Through the fire, p.16
Through the Fire, page 16
The heat in Nicky's chest turned to ice, lining his insides, quenching the anger and the power all at once. If he had heard Saboac before, and maybe he hadn't really, the fallen angel's voice was gone now. Empty fear filled him, and he didn't dare look toward Chris and couldn't not, all at the same time.
Through a fog of frigid terror, he could see Chris's chest rising and falling. That was something. Not enough. He moved mechanically, coldly, going to Chris's side. Kneeling beside him. Trying to see if anything was broken, if anything was more hurt than Chris had been before. As if he hadn't been hurt enough. Nick didn't know his own voice as he whispered, "I'm sorry."
Maybe really didn't know it, not at all. Maybe he'd become someone else. Maybe Saboac was inside him, talking through his lips.
It might be worse, if he'd done this himself. Was worse. If it was Saboac, if the grendel power had a mind of its own, then Nick could blame it. But he couldn't, not really. He'd done it. He'd blown up the cabin and he'd scared Stephanie off and he'd killed Saboac and now he'd maybe killed his own big brother, although Chris groaned and shifted enough to suggest he was alive and probably going to stay that way.
"Come on," Nick whispered. "Can you get up? If I help you? Come on. Let me help you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Chris. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry." Cautiously, carefully, he got Chris to sitting, and nothing seemed too broken or out of place. Getting to their feet was harder, but Nick pushed them up using the wall and after a minute could limp his brother to the bedroom, still whispering, "I'm sorry."
"S'okay." The rough reassurance sounded like Chris still hadn't drawn a full breath. "'S'an accident. S'okay."
"It's not okay, I hurt you, you thought I couldn't—"
"Nicky." Somehow Chris pulled himself together, pulled himself upright enough to clasp the back of Nick's neck and draw his forehead to Chris's own. "It's okay. It was an accident. You would never hurt me on purpose. You don't have a handle on this power yet. It's okay. I'm fine."
He lost strength at the end of that, buckling, then visibly braced himself, obviously not willing to fall, regardless of the effort it took. Nick's heart wrenched, leaving him barely able to breathe; his whisper came in cracks and falls. "Let's get you back to bed."
The fact that Chris didn't argue, that he went willingly, said how much he hurt, even if he'd never admit it out loud. He winced when Nick lowered him onto the bed, and brushed it off with an almost-convincing grin, if you didn't know him well enough to see its glittering hard edges. "Go get some sleep, Nicky. I'll be fine."
That really meant let me lick my wounds in peace, and Nick, guilty, slunk away to let him do that.
It hadn't been Nicky.
Chris kept telling himself that, like he might believe it if he said to the backs of his eyelids often enough. It hadn't been Nicky that had thrown him across the room. It had been the grendel power, power Nick couldn't control yet. It had been anger. Anger as triggering as the fear Nick had felt when they'd gone after Emerson. They shouldn't have been fighting. Chris should have known better, should have known to keep a lid on it while his little brother figured this new power out.
He hurt everywhere. He'd hurt everywhere before Nick had thrown him into a wall. He half remembered Shy being there. Mostly the warmth of her hands and her steady low swearing, which Chris found more reassuring than actual reassurances. Swearing meant she wasn't lying, that she knew just as much as Chris himself did that he was all fucked up. He'd been unconscious a lot of the time, and just as glad about that. It would've been better if Nicky'd left him for dead, though.
Yeah, that hadn't been a useful road to go down, even if he'd been right. Chris whispered a reassuring, "Fuck," to himself, and after that, slept.
It was dark when he woke up, which maybe wasn't saying much in northern Colorado in March, but it had been daylight when he fell asleep, so he'd probably fucked up his entire schedule. On the other hand, sitting up hurt literally every single part of his body, even his hair, so honestly if he could piss and go back to sleep, maybe after half a bottle of Jack, that would probably be fine and maybe tomorrow he'd be back on schedule. But there was noise in the living room, so after he went to the bathroom, Chris lurched down the hall.
