More Deer
A Dead Generations Bonus Scene 

Word Count: 2,687

Blurb: Ian takes Adam hunting, and Adam’s simmering rage reaches a potentially disastrous boiling point.

Authors Note: This scene takes place between the first book, The Dead Don’t Lie, and the second book, The Dead Don’t Mourn. A month after the events of Book 1. It has been edited to the best of the author’s abilities and may contain typos/errors. 

December 2016

For a month after Edmund’s murder, they left Adam alone. He laid in bed for days at a time, silent and furious, drinking anything within reach to cope. Desperate to stave off the memory of Ian pulling the trigger. Of Edmund, a man once vibrant and beautiful, now devoid of light. Forever.

Katherine summoned him to her office to let him know he’d had enough time to mourn. The implications of Edmund’s death were clear, step out of line, and no one you love is safe. Adam would not forget that lesson again.

There would be more lessons to come, more lessons in death. Today was one of them. All morning, the sun tried to break through the overcast clouds, but the few rays that escaped blinded as they reflected off the piles of freshly fallen snow.

Adam averted his eyes from Ian as they drove. The first time they had been alone together since the week before Edmund’s death. Adam remembered the kiss they had shared, and the conflict he had seen in Ian’s eyes, even though Ian had already known what he would do to Adam, to Edmund.

Adam gazed out the window at the passing landscape. Miles of trees and snow-covered farms whizzed by. The desolate scenery mirrored Adam’s broken heart as they drove from the secluded mansion and deeper into the woods.

Was this Adam’s turn to die, murdered in cold blood? Was Ian driving him to his death? The thought was oddly comforting to Adam. He wanted this over. There’d be no need to hurt anyone else if he was dead.

I thought I was in love with you and now look what’s happened.

Adam glanced at Ian in the driver’s seat. Ian was stony-faced and silent, his jaw clenched tight and his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

Adam’s hatred grew more intense with each passing day. The sick feeling in his stomach reminded him of the harshest of all truths: none of this would hurt so much if he hadn’t cared so much in the first place.

The memory of Ian haunted him, day and night. The brief time they had shared forever etched in his mind, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Ian’s body pressed against his, the way Ian looked at him with such awe and desire. It was all gone now, but the memory of it promised to stay with him forever. Ian’s presence was a constant reminder of what could have been, if only things had been different.

For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been’. 

How true, Adam struggled to remember the author. Ian would know, but Adam had no plans to ask him. Or anything, for only hearing his voice was enough to bring those tortuous thoughts rushing to the surface. 

Katherine had orchestrated this. Ian had been too weak to stop her. She had done it, and Ian had gone along with it, and nothing could bring Edmund back.

Nothing could ever bring them back to that one night they had spent together, a night when all the pain, anger, and fear melted away. It hurt, and it hurt even more because of what Adam knew deep down.

He was still in love with Ian.

Adam hated him. He wanted him dead, but Adam still loved him, and if he could still love him, what did that say about Ian? Or about himself?

****
Adam didn’t utter a word the entire drive. His silence filled the car’s cramped interior and seeped into Ian’s bones. Rather than dwell on it, Ian busied himself counting the barns they passed as the snowdrifts piled higher around the edges of the roads.

The farms and quiet villages gave way to thick forests and denser snowfall. Ian had spent a fair bit of his childhood in these forests. With Rhys, who taught him how to shoot and kill and how to hunt.

Katherine was the one who suggested Adam needed help with his rifle training. Though he’d gotten better with handguns, Adam’s initial revulsion of firearms lingered. Why Katherine deemed it appropriate for this to occur a month after Edmund’s death at Ian’s hands was anyone’s guess.

Adam still refused to speak to him beyond one-word answers. When Ian told Adam to be ready at 5 A.M and to dress for the outdoors. Adam didn’t argue. Instead, he offered a curt, ‘fine’ and slammed the door in his face.

He’d been on time, too, dressed and waiting for Ian when he knocked on his door. Without a word, he’d followed Ian outside to the car. It’d been Ian who explained to him what the day would entail. He received another ‘fine.’ He didn’t speak again to him until Ian asked him if he wanted to stop for breakfast.

“I don’t care,” he said this time, gifting Ian three words instead of his usual one. A minor victory.

Upon reaching the edge of the state forest, near the remains of an abandoned farmhouse, Ian pulled over.

Adam seemed resigned, as if he expected Ian to march him into the woods and leave him for dead.

