by A. P. Moraez
Diana just nodded and gave her friend a sympathetic smile, then shifted around and strode toward Henry, who somehow had become her designated driver to Frozenbone, where they’d both probably catch the same plane to Denver and then a connection to LA.
When they got to the Lexus, Duke was waiting there. His eyes widened, as he’d been doing every time he’d seen Ash after Ash healed his wounds. He quickly schooled his expression, though, and extended his hand to Logan. “I was just waiting to say goodbye to you guys. Pretty sure our work is done here.”
Logan let go of Ash’s hand to clasp Duke’s in a firm handshake. “Thank you for everything, man,” he said. “I don’t know what’d happened to us if you hadn’t been here.”
Duke ended up pulling Logan into one of those bro hugs Ash had never managed to quite grasp. They slapped each other’s backs a few times, then let go. Then Duke shifted his gaze down to Ash and extended his hand. “Thank you for… for you know what,” he said, pointing awkwardly with his other hand to his head. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“Good. I really don’t want to have to come after you and turn you into a rat.”
Duke flinched and pulled his hand back so quick, it was comic.
Ash managed to hold back his grin for just about three seconds. “I’m just kidding.”
Duke’s own lips pulled up into a contained smile. He shook his head and started on his way to one of his Mercedes. “I’ll get you back for that,” was the last thing he said before throwing Ash a wink over his shoulder and disappearing inside the vehicle.
He’d probably sent all his teams back ahead of him to Frozenbone. They’d probably be getting the same flight as Diana too.
It was weird being alone with Logan in the middle of the just-vacated cemetery. Out in the open, on a Sunday morning, knowing that there was no more risk that they’d be jumped by someone trying to kill them. It’d take a little getting used to, this… care-freeness thing.
THE TRIP TO Hardcliff was uneventful. From the moment they left the cemetery, Logan behind the Lexus’ wheel, all was quiet. Ash respected that this was a tough day for him and let the silence meander there between them. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, the likes of those Ash found himself in when he had to ride on elevators with strangers. No. It was more of an exhausted silence between people who’d lost too much in too short a time. So Ash let it be and just held Logan’s free hand all the way to the hospital.
Hand in hand, they crossed to the elevators. The old lady in charge of the reception just smiled as they passed her, already familiar with their faces. They entered the elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor. Thankfully, no strangers to ride with this time.
They’d just gotten off of the old, shaky thing, when Ash’s stomach dropped. There was a commotion of nurses and doctors right at the end of the corridor, where Billy’s room was.
Ash and Logan traded a concerned look and rushed ahead.
“Excuse me,” Ash said, “we’re here to see Billy Ward.” He threw a look ahead, where the nurses and doctors were talking in hushed tones, gesticulating.
“That’s just perfect,” the slim, rigid nurse with her hair tied in a tight bun atop her had said, “since he just woke up.”
“Did he?” Logan asked, cheerful.
“Yes.” The nurse frowned. “Something weird happened with the HRM attached to him, though. We’re trying to figure out if it was just a short-circuit or something.”
“Something weird? Like what?”
The nurse gave them a shrug. “We don’t know yet. As soon as he woke up, apparently, the thing just… blew up. Totally fried.”
Ash’s heart sped up and he threw Logan a pointed look before turning back to her. “Can we see him?”
She gave him a curt nod. “Of course. He’s in bed still. His signals look perfectly normal. We were about to discharge him in just under an hour, actually.”
They nodded to her and shot down the corridor.
As they reached the door, a maintenance guy, by the looks of him, stopped them on their tracks as he filled the whole doorway with the old-school, heavy HRM. It still had smoke coming out of it and looked fried beyond repair. The stocky guy lifted his eyes to them as he passed, then indicated the heavy machine under his chin. “First time in twenty plus years on the job that I see something like this,” he said. “World’s gone crazy, that’s what.”
Ash just squealed out a laugh, not proud of it in the slightest. “Yep,” he said, forcing a smile, “crazy.”
The guy nodded to them and went on his way. Ash pulled Logan by the hand and they closed the door behind them.
