UNRAVELED ~ STEVE ROGERS [3]

Chapter Nine

The ride back to the hotel was the worst ride of my life, because Sharon was there.

She didn’t actually do anything, it was just her very presence that annoyed me.

I’m sorry, that was a lie. She did do something. It was her continual flirting with Steve that bugged me, and I could tell that Sam, seated next to me, could tell. He kept talking to me as if Steve and Sharon weren’t there, and I knew Steve had noticed Sam’s sudden interest in me. Even as he talked to Sharon, his eyes would flick to us every once in a while, and when Sam put his arm around my shoulder his brow furrowed just slightly.

When we arrived at the hotel, Sharon and Steve went ahead, engrossed in a conversation about Peggy. I hung back with Sam, my eyes watching the pair jealously.

“You know she shot me,” I grumbled angrily to Sam.

“I know. You haven’t mentioned it every time her name comes up,” Sam rubbed my arm. “Come on, let’s go to the bar.” He lead me across the hotel lobby to the bar, a cute room styled with old wood and antique lights.

“Two whiskeys please,” I said to the bartender, holding up two fingers. I nudged Sam with my arm. “Is whiskey ok?” He didn’t respond, because he was staring at the TV screen in the corner. I followed his eyes.

I gasped.

“Go get Steve,” I said bluntly, my eyes wide and my chest tight. He didn’t even nod but left the bar hurriedly. Within seconds, I heard Steve, Sam and Sharon rock up beside me.

We all stared up at the screen, and Sharon was already on the phone.

All I could think about was I should have been there.

If I had been there, I might have stopped the biggest tragedy of my life, and maybe things would have turned out differently.

***

“A bomb hidden in a news van ripped through the UN building in Vienna,” the news anchor was reporting from the scene, and flashes of fire and smoke filled the screen. Sharon was on the phone to her boss, while Steve, Sam and I stood blank faced in front of the TV in her hotel room. I picked at my palms, and my teeth bit into the already raw flesh of my cheeks.

“More than 70 people have been injured. At least 12 are dead, including Wakanda’s King T’Chaka. Officials have released a video of a suspect whom they have identified as James Buchanan Barnes, The Winter Soldier. The infamous HYDRA agent, linked to numerous acts of terrorism and political assassinations.”

In that moment, I broke.

I tried, I really did. I stood, shell shocked in that room. I didn’t hear Sharon leave, or Sam’s cursing. I stared at the screen, my whole body numb, my stomach churning. I felt sick, and I excused myself from the room before the inevitable tears arrived.

I think Steve called out, but I ignored him, stumbling out the door and into the bathroom down the hall. I crashed into the door, my legs giving way under me. I knocked my head on a sink, but the pain was nothing compared to the pain that ripped through my heart. I had just talked to him, just a few hours before, and now I never would again.

If I could go back in time, that would be the moment I would change. There are countless other pain filled moments in my life, but that one there was the worst, and I would take the chance to change it in a heartbeat.

My mind flashed with memory, burning his face into my head like a scar.

“See the stars, my little Omilio,” my father said, pointing up at the deep navy sky, dotted with bright lights and constellations.

“Yes, Papa, I see them,” I whispered, afraid that my other would catch us sitting on the roof in the city. She disapproved of my love for the arts; painting, writing, photography, astronomy and language. My father would sneak out with me at night to look at the stars, even though I should have been studying or training.

“One day, when I am gone, there will be another star in the sky. Our ancestors dwell there, protecting and guiding us until we are ready to come home to the galaxy.” My father put his arm around my strong 12 year old shoulders, and I leaned against him.

“But, Papa, what will happen when I am gone? My ancestors are not your ancestors.” I spoke sadly. I knew I was different. The very colour of my skin was enough to remind me I was not Papa’s real flesh and blood, not his true daughter like three year old Shuri was. Where would I go if my ancestors weren’t stars?

“Ah, Omilio, you are different, yes. But I also believe your ancestors came from the stars, though in a different way than mine. When you are gone, you may even go to a place better than me,” he squeezed my shoulder, but his words did not comfort me.

“I don’t want to go somewhere better than you. I want to be with you, always,” I looked up at him, our matching brown eyes our only similarity. He smiled.

“We will always be together, Khethiwe. I do not doubt it.”

So, I cried.

I had been crying more often than normal in the last few years, but it was nothing like the sobs that wracked my heart, the spasms that wrenched my body in unnatural directions, that pulled and ripped at me until I thought I could never be put back together. People had died in my life, but they had never been this close, and it had never felt like this. It had never felt like the end, like a void that I had fallen into, sucking the life from my veins, spilling my blood until there was nothing left of me but a shell, a husk of who I used to be, despair filled, glass eyed and so full of pain and anger that nothing good could exist there again.

All I wanted was Steve, to feel his arms around me, for him to pull me close and maybe his presence could start to repair the damage, maybe he could convince me that this was not the end, that there was something else to live for and that he could fix me in a way no therapist could.

But his arms were not there, because they never could be. He could never know. I would hide my pain from him, I would suffer alone, because that was what I deserved. This was my punishment for my sins, the countless sins, and no one would carry this burden except myself.

It was the start of being unraveled, although at the time, it felt like the end.

At some point, the door creaked open, and a shadow fell over me. Hands circled me, pulling me close.

“Keight? Keight what is it? What’s wrong?” Sam’s urgent voice broke through my sobs, and it was just enough for my hands to press against his chest, for me to look up at him, guilt and despair the only thing holding on to me, hot tears pouring down my cheeks and my lips trembling as I spoke.

“My father is dead. King T’Chaka, my father, is dead.”