by Amy Lane
Every light inside was blazing, and to the far right of the house, back against the tree line, sat a small outbuilding, without a single light and no appearance of life. The house—a small, square, plain affair, probably two bedrooms, one bath, a living room, and a kitchen—was lit up in every window, and ominous crashes and raised voices carried through the windows of the SUV.
“Please, Larx,” Aaron said one more time.
Larx grimaced. “Unless I see something,” he promised.
Aaron nodded. “That’s fair. Stay safe.” He paused and smiled faintly before opening his door. “Take care of what’s mine.”
And like that, Larx couldn’t hold his authoritarianism against him. “Backatcha.”
Aaron strode across the snowy yard like nothing could hurt him and he had every right to be there. Larx had to believe in him, right?
Aaron paused at the front door at the moment, then spoke into the radio clipped to his collar. He waited a moment before looking up. Larx saw the red lights flashing across the snowscape and turned in time to see Eamon Mills, Aaron’s boss, sheriff of Colton County, drive up. Aaron waited for Eamon to get out and Kevlar up before knocking on the door.
Larx’s heartbeat roared in his ears for a moment as he realized they suspected the absolute worst in that house.
The door closed behind Aaron, and Larx was stuck watching the shadows ghost over the windows, wondering who was inside.
When he heard voices coming from his pocket, he almost screamed.
“No!” Jaime whispered harshly. “Don’t go out. Larx! Tell us what’s happening, or she’s gonna bolt!”
“Tell her to stay put,” Larx ordered. “Deputy George is in there now.” He watched with relief as Eamon walked through the door, Kevlar on, hand on his weapon.
The next voice was muffled and hysterical. “He’s crazy! He’ll kill them!”
“Stay put!” Larx barked, his hand on the door handle. “Stay put. He doesn’t know where you are. Don’t make yourselves vulnerabl—”
The shot broke the front windshield, and Aaron’s headrest exploded.
Larx spilled out of the SUV, crouching on the ground in the snow, the house at his back and obscured as several shots more split the air.
“Larx!” Jaime cried, and Larx tried desperately to reassure him, looking across the yard at the small shed and hoping—God, hoping—he was doing the right thing.
He was not surprised when the door opened and he saw a figure—warmly dressed, thank God, in a heavy snow parka and boots—burst from the shed and go running into the woods. Larx tried to think, since he couldn’t see in the dark, and his heart fell when he realized she wasn’t going toward the small nest of houses on this little road, but rather back into the woods.
“She’s gone!” Jaime wailed, and Larx snarled, “Lay low, Jaime—get on the ground, under the cot—she’s got gear and you don’t!”
His voice sounded abnormally loud in his own ears, and that’s when he realized the shots had stopped. Keeping low to the ground, grateful for his own snow parka and comfortable, warm fleece-lined boots, he found the worn path between the house and the shed and made his way as quickly as he could, wary of the slippery packed snow underneath his tread.
He got about halfway across the yard when he heard his name and turned.
Sheriff Eamon Mills was in his sixties, African American, with a low, deep voice and a head full of silver to vouch for an eventful, well-lived life. Larx had never seen him look worried—until now.
“Larx—he’s hit. He’s down. Shooter is secured, ambulance is coming, but boy, he’s asking for you.”
Larx’s brain fogged out for a moment.
He was still standing there, blinking, when Eamon said it again. “Larx, he’s got his vest on, but he needs you.”
Larx nodded and started back toward the house, his entire body cold. Jaime’s whimper through his pocket brought him back to earth with a thump.
“The girl ran off,” he said. They need you calm. They need you calm. They need you calm. “Jaime’s under the bed—is Berto—?”
“He’s fine.”
“He’s fine,” Larx told his pocket. “Jaime, Berto’s fine.”
Jaime’s hysterical sobs told them both that the boy was not okay, even if his brother was.
“I’ll have an officer get him,” Eamon said, patting Larx’s back and pulling him into the room. “We’ve got about two minutes before there’s more help here than we know what to do with.”
Larx grunted and looked inside.
And tried not to throw up.
