The Stone

By Seb L. Carter

A stone holds an ancient secret—and the key to present-day terror.

A murder-suicide was only the beginning.

Seven years ago, Liam's father picked up a gun, killed his family then himself. Liam was left behind to carry the burden and the guilt. 

Now Liam only wants to finish college and live a normal life. But when he is handed a stone, a stone that appears plain, he is catapulted into an unknown world of mystery and magic…

…and mayhem.

A CIA agent finds himself a part of something with more secrets than the government he works for.

Patrick possesses a psychic ability to find people. Coerced to find Liam, their first meeting reawakens an ancient connection. Together, they find themselves in the midst of a culling, the destruction of a secret society formed millennia ago. 

Destiny unites a group of strangers to face an antediluvian evil that has the world as its prize.

The Stone is a 142,000-word paranormal, urban fantasy adventure that involves a secret agent, a law man, and a gay guy who becomes a hero.

This novel features an LGBT relationship with a low-heat romantic subplot.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wolfline Publishing
• Release date: Mar 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386837657

Book preview

One

Lufkin, TX - March 2010

The first gunshot woke him.

Liam didn’t know it was a gunshot at first. He sat up in bed, his heart pounding, and he took a survey of his bedroom in the darkness. The house was cold. It was Texas in March when temperatures were already licking at the heels of 80 most days, and the nights stayed a temperate 68 degrees.

But that night, it was cold.

Maybe he heard thunder, a storm front moving in. Thunderstorms rolled through during spring like the column of a conquering army, lightning and dark clouds sent by vengeful generals.

He even reached over his headboard to lift the window curtain so he could peer out into the night. It was quiet outside his window. But quiet skies could be misleading, especially in Texas. In Texas, when storms blew in, clear skies opposed black and angry clouds, good and evil separated by a wall reaching high into the heavens.

It was 2:32 a.m.—a time to stick with him forever. The clock cast a digital green light, an eerie glow in his room.

Just when he dismissed the sound to lay back down again, shouting started. Another gunshot shattered the night.

"No, God! No!" Deep, wailing cries. Pleading cries all at once.

A woman. His step-mother, Becky.

Then another scream, "MOMMY, MOMMYmommymommy!" His younger sister, Tamra.

Liam threw the covers aside and froze at the edge of his bed, scared, uncertain.

Another gunshot. There was no question what he heard now—and the abrupt silence of Tamra’s scream followed by the solo, mournful cries of Becky.

Liam raced from his bed and paused with his hand on the doorknob of his bedroom door, but again he froze. An intruder. What else could it be? An intruder with a gun. He needed to get to a phone, call 9-1-1.

He needed to see if his sister and step-mom were all right.

He should go out there. He should fight. He should…

He didn’t know what to do. This indecision would also come to haunt him.

But the fear gripped tight, kept him from going any further, too afraid to actually turn the door knob and take that step out into the hallway.

The cries again. Why, Walter? Why?! Oh God, why?

Walter was his father. Liam finally did open the door. A crack. Just enough to peer out down the hallway.

Light fell into the corridor from the kitchen. There, in the middle of the hallway, was Becky on her knees. She held something. Her nightgown was soaked in red.

She cradled what she held. What she held struck dread in Liam’s heart, and tears leapt to his eyes, his mouth open in a silent cry.

A small arm, limp, covered in stark smears of red blood against sun-kissed skin. Holly, Liam’s youngest sister. Just a baby.

Liam threw open the door to his bedroom and ran out into the hallway. Becky saw him. Her face was smeared with the blood. She shook her head. No, she said. Go back. Please, Liam. Go.

Becky cried.

The barrel of the shotgun moved in from the kitchen. It pressed against the side of Becky’s head, and Becky squeezed her eyes shut. The gun fired, and the side of Becky’s head was a pulp of red mess.

Liam turned and ran back into his room, and he stopped to peer out the door closed to a crack again.

Outside, silence.

And footsteps, heavy footfalls. A man’s leg stepped over the lifeless body of Becky, a man’s arm roped out of a rolled-up red-plaid sleeve, and then the face that chilled Liam to his core.

