Into the Light (University of Isles #2)

10. Chapter 10

Chapter ten

“I think I want to go over to his rock,” Ember said as we walked out of the run-down diner and back toward the car.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

I had been there a few hundred times going over and scouring the entire place to see if there were any other clues. Since this was likely her first time back, I wanted to support her in ways I hadn’t been able to before this.

“Yeah.”

“Now?” I wanted to double-check that she was certain.

“Now.” Her voice was unwavering.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” I leaned back against the car we were standing next to.

“W-will you come with me?” she asked. I didn’t want to. Every time I had to go back, I always felt him next to me, and I hated acknowledging that was the last place he saw. Obviously, I’d do it for Ember because, shit, if she wanted me to walk to the other end of the world for her, I’d do it without thinking twice.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Want me to drive?”

“Please.” I jumped into the driver’s side as she went to the other.

“Wait,” she exclaimed. “Where’s Santiago?” She frantically looked around.

“He’s back at his apartment. I told him you’re with me.” She narrowed her eyes on me.

“How did you know his number?” I laughed again. I should tell her the truth because she deserved to know and I promised I would be the only person to never lie to her.

“I texted him the other night when you were at the Den.” I shrugged.

She grabbed my arm, and the moment her skin touched mine, a shiver crawled down my spine. I loved the way she felt and missed her taste from the one time I got to have her, and I tried so hard to replace the way she made me feel with others but hadn’t been successful.

“Tell me the truth, Rain.”

“I hired Santiago. When you left Isles last year, I hired him to watch over you.” Looking straight ahead, I pulled out of the lot, not wanting to make eye contact.

“You . . . what?”

“I hired Santiago from the Cartel. He was looking for a job, something that got him out of the daily grind, and wanted an assignment. I told Mr. Ortiz that Ash had hired him before he passed, and who was going to argue with a dead man? It was the only way to keep him on payroll, keep you safe.” I kept driving straight out toward the edge of Isles. It was silent for two blocks, and I didn’t dare look in her direction.

“That’s why he told me Ash hired him.”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

Then I glanced back at her because I was damn well expecting a verbal lashing. “Thank you?”

“Yeah, for telling me the truth.” She folded her hands in her lap. “It’s all I ask, and it seems like a task most people find utterly impossible.”

“I’ll always tell you the truth. Always.” I promised, knowing it was damn well a promise I would uphold. Ash never told her the full truth because the truth underneath all those layers was terrifying even for himself. I’m not sure he even knew the full truth himself, because then he would have had to face it within himself. It’s scary to have to look at yourself in the mirror and admit that the person looking back at you is a stranger you don’t recognize.

I’ve been there. I’m there now. Because every damned morning, I look at myself in the mirror and hate the person staring back at me.

We exit Isles, and I check the mirror to make sure it’s just us. The one good thing that came from what had happened was that the Alpha house and the Den seemed to come to an understanding that neither of us were hunting until we figured out what happened to Ash. The Alpha house insisted they had nothing to do with him, especially not before the bonfire. Yeah, they wanted him dead, but only in a way that was legit.

“Are we . . . safe?” Ember asked, and I snapped out of my thoughts and back to her.

“Yeah,” I admitted, double-checking that I had my two Glocks tucked into my waistband just in case we needed them.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“Ready as I can be,” she replied as we drove down the windy roads and straight to the pull off I’d been to many times over the last eight months. So many times that even during my worst nightmares, I’d drive here, imagining what it must have felt for Ash in those last moments.

I pulled off where we found his car and got out before walking toward Ember’s side. As I opened the door, she was white as a ghost and her hands shook in her lap.

“Is this what you want?” I asked again.

“Yes,” she replied, so I did what I thought was right in the moment and laced my fingers with hers and pulled her from the seat.

She hesitated, but ultimately followed me. Fog hid the setting sun, so it was pretty dark already.

“I have a light in the trunk,” she said. So without letting her hand go, I went around the back, grabbed the flashlight, then headed in the direction of his death.

“Tell me what you know,” she murmured as we walked toward the edge where we found him.

“The rain has washed most of the evidence out, but we did take pictures. I have them back at the house.” Over the times the rest of the Den and I had scoured this place, we’d cataloged everything we saw: what kind of plants were there, shoe imprints, and anything else that stuck out to us.

“Were the cops ever called?” she asked.

“Yeah. Isles had to, but it was a clean-cut case of—” I swallowed hard. “Suicide.”

I leaned over, pausing us in our tracks, and wiped away a rogue tear that had fallen down her cheek.

Her breath picked up in pace as her chest heaved up and down. I gave her hand a quick squeeze, and she looked up at me with her big beautiful eyes.

“I haven’t said that word since he . . . passed,” she mumbled.

“It’s okay not to, but that’s what we are doing out here. We’re trying to figure out what happened because I do think that something was out here, but I just can’t figure out what.”

“You don’t believe what Mr. Ortiz did?”

“No. But I do think your brother not telling the truth is somewhat telling in terms of something else happening.” I needed to figure out who else was there.

“I agree.” When we finally got into the clearing, she took a deep breath.

“I learned this in therapy. Helps ground me.”

“Can I do it with you?” I asked, willing to try anything to stop the nerves from jostling through me.

“You wanna take a breath?” I gave her a small twist of my lips, knowing it sounded ridiculous, but not caring either way.

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” She shrugged. “It’s easy. You just inhale, hold it for three seconds, then exhale. Repeat until you feel more grounded.”

I held her hand and did exactly what she asked. In all honesty, it seemed hokey, but after doing it a few times together, I felt more comfortable being out here. Either that or being here with Ember, holding her hand in a place where the one person we loved the most saw last comforted me.

“Tell me what this looked like that night,” she asked. As we stood there staring out into the clearing, neither of us dared to go onto the rock itself.

“We knew Ash had been out here. I drove, saw his car from the road, and parked. There were two distinct sets of shoe prints. Although one of them had a steady forward motion, the other seemed frantic, like it was searching for the first person.” I gripped her hand a little tighter to steady her.

“How many sets of shoe prints were on the rock?” she asked.

Huh. I hadn’t thought to ask that, nor did I know the answer.

“I have no idea.” She looked up at me, batted her lashes, then glanced over toward the rock.

“If he was pushed, it is always muddy up here, so you’d see the two sets of shoe prints on the rock. Maybe we can have a look when we get back to the house?” I asked, wanting her involved, desperate to spend more time with her.

“I’d love that.” She gave me a slight smile. “I want to go up there.”

“Okay,” I said, stepping forward before she pulled me back. “Alone.”

“Okay,” I repeated, turning toward the car. “I’ll just wait—”

“Can you just stay here?”

Looking around, I found a small stump on the side, pulling away before letting her go forward. She needed to see him, to feel his spirit, to feel what I did every time I came up here. She needed to know it was okay to live, that what she’d been doing in the city wasn’t living; it was existing, and there was a difference between the two.

I may not have been a pro at offering advice, but I knew I had to heed my own wisdom. I was simply going through the motions in life, existing rather than living. Being here, after I got past the initial fear of solitude, was a form of healing. It felt good to see the last thing he did, to find beauty in the quiet, to see the birds gliding through the air, and to believe, in some way, that he had found peace here, no matter how it all unfolded.