In the corner of the room, a man lay handcuffed—and dead, judging by the blood pool underneath him. Mr. Furman, the evil stepfather—probably—but Larx didn’t care. Aaron sprawled in the far corner from him, slumped with his back against the wall, his legs out, eyes closed. A picture of the ocean in a shattered frame sat next to him, and he had an emerging goose egg on his forehead, with a tiny trickle of blood, but his Kevlar was squashed against his stomach, flattened, and he was having trouble breathing.
Larx fell to his knees next to him as Eamon squatted next to the slightly built young man in the corner of the room who was rocking himself back and forth and whimpering.
“Eamon, he’s… he’s under treatment for PTSD,” Larx said, waiting until Eamon looked at him and nodded.
That’s all Larx needed before turning back to Aaron.
“Jesus,” he muttered, stroking Aaron’s cheek with his knuckle. “That was not how this night was supposed to go.”
Aaron grimaced. “Does this mean… the wedding’s… off?”
“You need to propose to me first, asshole!” Larx snapped, furious—and even more so when Aaron grinned weakly.
“See? Now you’re pissed, right? Not—” He caught his breath, and Larx knew enough about Kevlar to know he had cracked ribs, possibly some internal bleeding, and maybe even a punctured lung. “Not thinking I’m dead.”
Larx squeezed his hand. “If you were dead, I really would be pissed,” he said, fighting for his own breath. “If you were dead, I’d be… I’d be….” He started to shake, angry all over again, because he hadn’t even been shot and this felt like going into shock and he wasn’t going to do that when Aaron needed him. “I have to tell your kid you got shot, goddammit. I have to do that. You had better be fucking okay.”
Aaron nodded soberly. “You’ll take good care of him till I’m home. Trust you.”
“Your dog will never forgive me.” The sob surprised him. He wasn’t that guy—not the guy who cried in a crisis. But this hurt—his chest was on fire, and he was a deep breath away from vomiting fear and grief all over the ground. He took the deep breath and viciously suppressed the urge to lose his shit.
“Who took care of the bad guy?” he asked, in an effort to not talk about their home, their happiness, the things they held most dear. “Just so I know.”
Aaron grimaced. “Eamon. Motherfucker had his gun out. I was talking him down, and I don’t know. Just fired. Out of nowhere. Eamon took him down.”
“Good,” Larx said fiercely. “Better him than you.”
“Kids?” Aaron took another gasp. “How’re kids?”
“Jaime’s fine.” Larx heard noises and looked up in time to see paramedics rush into the room. Aaron gasped again, and this time some blood trickled out on the exhale. Time to get him looked at. Fixed. There is no other option. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. There is no other option.
“Over here,” he called, putting a little bit of cop in his voice when he could have sworn he had none. “That guy’s gone. This guy’s got a punctured lung and possibly some internal bleeding. You’re going to have to cut the Kevlar off, but you may want to wait until you’re at the hospital—oh.” Larx stared at the girl who had doctored his arm in the fall, suddenly adrift. “Mary-Beth.” She’d been one of his students six years ago, and now he was having trouble thinking of her as an adult, an adult who would take his lover—his Aaron—and make sure he was okay.
“Mary-Beth. He’s… he’s bleeding. His lung….”
“Sure thing, Mr. Larkin,” the girl said. Small, powerfully built, with blonde hair back in a no-bullshit ponytail, she ventured in first, one hand carrying her field kit, the other hand behind her as she guided the wheeled stretcher in. “You’ve got to move, okay? We’re gonna take good care of him, okay?”
She’d been there. She knew about them. The whole world knew, but she knew.
“Aaron, I’ll be there, okay? I’ll be in the ambulance—”
“Larx,” Eamon called. “I’m going to need your help with this boy and the girl from your school.”
Larx closed his eyes and almost—almost—dropped the weight of the world he and Aaron agreed to carry on their shoulders side by side.
“No…,” he whimpered.
Aaron had the nerve—the motherfucking audacity—to roll his eyes. “Ambulances suck. You’ll be there at the hospital after surgery. When they tell you I’m a big baby and I get a week off.”
He coughed then, and more blood, and Mary-Beth took Larx gently by the elbow and pulled him aside. “He’ll probably go straight into surgery when we get there, Mr. Larkin. By the time you get his kid and get to the hospital, he’ll be out.”
