Light Unshaken (Unveiled #2)

by Crystal Walton

  “Emma,” Trey said, already standing in front of my desk. “Would you mind filing these papers in the storage boxes in the basement?”

  A. J. reached to intercept the stack, but Trey cut him off. “I could really use a pair of sturdy hands to help me lug these boxes out to my car. Do you mind?”

  A. J. looked from me to Trey, obviously catching on to his intentional interruptions. He shouldered the box Trey’d practically thrust into his gut and muttered a tight-lipped, “Sure.”

  At the top of the staircase, I flipped the light switch on. Then off. Then on again. Maybe a jolt in electricity would increase the flicker of light coming from the basement.

  Yeah right.

  I held the papers to my stomach and eased onto the first step. The wooden plank released a drawn-out moan followed by the patter of dirt falling onto boxes underneath it. The air seemed to thicken with each step down the dingy staircase. I’d been to the cobwebby dungeon once before—in daylight with the company of much braver people.

  I dropped off the last step. The cold slab reached through the soles of my sneakers. Something touched my ankles. I jumped away from the stairs toward the center of the room.

  A small window chiseled into the concrete wall added a miniscule amount of light to the struggling bulb dangling from the ceiling. The far corners of the rectangular basement drifted out of sight into non-ending shadows. Though the damp smell of papers reminded me of an old library, this was the last place I wanted to linger. The sooner I got these papers filed, the sooner I could leave.

  By the time I’d finally located the correct storage box, I had enough dust covering my arms to feel like I’d just bathed in insulation.

  I reached the top of the stairs in less than four gymnast-worthy strides. Leaning against the back of the door, heart racing, I laughed. Teaches me to watch scary movies.

  A string of incoming jokes was sure to erupt any second, but Trey wasn’t in the office. In fact, no one was. The stillness in the deserted room bled into the eeriness sweeping up my legs through the bottom of the basement door.

  Where was everyone?

  I wandered outside. The goose bumps prickling over my arms intensified. Wind rushed around the corner and tore through my body. I pressed one palm to the bricks and the other over my chest. Each icy inhale scraped down my throat.

  With my hand grazing the wall for support, one forced step led to another. A flurry of commotion rattled down the walkway from the main street. A scream stopped me in my tracks, then thrust me into a sprint to the front of the building without another thought.

  A stagnant odor of perspiration hovered over a throng of people standing shoulder to shoulder on the corner. I plowed through the crowd, not caring who or how hard I pushed. Short, shallow breaths fueled the engine of adrenaline pushing me forward.

  I broke through the final curtain of people and clasped someone’s arm to keep from falling, but it didn’t matter. With one look, I lost any shred of stability I had left.

  chapter twenty-six

  Starless

  My heartbeat thundered in my ears.

  “Emma.” Stripped of its usual strength, Trey’s voice barely reached me.

  His eyes led mine to someone lying in front of him with a dark pool accumulated by his side.

  My chest heaved for air. I couldn’t let go of the person’s shoulder next to me. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. Darkness pressed in.

  “Emma,” Trey said again. “He’s asking for you.”

  His voice broke through this time. Breath came hard and sharp. I dropped to the ground and took Trey’s place compressing my palm over the wound in Dee’s stomach.

  “It’s okay, Dee.” I lifted an unsteady hand to his cheek. “Look at me. You’re going to be fine. Everything’s going to be all right. Just stay with me, okay?” I shucked off my sweater, balled it up, and pressed it into his side to stop the bleeding.

  He reached for me, struggling for sound.

  I leaned in close enough to hear him.

  “Cour-a-geous.” Each wheeze expanded a line of blood trailing from the corner of his mouth.

  In a moment when the reality of everything he’d fought to overcome crashed to the ground with his fallen body, his eyes didn’t retreat to the emptiness they used to carry. They didn’t harbor bitterness or fear. They held the one thing that had changed his life.

  Unspoken, yet irrevocable, grace.

  He squeezed my fingers in a plea for me to understand what he was trying to say.

