The Truth About Unspeakable Things, Emily Myers [bookstand for reading TXT] 📗

feel weak, paralyzed. Yet I force myself to my feet and down the hallway in search of a phone.

“Emma! Run!” Julian yells. He slings his fist into Beaux’s face. Blood splatters.

I shake my head. I make my way behind the register and find the landline. My fingers tremble as I dial 911.

“911—what is your emergency?” the woman asks.

“Lucid Records. 1941 St. Clair Avenue,” I say. I can barely hear myself as I speak. My ears ring and my throat feels as if it’s closing in. “There’s a man here trying to kill me. He’s armed. His name is—”

I drop the phone to the ground as another gunshot rings through the brick walls of Lucid Records. The sentence should read: The phone shatters into pieces, as do the glass windows, as does my heart.

Julian lies beneath Beaux. Blood covers the glossy record envelopes surrounding him. He’s been shot in the stomach. Blood gushes from him quicker than my eyes can process.

“No,” I whisper. “No!” I scream.

I charge Beaux and throw my entire body at him. I scratch and slap him. I push him, though he barely moves. With each blow I deal him, he laughs more. I reach for his gun. He holds it up high beyond my reach, as if this is some child’s game.

“Why are you doing this?” I scream. “It’s over, just like you said.”

I turn away from him and take off my shirt to wrap Julian’s wound. I am exposed, but I don’t care. I have to stop the bleeding.

Julian looks at me. He is fading. The cops will never get here in time. He tries to lift his hand to hold mine, but he can’t. His white button-down is soaked with blood within seconds.

“I warned you what would happen if your boyfriend interfered,” Beaux says.

“I’m sorry,” I say to Julian. “I love you,” I choke.

My face floods with tears. I feel Beaux looming over me. But I don’t move. I hold the pressure against Julian’s wound until—

Beaux falls to the ground, bloody and unconscious. I turn and find Mason standing behind me. He’s holding the bat, which is now smeared with Beaux’s blood and bits of hair.

“Here,” Mason says, handing me his coat.

“No. Julian . . .”

“Can have everything else. Now put it on,” he tells me. I do.

Mason kicks the gun away from Beaux and drops to his knees. I notice the back of his head is still bleeding. He tightens the wrap around Julian’s wound using his shirt and pants. Finally, I hear the police sirens in the distance. Julian is still conscious, though with the amount of blood he’s lost, I’m not sure for how much longer.

“It’s okay,” I say to Julian. “We’re going to be okay. The police are coming. An ambulance is coming. We’re going to take care of you.”

Julian is unable to respond. I try to hold in my tears, to stay strong for him, but I can’t.

“This is all my fault,” I say.

“No,” Mason says. “It’s his,” he says, looking at Beaux.

He nudges him to make sure he won’t be waking up anytime soon. Beaux doesn’t even grunt.

“But it’ll all be over soon. We’ve just . . . got to get Julian to the hospital,” Mason says with resolve. Despite this, worry consumes him. I know he received the same text as Beaux. If word of the brotherhood has made it to mainstream media, when the police get here and discover who he is, they won’t just arrest Beaux. They’ll arrest him too.

“Mason, go,” I say.

“What?” he asks, looking at me. “No! I’m not leaving my brother or you,” he says.

“If you stay, this will be the last time you see your brother. I mean, really see him. So go,” I tell him. “I’ll find a way to reach out when Julian is in the clear. You guys deserve to have a last goodbye, or whatever you want to call it.”

The sirens get louder as the police get closer. Mason clenches his jaw and pulls Julian’s bandage tighter as it soaks with more blood.

“Okay,” he says then. Tears fill his eyes. He nearly breaks at the sight of his brother. “Take care of him.”

“I will,” I say. He nods and kisses Julian on the forehead.

“I love you, little brother,” he says. Julian doesn’t say anything. But like so many times before, Julian doesn’t have to speak to tell you how he feels.

“And take care of yourself,” Mason says to me then. With that, he leans toward me and kisses me on the forehead as well. I close my eyes.

“I will,” I whisper.

The police cars and ambulance screech to a stop outside Lucid’s front entrance as Mason makes his way down to the speakeasy and out the side entrance.

“It’s okay,” I whisper to Julian. “I love you. I love you so much. It’s all going to be okay.”

I take Julian’s hand in mine just as he closes his eyes. His hand is bloody and cold. The police rush in, followed shortly by the EMTs.

* * *

The doctors marked his time of death as 11:15 a.m., but he was dead long before that. It wasn’t the skull-crushing blow dealt by Mason that cast Beaux’s soul from this world. It was the first time his father touched him in ways he never should’ve been touched at only eight-years-old. Beaux was a victim before he became a predator. He was abused and neglected, and he never found it in himself to forgive—to forgive his parents, to forgive others who may have disappointed and hurt him. And ultimately, he never found it in him to forgive himself.

You see, the truth about unspeakable things is that it demands to be spoken. If not, it eats away at you. It instills anger, and it feeds off pain, your pain and the pain you cause others. Hurt people hurt people. Beaux was the perfect example of this, the perfect victim. Victims allow their pain to destroy them. They succumb to it. Survivors use their pain as inspiration to affect positive change. And the