I grab the flashlight and follow Silas outside. As we bolt out into the brisk air, I try not to get my hopes up that it’s Jake on that motorcycle, because it’s more likely to be Joseph. The most I can hope for is maybe a letter or a note from Jake, or even just a simple message that Joseph will pass on to me.
The motorcycle sounds much closer now as we run toward the driveway gate. By the time we get there, I can hear it pulling up right outside and see the bright glow from its headlight above the height of the gate. I wait at the right side of the gate while shining the flashlight at the keypad as Silas quickly enters the code into the panel, and the gate starts to roll sideways.
At first I’m blinded by the headlight, but my eyes quickly adjust to find Jake in control of the motorcycle. My shock at seeing him is quickly outweighed by terror as I realize his hands and shirt are red with blood. My terror doubles as he accelerates forward the moment the gate opens wide enough, and I see Joseph sitting on the motorcycle behind him, his face twisted in pain, his shirt and arms covered in even more blood than Jake’s.
“He’s been shot,” Jake yells as he brings the motorcycle to a stop and cuts the engine.
I run to him at the same time Silas rushes over and immediately starts helping Joseph. He pulls him back from Jake just enough for me to shine the flashlight down between them to find the wound low on Joseph’s abdomen toward his hip.
Silas puts pressure against it with his hand and demands, “What the hell happened?”
“Militia,” Joseph responds in a pained voice. “Not local. From up north. They took the farm.”
“What about the others?”
Joseph shakes his head. “We barely made it out alive.”
“We didn’t think you’d be here,” Jake interjects as he sets the motorcycle on its kickstand and stands up from it. “You didn’t answer the radio.”
“We just got back,” Silas responds, his expression faltering as he comes to the same realization that’s occurring to me. “We missed the gunfire and your call.”
Just the thought of Jake being at the receiving end of a militia’s siege causes me to look him over from head to toe for injuries as I ask desperately, “Are you hurt?”
He glances down his bloodied shirt, then looks up at me and whispers, “It’s not my blood.”
My heart races as I look to Joseph with concern. I’m terrified he might be dying right before our eyes.
“He insisted we take the longer route to get here,” Jake explains as he looks at Joseph with similar worry. “He didn’t want to lead the militia this way.”
“I need to get him inside and see what’s going on.” Silas puts an arm around Joseph’s back and then looks at Jake. “Can you get him on the other side?”
Jake doesn’t hesitate, quickly stepping in to help support Joseph, as Silas eases him off the back of the motorcycle. Together Silas and Jake keep Joseph steady as they move him carefully in a direct line toward the front door.
“Ash, I need you to get the medical bag in the closet upstairs. Get some clean sheets and take them all to the dining room.”
Running as fast as my feet will take me, I bolt across the yard and into the darkened house, the frantic beam of the flashlight guiding me as I rush up and down the stairs until I have the items Silas has requested. By the time I reach the dining room and turn on the overhead light, Silas and Jake are already maneuvering Joseph through the front door.
I throw out a clean white sheet across the wooden table just in time for Silas and Jake to help Joseph up onto it. Silas’ hand never leaves Joseph’s wound, even as he’s carefully supporting his back to lower him into a flat position on the table.
The scene before me is frighteningly familiar, my mind flashing back to when Jake was the one being worked on after I shot him in the back of his shoulder. I don’t remember this much blood with Jake’s wounds, though. Everything in front of me right now seems covered in Joseph’s blood.
Silas remains completely focused on his task, only speaking when he needs help with something or needs Joseph to give him information about how he’s feeling. Within minutes, he has the bleeding under control and has an IV set up pumping antibiotics into Joseph’s veins. Within a half hour he’s done the most he can with the resources he has, enough to be reasonably confident that there’s no internal bleeding. Within an hour he has Joseph bandaged and resting comfortably on the bed in the guest bedroom receiving a transfusion of Jake’s donated blood.
When it’s all finally over, I sit quietly with Silas in the blood-stained dining room, still trying to fully wrap my head around what just happened and what’s still to come. He’s been clear with all of us, including Joseph before he fell asleep, that without more medical equipment, he can’t guarantee there’s no internal bleeding and no damage at all to his intestines. Even with antibiotics, there’s still risk of infection.
No matter how hard we try to save him, he could still die right here in this house.
There’s a distant look on Silas’ face, allowing me rare, but perfectly clear access into his thoughts. He’s worried about Joseph. He’s thinking about every second of treatment he has just provided and wondering what else he could have done and what he could have done better. He’s blaming himself for pushing his friend away, accusing him of being a knowing accomplice in all the horrible things that were done to me. He’s devastated that we weren’t home in time to hear the gunfire in the distance or the distress call over the radio.
I can’t let him wallow in doubt and regret over this, because he still needs to bring his A-game now and in the coming hours and days. He has a patient to monitor and a defense strategy to solidify.
“Hey,” I whisper as I lean close to him, brushing my lips against his cheek.
