by Ariel Tachna
“Everything is as ready as we can make it. Get inside.”
Seth waved to show he’d heard and headed back to the house. Before he could get to the shelter of the veranda, the heavens opened, soaking him to the skin in seconds. The wind whipping around him turned cold as he ducked onto the veranda out of the rain. He left his boots in the mudroom and stripped off his wet clothes. Rain pounded on the roof over his head and gooseflesh puckered his skin as he walked through to the bedroom to dry off and get dressed again.
He toweled off, the friction warming his skin. He was tempted to take a hot shower, but he didn’t want to be away from his phone that long if Jason called or texted. He pulled on dry clothes and went back to rescue his cell phone from the sopping mess he’d left on the mudroom floor. Days like this made him glad he’d invested in a waterproof case for it. He checked the phone, but Jason hadn’t called or texted. When he looked more closely, he realized the phone didn’t have service. “Bloody hell,” he cursed. “Jason, you better be somewhere safe.”
He moved to the door in the lee of the house and cracked it open so he could peer outside. Normally he could see most of the buildings on the station from that vantage point, but the torrential rain and the unnatural early darkness from the clouds made it impossible to see anything beyond the edge of the veranda. Shit, Jason had better have found a drover’s hut to hole up in because no one could drive in this weather. He’d run off the road and get stuck or run off the edge of a cliff and get killed.
He couldn’t think that way. Jason was a responsible, rational adult. He wouldn’t take stupid chances just to get home a little sooner. As soon as the storm started, he would’ve found a place to take shelter and wait it out. Worst-case scenario, he’d simply stop where he was and ride out the storm in his car. It wasn’t ideal, but the chances of someone else coming upon the stopped vehicle and causing an accident on the station roads in this kind of weather were negligible. Jason was fine. The drover’s huts were all stocked with firewood and provisions. He could start a fire, wrap up in a blanket, and eat tinned soup for dinner.
Thunder clapped overhead, making Seth jump. The power flickered for a moment, then came back on. Seth frowned. The house had to have candles in it somewhere. They all stocked them because power outages were a fact of life out here. He just didn’t know where they were. He shut the door, making sure it latched tightly, and went into the kitchen to search for candles or a torch. He should have made a point of finding them when they first moved in, but the weather had been so clear that he hadn’t thought about it. He’d pay for it now if the power went off and he was stuck in the dark.
He found a long taper and several squat nubs in the back of a drawer, along with a lighter. The power flickered again, taking longer to come back on this time. Seth went ahead and lit the candles. It wouldn’t be long before the power went out for good. He got two of them lit before the room went black again.
The flare of the candles tossed odd shadows on the wall, making Seth wish he were anywhere other than alone in his house. Even if he’d had to sit around in wet or borrowed clothes, having company would have been better than being alone in the eerie light of the candles, listening to the rain pound on his roof, and worrying about Jason. It wasn’t worth getting soaked again, though. The storm would pass, and he could go find Chris or someone else when it did. He wasn’t a baby. He could deal with an hour or two alone in his own house, even with the power out.
He shivered in the cool air. It was the middle of the summer. He shouldn’t be cold, but that was beside the point. He walked into the living room and laid a fire in the fireplace. He lit it using the candle and held his hands up to the flames, refusing to acknowledge how badly they were shaking.
A particularly loud crash of thunder made him jump so much he dropped the candle. He cursed as he grabbed it and stamped on the wooden floor to make sure it hadn’t caught on fire. He didn’t see any sign that it had, not even a scorch mark, but it was hard to see anything in the inky darkness. Jason was out in this weather somewhere, either in a drover’s hut—shelter, but not as sturdy as the house—or stuck in his car.
The thought chilled him to the bone despite the warmth from the fire. He set the candle on the mantel and paced restlessly around the room. Jason was an adult. More than that, he’d grown up in the tablelands. He didn’t need anyone to tell him how bad a storm was going to get. Seth would bet Jason’s weather sense was as good as Macklin’s. He would have realized the storm was getting bad and headed for the nearest drover’s hut. He would even have known where it was. He had a lifetime of familiarity with Lang Downs. He was fine.
