Ash to Dust (Falling Ash Book 2) Page 5

  By the time we have the weapons in hand, Joseph has finished frisking the second man. He turns and looks between me and Jake, silently communicating to me that my planned conversation with my brother will have to wait until after our visitors are gone.

  “Please, come inside,” Silas tells everyone, indicating the stone path between the garage and the house. “We can all have a drink while we figure out tonight’s meal.”

  Xavier’s men waste no time in walking up the driveway toward the house. Xavier and Silas move together in that direction, too, but Joseph, Jake, and I aren’t as quick to move.

  When everyone else is up ahead and out of earshot, I whisper, “Do either of you trust him?”

  Both Joseph’s and Jake’s expressions remain firm as they both fail to respond to my question, giving me all the answer I really need.

  Joseph enters the code into the nearby keypad panel to close the driveway gate. The three of us then slowly start walking toward the house.

  Keeping his voice just above a whisper, Joseph turns to Jake and asks, “Why did you bring them here?”

  “They were already well up the road to the house when I saw them,” Jake replies quietly. “I thought it would be best to control how they approached the house if they were going to find it anyway.”

  Our brief conversation is forced to an end as we round the corner at the back of the house to enter into the kitchen behind Silas and our unexpected guests. Silas directs Xavier and his men into the dining room while the rest of us remain still, awaiting instruction near the door.

  Silas turns to us with a serious expression, focusing his attention on Joseph first as he whispers, “I want you with them at all times. No one separates from their group without one of us accompanying him.”

  With a quick nod, Joseph maneuvers around the kitchen island to enter into the dining room with his AR-15 still slung over his shoulder.

  Silas looks between me and Jake. “Take their weapons upstairs for now,” he directs quietly before placing his hand gently on the side of my face. “I want you to stay upstairs as much as possible while they’re here.”

  “I can’t hide away while you’re all down here dealing with this,” I argue in a whisper through gritted teeth.

  “You can, and you will.” Silas leans forward and gives me a chaste kiss, giving me no option other than to comply as he turns to grab two random bottles of liquor from the serving cart against the wall. Before I can get a word out, he’s standing still in the doorway to the dining room, giving Jake and me the opportunity to slip behind him through the doorway toward the living room without drawing too much attention.

  We hurry down the hall to the door leading upstairs to the bedroom. As quietly as possible, we ascend the stairs and enter through the door at the top.

  “Just throw them on the bed,” I suggest, and we both pile the weapons onto the disheveled sheets.

  Jake grabs my arm the moment my hands are free of the weapons. He pulls me toward him so that I’m forced to meet his gaze.

  “Silas is right,” he warns. “You need to stay up here.”

  If I weren’t so worried for my family’s safety, I would roll my eyes at him and admonish him for being overprotective, but it seems wrong to do this when he’s about to put his life at risk to protect me and our home.

  “How bad is he?” I ask hesitantly. Jake has never said much about his experience in the weeks he spent at Xavier’s community.

  “He could be worse,” Jake replies vaguely, “but he could also be a lot better. The people at the community loved Xavier despite the tight leash he had over them.”

  Between Jake’s brief description and the creepy looks Xavier was giving me out on the driveway, my unease about this situation hits its peak. I hate to admit that I feel some relief at being told to stay upstairs.

  Jake pockets one of the switchblades from the pile on the bed then walks toward the open doorway.

  “Please be careful,” I call out to him.

  He smiles and gives a firm nod before leaving the room and rushing down the stairs.

  7

  After the door at the bottom of the stairs opens and closes, the room is silent around me, except for the soft sounds of nature coming through the half-open windows. The serene song would usually have a calming effect on me, but I’m too worried about what’s going on downstairs to take much comfort in nature’s melody right now.

  I try lying down on the cleared half of the bed and closing my eyes in an attempt to de-stress. The effort is pointless, though, because all I can think about is the situation taking place elsewhere in the house while I’m stuck up here.

  I settle on a compromise with Silas’ request, getting up from the bed and tiptoeing my way across the wood floors to the stairwell. Taking care to avoid the parts of the wooden steps that sometimes creak when compressed, I silently and carefully make my way to the door at the bottom and open it just a crack.

  The conversation coming from the dining room down the hall is more hushed than I thought it would be, given the large bottles of liquor that Silas brought to the table, but it’s just loud enough that I can hear what’s being said through the opening in the door.

  “Who took over the community?” Silas asks curiously.

  “No idea. Some group from out west,” Xavier replies with a hint of anger in his tone.

  Hearing a foreign voice carry through our home after having only the four of us here for so long causes me to shiver.

  Or maybe it’s just Xavier’s voice that causes the reaction.

  “I didn’t have much choice,” Xavier continues. “They gave me two options: leave peacefully with a few of my men, or they would slaughter me and the whole community.”

  Everything is quiet for a few moments until Silas asks, “How did you get here? You have a vehicle somewhere?”

  “Two of them, actually. I must say, that was a bit of a ballsy move to block your road to the house.”

