by Cara Dee
Ryan must’ve gotten a new fire going. Gray was staring directly into the modest flickers of the flames. Arms hugging his legs to his chest, chin resting on one knee, and that void in his blue eyes… It was fucking devastating.
Not wanting to unsettle him, Darius slowed down a little in his approach and gave him some space when he sat down beside him.
He hoped they’d have privacy for a little while, at least.
There was a half-empty bottle of water within reach, and Darius picked it up and yanked his T-shirt over his head.
“Give me your hands, knucklehead,” he murmured.
Gray turned his head and blinked. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” Darius gently pried the kid’s hands free and gathered them in front of him. “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay?”
“Okay.” Gray stared, the same vacant stare, as Darius washed the dried blood from his hands. “Jonas didn’t make it. I tried to save him, but I failed.”
Fuck no, he couldn’t think that. “You didn’t fail, sweetheart.” Darius dropped everything to cup Gray’s cheeks and make eye contact. “You hear me? He was shot in the neck. There was nothing you could do.”
That seemed to knock a dent in the protective shield Gray’s mind had put up. Some of the void faded and was replaced with uncertainty. Darius needed to be let in.
“You did everything you could.” He leaned in and pressed their foreheads together. “And once again, you acted so fucking selflessly. Bullets were flying, and your focus was on something other than your own safety.”
Gray swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “The worst was when he stopped breathing. Being stuck under the boat with him… I thought I was going to suffocate too. I almost panicked.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t. I probably would’ve.” Darius stroked Gray’s cheeks with his thumbs.
Gray smiled hesitantly. “Um, no, you wouldn’t have.”
Darius smirked. “Whatever. I’m proud of how you acted.”
The pinch of easiness between them was next to fade. Gray’s bottom lip trembled, and he buried his face against Darius’s neck.
“I wanna stop seeing their faces, Darius. Eyes open or closed, I see them all the fucking time. I hear them. Their suffering. I keep seeing Milo…” His voice broke, and Darius reacted on instinct. He wrapped Gray in a tight hug and stroked his hair. “Jonas tried to speak. His voice was… I don’t know, garbled, strained, thin. He told me—” He shuddered and sniffled. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll never forget it. He didn’t wanna die.”
Darius held Gray for a long time, waiting for an actual breakdown. It never came. Some stray tears here and there, and he was definitely upset. But that was it. It didn’t seem like it was enough. After everything they’d all been through, falling apart wasn’t only inevitable, it was necessary.
Several of the boys, many of whom Gray looked after every day, released that pressure valve often. As they should. They had to let things out.
For the next few hours, Darius and Ryan focused on getting the boys settled again and securing a wide perimeter around the campsite. It was hard to remember the others; to Darius, Gray remained his one and only mission. It was Gray who was on Darius’s mind as he set up tripwire and jammed sharp stakes into the ground. It was the emptiness in Gray’s eyes that haunted Darius while he gathered the poisonous fruits of the manchineel tree.
“Darius. We should talk.”
Darius glanced over at Ry and inclined his head, then followed his brother to the beach. The campsite was as safe as it could be for the moment, and if he kept telling himself that, perhaps it would be easier to let Gray out of his sight.
“Niko,” Ryan said. “Time for you to get some rest.”
Had the kid even moved? He stood in the same spot Darius had left him earlier, arms folded, focus trained on the two Mexican men.
The only thing that had changed was the color of the sky. The pitch black was getting paler by the minute.
“I’m okay,” Nikolaj replied, never turning around. “Can I kill them?”
Ryan sighed and approached him. Darius chose to sit down in the sand and put on his tee. He winced as old pains ached and protested, and he rotated his shoulder carefully.
Fuck, he could go for a smoke right about now.
Tonight had been a complete clusterfuck, and his analyzing everything wasn’t making shit easier. He’d missed details, overlooked certain cues. Not only was it unlike him, but it was a bad sign. He’d fucked up somewhere. He got enough food and water; he knew that much. Sleep…? He winced. Then again, he was trained to ace any field for a longer period of time. Five years out of the game couldn’t erase what’d been drilled into his skull.