His father’s all-too serene face. He carried a Remington 870 pump-action shotgun in his hand, held upside down as he methodically, mechanically reloaded the magazine with shotgun shells that he pulled, one-by-one, from the bulging breast pocket of his shirt. He did this as he moved down the hallway toward where Liam crouched down behind the cracked-open doorway.

When his father stood outside his door, Liam scrambled backward to crab walk to a dark corner of his room. Where else could he go? The midnight square of his window covered by half-closed curtains. Could he make it in time?

But before he could even process the thought into action, the door to his room kicked open. Liam froze.

His father walked into the room, the shotgun aimed and ready. He moved to Liam’s bed and stopped when he saw it empty.

It was only a matter of time. The door, could he make it? But his legs wouldn’t act.

He should scream. He should fight.

His father was much larger than he was, a man who worked with heavy farm equipment that he had to lift and use in order to demonstrate it to potential buyers. He was a man who could swat a teenager the size of Liam down with one big, meaty hand.

But Liam’s father wasn’t like that. He was a gentle man, a kind man. The type of man who gathered up a puppy found broken and near death beside the road to carry it to a veterinarian to be saved.

This was not his father. It was the shell of his father carrying a loaded gun.

Daddy? Liam said in a voice that came out from him too small.

A whisper of breeze turned his skin to goose flesh. And a cold hand gripped inside him. The house shook. Liam thought it was him, that he was trembling, but it was the whole house that trembled.

Liam’s father paused. He turned in the room and watched as pictures fell from the wall. Elsewhere in the house, something shattered, the sound of glass sprinkling on the hardwood floor. The barrel of the gun moved just feet from where Liam crouched in the corner, level with his head.

And it passed over him.

Liam was sure his father looked right at him. He even waited for that second of recognition as he stared into his father’s eyes. He needed to see the moment of his father’s decision to take Liam from this world. If he was to die like this, his father owed him that.

The shaking in the house grew more intense. Wood splintered behind the walls. The whole house could fall on top of them at any moment.

And Liam waited for his death to come.

But death never came.

Instead, his father turned and walked with heavy footfalls from the room to stop in the hallway right outside Liam’s door.

Fear mixed with confusion. The shaking of the house stopped.

Was this part of the torture leading up to his death? Was his father toying with him? Liam remained where he was.

A final gunshot broke the night, this time close enough to cause a ringing in Liam’s ears. He heard someone fall. Then he heard nothing at all.

The house was too quiet after so much noise. Except the sound of his lone beating heart thudding in his ears.

For a long while, he stayed where he was. Minutes or hours. They seemed the same, blurred. He couldn’t move except to tremble and wipe away errant tears. He hugged his legs. He didn’t want to move, to face what was beyond his door. So he stayed put.

The smell of blood was cloying, thick in the air. And a sour smell of shit after a time. He didn’t even move when he heard the pounding at the front door and the red and blue lights pulsating off his bedroom walls through his curtains.

Police officers flooded into Liam’s room, guns aimed. They watched the wide cracks in the walls like they were afraid that, at any moment, the whole house might betray them and fall.

When one officer found Liam, he yelled. Liam could barely comprehend what he was saying, a far-off language, and he was lifted from the floor, the officer stepping over the dead body of his father to carry him out of the house. The man he called daddy now dead with his face only vaguely recognizable by the familiar cleft of his chin. The rest was in ruin.

The image of his dead father: Another image that remained burned into his brain.

Two

Chicago, IL – Present Day

The man Patrick Rowe was supposed to meet was already seated at the diner table, sipping a cup of coffee and eating a cheeseburger and French fries at 3 a.m. The restaurant was an all-night place with a long counter and vinyl-topped stools, dingy booths, and gaudy red neon in the windows. A haze of grilled onion stink hung in the air. Elsewhere in the diner were club kids, college aged and stuffing their faces with their own fatty foods to bring down the buzz of liquor enough so they could go home and crawl into their beds.

You’re late, the man said when Patrick stopped at the table. He looked like a professor in a maroon argyle sweater vest and a glistening dome of a head with thin strands of hair combed over his bald spot. He wore glasses and peered over the rims to stare up at Patrick.

