Song of the Fireflies

  I picked it up, placed the receiver to my ear and punched in my parents’ number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Where the hell are you, Brayelle?” she said harshly into my ear. “I’ve been calling you! Where’s your phone? The police are everywhere looking for you! You need to come home. Now. Where are you? We’ll come get you. Tell me where you are.” I wondered if she’d stop talking long enough to catch her breath.

  “It doesn’t matter where I am.”

  My mom pulled her mouth away from the phone and said to my dad, “It’s Brayelle. No, no, I’m talking to her. Just wait.” And then her voice was loud again. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter? What have you done? Did you or that guy have a hand in that girl’s death? Tell me the truth. You killed her, didn’t you? It’s just like that girl and that boy, Mitchell, said. You were fighting with her that night. You shoved her off that cliff because of Elias Kline. Didn’t you?” She was all but screaming into the phone.

  “You believe that, don’t you?” I asked calmly, but my heart was slowly breaking every second that went by that my mother was treating me like a criminal, having no faith in me whatsoever.

  My dad grabbed the phone from her. I heard her voice fade quickly and then her arguing with him.

  “Brayelle, it’s Dad. Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you need to come home and you need to face what you did.”

  “Face what I did?” I mocked and bit my bottom lip. “I-I guess I should’ve known that both of you would accuse me.”

  “We’re not accusing you,” my dad said sternly. “We just—”

  “—not accusing me?” I snapped cutting him off. “That’s exactly what you’re doing. Neither one of you have asked how I am. Neither of you have asked me if it was an accident.”

  “Well, if it was an accident, then why did you run?” my dad asked.

  “Because I was stupid and I was scared.”

  “Brayelle, only the guilty run.”

  My heart broke completely when he said that. I felt like I wanted to cry, but I had already cried so much that I had no tears left. I sucked in a sharp breath, rounded my chin, and said, “Dad, I just want you and Mom to know that I love you very much. And I love Rian and please tell her that for me. I know I wasn’t the best kid growing up, and I gave you both a lot of hell and for that I am so sorry. I am so sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more like Rian.”

  “Honey, why are you saying these things?” My dad’s tone began to change, and maybe he really was starting to worry about where this was heading, but I wasn’t going to fall for it.

  “Just tell Mom and Rian that I love them.”

  “Brayelle?” He sounded genuinely worried. But it was too late for that.

  I hung up.

  Elias

  I stepped the rest of the way out of the bathroom.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, as Bray set the phone back down.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “No one,” she said. “Well, I was talking to myself. Rehearsing. I was going to call my mom and dad, a-and maybe my sister, but I changed my mind.”

  I nodded and draped the towel over the back of my neck. I had heard everything she said to her parents on the phone, but she didn’t want me to know, and I thought it was better that I just pretended not to know.

  Her conversation put a knot in my chest. The things she had said to them sounded like good-bye, the kind of good-bye that always ends badly. I thought about that painting that had been our life together, the black-and-white one that continuously filled with colors as each event unfolded and made us who we were. But that painting had become something so dark that Bosch couldn’t touch it.

  “Caleb said he would eat me out on the hood of Tate’s Jeep,” she said.

  I didn’t know whether to go outside and beat the shit out of him or just continue to stand there, dumbfounded by her swift change of mood.

  Ultimately, I opted for beating for the shit out of Caleb.

  I turned on my heel and went for the door, still only dressed in my boxers, but Bray was behind me in a flash and she grabbed me around the waist.

  “No,” she whispered onto the shell of my ear as one hand came down and grabbed a handful of me. “Caleb was just being Caleb. He didn’t really mean it.”

  I didn’t give a shit. I opened the door anyway, but Bray slammed it shut with the palm of her other hand and I whirled around just as she pushed my back against the door. She stripped off her shirt and took me into a deep kiss, pinning me against the door with her hand still grabbing my cock, rock hard beneath her palm.