He nodded. “We’ll be there when he’s out.”
And then she and her coworkers got to work.
Larx watched anxiously as they slid Aaron onto a backboard and then lifted the backboard onto the gurney, and listened, underneath it all, to his labored breathing, and even as the fear oh God oh God oh God oh God tried to seep into his heart, his bones, freezing him to the ground, filling his head with every possible grief, he became increasingly aware of the chaos around him.
“Go, baby,” Aaron choked. “I’ll be fine.”
Larx nodded and wiped his face. “You’d better be,” he warned, even as they hustled him away. They had him out the door before Larx could make himself turn to Eamon.
“What—Jaime.” He swallowed. “Jaime. You’re okay?”
The boy looked worse for the wear—body shaking, lips almost blue—but he launched himself into Larx’s arms without words, and Larx pulled the boy into his hug with sublime gratitude. He had someone to take care of, and he might just be able to pull his shit together.
He needed to pull his shit together.
Aaron needed him to pull his shit together. His entire family needed him to pull his shit together.
Helping this kid might just help him do that.
But sometimes helping someone meant letting them go.
Berto wouldn’t come out from the corner of the room. No amount of coaxing on Jaime’s part could persuade him that Larx was a good guy and that the world was safe again.
Larx whispered in his ear, “Jaime—does Berto have any medicine he can… you know, eat?”
Jaime grimaced. “No—that shit’s expensive, and we don’t know how to make our own yet.”
Dammit—the boy had said that yesterday. Larx took a deep breath and tried to think—but Aaron was the best part of his brain and Yoshi wasn’t here and—
“Berto,” he said, putting his back against the wall and sliding down next to Jaime’s brother. “I’m going to call Tane—would you like to stay with him?”
Berto probably had Jaime’s delicate, porcelain-doll features once—until his nose had been pummeled sideways and his cheeks scarred with brutal blows. The look he sent Larx was desperate. “Yeah. I…. Tane and I get along,” he whispered. “I… I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes and trembled. “I don’t know you. Jaime says you’re nice, but I don’t know you… and I hate….” His breath caught. “God, I hate hospitals.”
Larx nodded. “I’m going to get hold of Tane’s, uh, friend—”
“Yoshi?” Berto said wistfully. “’Cause Tane talks about him. I… I wanted to meet him, ’cause Tane doesn’t talk about anybody.”
“Yeah. Yoshi’s my best friend in the world—you know how I know he’s my best friend?”
Berto shook his head and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “How?”
“’Cause he’s gonna call me a prick before the end of this phone conversation. Want to bet on it?”
A tiny smile pulled at the corners of Berto’s mouth. “Not for any money.”
Larx nodded. “Can I squeeze your shoulder?” he asked, very conscious that Berto’s stress levels might be way too high for that.
“I… I miss touch,” Berto mumbled.
Larx put his arm gently around the young man’s shoulder and pulled out his phone. “Yoshi?” he said when the receiver clicked.
“Larx? You prick! Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“Yoshi, I’m going to need you to wake Tane up. And I might need your car too.” Suddenly the good feeling, the drive he had from helping out Berto and Jaime disappeared, and he was left with the hollow ache in his chest that Aaron was not where he was supposed to be. “Yosh, Aaron’s in the hospital, and his SUV is sort of shot up, and Berto Benitez needs Tane and I need a ride. How fast can you get to Berto’s house?”
“Tane! Yes, now! Jesus Christ, get your ass in gear!”
Larx pulled the phone away from his ear as Yoshi raged and apparently threw on every warm thing he had. By the time he got back on the phone again—judging from their noises—Yoshi and Tane were on the way over.
“Five minutes,” Yoshi said tensely into the phone. “We’re taking separate cars—Tane’ll get Berto and Jaime, I’ll get you.”
“Please,” Berto whispered in Larx’s ear. “I’m a mess. Don’t let Jaime see me like this.”
Larx nodded. He knew that feeling too. “Yosh, we’ll take Jaime to my house so I can fetch Kirby and take him to the hospital, okay? Does that work? Do we have a plan?”
