only snapped her fingers and both Grady and Dalton stopped in mid-swing. Both of
them looked as guilty as he’d ever seen them. Mom looked over at him and Lewis
before she let out a long sigh and spoke.
“I need the six of you to get ready for dinner. We’re having a family gathering and
there will be no excuses as to why you can’t make it. You will make a good impression
on this woman and you will show up dressed like you know I want. Do I make myself
clear?” The four of them nodded, and Kenton started to ask about Vance and Jorden.
“I’ve spoken to Vance. He’s coming in today and Jorden is on his way here now. If you
make me pissy, you know there will be hell to pay.”
After a chorus of “Yes, ma’am” they all moved to their respective vehicles. His
mom looked at him, and he started to ask her what had happened when she shook her
head. Whatever it was, he knew that she’d only let him know on her terms and not
before. As he started for the clinic, his mom called him back.
“She has nothing.” He knew that and told her. “No. I don’t mean personal items,
though she has none of those either, but she has no one to help her. A brother that she
hates, a father that she doesn’t understand or know and now never will, and more
heartache than I’ve ever seen on a woman before. Kenton, she’s going to need you to
be…I was going to say understanding, but it’s more than that. She is overwhelmed and
doesn’t understand why anyone would help her. Much less be there for her. She expects
everyone to take advantage of her even when she has nothing they want.”
“Mom, what is she to me, do you know?”
His mom patted him on the cheek, and he was reminded of times when he’d been
little and she thought he should know the answer to his question and knew he’d figure
it out. Eventually. When she walked away from him, Kenton found himself torn.
Did he go to his mom and ask more questions she wouldn’t answer, or go to the
clinic and try to figure out if Emma knew? He had a feeling that he’d get more
information from his mom, but it would be hard. Emma might hurt him, of course, but
she was easy to look at when she was angry. Smiling, Kenton went to the clinic. She
might hurt him, but he’d have a lot more fun, he thought.
Bart tried not to think about what the removal of the bandage meant. He knew that
someone was changing it, the dressing they called it, but he’d been put under and he
liked it that way. He knew that he’d be scarred. He also knew that he’d have to have
cosmetic surgery as soon as possible. Sooner if he could get these bastards to do it.
There was no way he was going to be able to conduct business looking like a freak. So
when the doctor told him to close his eyes, he wanted to scream at him that he only had
the one.
“I want you to know that you’re going to look bad at first. The wounds are raw still
and are going to take some time to heal. In about a year you can start having some other
surgeries done to—” Bart started shaking his head, and the doctor told him to calm
down. “You’ll not be able to do anything until all the wounds are healed, Mr. Gentry.
There is still a chance for infection, and your body won’t be able to take any more
damage done to it right now.”
Bart was seething. He’d show the bastard what he could and could not do. He was
going to be as perfect as he’d been before this shit had hit the fan. And the more he
thought about it, the more pissed he got about how the timer had fucked up. He was
going to sue that company as soon as he found his shit to see where he’d gotten it.
The bandage came off, and he watched the doctor. He didn’t say anything to him,
and for some reason that pissed him off more. Bart hated people, especially ones that
knew more than he did. Not that he’d admit that aloud, but he knew there were some
people that were a lot smarter than him. Reaching out for his arm to jerk him around to
have him tell him what he saw, the doctor simply took a step away and stood there.
That was when Bart looked at the nurses with them.
The one closest to him had her hand over her mouth. She looked horrified. Bart
wanted to tell her to get out, but since this thing had happened, he’d been unable to do
more than just grunt. He avoided doing that as much as possible, as he thought it made
him sound like he was deranged. Then he looked over at the other one.
She looked sick. Her hand was over her mouth as well, but even Bart could see that
she was close to losing her lunch. Before he could think how to get her out of the room
and away from him, she leaned out of his vision and he could hear her retching. Bart
looked at his doctor, who was still staring at him.
“The damage is extensive, as I have said.” Bart wanted a mirror. Then he didn’t.
When the doctor suggested one, it was all Bart could do not to beg for them all to go
away after covering him up again. “Now, before I show you, you have to understand
that when you came in you were burned badly and some of the damage was
irreparable. You know that you lost the eye and ear, but there was extensive damage
done to the remaining tissue as well.”
The mirror was suddenly in front of him. Bart immediately closed his eyes, not sure
even now that he could look at himself. When he opened his eye and looked at the meat
in the reflection, he knew that someone was playing a cruel and disgusting joke on him.
There was no possible way that this thing looking back at him was him.
His eye socket was gone; it looked glued shut, like one of those masks the kids wore
at Halloween, cheaply made and bunched together. His face looked like wet rubber or
melting plastic. The doctor explained how later there could be an artificial eye put in if
things healed the way that he thought they should.
His cheek was a mass of red puckered flesh. Blisters were still there, small ones, as
well as some as big as a quarter. The brow had been singed away over the bad eye, and
the hair on the side of his head was gone. In its place was nothing more than more
stringy flesh that looked like someone had made it from wax and smeared it over him.
His upper lip was missing. It was a part of the mess his cheek had become, and his nose
looked to him like someone had smashed it to his face and didn’t even bother putting in
an air hole for him to breath. On top of that, if that wasn’t bad enough, it looked as if
the entire side of his head had shifted lower than the other side. Bart looked at his
doctor.
