Vengeance Read Online Free Page A

I replied, she turned, rested her free hand on my father’s forearm, and bent to whisper in his ear before slipping past us both and through the bodies waiting at the doorway. I nodded a farewell toward my father, who didn’t seem to notice me even as I passed between him and the new arrival in front of him.
    I didn’t know if I was pursuing Paige or just taking the opportunity to escape that room. But my turn there was finished, anyway. Paige had already ducked into the restroom so I was left once again in the murmuring disquietude of strangers. The crowd seemed to be thinning out. For a second, I thought that it was time for me to leave, too. The past ten minutes had been so unexpected that I had almost neglected the one person I had come to see. Aiden.
    I approached the double doors to the viewing room cautiously. The soft yellow glow was inviting, but felt like a trap to someone who knew what to expect within. The contents of the room, a chapel, came into view as I neared the doors. Candles stood sentry in a series of arched alcoves in the walls. I braced myself, knowing the casket would come into view with another step. As I reached the doors, I looked up the aisle between the two rows of dark wooden pews. The open lid of the black casket revealed the profile of a young man inside. From that distance, it could have been nearly anyone. An arrangement of white flowers adorned the lower half of the casket. An easel with a poster-sized photograph of Aiden I had never seen before stood near the casket. The picture had probably been a few square inches originally, resulting in a grainy, out-of-focus blow-up. My own memories of him corrected the ambiguity of the picture. But I worried that this was how he would be remembered. A vague notion of what he once was. Was he already fading from the minds and hearts of those who had known him? How long had it been since many of these mourners had last seen him in person to be able to compare their memories with this flawed likeness?
    There must have been a more appropriate picture. I wanted everyone who ever knew him to be left with the most vivid impression of his charm. His effortless, handsome grace. But I also recognized that there were people who had come to the wake who would scarcely entertain a thought about Aiden again. There may have been people there who already could hardly recall the days they spent in their youth with him, who came to freshen their memories or out of some sense of obligation that verged on guilt. I understood that no one else was constructing a shrine to Aiden in their hearts. Everyone else was packing things up and putting them away. They were saying good-bye a final time. And that was probably the right thing for them to do.
    As I walked between the rows of vacant pews, I felt like a compass spinning haphazardly. I grew dizzy, faint, and lucid again with every other timorous step. If not for the flickering of the candles and my own motion, I would have thought time had been suspended. I focused my whole being on moving toward the casket, eyes fixed on the reposing figure inside. I dedicated all my senses and strength to staying upright and navigating each footstep. Plodding forward was like walking deeper against a rushing current. Every step was irretrievable.
    The body in the casket was exposed more and more to my sight as I drew nearer. From the back of the chapel I had barely been able to see who it was. I could have left and been convinced it was not my brother. In a moment I would be so close that Aiden’s face would be undeniable. All hope that this was a mistake, a hoax, a prank, or a case of mistaken identity would be stripped away. I had reached the base of the platform on which the casket rested. Once on the platform, I would be an arm’s length from his body, looking down upon his face. My brother would be dead.
    I turned my eyes down to watch the step as I climbed onto the raised level. I lifted my eyes just enough to see the casket and