  She pulled the wet towel from around my neck. I grabbed both sides of her head and pulled her hair, forcing her neck back and pushing the tip of my tongue down the center of her throat.

  “What do you want to do to me?” she asked, squeezing and pulling my cock in her hand as her fingers tightened around it.

  A low growl reverberated through my chest. My teeth clamped down on her chin, and then I slid my tongue into her warm mouth.

  “I want what you want,” I said breathily and kissed her even harder, wrapping my arms around her body and crushing hers against mine.

  Her hand came out of my boxers and she dug all ten of her fingernails into my back. “I want everything,” she said, and it sent a tremor through my cock.

  I turned her around, stripped her shorts and panties off, and forced her onto her knees in the center of the bed.

  Bray

  When you know you’re going to die soon, all bets are off. You feel like the person you always wanted to be, the fearless, uninhibited member of society who doesn’t give a flying fuck what anyone else thinks. You want to do and say all of the things that you were always afraid to do and say. You want to drink and do drugs until you can’t see straight, punch a random stranger in the face just for looking like an asshole, fuck until you can’t feel your legs anymore.

  Elias raised my ass in the air and shoved my face against the mattress before spreading my legs apart with both hands, exposing me to the cool air. He slid a finger between my nether lips and played with my clit, rubbing and teasing and exploring until I couldn’t help but bite down on my bottom lip out of frustration.

  “Fuck me,” I moaned. “Please, just fuck me.”

  “Not yet,” he said, and I felt the heat from his breath closing around my pussy. A loud moan moved through my throat as I felt the sensation of my clit being sucked hard between his lips and then tugged on with his teeth.

  I tried to reach between my legs to touch his face, to feel the movement of his jaw as he licked me, but he caught my fingers in his mouth and sucked on them before grabbing both of my wrists and pinning them behind my back.

  “Be fucking still,” he said.

  He spread my legs apart even further and slipped his tongue inside my wetness. I gasped and moaned and whimpered. I wanted to see it, I wanted to watch him lick me, but with my cheek pressed against the mattress, all I could see was my ass raised in the air and Elias’s legs, bent at the knees, behind me. He licked me fast and hard, and I pushed my ass toward him. Then he sucked on my clit again, so hard I tried to pull away, because it was too intense.

  “God, please don’t stop,” I begged him.

  He flicked the tip of his tongue against my little bead, spreading my lips with the fingers of his free hand. When he let go of my wrists, I found the sheets above my head and grasped them tight. Two fingers slid into my pussy, and he moved them in and out of me while he licked my clit as I began to crawl upward across the bed.

  “Oh goddamn!” I closed my eyes and held fast onto the pillow, as he curled his fingers into a hook inside of me, forbidding me to move any farther. He held me there, licking and sucking and fucking me with his fingers until my body became stiff as I felt my orgasm coming on.

  “I’m going to come,” I said t
hrough uneven breaths. “God, please don’t fucking stop.”

  He stopped.

  “No, please, Elias, don’t stop!” I wanted to cry. No, I was crying. Every part of my body was opened up to him, wanting him, yearning to feel him inside of me. But I needed that orgasm. I fucking needed it.

  He shoved his cock deep inside of me where I ached for him, hitting the spot. I gasped and grabbed fistfuls of the sheets again. The surprise and the intensity of it took the breath right out of my lungs. Tears streamed down my face. Tears of emotional pain. Of anger. Of guilt. I wanted it out of me. All of it. And instead of clawing at my wrists for a release, I wanted Elias to fuck it out of me. The bed banged against the wall as he slammed against me from behind. His strong fingers dug partway into my thighs and my ass cheeks as he made sure to keep me spread wide open for him to see.

  I still wanted to watch. I wanted to see what he could see, his hard cock moving in and out of me, glistening with my wetness. I felt the orgasm brewing again so quickly. I wanted to call out to him, tell him I was about to come again, but I was afraid he would stop again.

