Chapter 31
EASTON
If Asher isn’t here, we literally have nothing else to go on. Pure, unbridled fury has my blood too hot and my hands shaking. Surely, the cops can’t think that Aaron will just tell them where he is. He’d rather leave him there to die, just to know that he’s suffering.
“Are we going to go to jail for, like, breaking and entering or something?” Brady asks from the back seat.
Blakely shrugs, weaving around slow-moving cars like a professional.
“I have a really fucking good lawyer on retainer and the Chief of Police credits me with his kid getting through college. I’m pretty sure we’ll be all right.
If not, well, we all have clean records and that’s good for leniency in sentencing. ”
“I’ve always said I was saving it for a good reason,” Chase adds, relatively calm given the circumstances.
My brother nods in sage agreement. Beneath the righteous anger, there’s unending gratitude for how much they care about this.
By the time the cops let us go, it was already late.
But when I found out they planned on interrogating Aaron for Asher’s location, there was no way I could walk away.
Luckily, Blake thrives in morally grey areas, such as breaking into his car and checking the address log of his navigation system.
My nervous system is an absolute wreck after the anxiety leading up to the setup.
The terror of letting myself be in Aaron’s control again, even for a moment.
Now, after feeling like we’re the only ones who care about finding that kid alive, I am very not okay.
But there’s nothing to be done except get through it.
Asher needs me. I don’t have the luxury of falling apart anymore. At least not until I know he’s safe.
Why the fuck does he have to be so far out of the city? Is this what he thought would keep him under the radar now that law enforcement was on the lookout? He kept me in a remote location too, which even then felt weird. Maybe he was unraveling more than I thought.
It’s nice to think about anyway—that he was afraid that I’d get him caught.
I have an easier time breathing normally once we’re away from the snarling Seattle traffic.
“He’s gonna be there,” Blake says, glancing over from the driver’s seat.
“It’s not like that fuckhead could manage staying in one place—keeping Asher somewhere else and always knowing what you’re up to. It’s just not realistic.”
Yeah, logically, I get that. However, I’m not sure I’ll believe it until it’s all said and done. Maybe I’m well and truly insane, but there’s this tugging in my chest screaming that Asher doesn’t have much time left.
Yeah, that did sound a bit nuts. It’s there, though.
Finally, Blake turns into a long, unpaved driveway in the middle of absolute nowhere.
Heart pounding, I’m out of the car before she can throw it in park, running towards the door without even bothering to look around first. They call after me, but I’m not slowing down.
Chase and Brady’s heavy footsteps join mine all the way up to the creaky front porch.
This place is a fucking shithole. I’m an asshole for hoping he’s here.
I try to shoulder the door open, but it’s firmly locked.
That panic I shoved down in the car threatens to bubble back up.
My body slams against it again and again.
Useless thing that it is doesn’t make the slightest difference.
There’s voices demanding things that I don’t hear over the roaring in my ears.
Hands grab under my elbows, lifting up and away. I think I scream.
“Easton, baby,” Chase growls in my ear. “It’s okay. Just give him some room.” Only because that voice has been able to reach me no matter how far I’ve gone into the darkness, am I able to take a breath. “There you go. We just didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Brady takes his turn at the door with far more strength than I managed. The first time, nothing. My teeth grind together. The second, it creaks loudly, allowing me another breath.
Distantly, I hear Blakely tromping around the house, banging on the windows and calling out. “I think I saw something in that back room, but it was hard to tell. All the windows are locked,” she says, rushing our way.
“If we can’t get the door open, we’ll break a window,” Chase announces firmly.
Brady takes a deep breath and tries again with more force. This time, we hear a crack. My heart leaps in celebration. Chase joins him now that he knows I’m not going to get myself hurt, and with the two of them, it finally breaks.
I shove around them and sprint in the direction Blake indicated. The smell hits me like a brick wall: old blood and decay.
Still, I run until I can fling the only closed door wide open. A scream builds and dies in my throat from the sight of a human being, horrifically still, laying in a bed in the center of the room with his arms chained above his head. Bruised and swollen, bloody and broken.