Patrick tossed a picture onto the table that spun and came to a stop against the man’s plate of food. It was a picture of the same man sitting there with his fingers glistening from hamburger grease and dredging a French fry through ketchup. I passed your little test, Patrick said.

The test he’d been given: Find the man in this picture. No address. Not even a country or city. And he’d succeeded. Too much was at stake for him not to succeed.

The man glanced down at the picture then back to Patrick. You’re still late, the man said.

My flight was delayed from Dubai. Patrick said.

Truth was, he’d been in Chicago for six hours now. He made a couple of stops before coming here. This operation—if it could be called that—was unconventional, and it didn’t sit well with him in the least. Patrick worked for the CIA’s Special Operations Group, and sometimes unconventional was the norm. But this time, four lives were on the line. And this time, he was on his own. If he was forced to rely only on himself, he needed to back himself up with some firepower. A luggage locker in Chicago’s Union Station had everything he thought he might need. But even that was an educated guess.

The waitress came to their table, and Patrick ordered a cup of coffee. He stared at the professorial figure sitting across from him.

Well, here we are, the man said. He had a voice like he smoked, and his clothes carried the scent of nicotine and cigarettes.

How about you start by telling me exactly what it is I’m doing here and what this has to do with finding my team? His team, missing two weeks now.

The man stuck a fry in his mouth and chewed. When you need to know, you will.

Patrick hit the table. He leaned forward and stared hard at the man. That’s not going to work. Some of the other patrons of the restaurant peered over at them.

The man betrayed a small smile on his face. Calm down, Mr. Rowe, he said.

Believe me, I am calm. If I have to get angry, there won’t be much talking going on, Patrick said.

The balding man leaned back and wiped his hands with his paper napkin. I do like your spirit, he said.

Four SEAL team members were kidnapped by Taliban forces, Patrick said, his voice an angry whisper, and I was told by your boss to come here and find you in order to get them out. You want to tell me why I’m here and not over there looking for them?

You are here and not there because my employer has the ability to free your team, he said. But that is not something he is willing to offer freely. You understand that, don’t you?

Patrick glared at the man.

This all started for him two weeks ago. His team was the stakes. Four guys he’d come to call friends, even family, over his two years embedded with them in a forward operations group working out of Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.

The night they were taken, it was to be a simple mission, the type they, as a black-ops group, had done countless times. A search and eliminate for a man named Aarif Sattari, a key official in the Taliban resistance and a man thought to be connected to Iranian Quds Forces. Patrick was the team’s compass, the one who told them where to go. Usually he and his team only got close enough to paint a target for drones, and hellfire rained down from the sky. But this time, they were ordered to do a direct takedown. The enemy lay in wait, and they were ambushed and taken hostage. Patrick was the only one to escape in a twist of fate he still struggled to comprehend.

Patrick unclenched his fist and laid his hand, palm down on the table. I’m here, aren’t I?

Yes, you are.

The waitress brought Patrick his coffee and asked if he wanted anything else. Patrick told her no.

You should eat something, the man said.

I’m not hungry.

The man shrugged and took another bite of his hamburger. Suit yourself, he said through a full mouth.

After a moment of watching the man eat, Patrick finally asked him, What do I call you, anyway?

A follower of Thaddeus, the man said.

And who is Thaddeus? Is that the man I met in Dubai? The clandestine meeting in a Dubai hotel was with a rich guy, not bad looking, and that guy had introduced himself as Cyril. But in his line of work, somebody with a few names wasn’t all that uncommon. The name Thaddeus was a new one.

Thaddeus is the reason we are all here, the man said.

Patrick stared at him, then he shook his head. He was through with riddles. This is all a waste of my time, Patrick said, and he slid from the booth and stood.

Where are you going? the man asked, this follower of Thaddeus.

I’m going to board the next plane back to Dubai so I can continue the search for my team. He started to leave.

But the man reached out and grabbed Patrick’s wrist. When Patrick turned on him, ready to knock the guy out, he couldn’t move. He tried to, but, even as he tried to command it, his body simply would not respond.

Sit down, the man said with a motion of his head back toward the seat.

