T he sound of someone moving around nearby ripped me out of sleep. There were footsteps downstairs. I sniffed the air, and scented only one person, but other than jumping out the window, the only way out I had was down the stairs. I quietly made my way to the closet, crammed myself into the back of it, and hid. Was it Matthew? Roman? It could even be my mother. I shuddered. I needed Gabe so damn much.
You’re safe.
I disagreed, but he didn’t argue with me. The weight on the stairs caused them creak and groan in protest. Someone was talking loudly enough for me to hear, but none of the words made sense. I trembled and wrapped my arms around myself. I should have just stayed with Gabe.
The person moved around the bedroom, coming closer, and my heart pounded like it was ready to burst from my chest. A rifle leaned against the wall near my foot—I could have picked it up to defend myself—but I would never pick up a gun again. Jamie was dead because of me. Gabe had used his last breath to tell me he loved me. I was nothing but destruction waiting for an end. No more. I couldn’t take anymore.
The invader smelled human, male, and vaguely familiar. He approached the closet. The handle turned, and the door eased open, but the person was being very careful because he didn’t appear in the doorway. After a moment or two, he peered into the closet, crouched down low to the ground, head bowed, hands in front of him empty and flat like a prayer.
He looked somewhat familiar, blond hair glowing from the little light that shone through the window. Despite the darkness of the closet, he stared right at me, but didn’t move. I wasn’t sure he could see me at all, and hoped he’d go away, but he stayed rooted in that odd posture. Submissive, my mind told me. No threat.
Friend.
Again we disagreed as I had none. But the young man spoke softly. He shifted to sit in the doorway, legs crossed, looking relaxed but tense all at once. He leaned against the frame and tossed a towel in my direction. I couldn’t help my flinch, but the smell was suddenly overwhelming. I reached for the fabric and clutched it to my chest, just sobbing into my knees. It smelled of Gabe’s shampoo. Gabe was gone. Dead.
Sleeping.
The man slowly approached and I let him. What was the worst he could do to me? I’d already destroyed everything I loved. He slowly curled himself around me. Warmth and sunshine flooded my skin. He’d dragged several musty old blankets out of the chest on the other side of the closet and wrapped us together. He spoke, lips moving almost hypnotically, though I didn’t know about what. I was so tired. Somewhere deep down—hungry and thirsty and in pain, but he just held me.
I dozed, my head on his shoulder, eyes sore from tears. Maybe if I could really sleep I could flee again. Return to Gabe. Live the rest of my life as a lynx guarding my mate.
The sun rose through the far window. He slept lightly, waking each time I moved, and when the first beams of light illuminated his shaggy hair and young face, I felt like I should know him. More footsteps downstairs jolted us both out of sleep and I tried to pull away. He gripped me tight.
Safe. Friend.
No, no, no. We weren’t safe. What if it were Matthew? What if the Dominion had found me? They’d kill him, the young man—another death on my conscious.
I yanked the door to the closet closed and pulled the young man into my lap. He yelped and tried to speak, but I put my hand over his mouth to keep him from alerting anyone. Humans were hunting us.
He pulled my hand off his mouth and whispered to me several things that I didn’t understand. He even cupped my face in his hands and kissed each cheek, then my forehead, his face little more than a shadow in the dark.
When the door finally opened, he spoke to the humans, hand stretched out as if to ward them off. Several men in uniform aimed flashlights in our direction. I winced at the brightness. There was no escape. I reached through the floor and called the Earth.
The young man crushed me in a hug so strong I could hardly breathe. The Earth was lapped away as if gradually worn by an outgoing tide. His words became more urgent, and the men backed away. The door was closed again, but I could sense the others near. He cupped my face again, brushed away my tears. He kept repeating something, staring at me, kissing my cheeks, speaking, and then doing it again. I had to focus hard on it to muddle through all the noise in my head.
Friend. Remember. Kelly.
“It’s Kelly, Sei. Do you remember?” he asked again. Gabe’s reminder helped everything click into place and I could finally understand his words. “Do you remember me? It’s Kelly.”
“Kelly,” I whispered. I lay my head on his shoulder, sobbing out all the memories of the past few days. Why would my friend be here when he had to know I’d killed Jamie and Gabe? “Can I just die too? How can I live without them? How can you forgive me?”
“Shh. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay. It’s okay. I’m right here,” Kelly chanted and rocked me. There was a knock on the door. “Yeah? It’s okay, Seiran. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“The helicopter is here. But you’re going to have to get him to come out,” a voice from the other side of the door said. “We don’t want to have to use force, but we have tranqs if necessary.”
