And I hate him for it. I hate that he makes me feel this way. I hate that I’m not strong enough to do this on my own.
“We’ll figure it out,” he whispers against the top of my head while I continue to bury my face into his chest, his wet shirt now even more soaked with all of my tears.
I hear Joseph clear his throat and then say quietly, “I’m sorry,” though I don’t know if he’s talking to me or Silas. Honestly, I don’t think I can even look at him right now, unsure whether I should feel gratitude or anger for his participation in the covert continued efforts to find Jake.
Silas rubs my back in soothing circles as he says to Joseph, “I’ll talk more with Ash and let you know the plan tomorrow.”
Joseph doesn’t verbally respond to Silas’ compromise. All I hear is the opening of a car door and the clinking of glass. He’s leaving us a crateful of alcohol.
I may need it to get through this day. I may need all of it.
“For what it’s worth,” Joseph says as he closes the door, “I agree with Silas. You should be with family. You’re lucky to have some left in this world.”
Whether Joseph intended to make me feel this way or not, guilt washes over me at his comment. I can’t continue avoiding him at this point, so I slowly turn around within Silas’ hold and meet Joseph’s gaze. He has a sincere and heartfelt expression as he looks at me, and I can’t help the slight bending of my lips into a subdued smile that comes when I realize he genuinely cares.
“I should get back,” Joseph says before opening the driver’s side door. “Don’t drink all of the wine at once.”
He’s only joking, but I quickly vow to take his advice. As much as I’d like to drown my worries and sorrows in alcohol, I need a clear head to figure out what to do about Jake.
Silas keeps his arms loosely wrapped around the front of me as we watch Joseph settle into the car and start the engine. Joseph turns the car around in the driveway and stops at the keypad to make the gate roll to the side before he disappears through it.
Without a word, Silas lets go of me and walks over to the gate to close it and latch the manual lock. On his way back, he picks up the crate of wine and indicates that I should follow him down the stone path between the house and garage.
I follow behind him as he expects me to, because he’s my drug and I’ll always fall back on him no matter how hard I try to resist. I follow behind him because I have nowhere else to go, no other hope for a future. I follow behind him because I’m no longer Ashleigh Nolan; I’m simply Ash, molded and sculpted into the person he wants me to be, his unequal partner in this life.
29
My body aches terribly, not just from the countless hours of apparently useless training I’ve put in, but also from lying on this bed for far too long. At the time it seemed like a smart idea to retreat to the bedroom for some time alone after my silent and tension-filled dinner with Silas after Joseph left. I didn’t expect to crash that early, though. The next time I opened my eyes, it was completely dark outside, and I had napped straight through the bulk of a regular night’s sleep already.
Not long after that, Silas came upstairs to bed. He whispered my name and gently pulled on my shoulder, but I remained still on my side facing away from him, pretending I was asleep. Just like at dinner, I was in no mood to talk to him. There was nothing he could say to make up for the latest mind game he had played with me, so I avoided interacting with him completely. He slipped into bed behind me and wrapped his arm around my stomach, and I’ve been lying here ever since with my eyes wide open and my body afraid to move.
My hours of insomnia have at least given me plenty of time to think about Jake and what’s best for him. I’ve come to realize the hasty decisions my enraged mind made after I learned of Silas’ subterfuge earlier need to be overturned. If Jake’s still alive, we need to be together. I need to know he’s safe. As much as I hate to admit it, he has the best chance for a future under Silas’ care and protection despite the inherent risk that comes with being anywhere near him. I’ll just have to do whatever it takes to ensure Silas leaves my brother alone.
I squeeze my eyes shut, terrified at the possibilities of what Silas could do to Jake, actions that I would be powerless to stop. It’s hard not to think about it when I’ve experienced Silas’ capabilities firsthand, and he could do even worse to Jake given that he has no role in the partnership that Silas and I have. To Silas, he’s just a complication to our relationship and an extra mouth to feed.
Thoughts of Silas mangling my brother’s face and locking him away in the dark room haunt my mind as I finally pull back toward the dark depths of sleep. It feels like I’ve just fallen asleep when I’m opening my eyes again to find the soft glow of approaching daylight beginning to replace the darkness in the room.
I breathe out a sigh and readjust my head against the pillow to try to go back to sleep, but I quickly realize my pulse is racing. I can hear it from my neck through the pillow’s soft fill. It’s not abnormal for me to awaken with a start, usually because of some nightmare forcing my brain to return to the safety and comfort of the conscious world, but I usually remember the terrifying scene I was dreaming about when that happens. My mind is blank this time.
Clarity comes quickly when I hear a distant, but solid thump outside. My upper body shoots up in the bed, startling Silas awake next to me.
“Ash? What is it?”
I ignore him, get up from the bed, and run to the window, gripping the windowsill with my trembling fingers as I look out across the front half of the property barely lit by the beginnings of dawn. My eyes narrow on the figure of someone dropping down from the top of the tall wooden fence, joining someone else who’s already inside. At the same time, a third person’s head appears from the other side of the wall.
