. Of you."
She had known it before he had spoken it aloud. Of course it was because of her, but that didn't ease the shock of the confession. "What did I do?"
"You. Loved me. Unconditionally."
"So why couldn't you—"
"I can't. Love you back."
His response hit her like a ton of bricks. It had never occurred to her that he might not love her, that his feelings towards her could ever change. They had been each other's first loves since before they were born, and that was a bond that no war could break.
"I told you," he continued. "The war. Changed me." He stared off into the sea, his knuckles glowing on the weathered rail. "I wanted. To feel. Like I did before. But I couldn't."
The tears came before she could stop them, but she was not about to succumb to their tortuous grasp. "I still don't understand."
"You. Don't have to." He kept his gaze on the hazy horizon. "Just know that. I'm not. The same boy. I was before."
"I do know that, but—"
"Then go. Back to Plover. And leave me be."
"You know I can't do that, Richard." She moved towards him, shoulder to shoulder. "I've spent the last three years wondering what had become of you, if you were even alive. I am not about to let you go again so soon."
"This is. No place for you."
But it is, she longed to say. It's exactly the right place for me. The plan had begun to form itself in her mind long before she had set eyes on her brother again. In a way, it was the natural application of her talents, far more appropriate than a life of Midwestern farm work. "No," she said, "it's no place for you. It's exactly the kind of place for me."
"Sis—"
His protests did little to deter her; she turned on her heel and began the trek back to the Sagorsky's. If he refused to return home, then she would have no choice in the matter. She would have to take his place.