The Long Fall of Night: The Long Fall of Night Book 1 (49 page)

“And he didn’t come back?”

Aaron shook his head. “I didn’t see him on the walk back, either.”

Charlotte reappeared, out of breath from running. “Okay, Brian knows what happened, but Riley doesn’t. They’re safe, and yes, Elliot, Ghost is still with them. Brian also has his gun.”

“Did you see Tim?” Elliot demanded, grateful his dog was fine but fear of something bigger, more sinister taking hold.

“No, why?” Then it hit her, and her eyes went huge. “You think
Tim
did this?” she shrieked. “I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him.”

“You’re not helping.” Ash glared at her. “Has
anyone
seen Tim?”

Elliot shifted uncomfortably. “I think he was here right before Charlotte got back to camp the first time. I saw someone moving around but couldn’t tell who it was through the trees. Any one of us would have sounded an alarm, so it was whoever destroyed the camp. He can’t have gotten far.”

“If he’s nearby, I want to find him. See if he stashed anything useful for himself.” Ash searched the ground, but their prints were everywhere. He walked the perimeter to see where the footprints all led off. If there were prints where none of the rest of them had gone, Elliot supposed they would lead to Tim or at least a hiding place. It was all they had, short of calling for Tim and splitting up, and frankly, Elliot wouldn’t have been comfortable with the group scattering.

Aaron mirrored Ash’s movements on the opposite side of the camp, and Charlotte moved toward the tents to see if there was anything salvageable. Elliot bent to retrieve the backpack his meds had been in, hoping it was intact. He didn’t see the movement in the trees.

“Nobody move.”

Elliot’s head snapped toward the voice. Tim had his arm around Ash’s shoulders, a serrated hunting knife held to his throat, and he pushed Ash into the middle of their clearing. Ash had managed to get his left hand around Tim’s wrist, preventing him from pushing the blade against his skin, but Tim had him securely pinned, the other arm twisted behind his back. Ash was furious.

Elliot stood there stupidly, trying to comprehend the situation. If he’d thought the journey across the country had prepared him for fear, he was wrong.

The man he loved had a knife to his throat, and the man holding it had eyes as devoid of compassion, or even sanity, as any serial killer mug shot.

“Jennifer, get up.”

“Tim, leave her al—” Aaron began, but Tim pushed harder and curled his wrist, bringing the very sharp tip of the knife close to Ash’s skin. Aaron fell silent.

Desperation bubbled up in Elliot’s throat.
Oh god, no, don’t. Please don’t.

Charlotte wasn’t bothering with negotiations. She’d pulled her Colt from its concealment and had it aimed at Tim, or as much of him as she could with her brother being used as a shield.

“Get up, Jenn,” Tim repeated. The woman struggled to her feet, concern and fear painting her pretty face, but there was also weariness in the slope of her shoulders. She didn’t have the fortitude for much more, and Elliot supposed any woman fearing for the life of the child she carried would have less to give the outside world.

“Yes, Tim?” she said as calmly as she could.

“The bow and Elliot’s hunting rifle. Get them and put them by the fire. When you’re done, get Charlotte’s gun and any of the others you have and put them there, too. I know there was a second Colt around here somewhere, but we haven’t seen it in a couple weeks, have we?”

Elliot shivered as Tim’s eyes passed over him. He wasn’t about to give away that the gun was stashed at the small of his back.

“Where’s Brian and Riley?”

“At the creek, fishing. They don’t know about any of this,” Charlotte said hurriedly.

Tim sneered. “Bullshit. I heard you say he had his gun, and he was staying away with the boy.” Turning his face to hide more behind Ash until Charlotte was unarmed, he snarled, “Ash, call for help. Yell Brian’s name.”

“No,” Ash said vehemently.

“Do it, or you’ll really need help.”

“I don’t care.” Ash’s eyes flashed.

I do,
Elliot thought desperately. Apparently Tim had the same thought, because his flinty eyes turned in his direction.

“Brian will come running faster if it’s you, Elliot. So call to him for help or watch your boyfriend bleed out on the pine needles.”

Elliot swallowed as Ash met his gaze, shuddering at the picture of that very thing. Ash tried to shake his head, but Tim pushed the knife closer, and their arms began to tremble with the effort of one trying to overpower the other.

