20. Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty
T here’s a loud clink as Kasia slaps a glass of water down in front of me, jerking me out of my malaise.
Or maybe it wasn’t really a malaise, because I wasn’t thinking about anything. Just staring into space. My overwhelming affect for the past three days has been the ‘embodiment of human misery’ according to her, and she seems to be getting sick of it. I think I’m justified, considering no one’s any closer to finding Tobias and the chances of him coming home alive shrink every minute. She insists it’s not helping anyone for me to wallow until he’s actually dead or we know what’s happening.
What I know is that the cops have made it clear they consider this a personal matter among criminals, and therefore not their problem. Some of them have come from a more compassionate angle. They say the law is not built for this situation, so their hands are tied. Others have barely concealed their contempt, and implied everyone here is getting what they deserve. I should have known better than to get involved with a troubled kid, the kid should learn to stand up for himself or leave, and anyone who’s too stupid to know Eamon is bad news is not someone worth saving.
Those aren’t the words that come out of their mouths per se, but they’re underlying every snide comment and disgusted look that I’ve received so far.
Personally, I’ve fantasized about garroting every single police officer in Possum Hollow over the past 72 hours. It hasn’t helped, though. It’s helped more than they have, but that’s not saying much.
Anyone who looks at this situation and sees anything other than the most textbook case of abuse is an idiot or an abuser themselves. Or both.
But we’re talking about cops, so the statistics speak for themselves.
“Are you helping or moping?” she asks. “Because Sav’s missing—again—and I feel like I’m doing all the work to clean up your bar.”
She’s right. I had to call in professionals to repair the lines that were cut, as well as hire some industrial fans to dry the floor, but the rest of the cleaning and repairs are doable ourselves. And since I’m almost completely out of money after neglecting my business in general, then having to close for a week for repairs, that’s all I’ve got.
It’s possible the constant hum from the fans is making me feel even more cracked than the situation is.
“I’m sorry,” I say, making a point of looking her in the eye for once. “You’re right. You should go home.”
She huffs. “That’s not what I meant. I’m here to work and I’ll go home when I need to. Although you are paying me for all this eventually, obviously. I’m saying I need you here as well. You’re not helping him by sitting there, staring into the middle distance all day. When he does come back, he’d probably like you to not be bankrupt and homeless.”
I’m too tired to fight. I haven’t been sleeping, for obvious reasons. I spend all night bouncing between working on the bar ineffectively and texting everyone I know for updates that are always meaningless. Especially since Sav, my best contact in the criminal side of things, has been almost entirely absent and quiet ever since Tobias disappeared.
I hope it means he’s doing something wildly illegal to help and doesn’t want to implicate me in it; not that he’s also in trouble with the Banna for something.
At least once a night, I go out and drive around. As if I might find him wandering by the side of the road. It’s pointless, and it doesn’t make me feel any better, but I don’t have any other options.
“Thank you, Kas,” I say, pushing off the stool to look around for something productive I should be doing.
Eventually, my sluggish brain kicks into gear and I start washing all the new glasses that arrived today.
We work together in silence for a long time, but it’s a heavy kind of silence. I can’t figure out if she has something she wants to say, but is hesitating, or if she’s trying to figure out what she’s supposed to say.
Once I’m up and moving, I feel a frenetic, chaotic burst of energy take over. This has been happening as well, and I don’t know if it’s better or worse than staring blankly at the wall.
I don’t recognize either of these versions of myself. At least with this one I’m getting things done, but I’m moving so fast my hands are shaking. My breath is practically rattling in my chest, and I’m constantly knocking into things or swearing as I drop shit because of my sudden clumsiness. I’m fueled by anger.
Not a focused rage, or any powerful urge for violence. It’s this helpless, desperate, impotent feeling that screams inside me, making my fingers numb and my heart race. My muscles are so tense I could snap like charred, brittle old sheet metal, and every single obstacle I face tightens my chest even more like there’s a noose around it.
By the time I feel a migraine forming, it’s too late to stop it. There’s a spot over my left forehead that has turned into stone—stiff and unrelentingly heavy, weighing down on my brain enough it might liquify and start dripping out of my nose. My neck is even more tense than the rest of me, nausea grips my stomach which is squeezing emptiness in time to my chaotic heartbeat, and the world is too fucking bright.
