Angered Seasons: The Worst Birthday Ever (Volume One) (8 page)

“I’m sorry.” His whisper was muffled in my
hair. “I was worried about you.”

“I had to go, Lane.” I kept my voice
down.

“I know.” He leaned his cheek against the top
of my head and I took a deep breath.

“I hate this.”

“I’m sure they’ll figure it out soon.” His
voice had lowered and deepened out of habit. It was the voice that
made all animals come to him no matter how scared they were. It
also broke up fights and worked wonders with the kids we worked
with. He’d used it plenty of times on me.

“Not that. I mean, that sucks. God, it beyond
sucks. There is no word for what this is. We’ve killed people,
Lane. Max ran over two more today and I had to shoot one. I don’t
even want to think of the ones we killed last night. They’re sick.
I mean, I know they tried to kill us, but god!” The shock of the
past two days tightened my throat and my eyes let slip a fresh
stream of tears. “The one I shot, he was confused. I could tell. I
raised the gun and he stopped. He knew he would die if I pulled the
trigger. He was scared. He was scared and confused and whatever
made him sick still pushed him to try and kill us and I had to pull
the trigger…” A sob cut off my words and Lane tightened his hold on
me.

“I think Max is sick,” I whispered.

“What?”

“His eyes… when we were in the park, his eyes
were glowing silver. I think I was going to shoot him, but he
blinked and it went away.” I let out a shaky breath. “I almost shot
him, Lane. He’s one of our kids! What are we going to do? And
Lizzy’s using again and Max can’t handle it, he had a meltdown
while you were gone. And you were gone and I was worried about you.
All I could think was that something had happened to you and I
can’t do this without you, Lane.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Gabrielle.” He held
me close and I started to relax at the safe and familiar feel of
his strong arms around me. “I’m sorry.”

I frowned at his words. “What are you sorry
for?”

“The last little while. I know I’ve been hard
to get along with.”

I stayed quiet, not wanting to start another
fight.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I’ve
been a little stressed.”

My heart jumped. “Please don’t move out,
Lane. I’ll be nicer. I’ll stop walking around in my underwear. I’ll
even disappear if you bring girls over…”

“Christ, Gabs.”

“Lane! Gabby!”

Brent’s yell just outside the door made both
of us jump. I quickly wiped my tears away and took a deep breath
before following Lane out of the closet.

“Max is about to lose it.”

We ran back to the front where Lizzy had Max
back up against a wall.

“Why would you do that? It wasn’t up to you
to tell her! I told you what would happen if you told anyone!” She
poked him in the chest and I saw him flinch. His eyes were squeezed
shut. He stopped mid count to look at her, the shock at her words
clear on his face.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Lane calmly stepped
between them and I put an arm around Lizzy to start leading her
away. She shrugged away from me, stomped up the stairs and I
watched until she disappeared then turned my attention to Max. He
was still pressed against the wall, his eyes darting around the
room.

“Listen to me, Maxy. You don’t need to hit
anything.” Lane’s voice had dropped and lowered.

Max squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his
jaw, the tendons in his neck cording from the tension.

“Just take a deep breath. Come on. Breathe
in.” Lane started to count out loud while everyone else stood
still, scared to make any noise that might break Max’s
concentration. His lips moved in time with Lane’s words, though no
sound came from him save his heavy breathing. It took to sixty
before the tension started to ease out of his shoulders. By a
hundred, he’d slipped down the wall so that he sat with his knees
up, his head buried in his arms. He inhaled deeply one last time
and looked up at Lane who was squatting in front of him. Lane
smiled.

“Good job.” He put a hand on Max’s shoulder
and glanced up at the rest of us. “What happened?”

Pete sent Max a sad smile. “Lizzy came down
the stairs and told Maxy he had to drive her into town and she
wanted to go before the two of you reappeared. When he asked her
why, she reminded him she had to meet someone.”

Max swallowed hard. “I told her I wasn’t
driving her to meet her dealer; that I’d talked to Gabby and we
were all going to sit down and figure out how to get her
better.”

“Dude, she snapped!” Grant shook his head in
disbelief and Brent mirrored him.

John was frowning. “What did she say she’d do
if you told?”

Max’s answer was mumbled into his arms. “She
said she’d leave me.” Though his words were muffled, the
devastation he felt was clear.

