Storm Front (The Charistown Series) (Volume 2) (15 page)

“Leo, what was that sound?” Until that very moment, Ryan had
never understood what people meant when they said silence was deafening. But
the lack of sound roared in his ears louder than any sound he’d ever heard
before. Silence.

“Leo? Leo, are you okay? That sounded like a pretty nasty
crash, did you hit a guardrail?” Fear crept up Ryan’s spine as he prayed for an
end to the quiet. “Leo, seriously, buddy, are you okay? I know you’re mad at
me, but you’re freaking me out. Please, answer me.” Ryan had to use both of his
shaking hands to keep the phone steady.

A faint whisper crackled down the line.

“Ry, it’s…bad…”

“Shit, Le, fuck, where are you man? Let me come get you.
You’re gonna be okay, brother. Where are you?” His body was tense and his lungs
were barely pulling in air as he prayed for some sort of response. Already out
of his garage and running to his car, the eerie symphony of static, wind and
rain filled his ears in what felt like surround-sound.

The harsh, pelting rain soaked his clothes through in
seconds and he could hear the sounds of the storm on the other end of the line.
“Leo, do you know where you are?” His voice shook with fear.

“Beacon Hi—” Leo wheezed the partial street name as Ryan
shut his car door, the deafening silence shrouding him like a blanket made of
thorns.

“LEO!”

When his scream yielded no response, he tore out of his
driveway and over to Beacon Hill which, thankfully, was only two streets away
from his house. With the roads flooding and the leaves flailing through the sky
the normally two-minute drive took closer to seven. Ryan had called 911 the
minute Leo’s phone disconnected and he prayed that the ambulance was having
better luck navigating through the chaos.

Hydroplaning around the corner, Ryan quickly got control of
his vehicle and threw it into park. He opened his door just in time to lose
control of his stomach as the image in front of him assaulted his senses.
There, in the middle of the road, lay a felled ancient Red Maple tree. The old
tree that had once stood at about fifty feet tall had cracked in half and
landed directly on top of the one material possession his best friend
coveted—his 2002 Jeep Wrangler.

Leo had worked so hard to make sure that the Jeep was paid
for entirely by himself. Something he’d purchased without an ounce of
assistance from his parents. The day he’d bought the yellow and black Wrangler
the two of them had skipped school and gone off-roading for hours. Ryan had
never seen Leo look so proud. It was like the carefree façade had penetrated
his skin, and Leo was actually living free and happy, out from under the
expectations of his parents and the world he and Ashley had been pushed into.

Using the back of his hand to wipe the bile from his mouth,
Ryan made his way toward the mangled carcass of a Jeep. The raw sound of
someone screaming Leo’s name filled his ears. He felt the agony in the voice,
but as he looked around and saw no one else present, he realized the screams
were his own.

Quickly approaching the driver’s side, he saw what looked
like a hand clutching the steering wheel. The fingers were clearly broken—the
bones poking through the thin skin that was supposed to cover them. The tree’s
trunk had plunked straight down, crashing through the windshield, through the
soft top of the roof, and landing directly on top of what appeared to be Leo.
The glass looked like a thousand diamonds scattered over tattered canvas mixed
with the liquid red life that slowly left Leo’s body, one heartbeat at a time.

“Leo,” Ryan croaked, “Leo, I’m here, buddy, can you hear me?
Oh my God. Can you hear me, Le?” He carefully reached his hand into the carnage
to run his fingers over the swollen jaw of his best friend, his brother.

Trying to contain his tears, Ryan continued to speak, “Leo,
I’m so sorry. I did this to you, to Ashley. I did this.” His voice shook and
the knot in his throat pulled tighter. “Leo, please, please don’t leave me.
Fuck. I don’t deserve you, but she does. Please, don’t leave Ashley. You’re all
she has in this world, Le. You. Are. It!”

The whipping winds and pounding rain hid the sounds of the
ambulance sirens until they were practically in front of the wreckage. Quickly,
the rescue team and the fire unit worked to lift the tree off of the car. Other
than the sound track of Mother Nature and communication between rescue workers,
Ryan heard nothing but silence. His brain was numb and his heart was laden with
cement.

“Son, do you want to or not? We don’t have time to waste,”
the medic asked him.

“What?” Ryan stared blankly.

“Do you want to ride with your friend in the ambulance? He
probably shouldn’t be alone.” The look in the medic’s eyes told Ryan, saying
“no,” was not an option he would be able to live with. “Just stay on the bench
and let us do our job.”