He turns to me, the distant look on his face instantly transforming into his signature indifferent expression, a sure sign that his emotional wall is back up and keeping me at bay.
“He’s going to be okay,” I reassure him. “You did a great job.” I grab his hands between mine but am distracted when I see there’s still some blood staining his skin. He must see it, too, because he immediately withdraws his hands from me.
“I should go check on him,” he responds automatically. “The transfusion should be done soon.”
I know he’s using these reasons as excuses to walk away from talking about what he’s feeling. He’s just lucky they’re valid excuses, or I might force him to stay here and let me give him some comfort for a change.
We get up from the dining room chairs and walk together down the hall toward the guest bedroom. As I’m getting closer to the room, it occurs to me that Silas isn’t the only one who will need comfort after this ordeal. I’ll have to make sure that Jake is okay, and when Joseph is more physically recovered, I’ll have a chat with him, too.
If there’s one good thing that’s come out of this evening, it’s that it seems any leftover tensions from the last time the four of us were together in this house have been put on indefinite hold since the moment Jake and Joseph showed up on the motorcycle. Maybe this trauma will bring us all together and mend the wounds in our relationships.
Or maybe they’ve already mended. Maybe they’ve been mending in these few months since we last saw Jake and Joseph.
We step into the dimly lit room to find Joseph still asleep on the bed with the IV line and the thin tube of Jake’s donated blood still inserted into the crook of his elbow. Jake is sitting on the chair next to the bed just as we left him, but his upper body shakes slightly and he’s leaning down over Joseph with his lips pressed gently against his forehead. His eyes are tightly shut, and tears are streaking down his cheeks. He’s whispering something to him now, but I can’t make out any of the words.
“Jake,” I say cautiously, afraid to interrupt him, but also desperate to understand what’s going on.
He bows his head for a moment before discreetly wiping away his tears. “I can’t hide this anymore. Not here. Not with him like this.” He gl
ances up at Joseph’s peaceful face, but seems to struggle and has to look away.
I quickly move to Jake’s side, kneeling in front of him and taking his hands in mine. “You can tell me.”
Fear and worry lace every feature on his face as he looks at me and says, “Joseph and I are together.” His brow furrows as he says this, his expression twisting in frustration. “Or at least we should be together, but I’ve been resisting it. I’ve tried so hard to put these feelings aside, but I can’t anymore.” He glances at Joseph again, smiling this time despite the sadness in his eyes. “I just want him to live so we can finally be together like we should be.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I plead with him. “You know I would have supported you no matter what.”
“You’ve had a lot on your plate for a long time,” he responds.
I can’t help the look of surprise on my face as I realize what a horrible sister I am not to have realized that my brother is gay. “How long have you known—”
“Since high school,” he interrupts, “but I didn’t act on it until college.”
The guilt weighs down on me even more. If I hadn’t been so focused on myself and pursuing music in high school and college, I might have recognized my brother’s struggle with this. I should have realized there was a valid reason why he was miserable in high school and then suddenly thriving in college.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I ask through the thickness in my throat.
He nods. “I was going to come out to you and Mom and Dad when we all met at the coastal house after finals.”
My heart breaks for my brother for shouldering this burden on his own for all this time. It shatters even more at the thought that our parents never knew this important part of their son. They left this world without saying goodbye to their children and without knowing who Jake really was.
I try and fail to hold back my tears as Jake similarly crumbles before me, and all I can do is throw my arms around him and pull him against me.
“Mom and Dad would have been so proud of you,” I whisper over his shoulder.
He inhales a shaky breath. “They would have finally gotten off of my back about finding a girlfriend.”
A half-laugh, half-sob escapes me and I smile, grateful for this moment of levity as I pull back from Jake and search his face carefully. He appears more relaxed now, surely a direct side effect of the relief he’s feeling at finally being open about who he really is and how he wants to live his life.
“I understand now,” he suddenly says to me. “Those inexplicable feelings you have. The desire to be with someone despite what they’ve done to you and the people you love. I understand all of it. I shouldn’t love Joseph given what he did to take me away from you and to help Silas keep you here, but there’s no one in this world I’d rather be with than him. Even during those first days on the road when he took me to Rochester and then on to Ohio, we shared a mutual connection. We both knew something was there, but we didn’t talk about it or act on it until that night he stayed with me after I was shot.”
He looks between me and Silas who has remained completely still and silent just a few steps inside the door behind me before he continues.
“This whole time I’ve been dealing with my own struggle by taking out my frustrations and worries on the two of you. When I called out your connection and relationship as being wrong, it helped me justify why I shouldn’t be with Joseph, but I’m the one who was wrong. I shouldn’t have said the things I did. I shouldn’t have resisted my feelings for Joseph, because now I may never get to fully act on them.”
He pushes his chair back and stands up from it, focusing his attention on Silas.
“I’ll never approve of the methods you used to get us here, but I forgive you for what you did.” He extends his hand out toward him. “I just want you and my sister to be happy together.”