“Just give me a few more minutes,” Kelly replied, still speaking in that calm, soothing voice. It made me sleepy.
I could read you tax law. Gabe’s voice laughed in my head. Lazy kitten.
I craved tea, which was odd, since I’d never really liked tea. “Will you come with me, Sei? I need you to protect me, remember? Will you stay with me?”
I sucked in a sleepy breath and whispered, “Yes.”
“Good. Come with me. We’ll go where it’s safe.” He coaxed me toward the door with him and held my hand even when I stepped a trembling foot into the bedroom. The room was empty except for one uniformed man who stood beside the door. He didn’t move when we passed him to go down the stairs.
A handful of other uniformed men had taken up places around the house. Kelly ignored them all and led me to the door. When he opened it, the brightness of the light hit like a weight landing on my chest. I longed for the darkness, the cool strength of the Earth pouring through me or even the touch of Gabe’s skin. He was so far away, and it was too bright. He wasn’t safe in this brightness.
Kelly picked me up and carried me through the snow and cold to a loud machine that I couldn’t yet recognize. “You’re safe,” he promised me. “We’re both safe now.”
Yes, I would keep Kelly safe.
Inside the machine he put heavy cups over my ears and then his own. The cups only blocked a little of the noise. One of the uniformed men strapped Kelly in, another moved toward me, but Kelly held up his hand, and the man sat behind us and Kelly leaned over to buckle my seatbelt. The door to the machine closed, and we went upward. My stomach lurched. Kelly’s voice continued to speak to me through the magic of the cups. “It’s going to be okay, Seiran. I promise. Everything will be all right.”
Nothing was going to be all right. Jamie was dead. Gabe was dead. Everything that mattered to me was gone except Kelly, who needed me to protect him. He told me so. Told me how he hoped to someday find love like I did. Maybe even be accepted in the Dominion. He spoke of his family and his older brothers who didn’t much like that he was gay. Told me about his mom, who tried really hard to show him acceptance despite all the trouble he had caused in his teen years. And how none of them minded him being a witch, but getting beat up by a guy at school who’d come on to him had been terribly eye-opening.
“I never really thought about it before. I mean it’s sort of a norm in my family for the guys to have some power. Sure, none of them have anything like I do, but it’s all there. And my mom is okay with it. Encouraging. Taught us all the basics. The whole world should be that way,” he told me. “Not like your mom, or how the Dominion react in general.”
Kelly had good dreams. I hoped he’d someday get to see them realized.
I rest my head on his shoulder just listening to him speak until the machine set down and another group of uniformed people moved toward us. Again Kelly held out his hand, and they gave us distance. He helped me sit in a wheelchair, then pushed me toward an open door.
“When you’re better we should do wheelchair races down the hall. I bet I can spin one of these suckers pretty good,” Kelly told me as we got inside an elevator. A flurry of white coats surrounded us—a hospital.
The memory came easily, painlessly. I blamed my exhaustion. A woman with red hair waited inside and led us to a private room that had a tree growing in it. The smell of grass tickled my nose, and the flowers bloomed the second I entered the room to cover the grass with happy color. I reached for the warmth and comfort of the earth, letting it fill me until some of the pain lulled away. Kelly helped me into the bed, holding me closely, until I realized the red-headed woman had put a needle in my arm, and finally the exhaustion took away all sense of everything.
* * *
I rolled over, coughed, a stinging pain lighting up my right lung, and sighed. My head hurt, my nose kept running, and the stupid cough wouldn’t let up. Maybe if I could sleep I’d finally kick this thing.
The sound of my apartment door opening made me bolt upright in bed. “Hello?” I called out with a stuffy voice.
Gabe appeared in the doorway, a bag in his hands and a sweet smile on his face. “Jo said you called out sick. And since you never call out, I figured you had to be pretty sick.” He set the bag on the table beside the bed and took out enough drugs to pacify a third-world country. “I got a little bit of everything.”
“You don’t have to stay,” I told him. “I’m just gonna sleep.” If the stupid cough would let me sleep. “Sorry to leave you guys short-handed.”
“The bar is covered. How about your schoolwork?” He glanced at the stack of books on my desk near my computer.
“Done,” I told him. “Professors e-mailed me assignments.”
“Good. Let’s get you settled, then.” He pulled a small tub out of the bag and opened it. The smell hit my sensitive nose so hard I sneezed for a good two minutes. Gabe held out a tissue box. “Hey, I guess as a decongestant this stuff works pretty well.” He smeared some goop on his fingers and then stuck his hand under my T-shirt to rub it across my chest. It burned at first, both my nose and my chest, but then as my airways began to clear, I let out a sigh of relief.