And Patrick finally did move—not of his own volition. He walked the two clipped steps back to sit down in the booth again and to stare across the table at the man. Everything else was frozen, paralyzed, his chest constricted, almost unable to breath. He could only take in shallow breaths to keep from blacking out.

With a wave of the man’s hand, it all released, and Patrick fell forward, gasping for air. He knocked over the cup of coffee, and the dark liquid spread out across the table and soaked the photograph. The man didn’t seem to take notice. What the fuck was that? Patrick barely managed as he gulped in deep breaths.

I can’t let you leave, he said.

Patrick still recovered. What did you do to me?

The man shrugged. A mere hint of what could come if you fail to accomplish what we ask, he said.

The waitress brought a washcloth over to the table to take care of the spill, but the man grabbed the cloth from her hand.

I’ll handle this, he said, and began to sop up the spilled coffee. He wadded the photograph and set it in the seat next to him. Go grab my friend here another cup of coffee. The waitress nodded, and she turned around and walked back to the counter, leaving Patrick to wonder if this man had done something to her too. He eyed the man warily.

As the man cleaned up the mess, he appeared to take little interest in the way Patrick glared at him. I said I liked your spirit, he said, but you came in here with a chip on your shoulder that I didn’t particularly care for. He gathered up the brown coffee into the cloth. I had to make sure you were ready to listen. When he was done wiping, he turned his eyes up to Patrick, peering over the rims of his glasses again. Are you ready to listen?

Yes, Patrick said.

Good. He reached down beside him into the booth and pulled out a manila envelope that he laid on the table, though he didn’t move it any closer to Patrick.

The waitress returned with another cup of coffee, and this time, Patrick took it and began to fix it the way he liked, the whole time watching the envelope.

You are able to find people, correct? the man asked him.

Patrick stirred his coffee. He said nothing at first. He’d searched for his team. He had a talent, as he called it, for being able to find anyone or anything, living or dead. He only had to focus on a person or object until his need for it consumed him like it was the one key thing missing in his life. That feeling gave him a bead on it, a sense of direction, that led him to whatever it was he needed to find. He had no explanation for how it worked. It just did.

And this talent had never failed him before, not until his team went missing and he was unable to use it to locate them. He tried over and over until his nose bled and his head pounded with the worst migraine headache he’d ever experienced. It was no good. His team was lost. He was forced to resort to conventional methods, exhausting every route up the chain of command to initiate a search and rescue mission. His efforts met with roadblock after roadblock. Finally, he was threatened with sanctions if he didn’t let it go.

Not letting it go is what brought him here, seven-thousand miles away from where his team was being held in Afghanistan. It didn't make logical sense to be here and not there, but it was all he had at this point. He was desperate.

Patrick nodded. I used to think I could find people, Patrick said.

You found me. That’s a start.

The man was right. And Patrick had done it how he’d always done it. Part of him knew deep down he took this assignment to see if he still had his talent.

Thankfully, the man didn’t wait for any further explanation. He simply slid the envelope over toward Patrick.

Before Patrick took up the envelope, though, he eyed the man again. A little bit of the defiance crept back into his gut, and he squinted. Tell me this, first. Did Cyril have anything to do with my team going missing?

Cyril is the only thing keeping your team alive. When the time is right and you’ve completed the operation, Cyril will see to it that their release is secured.

Patrick leaned forward and looked the man directly in the eye. If I find out your boss had anything to do with their capture—

The man raised his hand again, giving Patrick pause, and he half expected to feel the constriction in his lungs again. This time, whatever had overtaken him before never came. I can assure you that he did not. The man sat back, his hands on the table, and he shrugged. With your escape, however…

Patrick’s brow knit. What’s that supposed to mean?

The man waved his hand like dismissing the question. Your skill set is very valuable to him. Cyril only waited for the right moment to present itself. That is all. You have been someone he has paid a keen attention to for quite some time. He assured me that he shared all of this with you.

He had. When they met, the man who introduced himself as Cyril seemed to have all the answers at exactly the right time Patrick was looking for them. As a CIA operative, it made him endlessly suspicious. But, while his superiors seemed content to let his team rot, Cyril said he had a way of securing their freedom—only if Patrick would agree to do this job for him.