  I cupped my hands around his and smiled through tears I no longer had the willpower to suppress. “Courageous.”

  A faint smile of relief touched his face just before he looked away.

  His eyes darkened. And so did my world.

  I clung to his lifeless hand.

  Sound dropped to silence.

  Sight vanished behind a night that couldn’t possibly be real.

  “No,” I whispered.

  On his knees beside me, Trey reached around my waist.

  “No,” I shouted, pushing him and everyone away. I scraped my arm against the pavement under Dee’s back, cradled him in my arms, and rocked in place, my whole body shaking. Please, God, no.

  Distant sirens broke through the shock. I laid Dee back down. We had to save him.

  A. J. bounded through the crowd. Out of breath, he fell to his knees beside Trey. “I couldn’t find them.”

  “The police are on their way.” Trey set a hand on his back.

  I gripped A. J.’s sleeve. “They’ll be too late.”

  A. J. looked at Dee, reality sinking in. Adrenaline trumped all hesitation and kick-started his medical training. He tilted back Dee’s head to listen for breath. His eyes shot to mine for the briefest second. He transferred two full breaths and began compressions. “One. Two. Three. . . .”

  I held Dee’s hand, afraid to let go.

  Competing sirens neared. A cop car parted the horde of onlookers from one direction while an ambulance raced from the opposite side. Red and white lights thrashed against the darkness. Three men dressed in navy blue jumpers stopped long enough to meet a signal from the officer taping off the scene.

  A. J. rose to his feet to meet them. He dragged his sleeve across his forehead and visibly labored to steady his voice. “Victim’s a sixteen-year-old male. Gunshot wound to the abdomen. Cardiac arrest. Not responding to CPR.”

  The tall, lanky paramedic faced the other two. “Bag him.”

  One wedged a tube down Dee’s throat and attached a bag to the end while the one, who seemed to be in charge, lifted up Dee’s shirt and hooked some kind of monitor pads to his chest. He waved the other medics away. “Clear.”

  A shock struck the air. Tremors rippled over the concrete and up my body.

  One of the younger EMTs checked for a pulse, then resumed CPR with his partner.

  A police officer prodded us all back from the scene. Shoulder to shoulder, in a crowd of nameless faces, I struggled to keep my balance and see what was happening.

  Hazy shapes and muffled noises passed the minutes until the lead paramedic finally lowered a phone from his ear and sat back on his heels. “Time of death, 21:04.”

  Gravity seized every part of my body. No. Trey caught my elbow before I fell.

  Time and motion ceased.

  A third vehicle arrived. Everything blurred together in meaningless flashes of movement. Nothing came into focus until two men carried Dee’s sheet-covered body toward a truck. The sweater I’d pressed to his side dropped to the ground, sodden.

  I launched after them, but Trey held me back by my arms until the doors snapped closed. A shudder pulsed with another streak of grief ripping a piece of life away from me.

  “Stop!” My voice raked with fury. I wrestled to reach the truck pulling away from the sectioned-off corner, but it was too late. He was gone.

  My knees crashed onto the wet pavement in the middle of the street. Muddy slosh bled into my jeans as people bumped into me, fleeing a s
cene I couldn’t escape.

  Someone’s hand brushed the top of my shoulder. A. J. bent down to lift me up. Anger crippled me. I grabbed fistfuls of his shirt until I gained my balance.

  “Emma—”

  I pushed him away. “Don’t.” I stumbled to the empty sidewalk and pounded my blood-coated fists into the wall. Under a starless sky, I shrieked in torrents to which no response came. When my voice faltered, tears screamed until even they surrendered to the void left behind.

  My palms scraped down the wall and fell to my side. “Why?” I whispered. “Not Dee. Not now.”

  A. J. took me in his arms. I didn’t have the energy to resist. I buried my face in his shirt, away from the shadows trapping me inside a moment when all light in my life went out.

  The earlier crowd gradually deteriorated. Trey eased me from A. J.’s hold, gestured for him to go on ahead of us, and guided me to Riley’s car. “I’ll drive you home.”

