Herald the Night

Chapter One

Sometimes, it was the smallest things that robbed someone of their will to live. In this case, it was the off-key rendition of yet another Taylor Swift song belted out by an eight year old girl with no respect for sleep schedules. Connor, weighed down by bone-deep exhaustion that had little to do with working the night shift, rolled over with an audible groan. He barely remembered falling asleep and the low slant of rose gold light through the room confirmed it was way too fucking early for this shit.

“Hi! It”s me. I”m the problem, it”s me!” Annalise Montgomery barreled into the room with a thudding of her stocking covered feet and the ballad immediately halted with a gasp. “Oh, snap.”

“I reckon you are the problem. Get. M’sleeping.” Connor tugged another pillow over his head.

“Theeooo!” Anna singsonged even louder. “He did it again!”

“Get!” Connor flailed and chucked the pillow that was little help in drowning out her voice. With a squeak, she sprinted from the room and he sighed in relief as her footsteps faded down the hall. His reprieve was short lived.

“Really, Connor?” Theo’s voice was much quieter but cut just as deep. Maybe deeper. It carried an edge of irritation Connor heard too much of lately. It ached at his core, along with all the other bruises and cuts that left his heart in tatters.

“Baby, what?” Giving up on sleep, Connor twisted again and blinked his gritty eyes toward the silhouette in the doorway.

“Nothing,” Theo sighed, stepping into the living room to swipe the empty tumbler off the table. Tracking the movement, Connor grimaced as he caught a blurry glimpse of the water mark his glass had left on their coffee table.

“Sorry. I”ll fix it.” The words came out muffled and mumbled as Connor swept his palm over his face.

“Don”t bother. Bedroom’s yours.” Theo turned and Connor felt the tie that bound his heart to Theo’s stretch and strain as he watched him walk out of the room. “We’ll be out of your way in half an hour.”

“Theo, baby.” He groaned and pushed himself into a seated position. “C’mere.”

Theo paused just outside the doorway, tension sloughing off him like water sheeting off a duck’s back. With a sigh and a sagging of his shoulders, he reluctantly turned around. “What, Connor?”

“Look, I”m sorry about the table. It’s not a big deal, eh?”

“I”m not mad about the water mark. Just… go get some sleep.” He moved to retreat and stopped when Connor called out again.

“What are you mad about, then? I ain”t a mind reader, but I can read the room well enough.” Connor pushed himself to his feet with a groan. Twelve hour overnight shifts as a security guard weren’t as physically demanding as his last job, but his body ached nevertheless. Carrying the weight of the world was no easy task.

“I can”t do this right now, Con. Please?” Theo turned halfway, but their eyes didn”t meet. They rarely did anymore. It’d been four months of growing distance and the phrase “ships passing in the night” had become something Connor understood all too well.

“When? Seems a lot like avoidance when there ain”t ever a time you can talk. So when are we gonna talk?” Connor tried to keep his tone calm, but it came out clipped and curt and carried with it all the pain he refused to share.

“When you check the calendar and make the appointment.” Theo finally lifted his chin and let their gazes collide. Gone was the vivacious sparkle Connor had fallen head over heels for. Theo’s hazel eyes were weary, dull, and heart-wrenchingly sad.

“Really? You ain”t even gonna try to talk about this outside of a therapist”s office?” Connor’s defenses bristled even voicing the words. It rankled something deep and ugly inside him. Couples counseling. They hadn”t even made it a full year into their relationship before Theo had dropped those two words and that was months ago.

“Please? I want—”

Raised voices from the hall cut through the air and Theo visibly deflated, his eyelids slowly shutting as he let out a soft sigh. Anna and Toby were fighting over the bathroom again. It grated on Connor’s flayed nerves, but his partner just looked defeated. He took the rare moment to study Theo’s features as he worked through a few calming, albeit shallow breaths.

Theo was struggling. Anyone could see it, but Connor felt it. He knew Theo’s face better than the back of his hand, and what he saw in this precious moment had him feeling way too much, way too intensely. His cheeks were even more gaunt, and shadows clung to his eyes like bruise-dark red flags of his poor sleep habits. The increasingly pale nature of his complexion only made it more apparent. His hair was much longer than when they”d first started dating, but the once glorious curls were now limp and lifeless, harshly corralled into a messy bun.