He checked his cell phone again, not that he expected there to be any change since the last time he had looked, but he had to see for himself that he hadn’t missed a text or a call.
No Service.
He resisted the urge to throw the phone across the room. Damaging it wouldn’t change the situation and would make it that much harder for Jason to reach him when he could. Jason’s fine, he told himself. He hasn’t called because he doesn’t have service either. Or he’s called and there’s a message waiting for you as soon as your phone is working again.
Yes, that was it. Jason had found shelter and left a message and was waiting out the storm. All Seth had to do was hold it together until his cell service came back on and everything would be fine. Jason might not come home until tomorrow since the roads would be a bloody mess with this much rain, but he would call or text and Seth would be able to relax.
Lightning struck somewhere nearby, bright enough to be visible around the cracks in the shutters. He shuddered as the thunder made the whole house rattle. God, he hated storms like this. He could deal with it if Jason was here beside him, keeping him calm. He could even deal with it if he knew Jason was somewhere safe, still on Davidson Springs or even in a drover’s hut between here and there. It was the uncertainty that was killing him.
Something crashed toward the back of the house. He nearly jumped out of his skin. Adrenaline made his fingertips tingle as he reached for the candle to go investigate. If something had broken one of the shutters, he had to fix the hole before the downpour flooded the house.
He checked the bedroom first but couldn’t find the cause of the noise, so he went into the bathroom to check the window there. As small as it was, he doubted that was the source, but better to check. The shutters were closed over the window still, but the candlelight caught his razor where he hadn’t put it away after he’d used it that morning. His fingers tingled again as another shot of adrenaline swamped him.
He didn’t need to cut himself. It was just a storm. It would pass and Jason would call and everything would be fine. He could leave it sitting right there on the counter and walk back into the living room to wait. Or he could go into the bedroom and lie down, surrounded by Jason’s scent and the lingering muskiness of sex. He could close his eyes and imagine their reunion and forget about everything else until Jason got home.
He picked up the razor to put it away, but he couldn’t make himself reach for the drawer. Now that the razor was in his hand, the temptation to soothe his troubled thoughts with the one thing he could control grew almost irresistible.
He couldn’t do it in the dark. It was hard enough to control when he had adequate light and nothing to startle him. As jumpy as he was with all the thunder, he’d probably hit an artery if he tried to cut himself now.
“No,” he said as he wrenched the drawer open and tossed the razor inside. “I told Jason I wouldn’t cut anymore. I’m not going to break that promise now.”
He jerked back out of the bathroom and went to the living room to put more wood on the fire. He wasn’t cold anymore—his skin burned now with nerves and fear—but it gave him something productive to do. He couldn’t cut—he’d promised—so he’d control the fire instead.
He built the fire up to a blaze, but the heat rolling out of the grate pushed him back to the other side of the room. He cursed under his breath. Tha
t wasn’t what he’d hoped to achieve. He gripped his thighs hard, digging his fingers into the muscle. He didn’t need to panic. The fire would burn down, the storm would pass, Jason would call or text, and in the morning he’d come home. Everything was under control, even if it didn’t feel like it.
The lure of the razor beckoned, but he ignored its siren call. He’d promised Jason. Once, maybe he could have hidden the marks left behind, but they knew each other’s bodies too well now. If he cut himself, Jason would see it, and he’d ask about it. Cuts on his hands from working on the engines got fussed over but accepted. Jason had grown up with a mechanic. He knew how that worked. A nick on his cheek or his jaw where his hand slipped and he caught himself shaving would earn him a look for being distracted and hurting himself, but again, it happened. A slice anywhere on his body because he’d lost control of himself and gone for his razor would earn him a look of such disappointment it would break his heart. Jason would forgive him because that was the kind of man he was, but how many times would he be able to let it go before it became too much and he decided Seth wasn’t worth it?
No, Seth couldn’t cut himself. Losing Jason would destroy him. He couldn’t do something he already knew would hasten that process.