My stomach rolls. It can’t be too late for him.
“No, no, no.” Despite the black hole in my chest consuming me, my legs carry me forward until I’m kneeling beside him.
“You’re okay. You’re okay,” I insist, searching for signs of life.
His arms are ice cold and a scary color.
“Get these off him,” I shout to someone, anyone. “Get them off!”
There’s rattling and slamming behind us. “We can’t find the keys,” Brady returns. “We’re looking.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, get out of my way.
” Blake comes around the other side of the bed, pulls a pin from her hair and starts maneuvering it inside the lock.
An eternity passes in the seconds she’s twisting it.
When it finally clicks, allowing the cuffs to pop open, I nearly sob in relief.
We bring his hands down to his sides, and I begin to rub them, hoping to get blood flowing again.
Asher groans, a cracked and horribly beautiful sound.
“It’s okay. You’re okay. Just hang on. We’re going to get you help.
” His eyes crack open, revealing the tiniest slivers of hazel surrounded by blood red.
“That’s good. Keep your eyes open for me.
” He is showing no signs of life other than his eyes being open, and his shallow breathing. I’m fucking terrified.
“Help is coming, okay? You just need to hang on for me. You can do it. We’re going to make sure you’re okay. Just please hang on. I’ve got you, Asher. Okay? I’m not leaving you.”
He makes another wounded noise which has got to be a good sign.
I smooth his tangled hair away from his face, mindful to not disturb any of the wounds on his head.
My hands shake, but it doesn’t stop me from trying to show him some kindness in his worst moments.
He clearly hasn’t had nearly enough of that in the last few years.
I turn, looking for anyone. Chase is nearest. “You guys called an ambulance, right?” It’s only when my voice breaks that I notice the tears streaming freely down my face.
“Yeah. Brady is on with them now. Just try and keep him awake and still until they get here.” His ashen complexion aside, he’s doing a decent job pretending this isn’t the most disturbing thing he’s ever witnessed.
With my full attention back on the boy who had been chained to a bed for who knows how long, I keep my ears peeled for the sound of approaching sirens.
I find his lips moving with no sound coming out.
“It’s okay, don’t try to talk. I’m here.
I’m not going anywhere. Your grandma is going to be so happy to see you again, Ash.
I bet someone is gonna call her any minute.
You just have to hang on. Stay awake. You can do it. ”
I’ll say anything to keep him here, barely conscious and breathing instead of allowing him to fall back into the darkness.
By my thigh, his fingers twitch. I have no idea what he wants or needs right now, but I lace our fingers together and give them a gentle squeeze.
“I’m right here, Ash. No one is going to hurt you again.
You’re safe. He’s gone, sweet boy, and he’s never going to touch you again. You’re safe. Just hang on. Please.”
A lifetime and an eternity passes in those minutes.
Hot, wet tears leak from my eyes and land on his skeletal body as I plead and plead for him to stay with me.
No one comes in between us, and honestly, I wouldn’t let them.
I’m not leaving him for anything. Not until I know he’s going to be okay and maybe not even then.
“You hear that?” I say around a sob. “They’re coming, and they’re going to take you far, far away from here.
Somewhere safe and warm where nothing bad can happen.
It’s not going to hurt anymore. I promise. ”
The sirens get louder and louder until they’re right outside, all the while I promise Asher that he’s going to live.
I have no right to make promises like that to anyone, but I refuse to believe anything else.
Before I know it, people are rushing into the room and I’m getting pushed to the side.
“Please don’t hurt him,” I beg. “He’s had too much pain already. He can’t take anymore.”
An EMT with warm eyes offers me a reassuring smile. “We’ll be very careful. You did the right thing, kid.”
I did the right thing. I must repeat it to myself a hundred times. “He doesn’t have anyone else. Can I go with him?”
She nods. “Better make it fast. We’re loading him up.”