Ian shuddered, convinced that Adam would not only have accepted his fate, he’d have welcomed it.

Adam followed him outside into the snowy wilderness, a barren and harsh expanse of white that stretched for miles in every direction. Ahead of them, a cluster of dark woods loomed beyond the dilapidated farmhouse, which was abandoned and long forgotten.

Ian disappeared into the trunk of the car and returned with two rifles. 

Ian handed him one of them. Their fingertips touched, and even through the thick gloves they were wearing, Ian felt a jolt, a painful and magnetic reminder of what they had once shared. If Adam noticed, he said nothing, and Ian, his jaw tight, couldn’t bear to look him in the eye to find out. Still, he noticed that Adam’s hand quickly pulled away, as if Ian’s touch burned.

“What are we killing today?” 

The sound of Adam’s voice took Ian aback, as if he had never heard it before. But it was the tone of his voice, the flatness of it, that unsettled him.

“Deer.” 

“Oh,” Adam said. “Is that all?”

****
Ian felt uneasy standing so close to Adam. The inches between them might as well have been miles. The air was thick with the weight of unspoken words.

Ian showed Adam how to unload and reload the weapon. How to hold it, and aim, going through the motions on autopilot. For he could dismantle and put this rifle back together in his sleep.

Adam listened attentively, but said nothing. He was a quick learner, as Ian knew. Ian handed the rifle back to Adam and motioned for him to follow him, showing him where to step and how to use patience and stealth to their advantage as they searched for a target.

The walk exhausted Ian, and Adam fared no better. Snow always made travel by foot more difficult, but the cold and the quiet worked to one’s advantage. If you had the stamina for it.

In the distance, between their shallow puffs of breath, a sudden shock of color burst through the trees. A deer, fully grown with antlers, stretched heavenward. A magnificent creature unaware, but alert as it sniffed the air, looking for them.

Ian reached out and stopped Adam in his tracks. He pointed to the animal, which was nosing around in the frozen ground for anything edible buried in the snow.

Adam looked from Ian to the animal, and let out a low, shaky breath. He stiffened his shoulders and aimed as Ian instructed. The unaware animal in his sights seconds away from its own death carried on without worry or fear.

Adam fired. 

The animal cried out, rearing back with a violent jerk. It took off running in the opposite direction. Blood spraying as it scampered off, ducking under the cover of snow heavy trees as it disappeared from sight.

“Shit,” Ian grumbled. “I’ll get it.”

From behind him, Adam’s faint panting followed, the sound of his boots trudging through the heavy snowfall. 

“Wait here.” Ian took off after the injured animal, tracking it through the woods with the droplets of blood it left behind.

It couldn’t have gone too far. Adam had clipped it right across the belly. A mortal injury. It should have bled out by now. Ian was certain he’d find it soon, wounded and near death.

Even as a child, when Rhys had taken him hunting, he’d never batted an eye in putting down an injured animal. Though he’d balked at the waste.

“Shouldn’t we eat it?” He once asked Rhys, who laughed in response.

“Probably, but don’t worry. There are lots of hungry creatures out here in the forest. He won’t go to waste. I promise.”

Sure enough, every spring, Ian found picked-clean bones lying where the snow had melted. The other animals wasted nothing in the wilderness. Everything returned to the ground in the end.

Ian picked up the pace, keeping his breath even, his footfalls light. He didn’t want to spook the animal, but time remained a factor. From the sun’s position, the day was growing later, the shadows darker and lower. As soon as the sun went down, the temperature would plummet below freezing.

Ian gave up on finding the animal, admiring its tenacity, as some creatures wanted to live even more than you wanted to kill them.

He turned back, but when he reached the clearing where he had left Adam, Adam was gone. Ian froze as a tree branch snapped behind him. He listened intently, his finely tuned hearing picking up the sound of footsteps, faint but ominous.

He spun around to find Adam standing behind him with his rifle aimed at Ian’s head.

The gun became irrelevant until Ian saw Adam’s face. The twisted and terrible mask he wore. One by one, a thousand emotions crossed over it. Pain, fear, love. But it was his anger that overwhelmed Ian. Its intensity, the fire behind it even in this mind-numbing cold.

Adam shook, trembling as his emotions washed over him. The rifle wavered in his hands. His eyes were glassy, wet with tears. His mouth twisted open and closed as he struggled with the heavy words he couldn’t say. No scream at Ian. Ian saw it all. The raw and impotent fury Adam fought to hold in check.