“Brian!” Elliot yelled, not having to fake the fear in his voice. “Brian! Help me!”

A few breathless minutes later, Brian and Riley barreled into camp and skidded to a halt, the dog on their heels.

“Elliot, are you oka—?”

“Clearly, no one is okay,” Tim interrupted. “Put your gun in the pile, please.” His matter-of-fact tone was as disturbing as the politeness, and Brian shoved Riley behind him the second he registered what was going on. Riley had to grab the dog’s harness to keep him from lunging, but Ghost kept growling menacingly. “Come on, we haven’t got all day.”

A parade of emotions crossed Brian’s face, from hope that there was some quick way to dispel the situation to the realization it wasn’t going to happen, in the span of a few seconds. Brian’s shoulders slumped in dejection, and he added his pistol to the pile of weapons. Tim was pretty well hidden behind Ash, and trying to take a shot was too risky.

“Now that you’re all unarmed, this won’t take long. I love how you assumed I’m the one who trashed the camp instead of worrying someone came along and hurt me or dragged me off.” Tim’s words were flat, devoid of even anger, which Elliot would have expected.

“You
did
do it, you douchebag,” Charlotte snapped.

“Semantics,” Tim said dismissively. “I’m not going to stand here and list my grievances. I will say, Ash, you brought this on yourself, and everyone here can put aside their hero worship when they realize why. See, you don’t care about your own sister and her kid more than you do that faggot wuss in front of you.” He flicked his chin in Elliot’s direction.

What the hell is he talking about?

“If you hadn’t put the well-being of the group aside when Elliot had his seizure and made it clear you wanted to move faster, Jason would have never asked me to kill him. He needed weeks to recover, but you wouldn’t let him have it. If you had let us
rest
for a while, he wouldn’t have felt like his time had run out. He wouldn’t have thought it was stupid to take a few days for the antibiotics to work.”

Aaron held up his hands. “Tim, Jason’s infection was bad. There’s no telling if he’d have pulled out of it even with proper medical care, which he kept refusing. You can’t lay that on Ash.”

“I
can
!” Tim bellowed, spittle flying from his lips. Ash flinched, but he got the knife moved away an inch. There was the fury, and it was mighty.

Keep doing that, baby,
Elliot thought.
Just a couple more inches, and I can shoot him.
Elliot’s vantage point wasn’t great, and when Jennifer let out a sob at Tim’s scream, Elliot used it as a reason to comfort her, changing positions so his view of Tim’s head was better. Plus, he could hide behind her back while going for the gun.

“Jason would never have died if you hadn’t led us onto that land.”

“You’re right,” Ash agreed, focusing on Elliot as he moved.

He knows I have the gun. He remembers.

Jennifer leaned back into Elliot’s chest, her shoulders trembling. “No he’s not, Ash!” she cried, tears shining on her cheeks. “Jason wanted to go through when Ash said we should go around. He only went with what all of you said you wanted. I remember because
I didn’t
want to go that way! Jason pushed it first.”

Elliot tightened his arms around Jennifer and shushed her. Tim was visibly more aggravated with her words. It didn’t matter if they disagreed with what he was saying; they had to keep him from plunging the blade of that wicked knife into Ash’s throat, an image that kept playing in Elliot’s mind like a gif file on the now inaccessible Internet.

“Tim,” he tried.

“Don’t you fucking talk to me, faggot. You’re not more important than anyone. Just because you have money and a big shot daddy don’t mean you matter.” Ash’s arm shook where Tim tried to assert the knife.

“So kill me,” Elliot offered, surreptitiously drawing the Colt from the back of his pants. “I don’t matter, except to Ash. A life for a life.”

“Elliot, what are you doing?” Ash gritted out.

“Babe, everyone needs you,” Elliot said as calmly as he could. “You’re the one who knows what to do. You’re the one who knows where to go. If Tim wants it all equal, he’ll take me since I matter to you and he blames you for the death of the friend who mattered to him. It’s only fair he take me instead of you.”

“Elliot,” Brian said almost angrily. “That’s stupid. You matter to me, too.”

“No,” Tim said with a sinister smile. “It’s perfect. A life for a life. I’ll even do it quick.”