  Silas clears his throat, a sign that he’s becoming increasingly uncomfortable with this discussion. “You can surely understand our desire to discourage convoys of people from showing up at our gate.”

  “Certainly,” Xavier responds. “It must make it hard to go on supply runs, though.”

  “We don’t go on supply runs. We haven’t left these mountains in a year and a half.”

  Xavier lets out a surprised gasp. “Wow. You’re really serious about this woodsman life shit, aren’t you?”

  Again, Silas clears his throat. I wish I could be down there to help soothe him to get him through this conversation.

  “We’ve had what we’ve needed to survive,” Silas finally explains in a low voice. “We don’t need to risk our lives for supplies we don’t need yet.”

  “Well, you aren’t missing out on much in the outside world these days,” Xavier says with a slight sigh. “It’s pretty desolate this far north. Not many people left willing to brave the winters up here.”

  There’s an awkward pause before Silas finally asks, “So, what are you doing this far north, then? I would have thought you’d opt for warmer climates.”

  “Too many people down south,” Xavier replies immediately. “I’ve already had one community I built taken from me. I won’t let it happen again.”

  I’m concerned about the progression of anger in Xavier’s tone, but my worry quickly shifts to the sound of someone barging in through the back door. A flurry of footsteps follows, and then I hear Jake’s voice.

  “There’s someone out there,” he exclaims, “several people. I could hear movement in all directions of the woods from the backyard.”

  “What did you do, Xavier?” Silas growls. “Did someone follow you here?”

  “We weren’t followed. I know that much.” There’s a slight pause before Xavier continues. “Maybe they saw our vehicles and came up the road?”

  “You didn’t hide your fucking vehicles before coming up here?”

  Xavier doesn’t answer that question. Silas’ loud groan of frustration is all I hear before footsteps race down the hall in my direction.

  The door suddenly swings open, and a furious Silas is standing in front of me, scolding me with his irate expression.

  “Bring me one of their rifles,” he demands, and I immediately run up the stairs to retrieve it from the bed.

  Before I can even reach the last few steps coming down the stairs, Silas grabs the weapon from my hand. He gestures toward the room and orders, “Go upstairs and keep watch out of the windows with the other rifle. If you get a clean shot, take it. Take any shot you can.”

  I nod calmly despite the fear and worry coursing through me. When Silas disappears from view down the hall, I close the door and turn to run up the stairs again, ready to fulfill the duty that Silas has given to me.

  I’m ready to protect our home.

  Within seconds, I’m in position at the half-open window at the front side of the house. I quickly pull the slide on the rifle to chamber a round and flick off the safety. Keeping my head low, I stick the tip of the barrel outside and scan the front yard all the way back to the tall wooden fence that surrounds the property.

  Something catches my eye to the right, and I instinctively aim the barrel of the rifle in that direction. I divert it away when I see that it’s only Joseph moving quickly from the stone path out onto the driveway with his AR-15 in position to fire.

  I hear his footsteps crunching in the gravel, but I realize that I hear something else, too: the unnatural sound of branches and twigs being crushed out in the forest. It’s not just coming from one direction; it feels like it’s everywhere around us.

  Despite my overwhelming desire to keep watch for threats to Joseph in the front yard, I know I should go check out the back windows, too, so I run across the room and slowly rise up from my crouched position to look out of the glass.

  I get there just in time to see Silas slipping out of the hidden gate in the backyard fence and closing it behind him. Once he’s gone from my view, nothing else moves in the expansive backyard or along the fence line. After five painfully long seconds of scanning the area only to find no signs of movement, I decide to run back to the other side of the room.

  Before I make it to the front windows, though, I hear a crashing sound from downstairs. I warily step closer to the stairwell, torn between investigating the sound I heard and keeping watch up here instead.

  The decision is quickly made for me when I hear Jake try to yell something, but his voice becomes muffled. Then I don’t hear him anymore.

  I quietly rush down the stairs and turn the knob at the bottom to open the door no more than a crack, but that small amount is all I need to completely understand the situation.

  Jake is standing there restrained by one of Xavier’s men with a hand over his mouth and the open switchblade pressed to his neck. There’s blood already starting to drip down his face from a gash on the side of his forehead.

  A hand reaches in and pulls the door the rest of the way open, causing me to gasp at the sudden appearance of Xavier on the other side of it. The broad smile on his face only widens when he looks me over from head to toe.

  “You won’t need that anymore,” he informs me as he reaches for the rifle in my hands. In our current position, I have no choice but to hand it to him.

  He takes a step closer, only causing me to flinch away.

  “It’s okay,” Xavier says calmly. “If you behave, no one has to get hurt.”

  My body is begging me to run up these stairs, grab a handgun from the bed, and yell out the window for Silas or Joseph to come help us, but my mind knows better than to take any of those actions when these men have a knife to Jake’s throat.

  “What do you want?” I ask unsteadily.

  Xavier smiles wickedly. “We’ll get to that. For now, I’d like for you and your brother to join me in the living room.”

  The man holding Jake turns and forcibly moves him toward the living room to the right and out of my line of sight. It’s just me and Xavier standing here now, and it’s absolutely terrifying.