The day Silas has been grooming me for this whole time is finally here, and I don’t have a fucking clue what to do.
“Hide yourself but keep watching out of the window,” Silas commands with urgency behind me. His rushed footsteps cross the room to the windows facing out back, and then I hear the closet door open. “Tell me what you see.”
I duck down as much as possible and keep my eyes trained forward despite my desperate need to look away. “Three people,” I tell Silas. “They’re climbing over the front fence.” As the third person drops down onto the grass, a fourth emerges from behind the wall. “Four now.”
I hear the creaking sound of the gun safe opening wide before Silas asks, “Do they have weapons?”
“Rifles,” I respond, noting one slung over the back of the person who just dropped down, as it contrasts against his lighter colored shirt. It’s still too dark to make out any weapons on the others, but I know they have to be there.
Silas runs up behind me, shoving a .22 rifle in my hand while he holds an AR-15 against his bare chest and slowly and quietly opens one of the windows.
“Stay back,” he whispers without looking at me, keeping his sole focus on sticking the barrel of the rifle out of the window and looking through the scope to find his targets.
I shuffle away from the window until my back hits the nightstand. Within seconds Silas fires the first shot, the rifle barrel glowing with the flash of the explosion propelling the bullet forward. The room is consumed with the quick and thunderous sound of the gunshot, but silence doesn’t reclaim its hold afterward. Yelling can be heard outside now just as Silas takes three more booming shots in quick succession, but this time the attackers return fire, spraying the windows as Silas ducks down to take cover.
I brace myself for the shattering of glass with my eyes closed and my arm shielding my face, but the windows remain intact. When I open my eyes to confirm the bulletproof glass is protecting us from the barrage, a stray bullet flies up into the room from the open part of the window that Silas was shooting through, scaring the shit out of me even though it harmlessly enters the ceiling.
The moment the bullets stop their assault on the second floor, Silas is back up wit
h the rifle pointed out of the window with a fiery look of determination on his face. He quickly and precisely moves the rifle then brings it to a stop and fires again. He doesn’t hold back this time, taking shot after shot with only slight readjustments in between, giving the attackers no opportunity to return fire.
When his magazine is empty and his offensive blitz comes to an end, I expect the gunfire from outside to return, but nothing happens.
“Did you get them all?” I ask, internally praying that it’s over.
“At least two left.” He reaches for my rifle just as a continual loud banging sound from downstairs causes us both to look at the doorway.
“They’re trying to get in,” Silas whispers as he abandons his effort to get the rifle from me. “This is perfect.”
I look at him incredulously as he ducks from view of the window and moves quickly toward the closet. “How is that perfect?” I whisper loudly, sliding over far enough to see what he’s doing.
“It tells me exactly where they are.” Silas grabs a handgun and extra magazine from the gun safe, then turns toward me with a dead-serious expression. “Don’t leave this room. I need to know you’re safe up here.”
Before I can voice any argument, Silas disappears through the doorway and moves down the stairs. He hasn’t been gone for more than a few seconds before the loud banging downstairs suddenly stops.
The silence and stillness of the bedroom is almost more terrifying than the previous exchange of gunfire and the sounds of the attempted breach downstairs. I scramble to position my hands correctly on the handguard and stock of the rifle then clutch the weapon against me.
Leaning back against the wall for support, I try to will away the fear that wants to overtake me at the danger on our front doorstep trying to break in. Unlike the time when the assault on my family’s home on the coast of Massachusetts occurred, I have no plan of escape. Silas has to win because we have no other option. The man who has both tortured me and comforted me since the day he plucked my broken soul out of the open world is the only person standing between me and the attackers who might lead me to an even worse fate.
He’s my protector. He’s my source of comfort and safety, but I’m my own source of strength. He might doubt my ability to successfully use the skills he’s taught me, but I have faith in myself. This is my chance to prove I can defend myself and protect the people I care about.
Pushing up from the floor to a crouched position, I’m about to duck over to the closet to get a pistol from the gun safe when I hear a loud creaking sound start on the floor below, but this time it’s coming from the front of the house. I can hear each foreboding screech of it through the opening in the window.
My chest heaves with each rapid breath as I cautiously move up to the opening and aim the barrel of the rifle outside. The gradually brightening sky lights up the front of the property better than before, but I can’t see the part of the stone path just in front of the house from this vantage point.
Despite my lack of target, I look into the scope anyway and turn off the safety. My body and the gun are both prepared to fire, but I’m not sure if I’m mentally ready yet.
A loud crash puts an end to the creaking sound on the floor below, and suddenly two bodies fly out into my view from the area of the front door onto the grass. Silas and another man are wrestling each other, struggling to get the upper hand and pin the other down. I try to calm my breathing and center the man in my scope, but he and Silas are moving too fast and are too intertwined. It’s impossible for me to get a clean shot.
I can barely make out the pistol in Silas’ hand just before he manages to get a firm position on top of the man and sits up to fire three shots directly into his chest. For a moment I breathe a sigh of relief until another man comes into my view from the stone path. I see the back of him stealthily approaching Silas from behind. My breath catches as he raises a rifle toward Silas’ back and takes aim.
