The Long Fall of Night: The Long Fall of Night Book 1 (33 page)

Elliot was surprised to see Ash looking angry. “When did it stop?”

Charlotte snapped her gaze to his and frowned. “Shortly after Mom died. Why?”

Ash stood. “I’m going for a walk,” he muttered.

“Not by yourself, you’re not,” Charlotte ordered.

Ash lifted the hem of his shirt to show her he had one of the Colts. “Got it covered.”

Charlotte looked at Elliot. “Go with him.”

Elliot scrambled to his feet and followed. “Hey,” he called.

“I’m really not in the mood, Elliot,” Ash grumbled, but it didn’t sound like he’d push too hard if Elliot insisted.

“What’s going on? Why did that upset you?”

Ash sighed. “Please don’t.”

“Will you talk to me, please?” Elliot asked. “I want to help.”

When they reached the lake, Ash slowed to a more leisurely pace and shoved his hands in his jeans pockets.

“It’s stupid. I feel stupid, and I hate that.”

Genuinely confused, Elliot slipped his hand through Ash’s elbow as though he required an escort, trying to let his warmth seep into Ash, who shivered.

“After my dad died, I waited so desperately for a sign from him. Just something to let me know he was all right wherever he was. I told myself I didn’t believe in an afterlife, but I do. Humans are energy, and energy doesn’t dissipate. It goes somewhere. I don’t think we know enough to measure it, but I do believe there’s more than just this existence. All I wanted was a tiny little—” He stopped, shaking his head and pressing his lips together. “Just a hint that he was fine where he was, and we’d be okay without him.”

“Okay, so you think the creaking in Riley’s room was him?”

Ash leveled him with a haunted look. “I don’t know. But maybe he waited around, you know? For my mom. Charlotte said the noises stopped when she died. For five years, I paid attention and got nothing.”

“Maybe it wasn’t your dad, then?” Elliot offered. “You said yourself we can’t measure that stuff, so how do you know it
was
him?”

“I don’t. Just irks me it was right under my nose, and I missed it. Almost like if it was him, he was avoiding me but not the rest of the family.”

“I doubt that,” Elliot said skeptically. “Maybe it was just a faulty intercom system.”

Ash lowered his head. “But what if it wasn’t?” he asked softly. “What if I had one more chance to tell him I loved him and missed it?”

Elliot stopped Ash’s progress and grabbed both hands, ducking his head to make eye contact. “You didn’t miss your chance.” He reached up and pulled out the chain Ash always wore. “He already knew,” he said, holding the dog tag between them. “You told him with your loyalty. If it was him, maybe he wasn’t worried about you like he was Charlotte and decided she needed more watching over.”

Ash leaned forward until their foreheads touched and closed his eyes. “You asked me what I wished I could have more than anything in this world.”

“Yeah,” Elliot said hoarsely. He already knew what it would be, and he wished it too, with every fractured beat of his heart.

“I want my family back.” Ash’s chin trembled, and Elliot wrapped his arms around his neck. “I want us all safe, and not dead, and….” His watery voice trailed off.

Elliot shushed him and petted the back of his head while Ash cried on his shoulder, letting out years of despair in raspy breaths, a boy grown up too fast and burdened with taking care of his remaining family when he should have been living it up in college. Instead, not only had he taken on the household responsibilities as best he could, but he was responsible for nine people’s lives in a crisis situation. It was a wonder it had taken him this long to crack.

Swaying back and forth, Elliot murmured to Ash about everything working out and being okay and how strong he was, how brave. They stayed that way a long time, until Ash finally sniffed and backed away.

“I’m okay. Would you mind leaving me to myself for a bit? I need to think.”

“Sure,” Elliot agreed, kissing his face just in front of his ear. “Holler if you need me.”

As he walked back to camp, Elliot crossed his arms against the chill. The campgrounds were separated from the beach by a drop off due to erosion during high water, which left several trees leaning precariously in various stages of falling. There were plenty of handholds, but Elliot had to climb the four feet to reach groomed grass.

“That explains it,” Jason drawled above him, a shadow against the night sky. “Her brother’s a faggot, and so are you.”