And no matter what I do, all those fucking memories of the shit I went through with my family seventeen years ago. Waiting. Because as soon as I drop my guard, they want in on the party, no matter how worthless the act of dwelling on old shit is.
I need everything to stop. Every single thing. I don’t control a goddamn piece of it though, so all I can do is let my rage and frustration mount.
“Gunnar!” Kasia shouts, breaking through the fog in my brain.
I pivot sharply on my back foot to look at her, too many glasses in my hand, but a wave of dizziness comes out of nowhere and smacks me so hard I almost faint.
Spots of bright light dance in front of me as I sway on my feet and try to take a single deep breath.
Nothing about this is fucking fair.
Where is he? Why isn’t he here?
The urge to rage and scream and blame the world gets stronger every day. I feel too much like the version of myself I thought I’d left behind. I was supposed to move past all that, and instead it only took a brand new tragedy to bring it all crawling back to the surface.
“What?” I ask, trying and failing to keep the snappiness out of my tone.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Can you sit down, please? You look like you’re about to pass out.”
Kasia’s eyes are wide, and she looks more emotional than I’ve seen her in a long time. I’ve disturbed the most unflappable person I know, apparently.
“I’m fine,” I say, swallowing hard again to choke back the bile that’s climbing up the back of my throat.
“Please stop doing this. Whatever this is—” she gestures at me, “—it isn’t you. You’re freaking me out. You’re supposed to be the normal one.”
I blow out a breath, the dual urges to accept my rage and scream at her or sit down and have a conversation warring for dominance inside me.
I must not be physically equipped to house that kind of conflict today, because instead, I start fucking crying. Again. It’s one choked sob that rips out of the deepest part of my body, like it had to claw its way to the surface.
I bring my hand to my face, covering my eyes as I try to swallow it back. And I do, but the tears have already formed at the corner of my eyes and my shoulders are trembling at the effort of restraining myself. I can’t tell if it’s grief crying or rage crying or both, but it wants out.
I’m the one who’s desperate to keep it inside. Like this is the only thing I’ve decided I can control. I take a long, shuddering breath and swallow, even though my tongue feels like it’s too thick for my mouth.
“Jesus,” Kasia whispers, before I hear footsteps moving toward me.
She pats my back, because she’s one of the least touchy-feely people I know, and this is awkward as hell for her. When I feel her step closer, like she’s thinking about hugging me, I take a half step back and shrug her off. My hand is still over my eyes, so I can’t see her. I’m concentrating on breathing slowly, quashing all the sudden bright and staggering emotions trying to overtake my body.
Kasia doesn’t hug me, but she doesn’t move away, either. She keeps awkwardly patting my shoulder while I stand there and breathe.
“I’m sorry, boss. I’m sorry.”
It’s all she says, thank fuck. I think I would start to rage again if she tried to give me mindless platitudes, but that’s not really her style.
Time stretches out until it becomes intangible. I breathe while Kasia stands there, and no one moves until I hear the door scrape open. Immediately, I find the will to focus, because maybe it’s Sav and he has news. My hand falls away from my face as I look for whoever just walked in.
Someone gasps, but I don’t know if it’s Kasia or me. My mind is sluggish, so she might have processed what we’re both looking at more quickly.
Tobias . Standing in the doorway, looking like he’s frozen in time. He’s paler than normal, bruises peppering the skin I can see, and his hands are shaking while his body sways.
The sheer fragility of the movement snaps me out of my own imminent collapse. Because I might be tired and way too emotional, but Tobias looks like he’s about to collapse. He’s staring at me, one hand still resting on the door behind him, his eyes dark and unfocused, even though they’re pointed at me, his lips parted as he takes quick, shallow breaths.
I cross the room in a split second, holding out my arms. Normally, I’d be more careful not to move suddenly and startle him, because I learned that lesson the first time. But not when he looks this close to hitting the ground. There’s a moment where it seems like his body tries to flinch but doesn’t quite manage it. Then I get my hands on him.
My arms encircle his waist, and his gaze finally focuses on my face. His head tips back, and he grabs at the front of my shirt with weak hands. It’s so close to what he did the first night he came to me, I almost cry all over again.