Nicky's shoulders were caved with guilt as he put the tv back up on the wall. Chris grunted, "Lemme help with that," and staggered over. He wasn't much help, but Nick nodded and accepted the offer, which was all that really mattered. After more effort than it was worth, they got it up again. Nick sat on the floor beneath it and Chris, trying to move like he didn't hurt, went into the kitchen to see if he could find that bottle of Jack.
There wasn't any, but there was a bottle of bourbon. He muttered, "Close enough," and poured at least two shots into a cup before saying, "You okay?" aloud.
"No." Nicky sounded like a kid. Chris bared his teeth, swallowed the bourbon, poured a second glass, and waited until Nick said, "Are you?" in a small voice before gathering himself to back to the living room.
"I'll live." He handed Nick the glass and remembered afterward, again, that his brother wasn't even actually legal to drink yet. "Jesus, they should give you a pass for body weight or height or something."
See, if Nick didn't follow, it would be easier, or something, but his little brother's broad shoulders shook with a single short laugh. "I don't get carded a lot, yeah."
"You still got a baby face, though." Chris drank straight from the bottle and Nick drained the glass without even wincing.
"So does Leonardo DiCaprio and he's ancient."
"Yeah, but he'd date you."
Nick coughed like he'd just drunk the whiskey, then really laughed. Enough to look up at Chris with a grin still on his face. "Dude, I'm young enough but I don't think I'm his type."
"No accounting for taste." Chris offered a hand up and Nick took it, leaning in a little as he stood, almost like a hug. Enough that everything was okay again, anyway, even if Chris still couldn't identify a single part of himself that didn't hurt. "Where'd everybody go?"
"Back to Jake's place. Shy had to drive home this morning for her shift tonight. They cleared out Dad's room so I could sleep in it."
"That was decent of them." Chris took another swallow of the bourbon, weighed the likelihood that he'd pass out if he sat down, and did it anyway. The couch sucked him toward unconsciousness immediately and he sat forward, trying to stay awake. "What time is it?"
"About eight."
"At night?" Chris's voice cracked and Nick twisted to look back at him.
"Yeah, at night, Chris. You got the hell beat out of you." Guilt seared Nicky's face.
Chris ground his teeth together. "It wasn't your fault, Nicky."
"Some of it was."
He wasn't doing this again. He couldn't. They couldn't. Chris clenched his eyes together, too, trying to figure out a way past it, then did his best to just bypass it entirely. "I could go back to sleep, too."
He could just about hear Nick's brain skipping around, trying to find the track if they were gonna just move right past the fight. After a couple seconds, awkwardly, he said, "You probably should. I ordered pizza, though. It's in the fridge."
Previously unnoticed hunger roared through Chris's belly and he stood up. Too fast, as it turned out. Probably too fast even if he hadn't taken about five shots in as many minutes, but definitely too fast with that and every part of him including his toenails hurting. The couch swam up and caught him again as the room went blurry.
He was pretty sure that more than a few seconds had passed when he opened his eyes again, but he couldn't tell it by his own sense of time. But the pizza box was on the couch next to him and Nick was sitting on the floor beside him like a very large worried dog. Chris mumbled, "Aw, good boy," and ruffled his brother's hair.
Nick knocked his hand away with enough force to suggest he was relieved, not mad. "Eat and go back to bed, man. You're a mess."
"Yeah." Chris couldn't even manage an argument about who was supposed to take care of who, this time. He just ate the pizza, and meant to go to bed, but he woke up on the couch with a blanket over him when the sun crawled far enough past the horizon to get in his eyes. Winter cold leaked in around the patched holes in the wall until his breath hung on the air. After a minute he pulled the blanket over his head like the world would go away if he hid from it.
After another minute he got up, or at least sat up, because that wasn't gonna work anyway. Sitting up reminded him that everything hurt, although not half as bad as when he'd passed out the night before. A shiver ran down his spine, cold air creeping from the walls like it could coil around him. He got up, pulling the blanket over his shoulders against the chill, and padded down the hall to find Nick.
Both the bedroom doors were open, and their dad's room had been mostly cleared out, like Nick had said. Even the blanket was different, like Jake and Shy had gone to the trouble of changing the sheets. Chris went for his pocket like he'd find his phone in it, so he could send a text and say thanks, but god knew where the phone actually was, he sure didn't.