It took some convincing, but Niko eventually surrendered to Ryan’s no-bullshit command to get some rest. The two brothers were left alone on the beach with the badly beaten Mexicans who were clinging to the cliffs and fighting against exhaustion and blood loss.
As soon as Ryan sat down, Darius spoke.
“When you covered for me on the beach, it didn’t even occur to me that there should be a boat,” he said. “And when I was running upstream to catch him—” he jerked his chin at the cartel bastards “—I saw the boys he’d left behind in the water. I turned them over and didn’t even notice the blood.” Later, when he’d secured the Mexican guy and they’d returned to the kids, Darius had seen the blood everywhere. “I remember thinking, maybe they were just knocked unconscious—because I hadn’t heard a gunshot—and if I just rolled them onto their backs, they could breathe if they were only out of it for the moment.”
Ryan hummed, studying him from the corner of his eye. “You ’fraid you’ve lost your touch or something? Bro, you see priorities. You’ve always done that.”
“No, I deal with priorities,” Darius corrected. “That doesn’t mean I’m blind to everything else.”
“To a degree, sure.” Ryan wasn’t giving up his argument that easily. “You’re more observant than most, but even you have limits. Hell—just think about it. There’s never one gun on a family, is there? No, you get assigned to protect one person, or you cover one route. It’s for a reason. You can’t cover every blind spot when you’re tryin’a protect a dozen kids.”
“Ten.”
“Huh?”
Darius cleared his throat and glanced at the cartel motherfuckers. “Only ten left.”
Ryan sighed and dipped his chin.
No use in saying anything else. Darius had gotten the message, and he knew his brother was right. Ryan knew that too.
That didn’t mean it was easy to accept.
Darius was no martyr, nor did he have unrealistic expectations; everything that was happening around them could be blamed on criminals, and the Quinns were doing their best. But… He gnashed his teeth and combed his fingers through a handful of sand. It still sucked. It sucked that a few hours of sleep and other minor shortcomings could change the fate of a young man’s life.
If Darius had been more alert earlier. If they hadn’t been stretched so thin… Maybe they would’ve been better prepared. Maybe they would’ve thought to set up a more elaborate security system. Maybe Jonas and the other two would’ve lived.
That’s a lot of maybes, superhero.
Darius exhaled heavily and scrubbed at his face.
“There’s no boat,” Ryan said eventually. “Four guys came in on two Jet Skis.” When Darius lifted his head, Ryan gestured toward the cliff. “Two were on Niko—he’s a fighter, by the way. I don’t know his past, but you don’t pick up those skills just anywhere.”
Darius nodded pensively, having seen Niko in action before. “He was one of the cage fighters on the yacht.” The kid had not only seen too much pain, he’d been forced to inflict it.
“Goddamn.” Ryan made a face. “Anyway, he almost had ’em. I got one, the other ran into the jungle.” He nodded at the water where one of the dead guys was. “You shot—no, you got the other one, right?”
“Aye.”
All ri
ght. Four guys. Jet Skis… Darius scratched his jaw, thinking. “You don’t travel very far on Jet Skis in the dark. Should we relocate?”
Camouflage and stealth were right up Ryan’s alley.
“Tomorrow. We’d make more of a ruckus if we left now. Tomorrow, we can make the trek through the jungle and find a new spot.”
“We should bury the boys.” Darius had only lifted Casper and Mike out of the stream earlier. They were still there, and the others shouldn’t see them. Which—fuck. “What did you do with Jonas’s body?” See? More fucking questions he should’ve had sooner.
“I wrapped him in a blanket and hid him half a klick inland.”
Okay. They’d deal with them tomorrow, then.
As he looked over his shoulder, the need to check in on Gray grew stronger in Darius. He’d found a new sleeping spot for Gray, one by a tree trunk he could take cover behind if needed. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t safe enough.
“You wanna sleep the first shift?” Ryan asked.
He did, yet he shook his head. “You go. I’ve got another few hours in me.”
