Sighing, I weave my way through the crowd of people wandering to the exit, make my way over to the bar, and hold up a hand to the bartender.
“Hey, man, I got it,” I say. “Leave him to me.”
The bartender, Bruce, gives me a wary look, then nods, his plump hand falling away. “I need him out of here in fifteen minutes,” he says. “Coming up on last call. I already took his car keys. He one of your guys?”
“Yeah, he’s on the crew. It’s okay. I’m sober. I’ll give him a lift.”
Another suspicious look before the bartender slips away. I frown, leaning down to try to peer at Justin’s face, but all I get is a mop of black curls and a hint of his brow. He’s buried himself in his folded forearms.
“Yo, Justin,” I say. “Hey, man. It’s me. Let me get you home.”
For a minute, I think he might actually be blackout drunk. Unconscious.
Shit.
I might just have to carry him at this rate.
But then he lets out a soft gurgle in the back of his throat. Not just the booze, it’s ragged with grief. I think if he were a little more drunk, he’d be crying. If he were a little more sober, he’d be fighting it.
Where he is now is no man’s land.
It’s an awful, heartbreaking place where you hear wounded animal growls coming from a grown man’s throat.
“Everybody dies here,” he whispers, slurring his words, and I’m wondering how many damn beers he’s had. “Everybody. Maybe she didn’t die here…but they brought her body back. They brought her body back to lay it home.”
Fuck.
Yeah.
Yeah, I know what this is about.
Justin’s young enough to be my kid, almost. Twenty-seven.
And he was a kid one time, with the big Paradise Hotel fire almost a decade ago.
These days, everybody can’t shut up about the Heroes of Heart’s Edge.
You wanna talk about a real hero long before we hooked up, though?
Talk about Constance Bast.
Justin’s ma.
A lot of folks died the night that hotel burned, but she managed to get a hell of a lot of people out of there, people who would’ve been trapped if she hadn’t stepped up.
She’d just been the receptionist.
She was never meant to be a martyr.
I still remember.
I wasn’t too old back then either. Just a junior on the fire crew between tours serving Uncle Sam. And that woman in the debris, covered in soot, she’d shown bravery I didn’t see again till Afghanistan.
She’d been okay, at first.
Until she’d collapsed, hacking up a bloody, black mess.
“Justin.” I nudge his shoulder gently. “Thinkin’ about your ma tonight, huh?”
“Chief?”
“Yeah, dude. It’s me.”
“F-forty-three days,” he rasps, and my throat knots. It’s so wretched, so awful. “She held on for forty-three days.”
“Yeah, bud,” I whisper. “I remember.”
Forty-three days while the doctors in Spokane tried to fix the brutal smoke damage to her lungs.
And failed.
She left Heart’s Edge a hero.
She came home to a coffin.
Seems like that’s the story of a lot of good people around here who die too young.
Warren’s sister, Jenna, for one. Killed in a devious setup overseas.
Even more folks the past few years have had their own brush with the Reaper and lived to tell the tale.
Warren himself, and Haley, and Leo, and Clarissa, Doc, Ember…fuck.
I wonder sometimes if this place is cursed. Even if all those spooky legends about Nine aka Leo are just history now, there’s something eerie and unnatural about life in Heart’s Edge.
Add one more body from my side.
Abigail was no hero when she died. But nobody needed to die like her.
I close my eyes, taking a deep breath, pushing the thoughts away.
Instead, I keep my focus on Justin and slip my arm around his shoulders to coax him off the stool. “C’mon, bud. Let’s get you home.”
“Forty-three days, Chief,” he repeats miserably, even as his body slides limply off the seat.
“I know, man. I know.”
It’s like moving a bag of dry cement, he’s so heavy and boneless. But I manage to get his legs under him and prop him against my side, mostly supporting his weight on my right leg so I can steer with my bum left leg. This ain’t the best way, but I just gotta get him to the Jeep.
“Let’s go,” I say, while Justin makes a hurting, horrid sound against my shoulder.
I wish I could give him more than useless words—but that’s all I’m good for.
“Chief…”
“Hush. Talkin’ takes a lot of energy right now. Let’s get you put away for the night.”
* * *
Dropping Justin at his apartment feels a little melancholy.
It’s sparse, utilitarian, like he doesn’t really live there.
Just sleeps and wakes up to go to work.
I frown. He hasn’t bothered making it any kind of home, not even for a young guy. Nothing personal there except the rows of photo albums lined up on the wall shelves—well, at least he’s got himself a hobby. He’s good with a camera.