I deserve it. We both know that. I deserve to be left in these woods for someone to find in the spring. A discarded skeleton with no name.

Ian’s breath stalled in his chest. This was it, the end he’d been waiting for since the night he’d murdered Edmund. A punishment to fit the crime. Adam’s eyes bore into him, full of fury and pain. Ian wanted nothing more than to look away from the raw emotion, but he forced himself to meet that piercing gaze. 

Ian lowered his own weapon, clasping it between one gloved hand as he spread his arms out in a gesture of surrender. His eyes never left Adam’s face. That beautiful, maddening face that lived in Ian’s dreams and haunted his days. For him, he’d take this bullet, and every one after.

I never wanted this. I never wanted to turn you into me. 

Ian advanced one step at a time, getting closer and closer. Adam’s eyes widened as Ian drew near. He took a step back, but then stopped. He shook his head as if to gather his courage and stand his ground.

Everything I touch, I destroy.

Ian stopped a foot away, the weapon muzzle right over his heart. The press of Adam’s finger, and it would all be over, and then they’d both have peace.

“Go on,” Ian said. “I won’t stop you.”

Those words seemed to wake Adam from his daze. He blinked once, twice, as a tear ran down his cheek and disappeared. He stepped away from Ian and lowered the weapon.

“It’s freezing,” Adam said as if he hadn’t contemplated killing Ian in cold blood. “I want to leave now.”

Ian held his breath, his ribs aching from the strain.

Adam gave him one last impossible-to-decipher look and pushed past him, towards the car.

Ian paused, his heart racing painfully and his breathing unsteady, acutely aware of the danger he had just escaped. The realization hit him – he had come dangerously close to death. He couldn’t help but wonder what had prevented Adam from pulling the trigger. Whatever it was, Ian didn’t deserve such mercy. If he were braver, he might have ended it himself, sparing Adam the trouble.

Ian trailed Adam back to the car. Adam got in the passenger seat without saying a word, the rifle leaning against the trunk. Ian put away both weapons and slid into the driver’s seat. Adam shook in his seat as Ian fiddled with the heat. Adam’s pensive profile gazing out at the forest as if he were searching for something, or someone.

“I didn’t find the deer,” Ian said as the silence between them became unbearable. Ian wasn’t sure how much more either of them could take.

“There’s always more deer,” Adam said.

****
The ride back was silent.

Adam wanted Ian to explain himself, but he also needed his silence more. If Adam started screaming, he feared he wouldn’t be able to stop. All of his pain and anger would pour out, flooding the car and overwhelming them both. Those feelings would destroy not only Ian but also what remained of Adam. The pieces of himself he had not yet given to Ian, and now never would. He would rather die than let that happen.

The answer had seemed so clear to him, easy. Shoot Ian where he stood. Right in his traitorous heart, and leave him to rot in the snow until the animals picked off the rest of him.

Adam would be free from the man who had ruined his life and twisted it into a dark, macabre parody of itself. He would be free from the man he had become, one who laid awake at night wanting someone who had only brought him pain. 

Yet, he couldn’t.

Ian’s expression was one of regret, which was clear on every line of his face. His eyes filled with brutal understanding. His expression mirrored Adam’s own hurt.

No matter what. Adam still loved him, and Adam knew then, from that one look, Ian loved him, too. But they’d never be together again. They’d live and suffer and remember. For the rest of their lives, however long that turned out to be.

As much as he tried, Adam was not Ian, and he couldn’t cut out his heart, and bury it in the snow, and pretend none of it mattered., when it meant everything to them both.

The memory of that night would haunt them both because it was what they deserved.

“How long does it take? How many?”

“What?” Ian asked, as if it startled him to hear him speak.

Adam hadn’t meant to say those words out loud. “How many deer did you kill before you didn’t care anymore?”

Ian remained silent for a long time, as if he were considering the question. Both of them were aware of what Adam was truly asking him. The painful implication of it. “I don’t know,” he said, adding, “A lot.”

“I thought so.”

Adam said nothing else. The lump in his throat grew larger. He struggled to keep his emotions in check, lest they explode out of him in a way that he wasn’t sure he or Ian would survive. He had come so close already. Anything to end this misery. Anything at all.

He glanced in Ian’s direction. His pensive expression pinched with despair, as if those thoughts pained him, too. At last. Adam understood the depth of Ian’s remorse. He hadn’t allowed himself yet to think of that. The proof. He was ready for Adam to kill him. 

For now, that would have to be enough for them both.