Breaking The Rules

He surveys the field as if he could catch sight of the ghosts tormenting me, but in order to do that, he’d have to crawl into my brain, and I’d never want that. My thoughts are a terrifying place to visit.

“We’re staying in the tent tonight,” he says.

My stomach sinks. “Noah—”

He presses a hand to the small of my back and urges me to the campground. “Another time. Another night. But not this one.”

If Aires had left at another time or on another day, if Noah had chosen another time to return home the night of the fire or another day to go on that date, would the worst moments in our lives have happened?

Even worse? There’s a dark part of me that’s grateful for the way life has turned out because without any of that, I wouldn’t have the man walking beside me.

Hurt rages like a flash flood, and I edge closer to Noah, hoping his strength can keep this new demon away. “Okay. Another time. Another day.”

I try to pull myself to the present. Tomorrow will be a new destination. A new adventure. But my past beckons to me, this time in the form of guilt.

Noah (#ulink_89035a30-4864-5153-a0a9-8b59e6197afc)

Echo was silent on the way back to camp and has remained that way as I gather everything we need to start a fire. Dark fell fast over the campground because of the thick clouds hanging overhead. Unfortunately, clouds aren’t the only thing dangling over us.

It’s been a long time since I’ve lost Echo to her mind. Possibly since the first week after we took to the road, and I can’t say I’ve missed it.

Sitting on a blanket next to our tent, she becomes a shell of the girl I love. Overall, she looks the same—same beautiful green eyes and red silky hair. Today she wears a white lace tank that shows a hint of the gifts God gave her and because I’m a lucky man, a skirt that ends mid-thigh.

But in the light of the neighboring campfire, Echo’s green eyes possess the life of a dollar-store plastic doll, and she’s paler than normal, making her freckles stick out.

In the span of a minute, something flipped in Echo’s brain. Only her brother and her mother have the power to haunt her. I’d like to serve them both with eviction notices from her mind.

I drop the milk jugs I filled with water harder than I meant, and Echo switches her focus from the pine needles on the ground to me. Her brother’s ghost doesn’t bother me as much as her mother’s. Aires died, and I understand that type of pain, but I still hate to see Echo anything but happy.

A breeze blows through the thick forest surrounding the campground, and a group of children runs past us on their way to the bathrooms. A few feet over, a boy around my youngest brother’s age plays with a toy fighter jet. Complete with the appropriate noises for war.

I wish he’d shut the hell up. Echo’s brother died in Afghanistan.

Since I entered foster care at the end of my freshman year, I’ve never been the boyfriend type, but Echo deserves the best. I scratch the back of my neck and try to do that making her feel better shit. “You okay?”

She nods. “Just thinking about Aires.”

Good. I still don’t handle her mother baggage well and after our fight at the Sand Dunes, I’m not eager to revisit those issues. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Echo never does, and because she respects my privacy when it comes to the loss of my parents, I back off. She returns her attention to the ground near her feet, and I pop my neck to the side. We’ve only got a few days left on the trip, and this isn’t how I want it to end. “Tell me Aires’s myth.”

Echo’s psychotic mother named them both after Greek myths. Last winter, Echo told me the myth associated with her name while she kicked my ass in pool. Maybe sharing a happy story will brighten her mood.

Her forehead wrinkles. “I’ve told you that story.”

I crouch and pile two logs then thread smaller sticks for kindling under them. “No, you haven’t.”

“Yes,” she says with a bite. “I have.”

That was out of left field. I check Echo from the corner of my eye, and my girl is glaring at me like she caught me groping a gaggle of cheerleaders. “You haven’t.”

“I would tell you that story. You don’t remember me telling you. That would mean that I don’t discuss Aires, and I do!”

That’s it right there—she doesn’t. “You hardly mention Aires. And before you say something smart back, think who you’re talking to. I mean what I say at all times. Don’t mess with my word. If I say you haven’t told the story, then you haven’t.”

“Like you’re Mr. I-Share-Everything when it comes to your family?”

“Mind retracting the claws?” I say in a low tone. “Because I don’t feel like bleeding.” Or feeling threatened.

Echo blinks, and the anger drains from her face. “I am so sorry—”

A high-pitched shriek cuts her off and pierces my soul. I heard that type of scream before, and it’s not one I’ve wanted to hear again. My entire body whips toward the sound, and I convulse at the sight of the toy airplane in the bonfire in front of the neighboring tent. The kid that was shooting down pretend targets seconds before is now crying and shaking as a small flame licks up his pants.

Tyler.

Jacob.

My brothers.

I snatch a blanket off the ground and in six strides I tackle the child. My heart pounds as I smack at the flame. The smell of burned flesh rushes through my mind, and the roar of flames lapping against walls fills my ears.

“Noah!” a voice that’s familiar, but doesn’t belong in this nightmare, calls to me. “Noah, you put out the flame!”

Soft fingers grasp my biceps, and it’s as if I’m yanked from a long, dark tunnel. I turn my head, and the girl I love, the girl that owns my heart, stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

“Let him go,” she says. “The flames are out.”

I look down, and a small child with black hair and blacker eyes gapes at me. My hands hold his blanket-covered leg. I lift my arms, and Echo removes the blanket, revealing singed, now threadbare, jeans. The skin beneath is only slightly red. Not even a real burn.

I suck in air and smell smoke. No burned flesh. I fall back onto my ass and run my clammy hand over my forehead to catch the small beads of sweat. The sights. The smells. I’d been reliving the damned memory of the night my parents died.

“Oh, thank God!” A woman appears at the boy’s side. He sits up at her touch and begins to weep. Jacob wept like that after I dragged him out the house. So did Tyler. I couldn’t cry. No matter how I felt like I’d been torn open again and again, I couldn’t cry.

“What happened?” she asks.

“His plane fell in the fire.” Echo points to the melting toy in the thick of the fire. “We didn’t see it, but he must have tried to get it. Noah yanked him out and put out the flames.”

“Thank you,” says a voice beside me. It’s a man. Black hair. Black eyes. The damn bastard is probably his dad. “We walked over to say hi to friends camping with us. My son knows better than to play near the fire—”

I’m on my feet and in his face before he can finish. “He’s a child! What the fuck is wrong with you that you’d leave him alone near an open flame? People get hurt this way! They die!”

“Noah!” Echo shoves an arm in front of me and uses her body as a shield between me and the bastard who should have his parental rights revoked. “It’s okay.”

“Okay!” I explode. “It’s not fucking okay. That kid could have died!”

Echo pushes at my chest, attempting to walk me backward. “You’re scaring him!”