He didn’t realize he was moving until he stood in the bathroom doorway again. The candlelight reflected off the mirror, casting his face in shadows. He stared at his reflection because it was safer than looking at the sink with its drawers and his razor inside. His hair stuck up in tufts where he’d dried it with the towel and not bothered combing it. His skin looked sallow in the strange light, so unnaturally pale that his eyes stood out like bruises against his skin, dark and wild in his panic. He held his own gaze in the mirror and made himself breathe slowly, in and out, in and out.
Jason had made him breathe that way the first time they’d had sex, when he’d been sure he’d come the second he got inside Jason’s hot, tight body.
The irreverent thought startled a laugh out of him, but it only increased the ache in his chest. Jason wasn’t there. He hadn’t called or texted. He could be anywhere now, lying in a ditch hurt or dead, trapped in his car if he’d lost control.
Seth swallowed hard and reached for the drawer with trembling hands. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t stay here with his worries and temptation incarnate. He made sure the razor was closed, stuffed it in his pocket, and went back to the mudroom. His boots were still wet, but he forced his feet into them anyway. He pulled on his drizabone and turned up the collar so it would protect his neck. He jammed his hat on his head and hunkered down against the rain. Chris and Jesse’s house was only two minutes down the road.
The wind and rain stung his cheeks and soaked his dungarees below the hem of his coat, but he ducked his head into the wind and pushed toward his goal. He couldn’t break his promise to Jason. He had to get help because he couldn’t do it on his own.
He stumbled onto their veranda and fell against the door. He managed to get the handle to turn so he could get inside out of the weather. He stripped off his drizabone, boots, and hat.
Chris heard him and came into the mudroom. “Seth? What’s wrong?”
Seth pulled the razor out of his pocket and pressed it into Chris’s hands. “Take it. I promised Jason I wouldn’t cut anymore, but I can’t do it. Take it. I don’t want to break my promise.”
“Okay,” Chris said. He tucked the razor in his pocket and pulled Seth into his arms. “You don’t have to do it by yourself. I’ve got you now. It’s going to be okay.”
“How?” Seth asked brokenly. “Jason hasn’t called or texted. He’s out there somewhere in this storm. He could be dead for all I know. I just found him. How can it possibly be okay if I lose him now?”
“You aren’t going to lose him,” Chris said. Chris had always been the one to soothe his hurts and fears. Even when their mum was still alive, Seth had always taken his scraped knees to Chris. Then Tony came along and had solidified their brotherly bond forever. Seth supposed he ought to be grateful to his bastard of a stepfather for helping him create an unbreakable bond with his brother. “He’s safe in a drover’s hut, and he’ll call as soon as the storm passes. You just have to hold on until then.”
“I don’t know how,” Seth said through the tears that dampened his cheeks along with the rain. He gestured toward Chris’s pocket. “That’s all I’ve ever had.”
Chris hugged him tighter. “Come on. Standing here won’t fix anything. Come in the kitchen. I can’t make you tea, but we can keep you company.”
Seth followed obediently and took his seat at the kitchen table. Jesse came in a second later. “Hi, Seth. I didn’t expect to see you until the storm passed.”
Seth didn’t even look up.
“He’s half soaked. Could you get us a blanket?” Chris asked.
Jesse came back a minute later with a thick blanket that Chris wrapped around Seth’s shoulders.
“Is he okay?” Jesse asked. Seth wanted to shout no, but he couldn’t get his body to cooperate. He just sat there shivering and crying.
“I don’t think so. I hate to ask with the storm still so bad, but….” Chris said.
“I’ll go get Thorne and Ian,” Jesse said. “Don’t let him go anywhere until I get back.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” Chris replied. “He’s going to stay right here where he belongs until Jason gets back.”
Twenty-Two
THORNE SHOOK out his drizabone and took off his boots when they got inside out of the rain. Jesse hadn’t said much, just that Chris and Seth needed them, but Thorne had survived hell—he wouldn’t let a little thing like a summer storm keep him from helping his friends. He’d told Ian he could stay behind if he wanted. Ian had laughed in his face. Thorne glanced over to where Ian was removing his rain gear as well. God, he loved that man.
