Page 2

Jesse

Jesse sighed as he sat in the passenger seat of an idling car, absently watching the steady red light that kept them trapped in an empty street.

It was a good thing he was on his way home after class, and not heading somewhere important.

Nate had been stopped at nearly every light since leaving campus, making the ride home seem to last forever.

If they were a mere two and a half years younger, he’d tell Nate to just run the lights; there was no traffic on these streets this early in the afternoon anyway.

But these days, neither of them screwed around about road safety.

It was funny how much that made them sound like old men, when Nate was only twenty-three, and Jesse was even younger at twenty-one.

The light finally turned green, and Nate continued on. “Your new apartment,” he said as he drove, keeping the car slow and steady so he could glance at the street names as they passed by. “It’s on East John Street, right?”

Jesse nodded. “Yep. Keep going straight for two more blocks, then make a left.”

“Finally out of the dorms, I see,” Nate chuckled, as he brushed his blonde hair out of his eyes. “Good. I served my time in those dorms, too; they’re basically closets.”

“Two years there is two years too many,” Jesse agreed, propping his elbow on the door of the car as he watched the houses and trees pass by through the window. “Now that I’m finally getting a bit of income, I can afford something a little better.”

“I just hope it doesn’t eat up too much of that income.

You’re only working fast food, Jesse—and part time hours at that.

Wait until you actually graduate and become a nurse before you start living like one.

The money’s good when you get there, yeah, but with all the student loans you’re wracking up, it’ll be a long time before you’re out of debt. ”

“I know, Nate,” Jesse sighed with a roll of his eyes. “You sound like my mom.”

“The voice of experience,” Nate said with a shrug, as he slowed to a stop at the intersection and put on the left-turn signal. “I’ve just graduated, remember? I can show you the ropes.”

“Exactly, you only just graduated last term. So you’ve got three months of on-the-job experience under your belt; that doesn’t mean you know everything. Besides, you’ve been showing me the ropes since I was a freshman. I think I can handle it from here.”

“I’m just saying, don’t let the debt sneak up on you,” Nate told him, turning the car onto John Street. “I know they’re saying the Recession is over now, but better safe than—”

Someone stepped out in front of the car.

Nate slammed on the brakes. Jesse lurched forward, his heart jumping into his throat as a jumbled flash of memory shot through his head—the screech of the tires, the jolt of sudden movement, and then the muffled echo of a car horn, glass shattering around him as the airbag banged up in his face and a scream sounded in the backseat.

But that was before.

As soon as his brain caught up with the rest of him and he realized that he was fine, he let out a breath of relief. Today, he was fine; Nate had been driving slowly enough to let the brakes do their work, and the car had come to a complete stop with about a foot to spare.

“Damn,” Nate muttered breathlessly under his breath, his knuckles white as he gripped tightly at the steering wheel.

“What kind of idiot walks out in front of a goddamn car!?” Anger overtook the panic that had been etched on his face, as he smacked his hand against the horn and glared at the young man still standing in front of the car. “I coulda flattened you!”

Jesse put a hand to his still pounding heart as he tried to calm himself down. “Getting angry won’t solve anything,” he said. “No one got hurt, that’s what matters.”

But then the young man turned around, and Jesse got a good look at him—and right away, he realized something was very wrong.

The guy was covered in soot and ash, and his hands were dripping with blood.

“Holy shit!” Jesse gasped out, immediately undoing his seat-belt. “He is hurt!”

“How? I didn’t hit him.” Nate clicked his own belt free of the buckle, the anger dissipating from his face, replaced by confusion and concern.

“He must’ve got hurt some other way,” Jesse theorized, pushing the car door open and quickly climbing out. “Maybe that’s why he ran out into the road; he’s looking for help.”

The man—who appeared to be around Jesse’s age, maybe a year or two younger—looked blankly between Jesse and Nate as they approached him, a dazed sort of exhaustion clouding his brown eyes.

“Wha…?” He coughed, his voice hoarse and raspy.

A flicker of panic crossed his face as he stepped away from them. “S-stay back!”

“It’s alright,” Jesse held his hands up placatingly as he took another careful step towards him.

“I’m Jesse, and that’s my friend Nate, he’s a nurse.

And I’m studying to be one, too. We can help you, if you’ll let us.

