The Risen: Courage by Marie F Crow Page B

their hands with his head bowed. Someone has placed a cloth over Shelia’s head. Her blood is a dark discoloration in the plaid-like patterns, but it shields Simon from having to stare at the ruins of his wife’s once-perfect face. Kira has no covering. There is nothing to shield us from the deformed, tiny skull that rests tilted from the damage it has received. Her youthful perfection, just like her precious life, was forever stolen from her. Simon doesn’t want this truth covered. He wants us all to see it, to really see it.
    Dolph and I stare at each other over Simon. I am trying to put the missing pieces of time together by reading his face, but he shows me nothing. Richard stands near him with sadness pulling his shoulders low. The way his body sags, he looks as if the emotion has a greater sense of gravity than the pull of the earth. How do you comfort your friend who has lost his whole family in a matter of hours? My head swings to look at Chapel before I can stop myself. A lot of people say they are in their own private ring of hell daily. With Chapel having to watch his own story unfold over and over again, I know he really is.
    I am aware the moment when Lawless and Rhett come into view for Dolph and Richard. I know because they no longer hold the posture of defeat. Their bodies rise as they inhale, pulling their heads and shoulders back. They come closer to Simon as if fearing what the other two males may say or do. When Simon notices their movement, he awakens from his grief-stricken trance and peers around with blinking eyes as if he had forgotten where he was. His mind was lost in the past to avoid traveling into the future. For him, it is now a future that will be always be shaded with the shadows of his past.
    “You’re still here?” Simon’s voice is flat and bare of any depths. It mirrors his face and eyes. “Figured you would have run off and left us to sort out the mess.”
    Dolph motions with a jab of his chin to where J.D. still lays in the pool of his blood. He looks directly to Lawless and asks, “Come to take out the trash?”
    I don’t know who moved to whom first because the explosion from Dolph’s words was instant. Chapel and I have to brace against the floor to keep the groups apart as Simon watches with his empty eyes.
    The shouting and accusations are disjointed and competing for damage as the two groups of men exchange them. Chapel and I shout amid the chaos, but it goes unheard. The tension that has been a stewing pot since the gym is finally boiling over having a real reason to fight.
    Dolph stands chest-to-chest with Lawless as they stare, daring the other to take the first swing. Marxx is blocking Richard from the two men in a reverse style as Rhett had before.
    Rhett blocked the man to settle down the fight, protecting Marxx. Marxx is blocking Richard to allow Lawless to fight. Marxx is protecting him, but for a different reason.
    “Did you do this on purpose?” Dolph asks Lawless, baiting him into action. “You slink away in the night with some bullshit story of a close call just to see how this would all play out? You get the girl and leadership in one moment of lying glory.”
    “Yeah, that’s what I did,” Lawless tells him, smirking into the sneering face of Dolph. Lawless steps into that small fraction of space Dolph left between them. They are not just face-to-face anymore but almost cheek-to-cheek. He lowers his voice and asks, “What’s the matter Dolph? You pissed because I’m back or are you pissed because I have her back?”
    Dolph lifts his head, struck by what Lawless has asked and looks to me before looking back to Lawless without realizing the action.
    “Yeah, I know,” Lawless says, leaning even closer to say into Dolph’s ear, “I haven’t got time to deal with you right now. So, you can either go back and stand in your corner and let us do the heavy lifting around here like you have been doing, or you can get your shit together and do something