Given your skills, Mr. Rowe, everything you need to know about the job before you is in that envelope, the man said.

Patrick opened the envelope and pulled out the contents. The top sheet looked like a standard dossier that included things like hair color and eye color. There was a picture too. A skinny kid with a big grin on the typical blue, blotchy background reserved for high school photo day.

Liam Yates, the man said.

This is a kid. I thought Cyril said he was in college. The kid in the picture couldn’t have been any more than fifteen.

That’s the latest picture we have of him. It was taken eight years ago. He’s twenty-three now.

Something else inside the envelope caused it to bulge, and Patrick turned it upside down. A small plastic case skittered onto the table that Patrick picked up and opened. It looked a lot like a temporary bug that the agency used from time to time that stuck to a target’s clothing.

The man pointed to the case. When you locate him, touch that directly to his skin. Take care you don’t touch the wrong side.

Patrick squinted. What’s it do?

It will mark him so that we can find him.

A tracking device.

Something like that, the man said. It will leave a small mark on the location so you’ll know if the tracker is in place and functioning.

Patrick had been trained in the use of a lot of devices similar to this one. Most tracking devices were meant to be hidden. This one left a mark? He slid the picture and the dossier back into the folder. And you’re sure this kid’s in Chicago?

There’s no doubt.

And when I find him, Cyril will secure the release of my team back in Afghanistan, Patrick said.

When you complete your tasks, the man said.

Tasks? The deal was to find this kid.

Part of the deal was to find him. The man leaned back. When you do, there may be further requirements of you.

Patrick wanted to argue, to put up a fight to secure his team’s immediate release. But there was so much about this that he had no clue about—like how a man who looked like a drunken college professor was able to freeze a guy like Patrick in place. He clamped his mouth shut. But he did lift his chin to stare at the man. So why do you need me?

I thought we’d been over this.

No, if you know he’s here in Chicago and you have all of this information about him, why do you need me to be the one to locate him?

Because we believe you are the only one who is capable of finding him.

Patrick shook his head. That doesn’t make any sense.

It doesn’t have to make sense, the man said. It only has to get done.

Patrick gathered up the envelope.

The man pushed his plate of food aside, and he leaned closer to Patrick. And, Mr. Rowe, we are running out of time. There are events in motion that are far beyond both you and I, he said.

Time for what?

Big changes. The eye contact he made with Patrick was locked and intense. Patrick wasn’t one to be intimidated, but this time, he suppressed a shiver of apprehension. One person stands in the way of those events coming to fruition, and you are going to help find him so that everything can proceed as planned.

Patrick squinted. He continued to meet the man’s gaze. What are you going to do to this kid when I find him?

He is very important to us. That’s really all you need to know.

You’re not going to kill him?

Would it stop you from doing your job if we were?

Patrick thought about it. He hated himself that he needed to think about it. Killing clearly wasn’t outside his consideration, but those he’d seen killed—or that he had a hand in killing—were representatives of a government declared an enemy of the United States. Morally, killing was wrong, but in the course of keeping one’s country safe, allowances were made. Was this kid a representative of a foreign government or terrorist organization with the desire to bring harm to innocent people? Patrick doubted it.

But his team was important to the safety of the country. Their job was to stop terrorists who were planning to bring harm to American lives or to America itself.

I’ll do my job, Patrick said with a firmness in his jaw.

Very good, Mr. Rowe. He reached down to the seat beside him again, and he produced a burner phone. This has the number you will use to contact us. I assume you won’t be using your own phone?

Patrick shook his head. He dumped it in Dubai. He took out the SIM card and snapped the smart phone in two. Patrick knew all too well how easy it was to track a cell phone, and he had no desire to be found until he was able to complete his mission.

Good. The man also produced another standard-sized envelope that, when Patrick opened it, contained a fair amount of cash. That will be enough to cover your expenses while you’re here. We’ve set you up at The Drake hotel.

Patrick quirked an eyebrow. An upgrade from the usual places I’m forced to stay in.

