Through Glass(68)

My own tears seeped from my eyes as I wrapped my arms around him, my tiny arms barely able to come all the way around him, yet I didn’t care.

He squeezed once more before moving back. His hands held onto my arms as if he was afraid I was going to run away.

“Alexis,” he said my name again in wonder. “Are you okay? I mean… how did…” His words tumbled out of him and I couldn’t help grinning. He was so much the same as he had been before, even after all these years.

Eight years, I had to remind myself.

“I’m fine,” I gasped. “I mean, minus the whole I’m-going-to-turn-into-a-Tar bit.” I tried to smile, but it was strained, the stress finally seeping out of me.

“Oh God, Alexis, I know.” He pulled me to him again, his arms wrapping around me briefly before holding me at arm’s length. “I won’t let that happen to you. I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.” He said the last two words with so much surety that I couldn’t help smiling along with him. That tiny knot of sadness that I had been trying to ignore came lose again.

“I’m scared, Travis. I finally get away and now… they are just going to kill me anyway—”

“No, I told you, I’m not going to let that happen, do you understand?”

“I know, but what can you do?” I asked as I sat back from him, my back hitting against the cold, cement wall.

“I can do more than you would think, Lex. Just trust in your little brother, ‘kay?” He smiled, that big, goofy grin he had from before, looking somewhat out of place on the man in front of me.

“Yeah… I mean, what are you now? Twenty-two?” I asked lightly, forcing the joke out as I tried to chase my stress away.

“I turned twenty-two a few months ago,” he said, the smile washing from my face almost instantly. Had that much time really passed? I had accepted it so easily before, but now, seeing it spelled out before me made the pill much easier to swallow.

“And here I was, thinking I was about to turn twenty,” I said, trying to push some humor out in my voice, yet letting it get lost on the way out.

“You still are, in a manner of speaking,” Travis said.

I looked down, the confusion building as his words sunk into me. The reality hitting like a gong in my ears.

“I don’t know what I am anymore,” I whispered.

“You’re my sister.” His hands moved down my arms, the heavy, calloused skin rough against the now soft skin of my hands.

I looked up to him slowly, wanting to believe him, to let something so simple take the worry away, but I couldn’t.

“How did you survive it, Travis? How did you get away?” I asked, the reality of the question feeling like a dead weight inside of me.

His lips hardened into a tight line, his nostrils flaring as he breathed. I could see the confliction in his eyes, the pain as something he had long since hidden away came back to him.

I wish it was that far gone for me, but the memories were still fresh. I had had nothing to wash them away and, even if I had, the horrors seemed to just keep coming. I squeezed his hands, hoping to calm him. I wanted to take back the question, but I couldn’t. I needed to know.

“Travis?” I kept my voice soft as he slowly looked at me, that same uncertainty I had grown so used to all those years ago coming back.

“We hid in the tubes of the skate park; Mom and Richard and Jason… Tyler. The boys ran out when the sky started falling. They thought it was a game. There were so many screams…”

I gripped his hands tighter as his words trailed off. My eyes burned as tears began to fall again. They skimmed down my cheeks as my mind replayed the screams that I had been haunted by; children, families, everyone who’d tried to get away in the beginning. Every day I had heard them, but Travis had listened to the screams of our brothers, he had watched them die. I pressed my hands into his tighter, staring at the connection, not wanting to look at him yet.

“I know. They took everyone in our neighborhood. I listened to it while I slept, I watched it from my window.” My voice shook through my tears as I spoke, the betraying emotion letting out so much of what I had been bottling up recently.

“Yeah, I can still hear them when I sleep at night. Everything about that day still haunts me,” he whispered, his eyes darkening as the memory took over. “Mom pulled out her flashlight, the red one she kept in her purse. It was just luck she had it, luck it killed them. It was what saved us. What saved me…” He paused and I didn’t coax him on. I didn’t need to hear the missing part of the story. Mom sacrificing herself for him. I could almost see it. That flashlight was tiny, barely casting any light at all. It was a miracle it had even been strong enough to keep them away in the first place.

“I walked until I found some others,” he continued, his voice tight. “We all hid here. Over the years, we found more, found a way to live…”

His voice trailed off and he looked away, his eyes looking toward the wall that he had seemingly appeared through only moments before. He stared at as if he heard something, his jawline hard as he glared at the seemingly empty cement.

“You can’t tell me anymore than that, can you?” I asked. His shoulders tensed at my question.

“They view you as a threat, Lex,” he answered, his eyes still focused on the wall to the side of us. “They are not happy that I am here in the first place.”