Ryan hopped in the back of the ambulance and they sped off,
headed for the hospital. He never looked back at the scene left behind. Leo’s
car was in shambles. His car still running, the driver’s door left wide open.
None of it was relevant.

Ryan watched in horrified panic as the medics placed two
intravenous lines into Leo’s arms. The erratic sounds of the heart monitor
filled the cabin as the medics hooked Leo up to the pulse ox, placed an oxygen
mask over his face, and listed possible injuries to the driver to report to the
hospital.

“With that depression and bruise on his chest, we may be
looking at a flail segment.” The grim way the second medic nodded to the first
had Ryan’s stomach twisting into an even tighter knot.

“Leo, please, please stay with me,” he begged his friend
from the corner of the ambulance. As the medics worked to stabilize Leo, Ryan
prayed to a God that he hadn’t spoken to since the day he’d placed his mother
in the ground.

“Ry…” Leo’s voice was breathy, broken, but it didn’t matter,
because Ryan was so grateful just to hear his name that he rushed to his
friend’s side not noticing the skeptical looks from the medics.

“Ashley…” Leo started again and then groaned as the medic
tried to replace the oxygen mask over his face. Leo nodded off the mask and
made eye contact with Ryan. One of Leo’s eyes was swollen shut but the other
was open. It looked determined but full of pain. Leo had something to say and
Ryan needed to hear it.

“Tell me, Le. Please, what is it? I’ll do anything,” he
pleaded.

“Make it right.” The wheezing became louder as Leo struggled
to speak, “sh-sh-she’s stubborn…but it works b-b-both ways.”

“Shhh, son, you have to rest, try and stop talking,” the
medic suggested, but it appeared that Leo needed to finish what he started.

“Ry, g-get h-h-help. She’ll l-l-love you forever. Ry?” Ryan
could barely make out his friend’s face through his own tears.

“Yeah, buddy?”

“Not your fault.” Leo then started coughing wildly and blood
shot from his mouth. The medics shoved Ryan out of the way and began to suction
Leo’s mouth. Ryan watched from the side as his best friend’s eyes rolled in the
back of his head and his body started convulsing.

“Leo!” Ryan shouted as he tried to reach for his brother.
Red foam began to froth from his mouth. The labored rattling turned to silence.

“Stay back!” The medic screamed at they started chest
compressions on what looked like a now lifeless form of what was once Leo
Kynde.

“
No!
” Ryan shouted as the ambulance pulled into the
emergency bay at the hospital.

What Good Are You?

“I AM SO sorry, son.”

The medic scrubbed his hand through his hair as he trudged
out of the trauma room a short time after arriving at the hospital. Ryan’s head
was still spinning from the flurry of activity that took place as soon as the
ambulance stopped moving. The doors had flown open and the trauma team had
appeared as if from nowhere. They, along with the medics, had whisked Leo away
into the trauma cube and slid the door closed, leaving Ryan pacing in the
hallway, in shock and alone.

After several minutes the medical staff exited the room,
stoic looks on their faces as they jotted notes on paper and walked past him as
if he weren’t standing right there. Acid began to rise in the back of his
throat as he saw the medic from the ambulance exiting the room.

With crimson colored vision, Ryan felt his skin prickle with
heat as his insides iced over in pain. “You’re sorry?” He roared. “What the
fuck? You didn’t save him. You didn’t help him. What good are you?”

“We did everything we could to save the patient—” the older
man began to explain before Ryan cut him off.

“He has a name. The least you can do is call him by his
name, goddamn it!” His tears stung as they fell, unchecked, down his cheek.

“You’re right, we did everything we could to help Leo. The
tree hit him hard enough to crack his ribs into small pieces. The pieces
punctured his lungs, Ryan. We couldn’t save him. I’m sorry.”

The venom seethed from his tongue but Ryan didn’t have the
capability or the care to hold back. “You’re not sorry yet,” he bit out, “but
you will be. You know that was Doctor Mitchell Kynde’s son, right?”

Ryan couldn’t believe the words and tone spilling out of his
mouth, but he also couldn’t believe his best friend was dead so he let himself
go, not taking in the exhausted and defeated look of the man standing in front
of him. The man who’d tried but failed to save a young person from dying on his
watch.

“We couldn’t have saved your frie—Leo even if he was the
President of the United States’ kid. I know and respect the Kynde doctors, and
I feel horrible about what they are about to endure. Just like I feel horrible
for y—”

“You feel bad for the Kynde doctors, huh?” Ryan cut off the
medic again. “Poor them! They may have to miss a day of work for their son’s
funeral. The only person who will really mourn Leo is his sister. This is gonna
kill her. FUCK!” He screamed as he punched his clenched fist into the wall: the
cinderblock wall.