Jaime and Berto both nodded at him, and he wanted to laugh. He had a plan, it was great—and it was all a lie.
Because Aaron—goddammit, Aaron wasn’t there.
TANE PAVELLE didn’t look a thing like his sister.
Nancy was a plump, rosy-cheeked fortyish soccer mom who taught biology at Colton High—she, Yoshi, and Larx had been the three cynical musketeers pretty much since Larx had moved to Colton. She had a wicked smile, a sharp tongue, and a way of making the most dire situations a matter of simple tactical planning.
While she’d been going to college and planning lessons and cutting her teeth at an inner-city school before she and her husband moved up to Colton, her little brother had been going out, getting high, and getting into trouble with the law.
Tane had cleaned up since then—served his time, come out, started working as an artist—and, of course, met Yoshi.
When Nancy had moved up to Colton, Tane had followed her, and when Tane had moved up, Yoshi had followed him. Yoshi had never disclosed the details of that move, but Nancy had told him once, after graduation, when they’d all had just a beer too many out at Larx’s house. Apparently when Tane had moved, he’d expected Yoshi to take the quick way out of Tane’s life, and Yoshi had simply showed up on his doorstep, suitcases in hand, saying, “I got a stupid job at your sister’s stupid high school, so we might as well live together because I can’t live without you.”
On the one hand, it was the most romantic fucking thing Larx had ever heard.
On the other, it was so very Yoshi.
They had lived together, quietly, for the last six years, and until the tumultuous events of the past autumn, Larx and Nancy had been two of maybe five people who knew Tane and Yoshi were even roommates.
But after Yoshi had come out—very publicly—Tane had gotten a little less… intense. Larx had seen him at the staff Christmas party. He’d even been granted a smile.
A midsized man, rail thin, with skin baked brown by sun and kiln, Tane’s uncombed white-blond hair looked almost supernatural compared to the rest of his complexion. He was missing a top molar on each side, and when he gritted his teeth like he did when he was displeased, the effect was almost chilling.
But when Yos
hi spoke, his razor-thin face relaxed infinitesimally and he looked, somehow, like he could find a modicum of peace.
Tane wasn’t smiling or at peace tonight.
He stormed into the little house, blazing with lights and filled with law enforcement personnel, Yoshi at his heels. They spotted Larx and Berto in the corner of the room with precision.
“Berto,” Tane said, voice gruff from yelling over the roar of the kiln and not dealing with people—but not from unhappiness with the young man on the floor next to Larx. “How you doing?”
“Guy just barged in here,” Berto said, not looking at him—or anyone. “Looking for his sister. Shot the deputy. The nice one. Got taken out.”
His eyes darted to the coroner’s team, who was zipping Berto’s attacker up in a body bag. “Right here. Got blood all over my rug, Tane. I can’t… can’t fucking deal!”
Tane nodded and reached into his pocket for something; then his eyes darted around the room, and he grimaced. He sank down in front of Larx and Berto, nudging Larx’s knee.
“I got gummis,” he said quietly. “One of these’ll chill him out enough to get him out of the house, but we need to not catch any flak for it.”
Larx was pretty sure Eamon wouldn’t give a flying fuck—but Percy Hardesty and Warren Coolidge had been partnered together this night. Warren wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t bright, and he tended to follow the lead of anyone he was with. Percy was an asshole, pure and simple, and he was likely to raise a bloody stink if he knew they were giving edibles—no matter how legal—to a cooperating witness.
Especially one with the last name of Benitez who had come up from the big city with a rap sheet.
Larx squeezed Berto’s shoulder and murmured in his ear. “Tane’s going to help you, okay? I’m going to make sure nobody gives you shit.”
He pushed up on Tane’s shoulder because he was tired and worried and his body hurt, and then he called Eamon and Yoshi over to where he stood, their legs a forest of protection from prying eyes.
“So you brought your own car?” he asked Yoshi, almost hoping that no, Yoshi had come in Tane’s old Explorer and he wouldn’t have to be a passenger as Yoshi—who had been born and raised in the Bay Area with no snow whatsoever—tried to negotiate the roads outside.