by Lynn Kelling
Call him anyway.
Again, Luka shrugged off the bizarre inclination.
The stomachache had come on suddenly. A few minutes earlier, Brennan had been feeling absolutely fine. He’d been laughing and in a great mood, excited they’d have the house to themselves for some uninterrupted quality time. Then, out of nowhere, something had come over him. His good mood died and he kept insisting something was wrong. Part of Luka was secretly disappointed this new development might put a damper on their evening, ruining a night he’d been looking forward to also, but if Brennan was sick, helping him feel better was the most important thing.
As Brennan groaned, growing quickly paler, he argued, “We ate the same things for dinner, though. And lunch.” Unsure what to do—whether to raid the mostly barren medicine cabinet or offer to run to the drug store—Luka fleetingly marveled at how Brennan made him want to act with maturity and responsibility when all of his life Luka had been anything but. All he wanted was to stay by Brennan’s side, doing whatever he could to bring the smile back to his face and help him feel better. Before, with Luka’s previous love interests, he always mentally signed off whenever one of them felt unwell. It never felt like it was his problem to fix. Usually, he was only there for sex anyway, so if sex was off the table, he was out the door. It made him cringe to remember such awful behavior. If he could help it, he’d never go back to being that kind of person.
When Brennan shifted to lie back on the couch, Luka saw his ailing boyfriend’s face more clearly. He was way too pale, his eyes losing focus, pain lacing his expression. Something was definitely wrong. Luka’s whole body went tense as if readying for a fight and his thoughts whirled, searching for an idea, an answer.
What do I do?
Fuck, what do I do?
That’s when Luka’s cell phone started to ring.
“Look, it’s not really a good time, Aleksy, something’s—” Luka said tensely.
“Listen!” Alek snapped. “Evan’s hurt. He was mugged. He was….”
Bile rose in Alek’s throat as he got a better look at Evan’s pallor once he was lifted into the ambulance and the overhead fluorescent lights shined down upon him.
Alek climbed in beside the EMTs, and stared dumbly at the broken form of his lover.
“Alek!! Alek, talk to me damn it!” Luka screamed, Alek’s fear feeding his.
“He’s been stabbed. And beaten. And he’s,” Alek said in a hollow voice, “I think he’s dying.”
There was a choked noise, then Luka gruffly asked, “He was stabbed in the stomach, right?”
“How did you—” Alek started to ask.
But Luka cut him off with, “—What hospital? Mercy Gen?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you let anything happen to him. You hear me, Aleksy?”
Alek’s throat closed up. Hot tears squeezed from his eyes. More scared than he’d ever been in his life, he ended the call and leaned in closer to Evan, listening to the beeping of the monitors attached to him as the ambulance raced down the street.
Luka’s faith that everything would be okay stemmed mainly from the pure, sheer miracle he was even able to get Brennan in one piece over to the hospital. He almost had to deck Brennan just to get him to relinquish the driver’s seat of the truck and settle for hyperventilating and losing his fucking mind in the passenger seat instead. The sudden stomach ache was gone, like the terror created by what they’d heard Alek say about Evan chewed up the pain, digested it and used it as fuel to make itself stronger.
“He’s gonna be fine! He’s tougher than this! You know that. Have faith in him. Bren. Brennan! Wait!”
Luka hadn’t even come to a stop and was still rolling up to the emergency entrance of the building when Brennan threw open the passenger-side door and darted from the vehicle, running as fast as he could into the hospital.
Luka pulled over to the curb, clicked on his hazards and bolted after Brennan.
Brennan hadn’t said a word, not one word since the phone call. His reaction had been purely emotional and physical—his mouth a tight line, his skin nearly bloodless and gray, his blue eyes huge and scared. But he wasn’t lacking for energy as he flew into the waiting area where Alek was standing. Alek caught and held on to him as Luka sprinted to join them.