Billy had his eyes trained on them. He was seated against the headboard of the metallic hospital bed, dressed in the standard blue gown. They’d brought some of Ash’s old clothes to him on their first morning visiting, but he’d been asleep then. Apparently, the nurses had forgotten to tell him the rucksack containing them was stored on the metal cabinet to the side of the bed, near the window.
Faint light filtered through it, the sky still heavily obscured by the storm clouds that, little by little, cleared and floated away, past the mountain peaks. The delicate light hit Billy in a weird angle, pronouncing the new whiteness of his coarse, short hair, and it made it look like there were minuscule waves of light now dancing over his naked forearms. Of course, it took just a second for Ash to realized they probably were there for real, not just a trick his eyes were playing on him.
“Hey, Billy,” Logan broke the silence, dragging Ash to the side of the bed. He made as if he were going to pat the boy’s shoulder, but thought better of it. Totally understandable. “Glad you’re okay.”
Billy smiled at him. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I just wanna get out of here. You guys know when I can go?”
“They said it’d be under an hour now,” Ash explained. “You really feeling okay?”
Billy shrugged. “I suppose.”
Logan let go of Ash’s hand and dragged two nearby chairs next to the bed. In just a moment, they were both seated and the room was filled with that type of silence Ash met at the elevators when surrounded by strangers.
Billy was fidgeting, hands resting over his lap. He wouldn’t look at them, as if… as if he were ashamed.
“Look, Billy…” Logan started, “What happened that night—”
“I’m sorry,” Billy cut him off. “I swear to you guys I didn’t know who he was, okay? I swear I didn’t. He wasn’t— I—”
“Hey,” Ash interrupted as he reached out and covered Billy’s hand with his own. Both his arms warmed immediately and a weird little pressure poked at his left temple. But he didn’t burn, so that was a win. “We know, okay? No one blames you.”
“How can you not blame me?” Billy asked, chin quivering. “I was a fool. I trusted him. I told him things. He got to you because of me. It’s all—”
“It’s not your fault,” Logan assured, voice firm. Ash looked at him. Sapphires were molten, trained on the vulnerable young man in front of them. “That man used you, exactly as he used Ash. You were in a difficult moment in life and he took advantage of you. If there’s anyone to blame, it’s him. Not you. Not you or anyone else. Only him.”
Billy lifted his eyes then, and Ash pulled his hand back, scared. His eyes that’d been their normal dark, almost black, just a minute ago, were now the purest white. No iris, no pupils, just a pure, sparking white that shot waves of heat that caressed Ash’s nose, even several inches away.
“I’m sorry for Ian. I wish I’d known sooner. I’d have done something before… before any of this happened.”
Logan swallowed and nodded. There were voices close to the door and Ash tensed when they reached his ears. Nobody could see Billy like this.
Logan seemed to be thinking the same, for he instantly took off the shades that he’d been wearing all morning and offered them to the boy in the bed. “Here,” he said. “I think you probably need them more than I do.” When Billy reached out and g
rabbed them hesitantly, Logan added with a chuckle. “Try not to melt them before we get to the car, okay?”
Billy put them on. There was a clear, albeit faint gleam behind the dark lenses. Hopefully nobody else would notice it.
“The car?” Billy asked, frowning. “It’s Sunday. I don’t have work today.”
Ash shared a look with Logan, his heart clenching at the implication of Billy’s words. Did he really think that? That they’d just… just abandon him?
“What exactly you were thinking of doing after leaving here, just out of curiosity?” Ash shot.
Billy dropped his eyes back to his lap and shrugged. He swallowed a couple times, then went back to fidgeting. “I was thinking of asking to sleep at a friend’s until I… until I found somewhere else to live. If I couldn’t do that I was going to the shelter.”
