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The light is dim through the murky pool of my unconsciousness, but it's the first light I've seen in who knows how long. I'm reaching for it, fighting to breach the surface.
She's waiting for me on the other side. I can feel it.
Thump. Thump.
Lukas
Despite willing myself not to be too hopeful, I was legitimately so happy to come back to this estate. We'd only spent less than a week here together, but it's the place we all truly came together. Our first home with her, the first days of the rest of our lives together.
Except we're not so much together anymore. Bennet has been absent for way too long. Even after we rescued him, you can't really say that he was here. And now he's dead, or dying, or barely alive but without what makes him Bennet. That sharp intellect, the constant vigilance and forethought, the calm, controlled demeanor that naturally forces everyone and everything around him into compliance.
Bennet is gone. Coming to terms with that has been fraught with useless sparks of hope—a tiny improvement here, a faded bruise there, a feeble heartbeat after being declared dead. Six's pained screams as the hopelessness of reality set in will live in my memory forever. And none of us can make it better. We can't distract her with humor, or force her focus on us with sex. Nothing will be the same again.
And Jackson. Jackson may never be the same either.
The happy-go-lucky, free-spirited, jokester of a man has been hiding a deep secret from us all. An underlying pain that he covers up with humor and seduction.
I went to find him after the last of the plasma was administered. There was nothing else I could do to help, and my worry about Jackson was bothering me the more time that passed. He'd been gone for hours at that point. There was so much commotion when Luis called for Micah, I don't know how anyone in this house could have missed it.
Sure enough, he wasn't in his room. Calling his cell phone, I doubled back to our room when I heard it ringing through the door. He'd left his phone, and his shoes, on the floor near the sofa.
After I ran into Luis coming up the stairs, I took his suggestion to ask Mrs. Coolson where he might be. Her reaction to him being missing made my stomach drop, and I knew then that this was more than just Jackson taking a late night walk to clear his head.
With pain pulling the fine lines of her face down, Mrs. Coolson admitted to me that Jackson suffers from spells of depression and anxiety. She suggested checking the attic where his mother's things are, or a certain area around the lake, where a tree hangs over the water.
Eventually, I found him, sitting on the ground in the near pitch black night, beneath the drooping branches of a tree next to the lake. Now and then, the clouds would part and allow for some moonlight, but the crescent moon could only do so much.
“I'd like to bring a telescope up here,” I said as I approached, trying to keep the conversation casual and comfortable.
“I have a pretty decent one back at the cabin, actually. We can get it out anytime.” His words were friendly enough, but I could hear the strain in his words.
“Am I bothering you if I join you here? We don't have to talk.”
Jackson is too nice to turn me away. “No, it's fine.”
Sitting on the ground just a few feet away from him, close enough to reach if I strained, but far enough to give him space, I wordlessly set his shoes next to him.
We sat in silence for mere seconds before Jackson spoke. Never one to keep things inside, that one. For once, I found myself thankful for it.
“I'm sorry I just left like that. I hope it didn't make it seem like a walk of shame situation. I don't, you know…I don't feel that way. I very much enjoy being included in…” He buried his face in his hands, possibly in frustration for not being able to find the words he wanted. I can't imagine Jackson Boyd ever being embarrassed. “Anyway, I planned to be back before anyone woke up. Why are you even awake?”
“There was an incident with Bennet. I think they got him stabilized, but it was scary for a minute there. Actually, I don't want to lie. It's still not looking good. They gave him the rest of the plasma we had left.”
He immediately pulled on his shoes, standing to rush back. “Shit, we gotta get back.”
As we walked back towards the house, I could hear him muttering to himself about not being there when he was needed.
“Jackson!” I called out to him, pulling him by the shoulder so I could look at him. We were close enough to the house that the light from the porch reached us, but it only illuminated the shadows behind his eyes. “There wasn't anything you could have done. I basically stood there, useless, while Micah took over and Luis held Six back. Don't beat yourself up. Being in the room wouldn't have made a difference, and you clearly needed some space. You couldn't have known this would happen. It's okay.”
“It's not,” he said, jerking his shoulder from my grip. “You wouldn't understand.”
“I wouldn't understand that you make it your personal responsibility to be there for everyone else, while simultaneously hiding your own pain behind humor and sex? Out of what? Distrust that anyone would want to stay around if you aren't full of sunshine and rainbows all the time?”
Pulling him back to me, I gripped the back of his neck and pulled his forehead against mine. “I see you, Jackson. We all see you.”
“Lukas, you don't—”
His words were cut off by a horrific, guttural screaming. My heart dropped into my stomach as we took off, tearing through the yard and into the house. Mrs. Coolson was making her way up the stairs as quickly as she could, hurrying towards the continued moans and screams from the room upstairs.
