"God didn't care about Alfenwehr, or anything or

anyone on it. So we had to care for each other.

And sometimes the price was almost too heavy to bear."

Chapter Four

2/19th Special Weapons Group

Restricted Area, Alfenwehr Mountain, West Germany

Late Winter-January 1986

Day 10 of Repairs

Day 2 of the Second Incident

Bomber and I had carried my cousins to their rooms, Cass half conscious and James leaning on Bomber while singing Dolly Parton's Jolene softly. Stokes had left the room just as we'd carried them off, complaining she'd had a bit too much to drink. We'd poured both of them into bed after helping them strip naked, then tucked them in nice and tight. They'd both feel like hell in the morning after trying to keep up with Stokes, Bomber, Nagle, and me since the four of us had our 2/19th gifted alcoholic's tolerance.

Afterward we went into the room, each grabbing a chair and picking up our glasses. Bomber's had Jose Quervo and Mountain Dew in it, mine had Wild Turkey and Coke, while Nancy was sipping a vodka and orange juice as she watched for a long moment.

The tension built for a long while, almost palpable in the room, until Nancy opened her mouth and Bomber blurted out the question he'd been holding back.

"What's with the tattoos?" he asked. Nancy closed her mouth and looked at him.

"What tattoos?" she asked.

Bomber waved at me, turning slightly to talk to Nancy. "That tattoo on his left shoulderblade, his cousins have almost the exact same tattoo."

Nancy looked up at him, then over at me, taking another long sip off her screwdriver. "Which tattoo?" she asked.

"The one on his shoulderblade. Christ, don't you listen?" Bomber asked. He shook his head. "It's that weird rune-like thing, runes above, and runes below." He shrugged. "Ant here has a black bar on the bottom of the big rune with more little runes below it."

Nancy nodded. "OK, I've seen that. His cousins have it too?"

Bomber grabbed the bottle of Jose and poured a few glugs into his glass before grabbing the Mountain Dew can, opening it with one hand to top off his glass as he spoke. "Yup. Same place, same center rune, except they don't have the black mark."

"Guys, I'm right here," I said.

Nancy glared at me. "Fine. What is it?" she asked.

...nasty boy, stupid boy, should have drowned you at birth, born a faceless monster...

My hand was shaking as I lit a cigarette. "All the boys in the family have that mark," I told them, closing my eyes.

 My stomach churned at the thought of telling them, telling them all of it. I could hear my mother's voice, feel her hands on me, pushing me face first into a sink full of water to remind me that boys keep their mouths shut.

"Ant," Nancy said, pulling my attention to her. She'd gotten up and was now standing in front of me. She reached down and grabbed my chin, holding me gently. "I saved you. You owe me. The Sergeant Major told me that I own you now by blood. Tell me."

Instinct, ground into me by tradition and my place in the world, made the words come tumbling out. She'd saved me, she owned me, by law, by tradition, and by blood.

"It just marks what part of the family I belong to," I told them. Bomber went to say something but Nancy shushed him quick so I could keep talking. "Boys get the tattoos when we're two years old, to make sure we aren't going to die in infancy. Referring to a baby by their real name before they are two is bad luck, and if the baby dies before two and you've named it the baby's soul doesn't go on and haunts the mother and father."

Bomber looked like he was going to laugh at it, but just then the sound of small tap-shoes ran by the door from out in the hallway, a child's giggle floating through the door and to us. His expression turned to a grimace before the laugh was born.

"Yeah," I told them.

"So William has it too?" Nancy asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. So does Marsh." Both of the other men, my brother William and my Uncle Marsh, were out at Graf.

"So what's with the black bar?" Bomber asked.

"Wait, so they do this to children?" Nancy asked. She looked horrified. "That's... that's..."

"Barbaric," I answered, nodding. Nancy stepped back, grabbed one of the chairs, and sat down. "My family prefers 'traditionalist' to be honest."

"So your fucking family tattooed you like you're a steer?" Bomber asked. He shook his head. "Shit, why didn't they just fucking brand you?"

"Brands are for girls, mark their family of origin," I told them both. "Tattoos can be updated or changed, hell, you can even get a tattoo removed now, but a brand? A brand is forever."

"Jesus," Bomber said, shaking his head. "You don't get to tease me about being a backwards hick every again, Stillwater."