  Neither of us made a sound on the ride to school. Despite the inconsolable pain aching in the silence, there were no words to say.

  I hardly noticed the car had stopped moving. Trey reached across the seats and unfolded his hand above my lap. “Dee wanted me to give this to you.”

  He steered my gaze down to a folded-up piece of paper. He transferred the note to my hand and curled his fingers around mine. “It wasn’t for nothing, Emma. Please know that.”

  I made it to the front door of my building before being cognizant enough to realize Trey didn’t have a way to get home. I turned.

  “I called a cab,” he said without my needing to ask.

  My body moved up the staircase apart from conscious instruction. Detached and emotionless, I stopped inside the doorway, frozen in every way possible.

  A. J. must have called Jaycee. Her moment’s hesitation dropped with the book in her hand. She jogged across the room and threw her arms around me.

  “Not Dee,” I said again against her shirt. “It’s not fair.”

  She cradled her hand over my head. “We live in a broken world,” she whispered.

  There was a time I’d thought nothing would end. Laughter. Innocence. Possibilities. The same naiveté I’d faced when I lost Dad broke my spirit now as it had then.

  Jaycee shouldered most of my weight as she led me down the hall to the bathroom.

  An unrecognizable reflection faced me in the mirror. Nose reddened, lashes matted together, cheeks stained with black smudges streaked down to my chin. A reflection of what hope had cost me.

  The shower’s textured wall held me up while water hammered onto my neck and back. I dragged a washcloth over my arms in mindless strokes until the sight of the tinted water running off my skin stopped me.

  I scraped the washcloth against my hand. One time. Then again. And again. I scrubbed over and over, finally dropping the worn washcloth onto the floor of the tub.

  It didn’t matter if I washed the blood off my hands. Water couldn’t remove the stain imprinted on my heart. Just like the fog-coated mirror couldn’t conceal the fractured image staring back at me.

  In my towel at the sink, I watched water drip from my hair down my arms and pool over the counter. The exhaust fan murmured above the faucet’s steady drip.

  Beside streaks of condensation, the line of colored sticky notes begged me not to lose faith in them. “Courageous. Loved. Is that what I’m supposed to believe?” I bashed my toothbrush against the mirror and tore them down. “Lies!” I caved to my knees and ripped the notes to shreds.

  Jaycee flew through the door. One glance at the mess must’ve been enough. She dropped to the rug, held me in place, and didn’t let go until I’d drained the rest of my tears into the pile of brokenness surrounding us.

  In our bedroom, she tugged my flannel pajama top over my head and combed through my tangled, wet hair. I stared blankly at the wrinkled note from Dee lying on my desk.

  Jaycee squeezed my shoulders. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

  Several minutes after the bedroom door closed, I smoothed out the paper and ran my fingers over the penciled words spaced across the page on every other line.

  Miss E,

  I can’t sleep. I was thinking about what you said on the basketball court—about talking to God. So, I tried it. Probably sounds crazy, but I think he actually heard me. The darkness didn’t leave, but I wasn’t afraid anymore.

  And that’s when it hit me. Maybe God brought you into my life to be like a star for me. You know, like someone to help guide me. And maybe he wants me to be a star for someone else. So it’s okay if I don’t get out of this rat hole. Courageous, remember?

  Thanks for showing me what grace is all about. Because of you, I believe in second chances now.

  ~Dee

  Teardrops soaked into the paper over second chances that’d been lost. I grabbed my phone, needing Riley more than ever.

  “Riley Preston, leave a message.”

  The beep struck the silence and my heart. Cell to my ear, I couldn’t speak. Just breathed. And with the handwritten words clutched to my chest, I waited for numbness to replace the piercing pain of loss.

  Logically, several days had to have come and gone. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d heard A. J. at the front door. Time blurred as one stretch of night.

  Jaycee’s voice rang down the hallway. “She still needs some more time.”

  “Sorry, Jae,” A. J. said. “I need to see her.”

  The front door shut, and our bedroom door flew open. A burst of unwelcome light streamed into the room. At my desk, I squinted away from the glare.

