“You don’t get it,” I growl as I snatch up an empty beer bottle and hurl it into the trash can. “You don’t understand.”
“Don’t I?” Brand lifts an eyebrow. “Out of everyone in the world, I think I understand the best. For instance, I know that one of the worst things about leaving the Rangers is feeling like we quit. Even though we know we didn’t quit, that we did it for a very good reason, it still feels like we were quitters. Right?”
I stare at him. “Your point?”
“My point is that I know, dude. I know what it’s like. And I also know that if you don’t fix this thing with Madison, then you’re quitting again. But for real this time. Don’t do it, Gabe. Clean yourself up and get your ass back to Angel Bay where it belongs.”
I glance up at him as I tie my shoes. “If that’s what you think, then you don’t know shit. Angel Bay isn’t where I belong. And me staying away from Maddy isn’t quitting. It’s protecting her. From me. Going back wouldn’t be doing that very well, would it?”
Brand sighs, shaking his head. “You’re one stubborn SOB, you know that?”
“Yep.”
“Can you at least clean up and stop drinking your nights away?” Brand asks wearily. “You look like a hung-over frat boy. I can’t believe you’ve been meeting with contractors like that.”
I shrug. “They’re gonna work for us, not the other way around. But it doesn’t matter. I’m flying back to Chicago in the morning.”
“Good.”
We sit and look over some contracts, Brand schmoozes with Alex just to make absolutely sure that there won’t be any harassment suits and I stare absently out the window through it all.
After we eat and wrap up a few last things at the table in my room, Brand heads to his own to pack, since he’s taking the red-eye back to Chicago.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell him. “I’m flying back in the morning.”
After I close the door, I turn around to find Alex has kicked off her shoes and moved from the table to the bed, where she’s waiting with a come-hither look on her heavily made-up face. I have to fight the shudder that runs through me.
“I forgot to set my DVR for my favorite show,” she tells me softly. “Do you mind if I watch it here? I don’t want to miss it.”
I want to groan, but don’t. I should be polite since I’m leaving in the morning for home anyway.
“Sure,” I tell her, as I drop into a chair next to the bed. “No problem.”
The problem is that I fall asleep watching it.
And I wake up to the sound of Alex screaming.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she shrieks. I sit up and realize that I’m on the floor, dragging myself across the hotel carpet. Alex backs away from me.
“You were crawling across the floor, crying for Brand. What the fuck? Are you fucking gay or something? I’m so out of here. You’re a fucking freak.”
She grabs her purse and slams the hotel door on her way out.
I’m still dazed, still disoriented, so I sit for a second, rubbing my temples. I never thought it was possible, but the dreams are getting even worse, the dark-eyed, blood-spattered dreams.
They’re worse because now Madison’s in them too. She’s lingering on the edge of the dead circle of kids and she’s slipping from my grasp.
In my head I know that I need to save her, but in my heart I know that I can’t. Because she’s slipping toward the fire, toward the rebels, toward the danger.
But the danger is actually me.
Jesus Christ.
I’m never going to get past this.
All I want is Madison. She made everything good. She was warmth and light and understanding and trust. She was all of it. And I’ll never have her again. Fuck you, Gabe.
It’s a bleak fucking thought, and it makes it even harder to shake the nightmare.
Even after I suck down two bottles of water and have finally settled in bed, I can’t get the taste of ash from my mouth. The ash from the burning bodies. My chest tightens as I try to swallow down the taste of the dead kids. But my stomach doesn’t want any part of it and it lurches rebelliously. I roll to the side and heave onto the floor, retching over and over until there’s nothing left.
But the taste is still there.
The ash and the blood. The bleak hopelessness. And now vomit too.
I wipe my mouth and flip onto my back, my arm across my eyes as I try to breathe, try to settle the shakiness in my legs. Try to push the visions from my head.
I’m so fucking tired of this.
So. Fucking. Tired.
Eyes black as night and full of terror stare at me from behind my eyelids and I open my eyes. I can’t face her anymore. I just can’t. I’m completely wrecked and I’m afraid to face what has wrecked me. I’m afraid to face any of it.
What kind of man am I?
The kind who fucks up everything and can’t face shit.
I pull myself up and stumble out onto the balcony, sucking in the cold mountain air, trying to use it to force my lungs open, to inflate them. I can hear the blood pounding in my ears, rush, rush, rushing through my veins, but not air. There’s no air, because I can’t fucking breathe.
Breathe, motherfucker.
It’s no wonder that I can’t face shit, because I can’t even breathe. I’m a fucking pussy.
Gripping the railing, I stare down at the traffic fifteen floors below. People are driving around, minding their own business, honking, breathing, laughing, going on with their lives, even though mine is falling apart.