Elliot stepped out from behind Jennifer and over the log into the clearing they’d all thought was perfect when they’d discovered it the day before. He vowed this beautiful place would not be tainted by Ash’s death because of him.

“Elliot,” Ash croaked.

Then his eyes flickered down, and when Elliot began to draw the gun out from behind his thigh, Ash moved, slamming his boot heel on top of Tim’s foot. Several things happened at once.

Tim hunched forward in pain, and Ash tried to use the momentum to throw Tim over his shoulder but failed. Elliot leveled the gun at the newly exposed view of Tim’s head. Charlotte and Jennifer screamed, and Riley started to cry while Ghost drowned them all out with ferocious, teeth-clacking barks. Brian yelled Elliot’s name and moved to intercept him, knocking the shoulder opposite his gun hand, changing his aim.

But most importantly, Tim kept his feet. The effort of staying upright had him and Ash, grappling for the knife, Tim with both hands, Ash with the one he had not clamped desperately around Tim’s wrist.

“We’re wearing the same heavy boots, asshole,” Tim huffed, twisting to grab at Ash’s free arm and pin him. The tip of the knife touched Ash’s neck just below his left ear. A small slice of skin opened, blood welling as Tim fought to draw the blade across Ash’s jugular.

Elliot saw red and fired.

The shot echoed around the mountains with a finality that overpowered everything in the clearing.

The pair of them, Tim and the man Elliot had only just told he loved, fell in a heap.

M
ost of us
are imprisoned by something. We’re living in darkness until something flips the switch.

—Wynonna Judd

A
SH’S HEART PUMPED FEROCIOUSLY
, and despite the adrenaline surge, he lay on top of Tim for a moment to be sure his blood was firmly trapped in his veins and not gushing onto the pine needle cushion beneath him. When he moved, it was with a pained groan. As he got to his knees, Charlotte and Brian rushed him, while Aaron dropped beside Tim.

The fury he’d been trying to keep in check at being held hostage in front of his family surged to the surface, and he wanted to turn and throttle Tim, give him the ass kicking of a lifetime. How dare he think Ash would passively let him tear apart their group?

All that drained away when his eyes found Elliot, who stood frozen, gun still aimed in their direction, muzzle beginning to shake. Elliot’s eyes darted between him and the man on the ground.

Ash patted the air in front of him. “Elliot, put the gun down.”

Brian came up behind Elliot and pushed the muzzle toward the ground. “It’s okay,” he said.

Ghost was still going ape shit, and Ash made a quelling noise. Riley struggled to keep the dog under control. As Ash got to his feet, Riley approached Elliot with caution, then murmured to Brian.

“Quiet that dog.” Turning concerned eyes on his boyfriend, Ash put a hand to Elliot’s cheek.

Elliot stared straight ahead, like nothing could break the line of sight between him and the man he’d shot. He stared through Ash as if he weren’t there. Using both hands, Ash turned his face up, worry creasing his brow.

“Elliot, look at me.” Brown eyes finally shifted to obey, and he touched their foreheads. “You saved my life.” Breathtaking gratitude replaced his anger.

Elliot’s chin trembled. “I killed him.”

“He was going to kill me. Or worse, you.” Ash didn’t give a damn about Tim’s condition, considering what he’d put them through and what he’d done to their chances of surviving the mountains. Right now, Elliot was his only focus. Elliot, who was shaking apart in his arms.

Hysteria took its sweet time, but when it washed over Elliot, it crippled him. He fought Ash’s embrace, hyperventilating and saying the same thing over and over. “I killed him. Oh Jesus, I killed him.”

“You don’t know that.” He turned them toward Aaron in time to see him tear Tim’s bloody t-shirt from his side, pressing his hands to a bullet wound under his left arm. “See? Aaron wouldn’t bother if Tim were already dead.” Ash kept a firm arm around Elliot’s shoulders.

“Charlotte, I need bandages. Now.”

Charlotte didn’t move, glaring at Tim’s still form.

“Jennifer.”

“You said he cut up your bandages,” she said, kneeling beside the forgotten med kit and pawing through it, sniffing and trying to get herself under control.

“Tampons,” Charlotte said, finally stepping into action. “Ash had me grab a bunch for bandages. But I don’t know where the fucker scattered them.”

