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It’s an oddity when recognizing something but can’t put your finger on it. As Weatherman talked on, I imagined how awesome it would’ve been to hear these words from Onus.
He continued, “It’s his obsession with you that worries me…”
Unexpectedly, I pictured Art wringing his hands… And Diesel doing the same.
Looking at the man in front of me, the way his eyelids squinted and his nose crunched, I blurted, “You’re his father.”
Weatherman shut up and jolted, looking at Diesel in disbelief.
Diesel rested his elbow on the arm of the chair and proceeded to massage his forehead. “Just like her. She read me like I was a book she’d read a million times.”
At that moment, an awful truth slammed into me like a roller-coaster that had skipped its track. “Weatherman. Oh, damn. Piercer.” His pain gutted me. “I had your son killed.”
Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork in a bubbling pot of water, his eyes filled to the brim. “That was his own doing.”
The roller-coaster ride continued. “And Onus. Locked up.” I pressed hands to my temples.
Weatherman coughed through a sob that he must’ve been holding in for at least two weeks, the way his voice cracked and broke. “His own doing. Been cruel for so long.”
The torturous years he’d experienced pelted me as if I had lived them. “You used to be the VP for the Titans.” I grabbed my stomach as nausea hit me. “Always hoping and praying for my boys to…” I stopped when realizing I had spoken as if Weatherman because I had ‘linked’ to him. Exhaling disbelief and understanding, I calmly told Diesel, “She wasn’t reading you as much as … feeling you.”
He covered his face. “All these years of doubting my sanity.”
“Yeah,” I solemnly admitted, “I understand.”
My heart skipped a beat when abruptly realizing I hadn’t been a little boy with a creative imagination when believing Dio to be something from another world.
“So what was she? What…” I exhaled a shaky breath, “am I?”
Weatherman sat down on his butt and leaned against the porch rail. He bent a knee then rested his arm there, staring at his hand. “From what your father and I have discussed, you are—”
My cell ringing had us all jumping from our ragged nerves. Peering at the screen, my mouth gaped. “It’s … Dio.”
Diesel rolled his eyes. “Speaking of gifted ones, that’s some timing he has. I knew there was something about him.”
Timidly, and sensing why he was calling, I pulled the phone to my ear. “Hola—I mean hello?”
“Everything okay? I uh… You just popped into my head, that’s all.”
My throat tightening through this full circle moment, I asked, “Do you remember my nightmare? Of the fire?”
When I was little, I had a nightmare and was choking on smoke and hearing horrid screams. The Voice told me to run to Dio, so I did. We ended up in the shower, him trying to cool my smoking skin. Ani burned herself when she tried to touch me.
“Ah fuck, yeah, my dude. I remember it clearly.”
My heart was racing. “Remember saving Moola from the fire… Then touching my leg?”
“I will never forget that night. You were so brave, Nino.”
My Ani…
“How did that lead you to Diesel?”
“Can’t repeat my truth, understand?”
“Always have.”
“I, actually who you call Diablo, one of his ‘talents’ is he can read blood and the history of it.”
