Page 26 of Ashes

I closed my eyes and let out a slow breath. Knowing I’d have that piece of shit Asylum in my presence in just an hour’s time had me on edge. I wasn’t so sure I wouldn’t just kill him and bury his body in a place no one would find him.

I opened my eyes, grabbed my tank top, and walked up the stairs to the main part of the house. Stitches sat staring at a wall in the living room while Ashes worked in the kitchen, the smell of food permeating the air.

“Where’s Sin?” I demanded. I’d been asking where the fuck he was a lot more lately, and that was another thing beginning to piss me off.

“His room,” Stitches said with a grunt from his seat, his jaw slack and his dark eyes fixed on a point above the dark TV.

“I’m making some food. We haven’t been eating lately. We need to eat. We need our strength.” Ashes’s voice was tight as he stirred the pot on the stove.

I nodded, knowing he was too busy to see the action. He was right. We weren’t eating. We were barely living.

“It’ll be done in a few minutes.” He moved to stir the pan on the stove next to the bubbling pot.

I didn’t say it, but I was grateful for Ashes. He always tried to keep it together. I knew it was hard as hell for him though. It was admirable. But falling in love seemed to have affected us in different ways.

“You OK?” I asked, sitting in my chair next to Stitches.

“No,” he answered, not looking away from the wall. “You?”

“No.”

We were both quiet for a moment before he spoke again, his voice low and shaky.

“I want her back, Dante. I can’t fucking exist like this. Knowing she’s stuck in a bed and lost in her mind? Knowing she’s probably fucking terrified? It’s tearing my goddamn heart out, man. I-I can’t—”

“You can, Malachi. I fucking know you can, so get your shit together and do it. We don’t need you losing it right now.We fucking don’t.If you slip, what will that do to us? We’re already losing her. We can’t lose you too,” I said, balling my hands into fists as I stared at him. Anger coursed through me knowing he was suffering so much. I couldn’t stand to see him in the hole again.

He exhaled and nodded as he ran his hands up and down his thighs, his chest heaving.

“Did you take your meds today?”

His body shook as he snapped his attention back to me, his breathing faster.

I knew the answer to that.

I was on my feet in moments and in his bathroom. Within seconds, I had his meds in the palm of my hand and was pushing them into his mouth.

“Swallow,” I commanded, pressing a glass of water to his lips. “You don’t fucking fall, Malachi. Not now.”

He swallowed, water dribbling down his chin. Quickly, I swiped it away with my thumb and kneeled in front of him as Ashes walked to the back of the couch and looked down at me, his brows crinkled with worry.

I reached out and cradled Stitches’s face. “Look at me, Malachi. Fucking breathe with me.”

He sucked in a shuddering breath as his eyes focused on me.

“Again,” I commanded, my hold on his face tight.

He breathed again, his rhythm slowing to match mine.

“What do we do when we feel like we can’t breathe, brother?”

“W-we fucking do it anyway,” he answered in a shaky voice.

“And what do we do when we get lost in the darkness?”

“W-we become the darkness.” He breathed out, the trembling slowing in his body.

“Right. And what do we do when we need help?”

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