“I need something, a piece of sleeping bag. Whatever,” Aaron said impatiently.

“I shot him,” Elliot wailed. “I gotta go. I gotta go now. Take this,” he demanded, shoving the gun in Ash’s hand and turning tail. He didn’t stop when Ash called his name, running into the trees as if the hounds of Hell were on his heels.

Ash turned to the group, where Charlotte stood with a box of tampons, remarkably unscathed, in her hand. “Go after him, you idiot!”

Not needing to be told twice, he tucked the gun in his waistband and followed the sound of Elliot’s chant into the shadows, the trees more dense in this patch of forest than where they’d hunted.

“Elliot!” he called. “Please stop.”

Elliot didn’t slow until the elevation, upward climb of the trail, and increasingly difficult path forced him to. Ash caught up, grabbed his elbow, and yanked him around so they were face to face.

Ash panted, “I don’t care if he is dead, baby. You’re not. That’s all that matters to me. You’re not a bad person for standing up for someone you love.” Elliot frantically shook his head, but Ash stopped the motion with hands on his cheeks. “You love me,” he said, tilting Elliot’s face up. “Right?”

Elliot tried to nod but couldn’t in Ash’s tight grip. His eyes filled with tears, and he said, “Yes,” in the smallest voice Ash had ever heard. Ash’s chest flooded with warmth.

“I love you, too,” he said fiercely. “If you’d swapped places with me, I’d have aimed for his head. I couldn’t have watched him kill you.”

Tears spilled down Elliot’s flushed cheeks. “I did aim for his head. Brian bumped me. I could have hit you by accident.”

“Not your fault and not what happened. I’m fine, you’re fine. Tim may not be fine, and Aaron’s trying to make it so. But whether he lives or dies, you’re a hero, Elliot. You’re
my
hero.”

Elliot released a breath that was half sob, half laugh and let himself be kissed, snot face and all. When they broke apart, he closed his eyes and two more tears followed the tracks of their siblings to drip from his chin. “Say it again,” he whispered.

“I love you.”

When Elliot’s face crumpled, Ash pulled him in tight, and he buried his face in Ash’s shoulder and cried, the adrenaline bleeding out with each heaving breath. Ash rocked them side to side, just as Elliot had done for him on a beach in some random state he couldn’t even remember now, when he’d learned Charlotte believed their dad had haunted her house.

“Need me to sing?”

Elliot shook his head and clung to him. Ash didn’t know how long they stayed that way, but it wasn’t long before Elliot quieted and began to show signs of regaining his composure.

“I was so scared, Elliot,” Ash murmured, rubbing his back, the suddenly frail stature of his boyfriend hitting home. Belated shock and fear slammed into Ash, and he held on tighter. “Not for me, but for you. That you’d really trade yourself for me. That you’d have a seizure, and Tim would cut me down while you convulsed on the ground. Such a helpless feeling, and I can’t believe we’re okay. Because of you, we’re okay.”

Elliot shook his head in disbelief. “You fought him.”

“I had to. But if our positions had been reversed, I’d have torn him apart.” This time, it was Ash trying not to fall to pieces. He nuzzled Elliot’s neck and breathed him in, suddenly, instantly more aroused than he’d been in his entire life and against his hip, he felt Elliot’s matching erection. They shared a bruising kiss, as if by devouring each other, they could right all the wrongs in the world. It lingered, got heated and desperate, but went no further. As much as he wanted to lay Elliot down and take him, make them both feel alive and whole, now wasn’t the time.

“We need to go back,” Ash said. “I’m sure everyone’s worried about you, and your dog is going out of his mind so you need to calm him down. Think you can handle that? Sitting on the log and letting Ghost lick your face while we get this situation figured out?” He squeezed Elliot’s ass, wishing with everything he had they could just get naked and prove to themselves they’d survived.

With a weak laugh, Elliot nodded and together, with Ash’s arm firmly around his waist because he absolutely wasn’t willing to let go, they walked back to camp.

To find it in chaos.

Jennifer screamed in sobbing agony while Charlotte held her back. Brian held Ghost, who barked viciously, and Riley clung to him, hiding his face in the dog’s raised fur.

