Jaded Warriors book 2 (Jade Series)

Chapter 2

Chapter 2


“Trey!” I said, louder as I touched his arm. His eyelids half opened and he looked at me. He stared blankly, his pupils large and unfocused then with a delayed reaction lit, as recognition leaked into his eyes. His lips moved to speak but didn’t. I grabbed his hand and looked at it, his skin cool and mottled, then as I knelt closer to his face his hand squeezed mine. I let the tears fall unrestrained as they streamed steadily down my cheeks.


“You can’t go,” I pleaded with him. “Don’t leave.”


“I’m sorry,” Trey said, barely able to focus his hazy eyes.


“Wherever you go, I go, remember.”


“Not this time… Tell Emery bye for me…”


“No!” With desperation in my eyes, I looked at Kane. “This can’t be happening!” I pleaded with him as his lips pressed together in a thin line. His jaw quivered as he remained silent but shook his head. “Do something, Kane!”


“I know, Jade… I’m sorry. There's nothing I can do.” Kane clenched his jaw tight, his voice wrought with emotion as he choked through the words. His eyes slowly closed with his head down, arms folded across his chest. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers, every muscle in his arms and chest, rigid as he fought his own grief.


I looked back at Trey. “I love you.”  His eyes were weak but he managed to focus. “I couldn’t have asked for a better brother. Thank you… You have been my best friend my whole life... What am I going to do without you?” I sobbed. I couldn’t accept it! “Don’t leave!”


“You’ve been my best friend too,” he said, with tears in his eyes as one trickled into his hair. “You’re going to be just fine...”


I shook my head as I rested it on his shoulder and cried onto his arm. He reached his hand over and grasped my hair softly in his grip as he touched my head.


“Don’t go…” I whispered through sobs, more to myself than to Trey.


“Tell me you are going to be okay,” he said, very weak.


“Trey no!”


“Tell me.”


I hesitated as I sharply inhaled and released a deep breath. I looked to see his face. “I’ll be okay,” I said. Tears ran down my cheeks and dropped onto his shoulder as my eyes pleaded with him not to leave me.


“Thank you,” he said, in barely a whisper and smiled as he closed his eyes. “Love you, sis…”


“Trey wait… I’m not ready! Look at me, please… ” I tried to hold back, but a strangled sound escaped me as weeping sobs shook my body. His eyelids fluttered but never opened as my bruised heart begged him to stay. “Not yet! I’m not ready!”


He took a few more ragged breaths and then wheezed his last. The air sucked from his lungs, never to return. I held my breath as I waited for him to take another. The expansion in my chest grew more painful as I couldn’t hold it any longer. “Breathe Trey…” I whispered, as I forced an exhale. But he didn’t. Trey was gone.


I felt the air in the room seep away as the deadly silence encroached. The dim lighting from the lantern seemed to dim further as the gentle flame flickered and threatened to extinguish, while golden ribbons of pale yellow light danced against the walls.


My chest tightened and I couldn’t breathe. Numbness impinged as I felt part of me die with him. My ears rang loudly as if I heard cries in my head, each rhythmic beat of my heart, slowed by the heaviness I felt. It pounded fierce, painful against the wall of my chest as if it fought against life to end and fought against death as it struggled to beat. The pain in my chest, no less real than if stabbed with a knife. At that moment, I felt like I could go with Trey, like all I would have to do is close my eyes like he did, and I wanted to.


The sounds of my muffled cries filled the room as I pressed my face into Trey’s lifeless chest and grasped the bedcover tightly, balled in my hand. I heard Gage get up. He walked out and shut the door. Minutes crept by like hours as I waited for Trey to gasp for air, to open his eyes, to say something, to tell me he would be okay, but he never did.


I looked up as Kane came around the side of the bed, his eyes red from tears. The weight of my heart pulled my weary body to the floor. He sat next to me and wrapped his arms around me as I grasped onto him.


“Trey can’t be gone, Kane,” I sobbed.


“I know…”


“I can’t go through life without him… I don’t know how to do that.”


“We’ll figure it out, okay…”


The pendulum of the grandfather clock in the living room swung slowly and intensified in my ears as three chimes rang out. It drowned the sounds of my tears and broke the silence in the room.


I’m sorry I let you down,” Kane said, his voice sounded strained as he choked on his words. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get Trey home.”