Ash wanted to punch something. If that something could be the faces of Billy’s mom and dad, the better. How could they be so cruel as to kick their only child out of the house just from being who he was? Not only that, but they hadn’t even come for even just a minute to visit him. Logan, Ash, and the O’Farrells — hell, even Lauren and Grace — had been taking turns visiting since day one. His parents? Nope. Apparently, their own prejudices went as far as to not even having the heart in the right place to visit their kid at the hospital. And they knew. Surely they knew. The kind of thing that had happened at that house would be enough to spread like wildfire through the mountains even if someone as famous as Logan hadn’t been involved. It was now global news and there was no way those two cruel idiots didn’t know Billy was here.
“Well,” Ash said, after clearing his throat off all of the emotions that had sprung to the surface, “as honorable as it might be that you want to walk on your own feet, that’s bullshit.”
Billy’s head shot up, eyes on Ash. “What?”
“Tom has already cleared Cass’ old room at his house for you. She’s moving in with Peter, what with the pregnancy and everything. They’ve been waiting for you to wake up to tell you, but… since we’re here, we’re taking you home ourselves.”
Billy just stared at him for a moment, then his eyes shifted to Logan, as if he was expecting Logan’d just call April’s fools or something. When Logan just smiled at him and nodded, Billy’s chin quivered for just a second before he locked it tight.
“I can’t accept that,” he said, voice low. “It’s too much.”
Ash snorted and brought his hand back to rest over the boy’s. Again, he didn’t burn, but his arms warmed immediately. “Try saying that to Tom. I’m not messing with that.”
The corners of Billy’s lips lifted just a smidgen, and it was the best gift Ash could’ve asked for.
“Listen,” Ash continued, “we gotta stick together now, okay? We don’t know what the hell’s happening to us, and it’ll be safer and much better if we just try to figure it out together.”
“Us?” Billy asked, head back up and tilted in confusion. “You mean you also got hallucinations and weird-ass lights coming out of every possible orifice of your body?”
Ash laughed; Logan too.
“No. But I got this,” he said, then rolled both his sleeves up.
“Cool tats.”
Ash smirked and brought both his hands up until they covered the inside of Billy’s right arm, where a bruise was clearly forming; a darker spot against his dark skin. It was probably a result from the harsh way Leo had manhandled him that night. Or maybe something that’d been spinning in that kitchen, like a tornado, had hit him. Billy hissed when Ash closed his hand relatively tight around the spot.
“Ouch, man,” he complained. “That hurts.”
Ash smirked and closed his eyes. He imagined vessels healing, skin coming back to its normal tone, pain being washed away. Immediately, his arms warmed to that point where Ash had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming, then turned freezing cold. They pulsed then. Once, twice, three times, then were muted.
Ash opened his eyes and leaned back, revealing the boy’s arm.
“What the fuck,” Billy exhaled, mouth agape.
“See,” Ash said, “you’re not the only weirdo.”
The boy just stared, astonished, at his just-healed arm, and in silence they stayed for a few moments.
“Billy, you got any clue what’s happening to you? About what happened that night? I’m lost here. Anything would be helpful.”
Billy was shaking his head even before Ash finished. “Dunno,” he said. “Everything was normal, until a few days back I started feeling this… this itch inside of me.” He paused. “The day it happened… when I killed Leo… that morning, early in the morning, I woke up to take a piss. When I reached the bathroom and turned the lights on, the light… it…”
“What?”
“It kinda leaned toward me. It’s hard to explain. It was like it was trying to… to reach me.”
Ash’s heart leapt and he swallowed dry.
“When d’you start feeling that itch? That thing inside of you? You remember?”
Billy shrugged. “I don’t know. I few days ago? A week?”
Ash had suspected it, but hearing the words coming out of Billy’s mouth made everything more real. A shiver ran down his spine as he asked, “Last Monday, was it? The day Trav got outta the hospital?”
It took a second, but Billy nodded. “Yeah. It was that morning. I was just doing homework for school when I just… It was like what you feel when you fall, you know? That feeling that you’re dropping? Only, it was right here.” Billy lifted his hand until it rested above his heart. “I thought I was having a heart-attack or something. It was really strong. Like… like something was ripping inside of me. But then it was gone and I started feeling only this… this thing. This itch. It’s still here, but now it feels like… like I can control it somehow. I can tell it to go away.”