"But why?" Nancy asked, refilling my glass. I nodded gratefully and took a deep drink. The liquor had warmed me, loosened my tongue.

And Aine was here.

I was afraid.

I was afraid and able to process that I was afraid. Even the lizard was afraid.

Of Aine.

"So nobody steals them. Like fucking cattle," Bomber said, interrupting my dark thoughts. He rubbed his face. "Christ, branding and tattooing."

"It's always been that way." I shrugged, taking another drink. "It's no big deal, I don't even remember the tattooing." I looked at Bomber for a long time. "I don't see the big deal."

"Because you're not a fucking animal, you're a human being," Bomber said.

"I'm just a boy," I corrected him. Nancy frowned and the small line above her nose and between her eyebrows made its appearance.

"So what's the deal with that McCullen chick?" Nancy asked. "She have one?"

I nodded.

"How do you know?"

My mouth went dry. "We knew each other in high school," I said lamely.

"Except your cousins knew her, and I caught that more than a few of those stories had you and William fighting her cousins and brothers," Nancy said, the line deepening. Her scar was moving from pink to bright red.

"We dated for awhile in Junior High," I admitted.

"She pop your cherry?" Bomber asked.

Nancy watched my face closely as I weighed just what to admit. Did I admit how young we were? How she drugged me with her body, used my passions against me, twisted me up, and made me into a thing rather than a person? Did I tell them all of it?

Did I tell them that she felt that she owned me body and soul? That for many years, she did own me in ways they'd never understand.

Both of them waited silently for a few seconds, giving me a moment to speak. I saw something pass through Nancy's eyes and became aware of how I was sitting in the chair. My knees pulled up to my chest, my hands underneath my knees, my chin on my thighs. I shivered, but not because of the cold; it was 65 degrees in the room.

"Don't pull away from us, Ant," Nancy said softly, reaching forward to rub my shin. "We're here."

Bomber leaned forward and put his hand on my right shoulderblade, rubbing gently. "Ant, it's OK. Tell us what's wrong."

I could feel something from Bomber and Nancy that was rare in my life.

Compassion. Something that had been missing from my early years, before I had been taken away by the State and given to my Father. Compassion had been a myth, something that only girls got, and something boys were almost incapable of. My Father had taught me compassion through example and had brought back the strange and quiet boy from inside of himself through love and compassion.

My friends' compassion and the liquor pried secrets from me.

"Yeah. We were each other's firsts," I admitted quietly.

...'oh, oh, go slowly, fiorghra.' Aine whispered in my ear, her arms around my body...

...her arms drew me down to kiss me slow and lingering as I slowly settled my weight on her, feeling myself sliding into her...

...'oh, fiorghra,' she gasped as I pushed past the slight resistance, 'you're mine, now and forever, mine.' Her whisper heated my ear as her touch ignited my blood and her nails scratched my back, her nipples rubbing my chest and her perfectly even white teeth bit into my shoulder...

My body shuddered as I shook off the memory of our thirteenth birthday, the memory shattering and leaving nothing behind but a curl of dark and bitter fear of the diminutive woman.

"All right, what's the full story with the damn tattoo and what's with this McCullen chick?" Bomber asked.

"Family tattoo," I grunted, taking another swig off my drink before digging my cigarettes out of the pocket of my T-shirt. I was hoping she'd just drop it.

"Show it to me," Nancy demanded. That line had appeared between her eyebrows again, meaning she wasn't going to let up on it till she got what she wanted.

"It's nothing," I told her. "I already told you, it just says what part of the family I belong to."

"Show it to me," she repeated, her voice hardening. Bomber scooted his chair slightly back and started pouring himself a refill on his drink.

"You've seen it before a thousand times," I told her, looking away from her.

She took two steps forward and grabbed the bottom of my chin, pulling my face up and locking my eyes with her. "I own you, Stillwater. I saved your life. Me. Your father told me that made you my boy. Show. Me. The tattoo."

I surrendered, pealing out of my T-shirt and turning slightly in the chair so she could see my left shoulder blade.

"So that's it?" Nancy asked.

"Yeah. Except his cousins don't have that black bar under that rune, they just have a rune pattern, like the one under the black bar," Bomber repeated. She gave him a funny look and he shrugged. "We put them to bed, gotta strip them so they don't freeze to death."

I went to pull away and Nancy grabbed me by the back of my neck.

"What does the center mean?" she asked, jabbing her fingernail into my skin.

