Page 76 of Stalked By Shadows
He wasn’t rational at all, and I understood. He’d been though a lot in a few days. I wasn’t sure how to help him. “Did your family arrive, Jared?” I asked. He needed handlers before he did something stupid and got himself shot by the police.
He waved his hands as if none of that mattered. “They want to organize a vigil. My mom looks at me like I did something. My own mom.” He tugged on his hair again. “I need to find Sarah. I close my eyes and I can hear her. She’s calling for me. She’s afraid. I need to bring her home.” He dropped to his knees and Micah lunged to catch him, but I held up a hand to keep him back and shook my head.
“Jared, let me call someone for you. Have you slept?”
“Can’t sleep. I have nothing but nightmares of the darkness eating her when I sleep.”
I was beginning to think that maybe it was better if he was under more extreme care for the moment. I pulled out my phone and texted Lukas.
“I never wanted any of this. We thought we would have a little fun before I’m buried in four more years of endless work, internships, and tests. It was all supposed to be fun and games. Stories. It wasn’t supposed to be real.”
I patted his back and nodded for Micah to wait by the door in case Lukas showed up. “None of this is your fault,” I assured Jared. “Sometimes bad things happen to good people.”
“Sarah needs to be safe. They can take me instead. If I can’t get the ring, they can take me instead.” He sat there rocking, repeating the same thing over and over, looking disheveled, exhausted, and so lost. I knelt beside him, keeping up the physical contact, patting or rubbing his back, squeezing his arm, and talking to him trying to keep him coherent. So far he hadn’t shown any violence toward either of us, but if he did, I’d rather he come at me than Micah.
Micah waved at me and a moment later opened the door. Lukas swept in with a couple of uniformed cops. I put my hands up and shook my head. Jared wasn’t being violent. There was no need to arrest him.
“They’re going to take him to the hospital, make sure he’s hydrated,” Lukas said and I heard his unstated ‘among other things.’ “I’ve already got people trying to find his family.” Lukas crossed the room and crouched beside Jared and me. “Hey Jared, remember me? Alex’s brother?”
Jared looked up and blinked hard like maybe he wasn’t really sure where he was. “The police detective, right? Did you find Sarah?”
“Not yet, but we’re looking. I’m a little worried about you buddy. This is Hartly and Mote,” he said, motioning to the uniformed duo. “They are going to take you to the hospital.”
“I’m not sick,” Jared protested.
“Maybe not, but I think you need some fluids. Have you been drinking water? Eating? Taking care of yourself?”
“I have to find Sarah. She’s so scared.”
“I know, buddy,” Lukas said, using his soothing good cop voice. He helped Jared to his feet. “But you can’t help her if you’re not feeling good. You have to drink water, eat, get some sleep, and let your family know where you are.”
Jared’s eyes were huge, pupils blown wide. I wondered if someone had tried to give him something to make him relax and it had backfired like it normally did with me. “Did you take anything, Jared? Like to help you sleep?”
“My mom gave me some of her Ativan.” He fidgeted, his hands trembling hard. He looked like a junky jonesing bad.
“Only one?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t remember. Feel like my skin is on fire. Like I need to rip it off to be comfortable again. But I gotta find Sarah.”
Lukas looked at the two uniforms. “Get a bus over asap. He’s having a reaction to medication.” The same sort of reaction it gave me. Only I’d ended up seizing, and nearly choking on my own vomit from the stuff.
Jared’s trembling got worse and he could barely stand. I held him up and prayed that he’d be okay. “Maybe some water would help,” I said. “If he’s dehydrated, the stuff will have concentrated in his system.” I was more than a little angry with his mother, a woman I had never met, for giving him a benzo without knowing the risks. Had they taken him to the hospital at all? Didn’t mental health issues run in the family? Wouldn’t it have been smart then to take him for monitoring rather than give him someone else’s meds?
Micah got him a glass of water and handed it to me. I tried to get Jared to drink some, but he couldn’t really get it down. That worried me a lot.
He struggled for air, which had the cops panicking, but it wasn’t a physical shut down of his lungs. This was a panic attack of the epic, medically induced kind. Micah took the water back. I sighed and wrapped my arms tight around Jared.
“Hey, buddy, just focus on me, okay? Breathe. Listen to my voice.” I rubbed his back and kept in his line of sight. “You’re safe. Everything is going to be okay.” Lukas kept everyone back likely because he’d dealt with my panic attacks a dozen or so times. Telling Jared to breathe, and counting, seemed to help. Saying his name over and over, startled small breaths from him. He fought the panic so long I thought he’d pass out from lack of air, but finally he sucked in a ragged deep breath.
“Like that. Good. Breathe. It’s going to be okay,” I said.
“Sarah…” Jared wheezed.
“We’ll find her,” I said, not worried about the words being true or not. He wouldn’t remember them in a few hours anyway. In his face, with his blown pupils, blood drained skin, and wide eyes, I saw myself. After a thousand nightmares, dozens of drugs, and endless days of being told I was insane. The human brain had a wonderful capacity for forgetting pain. Sometimes a memory of it would flare, but never enough to quite be the same as that first time. And that was a blessing, I thought as the EMTs arrived.
I let them take over Jared’s care and made my way to where Micah stood, apart from the craziness going on in his living room, arms wrapped around himself like he was trying to keep his own body from exploding into panic. I tucked him into my embrace, his face against my collarbone, and body curled into mine, shielding him from unpleasant memories as best I could.
I wondered if he was thinking of Tim, and how he’d been treated when Micah had gone missing. Or if the scattered memories of his time in the ether rose up. My gut churned with the thought of his pain. Funny how quickly I’d latched on to him. I hoped it didn’t scare him away. I was kind of attached now.