Chapter Two #4
He’d literally had ONE sip of his beer, so this couldn’t be from drinking.
Yep, the answer was clear. Michael had to be out of his damn mind.
As he moved past them, he listened, and he could hear sobs and shouts from somewhere ahead of him.
They were desperate and he was worried that he would be too late. He was thinking about how everyone told him that Graham had tried to die before in that alley, and it gave him goosebumps.
In fact, he felt cold, like his body was swathed in some chilly covering.
Instinctually, he knew what it was.
The dead.
“Come on, show me where he is,” he whispered, needing them to guide him.
The sounds were echoing, and he wasn’t able to pinpoint his location.
“Get me to him. He’s going to die,” he admitted, instinctually knowing that, and wishing simultaneously that he’d never gone to the pub.
He should have stayed.
When he scanned the distance ahead, he found the two apparitions at a Y in the road, and he was a little taken aback that they were most definitely trying to help him get to Graham.
What was this?
“Hurry,” he heard in his ear, as if someone was right behind him.
But no one was there. The two apparitions were in front of him.
Jesus.
He was creeped out, but he began running like Graham’s life depended on it.
Mostly because he was freaked out that he was trying to rationalize this whole situation and the fact that Graham was slipping away.
This place was something.
Oh, it was haunted-haunted. When she found out, Elizabeth was going to lose her shit.
As he moved through the trees, he passed what looked to be a grave, and kept going. There was an opening ahead, and he had a feeling that’s what the dead men wanted him to see.
Then again, what did he know?
This was all wild.
Bat.
Shit.
Insane.
In fact, he was beginning to think he might need to see someone to talk this out. Clearly, he was having a mental breakdown too.
At the trees’ opening, he saw a cliff, and at the end of it was Graham.
He was standing on a big boulder, overlooking what appeared to be one hell of a drop.
Oh, Jesus.
His heart began racing even more than it had been on the run there.
Was the man going to jump?
Was this how he’d take himself out?
In front of him?
As he paused for a moment, Graham kept screaming his lungs out as he purged as much of the guilt and pain he could. Maybe, it would mean not burning in the deepest pit of Hell for all of his sins.
“I had the most amazing thing, and I was too stupid to understand it was real love!” he screamed.
The trees shook with a wind that hadn’t been there before, and Michael wasn’t sure how to do this.
Did he tackle him?
Did he try to rationalize with him?
All he knew was he had to do something to help Graham.
“JUST END MY MISERY! JUST LET ME GODDAMN DIE ALREADY! I LOST HIM, AND NOW, I’M FORCED TO SEE HE’S SURVIVED WITHOUT ME! HE WAS RIGHT! NO ONE WOULD EVER LOVE ME LIKE HE DID! I’M UNLOVABLE!”
For a few seconds, Michael listened, and the words…they hurt his soul.
He was frozen in that spot, as it felt like something heavy was holding him in place. It was like fingers around his arm, anchoring him in place so that he’d have no choice but to bear witness to this.
It.
Scared.
Him.
“LET ME DIE! I LOST HIM, AND I’VE NEVER BEEN THE SAME. JUST PLEASE…LET ME GO. I CAN’T BE TORMENTED ANY MORE! I’VE PAID FOR MY SINS OVER AND OVER. JUST LET ME GO!”
The scream he ended with was terrifying.
From where Michael stood, he saw the pin fall from his fingers into the darkness.
It was his purple heart.
Michael had given it to him as a promise that one day, his honor would come through, and he’d marry him.
It disappeared, like the memories of all they’d once had.
As he was forced to watch it play out, that’s when Michael saw the intent. This wasn’t just an upset person screaming into the void. This was a person screaming goodbye.
When the bottle of Scotch dropped from his fingers, bouncing off of the rock and over the edge, Michael began moving.
The hand that held him released him, and he raced as fast as he could toward Graham.
It was as if everything around him moved in slow motion.
Graham began falling over the edge, making the choice to end his life. His arms were out, as he took the tumble from the boulder into the abyss.
Michael was fast, and as Graham started to disappear, falling into the dark void, Michael made a leap, grabbing his arm as he started to tumble.
When his fingers locked around the man’s wrist, he knew there was a possibility that Graham would take them both over the edge, but he still fought.
Oh, and he fought hard.
The jarring from Graham’s body weight sang up from his hand to his injured arm and then into his shoulder, but somehow, he was able to hold onto him.
That in itself was a miracle.
In that moment, he fought for Graham’s life, refusing to let him go.
Even if Graham wanted the exact opposite.
When he came to a halt, slamming against the rocky cliff wall, the man stared up at him.
“No!” he whispered. “I finally had the courage to do it. I finally had the courage to let go. Why did you save me? You could be rid of me forever!”
That made Michael’s heart pound in his chest. It was a quick lash of pain over the idea that this man hated himself so much that he thought that he would want him dead.
