Page 26 of After All The Wreckage
SUNCHOKE
Performed by Aly & AJ
Layers of emotionswere captured in that singular plea Gage sent drifting down the hallway. I was exhausted. Mentally. Emotionally. Physically. What I needed was another stiff drink and a full night in a real bed. But it was the last thing I was going to get tonight.
I had no intention of letting Gage walk out the door without helping him find Monte—the little cherub boy I remembered with his bright red curls and freckles. There was no way I’d let Gage lose his brother after everything else he’d already lost. He’d given up everything to take care of his family. When Shay had told me how he’d adopted his half sister after Demi had left town, I’d admired the way he’d stepped up to the plate for her. He’d been a twenty-four-year-old kid raising other kids.
In my life, I’d rarely seen anyone act with such selfless nobility. I wasn’t going to let one more thing damage this manwho already had more than his fair share of permanent scars. Wounds that remained after the wreckage that not one, but two parents had left behind. They sliced at me as much as him. All of those losses and aches belonged to me too. I understood them in a way not many people could.
But I also had to get the truth from him, and he was holding back. It stung. Not only because my twelve-year-old self had wanted Gage to be able to tell her everything, but because twenty-two-year-old me still felt the barbs from her father and Muloney. It was as if Gage’s silence was threaded with the doubts of those other men.
“Please,” he begged again, and I barely stopped myself from running to wrap him in my arms.
Instead, I crossed them over my chest and met his gaze with one I hoped showed only strength and determination as I said, “Tell me the truth.”
He pushed his palms up against his eyes for the second time, and my heart twisted, falling to the pit of my stomach as I realized he was trying not to cry. I broke. I couldn’t resist. I moved on silent feet until I was standing in front of him, reaching out to barely graze his arm.
When he dropped his hands, the pain swirling in his stormy eyes stole my breath.
“I only left out the pieces you wouldn’t believe,” he said quietly.
It tore at me all over. “When have I ever not believed you?”
He scoured my face as if searching for the truth. Looking for an answer I couldn’t fully give because I didn’t know what he was going to say. And yet the moment felt enormous. As if everything in my world might change with whatever came out of his mouth, and it caused the first spark of panic to rear somewhere at the back of my brain. A neon sign warning me to back the truck up before it was too late.
His jaw flexed and his lips tightened as he fought some internal debate that raised the tension in me. Finally, he exhaled, saying, “Monte gets… visions.”
Surprise had me taking a step back as I tried to process his words. “Visions?”
He rolled his eyes up to the ceiling as if he thought I was already doubting him, when really, I was trying to make sure I’d heard him right.
“He sees bad things before they’re going to happen. The train derailment outside Philly two years ago? For six weeks before it happened, that’s all he could see. When he slept. While he was awake. He lost ten pounds he couldn’t afford to lose. He knew enough to know the car was going to derail in Pennsylvania. Knew it was a passenger car, but we didn’t know a date or a time or what route. The closer it got to the event, the harder it was for him to think of anything else. I tried to tell Amtrak, but they laughed me out of their offices. When I got angry, they called security. When I sent a follow-up email, they filed a restraining order. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. After the derailment happened, the FBI showed up at our door. They searched the bar and the house as if I’d planted the bomb myself.”
My eyes narrowed as I finally caught on to what he was saying. He was trying to tell me his brother saw the future. The shock of it hit me in waves.
My doubts must have shown because he brushed past me toward the door, anger and frustration radiating from him. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me! This is why I don’t mention it to anyone. Never mind. Forget I said anything. I’ll find Monte on my own.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you.”
“It’s written all over your face.” He waved a hand at me.
I swallowed because Iwasstruggling to believe even though IknewGage wasn’t lying.
“You wanted the truth, Rory, and here it is. Monte is missing because he saw a vision of Congressman Dunn being shot and felt propelled to warn the man. The nightmare was driving him crazy, and it will only get worse the closer it gets to the actual event. So he went because he had to do something even though no one ever listens to us. And now he’s disappeared, and that scares the hell out of me. Somewhere between texting me yesterday afternoon and this morning, he vanished. Unlike my brother, I don’t have thegiftof vision to help me find him.”
He whirled around, ripping open the door so hard it slammed against the doorstop before bouncing halfway shut again.
“Gage!” I called after him.
But he didn’t stop. By the time I got to the edge of the sidewalk, he was already in the Pathfinder, flipping a U-turn, and heading back toward town. The taillights blinked as he disappeared around the corner—an ominous omen.
But I didn’t believe in omens any more than I did ESP or hocus-pocus or visions. Just like I didn’t believe in fairy tales and happily ever afters.
Crap!
I set the house alarm, pulled my laptop from my bag, and took it with me to the kitchen table. Gage’s untouched drink sat there. I tossed it back. I hadn’t had anything to eat since… the half-eaten omelet Nan had made this morning. Where was Nan? I scrambled to the refrigerator and the notepad where we scrawled our schedules for each other.
Gardening club. It was late for the gardening club to still be meeting, but at least she hadn’t witnessed the showdown between Gage and me.