The man smiled. You’re working with us now. That comes with a certain set of perks. He pulled the plate of food back in front of him again, and continued eating. You’re still welcome to join me, he said. The burgers here are some of the best in the city.

I’ll pass, thanks, Patrick said. He gathered up the envelope, the phone, and his expense money. I’d rather get to work, he said as he slipped out from the booth. But he stopped and turned back to the man. I do have one more question, he said.

The man waited.

Who is Thaddeus?

Stick around long enough, the man said, and you might just be lucky enough to find out.

Three

Chicago, IL - Near North Side

The girl named Molly talked about the time she tried to kill herself by taking a whole bottle of pain meds. She fidgeted in her chair, and Liam tried not to devolve into feeling sorry for her. He was the leader, the facilitator of this group, and his job was to focus on her words without judgment. She couldn’t be any more than sixteen or seventeen.

I was just a teenager being angsty, Molly said. That’s what my mom used to say, anyway. It’s like she turned a blind eye. All the signs were there. I mean, I was cutting myself. Who wouldn’t notice that? She had black hair with a pink strip in front that she brushed from her ear so that it fell and curtained over her face. withdrawing into herself.

They were in a dim basement room, a room used for coffee after communion upstairs in the sanctuary. The basement hopper windows revealed a stray glow of street lamps from outside or a black square of night. It was an inner-city church north of Chicago’s Loop, the city where he came to live with his aunt and uncle not long after the murders. Tonight, he sat in the Sacred Heart Church, the room big enough to handle a hundred people or more. Only seven were there now, and they sat in a circle in the center of the room.

One section of lights was turned on, leaving most of the room in shadow. Folded chairs lined the back wall, and tables stacked on their sides with their legs tucked up like dead insects. Only one table was set up for refreshments, and the chairs they sat on placed in their circle. The room smelled of mildew and old coffee.

Molly looked around the room like she just realized they were all sitting there, waiting. Her eyes were haunted. Liam recognized that look. He’d seen it in his own eyes.

Take your time, Molly. You're safe here, Liam said.

He’d been coming to these groups for three years now. Sometimes they were the only place he felt comfortable when it came right down to it. There was a selfishness too. Listening to other people talk about their problems gave him a welcome break from his own. Somebody thought he might actually be able to help other people work through their problems, so they asked him to lead a group of his own. Sometimes he marveled at how well he was able to fool so many people. They thought he had his shit together.

If there was one thing Liam didn’t have, it was his shit together.

Molly lifted her head. She took a deep breath. A tear escaped down her face. I’d try to talk to my mom about how I felt, that I was depressed, and she’d always say, ‘what do you have to be depressed about?’ I thought she was right. I had decent grades. I had a boyfriend, a car. She shook her head. People don’t understand that you don’t need a reason to be depressed. You just are.

Yes, exactly! someone in the group said, Dorinda, a girl who tried to commit suicide by cutting her wrists. Dorinda and Liam shared the same wrist scars. He touched the black-bead bracelets he used to cover his scars.

Liam lifted a hand to quiet Dorinda, and Dorinda shrugged an apology. But Liam continued to watch Molly. He wasn’t a doctor. He couldn’t commit anybody, but he’d walked people to the emergency room before. He searched her body language for signs she might be close to another attempt. Molly’s hands were clenched tight into fists, tight enough that she probably had deep crescents from her fingernails in the palms of her hands.

I’m sorry, Molly said. I’m just not used to this whole thing yet. She wiped at her face with a still-clenched hand.

There’s nothing to be sorry about, Liam said. Others in the group mumbled an agreement. We’ve all been here for our first time. Take your time and tell us when you’re ready. And if you’re not ready to talk about it yet, that’s okay too. There’s no pressure here.

After a moment, she unclenched her hands and nodded. No, I’m ready. A deep breath, and she lifted her chin again to continue. I was always really bad at coping. I started self-inflicting just to even try to feel normal. I never told anybody. I got really good at hiding it, and I’d only do it in places nobody’d ever see. She paused. Her fingers picked at the hem of one of her shirt sleeves. By the beginning of my junior year, it got really bad. A lot worse, actually. I was basically spiraling out of control. Her focus on somewhere in the center of the circle they all sat around. With a shrug, she said, And that’s when I did it. I took a whole bottle of anti-depressants. I guess it was my way to finally make those pills work the way I wanted them to. Get rid me of my depression once and for all because I wouldn’t have to wake up and deal with any of it ever again.