  He holds his hand out to the side, indicating for me to follow them into the living room. Despite every instinct I have to fight against him and resist his commands, I have no choice but to comply. Reluctantly, I step down from the stairwell and into the hall, shivers breaking out across my skin as I’m forced to step close enough to Xavier to feel his breath on me before I can make the turn toward the living room.

  8

  Jake is already seated on one of the armchairs surrounding the coffee table in the middle of the room. The man with the knife stands directly behind him, keeping the sharp blade close enough to use it at any moment to end my brother’s life.

  I opt to sit on the side of the couch by the window, the position that is farthest from Xavier, but closest to Jake in case I need to take action to help him or protect him. Jake’s eyes meet mine briefly, confirming in that short glance just how horrible our situation really is right now.

  And I know it’s only going to get worse.

  My racing heartbeat quickens when I hear a struggle at the back door. I can’t place the owner of the guttural groans and cries of resistance until Joseph is finally pushed through the doorway from the kitchen into the nearby hall. The second of Xavier’s men is behind him, prodding him along with the barrel of the AR-15 that Joseph had earlier.

  How the hell did he pry that weapon from Joseph’s capable hands?

  Joseph clearly doesn’t fully understand our situation until he’s far enough down the hall to see Jake at knifepoint in the chair. His eyes immediately go wide as he looks from Jake to me and comes to a stop.

  “What the hell is this?” Joseph demands.

  “Take a seat,” Xavier responds coldly, completely ignoring the question.

  Joseph does as he’s told, settling into the open chair diagonally across the coffee table from me. Despite his proximity to Jake, Joseph makes no attempt to reach out to him, not even with his gaze.

  My lips part the tiniest bit at the sudden realization that Xavier might not know that Joseph and Jake are gay. He has no idea that they are just as much of a couple as Silas and I are.

  We have to keep it that way. We can’t let Xavier use them against each other as he’s leveraging Jake against me.

  The man with Joseph’s AR-15 stands watch over the three of us with the weapon angled in such a position that it is ready to fire at a moment’s notice. A tense silence takes over the room as we wait, everyone remaining still except for Xavier who is carefully inspecting the room. He casually strolls down toward the far end of the hall as he does this, narrowing his focus to the door of the most important room in the house.

  He tries the handle at first to open the door, and when nothing happens, he inspects the handle more carefully. His hands splay out across the door, feeling around its surface briefly before moving outward to the doorframe. He feels along each side of it then stops his hands, moving a piece of the doorframe to the side to reveal the hidden numbered panel underneath.

  I close my eyes and try to will away the hopelessness threatening to overtake me when I see Xavier find the secret of the door. We all know what he’ll want next. He’ll do whatever it takes to get the information needed to get past that door to the contents protected inside.

  Xavier turns and looks directly at me. “What’s in this room?”

  My expression doesn’t change, and I make no attempt to respond. I expect him to start threatening me or my family to get his answer, but he doesn’t even ask the question again.

  Instead, he opts to continue his self-guided tour of our home, stepping over to the next door in the hallway which might prove to be just as dangerous as the first door: the thick wooden door to the dark room that was my hell in the first days I spent in this house.

  That enclosed cement room has been long-forgotten since then. The door is always shut; we have no reason to go inside. We can’t repurpose that room for anything after the events that occurred within it.

  The heavy wooden door creaks loudly as Xavier opens it. There’s enough light from the living room to give him the perfect glimpse inside.

  Laughter erupts from his chest when he steps in to take a look. I glance between Joseph and Jake uncomfortably, remembering vividly how upset they were with Silas when they originally discovered that room.

  Xavier steps out of the dark room, still grinning and chuckling as he looks at me. He seems amused by the discomfort on my face, surely able to tell that I have a history with that room. It feels as though he’s learning all of my secrets just by watching me.

  I’d feel relieved at the loud and disruptive interruption coming from the direction of the kitchen if it weren’t from Silas’ audible physical struggle. I turn around and peer over the top of the couch to see him being dragged down the hallway by two men that I’ve never seen before. His hands are zip-tied behind his back, leaving him completely vulnerable when one of the men swings his arm around to punch him hard in the stomach.

  Silas dips his head and coughs through the pain, taking a moment to recover before looking up again. He sees Joseph and Jake first in the chairs directly in front of him. He then struggles to turn his position to find me where I’m sitting on the couch.

  That’s the moment when all of the fight leaves his limbs. He knows Xavier has him exactly where he wants him: ready to use us as living, breathing leverage over him at any moment he sees fit.

  “What the fuck do you want, Xavier?” Silas snarls in a low voice.

  “I want your house,” Xavier replies simply, narrowing his eyes at Silas as he grabs him by the shirt. “I want your goddamn perfect life here after mine was taken away.”

  Silas openly laughs in his face. “So you’re punishing me for your failure to protect your own home? So fucking typical for you to take what you haven’t earned.”

  Xavier releases Silas’ shirt as a strange calm settles over him. “You should be a little more courteous to the man who holds your life and the lives of those you care about in his hands.”