“Hey. Hey!” Alek shouted, trying to get Brennan’s attention. “Calm down. Listen. Listen! You wanna know what’s going on, right? He’s being prepped for surgery. They say he has a few broken ribs, a broken nose and other minor injuries. They’re worried about internal damage, but, from the looks of it, the blade doesn’t seem to have punctured any major internal organs; it’s mainly blood loss and patching him back together. They think.”
Huffing and puffing, Luka caught up, clutching his side and cursing. “Yeah, now you can run. Fuck.”
Brennan set his jaw and stared angrily at Alek.
“I’m not letting you go,” Alek warned. “We need to let the doctors help him now.”
Somehow this only enraged Brennan more. He almost was able to surge free of Alek’s grasp, but then from one of the side rooms, Evan was wheeled out into the hall. Evan’s face was colored with blackish-purple bruises blooming across his cheekbones and he had two nasty black eyes. His face was swollen and misshapen, but, as Luka watched, he saw Brennan recognize his twin immediately.
“Evan,” Brennan sobbed weakly. Alek let him go.
Brennan raced to the gurney, remembering their mother, Maggie, on her own gurneys, in her own hospital emergency rooms. Once he’d found out what was going on with his phantom stomach pain, he quickly realized he couldn’t feel Evan anymore. More and more every day, the connection between them had strengthened until Brennan had begun to rely on that sixth sense for comfort. Somehow, being abruptly unable to sense Evan’s presence or his pain scared Brennan more than anything else. Evan was connected to tubes, just like their mother was near the end. The worst injury was temporarily hidden beneath a sheet, but Brennan knew the worst injuries were the ones you couldn’t see.
“Sir, we need to take him to surgery,” one of the nurses said.
“I know, just….” I might never see him again. This might be the last time I ever see him alive. Oh God. All of his blood rushed downward, leaving him lightheaded. His vision narrowed until all he could see was his brother. The moment seemed to magnify, making every word, every thought, every gesture seem that much more important. “Evan? Can you hear me?” Please hear me.
Brennan touched Evan’s hand and searched his face. Evan’s eyelids fluttered and Brennan couldn’t tell if it was a response or not. “I’m right here,” he told his brother. “I’ll be waiting right here until you wake up. I love you. They’ll fix this. It’s gonna be okay.”
His voice broke on the last word, feeling like it was maybe the worst lie he’d ever told. Then they were taking Evan away, rolling him steadily farther from Brennan and toward the bank of elevators.
Shivering, Brennan watched until they got to the bend in the hallway. There were strong arms looped around him, and it was a good thing, because as soon as he couldn’t see Evan’s gurney anymore, Brennan’s legs gave out. Darkness spread across his vision, thickening like congealing blood.
From far away, muffled and fading fast, he heard, “Bren? Brennan! Hey! I need help! Someone help us! Please!” Strong arms lifted him up as awareness was ripped from him with cold finality.
Chapter 2
Aftermath
Luka liked being busy, and useful. This was especially true when shit had hit the fan; everyone around him was in crisis mode, and he anxiously craved some kind of helpful action. Sure, for a while there, the most useful thing it seemed he could do was to sign off and take off in order to simplify things for everyone. But when it came to Alek—and now Brennan or, it seemed, Evan—it was a whole other story. The same inclination toward being useful had also defined him when he and Alek were little and things had been bad at home. Because Alek had always felt more like a part of Luka than a
separate, distinct entity, there had been no choice in the matter. If Alek hurt, Luka hurt. If the thing making Alek hurt was something Alek couldn’t fix, then Luka fixed it. He would take what was needed, do what had to be done and not think about it much at all. It was survival. It was instinct. They were essentially on their own, just the two of them, and in their world, they set the rules.
Out of the pair of them, Alek was the thinker. He’d puzzle out how to get their collective asses out of whatever problem they were faced with. Luka, on the other hand, was the doer. He simply did whatever seemed to be the best thing to do at the time, whether that turned out to be a good decision or a bad one. At least he was active, useful, and this maintained his sanity. Typically, Alek was the one giving Luka the orders, telling him to take care of this or look into that. It was how they’d always worked. Most people didn’t understand why or how the Popovic twins were so close. But, when you started out as identical twins, with all of the innate connections that implied, and grew up in an atmosphere of emotional and physical isolation—without the love and affection of others to draw you away from your twin and out into the world where different kinds of meaningful connections could and should be made—before you knew it, anything was possible. Luka had no expectations of Alek, and vice versa. They simply were. They belonged to each other and there was no formality between them. They would always be there for one another, with one another, no matter what. It wasn’t even a question anymore, but a given. Maybe they had grown up too fast and had held on too tightly to each other, but they couldn’t change who they were.