"Family sigil," I admitted. "My family uses one, other families use another. I know the McCullens still do it."

"The runes?"

"Which branch of the family I belong to," I told her quietly, still hanging my head. "And my birthday, birth order, as well as when I can have a name, when I'm an adult."

"Belong to?" Bomber asked.

"Shut it, Texas," Nancy growled. "The bottom runes?"

"My name. The nickname I'm called until I hit puberty, since you don't say a boy's real name until puberty." I sighed.

"Why the black line?" Nancy asked, and I could feel her fingernail trail across it.

"I don't know," I lied. I knew good and damn well what that black bar meant.

Her fingernails tightened on my neck, then relaxed, her fingers moving to gently squeezing the bunched up muscles in my neck. "It's OK, Ant, tell me. What's the black bar?"

"Can we please drop it? Please?" I asked. Her fingers let go of me and I turned around, facing her.

"Sure, Ant. Sorry for pushing it," she told me. The line was gone, but there was something in her eyes, something wounded. She picked up my shirt and handed it to me, then retrieved her screwdriver before sitting down in the chair Cass had been sitting in only a short time before.

"So they tattoo all the boys?" Bomber asked.

I nodded.

"When are the girls marked and why?" Nancy asked, a slight sharpness in her tone.

"Branded," I reminded her. "At a year old."

"That's... that's..." Bomber choked.

"Barbaric," Nancy said.

"The way it is," I said at the same time.

"Where are the girls branded by your psychopath family?" Nancy snarled.

"Left breast, over the heart. It marks their family of origin, so it's easy to tell which branch of the family they're part of," I told her. "It's about the size of a silver dollar. My sisters all have it, they're branded on their first birthday." I shrugged. "A girl will usually survive if they've lived to a year old, but boys are a little more fragile."

"Like fucking cattle?" Bomber asked. "Jesus, Ant, what the fuck is wrong with your..."

Nancy held up a hand. "John, no." She thought for a second, and then turned back to John, who was busy swilling down almost half of his drink. "Listen to the wording. The boy's tattoos mark who they belong to but the girl's brands mark what family they are part of. Do you get it?"

Bomber sat there for a long moment while I lit another cigarette and picked up the Coke can to drop my ashes in. Nancy was thinking hard, as was Bomber. It was easy to think both of them were dumb as hell, to forget they'd passed the MOS testing and had gotten high enough ASVAB scores to drop them in Special Weapons.

The silence went on for a few minutes before Bomber got up, went over to HAL, and hit play on the CD tray. He adjusted the volume to keep it down low and sat back down to the sounds of "Sunglasses at Night".

Except for the sounds of the wind and tapshoes in the hallway, the room was silent for a long time. I saw Nancy counting on her fingers several times, and her lips move as she talked to herself. Bomber lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair.

I would stare at the floor for the most part, silently drinking my drink.

After awhile John yawned, stretched, and got up, telling us he was going to bed. Nancy hit the light switch, plunging the room into darkness. HAL's stereo lights and the dim nightlight were all that tried to beat back the darkness.

They failed.

Finally Nancy got up, turned off HAL in the middle of Master of Puppets, and came over in the darkness to take my hand.

"I love you," I told her.

"I know," She answered in the dark.

"I can't tell you."

"I know."

"Come on, Ant," she said softly. "Come to bed with me." I didn't reply, just stood up at her urging and stripped off my clothing in the cold room, then helped her with her clothing. She let me move her arms and legs, her skin warm under my fingers as her clothing came away and left her gloriously naked in the dark.

Together we climbed up into the top bunk and snuggled up. We warmed up quickly under the thick quilt I'd bought to replace the one that the maniac had torn up. After a little while John started snoring and Nancy took that as her cue to go from caressing me to push me onto my back and straddle me, then held my face between her hands and started kissing me. Soon we were moving together, lost in the feel of one another. When it was over she rolled off of me and pulled me close, draping one leg over my hip and pulling me tightly against her.

"Just us," she whispered in my ear. "Can you tell me what's the black bar?"

I thought for a long moment. "The name my birth parents gave me. The Sergeant Major renamed me and had my old name stricken from the tattoo."

"Why?" she breathed. I could feel the tension in her muscles, like she was afraid of the answer I was going to give her.

"So I wouldn't be the little boy he had to save before my mother beat me to death," I admitted, choking slightly as I told someone for the first time in my life. "So I could be a different little boy."