Jesse led them into the kitchen, where Chris and Seth sat at the table. Seth had his head buried in his arms and a blanket wrapped around his back, but Thorne could see the minute shivers that racked his whole body. Chris had his arm around Seth’s shoulders. He gave Thorne a look of such desperation that Thorne’s heart broke for them. “What happened?”
“I don’t really know,” Chris said. “He came tearing in here in this weather with wild eyes and shaking hands and all but threw his razor at me. He’s been like this pretty much ever since.”
“He cuts?” Ian asked.
Chris nodded. “I didn’t know until a few weeks ago. I swear I didn’t or I’d have found a way to help him a long time ago. He promised Jason he wouldn’t do it anymore, but Jason left Davidson Springs before the storm started and hasn’t checked in since, and, well….”
Thorne could imagine the rest. He had lived with the kind of panic that came from not knowing the status of a loved one, and he had lived with the loss of his entire family and the survivor’s guilt that came with it. He gestured for Ian to take the seat next to Seth while he sat down across from him. “Seth?”
Seth didn’t look up, but the tremors eased a bit.
“I can guess what you’re thinking right now,” Thorne went on. “You’re sitting there imagining the worst because Jason hasn’t checked in. You’re thinking he’s hurt or dead out there in this weather with no one to watch him. You’re thinking he’s scared as well as hurt because he doesn’t know if anyone is coming for him. And you’re thinking that if the worst happens, you’ll never forgive yourself for not going looking for him or not stopping him from going to Davidson Springs in the first place.”
Seth’s shoulders tightened as he tried to muffle his sobs. Thorne hated adding to Seth’s turmoil, but he had to get it out in the open.
“You’re thinking you’ve failed him somehow, that because you aren’t omniscient and omnipotent, you’re worthless, and he shouldn’t love you because you’ll never do anything but make him miserable.” Ian reached for Thorne’s hand and squeezed it softly. Chris and Jesse looked horrified, but Thorne couldn’t stop. He had to get Seth to ad
mit to the poison inside him or they’d never get it out.
“Or else you’re thinking he changed his mind about you and instead of heading home when he left Davidson Springs, he went to Cowra or somewhere beyond to get away from you.”
“No!” Seth sat up at that and glared viciously at Thorne. “No, he wouldn’t do that. Even if he decided to end things, he wouldn’t do it that way. He’d come home and tell me. He wouldn’t be that cruel.”
“Good,” Thorne said. “You still have some sense of reality in there. You’re doing better than I was. Now you just have to get rid of the rest of the shit in your head.”
“I’ve tried,” Seth said, “but the only thing that works is the one thing I promised Jason I wouldn’t do anymore.”
“It pretty much sucks when life takes away your only coping mechanism,” Ian agreed. “I wish I could tell you learning new ones is easy. I can tell you that you don’t have to do it alone.”
“Ian’s right,” Thorne said at Seth’s skeptical look. “Yes, ultimately the choice to cut or to do something else instead is yours and no one can make it for you, but you have people who care about you and want to help you. And you know that or you wouldn’t have come to Chris when you reached the point of not being able to cope anymore. If you’d truly believed you were alone, you would have used that razor instead of tossing it away, promise or no promise.”
“Believing you’re alone is the hardest part to get past,” Ian said. “Fifteen years on this station—this station, Seth, with everything that entails and all the amazing people who would do anything for each other—and it took Thorne to make me see I hadn’t been alone since the day I arrived here.”
“And you know all the year-rounders on Lang Downs stayed because they landed here when they had nowhere else to go,” Thorne added. “Caine’s uncle took some people in. Caine has taken in others. But the fact remains that no one who came and stayed had it easy before they got here. It might have been Michael’s or Caine’s decision to offer them a job and a home, but it’s the decision of everyone who stays to help the people who come after us. That includes you.”