But, for once, Alek wasn’t the one giving Luka direction. Luka was completely on his own.
Alek was there somewhere, pacing the halls of Mercy General Hospital, focused on his phone and texting back and forth with Brennan, who, at the moment, was the only one permitted to be with Evan. Immediate family only, no visitors, according to the doctors and nurses in charge of Evan’s care. Brennan had been at Evan’s side since he was brought out of surgery. He was there when Evan was in the recovery area, and he was there now, in Evan’s room on the fourth floor, just down the hall from where Luka had been sitting in the waiting room for the past uncertain amount of hours. Luka keenly felt Alek’s emotional chaos, and, therefore, it was Luka’s unspoken job to be the strong one, the functional and stable one, for a while. He had to carry them both until Alek was reassured Evan would be okay.
Luka was not entirely sure of where Alek was. He’d been moving from floor to floor, down to the cafeteria, up to maternity, wandering pretty much everywhere. When it got too hard to be on Evan’s floor and not able to get closer to him, Alek sought other distractions.
Luka missed the comfort of Alek’s presence as well as his advice. Since Evan had been attacked, solitude in the small, sterile waiting room had only brought Luka greater heartache—for Alek, for Brennan, and, most of all, for Evan. Luka couldn’t quite accept what had happened and why the world would be so unfair. Evan was only trying to do the right thing.
There was a plastic bag filled with food and drinks by Luka’s left leg. Whenever Alek did stop by the waiting room, he brought sustenance for Brennan and Luka. Not that they’d partaken of any of it. Each time Brennan was able to bring himself to leave Evan’s side for a few moments, he came bursting into the waiting room without warning. Luka would jump to his feet, expecting there to be news or an emergency, but so far Brennan’s visits had just been to report there was no change in Evan’s condition. Evan was being kept under sedation for the time being, while they assessed his internal injuries, so they didn’t expect him to be awake yet. As long as his blood pressure and heart rate didn’t drop, they were able to hope he was beginning to heal.
Luka had been trying to hand off some of the food from the bag, or at least a soda, figuring Brennan could use the caffeine. But, Brennan never took any of it. After falling into Luka’s arms for comfort, and fleeting reassurance, he’d leave again, rushing back to Evan. Luka wanted to go with him so desperately it hurt. The need to see Evan with his own eyes was something Luka couldn’t explain, but only felt.
The only thing Brennan would talk about was Evan, and only to Luka, Alek, or the nurses. Nothing else existed for him. He couldn’t bring himself to speak of what had happened to anyone outside their little circle, either. Explaining the details of their present horror was beyond him.
That was why Luka had appointed himself phone duty. There were people who needed to know what was going on and no one else to call them but him. Clutching the phone numbers scrawled in Brennan’s looped, slanted handwriting, Luka tried to think of what to say to Evan and Brennan’s father and sole living parent, Charlie Savage. Jimmy Bennett, Evan’s best friend and pseudo-guardian also needed to be notified. He debated who to call first.
Luckily or unluckily for him, his phone rang before he could decide. Seeing the caller ID, Luka sighed and answered with a simple, “Yeah.”
“Where the hell is Alek?” Carter blurted, sounding furious. “He was supposed to give me a ride to the city today, and he said he was gonna be here but he never even fuckin’ came home last night and now he ain’t even pickin’ up the damn phone!”
“Oh. There’s been an accident,” Luka heard himself saying in a calm, emotionless voice, like he was floating above himself and wasn’t connected at all. “We’re both at the hospital. He must’ve forgotten, Carter. Sorry.”