He doesn’t get the chance.
I fire my own rifle.
I protect the man I love.
The two bullets strike the attacker in the back of his right shoulder, not the center of his back as I was aiming to do, but it causes him to drop the rifle and fall forward to the ground all the same. Silas immediately turns his upper body around with the handgun trained perfectly forward to finish off the man if necessary, but he hesitates. The glowing light of dawn has taken over just enough for me to see the look of horror on his face as he drops the handgun and rushes over to the man I just shot.
The moment he flips him over from his stomach to his back and I see the few loose dark brown strands of hair over his eyes that are wide with pain, my entire world comes crashing down on me. Silas holds my bleeding brother in his arms.
The only family I have left in this world is here, and I just shot him twice in the back.
I drop the rifle to the floor as my hands begin to shake. Silas calls up to me, yelling for the first-aid kit, desperate for me to do something, but for a moment I can’t move or think or even breathe because I just shot the most important person in my life to save the partner and protector I barely know.
If Jake dies—if I actually have to bury him beneath the ground where I thought he was all those long weeks before Silas showed me the truth—I don’t know if I can recover from that. Thinking I lost Jake once was bad enough. Actually losing him this time at my own hands would be too much.
It would be the end of me.
30
With a desperate gasp for air, I snap out of my shock and run for the door. Within seconds I’m down the stairs and grabbing the first-aid kit from the living room where we last used it. I can hear the sounds of Joseph calling for us on the radio with grave concern in his tone as I round the hallway by the dining room, but I have to ignore him. My sole focus is on the open front door and getting this first-aid kit in Silas’ capable hands.
I run out the door in my bare feet and across the cold stone path into the dewy grass, falling to my knees at Jake’s side opposite Silas who has him propped up against him with a hand beneath Jake’s shoulder and is applying direct pressure to the wounds.
“Jake,” I manage to say through the tightness in my throat as I grab his hand, “I’m so sorry.”
His pained eyes meet mine, and the moment he realizes I’m here, his lips turn up into a smile; but at the same time his eyes fill with tears, and all the joy in his expression begins to fade until it’s completely gone and he crumbles before my eyes.
My heart sinks to its lowest possible depths, because I know exactly what’s happened. I know his expression far too well.
My brother is broken, just like I was after my attack last year.
“I’m here,” I whisper gently, not sure I can manage to say anything more without breaking down completely at a time when I need to be strong for him, so I grasp his hand more tightly instead and cry silent tears with him.
“I need to turn him back over,” Silas interjects with both urgency and reluctance in his voice.
I tear my eyes away from Jake’s and nod slightly to Silas, trying my best to remain calm. With one final reassuring smile at Jake, I let go of his hand and try to support his left side as Silas turns him over to his stomach on the grass. I catch only a glimpse of the grimace on Jake’s face as we move him, and guilt instantly washes over me. He’s surely in more pain than he’s even showing right now.
Panic begins to mix with my guilt the moment I see Jake’s bloodied shirt and Silas’ crimson hand. It only gets worse when Silas tears the shirt away to reveal the actual bullet holes I caused in Jake’s body.
Blood has never really bothered me, but when it’s oozing out from deep within my brother’s skin, it’s simply too much for me to handle.
I draw in a subtle, deep breath and look away, doing everything I can to keep the nausea at bay and keep Jake from realizing how close I am to losing it right now. Silas glances up at me as he’s digging through the first-aid kit with one hand and keeping continuous pre
ssure against Jake’s wounds with the other.
“Ash, I need you to go inside,” he instructs. “Tell Joseph to get here, and bring me a water bottle.”
I stand up immediately and run toward the front door, grateful for the opportunity to get away for a moment to pull my shit together and do something useful at the same time.
When I enter the house, I can hear Joseph’s worried voice continuing to call for us from the radio in the dining room. I rush in there and grab the device, pressing the button to talk as I bring it up to my mouth and ignore every desperate question he’s asking when I simply answer, “We need you here.”
“Are you okay?”
“We’re fine,” I respond uneasily as I press forward into the kitchen, “but Jake’s here, and he’s been shot.” An uneven breath escapes my lips as I swing the tall freestanding cabinet open to get a brand new water bottle instead of one refilled from the sink. “I shot him, Joseph. I didn’t know.”
“It’s okay,” he reassures me, though even with the poor quality of the radio transmission, I can hear the uncertainty in his voice. “Silas can fix him.”
Running back into the dining room, I quickly say into the radio, “I have to go. Please hurry.” I throw it down on the table and bolt toward the door as Joseph’s reply fades away behind me.
It’s strange to reenter the nightmare outside with the backdrop of the brightening sky painted in oranges and yellows. Silas is kneeling over Jake’s back, continuing to place pressure on the wounds but with gauze this time. He looks up at me when I approach, clearly gauging my expression. I quickly kneel down across from him and place a hand on Jake’s uninjured shoulder, feeling much more composed than before.
Falling Ash Page 26