No one reacted except with nods of recognition, of having been there themselves. This was a place for people to share their truths, their struggles, and to not be judged. People outside the group—non-suicidal people—usually felt the need to fill these silences with platitudes. That must have been so hard or, Liam’s favorite, I know what you’re going through.

But in group, nobody assumed they knew what each other was going through, even though everyone there had tried to take their own lives in one way or another. Everyone’s pain is not always the same. People suffer in different ways. It was up to the person talking to make sense of their pain and to share that with the group.

And Molly struggled. Her bottom lip quivered.

Sara, the girl sitting next to her, leaned over and asked, May I comfort you?

Molly nodded, and the girl leaned over and put her arm around Molly’s shoulders.

You’re here, Liam said to Molly. That’s saying something. We’re all here for the same reason. We all have to be able to face our pain. You took a big step by sharing it with the group. That’s what we’re all here for, to face each moment, one moment at a time.

I just want to not feel like I’m worthless anymore, Molly said.

Liam leaned forward in his chair. You’re not, Molly, he said. You’re not. No matter how bad it gets, no matter how dark and alone it feels, you’re not worthless. Everybody has a purpose on this earth. If you don’t know yours, it just means that the higher power hasn’t revealed it to you yet. Trust that one day he or she will. He tried to make it sound as if he believed what he was saying. Even a group like this had its own canned platitude.

Purpose was elusive for Liam too.

After the night that Walter Yates killed his entire family except for Liam—Liam had taken to thinking of his father as Walter Yates as if to distance himself from the man who gave Liam his last name—the question burned: Why? Why was Liam spared and not his baby sister? Not his step-mom Becky or his sister Tamara? What did he have to bring to this world that they didn’t?

What was his purpose? He couldn’t believe this was it.

Molly had finished, and the rest of the group sat in a comfortable silence. Liam glanced at the wall clock—nearly 9 p.m. And Liam had a British Lit paper to write before bed.

Anyone else have something to let go of before we end the group? Liam asked them. He didn’t rush it. Sometimes people were too nervous to speak, but the pressure of the end of a session caused them to push the nerves aside to get whatever they were experiencing off their chest.

But when no one spoke, Liam closed his notebook. All right then, Liam said with a smile and clapped his hands on his knees. Thank you, everyone, for sharing tonight.

People began to gather their things. Some of them moved to the coffee and cookies to load up on the way out. Liam went over to Molly and waited for her to acknowledge him. She stood with Sara still, and they were talking.

Liam touched Molly’s shoulder. You did good tonight, he said. Real good.

Molly forced a smile onto her face.

I mean it, he said. It’s always hard starting out. But remember that you’re not alone. You have my number.

And I gave her mine, Sara said with a comforting smile.

Good. Liam hugged his notebook close. Don’t let yourself fall too deep before you use those numbers, he said to Molly.

Molly nodded. Her smile was a little more genuine this time. I won’t. Then she reached up and gave Liam a hug. Liam tensed up a little, but then he let himself relax into it.

Liam had to stay behind to put up the chairs and clean up the refreshments. The big room always weirded him out a little, especially in that time right after everyone left, like the ghosts of people’s pain from group lurked in the shadowy corners, specters who watched him as he folded the chairs, the hollow clang of the metal echoing through the room the way heavy chains clang against a hard, cold floor.

Being alone in a place like this always stirred up flashbacks of that night. It didn’t matter that it was nothing like his old house, that he was in the basement of a church with institutional flooring and recessed fluorescent lighting. The clang of the chairs and the weight of emptiness, even after all this time—going on seven years now— sometimes overwhelmed him and filled him with a relentless fear that, at any moment, someone with a gun, who always looked like Walter Yates with half his head gone from a self-inflicted wound, would come crashing through the double doors to take him down with a shotgun blast. And that this time, Liam would see that recognition in the one good eye Walter Yates had left.