Silas slowly steps forward and accepts Jake’s hand. “I’ve been doing everything I can to make it up to her,” he says quietly, “and now I need to start doing the same for you.” Their hands release as they both turn their attention to Joseph fast asleep on the bed. “I’m going to do everything I can to save him. I want you and Joseph to find your happiness, too.”
Jake’s lips turn up in a subdued smile and then he finds my gaze again. I return his smile with my own and give him a brief nod to let him know just how relieved I am after what has just happened.
I quickly get out of the way to let Silas check on Joseph and do what’s necessary to remove the transfusion line connecting the hanging bag of Jake’s donated blood to Joseph’s elbow. As Silas continues his work, he encourages me to get some fluids and sustenance into Jake to help him recover from the blood loss.
Jake and I sit quietly at the island in the candlelit kitchen as he finishes the last bite of a large protein bar and begins to down his second glass of water. When I see the folded gauze pad taped to his elbow as he drinks from the glass, I can’t help smiling and laughing to myself.
He immediately stops drinking and looks at me in confusion. “What is it?”
I beam a smile toward him. “It makes sense now why you insisted on being the one to donate the blood for the transfusion, even though we’re both compatible with Joseph’s blood type. You wanted to give the gift of life to the man you love.”
He can’t suppress the grin that flashes across his face and tries to hide it by gradually downing the rest of the water.
By the time he sets the empty glass on the island counter in front of us, I hear Silas’ footsteps approaching from down the hall. When he walks in, Jake’s immediately standing and walking toward the doorway.
“How is he?” he asks desperately.
“He’s stable. Vitals are good. No signs of infection.”
The tension visibly releases from Jake’s shoulders as he hears this. “Can I stay with him?”
“Let him rest, but you can stay with him. I’ll be in every hour to check on him and keep his IV going.”
Jake nods and gives me a brief appreciative smile before he disappears through the doorway into the dining room to go be with Joseph.
Silas stops to wash his hands at the sink before he joins me on a barstool at the kitchen island. He rests his elbows forward on the counter and runs his hands through his dark hair briefly, exhaustion written all over his face in the light from the candle nearby.
“You should rest,” I suggest as I wrap my arm around his back. “You have some time before you need to check him again. I’ll wake you up in an hour.”
He shakes his head. “I’ll be fine.”
I lean my head against his shoulder and rub his back lightly while we both remain quiet for a few minutes, completely lost in our thoughts and worries.
“Did you already know Joseph was gay?” I finally work up the courage to ask, wondering whether I’m the only one to be completely in the dark on this.
Silas nods in confirmation, then adds, “I had my suspicions about Jake. I could see the connection between him and Joseph from the first day they met.”
My jaw drops slightly, my mouth agape. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this? You’ve known this whole time…” My words drift off to silence as my mind focuses on the thoughts now racing through it, sorting out the final pieces of the puzzle Silas had created from the very beginning. “Did you encourage this? Did you set them up to fall for each other?”
“There was no coercion,” Silas insists. “They developed these feelings for each other all on their own. I just happened to be the one who brought them together.”
“But you knew it would be beneficial for our relationship if they were together,” I think out loud. “You were secretly hoping for this outcome.”
He draws in a deep breath and looks at me, unafraid to hold my gaze. “You already know I’d do anything to help secure your love and loyalty.”
I don’t know whether to be mad at him for keeping this from me or grateful that he brought Joseph and Jake together, but it doe
sn’t matter either way. The four of us are here now. My brother found love where he didn’t expect it. I found love amidst the darkness. Everything we have left in this world is right here on this property, and despite all the battles we’ve already faced, there are still many more to come.
“When Joseph recovers,” I say optimistically as if it might help my words become reality, “they’ll have to stay with us.”
Silas nods in agreement. “This is the safest place for them to live.”
“Are we safe?” I ask with unavoidable doubt in my tone.
The hopeful and confident response I’m expecting never comes. My question is answered with terrifying silence instead.
35
I glance out the windshield of the truck as Silas drives us down the dirt road from the house. Jake’s in the back seat of the cab behind Silas, and out of the corner of my eye, I see him constantly checking out of the back window. He’s clearly still convinced that Joseph’s coming along, lying down on the bed of the truck was a bad idea, but Joseph insisted on being here for this.
My head immediately turns to the open passenger-side window at the distant sound of yet another explosion, even though I know I can’t see anything other than the steep climb of the hillside. I try not to gauge the explosion’s strength or actual distance, because it’s likely either larger or closer than I’d prefer to think about.
When we finally reach the intersection with the first of the few dirt roads that separate us from the main roads, Silas drives down through it to turn the truck around. He doesn’t bring us to a stop until we’re well back up the hill from the intersection, but still within view of it.
Silas is the first to exit the truck. He’s either full of confidence in what he’s about to do or avoiding thoughts of doubt by rushing to get it over with. As I catch Jake’s worried glance from the back seat, I pray that the former case is true and that Silas is right about this plan, because there’s no easy way to go back from this. If it backfires, we’ll be in an even worse position than before.
Falling Ash Page 31