by Jo Raven
“Where’s Nate? And Syd?”
“They’ll be back soon.” I grab his arm and pull him out of the bathroom and back to the sofa. I sit him down and pull the blanket over his legs. “Just… rest, okay? They’ll be back any second. Watch some TV.”
“West…” He’s giving me a strange look, but I don’t want to look into it too deep, don’t wanna interpret it.
“I need to clean,” I tell him, more gently. “Call me if you need something.”
But no sooner have I returned to my knees and to my ritual, he’s back, standing at the door, gripping the fame in a white-knuckled hold.
“West. Come sit with me.”
“Goddammit. Kash, don’t… don’t do this. I can’t take care of you.”
“Yes, you can.”
But I can’t. I can’t. “Gimme a sec, dude. I just need to finish here.”
“You’ll never finish, West.” He says it sadly. “Don’t you see? Not without getting to the bottom of what’s hurting you. Not without help.”
He comes to kneel beside me, breaking up my thoughts. I lift my soapy hand to his face, and I feel I could shake out of my fucking skin.
“What is wrong?” he asks again. “You can tell me, West. I’m so sorry.”
“What for?”
“For leaving, when you needed me, even if it wasn’t by choice. But I’m here now.” He puts a hand on my shoulder, and I’m not sure if he’s trying to comfort me or steadying himself so he doesn’t keel over. He looks way too pale, and I should be getting him to bed, but I can’t move. “You can talk to me.”
“You’re back, that’s all that matters. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
“But what the hell for? What triggered this today?”
“I dunno. Stress gets my mind in a twist and you showed up and..”. I wince. “Damn, that’s not what I meant. I’m so fucking happy you’re here. But I can’t turn off my mind and…” I don’t fucking know how to stop it. The rituals. The obsession. “You’re back. You’ll take care of Nate and Syd. You don’t need me. I fuck things up. I get people killed. I’m no good.”
“No way, West. You can’t leave. I won’t let you.”
“Kash—”
“I can’t do it without you,” he says, voice cracking. His face twists as if in pain. “Without all of you. I came back, fought with all I had to come back even when I could barely remember my own name. You don’t get to walk away without a fight, man. And if you don’t fight, then I’ll fight on your behalf.”
I can’t say anything, his words making my eyes sting.
“Why do you feel so guilty?” Kash asks quietly. “Is it about your mother’s death?”
I jerk.
“I knew it then. We were supposed to talk about this. Tell me, West.”
A dim room. Della, lying in a pool of vomit.
Grandpa yelling at me, spit flying from his lips.
His belt slithering out of its loops, cracking at me, on me.
Guilt. So much guilt, a boulder of it crushing me through the floor.
Movement out of the corner of my eye, a different image superimposed on the memory. It’s Nate and Sydney entering the bathroom, sitting down beside us. Nate’s arm comes around my back, and Sydney takes my hand.
I’m not alone. Even if in the memory I am, all alone with my guilt and the penance I have to do.
“I killed her,” I whisper. “I wasn’t careful. Didn’t do as I was told. I went out to play and didn’t clean like Grandpa told me to, and then… I didn’t notice that she was unwell. Drunk. Sick. I was too late.”
“But she lived.”
“Grandpa said I killed her. That it was my fault. I fucked up.”
“She lived, West. And you were a kid. You weren’t supposed to keep your mom from killing herself with the bottle.”
Shivers run through me.
“Come here, West.” He tugs me toward him and wraps his arms around me. Even weak, he’s strong, and then Nate and Syd join us, their arms around us.
“I’m no good,” I tell them, relieved and mortified to admit it. “I’m half-crazy. These repetitions of words in my head, of things I need to do, this…. OCD thing. This need to clean everything.”
“You’re plenty good,” Kash mutters, rocking me a little. “You’re awesome, West.”
I snort and shake my head.
“You can’t leave us, West,” Nate says against my shoulder. “I’ll personally hold you down if you try, motherfucker.”