Connor watched as Theo moved away again. Soon, the siblings were embroiled in a shouting match that caused Connor’s molars to grind together. He loved those kids, and he loved Theo even more, but the fact of the matter was that they had little respect for their older brother. As great as kids were, God’s honest truth was that kids were selfish. It wasn”t intentional. Underdeveloped frontal lobes and a lifetime of dysfunctional family relationships were one hundred percent to blame for it. But that didn”t make it any easier for Connor to be okay with the careless and sometimes cruel way the Montgomery children took out their issues on their older brother.

Needing some distance and giving up on the idea of sleep until they were all out of the house, Connor fled to the kitchen in search of coffee and something to eat. The tumbler of whiskey he’d downed as soon as he had gotten home sometime after half past six in the morning had turned to acid in his gut. He paused at the refrigerator and laughed humorlessly under his breath as he swept his gaze over the calendar. “Check the calendar and make the appointment.” Theo”s words whispered in the back of his mind, and he laughed again while shaking his head. It didn”t matter that the kids were on summer break. Every God damn day had something scheduled on it.

Toby’s soccer practice schedule ate up a majority of the days. Games were highlighted all over the place. Anna’s art classes filled in the gaps and overlapped with many of the practices. In between everything were innumerable appointments. Anna’s therapist. Toby’s therapist. Theo’s virtual appointments. Family counseling sessions. Scheduled visitations with their mother. There were a scant few hours carved out for things their friend group had invited them to. Between all that and his fucked up work schedule, they were supposed to find time to be a couple. Apparently, he was also expected to work miracles and figure out where to fit in couples counseling.

He shook his head again and yanked the door of the refrigerator open too vigorously. The condiments on the door rattled and clattered before settling. Scanning the options, he rolled his eyes and slammed the door shut again. There wasn”t much he could cobble together from the fridge that would constitute a meal, so he settled for a granola bar, sighing dramatically as he unturned the box and only one fell out.

“Baby, are you going to the store today, or do y’want me to?” Connor called out, hoping to be heard over the bickering that still echoed from further down the hall.

“Shit,” Theo swore over the chaos and reappeared, looking fraught and distressed. “I”m sorry. I ran out of time yesterday.”

“You got a list?” Connor worked hard to soften his tone, even if his emotional state was anything but calm. He was reaching a level of exhaustion that made his temper even shorter than it had already been.

“Yeah. You don”t mind?” Theo’s hesitancy was another red flag that taunted the raging bull of Connor’s stubborn attitude.

“Leave it on the counter. I”ll handle it before work.” Deciding it was best to put himself in time out before they started snapping at each other, Connor brushed past Theo and moved further down the hall. The single-story house that seemed too big when they first moved in was becoming increasingly claustrophobic. Especially since it wasn”t their house. It was Theo’s mother’s house. Only she would think she could bribe acceptance from her children by shoving them into a new house as she foisted her parental responsibility onto her oldest child.

He had almost made it to the room he technically shared with Theo before the chaos found him again. He stumbled to a stop before barreling into Anna as she tumbled out of the bathroom. A hairbrush and toothbrush flew through the door shortly after before it slammed closed so hard, the hinges rattled. Connor could barely hear the lock slide into place as Anna started pounding on the surface with both fists.

“Toby, let me in!” Her shrieking rage had Connor grimacing at the quickly developing headache.

“Bug, easy.” He tried to soothe the irate child, even as his own anger rose.

“He pushed me! He”s been in there for-ever!” She rolled her eyes with a melodramatic huff.

Connor stepped forward and lifted his hand to pound at the door like a cop demanding entrance. “Tobias, quit your shit and open the damn door!”

“Piss off, Connor!” Toby yelled from the other side.

“Connor, enough!” Theo yelled from behind him.

“Connor, that’s two dollars for the swear jar!” Anna smirked up at him with a renewed twinkle in her eye.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. The exhale came out sounding just as pissed as he felt, more of a huff of laughter than anything else as he shook his head and pivoted on his heel. Once he made it to the bedroom, he slammed the door closed just as hard as Toby had shut the bathroom door and collapsed face first into the mattress. Judging by how wrecked the sheets were, Theo hadn”t slept well at all. Connor wasn”t expecting to have much better luck himself.