“You’re going to lose your teeth on this side as well. The jawbone was damaged
enough that it’s brittle and won’t be able to support the teeth there. Your tongue, as
you’ve been told, is also severely damaged so that you won’t be able to talk without a
slur. Drooling will also be an issue you’ll find, but something that you can live with.”
Bart heard the door open and close, and realized that he could not smell the nurse’s
mess. Then he looked back at the doctor, who seemed to understand what he was
thinking. “The receptors in your nostrils are burnt from the fire. Smoke inhalation has
also damaged your lungs. You can get surgery, as I have said, but you will never be
able to repair the damage that was done internally. I’m sorry.”
Bart threw the mirror at him. He wanted to yell and scream—needed to, really—but
all he could do was grunt, like an animal, like the monster that he’d become. This
wasn’t fair. This was not the way it was supposed to be. He should have been in bed, at
home, when this broke out, and here he was suffering the most from it. Damn it, why
didn’t this happen the way he’d planned for it to? Why did he have to suffer when his
father had been so lucky and had been killed? It wasn’t fucking fair.
Bart needed for them to be gone; he wanted to think, to plan, and tried to make
them see what he wanted. As the bandage was put back in place, this one cooler feeling
than before, he tried to keep his mind from dwelling on what he’d just seen, how
hideous he looked now, and what kind of pain he was going to have to go through to
look good again. Because as surely as he was lying there, he knew that he’d be his old
self again soon.
When he was alone, he wished that he’d asked for the mirror again. He didn’t really
want to see himself, but he was sure that in some way he’d missed something. Or the
doctor had. There was no way that the face of the creature looking back at him was
really his. Looking down at his arm, the one still fully bandaged, he wanted to sob for
the injustice of it all. When the nurse came in and asked him if he wanted anything for
pain, he could only nod at her. He wasn’t even going to waste his time trying to put her
in her place again.
He must have dozed off at some point. The room was no longer brightly lit with the
sunlight, and there wasn’t much in the way of sounds coming from the hallway. Bart
really wanted to believe that it had all been a nightmare, but he knew, somewhere deep
in his heart, that it was all true. He was a monster.
“Hello, Bart.” The voice didn’t sound familiar, and turning to look at the man there
was nearly impossible with the way his flesh pulled at him. “Christ, but you should
have died back then. You look like shit. Have you had the opportunity to see what you
look like? You are truly the monster I always thought you were.”
The light flared on, burning his eye, and he looked at the man in front of him. He
knew who it was but couldn’t for the life of him know why his grandda, especially after
all these years, would come to see him. He’d not had a thing to do with the man since
his mom died, for good reason too. When he stepped closer to his bed, Bart could see
that he wasn’t alone. There were two other men with him. One of them was Mark, his
friend, and he looked like he’d been beaten to shit.
“He’s been most helpful, your friend. Imagine my surprise when he came to me
with all the answers that I had previously not been able to figure out. Well, come to me
isn’t really what happened. We were keeping an eye on your house and, lo and behold,
he shows up to rob you. He just happened to mention, too, how you were the one that
killed my little girl.” Bart looked at Mark, then back at his grandda. “You know, I’ve
been blaming your father for this all along, and here it is, resting on your doorstep.”
Bart watched in horror as a gun was put to Mark’s head and he was shot. The
sound, a small puff, was all that he heard as Mark dropped to the floor. Bart started
grunting and moaning as he reached for the nurse call button.
“Won’t do you any good. They’re all on my payroll as well, as of an hour ago.” Bart
looked at the monitors that had previously brought them running when he’d been in
pain. “That won’t work either. I’ve taken the liberty of fixing those for you as well.
Steward here is very calm, don’t you think? His heart rate never moved up a button
when he killed that man. Amazing control, don’t you think?”
Steward, the man with the gun, pulled his shirt open and showed him how all the
tabs had been put on his body. Bart looked down at his own and saw splatters of his
friend’s blood all over him. He looked back at his grandda when he sat on the edge of
the bed.
“I had hoped when I blew your place up that you’d be killed. But I think I like this
idea so much better. The poor man loses all of his good looks, goes a little insane, and
kills his buddy in a fit of rage over a woman. I especially like the part where you’re
going to kill yourself over the fact that you just don’t think you’re pretty enough.” Bart
shook his head. There was no way he was going to do this. “And don’t think I can’t
make you do this, Bart. I’m a man who gets what he wants. And having you dead is
what I so dearly want. But I would like to ask you where my ring is. I’m assuming that
you spent all the money. Last fling, I guess you could call it now. But where is my ring?
The one you stole off of my men?”
The man who had just killed Mark stood over him and put the gun to his head. Bart
knew as surely as he was laying there that this was the end of his life. Before he could
beg, even if he could, his grandfather laughed. Then the gun was suddenly gone.
Cruel joke. One that Bart decided that he was going to make the man pay for as
soon as he could. To do this, to a man like him who had nothing left but his life like a
monster, was beyond anything that Bart would ever do to a person. Or so he liked to
think for the moment.
A pen was shoved in his hand. Then a sheet of paper was under it. He tried to think
where the ring had been. Then he remembered. Emma had been picking it up when the
building had blown up around him. Bart didn’t give a shit about her enough not to
simply throw her under any bus that kept him alive, so he wrote her name down.