Until We Fly

Prologue

I’m dreaming of bullets and blood. Like always.

There are the screams, of course, because there are always screams. High-pitched and shrill, low and keening. They’re full of pain, full of anguish, full of torment. It’s a torturous sound and I twist and turn, trying to get away from it.

That’s when I realize something.

Outside of my dream, out where the silence is thick and heavy, there’s a sound.

A real sound.

The ring of a phone is breaking the silence apart, splintering the night into a million pieces. My eyes snap open, staring blearily at the clock.

Three a.m.

A call at this hour is never anything good.

Old training kicks in and my senses numb, detaching me from the situation as I fumble for my phone. Whatever it is, I’ll be calm and ready. That’s who I am and what I’m trained to be.

Punching a button, I hold the device to my ear. I wait, expecting to hear my best friend, Gabe, his sister Jacey, or any number of our friends. I’m always the go-to person to bail someone out of trouble, mostly because I am calm and unflustered. I don’t judge people for their shit. For these reasons, I’m used to these calls.

But I’m not used to the voice who speaks in the darkness.

A thin, frail voice I haven’t heard in years.

“Brand?”

The voice is like a punch to my gut and I’m instantly still, every nerve ending frozen.

“Mom,” I utter, the word foreign on my tongue.

She doesn’t acknowledge that I even spoke. She sighs, a shaky sound in the dark.

“It’s your dad. He had a heart attack tonight.”

She pauses and I say nothing, although my heart begins to pound, filling my ears with a rush, rush, rushing sound. My blood is ice being pumped through my veins, chilling my fingers and my toes, deadening every emotion.

I don’t answer her.

A silent beat passes.

Then another.

Finally she speaks again, her voice tired and rough.

“He’s gone, Brand.”

I remain silent and frozen, unable to move, although my palms immediately grow sweaty, my breath rapid in my throat. I’m afraid if I speak, this won’t be real. It will be part of my dream, and when I wake, it will all go away.

So I don’t say a word.

Be real.

“I need you to come home,” my mother adds.

Her call to action frees me and I’m able to move again. I nod, once, curtly.

“I’ll be there.”

Because this is real.

I hang up without another word, my hands shaky.

I stare at my left hand, at my fingers, thick and long. I’m a grown man. Yet the mere thought of my father instinctively causes my hands to shake, like the scared boy I once was. I allow myself to feel the impotent emotion for only one moment, before I channel the fear into rage, a blinding hot rage that I have every right to feel.

My father is dead.

I should be upset, devastated even. A normal person would be.

But in addition to my rage, there’s only one thing I feel.

Relief.