“Let us help,” Sydney whispers. “Please, West.”
“What do I have to do?”
“You come with me to the psychologist’s office,” Nate says. “You need to talk about that trauma, cleanse it, patch it. And there’s medicine for OCD, I’ve researched it.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It’s not. But you don’t have to fight it all alone. There are pills and therapies that can help, like exposure and response prevention therapy. But you have to say yes. You have to want it.”
He did research it. And God, I want that. If there’s any chance of getting better… I want to stop being a prisoner of my twisted brain. I want to live, not just survive. Live with these people I care for and be happy.
“I will,” I tell Nate, I tell all three of them. I search their eyes, their faces. “I want to stay. Please, help me.”
Nate gets me an appointment, and he’s going with me. I feel jittery, but also lighter, as if I’ve shed off a great weight.
Kash is napping again on the sofa, after taking his antibiotics. Guy’s beat.
And I’m still shaky, goddammit, the mantra that I had going through my head still echoing, hammering against the insides of my skull.
So I figured I’ll cook. Yeah, cook again. Breakfast is long over. When Kash wakes up, he’ll need to eat with those huge-ass pills he’s taking, and so do we.
Sydney comes and slides her arms around me as I stand in the middle of the kitchen, trying to figure out what I can cook with eggs, butter and old bread.
“Okay?” she asks.
“Yeah.” I’m not really lying. I’m okay right now. I pull her flush against me, kiss the top of her head. “Much better.”
“I love you, tough guy,” she whispers, and that word from her mouth never fails to send a thrill of pleasure through me. “We love you. You know that, right?”
It warms me up inside. “Love you, too, girl. It’s just that my brain likes fucking me over.”
Sydney giggles. She rubs her cheek on my cotton-clad chest and suddenly I wish I could take her to bed and fuck, and forget about my breakdown. “You’re one of the best people I know.”
I squeeze her, then I grip her chin and tilt her face up to look into her eyes. “I’ll be the best I can, for you, and Nate, and Kash.”
“That’s all one can I ask for,” Nate says, entering the kitchen, ruffling my hair as he passes by. “Whatcha making, amigo?”
“Lunch.” I eye our meager foodstuff supplies doubtfully. “We need to buy groceries.”
“Breakfast was great. I bet you’ll do a great job.” Nate opens a cupboard, takes out a box of cookies. “I vote to have West at home as our full-time personal chef. West for Chef!”
“Vetoed,” I grumble and take the box from his hands. “And if you eat that, you’ll lose your appetite.”
He gapes at me. “Seriously, dude? Have you met me?”
“Good point.” I shove the box at him. “Dammit.”
He grins, then stuffs his mouth full like a squirrel, and my lips twitch. “Did Kash tell you anything else while we were away?” he asks. “About what happened to him?”
Or at least that’s what I think he says around all those cookies in his mouth. “He said… that he didn’t leave by choice. And that he fought to come back to us.”
“What does that mean?” Nate puts down the box of cookies, a frown on his face. “Fought to come back?”
Sydney gives a soft whimper against my chest. “I’m afraid,” she
whispers. “That the story we’re about to hear will be hard.”
“You knew all along.” I stroke her curls. “You’re the one of us who never doubted him.”
“Always knew what?” another voice says, and I look up to see Kash leaning against the doorjamb, blond hair in his face, arms folded over his chest.
I just look at him. He looks more like the Kash I know now, and I can’t figure out why. He seems tall, while last night he seemed small, smaller than me and Nate.
He’s not bowed over anymore, I realized. He’d been so hunched in on himself, but now he’s standing straight, and despite his thinness and the weariness written all over his face, the feverish brightness still in his eyes, he looks more like himself again.
“Always knew you never meant to leave us,” Sydney says, turning in the circle of my arms to face him.
He ducks his head, and that’s strange. Kash has never been shy. Quiet, sure, introverted, but also confident.
His shoulders shake.
That’s when I realize he’s crying. Oh God, I’ve never seen Kash cry.
