Into the Light (University of Isles #2)

8. Chapter 8

Chapter eight

“I’m mad at you,” I said mid-bite of my cheese pizza as Santiago and I sat on a curb at the edge of town. Behind us was the pizza place. It was run-down and open until midnight for all the after-bar-hours crowd, but the pizza was greasy and hit the spot. He insisted I needed something to eat, and we walked all the way to the edge of Isles without another word between each other. I didn’t argue because I was starving.

“You left without telling me. When I heard from Rain, what was I supposed to do?” I took another bite and refused to look over at him, knowing full well I was acting like a child throwing a tantrum.

Santiago was a good-looking man in his thirties with thick brown hair, similar curls to Ash, and the same tanned skin most of the guys in the Den had. He wasn’t married, a former military man, and honestly, in the last year, we’d gotten along well. I respected him, so not telling him where I was going when he was simply looking out for my safety was a crappy move.

“Plus, when I heard you were at the Den on a Saturday night, I thought it was just too early for you to be there without some protection.” I had to agree with him there.

“We don’t like Rain.” I looked over at him, and he laughed.

“Oh really? We don’t?” The corners of his lips twisted into a small smirk. Asshole.

I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s an asshole,” I said while grabbing another slice from the box.

“He only cares about you, Ember.”

“Nope.”

“Ember, I know what happened to you was terrible. I know what happened afterward; words cannot even describe how you must feel. But before you came here, you were doing good in moving forward in your life.”

I crossed my arms over my chest as he kept talking. “I lost a lot of men in Iraq when I was in the Special Forces. A lot of men that I knew personally. When I got back stateside, I was supposed to just imagine that life was better.” I shoved the slice into my mouth. I needed to keep my hands busy and refocus my thoughts to avoid choking up. “But life wasn’t easy. All I could dream and think about was the booms, the screams as people fell to their deaths, the stench that proceeded afterward. I thought I’d never move on, but I realized that doesn’t mean that you need to be constantly sad and mad.”

“What does it mean, then?” I asked, putting the slice of pizza down and hugging my knees while I looked at Santiago, who offered a small rub on my back.

“It’s about acknowledging what happened, making peace with his death . . .with your death, and making the most of living before you meet them in the afterlife.” I started to cry again. I’d probably beat the record of how many times I’d cried in one day if the night continued.

“What if I can’t seem to find a way to make peace with it out here?”

“Then you need to do whatever it takes, Ember,” Santiago continued, his voice carrying the weight of his own experiences. “It might not be easy, and you might never get all the answers you seek, but it’s essential for your own healing and peace of mind.”

I wanted to know what happened to him and to clear my name, but I also wanted to know that my brother had nothing to do with his . . . passing.

“I’ll try.” We sat in silence while Santiago picked up a piece of pizza.

“And for God’s sake, forgive Rain, because he hasn’t made peace with Ash’s death either,” he said as he shoved the slice into his mouth. “He’s a good man, Ember.”

“He never checked in on me . . . at all. He’s the only person who knows what all of this feels like, and didn’t bother to check in on me.” Shoulders slumping, the pain seeped back into me. I felt second-string to everyone else and wanted to feel . . . supported. I wanted someone to tell me my trauma was normal and my reactions were fine. Going through something really fucking heavy alone sucked. He wasn’t there.

“He did.”

I snapped my head in Santiago’s direction. “What do you mean?”.

“He just was too scared to hurt you, but he checked in on you.” This changed everything . . . literally everything. “Sometimes in grief, people don’t know how to function. Everything was thrown at Rain all at once, being forced to figure out a death and come up with some alternate ending when it was clear what happened.”

“Wait, how do you know all of this?” I asked. I figured Santiago had connections with the Cartel, but this felt like some top-secret shit he was confessing.

“I worked for Mr. Ortiz for a while. That’s how R-Ash found me.”

Hold on a moment . . . did he just say . . .?

“R-Ash?”

“Ash, Ember. Don’t read into it. We were talking about Rain for a moment, I got it twisted,” Santiago explained. I cocked my head in his direction. Something was awry here.

“Okay.” I agreed, determined to figure out the solution to all of this.

“Let’s go home?”

“Yeah, let’s.” We walked back to my apartment.

“Do you ever want a girlfriend?” I asked Santiago, and he laughed.

“No. Too tóxica.”

“We are not,” I blurted to defend womankind.

He narrowed his eyes at me, then laughed. “Ember, you were upset when we left the fraternity even though you snuck out on me. Could you imagine if I had a woman? The drama that would ensue?” I punched him in the elbow, and he let out a snicker.

“I bet there will be someone out there for you,” I murmured.

“I’ll take that into consideration,” he said as we got to the building and took the elevator to the third floor. As the doors opened, the small foyer was filled with erotic noises coming from Marissa’s apartment.

“They’re back from the party, I guess.” Santiago stuck out his tongue like he was gagging, and I giggled as I said goodnight and walked into my apartment, promising that I wouldn’t sneak out again.

To be honest, I was exhausted, and it was well into the early morning hours anyway.

I stripped my clothes off, threw on an oversized T-shirt, and laid down in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about what Santiago had told me. Somehow, I got the feeling that Rain was far more involved in what had happened with me over the last eight months than I had thought. He had been keeping track of me in his own way, suffering in his own depths of grief, but I wished he’d take me up on my proposition. I wished he’d let me in, and together we could figure this out. Between his inside knowledge of Ash and how intimately I knew him, we could figure it out together . . .

One could only dream.