“Thanks,” I said.
“I’ve got some Nyquil too. Nighttime stuff. So it’s supposed to help you sleep.” He carefully poured some of the green liquid into the little plastic cup and handed it to me. “Two of these. Best if you drop it back like a shot.”
I took it and swallowed. “Holy fuck, that’s gross.”
Gabe grinned and poured the second one. I groaned at the idea of drinking more of it. “Bottle says two of these for anyone over twelve.”
I sighed and drank it. “Blech.” Oh that was nasty. Like the color green vinegar, and sugar.
“Good.” He put the meds away and got up to rummage through my bathroom for a minute. He returned with my hairbrush and turned off the bedroom light.
“Staying awhile?” I grumbled at him. Didn’t he see I was miserable and did not want company?
“Till you’re asleep.”
“That could be days from now.”
He chuckled and crawled up onto the bed beside me. “Lean against my chest. I’m going to brush your hair.”
“I should pull it back so it doesn’t get all tangled.”
“Let me worry about that. Just close your eyes and focus on breathing, okay?”
I sighed and did just that. The tickle in my throat began to subside and my head didn’t ache with quite as much pressure. I sunk into his embrace. No one had ever taken care of me when I was sick before—not that I got sick all that often. But having Gabe here to take all the worries off me was pretty grand. I had stupid things floating around my head, like what if I died and no one was here? Or if I started coughing blood, or something? Being alone didn’t usually bother me unless I was sick enough to let my head run away with me.
“You’re thinking so hard. Just let it go. Relax,” Gabe told me. The brush ran gentle strokes over my scalp. If he found a knot, he gently worked it until it was as smooth as the rest. The strain on my lungs eased and sleep pulled at me. “You don’t have to stay,” I whispered to Gabe, not wanting him to go.
“I’ll never leave you, Seiran.”
I awoke after my dream of Gabe to find Kelly and couldn’t help but cry. He’d promised to never leave me, but he had. And it was all my fault.
“Shh,” Kelly told me. “You’re okay.”
I didn’t feel okay. I felt empty, broken, lost, and so fucking tired that I just wanted to be done with life. My hands hurt worse than before, but I couldn’t see the damage since they were wrapped in gauze again, and my lungs ached from breathing the cold for days. Much like that one really nasty cold, the lingering cough was a painful stab into my lungs. Only there was no Gabe to rub goop on my chest and brush my hair till I fell asleep this time.
A nurse brought in a tray of soft foods. Kelly took the tray and adjusted the stand so it leaned over the bed. He sniffed one of the containers. “Smells like mushroom soup.” He tasted a spoonful. “Yep, mushroom soup. Nice and salty and warm. Let’s get you up so you can eat. This should soothe your throat a little.”
I didn’t want to eat, but the top of the bed rose until I was sitting. I coughed for a good four minutes from the adjustment, until my head ached and I rubbed at my brow. Kelly jabbed at the pain IV I hadn’t notice before, which delivered a wallop of medication into my veins. After another minute or so the pain eased and so did the pressure on my lungs. He held a spoonful out for me.
“Please, Sei. You need to eat or they’ll put a feeding tube in you. You need something warm in your belly. Please.”
Eat , Gabe’s voice told me.
I sighed, huffed in frustration, and took the offered bite. The warmth rolled over my tongue and suddenly I was ravenous. I took the bowl and spoon from him and sucked it down.
Kelly smiled. “I’ve got some pudding and tea for you too. There’s some milk here, and I can get more soup. Lots of fluids.” He opened a thermos and poured a cup of flower-smelling tea, which made me burst into tears. That was Jamie’s tea. How could I drink that if there was no more Jamie?
“Whoa! Shh. It’s okay.” Kelly crawled onto the bed to wrap his arms around me in a tight hug and gently rubbed my back. “It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t.
He buzzed the nurse-call button, then grabbed a tissue to dab at my swollen eyes. “Your eyes must hurt something awful,” Kelly said. “But you gotta trust me. Everything is okay.”
“He’s gone,” I whispered. “I killed him. I killed them both…”
“Shh.” Kelly set the tea aside. The door opened and a nurse rolled in a wheelchair. “I promised them you would eat if I could take you out in the wheelchair for a bit.”
I frowned at my friend. “Out?” Where the world could see me? Judge me? Know the evil I’d done?
“Just through the halls. We need to visit a friend. Maybe give you a chance to stretch your legs. Even as nice as this room is, it’s still sort of stifling.” He waved at all the trees and lush grass that surrounded us. “The morphine drip should keep your cough calm for the trip.”