Then again, I’d never seen Nate cry, either, until this morning. We’ve changed. We’re hurt and cracked, I think, as we move toward him and surround him, Sydney molding herself to his front, Nate and me to his back and side. We’re all broken. Didn’t Nate tell me that?
But we’re also strong.
“I can’t fucking believe I’m back,” Kash whispers. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up back in that fucking hole. I can’t believe I made it back.”
“You’re here,” Sydney murmurs. “You made it. You came to us.”
We hold him, and rock him, letting Syd calm him down and wipe his cheeks.
Until eventually Nate takes charge.
“Well, Goldilocks,” he tells him with a wink and tugs us all toward the living room, “it’s time you told us everything that happened.”
“Goldilocks?” Kash snickers, thick with tears. “Fuck you, man.”
“Maybe later.” Nate tsks. “Fucking is important. But first, we talk.”
Chapter Fifty-One
Kash
It just hit me, really hit me that I’m back home. The haze is finally lifting from my brain, and every one of my senses burns. It’s real.
The sofa underneath me is real, and so are the hot bodies surrounding me, holding me, keeping me. Hands pet my shoulders, my back, familiar voices speak over my head, whispering questions and reassurances.
I’m lying on my side, West at my back, Sydney in my arms, our heads resting on Nate’s thigh, his fingers threading through my hair, trailing over my face and my wet cheeks.
Fucking embarrassing, and even worse, the tears won’t stop. I’m too tired to fight it. It may be the first time my head is clear in weeks, or longer, and I hope someone took the plate number of the truck that ran me over, cuz I sure feel like old roadkill. Every bone and inch of flesh hurts.
Or maybe someone went at me with a baseball bat and then their boots?
Hey, wait a minute. Yeah, that rings some bells.
“We almost didn’t get to you.” Syd’s clinging to me as much as I’m clinging to her. “I thought I saw you one or two times around here, but convinced myself I was seeing things.”
“S’right,” West growls behind me, his arms tightening around my middle. “We didn’t believe her. And only saw you by chance last night. If we hadn’t looked your way…”
“But we did.” Nate’s rough fingertips move to the back of my head, massaging, soothing. “We found you. Where were you? When did you return? How did you know to come back here if you couldn’t even recognize us?”
A shiver wracks me. “I dunno.” I was caught for so long in that painful, frightening fog. Way too fucking long. “I walked. A lot. Wandered in the city. There was something familiar about this area. I didn’t want to move away.”
I was so damn confused, any little thing that felt familiar was important. I remember walking around, curling up in back alleys, but coming back to this street.
Always coming back.
“Jesus.” Sydney buries her face in my neck. “I’m so frigging happy you’re here.”
“You walked from where?” West asks, his breath warm on the back of my neck, raising goosebumps.
“I… am not sure. Somewhere out of town.” Another shiver. I thought I was ready to relive it, but now… “A basement. Dark. Too fucking dark.”
Sydney’s hand cups my face, pain flashing in her eyes. “You don’t have to tell us everything today.”
But I need to. Need to purge my soul. “They caught me that night, after we fought with Nate’s dad and his buddies. I was distracted, didn’t notice until they were on top of me.”
“Who’s they?”
“Men sent by my uncle to make me vanish for good.”
“So you are Kasimir Vasiliev,” Nate mutters.
Fuck, right. I’d forgotten I never came clean about my real identity. “That’s me.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” West rumbles. “Black, Weston.”
I bark a laugh, and more tears spill down my face. “Dickhead.” Can this get any more mortifying than it already is?
Dammit.
“Your stalkers,” Sydney whispers. “You noticed them before.”
“Yeah. I managed to evade them for a long time, always running, never staying in one place.”
“But you stayed,” Nate says thoughtfully. “For us. And they got you.”
