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We maneuver him into the apartment, and Sydney closes the door, then hurries to open our bedroom door. His feet drag on the floor, and he’s sickeningly thin where my arm curls around his back, his ribs like the branches of a tree, poking through the skin.
“Shower first,” I say. Kash stinks to hell and back—a mixture of trash and sweat and urine and fuck knows what else.
“Let’s get him undressed,” West grunts, tugging us toward the bedroom anyway. “Easier to do it on the bed.”
“We should take him to a doctor,” Sydney whispers, her v
oice choked. “I think he’s hurt. He seemed to be in pain when I hugged him.”
“One thing at a time, girl.” I wrestle Kash’s long form onto the bed, West sitting down with him so we lay him flat on his back. “Let’s take a look.”
He blinks up at us, those pretty eyes at half-mast, dazed but not blank like before. “Are we home?”
Dammit. Such an innocent question, and it stabs me right through the chest like a knife. There’s so much hope, and heartbreak in it. So much longing.
“Yeah, we’re home. Are you hurt anywhere, man?” I make myself move and start peeling off his hoodie, then stop when he hisses. “Telling us will help not to hurt you more.”
“He has cuts on his chest,” West says, voice shaking with anger. “And bruises.”
Fuck, Kash. “How did you get those, buddy?”
He’s sweating, drops rolling down his face, body tensing. “Nate…”
“I’m right here.”
Sydney comes from the bathroom with a wet cloth. She wipes his face, brushes his damp hair off his forehead. His gaze latches on her, and he relaxes again.
“Where were you before we found you, man?” I pull down his pants. They are three sizes too big, and he’s used a piece of string as belt. “Where did you get these clothes?”
His gaze swings to me, panic entering them. “I’m not sure. It’s like… my brain isn’t clear.”
I pull the pants off and swallow a hiss at the bruises and more cuts. “Who did this to you? Come on, Kash, tell us.”
“Sometimes I see things… faces.” He groans when West pulls him to a sitting position, face going white. “Sometimes I don’t recognize them. It’s as if… as if I’m asleep and can’t wake up all the way. I walk and find places… that seem familiar, but then… not anymore.”
“Well, shit,” I breathe.
Sydney throws me a fearful look. “What should we do?”
“I’m sure you’ll feel better when you’re clean and in bed,” I tell him, lifting him up, grimacing at how light he is, how unsteady. “Give us a hand, West.”
West nods, almost as pale as Kash in the face. Kash has scared us all shitless. And yet I’m so relieved I could fucking cry. I feel like I can breathe again after months of being trapped underwater. Like I’ve been buried alive, and now I’m digging my way out, to the fresh air.
Whatever it is that got Kash this way… at least he’s back, and we’ll take care of him.
“He didn’t walk away,” I say, standing at the bedroom door, watching Sydney fussing over Kash. “Those wounds, those bruises… someone put them there.”
“He was living on the street, who knows for how long,” West counters. “Maybe he got in a fight with some junkie.”
“I thought I was the one doubting he was kidnapped.”
“Yeah. Well, it could be a mental illness,” he says. “Dementia.”
“He’s way too young for that.”
“Or something else. You never know.”
I say nothing. West is right, we don’t know anything. Only he can tell us what happened to him.
