Page 47

CHAPTER

FORTY-TWO

ASHER

A sher sat down next to Karlin, keeping a couple of feet between them.

He didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to disrupt her thoughts.

Finally, she was talking to him.

Her fury toward him–as well-deserved as it was–seemed to have slipped away.

“John’s trauma from the war didn’t just affect him,” she was saying, her voice soft. “It rippled out into everything around him. His job, his friends, everything else in his life was damaged, too. I was damaged. I am damaged.”

Her words broke his heart.

All he wanted to do was hold her, maybe even remind her that God wanted to take all of that hurt and redeem it, but he knew that it wasn’t the time. It was his turn to be silent now.

She was right.

He was good at waiting for the storms to pass, running away from things that hurt, trying to make jokes instead taking real responsibility for his mistakes.

But he wasn’t going to do it anymore.

God had forgiven him, but he had to forgive himself.

But before he could do that, he had to face every ugly piece of what he had done.

He had to hear whatever Karlin had to say, even though he was sure it would break his heart all over again.

“After Nico was killed, John stopped writing me letters. We used to write back and forth all the time. I’d send him care packages like our mom should have, and he’d tell me what he was thinking. A lot of those early letters had been happy, despite the hardships.”

Asher could believe it. War was hell, but the brotherhood that was forged within it was second only to the bond he shared with his brothers through blood.

“I assume he mentioned you, actually, but it was probably by some dumb nickname I never picked up on,” she continued.

He had to cut in. “They called me Mosquito back then. And I tell you this within the Cone of Silence, by the way.”

For the first time in way too long, Karlin actually smiled, and it was even more beautiful than he remembered.

“Why? Because you’re annoying?” she teased.

“Shockingly, no. It’s part of a lyric from the song Smells Like Teen Spirit . I don’t even like Nirvana, but I guess I look like a guy who would like Nirvana, so it stuck. Mosquito. But please go on.”

Karlin cleared her throat and wrapped her arms more tightly around her chest.

He felt shivery and freezing himself and considered offering to go back down to the cabin to finish this conversation, but he couldn’t risk interrupting her any more than he already had.

Whatever she was trying to tell him, he could tell it had been burdening her for a very long time.

He didn’t want her to carry her pain alone anymore.

Not if he could help it. If she could handle the cold a little longer, he would happily do the same.

“Anyway, after the bombing, I was lucky if I got a quick note every six months,” she continued.

“I was worried about him so much. When he finally was able to come home–by then, I was in Amarillo, and he decided to start a construction job with another ex-military friend over in Lubbock–I was actually relieved. I thought things would get better.”

“They didn’t?”

She shook her head, sadness clouding her face once more.

“No. Everything fell apart. I’d go to visit him, and he’d be drinking.

Then he was smoking weed, and probably doing other things, too.

He got fired from his job, and he wouldn’t really let me help financially at that point, so I’m not sure how he was surviving.

Probably selling drugs along with using them. ”

She paused again, and Asher risked scooting toward her, close enough to rest a hand on her shoulder. He could feel her taking a long, slow breath.

“He was living in this shabby old cabin at the time, about forty minutes outside of town. It had solar panels and a well and all the rest of the prepper-waiting-for-the-apocalypse stuff. Clearly, he didn’t want to be near people, but he did let me visit.

I tried to get down to Lubbock as often as I could, even just to check on him.

One day, I decided to stop by without telling him first. I’d randomly gotten a Friday off when they had to paint my lab. ”

Asher rubbed Karlin’s back, dread pooling in his stomach. Several possibilities for where this story was going rose in his mind, and he didn’t like any of them.

“When I pulled into his driveway, I remember knowing immediately that something was wrong. I couldn’t explain why, or how, but I knew.

John and I technically aren’t twins, but we’ve always had that sixth sense about one another.

So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I found him on the kitchen floor, surrounded by oxy tablets, but I was. ”

Asher’s gut twisted. “Karlin, that’s–”

“You know the funny thing?” she continued. “I actually didn’t panic in that moment. I remember this rush of calm seemed to wash over me. I had cell phone service, thankfully, but the 9-1-1 operator warned me the ambulance would take a while. I put the phone down and started CPR.

“It was only after doing that for a while that I started to freak out a little. I knew that his chances of survival were low, and his chances of surviving without catastrophic brain damage were even lower. My arms were in so much pain. I kept going, long past the point where I thought I had nothing left to give. I kept digging deeper, reaching for one more minute of strength, and then one more second. I don’t know where the strength to keep going came from, but it was there. I felt it. One second at a time.”

Asher wanted to tell her that God was the obvious answer to that question, but he knew it probably wasn’t the best time.

Especially considering the fact that God wouldn’t have needed to intervene at all if he hadn't screwed up, gotten Nico killed, and then left John and the rest of their team to face their own trauma without his support.

