THEIR BLOOD BE LAID

PART IV

"You're a damn fool who isn't going to do a thing about it!"

"Sit down."

I shut the door as softly as I can and slip through the kitchen. Our walls aren't thin, but I can hear them in the living room, voices rumbling.

Uncle Quinn. My Dad. My mother trying to calm them both.

(The dull ache returns to my chest.)

"I'm going," Uncle Quinn thunders. "You can't deny me that, too."

"I'm not saying you don't have the right. I'm saying that it's not wise."

"I'm not letting this go on any longer."

I ease on the faucet and watch watery red drip off my fingers and spiral down the drain. My cheek still burns where Laslo touched it.

Our living room is a battleground.

Uncle Quinn gestures wildly. The sleek black edge of a gun replaces the usual pistol — something bigger and blunter and ready for bloodshed, the kind that shreds flesh and splinters bone. The kind that turned Finn's knee into a pulpy ruin. (I shiver.)

"I'm not arguing, I'm telling you what I'm doing," he continues. His face has gone red.

Dad stands unmoving by the window. In him I can see where I got the curve of my cheekbones and the look I'm feeling in my own guts, all the anger and dull hurt. Aunt Katherine is a pale white sliver on the couch to his right, with my mother near her, her hands fluttering uselessly.

"Quinn," she says, "you have to stop. What are you going to do, march in there all on your own?"

Uncle Quinn laughs. Harsh and loud and grating. "I'm sure I can find some of the boys willing to come with."

"You're going to make things worse and that's all. You know that."

"So maybe it's time we finish it proper."

I swipe uselessly at the blood that runs down my arm. Patches and stains are appearing on the plum-colored dress. I thought I was used to it, after last time. It's just as horrible and sickening now.

Uncle Quinn's face goes redder. "My son—"

Warning signs. Electric panic up and down my skin.

"Quinn!" Dad steps forward.

I've seen them fight before. I've seen punches thrown and eyes bruised. So I go to all I know that might stop it, or at least delay it — I play the scared kid again, which is easy when that's how I feel inside.

"Dad," I say, small and quivering.

They all turn to me.

Quinn's hands drop to his sides. "Shit."

I meant to use my bloodied girlish face as a weapon, but the tears that come to my eyes are real enough. "Dad."

My father's jaw tightens. The grandfather clock on the far side of the room ticks. Back and forth. Counting down the time. Three days. It's always three days. That's less time than I always thought.

I love my Dad and now all I can remember is the blood on his hands when he killed Lucas Mullane, spiraling down into the marble sink; blood between his teeth and across his face and smeared on the floor beneath his shoes. A spasm of disgust going through him. The names on the newspaper headlines the next morning, the realization that my own father was capable of terrible and bloodied things.

I look at the blood on my own hands and try not to think too hard about how all of this is his fault.

"Right," he says, finally. It feels like we've stood here for years in silence. "I think we've lhad enough of this."