Page 19 of Into the Light

“Ember, stop.” I pushed away from her, and even that movement killed me. “Thank you for the camera. You need to go. Santiago is downstairs in the back waiting for you.”

She balked. “You—You called him?”

“Yes.”

“Why? I am not a fucking child that needs to be walked home. You could have done it.” She threw her hands in the air. “See, Rain, this is the fucking problem I have with you. It’s a fucking headache being here. Aside from Marissa, I have no friends. The entirety of this campus hates me, so I can’t even take solace in the library like I used to. I have a bodyguard my dead ex-boyfriend hired, and . . . you know what? Forget I said anything.” She was pissed. She reached down, grabbed her backpack, and fumbled with the straps as she yelled at me. “I’ll just see you in class.”

Something was bothering her. Something more than what she was letting on. “Ember, I didn’t mean—”

“No, you made it pretty fucking clear.” She headed out to the door. “For the record, it’s not like I’m here trying to hit on you or anything, so don’t make this fucking weird. I’m just trying to figure out what happened to Ash, and fuck if I thought we were friends at one point, that maybe you’d like to team up together.”

“Please wait.” I tried, but she only held up a hand for me and glided down the stairs with her sunglasses on her head. I looked out the window, which overlooked the back of the house, and shrouded in the darkness, Santiago offered her a shoulder as she walked with him back toward her house.

“Fuck,” I screamed, banging my hands against the door. This wasn’t how this was all supposed to go down.

Chapter eight

“I’m mad at you,” I said mid-bite of my cheese pizza as Santiago and I sat on a curb at the edge of town. Behind us was the pizza place. It was run-down and open until midnight for all the after-bar-hours crowd, but the pizza was greasy and hit the spot. He insisted I needed something to eat, and we walked all the way to the edge of Isles without another word between each other. I didn’t argue because I was starving.

“You left without telling me. When I heard from Rain, what was I supposed to do?” I took another bite and refused to look over at him, knowing full well I was acting like a child throwing a tantrum.

Santiago was a good-looking man in his thirties with thick brown hair, similar curls to Ash, and the same tanned skin most of the guys in the Den had. He wasn’t married, a former military man, and honestly, in the last year, we’d gotten along well. I respected him, so not telling him where I was going when he was simply looking out for my safety was a crappy move.

“Plus, when I heard you were at the Den on a Saturday night, I thought it was just too early for you to be there without some protection.” I had to agree with him there.

“We don’t like Rain.” I looked over at him, and he laughed.

“Oh really? We don’t?” The corners of his lips twisted into a small smirk.Asshole.

I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s an asshole,” I said while grabbing another slice from the box.

“He only cares about you, Ember.”

“Nope.”

“Ember, I know what happened to you was terrible. I know what happened afterward; words cannot even describe how you must feel. But before you came here, you were doing good in moving forward in your life.”

I crossed my arms over my chest as he kept talking. “I lost a lot of men in Iraq when I was in the Special Forces. A lot of men that I knew personally. When I got back stateside, I was supposed to just imagine that life was better.” I shoved the slice into my mouth. I needed to keep my hands busy and refocus my thoughts to avoid choking up. “But life wasn’t easy. All I could dream and think about was the booms, the screams as people fell to their deaths, the stench that proceeded afterward. I thought I’d never move on, but I realized that doesn’t mean that you need to be constantly sad and mad.”

“What does it mean, then?” I asked, putting the slice of pizza down and hugging my knees while I looked at Santiago, who offered a small rub on my back.

“It’s about acknowledging what happened, making peace with his death . . .with your death, and making the most of living before you meet them in the afterlife.” I started to cry again. I’d probably beat the record of how many times I’d cried in one day if the night continued.

“What if I can’t seem to find a way to make peace with it out here?”

“Then you need to do whatever it takes, Ember,” Santiago continued, his voice carrying the weight of his own experiences. “It might not be easy, and you might never get all the answers you seek, but it’s essential for your own healing and peace of mind.”

I wanted to know what happened to him and to clear my name, but I also wanted to know that my brother had nothing to do with his . . . passing.

“I’ll try.” We sat in silence while Santiago picked up a piece of pizza.

“And for God’s sake, forgive Rain, because he hasn’t made peace with Ash’s death either,” he said as he shoved the slice into his mouth. “He’s a good man, Ember.”

“He never checked in on me . . . at all. He’s the only person who knows what all of this feels like, and didn’t bother to check in on me.” Shoulders slumping, the pain seeped back into me. I felt second-string to everyone else and wanted to feel . . . supported. I wanted someone to tell me my trauma was normal and my reactions were fine. Going through something really fucking heavy alone sucked. He wasn’t there.

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