Nick wasn't in their dad's room, though. He was in Chris's room, looking too big for the bed, and coiled up like it would help him fit better. The blankets were a wreck, worse than Chris ever woke up to, and one hand was a fist in the pillow by his face. Nick had always slept like that, thrashing around and finally curling into a ball. Chris used to be able to tell how bad a day it'd been by how small Nick made himself.
Maybe not that much had changed, after all. He went in, threw his own blanket over Nick, and checked back again when he got to the door on the way out.
The hand knotted in the pillow had already relaxed some, and a line between Nick's eyebrows was gone. Chris closed the door quietly and dragged his own sorry ass off to the shower. At least the hot water didn't rely on the house being warm to work, and it beat some of the ache out of his body.
Nick was up by the time Chris got breakfast on the table, and out of the shower before Chris looked at what he'd cooked, thought about how much he'd watched his brother eat, and gone back to cook more. Nick came to the table as he got the last of it on, ate about three-quarters of what Chris had laid out, and finally said, "Thanks," in a low voice.
That was a better greeting than Chris got most days. "Had enough?"
A brief smile ran across Nick's face. "Thought I'd better leave you some."
"Here and I thought I was gonna hafta fight for the scraps."
Nick's smile strengthened and Chris grinned. "I'm fine. I don't eat as much as you do."
"'Cause you're little."
Chris barked a startled laugh, and Nicky looked pleased with himself before shivering. "It's colder than a witch's tit in here."
"Hey. I know at least two witches personally and their tits are nice and warm." Chris grinned as Nick threw a napkin at him, although the expression faded into a scowl as he glanced around the room. "You're not wrong, though. They did a decent job patching it up for the middle of the night, but it's gonna take some actual work."
"Got anything else planned for the day?"
Chris's eyebrows rose. "Guess not." He threw the napkin back at Nick and got up to clear the table.
"I got it. You cooked." Nick waved him off, collecting dishes and sliding them into the sink. Chris stared at him a minute, then mumbled, "Okay, I guess I'll go see what's in the shed."
"Get the toolbox from the Dodge, too."
"Yeah." He went out and dug around, hoping for some decent building materials lying around. Nothing that was gonna work well in the long term, for sure, but plywood and some filler would keep the heat in better than plastic sheeting or the one place Shy had stuffed a pillow into a hole, anyway. It took a wheelbarrow and a couple trips back and forth to get enough into the house to make a difference, and by that time Nick had finished the dishes and gone to turn some music on.
He came back into the kitchen with a stack of records and a curious expression. "When'd we start doing vinyl again?"
Chris shrugged, piling timber inside the front door. "Found some of Dad's old stuff a while ago. Thought I'd go retro."
"Nerd." Nick left again, grinning, and Muddy Waters rolled through the trailer a minute later.
"Now who's a nerd?" Chris yelled, and Nick's voice drifted back toward him.
"The hoochie-coochie man! Ma-nah-nah-nah-nah!" The latter was obviously supposed to sound like a harmonica doing a blues riff, and Chris guessed if he could tell what it was supposed to be, it was probably close enough.
He muttered, "Dork," anyway, before yelling a couple lyrics back.
"You know the lyrics, dude, so if I'm a dork you're an uber-dork or something. Gimme a hammer, I'll get this mess under the window fixed."
"Why do you think I'm carrying more than one hammer?"
"Because you're wearing a tool belt and I can see one, you tool."
Chris grinned and handed the spare hammer over. "Don't smash your thumb."
"Dude, I'm not seven." Nick threatened Chris's foot with the hammer instead, then got to work, singing off-key more often than not, and going inside to flip or change records when one of them noticed the music had stopped. Most of the day got eaten by repairs, although Chris went in to make something hot for lunch as an excuse to thaw his hands. Nick came in with red cheeks and a redder nose and flipped his soup spoon across the table because his fingers were thick from working outside.
"What was that about not being seven?" Chris threw a dish towel at him. Nick cleaned up and did the dishes again, which Chris thought he could get used to. By dinnertime the trailer was patched up enough to do until everything thawed and they—he, Chris reminded himself grimly—could do a better job.