“You didn’t let me down. You came for me, for us, and you did get Trey home. He’s here with us, where he should be…”


“It wasn’t enough,” he said, with a faint thud his head tipped back in defeat and rested against the sculpted, wooden bedpost. I gave him a sidelong glance to see his blue eyes distant as he tried to mask his pain, a mixture of sweat and ash, smudged a glistening black on his face. His grey shirt black and his body marred with bloody gash marks. He succeeded. They infiltrated Morrison’s compound and the jail. What I thought to be impossible, they did it.


“Trey’s dead because… The explosion… I…”


“No! There is only one person responsible for Trey’s death,” he said, his torment faded as his eyes grew stern. “And that is Morrison.”


“What do we do now?”


“Don’t worry right now, okay,” he said. “I’ll take care of it. We need to decide where to bury him, but we can do that tomorrow.”


“Maybe by the lake.”


“Okay,” he said. I let my eyes close, enveloped in Kane’s arms I took what comfort they gave me. I didn’t know what to do so I did nothing. We said nothing. I felt empty inside, as if a part of me, ripped out and left a hole right in the middle of my chest.


“I’m so tired.”


“Why don’t you lie down?” He said, then stood and held out his hand to help me up. Mine trembled as I took it and he reached around my back to lift me up. With his efforts consumed in trying to save Trey, he really looked at me for the first time. His expression showed his anger. “You are skin and bones!”


I shrugged my shoulders as he grabbed a throw blanket on the side of the chair and placed it over me. I pulled it up around my neck, then curled up next to Trey on the bed. The tears came again, quietly this time.


“Are you sure you want to stay in here?”


“Yeah…” I paused, as grief settled in Kane’s eyes once more and I watched him fight against it then he turned and walked out.


“Trey… I'm sorry,” I said, a waver in my voice choked at my throat as silence curled around me. My eyes burned from the salty tears. I put my hand on his pale clammy arm, already beginning to cool. I curled up on the bed next to him, still in shock, unable to believe Trey was gone.


***


My breath stilled suddenly in my chest as I woke disoriented with a start in a cold sweat. The confusion in my mind as thick as butter and as milky as a winter fog. My hair and shirt, drenched with beads of moisture and I shivered from the cold. Something felt different as I smelled the faint, pleasant scent of lavender vanilla wafting through the air. Clearly changed from the usual mildew stench in my cell.


I looked around, wondering where I was. I sat up cross-legged as my eyes darted about the unfamiliar room, pleasantly adorned with lace doilies, glass figurines, delicate lamp fixtures and a pale purple-colored candle that burned on a tall, burgundy six-drawer dresser. Museum like paintings hung on the wall and a sense of calm filtered through the air, all strange to me, foreign.


“Gage?” I said, suddenly confused and surprised as I saw him in the chair next to the dresser. With his head in his hands, he raised up to meet my bewildered stare. His blue eyes looked weary and I couldn't figure out from his expression, the details of where we were, or where Damian was. My head hurt as I strained to remember through the webs in my mind beyond the jail, beyond that cold dark cement room. “Where’s Damian? How did I get here?”


“You’re at my house… You’re safe now,” he said, a perplexed look crossed his face, as if we had this conversation before, as if I should know. I looked down at the bedding where I sat. Silky floral print sheets felt strangely soft against my bare legs. I glanced at the oversized, dingy grey shirt that hung over my thin frame. I looked back at Gage to see his sympathetic eyes on me and suddenly, I felt naked as I sat back against the fluffy pillows and pulled the downy comforter closer around me. 


“Where’s Trey?”


“He's not here.”


I looked at him puzzled and alarm rang through my ears as my heart started to beat swiftly out of my chest. “What do you mean? We can't leave him in there, how did I get here?”


“We didn’t leave him… He’s dead, Jade.”


“He’s not dead! They had him in the basement in lockdown,” I said, suddenly panicked and sat upright quickly with the comforter still clutched to my chest as dread filled his eyes. “We have to go get him!”


“He was here. We got you both out… you got here yesterday. You’ve been asleep for about fourteen hours. We moved him out.”


“Who did?”


“Kane, Joel and I.”


“Where’s Kane.”


“He left for a minute. He’ll be back.”


“I want to see him,” I demanded, as I flung the covers off my legs and stood at the side of the bed. My legs trembled from lack of strength and I felt winded from the meager effort as my chest tightened against my lungs. A fog grew, hazy in my mind as I tried to sift through my fragmented thoughts unable to remember anything about where Trey was.


“Jade, he’s gone.” Gage walked towards me. My breaths quickened as a surge of anger and dread rushed through my heart then dizziness infringed as the room started to spin. 


“Quit saying that… And don’t touch me!” I yelled, as I backed up into the mattress and I leaned against it for support. Gage stopped at the end of the bed as Casey opened the door and walked into the room.


