Contrite & Convicted

I Need You Part I

I Need You Part I

Anthony was having a strange, drunken dream. It was of him and his father, skipping rocks along the riverbank. It must have been a mix between a memory and a dream because Anthony knew that when they would skip rocks, Serena was not in the middle of the river singing one of her more seductive operas.

"Now remember, the smoothest flattest rock can only go so far. You have to have the perfect amount of force and energy to send the rock skipping. There is never only one factor to a solution son. Just like addition. You need at least two numbers to find an answer to the equation."

Anthony then searched, as far as his little legs would carry him around the riverbank, Serena's singing urging him to look at her dancing (rather naked) in the river. Little Anthony however kept looking, kept searching for the smooth rock his father told him to find.

"Anthony.." Serena called to him, the water besides him sloshing and turning around her body. It was so hard not to look at her as he tried to do what his father told him too.

"Come on, Anthony." Serena's siren voice was overpowering his own willpower. He wanted so desperately to come over to her, but do what he was told. What he knew was right.

"ANTHONY!" Her voice shrilled to him, but through the dream her voice began to change into a deeper, manly, huskier voice. This caused him to turn to look at her but right when his eyes could begin to focus on her lustrous brown locks, his dream turned white and he found his eyes waking up to meet the eyes of his brother, Benedict.

"ANTHONY!" Anthony shot up, as a force of water came crashing down on him. Only, it wasn't just some water, it was still raining.

"W-What?" He held his head tightly through the pouring rain, covered in mud. It appeared in his drunken state the peddler man had left him to lay in the mud, with his empty bottles surrounding him.

His coachman was gone, carriage gone and all his luggage. Where Benedict came from, he had no idea.

"Benedict?" Benedict shoved Anthony to his feet, ignoring him totally covered in mud. Benedict looked rather mad but Anthony would have been mad seeing his brothers drunk and alone in the mud as well.

"Anthony, get your drunk ass up! We have to go, now." Anthony, though massively hungover, could sense the urgency in his voice and did his best to sober up.

"What is it? Is it Mother? Collin?" Benedict continued to usher Anthony over to what looked like his carriage. (Turns out Anthony was just too drunk to notice the big black carriage directly in front of him.)

"No, you dimwit! It's your wife! She's in labor." Anthony quickly once more tried to focus on everything, it was all happening too fast! He couldn't even focus on walking, let alone grasp such tremendous topics.

"Oh, let's go then." Benedict sighed and once they were both in the carriage, he rapped on the top of the carriage door. "DRIVE!" He shouted. After a few minutes that allowed him to gather his bearings, Anthony noticed the way Benedict was shifting. With urgency.

"Is everything okay?" Benedict ran his hands through his hair. Grabbing a case of water, he handed it to Anthony forcing him to swig down as much as he could. Then he handed him a bread loaf.

"When I found your coachman and carriage I informed them that the river was still high so we had to go around. It's how I found you. I ran into a Peddler man who had found a safe place to cross. The same Peddler man who left you drunk in the street and taken half of the money you had."

Anthony touched his pocket and true to Benedict's word, his coin pouch was gone.

"I have only myself to blame. That doesn't answer why you are so hesitant to answer my question though." He swallowed a chunk of his bread.