“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Brad asked Holt, who hadn’t really moved from his sofa since Lucas’ funeral three weeks ago. “It’d be good for you to get out and do something… productive.”
“I don’t think I could, Brad. And I don’t think you should be going either. Lucas’ sister isn’t going to appreciate you turning up to help clear out his apartment. Not after how you treated him.”
Brad puffed. “That’s why I’m going. To try and make amends.”
“More like, ease your conscious,” challenged Holt.
Brad huffed in frustration. He wasn’t getting anywhere and he hadn’t come for a telling off.
Brad and Holt argued a lot in the aftermath of Lucas’ death. Not necessarily about Lucas, but reading between the lines, Brad knew that Holt was grieving. It wasn’t any different to when Tiffany died, so Brad hunkered down and took it as best he could.
Lately though, the tensions had eased between the two of them and Brad felt the best thing to do was offer to take him to San Francisco and help clear Lucas’ apartment.
“Right, well I’ll be leaving in half an hour. It’ll give you enough time to shower and get ready,” Brad said, leaving the triplet’s apartment at The Facility.
He passed Mindy and Blane on the way out who had been earwigging on the conversation, and shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘I tried’. Mindy mouthed a thank you and Brad went off to the hanger to wait out the half an hour. Blane followed.
“Thank you for trying, Brad. We thought it would be a good thing for him to do. We just don’t know what will get him out of his slump.”
“Time, maybe? Gentle encouragements. But don’t give up on him. Although I’m not sure I’m the best to advise on grief,” he shrugged.
“If there is anything of Holt’s there, or anything of them together, can you bring it back?”
“I’ll try, yeah.”
“Thank you, it’ll mean a lot to him,” reasoned Blane. Brad just hoped he was going to be allowed to get near enough to have the chance.
“No worries. I suppose I ought to get down to the jet and wait there to see if your brother turns up.”
Brad checked his watch. He had already given Holt an extra ten minutes and he was still a no show. He engaged the thrusters and departed out of the hanger, taking the short trip to San Francisco.
***
Brad pushed the doors to Lucas’ building and entered the lobby.
“Hello Sir,” the concierge greeted.
“Hello, I’m here to help sort out Lucas Ilin’s apartment.”
“Of course, go straight up, Mr Jacobs-Brown.”
Brad went through to the elevator and stood silently as it ascended to the correct floor. Lucas’ sister, Natalia wasn’t aware that he was coming and he was apprehensive about how his presence was going to be received.
He made his way down the carpeted corridor to the apartment. He paused just outside and was about to knock when the door opened anyway. Natalia was stood there balancing a box on her knee, a look of surprise on her face. That surprise soon morphed into anger as she registered who it was. She turned from him to put the box down and Brad stepped through the door just in case it was slammed shut on him.
“Natalia, I’ve just come to give you a hand,” he started.
“You have a nerve, don’t you?!” she snapped back.
Brad looked around the living space and only saw a few boxes, which led him to the assumption that she had only just started, and still had lots to do.
“I just want to try and make things right. I know it’s a little too late, but I just want to help out the best I can.”
“You know, he’d confide in me how much of a hard time you gave him and there was nothing I could say to him to make him feel any better.”
“I get it, and looking back on it now, I know how wrong I was to treat him like that.”
“I’m not sure you do get it. If he hadn’t have taken his own life, nothing would have changed. You will have continued to put him down and humiliate him and blame him. And now you think I should let you help me pack up his life? What, to ease your conscious?”
Brad hung his head. She was right. Yes, he wanted to make amends. But he did also want to ease his conscious. “I’d just like to help you, if you’d please let me?”
“I’ve got more chance of growing a third leg than have you of me letting you help. This is a family matter now, and I think you should leave.”
Brad held out his hands in accepted defeat.
Natalia stormed off down the corridor to the bedrooms, calling out behind her, “close the door on your way out, asshole!”
Brad watched her go and turned to leave himself. On the fridge he spotted a photo of Lucas, Holt and a drag queen at a bar. He looked at it and noticed how happy Lucas looked and felt bad that he hadn’t seen him that happy in years. At least there had been some light in his life, he reckoned.
He slid the magnet off the photograph and put it in his pocket for Holt. Hopefully it’d bring some light back into his life. Brad recognised the bar from the stories he would over hear Holt and Lucas talking about and decided to go there himself for a drink in his honour.
“Bottle of beer, please,” Brad asked, stood at the bar.
He surveyed his surroundings and could see why it was a popular place. It was still relatively quiet given the time of day but he thought he would stick around and see the space transform. The bartender placed the bottle in front of him and Brad gave him enough money for a tip on top. He leaned against the bar and looked around chugging on his drink. A TV set was showing baseball game highlights with no sound and in the far corner it looked like some sound equipment was being set up, possibly for the night’s entertainment. He saw a booth with a good vantage point of the TV and the rest of the bar and headed for it.
A few hours had passed and Brad was waiting on his second helping of nachos and maybe his fifth beer. He wasn’t too sure. The bar had recently began to fill up. People on dates, coming in for after work drinks with colleagues and some were just sat on their own like Brad was.
The uniformed bartenders were soon bolstered by serving drag queens, either behind the bar or running around doing table service. It looked like some had recognised him and were keeping their distance. He supposed what with the place being an LGBTQ venue, there was a culture of discretion.
“Your nachos and beer,” a voice said, announcing the arrival of his order. The food and drink were plonked on the table abruptly as if the server wasn’t aware of customer service.
A drag queen, all glammed up with immaculate make up and hair so big, wearing short denim shorts and a cropped tee shirt which had the bar’s name across her chest remained stood as if she was waiting for something.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Er, thank you,” said Brad, hoping they were the magic words for her departure, but she continued to stand with a hand on her hip. “Did you want one?” he asked, offering his nachos to her.