"My poor Ant," she whispered.

She pulled the covers back over us from where they'd fallen to the side of us during our love-making.  She held me tight in the dim light cast by the nightlight as I buried my face between her breasts.

And wept as she tried to comfort me.

* * * * * *

My mother woke me up by grabbing me by my hair, ripping me from the bed, and throwing me bodily against the wall. I hit the wall and fell to the floor, stars across my vision, as my mother bellowed in rage and my twin sister shrieked in fear.

"Annie had a nightmare! He just had a nightmare!" she screamed. I was stunned, one foot kicking, seeing double as my mother grabbed her by her hair and yanked her out of bed.

In her off hand was a wide leather belt with a heavy metal buckle that she slapped against my sister's face, the leather instantly creating a wide welt.

"No, momma, please," my sister cried out, falling to her knees.

"Dirty little slut," my mother hissed, grabbing the back of my sister's nightgown and pulling it up, over her head, to expose her skin from the middle of her torso down. With another hiss of "slut", she kicked my sister over onto her back.

My sister landed with her legs open, and before she could to anything our mother brought the belt down on her crotch, dragging a shriek of pain from my sister as the hook in the buckle dug into her skin and tore a bloody furrow in it. My sister tried to close her legs but our mother kicked her in the temple.

I pushed myself up as our mother hit my sister in the crotch again, adding another gouge to the scarred skin. I held one hand against the wall and shook my head to clear it.

Something inside me snapped. Where before there had been nothing but a cold, singing emptiness, there was now something hot, sweet, and delicious that tasted of copper and iron, or honeysuckle and over-ripe blackberries. I felt myself straighten up, my back popping, and I realized that I wasn't much smaller than our mother, who had just struck my sister again with the belt, this time on the inside of her right thigh.

My sister held her hand out to me, mouthing my name, then squeezed her eyes shut and cried out as the belt buckle hit her again.

...no....

Our mother had wound back for another shot when I hit her at the waist in a flying tackle. Despite the fact she was built like a linebacker, a farm girl run to fat, we both hit the bed. I started throwing punches frantically, screaming at my twin sister to run. To run away. To run from...

Tandy?

Our mother managed to throw me off, onto the floor, my 10-year-old frame no match for adult size and pure rage born strength. She was on her feet before I was and the pointed toes of her shoes hit me again and again in the stomach, until all I could do was curl around the fiery pain.

"Bad boys get punished," my mother snarled, looping the belt around my throat. She yanked it tight and drug me from the bedroom.

"Nasty little boy, defiler of girls. How dare you ruin your sister with your unwholesome lusts? How dare you touch her, cover her in your filth?" She was spitting as she dragged me into the kitchen. She put me in my chair at the table, slapping me hard against the side of the face, before turning away.

"Nasty disgusting little boys like you get punished," she said, reaching for the heavy cast iron meat tenderizer hanging from her cookware board. My sister came into the kitchen, her nightgown back on, blood on her feet where it had run down her legs. Her eyes were wide as our mother turned away from the board, the belt set on the counter and her eyes bright.

"I think something more drastic is needed," she said, coming forward, slapping the head of the meat tenderizer against her palm. "Something that will teach you to keep your disgusting little boy parts off of your sister before you ruin her forever."

She grabbed my arm, pulling my wrist so my arm went straight, and laid my elbow on the wooden cutting board amid the parsnips and diced tomatoes. Beside me was a plate with the remains of an omelet and hash browns on it, the silverware still on the plate.

"First a lesson for you, then I'll make sure you didn't defile your sister," our mother said.

Heavy boot steps sounded and I looked up to see our father standing in the doorway. It wasn't even seven o'clock in the morning and he already had a beer in his hand. His hair was rumpled and greasy, his clothing was wrinkled from sleeping in them, and he had a day's worth of grey and brown stubble on his face.

"What's going on, Martha?" he asked. His tone was disinterested at best as he stared at me, not an ounce of compassion in his eyes.

"I caught Aodán in bed with Ineda," she said, turning to look at my father. The head of the meat tenderizer was resting against my elbow.

Two steps took our father over to my sister, his gnarled hand reaching out to wrap in her hair. My sister screamed as our father yanked her over to him. "You little slut. How dare you ruin yourself with him, don't you know you've been promised, girl?"

