“You don’t get it,” I growl as I snatch up an empty beer bottle and hurl it into the trash can. “You don’t understand.”
“Don’t I?” Brand lifts an eyebrow. “Out of everyone in the world, I think I understand the best. For instance, I know that one of the worst things about leaving the Rangers is feeling like we quit. Even though we know we didn’t quit, that we did it for a very good reason, it still feels like we were quitters. Right?”
I stare at him. “Your point?”
“My point is that I know, dude. I know what it’s like. And I also know that if you don’t fix this thing with Madison, then you’re quitting again. But for real this time. Don’t do it, Gabe. Clean yourself up and get your ass back to Angel Bay where it belongs.”
I glance up at him as I tie my shoes. “If that’s what you think, then you don’t know shit. Angel Bay isn’t where I belong. And me staying away from Maddy isn’t quitting. It’s protecting her. From me. Going back wouldn’t be doing that very well, would it?”
Brand sighs, shaking his head. “You’re one stubborn SOB, you know that?”
“Yep.”
“Can you at least clean up and stop drinking your nights away?” Brand asks wearily. “You look like a hung-over frat boy. I can’t believe you’ve been meeting with contractors like that.”
I shrug. “They’re gonna work for us, not the other way around. But it doesn’t matter. I’m flying back to Chicago in the morning.”
“Good.”
We sit and look over some contracts, Brand schmoozes with Alex just to make absolutely sure that there won’t be any harassment suits and I stare absently out the window through it all.
After we eat and wrap up a few last things at the table in my room, Brand heads to his own to pack, since he’s taking the red-eye back to Chicago.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell him. “I’m flying back in the morning.”
After I close the door, I turn around to find Alex has kicked off her shoes and moved from the table to the bed, where she’s waiting with a come-hither look on her heavily made-up face. I have to fight the shudder that runs through me.
“I forgot to set my DVR for my favorite show,” she tells me softly. “Do you mind if I watch it here? I don’t want to miss it.”
I want to groan, but don’t. I should be polite since I’m leaving in the morning for home anyway.
“Sure,” I tell her, as I drop into a chair next to the bed. “No problem.”
The problem is that I fall asleep watching it.
And I wake up to the sound of Alex screaming.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she shrieks. I sit up and realize that I’m on the floor, dragging myself across the hotel carpet. Alex backs away from me.
“You were crawling across the floor, crying for Brand. What the fuck? Are you fucking gay or something? I’m so out of here. You’re a fucking freak.”
She grabs her purse and slams the hotel door on her way out.
I’m still dazed, still disoriented, so I sit for a second, rubbing my temples. I never thought it was possible, but the dreams are getting even worse, the dark-eyed, blood-spattered dreams.
They’re worse because now Madison’s in them too. She’s lingering on the edge of the dead circle of kids and she’s slipping from my grasp.
In my head I know that I need to save her, but in my heart I know that I can’t. Because she’s slipping toward the fire, toward the rebels, toward the danger.
But the danger is actually me.
Jesus Christ.
I’m never going to get past this.
All I want is Madison. She made everything good. She was warmth and light and understanding and trust. She was all of it. And I’ll never have her again. Fuck you, Gabe.
It’s a bleak fucking thought, and it makes it even harder to shake the nightmare.
Even after I suck down two bottles of water and have finally settled in bed, I can’t get the taste of ash from my mouth. The ash from the burning bodies. My chest tightens as I try to swallow down the taste of the dead kids. But my stomach doesn’t want any part of it and it lurches rebelliously. I roll to the side and heave onto the floor, retching over and over until there’s nothing left.
But the taste is still there.
The ash and the blood. The bleak hopelessness. And now vomit too.
I wipe my mouth and flip onto my back, my arm across my eyes as I try to breathe, try to settle the shakiness in my legs. Try to push the visions from my head.
I’m so fucking tired of this.
So. Fucking. Tired.
Eyes black as night and full of terror stare at me from behind my eyelids and I open my eyes. I can’t face her anymore. I just can’t. I’m completely wrecked and I’m afraid to face what has wrecked me. I’m afraid to face any of it.
What kind of man am I?
The kind who fucks up everything and can’t face shit.
I pull myself up and stumble out onto the balcony, sucking in the cold mountain air, trying to use it to force my lungs open, to inflate them. I can hear the blood pounding in my ears, rush, rush, rushing through my veins, but not air. There’s no air, because I can’t fucking breathe.
Breathe, motherfucker.
It’s no wonder that I can’t face shit, because I can’t even breathe. I’m a fucking pussy.
Gripping the railing, I stare down at the traffic fifteen floors below. People are driving around, minding their own business, honking, breathing, laughing, going on with their lives, even though mine is falling apart.
Even though across the world, people are dying. They’re bleeding and burning and dying. Life fucking sucks. But no one here knows that.
They have no idea what life is really like.
But I do.