Page 89 of Into the Light

“Why?” I bit back while Walsh rubbed his hands together in his lap over and over again.

“Because he begged me to,” Walsh said after waiting a beat to reply.

“No.” I threw my hands in the air. “Absolutely fucking not.”

“Ember,” Rain warned as I slipped out of his grip and stormed toward my brother.

“You do not fucking get to give us these evasive answers like you’ve been doing over the last year, Walsh,” I screamed in his face. “You need to tell us what happened immediately, without leaving out a single shred of information in order to redeem yourself.”

He sighed and then looked down at me. For a brief second, all the torment and the months of pain and waiting surfaced on his face. He looked tired from holding onto this weight of secrecy for so long.

“He came to me a few weeks before you guys broke up. He set up a private, formal meeting and wanted to give me this envelope. We looked at it together. You can imagine how it must’ve felt to get this information about my enemy and mostly my dad’s archnemesis.” Walsh looked up at Rain.

“Yeah, why did he do that?” Rain chimed.

“I had the same question, but then Ash told me that he was originally supposed to use Ember to get closer to our family. I was livid, but he convinced me that he was in love with her. He wanted to protect her and was worried something was going to happen to him.” Walsh swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“I assumed it was from the Cartel initially, which I guess was fucking stupid, but he was acting so calm, so he handed me the envelope of this shit that would put away his dad forever and honestly, get the fucker killed.” He paused. “Then he told me he was going to be possibly leaving for a while and needed to make sure that neither of you guys had this information until you got your letters.”

“Did you ask him about the letters?” I asked.

Walsh shrugged. “I did and he said he was going to deliver them to you while he was gone. I didn’t press him any further.”

Walsh’s hands were stark white from grabbing the sides of the table. “Over the time when you broke up with him Ember, he started to get more frantic and concerned that I was going to show you this. I promised I’d wait like I told him I would until the right time, until he got back.”

I wanted to melt into the floor. My heart was shattering all over again thinking of the trauma and pain that Ash must’ve felt in that moment. “The night before the bonfire, I was worried about him. I heard from him earlier that morning. He told me he was going to leave that afternoon. He made me promise that until you guys gave me these letters that gave him permission I wouldn’t share this with you. He made me.” He took in a deep breath. “I was worried, so I followed him that day.”

“He was running,” Rain said, and I looked over to him standing in the back of the room closer to the door. I didn’t hear him walk backward, too lost in my own pain, but I crossed the room and grabbed his fingers, interlacing mine with his. Our sign that we were in this together.

“He was escaping,” my brother corrected. “I followed him to the woods. At first, I wanted to scare him a little bit because he was technically off-campus.” Walsh winced. He added softly, “I am sorry.”

I shook my head. “What happened next?”

I thought I was just scaring him, but then I realized he wasn’t leaving the woods. He was hiding, so I sat quietly waiting to see what he was going to do. I wanted to be sure he got back to campus safely. My heart was beating out of my chest and I can’t explain it but I just had a bad feeling about it all.”

Walsh closed his eyes. “After a few moments I watched him walk to the edge of that damn clearing. When I realized . . .” This was hurting him. I closed my eyes, willing myself out of this nightmare, but I was in the room with the one person who saw Ash before he died.

“You were there,” I repeated.

“I was. I was worried about him, but when I saw him standing on the edge, I called his name. I screamed no. I told him to stop. He stopped to look back at me.” A tear ran down Walsh’s face. Rain coughed, and I saw he was crying too.

“I begged him to step away from the clearing. I took a few steps closer toward the rock when he yelled at me, telling me that everyone would be looking in the area. That I would trek the mud onto the rock and they would think I pushed him because of how close we were to the bonfire.”

“W-Walsh.” Rain held me in his arms, my back pressed against his chest as he sobbed. I couldn’t look up because if I did, the dam would explode within me, too.

“He looked so peaceful, Ember. He looked so at peace with this choice, which only made it harder. After he yelled at me to stand where I was, back in the mud of the path, he begged me to show you this, but not until you found your letters.” He paused. “I begged him to tell me why we needed to wait, and he just said the answers were in the letters. You guys needed time to find your way to each other before you were ready.”

Walsh swallowed back his own pain. “I screamed no again but then just watched as he…tumbled.” A lone tear ran down my brother’s cheek.

“That asshole” Rain said through tears, his chest heaving. “We may have never found them, then what?”

Walsh shrugged. “I wouldn’t have shown you this. I guess life would have looked like it had.” My brother glanced back toward me. “Ember, don’t you think it was hard for me to keep all of this from you? You are my only sister, but over the time that I got to know Ash, I realized his intentions for you were built from the love he had for you. He was protecting you, and in some wild way, I thought that by complying with his asinine instructions, this would bring us closure.”

His voice quieted. “Dad told me you were grieving hard.”

“I was. I still am.” My voice matched his soft tone.

“Ash loved you. He spoke of you so deeply and fondly. He knew that you were going to be the one to help push this all together. I just wanted to protect my sister. You’re my only sister, and I spent my entire life protecting you, so I wanted to give this to you.”

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