Tim and Aaron lay beside each other, Aaron’s bloody hands at his side, his face pale and splattered with blood. Tim stared with sightless eyes, a rivulet of blood having tracked from the corner of his mouth to his ear. He was dead.

And Aaron looked to be fighting for his life.

“He stabbed Aaron!” Jennifer screamed. “Lemme go! Aaron!”

“Keep her over there,” Aaron said to Charlotte, his head turned toward them. “I’m okay, Jennifer. I’ll be okay. Just stay where you are. I don’t want you to see.”

Ash said, “Elliot, help Charlotte with Jennifer. Calm her down. Whatever you have to say, do it.”

He feared Elliot would be too out of it from his own hysteria, but the space he’d taken to get himself together had apparently fortified him, and Elliot obeyed without question, getting Jennifer to the ground and leaning back on the log while Ash went to Aaron’s side.

“Jennifer, calm down. Your baby needs you to be calm,” Elliot said.

Perfect, babe,
he thought, then focused only on Aaron. “Tell me what to do, buddy. Tell me how to fix you.”

“Pack the wound. Charlotte’s tampons are around here somewhere.” Aaron’s eyes were glassy with pain.

“Don’t I need to disinfect it first?” Ash asked. He knew a gut cut was potentially very dangerous.

Aaron grimaced. “If it’s one of those, nothing you can clean it with here will help me.” Ash took his meaning; if it were a wound to his bowel, there was already no hope. They wouldn’t get off the mountain before infection set in.

“We’re getting you out of here. Back to Laramie. Somewhere. Fuck, I’ll call on Brian’s sat phone for a plane to fly us somewhere.”

“Ash,” Aaron said, stupefied. “Why didn’t that ever occur to us?”

They stared at each other, and unbelievably, both began to laugh, though Aaron stopped with a sharp yelp. “I don’t think planes are landing without power and air traffic control,” Ash conceded. “But maybe this close to the border, we’ll get lucky.” While he spoke, he worked two of the tampons out of their wrapping and took the bloody hunting knife from Tim’s curled fingers to cut them lengthwise. He spread one over the slit in Aaron’s skin. “It’s so small,” he marveled. “It doesn’t look like it did much damage.”

“Not that deep, no, but I need to get it looked at. Pack it. Gotta stop the bleeding.” Aaron grimaced as Ash pushed cotton into the wound, but he nodded vigorously, as if convincing himself he needed this despite the pain. “If the knife didn’t nick any organs, it’ll just need stitches.”

“Jennifer, you hear that? Aaron thinks he’ll just need stitches.”

“He always tells me that,” Jennifer said. Ash glanced up. She seemed calmer and had stopped fighting Charlotte’s hold on her, instead tucking into it for comfort and reassurance.

“This time I mean it, honey,” Aaron said, holding the cotton already on the wound while Ash unwound more tampons.

“I need tape.”

“My shirt’s ruined. Tear off a strip and tie it on if you can’t find the tape.”

“Brian, tape? He’s gonna be okay, Riles,” Ash said, taking in the splotchy face of his nephew for the first time. The kid was going to need a shrink the second they reached civilization.

Brian and Riley let Ghost go to do a quick circle around the camp, finding a dirty roll of silicone tape with one side covered in grit. Ash brushed it off as best he could and then secured the flattened tampons to Aaron’s side.

When Aaron grasped his arm to try and sit up, Ash stopped him, alarmed. “What are you doing?”

“Ash, you cannot single-handedly get us out of this situation. We need to think. To plan. I can sit up without dying.”

Motioning the others over, Ash said, “Bring the log if you can move it.”

With much grunting, Charlotte and Brian got the fallen tree close enough Aaron could, with Ash’s help, lean against it. Jennifer crawled to his good side and folded herself in, peppering the side of his face with kisses. Ghost attached himself to Elliot, who immediately came to Ash’s side and wrapped around him. Ash hugged him close.

Aaron winced, despite having not moved. “I need a doctor, Jennifer needs to get the baby looked at, and we have zero supplies. We need to get out of here, and fast.”

“I think we can help you with that,” a new voice said.

Ash turned and his stomach dropped, ice filling his veins.

What else could possibly happen to us today?

A group of five soldiers, four men and one woman, all covered with face paint, moved into their camp with combat weapons a motion away from aiming and firing.