Ash nodded. He lifted both arms to show him his markings. “It was the day I got this.”
“You got them? How?”
“Well, I—”
There was a rap at the door. They all turned to look as a male nurse entered the room with a clipboard in hand.
“Hey, Mr. Ward,” he said with a cheerful voice. “Doc just gave us the all clear. You’re free to go. As I said earlier, if you feel anything abnormal, like vertigo or headaches, don’t hesitate to rush right back.”
Billy nodded.
The middle-aged guy nodded once at them and then closed the door behind him.
“Well,” Ash said, lifting from the chair. “We’ll have to continue later. I’m sure you’re dying to get out of here.”
Billy was already climbing out of the bed. He paused, though, eyes dropping to scan his body. “I can’t go home like this.”
Ash snorted. “There’s clothes in the cabinet. We brought them for you.”
Billy’s expression was nothing but shock and it got Ash grinning from ear to ear.
“You brought me clothes?” he fumed. “This whole time I had clothes and they just let me go around like… like this?”
Logan and Ash shared a look and burst out laughing.
Billy was still cursing and they were still laughing their butts off when they got into the Lexus and headed home, together, to their family.
Beeguard
A SOFT BRUSH of lips behind Ash’s left ear; warm breath against his skin that traveled down to his neck. He tried to ignore it and find his way back to the silent, dreamless sleep. That warm weight that had been immobile, circling his abdomen, tightened, and that softness, warm, followed along his jawline until it settled on the column of his neck. Breaths there, warm and steady. Ash’s eyes fluttered open against his will, and then the previous night came back to him, like a soft breeze.
“Don’t even think of it, Logan Bishop,” he warned, morning voice raspy.
Logan’s low laughter, pressed against his neck, elicited a full-body shiver from Ash, and his toes curled. It was ridiculous that he still had any libido left after la
st night. Logan had been away for a whole week, having traveled to LA to finalize contracts and details about the two jobs he’d taken for both Spring and Summer. He’d surprised Ash by getting home one day ahead of schedule and, suffice to say, he’d kept cashing on his surprise until the early hours. Last remembered falling asleep, covered in cum, as the early morning sun had started to breach the heavy curtains of their room.
“Are you sore?”
Ash wiggled in his arms, just to get a feel for how things were… down there. Logan had fucked him in all ways possible last night, and his ass was clearly affronted by it. It didn’t necessarily hurt, but yeah, Ash’d have to take the day off of any sexual shenanigans.
“A little,” he confessed.
“That’s fine. I don’t think we’d have time, anyway.”
“Why?” Ash asked, twisting his head down to look at his lover. “What time is it?”
“Just passed five.”
“Oh my God!” Ash threw the covers to the side. “Why’d you let me sleep so much? I had to work a little before heading to O’Farrell’s. We’re gonna be late.”
“Shhhh.” Logan’s arm tightened around his middle and he shifted Ash around until they were face to face. “Everything’s fine. We have plenty of time to get ready.”
“But they said we should be there by eight,” Ash complained as he tried again to get Logan’s hands off of him. “And I still have to put on that ridiculous suit you bought me. You know how I hate suits, Logan.”
Logan was just… just grinning at him with that idiot face of his that he got sometimes when Ash was nervous about something important. Important like their engagement party slash dinner slash just a fancier version of the traditional O’Farrell bimonthly gathering they were supposed to be heading to in just under three hours now. And the more Ash tried to escape him, the more those muscular arms wrapped around him, and the closer their lips got. It was like trying to get rid of a rather clingy octopus in the bottom of the ocean. An octopus with sapphires for eyes.
“What you grinning at?” Ash asked, exasperated, as he tried to push Logan away one more time, hands landing on the man’s chest. And he immediately noticed how that was a mistake, because the warmth and solidity of Logan’s chest, his strong heartbeat under his hand, the glint of that silver pinecone, that damned tattoo that got him having all sorts of feelings every time he saw it… it was making him hard, which made his hole spasm and he really was sore.