“How long did you perform CPR?” he asked instead.

“I found out later that it was twenty-six minutes. His chances weren’t good from the start. We don’t know how long he was out before I even got there. But…somehow, he made it. He recovered. The doctors all said it was a miracle.”

Karlin’s words were happy, but she couldn’t hide the sadness in her eyes.

“Just because he survived doesn’t mean it wasn’t a traumatic experience for him. And for you,” Asher ventured.

“So much of my life seems to hinge on that day,” she admitted.

“There’s before, and then there’s after.

Before, I was worried about my big brother.

But after? It was–it is–like I’m living on edge every moment of my life.

Every time the phone rings, I expect the voice on the other end to say he overdosed again.

That he’s suffered brain damage. That he’s dead. ”

“Like the other day.”

“Exactly. It wasn’t the first overdose since the Big One, either. Does it make me a bad person to say it makes me angry?” Karlin didn’t wait for him to answer. “Maybe. But I can’t help it. It does.”

Asher shook his head. “Dealing with an addict has to be hard. I know you’re doing all you can to help him make sure he has the resources he needs to stay healthy, and that hasn’t exactly been good for you, considering you’ve been stuck working at Senera.”

“That’s true,” she admitted. “But honestly, his faith is the most frustrating part of it all. I know that his belief in God is sincere, so why does he keep screwing up? Why does he make such dumb decisions? If God is real, I just wish He’d hurry up and help my brother.”

Asher wanted to explain why she was wrong, to refute her objections, to act like he had all of the answers, but he didn’t.

For now, he just sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Karlin didn’t have to go through all of her troubles alone.

God had always been there with her, and now he’d be there, too.

KARLIN

Karlin’s words hung in the air, the silence interrupted by the occasional strike of lightning. The wind had died down quite a bit, and the rain had slowed, but the reprieve didn’t feel comforting. The whole valley felt like it had simply paused to take a breath.

“Can I hold you?” Axel asked beside her.

His voice was so gentle, so unlike his usual way of doing things. It melted her heart in an instant.

“You kind of already are,” she pointed out.

He shook his head. “No. I need to really hold you. I…I need you to know.”

She didn’t ask what he meant. She was too afraid to.

All at once, he’d swept her up against his chest again.

She tilted her chin upward just in time to meet his lips as he leaned down to kiss her.

Feeling his lips against hers spread warmth straight through to her toes, and she could sense that his longing went deeper than either of them would dare to say aloud.

But there was a gentleness mingled with the hunger.

A promise that a kiss would remain only a kiss. A promise that…

She felt her breath catch in her chest as she let the kiss come to an end, resting her head against his chest as he stroked her hair.

She realized she knew the words she wanted to share with him. They terrified her, but they were difficult to hold inside, all the same.

Ever since the day she’d first called him up on a Sunday afternoon, for better or for worse, she’d managed to show him all of her. All of her blame, bitterness, and ugliness. Perhaps most difficult of all, she’d shown him her weakness.

And none of it had phased him. All of it seemed to have only made him care about her even more.

It was hard to believe it could be true, but everything about his embrace made her want to believe.

“We need to go inside and warm up for a second, I think,” Axel said. She shivered a little as he got to his feet, taking her hand and guiding her up from the rock. “Before the fire goes out. The sun should be up soon, too.”

She followed him quietly, back down the steep rock and into the little cabin, still deep in the winding caverns of her thoughts.

The fire had burned down somewhat, but it was still much warmer than being outside.

Axel was right. Despite the moment they’d just shared, they were still in a precarious situation, and they had to be smart.

The two of them were lost in their own thoughts for several minutes as they curled up on the old couch, trying to soak in all of the heat they could from the smoldering flames.

Karlin’s mind kept wandering back to Lily, replaying everything she’d said over and over again. How could she have missed so much, even when the truth had been right in front of her?

Maybe she just didn’t want to believe it.

Maybe she’d been blind to Dana’s identity because, deep down, she wanted to be.

She didn’t want to face the tragedy of Amira’s death, to keep reliving that guilt. It was so much easier when her ghosts stayed dead and gone.

“We can’t get too comfortable,” Axel muttered next to her, already sounding half asleep. “Paul needs us–”

But a sound from somewhere outside interrupted him mid-sentence.

Karlin sat up straight, instantly on alert. “What was that?”

With a finger pressed to his lips, Axel got up and headed over to the door, opening it just a crack. The sound came again, louder this time.

“Look,” he said, gesturing for her to follow. She did so, and the two of them stepped out onto the rotting porch. She could see nothing but dark desert. For a long moment they listened to nothing but the rhythmic pattering of rain.

And then it came again.

Axel gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

There was no mistaking it this time. No convincing herself that it was coyotes or anything else.

The sound that had haunted her since she’d arrived at the retreat was louder now. And it was unmistakably and terrifyingly human.