  Jaycee hovered in the doorway with her shoulders lifted in apology. “I tried to stop him.”

  Another flood of light plunged through the open blinds. After working in only the glow from my computer screen, it took a minute for my eyes to adjust.

  “Enough.” A. J. towered above me.

  I glared at him. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re not doing Dee a favor by camping out in your bedroom, disconnected from life.” He waved at the piles of paper strewn across the room. “You think this whole Beautiful Mind thing you’ve got going on is honoring him?”

  I came inches from hitting him. “You don’t think I’m trying?” I bolted to my feet and grabbed a fistful of papers. “You don’t think I’ve been in here racking my brain for ways to make up for this?”

  “You can’t.”

  I choked back the tears. Head down, I turned away. “I know.”

  He caught my hands, touch and voice tenderized. “Don’t give the person who did this the satisfaction of taking away more than one life.”

  The person? “His name’s Tito.” I wrenched my hands free. “And what does it matter? Game’s over. You can’t win against people like that. Dee was wrong.”

  His brow furrowed. “Is that what you think?”

  “I watched him die, A. J.”

  “You also watched him live. With more guts and grace than anyone I know.” He drew me close. “Sometimes the most courage comes through surrender.”

  I raised a brow. “You taking pointers from Trey?”

  His mouth slanted. “Maybe I am. It wouldn’t hurt you to do the same right about now.”

  Huffing, I shoved the ratty nest of hair out of my face with my pajama sleeve.

  A. J. didn’t relent. “If you want to scrap with Tito, fine. I’ve got your back.” He picked a piece of fuzz off my bangs. “But don’t give in to hopelessness. Dee wouldn’t want you to stop living.” He nodded at me the same way Dee had from the sidewalk when he’d urged me not to give up on what we’d started together.

  Dee must’ve known I’d need to stand on the same words I’d made him repeat until they were written on his heart. Must’ve known I’d need that same courage to look past anger, past sorrow and disillusionment, to see what grace had tried to show me from the beginning.

  The rest of the kids at the center mattered as much as he did. I couldn’t abandon them. Dee wouldn’t let me forget
that. And neither would A. J.

  A smile broke through. The absurdity of the scene set in and nearly garnered a laugh—my sweaty, tousled blankets holing me up in a fort of grief, A. J.’s friendship buoying me to the surface and rescuing me from myself. Again.

  I shook my head and scrunched my lips to the side. “Thanks.”

  A. J.’s grin tipped with relief. “What are friends for?” He strode to the door. “A new week’s waiting to be lived, Em.” Holding on to the trim, he looked over his shoulder with those eyes that never let me back down. “Word of advice, though? You might want to start it off with a shower.”

  chapter twenty-seven

  Shaken

  The repetition of going through the motions dragged the end of November into December. I cut back my hours at the center. Partly because I had to borrow courage against my bankrupt supply each day I went. Partly because I had to make up for the classes I missed after the night we lost Dee. Any time left over, I dedicated to prepping for finals. It was easier that way. Studying kept me distanced from the parts of my life that still felt unhinged.

  I sat back in my desk chair. An hour of staring at my economics textbook had robbed my eyes of all moisture. I shook out the pins and needles from my calves and headed to the kitchen for a caffeine replenishment.

  On the couch, Jaycee had an oversized textbook spread open in her lap and an almost equally giant cup of coffee balanced on the armrest. I was about to suggest she bypass the mug altogether and drink straight out of the coffee pot when I noticed she was on the phone.

  She shifted the receiver. “Did the nurse say anything when you called to make the appointment? . . . Okay, please call me right afterward. . . . I know. . . . Love you too. Bye.”

  I leaned into the doorframe between the kitchen and living room, arms tucked into each other, concerned but not wanting to press.

  She must’ve read the question on my face. “That was my dad. Mom’s been sick again. Her doctor wants to rule out possibilities, so she’s going in for tests on Monday.”

  Tests. The word evoked a flood of dark memories from when we’d first found out Dad had cancer. I shut my eyes, suppressed the wave.