He threw my sister hard against the table and she folded forward against it, crying out in pain. She was on my left, and the glass that had been there shattered as it fell to the floor.

"Dammit, girly, now you need checked," he said before taking a drink of his beer. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and looked at our mother. "Hold her down, Martha."

A glance showed me our twin brother standing in the doorway of the hallway that led to the bedrooms. He was dressed already and staring at me with a smirk.

That hot and delicious taste squirted into my mouth again.

"This one first," our mother said.

"Annie, help me," our sister asked, dropping back into the fake language we'd made up as kids. As she spoke our father pulled her nightgown up, exposing her bare butt.

"She's asking Annie to help her, Momma," our brother said, smirking, his eyes on Ineda's bare skin.

"This blood better not be from your hymen, dammit," our father cursed, starting to squat down.

I was busy watching our father and our twin brother and had missed the fact that our mother had raised the meat tenderizer...

...And brought it down on my elbow.

Pain roared up my arm as my arm crunched. My fingers jerked, feeling like a sausage tube stuffed with fire ants. I screamed, yanking at my arm, trying to get loose from our mother's grasp. I stared at my elbow, noting the way it was deformed, how it was already turning purple and swelling up.

My sister screamed, and when I looked at her, she was trying to claw her way up onto the table. Our father was down behind her, squatting, with the hand that held his beer up above my sister so he could rest the bottom of his Olympia beer bottle on her butt. I looked at our mother, and she was looking at what was happening to my sister.

I looked around quickly and saw the fork. Without thinking I reached out, grabbed the fork...

...And drove it into the hand holding onto my wrist.

Our mother screamed, letting go of my wrist. Our father stood up suddenly, the beer bottle dropping from his hand. I grabbed my sister's hand and stood up, pulling her upright as I stepped back from the table.

Our mother swung the meat tenderizer at my sister, aiming at her tear-streaked face.

Without thinking, I stepped in front of her, pushing her behind me.

The meat tenderizer hit me just below the left eye with a solid crunch. My mouth filled with blood and blood gushed from my nose. My eye went blurry, but I was too fired up, filled with agony already, and that hot, sweet taste that went with the fire had blossomed inside the empty space that made up my insides.

I charged for the back door. I didn't glance back, and didn't flinch as the meat tenderizer hit the wall next to my head. I yanked open the door to reveal a rainy Tuesday morning.

"Come back right now, Aodán, or I swear you'll regret it the rest of your natural born life!" our mother screamed.

I ignored it, pulling my sister behind me as we ran across the back yard and into the woods. My sister was sobbing as we ran, barefoot, through the wet dead leaves, branches and undergrowth slapping us.

My world had devolved into a haze of pain. I was holding my left arm close to my body, pulling my sister with the other, unable to see out of my left eye, and blood was still running down my face.

"Aodán, stop," my sister's pleading finally cut through the haze of pain, fear, and that wonderful delicious fire inside of me. I slowed down and came to a stop at a fallen log, sitting down on it.

"You can't tell anyone what happened," she pleaded, still in the language that her, our brother, and I had made up. I nodded. "Please, promise me, you'll never tell anyone that da put his fingers inside me."

I nodded again. She was still crying as she reached out and touched my face, bringing bright fiery sparks of pain. I gritted my teeth and rode with it, feeling the fire get hotter inside of me.

"Does it hurt, Annie?"

I nodded slowly.

"Oh, Annie," she sobbed, leaning forward to hug me. Her nightgown was soaking wet, as were my pajamas, both of our hair plastered to our heads. After a moment she let me go and leaned back. "Are we running away?"

A moment's thought and I nodded slowly.

"Promise you won't tell anyone what happened to me," she pleaded again. Again I nodded. "We have gym clothes at the school. We can change there and run away." I nodded, it sounded better than my plan, which was just to run and run and run.

A branch crackled in the forest and something odd happened inside my head. Something that had never happened before.

A small lizard yawned, stretched, and woke up in the back of my mind, looking at the forest through my eyes, taking in the smells and sounds through my senses, feeling the rain on my skin. I could see it plainly, in my imagination. It took stock of my injuries, muttered to itself, then replayed the conversation between my sister and I from memory. At the mention of the school it immediately took inventory of my gym locker from memories, examined a map of the forest to the school made up of my memories of summers and walking to school when I missed the bus. It nodded in approval, then reached out and gently pressed a bright red button.