Even though across the world, people are dying. They’re bleeding and burning and dying. Life fucking sucks. But no one here knows that.
They have no idea what life is really like.
But I do.
I stare soundlessly down, watching the movement, watching the life, and it is oddly distant from me, so very far away. Up here it’s quiet. Up here it’s removed. Up here there’s only me.
And I’m fucked up.
Like the girl’s eyes, my soul is black as night and full of terror.
I grip the railing and my bicep flexes and I remember the words scrolled across my arm; a brand, a reminder. A creed.
Death before dishonor.
The words won’t stop running through my head and I know why. Because I haven’t been acting with honor for months, because I’ve been acting like a goddamned pussy who can’t pull shit together. And I fucked up the only good thing I’ve had. I almost killed her.
It’s just one more instance of dishonor to add to my list.
I stare down into the blackness.
Death before dishonor.
It would be so easy.
I know what I have to do. I know what I have to do to get it all to go away, to get it all to end, to get the terrified black eyes out of my head forever. An eye for an eye. Right?
An eye for a fucking eye.
A life for a fucking life.
I swing a leg over the railing, pulling myself onto it, sitting down. My feet dangle and I stare down again. The cars look smaller than my big toe. The fall would kill me. Surely it would kill me.
And all of this would end.
The bad thing can’t catch me if the game is over.
I close my eyes, feeling the light breeze on my face, smelling the mountains. My lungs are working now, which is ironic. In a few minutes I won’t need them anymore.
I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. Fear is a choice and I’m not fucking afraid. I have a plan.
And because of my plan, I’ll never hurt anyone again.
The blackness below almost looks inviting, like it’s swirling around my feet, waiting to pull me down. Like once I’m a part of it, it will swallow me up and all my shit will go away.
That’s what death must be like.
It’s just an end.
A rest.
And God, I’m so fucking tired. I could use a rest.
I stare at it, at the tempting blackness. Every cell in my body is trained to survive. This goes against all my instincts. I close my eyes and instead of the little girl’s, I see a pair of shining blue ones. Maddy.
If only I could fix it.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Brand’s startled voice breaks apart the blackness and carries out to me through the open balcony door. I glance over my shoulder. Brand is striding through my room, staring at me in shock and horror.
“What the fuck, Gabe?”
I can hear the fear in his voice. I should tell him that fear is a choice, but I don’t. He already knows that.
“Stop right there, Brand,” I tell him woodenly.
I can hear the lack of emotion in my voice and so he can he. Unlike anyone else, Brand can understand it. He knows what it’s like to face a terrifying mission, and how we have to step away from it, dull ourselves to it, so that we can just do it.
He can see that’s what I’m doing now.
He knows.
His eyes widen and I see the absolute terror in them.
“Don’t, Gabe,” he says quietly, stopping in the balcony doorway as I’d instructed. “Don’t. You don’t have to do this. We can fix everything.”
I stare at him, unblinking, disbelieving. “No, we can’t. That’s bullshit and you know it. Everything is fucked. There’s no fix for it.”
“There is,” Brand argues, his hands flexing.
“What are you doing here anyway?” I ask, not really caring. Not anymore.
“I forget my wallet on the table,” Brand answers. “Thank God. Gabe, think about this. Think about Jacey and Maddy. This will kill them. They won’t be able to get over it. You’re all Jacey has because your parents are shitty. Maddy already lost her parents. What do you think this will do to her? Are you thinking of her at all?”
I swallow, looking away. “She’s all I think about,” I mutter. “All of the time. I can’t get her out of my head and it’s killing me, Brand. It’s killing me.”
Brand stares at me and I see the determination in his eyes.
“Gabe, you chose to end things with Madison. You quit and you didn’t have to. All you have to do is get some help—you didn’t before. But you can now, Gabe.”
I don’t answer, so Brand uses the silence as an opportunity to continue.
“Remember Mad Dog’s funeral? Do you want them to hand your flag to your parents? Or Jacey? Your parents don’t deserve to have your flag and it would fucking annihilate Jacey. Jesus Christ, Gabe. Get off that railing. You’re not a quitter. You’re not a fucking quitter. Come over here and we’ll deal with this. We’ll fix it.”
“I’m too much of a pussy,” I answer, my throat closing in hot and tight around my words. “I don’t know how to fix it. I just don’t know how. And I can’t do this anymore, Brand.”
Brand grits his teeth and takes a step. I eye him warningly.
“Don’t.”
He freezes.
“You’re not a pussy,” he says. “And you’re not a quitter. You’re a badass motherfucker. Tell me what to say to get you off the ledge, Gabe. Tell me and I’ll say it. You and I have been to hell and back together. It’s not going to end like this. You wouldn’t let me end like this and I sure as fuck won’t let you. Not after everything you’ve done for me.”