In the kitchen of their house across town, Carter went very pale. The suddenness of the fight draining out of him scared Presley, who was standing nearby, to the bone.
“What happened?” Presley asked, before Carter could say the words himself.
“What kind of accident?” Carter put Luka on speaker on his cell, then Presley could hear him, too.
“It’s Evan. Some guy was jumped out back of Alek’s bar. Evan went to break it up or help the guy, I guess. He was, um, stabbed? They beat on him until Meryl showed up with his sawed-off. Evan’s out of surgery now, but he’s sedated and hasn’t regained consciousness yet. He hasn’t been awake at all since last night, before it happened. He’s got a lot of… head injuries. His nose is broken, three ribs are fractured and I think his teeth went through his lip. The oral surgeon said he’s got some loose teeth. They’re giving him blood transfusions. The blade almost opened his large intestine but didn’t. Could’ve died of septic shock. He’s lucky.”
“Yeah, really lucky,” Carter said vacantly. Presley watched Carter, knowing the look on his face and that he was already thinking about finding the guys that did this, and planning to get in touch with Meryl.
Carter asked, “And Alek?”
Luka admitted, “Alek’s not too good right now. He won’t even talk to me about it. He’s around here, somewhere, waiting to see Evan. I don’t think he’s coming home until he does, even if it’s days.”
Luka wondered in a detached way why everything he said sounded like a question and why his voice was so soft and tranquil. It felt, though, like if he spoke any more forcefully, it would break the ephemeral spell holding his fragile, shattered world together with only faint wisps of hope. If he let himself be upset, he might tumble into a dark place that’d be too hard to come back from.
It had never been this bad before. In all of their youthful recklessness, it was never this dire. Alek never had cause to wonder if Luka would live through the night. Maybe this would put him over the edge. Maybe Alek’s unnaturally desperate need to safeguard those who loved him would be his downfall should Evan take a turn for the worse. To Luka, it was more than Evan—and by extension, Brennan—on the line. He could lose Alek, too. He could lose everything.
“And Brennan?”
“Brennan… is, uh… holding it together, I guess.”
“What can we do? What happened to the assholes that did this?”
Luka tried to remember. “We heard Meryl and his buddies ran ‘em down and brought ‘em in to the station with some ‘mysterious’ injuries no one could explain. My guess is the bikers be
at the piss out of those punks before dragging them to the authorities, but now the cops are questioning Meryl and all. I’ll talk to you more later, okay? I need to call some people.”
“Luka, man, how do we help you? Just name it.”
“I don’t know. Well, I think Evan’s car and Alek’s truck are still over there if you guys can get ‘em back?”
“No problem. We’re on it. If there’s anything else, you let us know.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“And Luka? Tell Brennan and Alek to hang in there, all right?”
“Yeah.”
Luka hung up, cleared his throat and dialed the first number while he knew he was still able to talk.
It was picked up on the fifth ring, right before the panic about what to say on a voicemail message could strangle him senseless. “Oh thank god,” he sighed as Charlie answered with a hello.
“Yes, Mr. Savage? My name is Luka Popovic and I’m currently dating your son. Er, Brennan. I’m not sure if you were already contacted by the hospital or not, but I’m afraid I have some bad news. It’s Evan.”
The whole story tumbled from Luka’s lips. He left out the nature of Evan’s relationship with Alek, but included everything else. There wasn’t a word or sound from the other end of the line the whole time he was talking and Luka worried they’d been cut off due to a bad connection, but plowed on anyway. Once he’d finished, with Charlie caught up to the present and everything Luka knew about Evan’s condition, Luka paused. Then, he asked, “Sir? You still there?”
“I’m here. Just gimme a minute,” the older man said in a strained, gruff, gravelly voice.
“Brennan would have called you himself, but he’s fairly upset right now so he asked me to tell you instead. I’m sure he’ll want to speak with you once things have settled down and he’s feeling more like himself.”
“Tell him I’m coming, will you? I’ll see what I can do, the soonest I can get down there. What do you need? Insurance information? Medical history? Anything?”