“You don’t. Neither of us does.” Ryan stood up and handed over his weapon. “I’m dead on my feet though, and I’m no interrogator. No one wants me exhausted around those two in the morning.” He jerked his chin at the Mexicans.
Too true. Ryan handled things…swiftly. Which was ironic, seeing as snipers sometimes had to wait for days in a hole before their target was within shooting range.
“I’ll do the talking, don’t worry about it.” Darius rested his arms on his knees and sent his brother off with a two-finger wave.
Halfway to the camp, Ryan turned and looked thoughtfully at Darius. “Merry Christmas, big brother.”
Shit. Shit. They were supposed to be home by now. “Don’t tell the boys,” Darius urged quietly. He closed his eyes briefly as a memory washed over him.
“If he’s alive, he’ll be home by Christmas, ma’am.”
“I know you can’t promise anything, but…” Gray’s mother sniffled and wiped her cheeks. “Thank you, Mr. Quinn. You’ve restored some hope in me.”
“Fuck,” Darius whispered to himself.
“I won’t mention it.” With that, Ryan offered a sober nod and went to get some rest.
Guilt, anger, impatience, and restlessness rolled through Darius much like the predawn waves crashed into the cliffs. Slowly beating the rocks, slowly shaping them.
“Gray, wait up. Where are we going? I need to catch some sleep before we—”
“It’s not far. Just to the waterfall.” Gray retreated a few steps and grabbed Darius’s arm. “Hurry.”
“No, wait.” That was all it took to kick-start Darius’s sleep-deprived brain.
“We have to go,” Gray urged. He hiked the bundle of…whatever it was he’d tucked into a blanket…under his arm and used his free hand to drag Darius along. “I’m gonna flip my shit if I stay at that camp another minute—or I’ll go down to the beach and murder the murderers, your call.” Yeah, the kid was still pissed because they hadn’t killed the last two men. “We need this.” His gaze turned pleading, those gray-blue peepers sparkling with anguish and frustration. “Please?”
Darius had already surrendered. He was still staring into Gray’s eyes too. They weren’t vacant today. They were…almost captivating in a way. Expressive as fuck and deep.
“All right…” He coughed and tore his eyes away in an attempt to gather his wits. Waterfall. Okay. They could go there, but there were still a couple obstacles. One, he’d secured the area with stakes and arrows last night, so he ushered Gray to a safer path. Two, they couldn’t go up the stream. “This way, then.”
“Thank you.” Gray breathed a sigh of relief. “I brought food. You can sleep at the waterfall, right?”
“Sure.” Darius had stopped thinking about sleep. An hour or two away from everything actually sounded better than sleep, almost like it would help more than crashing in his own bed back home. “Wait—” Jesus Christ, his mind was still too slow for his liking. “I gotta tell Ryan.”
“I already did that,” Gray exclaimed with half a smile. “He and Nikolaj are watching the killers. Cole is helping the others. And Tai and Charlie are still asleep, so this is the perfect time.”
Darius narrowed his eyes, though he started walking again. Something was up with Gray. Escaping from the campsite made sense. It was probably the last place Gray wanted to see on this island right now. But was he escaping more than that? Blocking shit in his brain, avoiding grief and pain, would bring everything back tenfold eventually.
On the other hand, now was a good time to ignore that. Now, everything was about survival. Coping by any means necessary. That included postponing mourning and whatnot. It was essentially what they’d helped the boys do since they’d left the yacht. Just…hold on till we get home. Distractions, projects, tasks, chores, anything to occupy their minds.
“Knucklehead…this was a genius idea.” Darius sucked in a breath and dunked his head underwater again. Fuck, it was good. Cold but not uncomfortably so. Clean, fresh. The water washed away sweat, grime, and dried blood.
Gray was satisfied with a dip and a wash. Darius stayed in a while longer, enjoying the chill of the water and the morning heat of the sun. Its rays reflected in the crystal-clear water, sending sparks dancing across the surface all the way over to the white rush of the waterfall.