That was anything but the truth.
Instead, he did everything he could to keep the man with him.
Michael fought, his arm screaming as his heart hurt in ways he’d not expected it to. In that moment, he saw Graham’s lack of will to live, and it scared him. It made him question how much of a part did he play in all of this?
Did him disappearing after the ultimatum destroy another person’s life? A person he’d once loved more than anything in the whole world.
“No, Graham. No. I don’t want you to die.”
Only, if he didn’t get Graham back onto the ledge, there was a good chance he would die—and take Michael with him—because he was no quitter.
And he wasn’t letting go.
Slowly, he began trying to pull him up and over the cliff to get him to safety.
But Graham wouldn’t help him.
Instead, he did the opposite.
“Goodbye, D’Artangnan,” he whispered. “I love you. I never stopped loving you. I’m sorry that I broke us. I’ve paid for it for two thousand seven hundred and four days,” he whispered hoarsely.
Then, he closed his eyes and began fighting the grip he had on his wrist.
Fuck!
He was slipping.
“NO!” Michael screamed back. “No! Don’t do this to me!” he begged, as he couldn’t hold on any longer. Graham was fighting to die, and he was fighting to keep him alive as his fingers were going numb from his gunshot wound.
He was about to slip away and to whatever lie below the cliffs in that stagnant darkness.
“PLEASE!” he called out, knowing no one was there to help him.
Then, something else miraculous happened.
Michael could feel the weight getting lighter, as the air around him went cold again. He could feel presences of something beside him, on each side of his body.
Suddenly, he was able to pull him up and over the edge of the cliff with some…power. Beside him, he heard the same buzzing that sounded like conversation in a static.
The dead…
They were helping him.
They were helping him save this man.
“NO!” Graham raged, still trying to fight him with all he had.
Drunks were incredibly strong when they were plastered, and it was a battle for Michael, but the tide had turned, and it looked as if he might win this one, after all.
Yeah, Graham wasn’t going to die today.
It wasn’t happening on Michael’s watch, and clearly, not on the watch of the dead men who haunted Ravensmire. They were doing something from beyond the grave that he didn’t understand, but he appreciated.
Miracles did happen.
As he got him onto the ground and when he was no longer in danger, Graham kept fighting, and Michael had no choice.
He hit him in the neck on his pulse point, knocking him out.
Cold.
As the man’s body stopped fighting, he could finally catch his breath.
“Jesus,” he muttered, lying on his back to regroup from what he’d just lived through.
Not only was he rattled by what he’d heard, but he was also rattled by what he’d saw, and how he felt by the whole thing.
As he’d been staring down into Graham’s green eyes, their time together flashed back to him.
He saw the good moments.
He saw the bad ones.
And then, he saw the finality of it.
The last thing he wanted was for Graham to die because of what happened between them. Michael didn’t want to be the cause of someone’s death.
As he heard running heading their way, he looked over, and the two people he’d left in the pub had showed up for some reason.
“What the hell?” Finn asked, getting to Graham’s side and touching his neck. “We drove up here to check on both of you and we heard this feral scream! Something led us here,” he admitted.
Yeah, well, he knew how that felt.
Been there.
Done that.
It had saved Graham’s life too.
He knew the two dead men were the real heroes in this. There was no way he could have hoisted Graham up on his own.
Michael pointed toward the boulder and the empty bottle on the ground by it before he explained what had gone on there.
“He tried to jump,” Michael said. “Not tried. He did. I barely saved him,” he said, out of breath from the exertion.
Finn was horrified.
To hear that Graham had been willing to give up on life was horrifying, and it shook him that they never would have found him since they wouldn’t have looked at the bowel of the cliff bed.
Jesus.
That meant only one thing for Finn…
“Had you not been here he would have died tonight, and we would have lost him.”
Oh, he was aware.
It hadn’t been an easy one either, but he knew there was no way he could take all the credit for this rescue mission. He most definitely had backup.
Ghostly ones.
And Michael wasn’t sure how he felt about that either. It freaked him the fuck out.
“Only, I wasn’t the only one who was here,” he said, as Gabby helped him up.
At his words, they both stared at him, not sure what he meant when he said that. Michael looked to be completely alone with the exception of a passed-out Graham.
“What’s that mean?” Gabby asked, curiously.
Michael pointed, and in this case a visual was worth more than words.
When both people glanced over, there was their gasp of surprise.
Not far away, the two apparitions stood there like they had that night at the lake when they showed themselves.
Then, without a word, or any motion, they slowly backed up into the shadows to disappear.
Just like that, they were gone.
Apparently, Michael wasn’t the only angel and hand of God here on the land.
It appeared that Graham had some dead guardian angels who had no intent of letting him join them on the other side.
That meant one thing.
Ravensmire was definitely trying to tell them something.
Without a doubt.
The mystery only got deeper, and they weren’t understanding the clues.
Not.
Even.
Close.