She rolled her eyes. “Lucas would talk a lot about you. Never by name though. But I knew. And seeing you here, in his safe place, I can definitely see it for myself,” she said.
Brad exhaled sharply. He wasn’t in the mood for more chastising. “Look, I don’t want no trouble. Just want to sit here, enjoy the food and on some level, connect with Lucas. I know I made mistakes, but I’m just here to honour his memory.”
“Well you have a nerve doing so here, that’s all I’m saying.” And with that, she strutted off back into the kitchen area.
He was surprised to hear that Lucas had never mentioned him by name to his confidant at the bar. Not in a big headed way, like he was expecting to be bitched about, but more surprised by the anonymity Lucas had afforded him. He could have really made him out to be the bastard he had behaved like, but Lucas had chosen not to.
The drag queen with a grudge came out of the kitchen again with someone else’s food but she still had time to give him a scowl as she passed his table. Brad turned away, not giving her a reaction, and continued at his nachos.
Over the course of the rest of the night, Brad had got into the evening’s entertainment and the chicken wings he had also been tempted by. He was happy by himself indulging in food and connecting with his badly treated friend at the place he so clearly loved being at.
Closing time came by quickly and he was soon told he had half an hour before he would have to go. There were a few other patrons who had stuck it out this long and the crew working there had dwindled to a few.
Knowing he was still having to make his way back home to NYC that night, he called it a night and got up to leave. He saw the drag queen from earlier and nodded in appreciation which she ignored. Jerk, Brad thought to himself.
He exited the bar and looked at the street which had gone quiet for the time of night it was. A few taxis drove past taking people home or onto somewhere else for the rest of the night.
Brad headed for the main junction to find his own taxi when a black SUV across the road pulled up. His suspicions instantly piqued and he slowed down. The vehicle’s lights went off but no one got out. His experiences of black SUVs never ended well. Brad turned to go the other way but saw another SUV at the other end of the street.
Keeping it cool, he carried on back to the bar, acting as if he was going back for something he had forgotten. He tried the door but it was locked.
Some of the staff were by the bar clearing up so he banged on the glass to get their attention.
“Sorry, we’re closed!” came a yell back. He wasn’t surprised to see that it was the same server from earlier who had given him grief for being there.
“No I know that, I just need to come back in for a second!” he shouted back. The queen came back over and stood at the door, but made no effort to open it. “Look, I think there are some people after me. I just need to come in and I’ll leave through the back.”
“Sorry, company policy. We can’t let anyone in once we’ve locked up,” she dryly replied, showing no interest in the danger Brad thought he could be in.
“Please, I think it’s The Purists. I just need to give them the slip,” he pleaded again.
She looked like she was considering it, but her non verbal show of walking away told him everything he needed to know. He swore under his breath and turned back onto the street.
He could have been wrong. They might not have been Purists. Sure, people with enhancements were constantly a target and being part of The Enhanced Beings Collective automatically made him a bigger target. But SUV’s are bought by people not affiliated with a terrorist organisation all the time.
There was no movement from the trucks so he chanced it. He committed to the direction he went in first and tuned his senses into any slight sudden changes.
A vehicle started up behind him and sounded like it was pulling off, coming towards him. He pushed on, advancing nearer to the SUV that he could see.
Whatever was moving behind him was closer now… and check! The doors of the SUV in front of him swung open, four combat ready soldiers got out, weapons aimed. Was this a kidnap or assassination attempt? No time to ask.
Brad reached out with his extended arms to the two soldiers who got out into the road, grabbing for the gun of one and the throat of the other. He had to keep moving to avoid taking fire from the other two and from the SUV he knew was still behind him.
What followed was two minutes of an intense dance of quick, snakey limb attacks and dodges as Brad lunged, moved, extended, reached, recoiled, grabbed and struck out at the armed Purists from their two vehicles that were parked forty metres apart.
Truck windows shattered as parts of his body moved through them to get to his targets quicker and from misfired gunshots as his attackers tried to defend themselves.
A blast of a shotgun down the road stopped him in his tracks, causing him to worry. Who was using that? There was some rapid return fire from the SUV and another blast of the shotgun. Brad darted towards it, now able to see the two soldiers on the ground.
He looked down the gun’s sights towards the SUV. Silence. He cautiously circled to the back of the car and found something most surprising, but also a great relief. On the ground were the other two Purist attackers, and stood over them, holding very proficiently, a massive Mossberg 500 shotgun, was the drag queen from earlier. She looked at Brad, who lowered his automatic rifle and raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t get any ideas. It’s just when it comes to those pyscho Purists, we have to look out for each other. This doesn’t mean I like you.”
“That’s ok. I don’t like me either much at the moment.”
“Who’s fault is that?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s mine. I know that. I don’t need to feel any more guilty than I do.”
“And did coming here tonight help?”
“A little,” Brad admitted. “Anyway, I appreciate your help.”
“Like I said, don’t get any ideas. I didn’t do it to help you. I did it to get at The Purists.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“Does it look like I gave them the chance to?” Brad’s saviour asked with hostility.
“Well no, it doesn’t actually. So… you’re enhanced too?”
“We’re not having this conversation, ok? We’re not having any conversation. My manager called the cops, they’ll be here soon.” She turned off back towards the bar leaving Brad stood alone.
He dropped the gun he was holding on the floor, making it clatter, and gave the Purist on the floor by his feet a light kick to assess his state of consciousness. The street filled with blue and red flashing lights and Brad waved them down.
His trip will just have to go on a bit longer.