“Can I take some of that home with me?” I asked, suddenly feeling pretty good. Even the ache in my hands had numbed to nothing.
He laughed. “Pretty sure it’s a hospital-only drug. Regulations and all that. But we’ll be sure to bring home some strong pain meds until we can get you up to 100 percent again. The cold you have is pretty hardcore.”
He helped me into the chair and the nurse adjusted all the bags and lines that were attached to me so they were hanging from metal poles attached to the chair. I wondered if I was really ready to go out—anywhere.
Kelly adjusted a blanket around my legs and kissed my forehead. My scalp itched from the small hairs which had sprouted in the past few days. I could only vaguely recall where my hair had gone. Gabe would have been sad at the loss. Maybe it was better he couldn’t see me now anyway. I was just ugly.
Beautiful. Love you.
Kelly wove us through the halls, greeting nurses by name like he knew everyone in the place. “Did you know they have a hockey league here? Co-ed team, and they say that the women are the most vicious. They’ll check you and run you into the board without hesitating. Have you ever ice skated, Sei?”
I shook my head.
“I’d like to take you when you’re better. I think you might like it. It’s a bit like flying. After a while the cold stops bothering you and you just soar.”
I couldn’t imagine.
He steered us down two floors and to a door at the end where he paused to knock. A nurse stepped out, glanced at us, and said something to whoever was inside the room, and then she held the door open for us. Kelly navigated me through the door. My heart pounded painfully. And I couldn’t keep the shocked cry from escaping my lips. It came out sounding a bit like a strangled cat. No way. This couldn’t be real.
Jamie smiled at me from the bed. He wore the same type of stupid green gown they’d had on me, and other than looking a little pale, he seemed fine. He was alive! How was that possible?
“Hey, little brother. Missed you,” Jamie said. “Been trying to convince this putz to bring you my way for a couple of days now.” He winked at Kelly.
Tears explode from my eyes and snot poured down my nose—unattractive, but completely uncontrollable. I sucked in large gulps of air, which sent me into a coughing fit despite the drugs, and tried to steady my shaking hands. Was this real? Was Jamie really alive? Could this just be a dream?
“Whoa, that’s some cough you’re sporting there.” Jamie frowned.
“Wind burn—plus some fluid from an almost drowning. The docs say it will take a couple weeks to heal. Just gotta keep him calm and hydrated in the meantime.” Kelly rolled me close to the bed. Jamie leaned over to give me a careful version of his normal bone-crushing hug. He kissed the crown of my head and let the weight of him rest a minute, then he took the edge of the blanket covering him and wiped my face.
“I heard you’re protecting Kelly. That’s good, he could use the supervision.” Jamie grinned. “He’s always getting himself in trouble. Locking his keys in the car, forgetting his wallet at the grocery store, buying nicotine gum by accident.”
“Dude, that last one was a total accident. I thought it was weird that it was so expensive.”
“I shot you,” I whispered. The memory of the weight of the gun in my hand and the recoil that still ached through my shoulder almost made me throw up the soup I’d just eaten. “You can’t be real…”
He ran his palm over my face. “I’m thankful you’re a terrible shot. Do I feel real enough to you?” He shoved part of the hospital gown aside. A huge bandage covered the upper left side of his abdomen. “Nicked the bottom of my lung, but I’m good. I get out tomorrow. Had some fluid buildup, but it’s better now.” He looked at Kelly questioningly.
“Sei will be released when you are. They won’t let me take him home,” Kelly answered.
“You and I will go home tomorrow, then. I’ll buy you some ice cream on the way. Maybe we can find a new tea flavor for you. There’s this little hole-in-the-wall place that I just found. Hundreds of flavors to try.”
Home. What a strange word that was. I didn’t really have one. Not since Brock murdered someone in my apartment. I’d lived with Gabe for a while, and now he was gone too. I supposed I could make a new home with Jamie and Kelly, but somehow I didn’t think I’d ever be able to feel like someplace was home ever again.
Imagining going back to Gabe’s place without him just made me cry. Kelly stroked my back, and Jamie ran his hands over my mostly bare head. There were a handful of stitches on my scalp and a couple dozen where Matthew had bit me. The drugs kept me blissfully numb, though I knew eventually the physical pain would return.
“You can regrow your hair. I’ll even give you scalp massages to stimulate the follicles,” Jamie said and began to rub his fingers into my head. I sighed at how good it felt, but knew I’d probably never be able to grow my hair long again. Not without thinking of Gabe every waking second of the day and grieving.
Love you.