He’d learned to cope, taking deep, calming breaths. Two-count in, four-count out. It helped sometimes. Other times, he hid it. He’d gotten quite good at smiling through the pain. A Band-Aid to hide what he was feeling inside. Lying to everyone about his feelings became second nature. He sat in groups like the one tonight to try to help people work through their own problems, but he felt like a fraud most nights. He still had so far to go with his own issues.

He missed his family. Every day he missed them, even his father, the one he knew before that night. He wished there was something he had done, something he had said. He missed them like a hole in his heart. They were his permanent ghosts.

Why did they die and not him?

Over and over, the same thoughts: He should have been able to prevent it. If only he’d been more vigilant.

And a voice in the back of his mind lingered like a malignant tumor: He was the reason his father snapped. It happened the day after he was discovered in bed with his best friend—his best guy friend. The math was simple, and it drove him to use all those sleeping pills to try to end it a second time. The day his father picked up a rifle and killed his entire family was Liam’s defining moment. And now the challenge in his life was to figure out how to bear that burden.

With his backpack over his shoulder and the bag of cookies in one hand—the leftover cookies, he put back into the box and stuck it into a plastic grocery bag—Liam closed and locked the reception hall, and he carried the key upstairs to slip beneath the church office door.

Before he walked outside, his phone rang.

He stopped in the vestibule of the church and checked who it was. His aunt Jonie. He answered, but he didn’t walk outside yet. This was Chicago. A visible phone became a target for thieves.

Just checking in, kiddo, his aunt said. Wanted to see what’s up with you?

Liam sighed. You know, most parents just send a text message these days. His Aunt Jonie was his aunt, but really, she’d become his parent.

I know, she said. But that just seems so impersonal. I like to hear someone’s voice. Besides, where have you been? I tried calling you an hour ago.

I know, he said. He hadn’t known, really. My phone was on vibrate. I was in a meeting.

Oh, she said. The note in her voice said she didn’t need any further explanation. How’d the meeting go?

Good. Really good. We had a good turnout tonight, he said. I was just about to walk to the train. He hoped it would be a short call. He peered out onto the street. It looked like it had rained. The streets glistened. Snow pack left over from the colder months still clung on in the corner of the parking lot, largely melted. It was moving toward spring and warmer days. Chicago snow sometimes took a while to realize the change in the weather.

Well I’m glad to hear it. I’m glad you’re still keeping up with that.

You know I’m facilitating now, right?

I know, honey, she said. But that’s got to help you too. I know it does.

Yeah, Liam answered. It’s cool. Makes me feel like I’m able to use my experience to help others, you know?

That’s why I’m proud of you, kiddo.

A brief pause entered in, and Liam took the chance. Well listen, I need to get going. I have homework, and I still gotta walk back to campus.

Okay, honey. You be careful. It’s late out, and that’s when the bad stuff happens, she said.

Aunt Jonie, it’s barely past nine.

It’s still dark out. You know how it is. That area used to be Cabrini. It’s not a safe part of town. Cabrini Green was tenement housing. Now it was all townhouses and open fields where the high-rise crime havens once stood.

It’s a lot different now, Aunt Jonie. They’ve torn all those old buildings down.

I know, honey. I know. But still. Sometimes I feel like an area gets bad once, and all that negative energy just seeps in and stays there.

That’s kind of silly, Liam said. But she was right. Nights in this part of town seemed to carry the weight of all that suffering.

Still, you know I don’t like you walking late at night.

I know that you worry too much, he said in an exasperated tone. But he smiled as he said it. It was good to hear her concern. Even though he acted annoyed, he still knew it meant she loved him just as much as he loved her, his only real family now, her and his cousin, Trey. After everything he’d been through, the psychiatrists said over and over, every expression of love was important. Show love so often that they never forget someone cares. That’s what his aunt Jonie was doing, but it wasn’t something banal for her. She really did care, and she showed it to him as often as she could. I love you, Aunt Jonie.

I love you too, kiddo. Call me when you get back to your dorm.

How about I just text you?

Ha ha. Yeah, okay. Just do it one way or the other.

I will.