Then his knees buckle. Once I have his weight, the last bit of his energy gives out, and I pick him up before he hits the ground. His arms come up to rest on my shoulders and his legs wrap around my waist, like he has just enough energy to hang on but not enough to hold himself up.
“Gunnar,” he says, his voice cracking with exhaustion.
He must have walked here. Or run. The bar is so far from anywhere if you’re on foot. Fuck, I should have been out driving and looking for him, instead of tending to my own pathetic meltdowns.
“I’m here, baby boy. I’m here. You’re safe.”
I keep crooning any soothing nonsense I can think of as I walk him back into the bar. There’s nowhere comfortable for him to lie down, so Kasia clears a space, and I set him on the bar itself until we’ve all gotten our bearings.
“Did he hurt you?” Tobias asks, still panting.
Kasia passes him the glass of water that she practically hurled at me before, and I help him hold it while he takes a sip because his hand is shaking.
“Me? Nobody hurt me, baby, what do you mean? How injured are you?”
It’s hard to keep my voice quiet when I’m still raging with a thousand different emotions, but I know I have to. Flying off the handle right now is the last thing he needs.
From what I can tell, he looks better than the last time he came. He has bruises, but they’re smaller, at different stages of healing from the past few days and none of them indicating significant damage. He seems exhausted from however far he had to walk, but not like he’s favoring any limbs. And most importantly, he’s here in one living, breathing piece.
Which is more than I can say for Eamon if I ever fucking see him again.
“He said he would kill you,” Tobias says, still breathless. “If I didn’t come back, he said someone was waiting here to kill you. That was hours ago. I didn’t know if you’d be dead by the time I got here, but I had to try. I hoped he was bluffing. I couldn’t just… stay. Not anymore.”
His jaw shakes, the way it would if he were too cold. I think it’s his body trying to cry but being too dehydrated and frozen to do anything about it.
I rub his arms for a second, in case he really is cold. His skin is too hot to the touch from all the exercise, but that’ll change quickly now that he’s stopped moving. It might not be the depths of winter yet and the sun is shining outside, but it’s definitely not warm out there and he’s only wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. The same ones he was wearing when Eamon took him.
Realizing I’m reacting too slowly, I whip off my hoodie and tug it over his head. It’s bulky to get it over the sweatshirt, but he closes his eyes and relaxes as soon as it’s on him. Then I wrap him up in my arms again and pull him into my chest.
“I’m okay, Tobias. Nothing happened. No one’s here. He must have lied.”
Kasia meets my eyes over Tobias’s shoulder, where she’s standing at the other side of the bar.
“I’m calling the cops,” she says, pulling out her phone.
“No!” Tobias’s voice is muffled where he’s buried in my shirt, but we can both hear him.
Kasia bites her lip, looking conflicted for a second. Then she makes a face at me, because this sucks, but we both know it has to happen, and walks away from the bar to make the call.
I lean back just enough to look him in the eye. His skin is blotchy, and dark circles almost seem to weigh his eyes down, but he’s just as beautiful as ever. The same delicate features covering the sharpest, scrappiest person I’ve ever met.
“We don’t have a choice, baby. I’ve been trying to file report you as a missing person for three days, but they wouldn’t let me. Now that you’re back, you have to tell them what he did. I hate them too, but we can’t pretend like nothing happened, or it’s easier for him to do it again. Please. Even if it’s a waste of time, can you humor me?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he buries his face right back in my shirt and clings to me more tightly than before.
“Call Sav and Micah. They can help,” he says eventually.
Kasia is already wandering back over, her phone still in her hand.
“I tried. Sav’s phone is still turned off and Micah isn’t answering. I called 911, though.”
Tobias’s shoulders heave at that, but he doesn’t make a sound.
“They’re coming,” she continues. “I’m sorry, Tobias. I know how it feels. It sucks, but sometimes it’s the best worst option.”
The gravity in her voice reminds me, and probably Tobias as well, that she really does know how he feels. When she reaches out and slowly, gently strokes the hair on the back of his head, he actually relaxes into it.
We stand together like that for a long time, letting our collective sadness fill the room until there’s no space for any more words.