Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 38333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 192(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 128(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 192(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 128(@300wpm)
Turn the page and find more of the same. There are no skips in time in this book. Every day, it feels like she was there, takin' my picture.
I grow up before our eyes.
Me at four or five, standin' at the edge of a school playground. Alone. Watchin' other kids play. The composition's perfect—Eleanor caught the isolation, the loneliness, the way even then I stood outside lookin' in.
Me at seven, climbin' a fence. Scraped knees. Torn shirt. But the light—God, the way she captured the light turnin' my hair almost white, makin' me look like somethin' celestial instead of just another throwaway kid nobody wanted.
I'm smilin' now. Can't help it.
Page after page, Eleanor documented moments I forgot existed. Me runnin' through fields. Ridin' that dirt bike I bought at fifteen. Standin' by my motorcycle at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen—always alone, always watchin', always waitin' for somethin' I couldn't name.
Then the pictures shift.
Me and Savannah together.
Fourteen and twelve, sittin' at the silo entrance. Just talkin'. Eleanor must've been hidin' in the trees with a telephoto lens, because we never saw her, never knew we were bein' captured.
Fifteen and thirteen. My arm around Savannah's shoulders. Both of us laughin' at somethin'.
Sixteen and fourteen. The kiss. Our first real kiss, the one Eleanor showed me years later when she came to the garage. But here it's different—not just one shot but an entire sequence. Before. During. After. The way we looked at each other. The way the world disappeared.
Tears start fallin'.
Not sobbin'. Not breakin'. Just water spillin' from my eyes like my body needs to release somethin' it's been holdin' in for twenty-five years.
I turn to Savannah.
She's cryin' too. Tears so big they fall down her face in streams, catchin' light from the overhead fixture, turnin' her into somethin' otherworldly.
"She loved me," I say, and my voice cracks on the words. "Eleanor loved me."
Savannah nods. Can't speak.
"My mother never took a single picture of me." This truth is somethin' I never allowed myself to acknowledge. That my mother never loved me. Not the way a mother should. "Not one, Savannah. Not one damn picture. All she wanted was to forget who I came from. Forget what Matthias left behind when he disappeared."
I turn another page. Another memory Eleanor preserved.
"But Eleanor was there. Preserving every moment. Like I was worth rememberin'. Like I mattered."
The pages progress. Me at nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. The tattoos spreadin' across my skin like armor, like prophecy, like the visual representation of everything I was becomin'.
Then the studio portraits begin.
Professional shots. Composed. Intentional.
Me shirtless. Back turned. Angels descendin' across my shoulder blades.
Me facin' forward. Chest bare. The war inked into my flesh on full display.
Then me completely naked. Every angle, but instead of being exposed, I am covered in just the right amount of shadow.
Art made from flesh, and ink, and light.
I blow out a breath and tap the picture. "All these were at her studio in Glendive."
Savannah sniffles. "I didn't even know she had that studio until after she died. It was in the will. I…" She stops to cry for a moment. "I never even went to look at it. I just… had it sold."
Fuck. That's rough. But I have to keep goin’. I can’t stop now. "All she wanted was to turn me into art. To see somethin' beautiful in what everyone else called trash. And I let her. Because for one hour, standin' under those lights while she worked—I got to be more than Legion Kane. More than the demon. More than the curse.
"She loved my father," I say. The words come easier now, like confession. "Matthias Kane. He rode through Drybone in the late nineties with the Sons of Dust. Eleanor loved him. Wanted him. But he chose my mother instead. The waitress with nothin' to offer except herself." I look at Savannah. “Why? Why the hell would anyone choose her over your mother?”
Savannah's hand finds mine, gives me a squeeze. “Well, I’m not sure, Legion. But I bet that Marcus White Jr. has been askin’ himself that very same question for the better part of three months now.”
I actually chuckle at that. “Yeah. I bet that son-of-a-bitch is. My mama got pregnant. And then Matthias left her. Left everyone, because he didn’t really leave, he was dead. Eleanor never forgot him. Never stopped lookin' for him in every shadow, every stranger. And then… she found me."
I tap the picture again.
"This book was supposed to be mine. Eleanor tried to give it to me a dozen times. But I refused. Told her it would get lost. Ruined. That I didn't deserve her art, couldn't honor it the way it deserved."
I look at Savannah.
"I told her to keep it safe. To hide it somewhere nobody could destroy it."
My voice drops to barely a whisper.
Then I actually laugh. "She hid it in a fuckin' bomb shelter."