“You should eat,” Gray said, getting into a new pair of boxers. Or his only pair, was more correct. The kid was kinda smart. He wore sweats or underwear, never both at the same time. He did laundry.
It was sweet. Even in a place where laws didn’t exist, where minds collapsed under crippling pain, and where paradise was anything but enjoyable, Gray cleaned his clothes because that’s what you did. Social constructs still existed. For most of them anyway. Darius and Ryan had been in the field long enough that they let go of some shit.
Their mother had called them pigs more than once after coming home from assignments and deployments.
Darius took a swallow of the water and smirked softly.
The contentment continued to wash over him. For one much-needed moment, he could let go of the stress, the responsibilities that—when he was honest with himself—didn’t mean as much as this young man did, and he…did his own sort of postponing. The interrogation of the Mexicans would come later. They’d be back on the beach, back to checking the horizon. Just…not right now.
“Hey…” Gray scrunched his nose at the sunlight, perched on a flat boulder next to the food he’d set up. “If I’m gonna be your housewife, you better put out.”
Darius chuckled, more relieved that Gray was feeling good enough to make jokes than anything else. And then he swam over to the edge of the water and climbed out.
Gray averted his gaze this time too, something Darius was noticing more now. Gray didn’t strike him as modest for shit, yet this did it. It was funny.
“Here. They were washed yesterday.” Gray extended a black pair of underwear. “Fil and I found aloe the other day. It actually works. Did you know? You break it off and scrub it over clothes and stuff.”
Darius nodded and stepped into the boxer briefs. “You can use it as soap too.”
“Oh.” Gray squinted. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He tapped the blanket with a finger. “Sit. Eat before you sleep.”
Well, Darius wasn’t gonna say no to another meal of grilled fish, clams, leeks, and papaya. Because if he did, there wouldn’t be a whole lot else to eat. They’d scoured the jungle, and sure, there were some berries here and there. Coconuts too, though they could only eat those when they fell to the ground. So far, there’d been one.
Darius looked at the spread Gray had prepared on a torn piece of a plastic bag, and he couldn’t help but notice the extra mile Gray to went for him. It wasn’t just for the younger boys and those Gray was protective of. It was for Darius too. Putting more effort into the food and—
“I can help you change your
bandages before you sleep,” Gray mentioned. “I brought some.”
There was that too. Darius nodded once, then pinched a piece of fish and put it into his mouth. “I’ll change yours too.”
“Okay.” Gray’s mouth twisted up, the smile almost reaching his eyes. “It feels good to be away for a bit.”
“It does,” Darius murmured. He watched his knucklehead, and he wanted to take away every hurt, every loss. “How’re you feeling today?”
“I dunno.” He shrugged with one shoulder and ate a piece of papaya. “I don’t think I wanna poke at that box right now. The lock isn’t very strong.”
Darius knew all too well what he meant. “Sometimes it’s better to savor the numb moments.”
Gray nodded and looked down. “Yeah…but isn’t it selfish? Jonas deserved better.”
“Gray, we’re not dancing on his grave.” Darius tried to reason with him as gently as possible. “We’re all trying to survive. If shutting off certain emotions helps, there’s nothing wrong with that.” No matter how bitter those words tasted. “We can deal with those later.”
Gray chewed on the inside of his cheek, hesitating. “We?”
Fuck yes, he’d used that term on purpose. “We,” he confirmed. “Unlike what you seem intent on believing, you’re not just a payment from your stepdad.”
Gray’s expression was comical. His eyes went large, and the string of words running through his head didn’t need to be spoken. Darius could see them clearly. “Me?” Gray responded incredulously. “You were the one who—!” And that’s when he realized Darius was kidding. “Bastard!” he exclaimed as Darius laughed.
Sometime later, they’d eaten, changed each other’s bandages, and found a secluded spot to rest. It was right by the beach, on the other side of the stream from the campsite. A small, sloped patch of sand that gave them a view of the ocean as well as shelter by the jungle on three sides. After fanning out the blanket, Darius lay down on his back and put his gun next to his hip.
“Can anyone see us here?” Gray gave the ocean an anxious glance and sat back on his heels.