“Where’s Trey, Casey?”


“He’s dead, Jade… Kane will be back soon,” Casey said, as he looked at me confused. The weight of his words hit me head on as if I slammed into a brick wall with a speeding car, bashing my heart in my chest. Tears fell instantly down my cheeks. “He got hurt, you were there… he died.”


"What?" The fog in my mind left me confused. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t remember and I wasn't sure if I heard him right. I ran my hands through my hair. With clenched fists, I tightened my grip and tried to pull my memory through the confusion as anger welled inside me.


“Think back, Jade… you left the jail,” Casey said, his voice low and cautious.


“When?”


“Yesterday, the last time you were awake,” he said as he took a step towards me. “Can you remember the last time you were awake?”


My bare feet, blackened and stained with dried blood, padded across the rug as I paced back and forth in my confined space by the bed. My breaths quickened in panic as my chest tightened and squeezed my air away as fragments of yesterday returned slowly. Denny and I, held at gunpoint by Damian… Denny’s dead body, then Jasper's… Gage and Kane storming the shower room… fleeing the jail, Trey, the grenade, the explosion.


“The grenade?”  I sat on the bed and looked up at Gage and Casey, both dumbfounded. Neither dared say anything. I searched Gage’s eyes and pleaded with him to tell me otherwise, as I recognized the devastating, heart wrenching pain he was unable to hide. “No…! He can’t be… He’s not gone.”


Casey walked over to me and tried to put his arm around me.


“Stop! He’s not gone! You are just saying that Casey!” I shoved him away.


“Why would I just say that? You know he’s gone Jade, you were here. He died right here, in this bed,” Casey said, then turned to Gage. “She doesn’t remember… she had to wake up when she should have been sleeping off the drug.”


“She slept four hours, how long does it usually take?” Gage asked as he ran a frustrated hand through his hair.


“Twelve hours-”


“I need to see him,” I said, interrupting their conversation and tried to leave the room.


“Jade, you aren’t thinking straight.” Casey picked me up as I fought against him. I pleaded with him to let me go but he wouldn’t as he brought me over to the bed.


“Casey! Stop!  Please!”


“I don’t want to do this, Jade. But it’s for your own good... Gage, hold her down!”


“Gage! Don’t please!” I cried, as he held me down. 


He looked at me, painful tears visible in his eyes and desperation on his face. Casey held my arm with one hand as he fumbled for the needle. He struggled but gave me the injection and the burn crawled up my arm.


“Why are you doing this?” I cried, as my eyelids grew heavy. “You said you would help me! You said you weren’t like him Casey!”


“I’m not like Damian. I am helping you... I didn’t give you very much,” he said, and the hurt in Casey’s eyes faded from my vision as the wave hit me then I relaxed into sedation. I heard Gage and Casey argue as I drifted off.


“Don’t make me do that again, Casey!”


“You might have to! We didn’t have a choice. That was the drug acting, not her. And bringing her off it isn’t going to be easy…”


***


As I woke, I saw Kane in a chair in the far corner of the room, his head rested in his hands as his fingers pressed firmly into his temples. “Kane,” I said in a raspy whisper. Golden-specked dust motes floated in the air through the bright light from the window, disturbed with aimless direction as he sat up. He looked at me, his eyes, weary.


“Yeah,” he said. His voice deep and rough in his throat and he cleared it as he moved over to the edge of my bed.


Tears welled in my eyes. From the regret etched on his face, I already knew the answer. The faint memory of my last minutes with Trey sifted through the fog in my mind as if lost in a terrible nightmare that didn't end when I woke up. “Please tell me, Trey isn’t dead, is he?”


“Gage told me what happened… Trey is dead.”


“No…”  My heart sank into the pit of my stomach as if it were a ton of heavy bricks and rolled to my side, away from him. My cries muffled into the pillow and my mind slowly cleared. My memory of yesterday flooded into my mind and I felt the shock of my loss all over again. I remembered all of it and I didn’t want to believe it.


“No, Kane,” I sobbed, as I clutched the bed cover, tightened into my fist. My body ached from the physical, tortuous pain caused by Trey's absence.


“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice wavered unrestrained as he placed a hand on my shoulder. His fingers trembled under his grip as he fought through his own torture.


“Is he here still?”


Kane hesitated. “Yeah.”


I turned and glanced at him over my shoulder through my tears, my eyes puffy as I wiped them dry. “Can I go see him?”


“No,” he said, as a lament look settled deeper into his already sorrowful eyes.


“Why?”


“I don’t want you to remember him that way… I want you to remember him alive, Jade.”