Nick's phone rang during dinner and a shard of hope so sharp it hurt to see cut across his face before he said, "Oh. It's Shy," and put it on speaker. "Hey, Shy."
"Try not to sound so happy to hear me," she replied sharply. "How's our patient?"
"Your patient is fine," Chris said. "Been finishing patching up the house. Thanks for saving my fine, fine ass."
"You were supposed to keep him in bed!" Cheyenne's accusation was clearly meant for Nick, who made a face at the phone.
"You wanted him kept in bed, you should have stayed and kept him there. I'm just his brother."
"You outweigh me by…" Shy fell silent, obviously trying to decide how much Nick weighed, and eventually said, "Probably forty pounds, anyway."
"Dude," Chris said. "He outweighs me by forty pounds."
"How much do you think I weigh, Chris?"
Nick's eyes bugged and he shook his head rapidly. Chris bugged his eyes back and shook his head too. "I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole, Shy."
"Well, his brains weren't knocked entirely loose," Cheyenne conceded, a grin audible in her voice. "Maybe fifty pounds, then. You sure you're okay, Chris?"
"Yeah. Thanks. And thanks for checking in."
"Yeah, no problem. Look, I gotta go, I'm starting my shift, but Jake's supposed to check in on you before he heads south again. Don't be all macho and stupid, okay?"
"Never," Chris said insincerely.
Shy swore as she hung up, and Nick said, "How much do you think I weigh? I don't outweigh you by forty pounds!"
"I dunno, like two twenty?" Chris curled his lip. "Oh. Okay. That's only like thirty pounds more than me. Should I call her back and say maybe you do outweigh her by only forty pounds?"
"That depends on how attached you are to being alive, man."
"She wouldn't kill me after all the effort she just put into patching me up."
"Are you sure?"
Chris rolled his eyes up like he was consulting the inside of his head, then shrugged. "Yeah, maybe not." They finished dinner in more or less companionable silence, until Nick got up to clear the dishes away. He brushed off Chris's offer to help, but caught his breath like he had something to say. Chris waited a second, then said, "Okay, spit it out."
Nick, leaning over the sink, shook his head, but after a minute, barely audible over the sound of running water, said, "What do we do now?"
Chris shot a look at Nick's phone. "Maybe now you call your girlfriend."
"That'll go over like a lead balloon."
"You were hoping that was her, when Shy called."
"Yeah, but it wasn't. I—" He fell silent abruptly, turning his head, and Chris stood, hearing the same thing his brother did: an engine in the distance, coming closer. Nick dried his hands and they both went for handguns, with Nick muttering, "Although it's not like Saboac drove up," which was close enough to Chris's own line of thought to send a pang through him. It would be so much easier if the time Nicky had spent in California had changed him enough that they weren't…
Chris didn't even know. 'Weren't brothers anymore' was stupid. Weren't in sync, he guessed, although that sounded practically the same as not brothers, to him. Either way, they took up positions on opposite sides of the door, Nick flicking the window shade on his other side to glance out. "Old Jeep Cherok—oh, it's Dayton."
"It's Dayton's car, maybe," Chris muttered, and after another glance at him, Nick nodded and kept his guard up, following Chris's lead. A few seconds later, though, the Jeep door banged shut and Nick exhaled.
"Yeah, it's Day. What're you doing here, Dayton?" He pulled the door open for Dayton as Chris, sliding the gun into an inner waistband holster, stepped away.
Her eyebrows rose as Nick did the same. "Are those guns in your pockets, or are you boys just happy to see me?"
"Little bit of both?" Chris tried for a leer that made Dayton roll her eyes so hard it looked painful. She still stepped in to hug Nick, then wormed her way through Chris's defenses to hug him too. "What're you doing here, Day?"
"I thought I'd come check up on you and if you weren't home yet I'd make sure the pipes hadn't frozen. What the hell happened here?" Day turned like she was just actually looking at the place, a frown marring her expression until she looked like an angry Tinker Bell.
Chris started, "There was a little acc—" and Nick said, "I'm a freak, Day."