” He looked the young man over, once more noting the thick blood that coated his hands, and the heavy soot that covered the rest of him. “What happened?”

The stranger just stared at him for a moment. “What… h-happened,” he repeated under his breath, putting a hand up to the back of his head with a grimace. “What happened? What—Where am I? What’s g-going on?”

“It’s alright,” Nate told him again, mirroring Jesse’s calm and steady movements as he moved forward and reached out to place a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You should sit down, I can check and see if you need any first aid, and then drive you to the hospital.”

“Hospital?” the stranger breathed out, giving Nate a lost sort of look, before pushing his hand away and shaking his head. “No, don’t t-touch me! Who are you!? Wha’d you d-do to me?”

“We didn’t do anything, okay?” Nate tried. “You walked out in front of my car, we don’t know where you came from, or what happened to you. But if you let me help you, maybe I can figure out what happened, yeah? Just try to calm down, alright?”

“I said no! ” the guy exclaimed, backing away from them—further into the street.

“Wait wait wait, don’t go in the street,” Jesse warned, his anxiety climbing as he looked down the road.

No other cars were coming right now, but that could change any minute, and the young man had clearly already been through enough.

“I promise you, we’re not going to hurt you, alright? We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

The stranger gave Jesse a long look, Jesse noting a few deep dark circles under his large brown eyes.

He looked downright exhausted as well as afraid, a sense of helplessness in his gaze as he faced Jesse in apprehension.

As if he wanted to trust that Jesse was telling the truth, but also didn’t want to get hurt if he was wrong.

Like a wounded animal backed into a corner, unsure if he was facing a rescuer or a hunter.

Jesse could work with that.

“I promise,” he said again, keeping his hands up and his voice low as he took another careful step towards the other. “We’re just going to make sure you’re not hurt. But we have to get out of the street, before somebody else comes this way, okay?”

A flicker of confusion stained the guy’s brown eyes once again, but then he let out a deep, shuddering breath. Fatigue flooded his features as if he couldn’t keep fighting it back anymore, and he gave Jesse a stiff nod. “A-alright…”

Jesse let out a sigh of relief, gently guiding the man out of the street to sit on the hood of Nate’s car. “Okay, Nate.”

Nate stepped forward, nodding approvingly to Jesse. “Good bedside manner,” he said quietly, before turning his attention to the man. “What hurts the most? ”

The stranger blinked up at Nate tiredly. “Hurts?”

“Yeah, where were you injured? Where’d all this blood come from?”

The young man lifted his hands and stared down at the blood that coated them, looking perplexed. “I don’t… know.”

“You don’t know where the blood came from?

” Nate clarified, a troubled frown pulling at his brow as he carefully took hold of the man’s wrists and gently pushed up his sleeves.

His long, flowing sleeves, made of blue silk and embroidered with silver and golden thread; Jesse noting that under all the blood and soot, the man was wearing some kind of robe—and a fancy one, at that, held in place by a golden belt.

Why on earth this guy was wearing a fancy silk robe in the middle of Carson City was beyond Jesse’s comprehension. It certainly didn’t fit the mild weather of early February. The goosebumps on his skin only underlined that . The blood was a far more pressing issue of course, but still.

“No,” the stranger answered Nate’s question, widening his eyes innocently as he looked back down at the blood. “And I don’t… feel like I’m h-hurt, either.”

Nate examined the man’s arms with a baffled frown. “Well, there aren’t any cuts or wounds here. Is it… from somebody else? Were you in an accident with someone?”

“An… accident?” the stranger repeated. “I don’t… know.”

“…Jesse, check him for concussion,” Nate said after a moment, turning to gaze around at the quiet street. “I’ll check the area, see if there’s anybody else in trouble around here.”

Jesse obediently moved in front of the guy, as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and flipped it open. “I’m going to shine a light in your eyes, alright?” he said as he turned on the flashlight. “It’ll be bright, but it’s important to make sure you’re not hurt.”

The young man frowned down at the phone in bewilderment. “What’s that? ”

…Huh?

“It’s um, it’s my phone,” Jesse said, holding it up for the other to see better.

Was he trying to make a joke? “I know it’s pretty old.

Nate and Austin both—oh, Austin’s also a friend of mine—they both make fun of me for still having a flip-phone, but I don’t have an upgrade available on my plan yet, so it gets the job done. ”

The man just stared at him.