“So let her go.”

Max looked up at Pete’s statement. “I can’t,”
he whispered. “She’s the only one that will put up with what I am.
I mean, look at me. There’s something wrong with me.” Coming from
anyone else, I’d have thought the speaker might just be looking for
attention. Coming from Max, it broke my heart because I knew he was
telling us what he thought was the truth.

Marie sat beside him and hugged him tightly.
“There is nothing wrong with you. Everyone has issues they need to
deal with. Yours are just a bit more out in the open when it
happens. If she loved you half as much as you love her, she’d never
use how you feel about yourself against you. You’re nice to
everyone you meet, you try your damnedest to help whoever needs a
hand; you’re a good guy, Maxy.”

He snorted and looked up at Pete. “I’m
stealing your girlfriend.”

Pete grinned. “Sorry, man, you can’t have
her. Besides, she’s not my girlfriend.”

Everyone frowned and Marie grinned.

“Pete asked me to marry him!”

Max’s smile was genuine as he pulled her into
a hug then helped her to her feet so she could come show me her
ring. The thin gold band with a heart shaped diamond was beautiful
on her slender finger.

“When did this happen?” I inquired.

“Last night, at supper, before this whole
mess started,” he answered before kissing his fiancée who
blushed.

“Hey, Gabs, do you have any advil?”

I frowned at John. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah, nothing major. I twisted my ankle when
I fell out of the tree and it’s pretty sore.”

I went to find him some painkillers and a
glass of water. “Alright. Start at the beginning. Where were you
all night and why didn’t you have your phone on you?”

We all made our way to the sitting area and
looked at him expectantly. He ran a hand over his short dirty blond
hair, closed his light blue eyes for a moment and took a deep
breath. His gaze met Lane’s and I was starting to worry about the
worry and fear on his face.

“I don’t know what happened last night. The
last thing I remember is jumping into a truck with a bunch of my
buddies and when I woke up, I was on some guy’s porch, alone.” He
looked at the floor. “I got pissed drunk last night. I lost my
phone, I had no clue what was going on until I saw one of those
sick bastards tearing an old woman apart.” He swallowed hard. “I
didn’t even do anything to help her. I just stood there and watched
cause I couldn’t seem to get my legs to work and when he was done,
he turned toward me and that’s when I ran like hell.”

The blood had leached out of his face. “There
was so much blood,” he whispered. He suddenly turned green and Pete
had the sense to pass him the garbage can just instants before he
started to puke.

“I’ll get him some more water,” offered
Marie. Pete took Ashley from her and gave his sleeping baby girl a
kiss on the forehead. John stayed bent over the can until Marie
reappeared. I sat beside him and pulled him into a hug.

“You’ve been drinking again, Johnny?”

“Just last night, I swear. I was walking to
your house to tell you about it when I saw…” his voice trailed
off.

“Well, isn’t this touching,” snarled Lizzy.
“Lizzy starts using again and the whole world jumps on her. Johnny
falls off the wagon and he gets a pat on the back.”

I glanced at Max and was shocked. Instead of
the anger I was expecting, I saw defeat.

“Lizzy, get upstairs.” I stood and faced
her.

“You’re not my mother! You can’t just send me
to my room! I am not a kid!” She clutched her hands together and I
noticed she couldn’t keep them from shaking. The joys of not
getting your fix when you needed it.

“So long as you act like a child, I will
treat you like one. Throwing hissy fits, that’s childish. As for
why Johnny gets a hug? He told us about it himself. He did not try
to hide it from us; he did not threaten anyone else that something
bad would happen if that person told… Christ, Lizzy! I haven’t seen
Max feel this worthless since social services dropped him off at
this shop and told us he might last the day but not to count on
it.”

“I make Max feel good about himself; that’s
why he stays with me.”

“No, you don’t.” Max sounded exhausted. He
got up, grabbed a blanket off the back of the couch and went to the
back room.

Everyone held their breaths, listening for
the destruction to start. Nothing. I looked up at Lane,
worried.

“Make sure he’s not thinking of hurting
himself.” I took a deep breath and turned back to Lizzy as Lane
made his way to the back.

“Maxy breaks things. He doesn’t hurt
himself.” Though she sounded certain, her eyes flitted toward the
back room and back to me.