I open my mouth to say something, but I dunno what to say. It’s the truth. “I don’t regret it,” I whisper, even as the memories from that basement rise up like ghosts to wail at me, suffocate me. “Oh God…”
“Kash.” Sydney lifts her face, kisses my chin, my jaw. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say more, not now.”
“I want to, Red. I have to. It’s…” I draw a shaky breath. “It’s not over. I’ll have to go away. If he finds me again…”
“Kash, no.” She burrows so close to me I feel her every curve. “Please, don’t.”
“You can’t leave us again, man.” West lifts his head to look down at me. “You told me I can’t go. You can’t, either, hear me?”
“It’s dangerous. My uncle—”
“You let us worry about your fucking uncle,” Nate growls. “Syd gave the police everything—your journal, the combination of that safety deposit box in Chicago.” He hesitates. “It is a safety deposit box combo, right?”
I lurch upright, making Syd and West groan. They scramble to sit up, too, as I turn to stare at Nate. “You found it. My journal. And you figured out… How?”
“Now wait a sec, you think we’re stupid?” Nate mock-growls and pulls Syd to him so she’s seated in his lap. “This genius, right here,” he trails his hand down her cheek to her neck and over her tits, making her squirm, “insisted we had to find the journal, find the clues. She figured it out.”
“We figured it out together,” she says, sighing and leaning sideways against Nate’s chest. “We told the police everything. With your uncle acting all strange, first announcing you’re back home and then that you’re dead, well… they made up their minds to really look into it.”
“He what? Fuck…”
“How long ago did you escape, Kash? Was your uncle expecting to have you by him, to sign any documents he wanted when he caught you?”
“They said they’d take me to him,” I reply, sorting through my fuzzy memories. “But then they decided they wanted more money from him to hand me over, and it was taking forever, and then… I made my way out and left.”
“And that’s when he announced you were gone, and he was keeping control of the management of the casinos,” West finishes up. “Fucker.”
A wave of cold goes through me. I knew, of course I knew this was my uncle’s doing—the kidnapping, and the murder of my family—but even after I escaped, I never felt safe enough to process all that took place.
All it means.
“How did you get out?” West drags
me up to his side and drapes an arm around me, his body warm, calming my shivers. “From that basement.”
“I broke the door.”
“Okay, Superman.” Nate sends me a doubtful look. “You did what, again?”
“It was rotten through.” I close my eyes, grateful for West’s hold. My head feels heavy. “I kicked in the lock one night, when I couldn’t hear them moving around upstairs.”
“And then you walked?” Syd comes back to me, abandoning Nate’s lap in favor of mine. Her weight on my legs and her head on my chest is like a warm, comforting blanket.
I tangle my hand in her hair. “For days. Nights. I can’t remember it all so well. I could see a city in the distance. Tall buildings. Lights. So I headed that way.”
“Here.”
“Yeah.” I don’t tell them about the blind fear that rode me all the way, of my captors coming after me, beating me and kicking me like they had in that fucking basement, how hunger and thirst broke me. How I wished for everything to end, and yet kept going because I had to come back.
“You didn’t forget us,” she whispers.
“You’re the only reason I made it out of there,” I tell her, opening my eyes. “You guys.”
Confusion hadn’t been a constant thing. It became worse toward the end, but I remembered them. Of course I did. How could I forget them? Even when I didn’t recognize them, I’d been searching for them.
My family. My people. My home. I’d have gone through death and fire to find them. I knew if I got here, I’d be fine.
Succumbing to the exhaustion weighing my body like lead, I let them support me, hug me and hold me in a cocoon of safety as I pass out.
It takes me days to get enough of my strength back to stay awake for more than an hour at a time. The infection in my blood is kicking my ass, and the lack of proper food for so long it’s taken its toll on my body.
Getting there, though. Antibiotics, vitamins, serum, and West’s cooking mean that soon I’ll be back on my feet.
The police have informed us they found the safety deposit box, opened it, and found photos and documents connecting my uncle to the events that took my family’s lives and shady people who are wanted for various crimes. He’s already in jail, awaiting trial.