They lift him, carefully as promised, to transfer him to the stretcher. It looks too big for this tiny room. My hand flies to cover my mouth when I see the raw wounds over his back. The suffering he’s been enduring…
They really do make an effort to make this as painless as possible for him, which I greatly appreciate.
They talk to him in low, soothing tones.
I just hope he’s not scared. When they roll him out, I follow hot on their heels.
In the living room, I find Chase, Blake, and Brady talking to a couple of police officers. “I’m going with Asher.”
Everyone turns their heads to look at me. It’s not like I was asking for permission, but when Chase nods in understanding, a weight lifts off my chest. “We’ll go to the hospital as soon as we can, sweetheart. Just keep your phone on you.”
I love you, I mouth silently.
He says it back just in time for me to rush after the paramedics. The lady that agreed to let me come helps me climb in the back. She bangs on the wall after closing the doors behind her. “Let’s go.”
About fucking time. On our way to the hospital, I get asked about a dozen questions about Asher, and I only know some of the answers. Because it seems important. “He’s a missing person. Someone needs to call his family and tell them he’s alive. They don’t know.”
There’s an oxygen mask over his face, and the steady beeping from the heart rate monitor is too slow, but he’s not flatlining.
They shine lights in his eyes, ask him to squeeze their hands, and when it’s clear that his responses are going to remain minimal or nonexistent, settle on continuing to encourage him.
“You can hold his hand if you’d like,” the lady, Lisa, according to her nametag, tells me.
I do, and he’s so very cold. There’s a bone-deep ache in my soul and a pounding in my head being aggravated by the fluorescent lights in this damn ambulance, but misery has never felt so much like relief.
“I told you you’d be okay. You’re going to get all the help you need and get better. It’s all okay now, Ash.”
“What he said,” the other paramedic echos. “Hang in there, kid. We’re going to take good care of you.”
When we pull up to the emergency room entrance, the ambulance is barely in park before the door opens and the chaos begins all over again. More questions, more loud voices, more demands being asked of Asher’s frail body. I try like hell to stay out of the way while somehow keeping an eye on him.
“Hey, I know you,” someone says from across the room.
A woman that I don’t recognize, but somewhere around my age.
She’s got a kind smile, though, and that undoes one of the endless knots tied up in my insides.
“You were one of my patients a few months ago.” She grabs a blanket from a nearby cart and wraps it around my shoulders.
I didn’t even know I was shivering until they slow to a stop. “I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I don’t really remember much from when I was in the hospital.” Well, except the pure terror and unending pain. That is burned into my brain even to this day.
She fuses over Asher for a minute, checking his vitals and clicking something on the monitor. “It’s okay. I’m Sammi. I was your night nurse for your entire stay. I’m not gonna lie, it’s nice to see you up and around, but I’m not going to say I’m glad to see you again under these circumstances.”
Vaguely, a couple of puzzle pieces fall into place. Thin shreds of memories. “I promise the feeling is mutual.”
Sammi laughs lightly. “We need to get some scans done on your friend, but you can wait here for him if you’d like.”
Anxiety flares its head. “Will you bring him back?”
She doesn’t look at me like a moron which is what I deserve. “Yeah. Right back here, and I’ll give you any updates I can while he’s gone. That work?”
Like I have any choice in the matter. “Thanks. I appreciate it. Hey, do you know if someone has called his grandmother?”
“You told the paramedics that he’s a missing person, right? Well, I’m sure the police department will be notifying her soon if they haven’t already.”
Before she takes Asher, I again make myself look dumb by telling him what’s going on. He’s unconscious, but the idea of people doing anything to him while he’s unaware makes me sick to my stomach. Hopefully, wherever his brain is right now, the message comes through.
“Hear that, honey? We just need a few x-rays and your friend is going to be waiting for you to come back,” Sammi assures him.
My throat burns as tears prick my eyes. It’s such a small thing, really.
But I get the feeling that whether I’m here or not, she’ll keep talking to him.
Like she probably did to me while I was fighting for my life.
When they’re gone, my body crumbles, unable to hold itself up for a moment longer, and I don’t move for a very, very long time.