The fire roared up hotter, and the weakness and shakiness went away. My arm and face were still agony, but I found I could ignore it. I was crying from pain and fear, but that didn't matter.

The lizard approved of it.

My sister was looking around wildly, terrified that our mother or our father were trying to catch up. She was frozen like a deer in the headlights, her mouth open and one hand covering it as she whimpered.

"Annie? Innie? Momma says you can come home if you promise to be good," our brother called out.

The lizard hissed in my brain as he kept speaking, and the delicious taste came back to my mouth hotter and tastier than before.

"Momma says you'll only have to beg Jesus' forgiveness and everything will be all right," our brother called out.

...traitor... the lizard hissed.

I put my fingers to my lips and stood up, keeping my left arm to my side. I balled my fist and took a single step forward.

...I'd catch him from the side, knock him to the ground, and stomp on his neck till he went still, till he couldn't tell momma, tell da, until he didn't breathe anymore and couldn't spy on Innie when she bathed anymore, and he went still and his face turned purple and his hands went limp and he pooped himself... the lizard showed me.

God, how I wanted to.

My sister grabbed my right arm, and when I looked at her she shook her head and mouthed "please" to me.

I growled at her and she stood up straighter, stamping her foot. I slumped slightly and she pulled me by my wrist through the woods, in the cold and the rain.

The lizard grumbled to itself like a teapot boiling over.

We came out of the woods beside the baseball field, the rain having turned to mist, and we went to the side of the building. There the boys' locker room was open, and together we silently slipped inside.

My sister pulled gym clothes out of my locker. Two sets of sweats and two T-shirts for PE. She pulled me into the shower, turned on the hot water, and pushed my face under the water, letting the stream of hot water pound against my face. The agony made me sag, but she was there to catch me, hold me up, keep my face in the water.

After I was done shivering, she took me to the bench and sat me down before picking up the towel from my locker and a pair of sweats. She went into the shower, vanishing into the steam, still in her nightgown. I dressed and I sat there, in the dim lights, and looked at my elbow.

My arm was swollen halfway up my biceps and all the way down to my fingertips. The skin was shiny over the elbow, with heavy bruising winding around my arm. I couldn't move my fingers, my arm was full of fire ants.

"The ants go marching one by one..." I whispered, trying to move my fingers.

My sister came out of the steam, my wearing my PE sweats. She looked at my face and started crying, leaning down to hug me.

"Oh, Annie, I'm sorry. Are you OK?" she asked.

"Ants," I said, showing her my arm.

Her eyes widened and her mouth opened in shock. My fingers had gotten shiny, under my fingernails purpling.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," she said, standing up. She grabbed my other hand. "We have to get you to the nurse." I shook my head and she stomped her foot again. I slumped and followed her meekly as we went into the gym.

The hallway was lit up, but it was creepy how the entire school was lit but empty. I was glad, but the lizard didn't like the empty feeling. It wanted to hide in the bathrooms, or in corners behind garbage cans, or in empty classrooms under the teacher's desk.

At the office the shutter was lowered down. My sister hammered on it for a few moments and the door to the office opened. Mrs. Candison looked out, angry, and saw us both.

Dressed in PE sweats, our hair wet, my face swollen, and my arm cradled against my body.

She rushed us into the nurse's office and told us that she was going to call our parents. My sister pleaded with her not to, anything but that. She told us she was going to get me some aspirin and left the nurse's station.

Less than 15 minutes later, a police officer came into the nurse's station. I took one look at him and scampered under the nurse's desk, curling up in the corner. My sister moved in front of the desk, putting herself between the policeman and me.

The policeman moved slowly over to us, taking off his hat and setting it on the bed we'd been put on. It was plastic covered and had rain drops on it. He squatted down in front my sister.

"I'm Officer McCullen. You're Ineda Stillwater, aren't you?" he asked gently.

"Yes," my sister said, starting to sob again.

"Who's that under the desk?" he asked.

"My brother Annie, he's hurt really bad," my sister told him.

The lizard took his hand off a red button and the taste went away, the warmth inside of me went away, leaving me hollowed out with the coppery taste of blood in my mouth.

"Your parents are Martha and Jediah Stillwater, aren't they?" he asked. My sister nodded. "I'm going to take your brother to the hospital," he told my sister. My sister nodded, still crying. "But you have to move and get him to come out."