  I got very still. Very quiet. But I think he knew I was going to come, because I was so quiet and still.

  “Say it,” he told me, still thrusting in and out of me. “Say it, baby.”

  “I’m going to come,” I whispered.

  He thrust hard and held his cock deep inside of me for a moment. Then he did it again and held it there for another moment.

  I felt my eyes rolling into the back of my head.

  “Oh goddamn, Elias… if you fucking stop I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you!”

  He slammed into me harder and held himself there, so deep I could’ve sworn I felt it in my soul.

  I gasped and shuddered as an explosion went off deep inside my belly, my legs trembled and shook and felt like jelly the more I tried to hold myself up on them. I felt myself constricting around his cock as I came, and tears of relief and pleasure streamed down my face.

  Elias let out a moan and pulled his cock from inside of me just before he came on my backside.

  Everything was quiet except our heavy breathing.

  He collapsed on top of me, the sweat of his naked chest mixed with the sweat on my back. He kissed me there with his arms wrapped around my stomach. I felt the tip of his tongue moving up my spine and between my shoulder blades. He rosed up and made his way back down and kissed me between the legs softly. Chills attacked my body all over. He kissed my thighs, giving each one the same amount of attention.

  I rolled over onto my back, and Elias crawled up my body, his hands pressed into the bed on either side of me, and he kissed me all the way up. My belly button. My stomach. My breastbone. And with the same grace and attention that he gave my thighs, he kissed each breast.

  I cupped his face in my hands and guided him toward my lips. His warm naked body fell between my legs and he kissed me with so much passion that I never wanted to open my eyes again. I wanted to die in this bed, just like this, with him on top of me. If I’d known he would’ve given me that kind of death, I would’ve asked it of him. But I didn’t want to ruin the moment. Because I knew in my heart that it would be the last moment like this I would ever share with him.

  Three days. I promised him, and I had every intention of staying true to my word.

  Three days.

  Elias

  “I love you, Bray,” I whispered as I lay with my face nuzzled against her breasts. I wanted to hear her heart beating. “I love you more than you will ever know.”

  She wound her fingers gently through the top of my hair. “How is that?” she asked in a quiet voice.

  “Because I would do anything for you,” I said. “You just don’t realize yet what ‘anything’ truly means.”

  “Maybe I will someday,” she whispered, and I shut my eyes softly, holding in the tears. “I love you, too, Elias. More than you could possibly ever know.”

  “How is that?” I asked.

  I felt her lips against my hair. “Because I’d never ask you to prove your ‘anything.’ ”

  We fell fast asleep, our bodies tangled, the sound of her heartbeat so soothing in my ear.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Elias

  Caleb saw my fist coming, but he didn’t have time to react. I heard the crunch and felt the pain sear through the bones in my hand as he fell against the side of the Jeep.

  “You ever fucking hit on Bray again,” I said, pointing my finger at him, “I’ll beat you unconscious.”

  “Elias!” Bray came running out of the motel with wet hair. “Baby, please! I told you he wasn’t serious!”

  I felt both of her hands pulling on my arm, but I didn’t move from in front of Caleb. And he wasn’t fighting back. He massaged his jaw with one hand and just looked at me with no emotion.

  Tate came out of his room, wondering what was going on. “Something tells me you deserved that, little brother,” he said, looking between Caleb and me.

  “I guess I did,” Caleb said, and a small smile crept up in his eyes. I almost hit him again on principle, but I stepped away from him and let Bray feel as though she was pulling me back.

  Tate gave me a nod of approval and said, “All right, we need to hit the road. Rocky is expecting us by four o’clock. I want to get this over with.” He looked at Caleb. “Get your shit together,” he said, and he wasn’t talking about personal belongings.

  * * *

  Two hours passed and we were getting closer to the Texas state line.

