Chapter Fourteen

Tomás

The return to the light hurt. All over. It started with my eyes. Then slowly branched out along my skin to my chest whenever I breathed. Once my mind got on board that I wasn't dead, the other pain started registering. My throat felt raw. I couldn't tell if it was from screaming or from the noose they had tied around my neck.

The beeping clued me in that I was in the hospital. Along with the catheter, the IV on my arm, and the hard bed at my back. It took me another several seconds to remember what had happened. And even then, it was all an adrenaline-fueled blur. I remembered being stripped to my underwear. They'd shaved my head as a form of cleansing of vanity. Fire would cleanse my soul. I felt the echo of the burn at my lower back. That had been the moment I pissed myself. Water would cleanse away my sins and air would revive me so I'd be awakened anew. And I'd be blessed by the gods, or some shit.

That's when they put the noose around my neck and shoved me off a cliff. Well, it probably hadn't been a cliff cliff, but it'd been high enough for me to fall for several seconds before I slammed into the water. The noose never tightened to break my neck, but the shock of cold water on my body had hit me hard. Like pins along my naked skin. And as the weight of my body pulled me under, all the pains on my flesh numbed. My thoughts couldn't process why. It must've been due to the cold water, but it had been so peaceful. I hadn't struggled. My panic ebbed away. The water pressure against my body, the darkness, and the silence became my world.

For a silent moment, I hung between life and death.

Behind my closed lids I saw Daniel waving me over. He'd stolen a bike and had urged me to get on to teach me. A bike could give me wings, he'd said.

"But I run fast. I don't need a bike," I'd responded, so sure of myself.

"Okay, stubborn ass," he'd said, and climbed on the bike. "Catch me and I'll take you somewhere this weekend, so you don't have to stay with mom."

I was so sure I wouldn't lose. He took off like a light out of hell. And I ran. I ran until my legs trembled. I ran until my eyes watered, my chest clenched, and I couldn't breathe. I reached out my hand, so close to him. Close enough to hear the pedals, the chain, his uneven breathing. I was so close to feel the wind cutting between us. So close.

In the real memory I hadn't caught him. He was too fast and I'd stayed with Mom that weekend. She'd been pissed, hadn't expected me to stay. I had locked myself in Daniel's room and hid under the bed with a knife.

But in my memories where life touched death, I made it. I caught up to him. But I couldn't breathe.

I saw his face morph into something dark. A black inkblot. A dark stain. It wrapped around me, clung to me, pulled me under. I couldn't breathe and I needed to breathe. Before I felt the last of my consciousness drip away, I inhaled and swallowed nothing but water.

I drowned. I had drowned.

I broke out of my memory with a coughing fit. I couldn't breathe. I dropped something and it clattered to the floor. Then Dr. Shanahan was there. Placing the oxygen back on my face.

"It's okay, Tomás. You're safe. Just breathe."

I wheezed for a few more seconds until I was able to take in a painful breath. "What … what happened?"

"Your friends found you at the bank near the lake. You're lucky you're alive, kiddo."

I blinked away the haze. Friends? What friends? Oh, right, the ones that tried to kill me. I clutched my chest as I settled my body. I wanted to ask about Dasher. About Charity. Were they okay too? My brain was fuzz and I felt my body fold back into the bed as I passed out.

The second time I woke up had been less a chaotic brain fart. I blinked away the haze behind my eyes and let the memories play out again. This time, anticipating them. I wanted to speak with Dasher. Was he okay? What happened? What had they done to me?

Dr. Shanahan was in the room looking at images of my lungs.

"Am I okay?" I asked.

She glanced her kind, brown eyes over her shoulder at me. "Define okay."

She sighed and turned off the light behind the image before she started examining me. "You have two fractured ribs. Your lungs are clear. Your heart sounds healthy. Except for the bruises and that head injury you got a few days ago, which I had to rebandage, you are a hot mess. But nothing permanent."

"What about the burn on my back?"

She scrunched her eyebrows. "You don't have a burn mark." She kept looking at me as if she knew about the hazing. "You mind telling me how you ended up without clothes at the bank of the lake in below freezing weather?"

I opened my mouth and closed it. "Not really."

"I'm your doctor, Tomás. I'm one of the people here that you don't lie to."

"Do you have to report it to Maddox?"

Her phone started to buzz in her pocket, and she pulled it out with another sigh. With her eyes glued to mine, she lifted it to her ear. "Mr. Brennan," she said into the phone.

Well, that answered that.

****

Dr. Shanahan kept me in that cold, dark place they called a hospital for forty-eight hours. Two days! I was climbing walls. I was forced to report in to Maddox via a voice call. He didn't sound pissed but didn't believe my explanation of wanting to skinny dip. My bad. Dasher came to visit, bringing me homework and more books. He looked off, by about a mile. Dasher looked younger than his nineteen years. His face still round, his eyes still large.

"What?" he asked without looking at me. "You're staring."

"Are you really okay?"

He sighed and ran his hand through his unkempt hair. It made me realize I had no hair. Charity had come to visit me with her clippers. Silently, she worked her magic and just like that I had a buzz cut. The scar over my ear more prominent. She asked me about it. I told her the truth. It was a bullet that saved my life. She glared at me, said she never wanted to see me again, and took off. I thought she liked me.

"We scapegoated you. No. I'm not okay."

"I told you to."

"You didn't know what they were going to do to you." His face turned red. "I should've known they'd do this."

I took his hand to try to comfort him when I noticed a bandage wrapped around his wrist. "What happened?"

He pulled his hand back. "Nothing." By the tight set of his jaw, I knew he wasn't going to tell me anything. Dasher had secrets. Deep down. Just like me. "I should go."

"No," I grabbed his hand. "If you don't want to tell me what's going on, that's fine. But I still want to be your friend." He was the only friend I had.

"But Fox is … he's not someone you want to mess with."

"I'll protect you."

"But who's going to protect you?"

I let him go and thought he was going to leave, but he didn't. We just stayed quiet for a moment and then he got into mentor mode and gave me a quick rundown of the homework before he left.

I kept thinking about what he said. Who would protect me?

I had to start protecting myself.

Fuck The Ark Boys.

The following day, I was released with instructions to rest for six weeks. No exertion. My ribs would thank me for it.

I hated Kieran even more for it.

I was already in pain when I got to the house. I decided right then and there that I was going to tell Dr. Casera to move me. I didn't need this shit. I tried to remember if maybe I deserved this. Had I ever bullied anyone in school? I hit Nick that one time, but I never bullied him. I hung out with people who liked to show their dominance over others. Shit, my brothers were that way. No one messed with the Moyas. Dad had taught us that. Better to get your ass kicked than lose respect.

But they were dead. That didn't work out too good for them, did it?

And I wasn't even a Moya anymore. I was a Brennan. To hell if I would use Maddox's name to get some respect. Despite him adopting me, his name was not mine.

I knew something was wrong the moment I stepped into the house. Wren was standing at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the banister with a smirk on his face. "Welcome back," he said in a tone that sent chills running along my skin.

I didn't respond. My throat suddenly tight. I climbed the stairs to River waiting at the top. He didn't look happy to be there. He gave me a soft smile. Out of all of them, he seemed the most empathetic. Another word I'd learned. Henry was absent from this line of not welcome, but Fox stood just outside my room. His cold blue eyes on mine, no smirk, no smile, the guy couldn't fake that shit. He hated me to his core. I suddenly felt so damn small.

Then I made it to my room where Kieran stood near the window inside a space I didn't even recognize.

Thick bloodred drapes hung on the floor to ceiling windows gathered with fancy ties. The twin size bed had been replaced by something larger. It took up most of the room. It too had a fancy blanket and lots of pillows. The old desk had been replaced by a dark wooden one that looked solid. A small lamp on top of it.

Kieran watched me like a hunter watching its prey as he stood in front of the window, the sun at his back throwing shadows all over the place. Making him look menacing. I clamped down my fear. Anger was always better.

Kieran talked but I couldn't listen. He moved to the closet, opened the door and showed me new clothes. All of it the same. Dark slacks, button down shirts, fancy shoes. Even some expensive Jordans with the red and black colorways that I'd been pining for but could never afford were there.

Hell, if that had been me a year ago, I woulda said hell, yes. I'm your boy. Sign me up to whatever you want. But this wasn't a year ago. Things had changed. I changed.

"Where's my stuff?"

"There was a break-in, I'm afraid," he said. "Everything was stolen."

I couldn't feel my body as my eyes dragged back to the new desk. I walked to it, my steps heavy, and pulled the drawers open. Three of them. Empty. I couldn't even feel pain anymore. Just a cold dread.

"Kieran," I said. The first time I said his name. Something flashed in his eyes for just a moment. Something human before being replaced by the devil inside. "Please. I just need something that was in my desk."

He narrowed the gap between us. He was shorter than me, but height meant shit. The guy meant business and I was a threat.

"I'll leave. You win. I'll leave this house, this school. Just give me back the box." I hated the tightness in my voice. The clog of tears. I shouldn't have kept the rings. I should've buried them the night Maddox gave them to me. I should've had a proper ceremony for them. I hadn't because … Fuck! … because I don't know why!

"Sorry, Tomás," he said without so much as a hint of emotion in his dark tone. "But that is no longer an option. You should've taken the truce when I offered it. Now there is nothing you will ever own that I do not give you."

I clenched my fists so tight, my nails dug into my skin. "I am going to kill you," I hissed out.

He smirked. And for the first time since we started this conversation, his eyes brightened. The fucker was insane. "I'll look forward to the day. In the meantime, you should heal. Let us know if you need anything. We are practically family."

He walked out leaving me with a firepit in my gut and thoughts of the many ways I could kill him in my head.