"Annie, come out," she said, moving to the side. I slowly scooted out and looked up at the policeman, who had moved back.

He was over six foot tall and must have weighed in at over 200 lbs. He didn't have a gut, his arms were thick, and his face had black pockmarks in it. He looked at me gently and held out his hand. He spoke to my sister and I reassuringly, let us ride in the front of the police car, and took us to the hospital.

He broke it up when my mother arrived, barged into the emergency room, and began punching me in the face. He dragged my father away when he tried to keep the policeman from stopping my mother. Once they'd put a bandage on my face, on my sister's privates, and put my arm in a cast, the policeman took us for a long ride up I-5, until we reached a house where he stopped.

A man came out that we recognized, having seen him a few times.

Uncle Tiernan.

I was drowsy when he took me from the police car. The policeman took my sister into the kitchen so Aunt Gretchen could give her something to eat. Uncle Tiernan laid me on the couch, pulling the afghan off the back to cover me with, then turned to the police officer.

"So she finally went off the deep end, Jared?" Uncle asked.

"Oh yeah," the policeman said, laughing bitterly.

They both obviously thought I was all the way asleep. Instead I was floating, tingling, the lizard watching carefully, managing the pain, the nausea from the shots, and the exhaustion.

"The ants go marching one by one..." I mumbled.

"What's that about?" Uncle asked.

"That's all he's said since I got there. The doctor says he's got some kind of shell-shock," the policeman said.

"Who beat them? Martha or my worthless fucking brother?" Uncle asked.

"Martha, although Innie isn't saying something."

"Think he finally molested her?" my uncle snarled. He turned and slammed a fist against the doorframe. "If he did, I swear..."

The policeman reached out and put his hand on my uncle's arm. "No, you won't. We'll bring it before your family's matrons, and let them decide what happens." He looked at my uncle for a long moment. "I hate to bring this up, but about little Aodán..."

"Yeah. Thirty thousand, wasn't it?" my uncle asked. The policeman nodded. My uncle sighed and cursed under his breath. "Take a check?"

The policeman nodded. "Let's break it up. A thousand of month till you pay it back." He smiled. "Aine won't take it well. She already knows. It's like she knew when she woke up the day it happened." He shook his head. "She woke me up at five this morning, begging me to go in as a policeman to the school, said Annie and Innie needed me." He chuckled. "That girl."

My uncle tore the check free and handed it to the police officer.

"Give Nora and the kids a hug from me, McCullen," he said gently. My uncle and the cop traded a hug, and the policeman left.

My uncle came over and sat down next to me.

"The ants go marching one by one..." I whispered. At the lizard's urging, I flexed my fingers and just relaxed as the fire ants tore at the inside of my arm, from my elbow to my fingertips, the medicine in the shot having only made them drowsy and not putting them to sleep.

"I know, boy. I know it hurts," my uncle said. "You're gonna live with me now, you and your sister both." He sighed. "I won't let anyone hurt you like that again as long as you live in my house."

I just stared at him.

"The ants go marching one by one..." I whispered.

"Hurrah, hurrah," my uncle answered, smoothing my brow. "I know, boy, I know." He passed his hand over my face, closing my eyes. "Rest."

In the darkness, I saw a freckled face with overly large eyes, a cupid mouth, and red hair.

* * * * *

I lurched up from the dream, the blankets falling from me, scrabbling at the wall. The dream I'd been having shattered, just leaving the old break in my elbow throbbing. A hand grabbed my shoulder and I turned in the bed, knocking it away with my forearm before realizing that it was Nancy grabbing at me.

She didn't open her eyes, just reached for me again. "I'm here, Ant, I'm here," she said softly, her eyes not opening. I let her pull me down into her arm, dragging the blankets back over us.

"I'm here, baby. You're my boy. It'll be OK. Go back to sleep," she murmured.

I relaxed into her, snuggling up against her, relishing her body heat and the feel of her smooth skin against mine.

I closed my eyes in the dark, and drifted off back to sleep.

Just before I went to sleep, I mumbled something in Nancy's ear.

"Hoorah, hoorah," she mumbled back.

Despite the sudden panic, I couldn't stay awake, the booze and exhaustion pulling me under. Despite my fear, I went to sleep.

And dreamed of my mother chasing me through the barracks, wearing a cold weather mask and wielding a cast iron meat tenderizer.