  Tate glanced at me over his shoulder from the driver’s seat. “When we get there I’ll drop you and Bray off at a store or restaurant somewhere. It’s not a good idea if you come with us.” He looked at Caleb in the front passenger’s seat and then put his eyes back on the road. “It’s probably not a good idea that you come, either.”

  “No way, Tate,” Caleb argued. “I’m fucking going with you.”

  “Look, I can just go in, meet with Rocky, hand him the money, and go about my day. If you’re there it probably won’t go as smoothly.”

  “I’m not letting you go in there by yourself,” Caleb snapped.

  “But you’ll let me use my savings to bail your ass out,” Tate retorted.

  Caleb stared right through Tate from the side.

  “Hey, Tate’s right,” I spoke up from the backseat. “I may not know what this is all about, but I have a pretty good idea. Caleb, you’re likely to just create tension.”

  “Nobody asked you,” Caleb snapped, turning his head to look back at me. “Why don’t you deal with your own damn problems? Remember? You got cops looking for your ass. Deal with the dead-girl issue and stay out of mine.”

  I hated to admit it, but Caleb had a point.

  Bray and I spent the rest of last night talking about what other options we had. Of course, there were none, so the conversation was very short. Then mostly we just stared up at the ceiling, wrapped in each other’s arms. I never wanted to let her go. I felt the same from her. Eventually, our minds drifted from the matter at hand and we started reminiscing again. We talked about our childhood and about all of the things we missed and enjoyed and loved. But time passed all too quickly, and the present snuck up on us again. We thought about what else we could do, but still came up short. Stared at the ceiling some more. Fell asleep. And that was that.

  But Bray was different. She hadn’t been herself since we saw the newscast back in Panama City. Since I found her on the bathroom floor. I got the feeling that she wasn’t really worried anymore about finding other solutions. She seemed more laid-back than concerned or on edge. It scared the hell out of me, and I didn’t know why.

  We stopped at a gas station to fill up.

  “I’ve got to pee,” Bray said and hopped out of the Jeep.

  Tate tossed me a folded-up twenty-dollar bill. “Mind getting me a bottle of water and a Reese’s? Oh, and see if they have a hot bar. Grab me a hot dog or somethin’.”

  “Sure thing,” I sa
id. I took Bray’s hand and walked with her through the lot and into the store.

  Inside, I pointed over Bray’s head toward the far back corner. “Restrooms are over there.” She weaved her way through a few people in the aisles toward it. I found everything Tate asked for and stood in line. Bray was out before it was my turn, so she stood next to me until finally I checked out.

  Bray had wanted to check the newspapers sitting in the metal display near the register. Thankfully, she didn’t find anything about us inside.

  We got back on the road.

  “I’m going to pay you back, bro,” Caleb told Tate.

  They had been arguing about money and all of the times that Tate had used his to bail Caleb out of something since he got out of prison. They went from money to their parents to their sister and then back to money again. Bray and I kept to ourselves in the backseat, and eventually I didn’t hear much anymore. I held Bray close to me on the seat, my arm wrapped around her from the side.

  “I know you called your parents,” I said softly with my cheek resting against the top of her hair.

  “I had a feeling,” she said.

  “You know, maybe if you sat down with them and just tried to talk,” I began. “Tell them what I know about what’s been going on with you. Make them understand.”

  “They don’t want to understand.”

  “What makes you think that?” I squeezed her arm gently in my hand.

  “Elias, they gave up on me the day I turned eighteen. Well, technically, they gave up on me before that, but until I turned eighteen they at least had to pretend they were doing everything they could for me. I could see it in their faces. Well, when they’d look at me anyway. But mostly, I was just a ghost…” She titled her head back so she could see me. “Other than just wanting to be around you, why do you think I spent so much time with you?”

  I pressed my lips to her forehead, and she laid her head back down.

  Memories of when we were teenagers moved slowly through my mind. I swallowed and took a deep breath and squeezed her arm again when a particular memory came into view: