Sweet Hope (Sweet Home #4)(23)
In my mind, I saw Levi as a fourteen-year-old kid, me standing behind him, pointing out a member of a rival gang, a King. Levi held in his hands a Beretta. His little fingers were f*cking shaking, face white with fear, scared shitless, but I ignored it all. Gio had nodded his head at me, ordering my little brother to earn the Heighter stidda, the star tattoo on a Heighter’s left cheek that showed you’d passed the initiation… by shooting a King.
I watched my twenty-five-year-old self stand behind Levi like a damn demon at his back, whispering in his ear for him to hurry. Lifting his slim arm to aim at our rival and ordered now as Levi did what I’d said and fired a bullet straight into the f*cker.
But more than anything, I could see Levi turn to face me. I could still feel how f*cking proud I was of him, that he’d proved himself to my “brothers”—the gang that was my everything and always had been since I was twelve. But I could also see the change in Levi’s face. The young kid Austin and Mamma cherished, forever changed, as his victim lay bleeding out on the ground.
“Elpi?” Aliyana questioned at my silence.
Feeling a tear drop run down my cheek, over the crucifix tattoo that now covered my stidda, I added, “Every dagger is a crime he committed, the guilt flooding everyone and everything around him. Fucking never-ending guilt.”
A hallow feeling set in my gut, and I glanced up to the sculpture. “But the daggers will never leave. The guilt will keep on pouring out. The wounds will never close… the cracks, the fractures on his body, will never heal.”
The sudden silence in the large gallery suffocated me, making me want to do nothing but cut and run, leave this f*cking exhibition and my pain for someone else to deal with. But as I heard Aliyana’s quiet controlled breathing beside me, I couldn’t move.
For the first time ever, someone was sharing in this pain with me. A virtual stranger. And I didn’t know what the hell to do with how damn good that felt. I’d vowed to never let anyone in. I didn’t understand why I’d broken that vow with her.
Lifting my dirty hands, I unsubtly wiped away the few tears I’d failed to stop from spilling down my face and turned my back on the sculpture, on the sculpture that was all me. Tipping back my head, I stared out of the domed ceiling at the millions of stars. I suddenly didn’t feel so tortured as I pictured Austin and me as kids, Levi just a baby in my arms. Just a couple of young brothers, best friends, sitting on the roof of our trailer, lying back and watching the stars…
*****
Austin’s little hand pointed up to the dark sky. “Those three right there are Orion’s belt. Can you see them, Axe? The three stars in a row? And those right there are the Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters. But to see all seven stars at once, you have to close your eyes, then open them real quick, ‘cause some of them instantly fade away, leaving only a few left over,” he told me.
I looked to my eight-year-old kid brother as I held Levi in my arms. Austin was nothing but gangly limbs and big brown eyes, a mini me, and I laughed. “How d’you know all this, Aust?”
He shrugged and turned bright red. “I read it in a book at school. I’ve read lots of them.”
“You like the stars?” I asked.
He blushed bright red. “Yeah. They make me feel happy.”
It went silent, and I knew he was embarrassed telling me that. Austin was a thinker; he was smart.
Looking at the sky again, I pointed at a star. “What’s that one, kid?”
Austin moved closer to me and followed my finger. “That’s Sirius, Axe,” he told me excitedly.
His face looked over at me. “You like the stars, Axe?”
“I like you telling me about them, kid,” I replied, smiling.
Austin settled back down, just as we heard our papa come home drunk from the trailer park bar and start screaming at Mamma. Mamma immediately started crying, begging him not to hurt her. I felt Austin stiffen beside me and his breathing changed. He was terrified. He always got scared of our papa when he came home trashed. It was the reason I brought him up here, to distract him.
Reaching down, I wrapped my arm round his shoulder and pulled him to my side. I f*cking hated our loser of a papa. All he wanted to do was hurt us. So I made a promise to myself to always do anything to protect my brothers.
“Come on, kid. Tell me more.” I pushed, feeling Austin grab onto my shirt and squeeze it real tight as a glass smashed inside the trailer and my mamma screamed out in pain.
With a shaky voice, Austin pointed at a bright star. “Th… that’s M-Mars…”
“Nah, really?” I asked. “Is it made from chocolate too?”
I felt Austin weakly start to laugh beside me. “No, Axe, but it’s red and big, and some people think aliens live on it…”
“Really? Aliens?” I asked excitedly, pulling Austin and Levi in closer.
Austin released my shirt, and I knew he’d managed to block out the beating of Mamma inside and I exhaled in relief. “You see, Mars, it’s made of red rock, Axe…”
*****
And that’s how we got through the bad times. The three of us lost in the stars, the night sky taking us away from the shitty trailer we called home.
Watching the night sky became our thing, until my thing became the gang, my crew brothers in the Heighters taking over my life… and I dragged little innocent Austin along for the ride. He’d trusted me, and I’d turned him into a coke-dealing thug at the age of twelve… just like me.