When he finally cracked his eyes open much later, his headache was no better, but at least the house was quiet. He squinted at the clock on the nightstand as consciousness slowly returned, but the numbers were blurry. Scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, he tried again and then swore under his breath as the time finally registered. Five thirty seven. He had twenty-three minutes to make a half hour commute and he was still sprawled out over the mattress. It was a small saving grace that he was already dressed in his work clothes from the night before.

He flew out of bed, raced into the en-suite bathroom, and cringed at his reflection as soon as the harsh overhead lighting flooded the room. He looked as wrecked as he felt. Smoothing the wrinkles out of his shirt was a futile effort, so he settled for splashing himself with cold water, gargling with the last of the mouthwash, and dousing himself in cologne to hopefully mask the fact that he hadn”t showered. In his haste, he knocked the hamper of dirty laundry over, but he really didn”t have time to stop and pick it all up.

He blew through the kitchen like a tornado, and cussed under his breath again when he discovered the grocery shopping list he had volunteered to take care of. The little heart drawn at the bottom caused his to twist uncomfortably in his chest. It was yet another example of his shortcomings, waiting right there for him in the dayglow bright of the kitchen lights. He mumbled an apology and grabbed the box of granola bars, but the one he had abandoned this morning was gone. He opened the cabinet and grabbed the PopTarts. Also empty. He tossed the box on the counter and reached for the Fruit Roll-Ups out of sheer desperation. Empty.

With another sigh, this time in defeat, he searched for his phone before remembering he’d crashed on the couch when he got home. He flew into the living room and found it easy enough—staring at him from beside the glaring evidence of his failure from that morning. The water ring on the coffee table taunted him as he darted forward and swiped the cell from the table. Insult to the injury came when he tried to check his phone and realized it was completely dead.

He didn”t have the time or patience for any of this. He darted from the house and into the garage, already stressed and still exhausted. The last thing he wanted to do was go to work. But he definitely didn”t want to stay home either. The conflicted feeling followed him all the way into his ancient, busted up pickup truck and tailed him down the road to his job, nagging on his mind just like every other nagging voice that tainted his inner monologue. Abriella. His ma. Theo. His boss at the office building he roamed alone all night like a cheap knock-off version of his former self.

The hardest part, though, was the nagging voices of the dead who often joined in with those of the living. James Locke, the father figure who had betrayed him. Luke Fields, the man who betrayed the FBI from the inside. Milo Fitzpatrick, the trusted friend who died because Connor had quit his job days before and left him with the responsibility of being the President”s close protective detail. More nagging, taunting, haunted voices that reminded him of every single way he”d failed. By the time he pulled into his parking spot at the office building, he was already desperate to go home and dull the pain with whiskey before retreating to the security of sleep.

He grabbed his phone and the charger he kept in the glove box before heading into the building. He didn”t make it past the door before his already shitty day turned into an even shittier night.

“O’Brien, you”re late.”

“Sorry, Sir. I’ll—”

“That”s the third time just this week. We won’t even discuss how many times you”ve been late since you started.” His boss held his hand out with a grim expression.

Connor blinked in confusion at the gesture. “I apologize, Sir. I’ll do better—”

“Your access badge, O’Brien.” The man snapped his fingers and held his hand out further.

“Pardon, Sir?” The bottom of Connor’s stomach dropped in slow motion as slick, sour dread climbed the back of his throat.

“Your access badge. Now. We’re letting you go.”

Connor opened his mouth to protest before thinking better of it. There wasn”t any point in arguing. Not when he deserved it. He wasn”t sad to hand over the flimsy plastic access card. He wasn”t even particularly sad to be rid of this demoralizing joke of a job. What he was sad about was the fact that he had failed. Again. The day Theo came into his life a little over eighteen months ago had felt like winning the jackpot. Ever since then, he”d managed to rack up a debt so large, he wondered if he would ever be able to feel quite as happy as he did that day. His history, as brief as it was, pointed to that answer being a solid no.

He climbed back into his truck and folded his arms over the steering wheel. The first tear fell as he dropped his forehead to his arms. He wasn”t running late anymore, so he had all the time in the world to wallow in his misery. And that’s exactly what he did.