Elliot froze, thinking quickly. He could confirm it and get it over with, but something told him if he did so, their problems with the newcomers would only get worse. He answered in the best, most straightforward way he could without giving anything away.

“Her brother is upset,” he said. “He’s grieving for someone, and it’s none of your business anyway.”

“What was with the slow dancing then?”

Elliot threw up his hands. “Comfort? Warmth? Human touch? You might want to try it sometime. It’ll make you less of a jerk.”

Jason narrowed his eyes. “It’ll make me a faggot.”

Elliot huffed and completed the climb, wiping his dirty hands on the seat of his jeans. “Get out of my way,” he said wearily. “Wouldn’t want you to catch the gay.”

“So you admit you’re a fag.”

“You won’t believe me no matter what I say, and I don’t care enough about your opinion to try that hard.”

“I don’t like you,” Jason said, grabbing his arm and squeezing to the point of pain. “I think you take it up the ass and beg for more like the little bitch you are. And if you come near me or Tim, I’ll see your fudgepacking ass kicked so hard, ain’t nothing getting up there ever again.”

Elliot yanked his arm back, his heart galloping in his ears. “You hate me so much, feel free to leave. You won’t get what you came for.”

“And what’s that?” Jason smiled with all the warmth of a sinister clown, his disguise thin and menacing, sending children away screaming instead of laughing.

“I don’t know, but you won’t get it. We’re not fooled by your local yokel routine or your stupid stories.”

“Jason, if I hear you threaten to kick anyone else’s ass in this group,” said someone behind Jason, the tone chilling Elliot’s blood, “I will see to it not only are you left behind, but that you won’t ever make it to safety. Are we clear?”

Even in the moonlight, Jason paled at the raw promise in Charlotte’s voice. To cover the millisecond of uncertainty, he snorted. “Well, so much for that truce.”

He shouldered past her, leaving Elliot staring after him.

“Are you okay?” she asked, coming closer to look him over. “What did he do?”

“Nothing,” Elliot muttered, embarrassed that once again, he hadn’t been able to get a bully to leave him alone without someone else intervening. As fierce as Charlotte was—and he believed every word of her threat—he was tired of being underestimated in a fight.

Well, maybe you should do something about it instead of pouting.
He didn’t know what, though. The walking had slimmed him down further, and while he felt stronger from carrying a heavy pack and all the physical labor required every day, it wasn’t enough. Chopping firewood helped, too, but when people looked at him, they saw weak. Smart, but not strong. Including those who loved him. Brian had sent Ash into his tent the other night to watch over him. Ash had protected him more than once from bullies. Charlotte was getting in on the act, as well, and before long, Aaron and Jennifer would be taking up the “protect Elliot” cause.

Even before they knew about his seizures, he’d been coddled. When were these people going to take him for more than a smart but weak kid?

“But you’re okay?” Charlotte pressed.

“Yes, I’m fucking okay!” he hollered, stalking off and immediately feeling bad. Her recoil stayed with him until he got into his tent, grabbed his pack, and thrust his hand down the side to find his iPod.

Canned corn, water bottle, LifeStraw… extra socks and underwear, the bag of trail mix, half gone. A couple freeze-dried food pouches. He groped along the bottom, pulling his folded clothes onto the sleeping bag. He couldn’t feel it, nor could he locate the cord for his headphones. Shaking out his clothes, he hoped it would fall out of a fold or a pocket. It didn’t. His biggest fear had been running the battery down. It hadn’t occurred to him he would
lose
it. He never lost his music. Never even
entertained
the possibility. Scrabbling through his bag, he upended it, uncaring of the effort it would take to repack. Condoms, bandages, medicine. His glasses case. The can opener.

No iPod.

His chest heaved, his breath coming in great gasps, and he pawed through everything, even rifling through Brian’s backpack to see if maybe he’d mistaken packs when he’d put it away that morning. Still no mp3 player.

He whimpered. “It’s gotta be here,” he whispered desperately. The pressure of his pulse in his ears was almost unbearable, and he realized this panic was not going to help. So he sat, drawing his knees up and wrapping his arms around his shins, face buried as he rocked back and forth.

Calm down, calm down.
Taking more measured breaths, he closed his eyes and began to hum, something unrecognizable at first, but he didn’t care. He just hoped it would keep him relaxed. The wave of dizziness came upon him like a black swell of ink, reaching with shadowed fingers to grab him and drag him under. He lifted his head to pick a focal point, and his gaze went blurry. He sat, immobile as the campsite sounds reached him. He wanted to turn his head but he couldn’t. The copper taste in his mouth never came, nor did the smell of cardboard that usually preceded his larger seizures. Slowly, he came back to himself and experimentally flexed his hands and fingers, his toes and calves. Nothing ached like after a grand mal seizure, so he was pretty sure it had been an absence episode.

“Elliot?” Ash asked softly from outside the tent. “Can I come in?”

“Yesh,” Elliot answered, his tongue mushy.

Ash crawled in, hunched over and dealing with the zipper before he took a good look at Elliot, the words he was about to say dying on his lips.

“What is it?” He took in the mess, then shoved it all out of the way, pulling Elliot to him and cradling his face. When his thumbs stroked across his cheekbones, Elliot realized he’d been crying.

He took a steadying breath. “It’s gone.”

“What? What is?”

“My iPod. I can’t find it. I know it was in my bag. And if it wasn’t in mine, it was in Brian’s. It’s not here. All that care making the battery last, and it’s gone.”

He started to shake, looking at Ash in fear. That was the only thing that had proven effective over time in keeping his stress in check. Without music, the cumulative effect of his nerves would build and build and build until he had a seizure every few days. Music’s organization of notes, the steady metronomic beats, grounded him, while at the same time, beautiful inspiration and great sweeping emotions left him devastated and in tune with himself in a way he wasn’t through anything else.

“Shh,” Ash said, pulling Elliot into his arms and rocking, much like Elliot had done for him on the beach. “We’ll find it.”

“You don’t understand.” Elliot’s voice was muffled in Ash’s chest. He let himself be comforted, though it was nowhere near what he needed. “Music soothes me like nothing else. It’s precise and disciplined, and I can count the beats of my heart against it. But it also makes me feel. It’s an anchor even as it helps me fly, and the outlet is more effective than even some medicines. I can’t live without my music. It could literally kill me.” He grabbed Ash’s shirt, frantic and panicky.

Ash gripped him tighter, encircling his wrists with long fingers even as he hauled Elliot into his lap. “Shh, shh,” he whispered. And he began to hum, low and straight into Elliot’s ear, arms encircling him in protection he didn’t resist despite his irritation with the very same thing just moments ago. Immediately, Elliot began to calm, gasping and clinging, throwing his arms around Ash’s neck and practically choking him as he held onto the lifeline Ash offered.

Ash’s sounds morphed into words. “Be here waiting, hoping, praying….” It was the song to one of the soundtracks Elliot had listened to before the van had run out of gas. It had seemed fitting for their situation, with the power out, since the song was titled
When the Darkness Comes
. Now, he held onto the words and followed along in his head, the pounding of his heart beginning to slow. “Come on, lie down,” Ash told him. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I-I h-had an ab-absence seizure,” he stuttered, his teeth actually chattering in fear. He let Ash guide him to his side, and he tucked into Ash’s chest and neck when he lay beside him. The bob of Ash’s Adam’s apple against his nose was rhythmic as he resumed the song, singing about leaving his love hidden in the sun for Elliot to find whenever the darkness got too big and swallowed him up. Elliot didn’t know how many times Ash sang the song, but it had to have been a few before the shaking stopped, and he was calm. When Ash’s voice faded, Elliot laid a kiss to the skin of his throat.

“You really listened to that song, didn’t you?”

Ash chuckled. “I like that whole soundtrack. I sometimes study—uh, studied to it.”

“Explains it.” Elliot sighed, his eyes drooping.

“Think you can sleep?” Ash asked, his big hand rubbing comforting circles on Elliot’s back.

To his surprise, he yawned. “I think maybe. Stay with me tonight? Not for anything kinky, just….” He didn’t say out loud what he was thinking, afraid Ash would run off again.

“I’ll tell Brian to take my tent from now on, if that’s what you want,” Ash offered. His voice cracked, but Elliot was too tired to see if he looked as nervous as he sounded.

“Yeah, that’d be good.”

Ash held him until awareness faded, and he slept.