“Yes, he does. When he is so upset that
screaming and punching holes in the wall and destroying a room
isn’t enough, he starts to hurt himself.”

She blanched and looked at the others who
nodded their confirmation. Except for John, they’d all been here
when Max had started with us. The first year had been heart
wrenching. It seemed we put more time trying to deal with Max than
actually working. There had been some days where it had taken two
or three of the boys and Lane to hold him down while he had a
meltdown. More than once, he’d get into the truck when we’d pick
him up, his face bruised, his fingers bandaged. At first we’d
thought his newest foster family might be the kind that took
discipline to a whole new level. When we’d sat him down and asked
him about it, he’d finally admitted to doing anything from hitting
his face against the wall to taking a hammer to his own hands. His
reasoning behind it was that the pain helped him forget the
anger.

Lane reappeared, rubbing his hands over his
face.

Grant frowned. “What did he say?”

“He said he’s tired and he wants to be left
alone.”

Our little crew looked around at each other,
clearly worried. Jason picked a deck of cards off of the table.

“I’ll take first watch.”

We watched as he headed back to be with his
friend. Lane faced Lizzy. His jaw was clenched, his eyes hard.

“We may not be your parents, Lizzy, but we
are your employers. Go upstairs.”

Her eyes widened at his calm yet furious tone
and she didn’t argue with his order.

I exhaled loudly and decided to think of
something else. “What did you find while you were driving around?
Besides those three Yellow Eyes, we didn’t see a thing.”

Lane shook his head. “Pretty much the same
for us. Stores are closed everywhere. Anyone we did see walking
around wasn’t normal. I know there’re other people alive, though. I
could see curtains being pulled aside and the occasional car
driving around a corner. Have you checked the TV?”

Brent turned it on and we all leaned forward
to watch it. A rerun of ER was on, the same message scrolling
around the bottom. Stay indoors, keep your doors locked until
further notice.

Pete yawned. “If you guys need me to take a
turn with Maxy tonight, make sure you wake me up.” He put his arm
around Marie and they made their way to their sleeping area, Ashley
held gingerly against his chest.

“Time flies when you’re having fun, eh?”
Brent grinned and I looked up at the clock. Eight oclock. I nodded,
suddenly exhausted. He grabbed some blankets and tossed one to
Grant. Though none of us was used to being in bed any time before
ten, the day’s events had drained us all. The twins and John made
their way to the back room. I glanced at Lane who was pulling off
his boots.

“I’m just going to check on Maxy.”

John poked his head around the corner. “Just
thought you’d want to know he’s sleeping.”

I smiled my thanks and flopped myself down
beside Lane.

“What do you think we should do about
Lizzy?”

“Do I sound like an uncaring ass if I say I
don’t want to deal with it right now? My brain is fried, Gabs. I
just want to go to sleep and wake up in my own bed at home.” He lay
down and watched as I slipped off my boots before lying down beside
him.

“What day would it be when you woke up?” I
asked.

“Yesterday morning.”

I looked back at him. “What? Why in god’s
name would you go back to yesterday morning? That’s when all this
shit started to fly!”

I felt him shrug. “That coffee from Timmie’s
I got on our way to work was fantastic.” I felt him smile as I
started to laugh.

“Oh, my god, you are such a geek!”

“I know,” he relented before turning serious.
“We’ll have a talk with Lizzy in the morning.”

I nodded. “I’m worried about Max. I haven’t
seen him like this for a long time.”

“Yeah. But you know what? He’s a strong kid
and he’s got a lot of people here that love him.”

“Yeah, he does.” I let myself relax and
started dreaming of waking up in my own bed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I opened my eyes and stretched then blinked.
What the hell? I glanced around and tried to figure out which room
I was in. It looked like my room. I frowned. When had I painted it
red? I hated red. I glanced down at my comforter. Red. I rubbed my
hands over my face and quickly pulled them away, wet and slick. My
heart kicked in my chest and I glanced around the room again. The
paint wasn’t dry, so why was I sitting in the room? My stomach
heaved at the familiar smell that suddenly overwhelmed me. That
wasn’t paint. I stumbled out of bed and tripped on something large
on the floor, my scream echoing in the room as I turned to see what
it was.