“Fuck!” He screamed again, hearing the crunch of his
knuckles. A searing pain shot up his right arm. The next thing he knew, he was
hunched on the floor wailing like a baby. He cried for his pain, his loss, his
love, and his life. In one day, he’d managed to destroy his relationship with
the only woman he ever loved, and he’d killed his best friend.

How was he going to live?

Furthermore, how was he ever going to face Ashley again?

Leo

ALL THE CRYING must have taken its
toll on her body because Ashley woke up still curled-up in the fetal position
in the middle of her queen-size bed. The storm whipped around outside, sheets
of rain pelted the windows, and debris flailed through the air, slamming into
the side of the house. That must have been what had woken her from such a deep
sleep. Groggy and a little confused, the events of the day hit her and she
knifed up to look at her clock on the bedside table.

“What the—? It’s ten p.m? Leo?” She called his name but
there was no answer. It had been close to seven hours since she’d spoken with
him. Where was he?
Maybe he came in and saw me sleeping and didn’t want to
wake me,
she thought to herself, but that sounded wrong, even in her mind.

Climbing off her bed, she padded barefoot through the Jack
and Jill bathroom into Leo’s bedroom. His room was dark and quiet. “Leo?” She
whispered, knowing somehow in her heart that her brother had never come home.

“LEO?” She screamed his name praying for a voice that didn’t
respond. Just as her panic levels were about to hit high-alert Ashley’s phone
started to bleep. Running through the bathroom and back to her bedroom, she
grabbed her cell and stared at the screen.

“Mom? Where are you? Have you heard from Leo? He was
supposed to be home hours ago? Do you know where he is?” Ashley fired questions
rapidly at her mother, not slowing down enough to give the woman time to
answer.

“Ashley.” Her mother’s voice sounded strange. It was filled
with something that was so foreign to Ashley that she almost couldn’t identify
it but it was definitely there. Was it
emotion
? Leo and Ashley always
laughed at their mother because they found it humorous that the woman could be
such a brilliant surgeon and businesswoman, but as soon as she left the office,
it was like she would shut down. Almost as if she’d used all of her energy in
public and only came home to recharge. Whereas their father was a terrific
doctor who also had the bedside manner and charm to keep up appearances in all
of the right social circles. So when Ashley heard her mother’s voice she knew
instantly something was wrong, very, very wrong.

“Did you hear me, Ashley?” Her mother asked stoically.

“No, I’m sorry, I think I misunderstood. Can you repeat
yourself, Mom?”

“Okay, but please listen, this is important. Hurricane Wilma
has hit Miami really hard. Your father was called in twelve hours ago to perform
emergency surgeries. I was on my way home—after all, I had put in eighteen
hours…” Her mother’s voice, while fueled with emotion, was still calm and
clinical and it began to piss Ashley off.

“Mom! Get to the point!” Ashley never disrespected her parents—that
was Leo’s job—but she was worried, nervous and downright frustrated.

“Right, right, anyway, as I was packing up to leave, I got
paged to the ER, there had been an accident on Beacon Hill.”
Beacon Hill
,
thought Ashley,
that’s just up the road
. Panic started to bubble in her
stomach. “Apparently, the wind had blown a huge tree down on top of a car.”
Tension crackled through the phone like Pop-Rocks. Ashley waited for her mother
to speak, knowing in her gut what the next words would be. “It was Leo’s car,
Ashley. Leo is—”

Emotion leaked from her mother’s voice like water trickling
out of the cracks in a dam. Ashley had never, not once in her life, heard her
mother’s voice sound like this. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

“Mom?” She was finding it almost impossible to speak because
of the growing lump in her throat. “Is Leo…okay?” The silence that met her ears
didn’t answer her question.

“Mom!” Ashley cried, “please, answer me!” The sounds of
sobbing ricocheted in her ear. “Okay, I’m coming to the hospital. I’ll be there
in fifteen—”

Ashley didn’t have the chance to finish her statement before
her mother cut her off. “No”—her voice was back to cold and clinical—“you need
to stay in the house. We have already had one accident tonight. I don’t know
what your brother was thinking driving in a storm like that. Every news station
around is advising people to stay off the roads. You stay home and let us worry
about him.” With those parting remarks, her mother disconnected the call.

“I don’t know what your brother was thinking to be
driving in a storm like that. Every news station around is advising people to
stay off the roads.
”

That statement reverberated over and over in her head as
Ashley grabbed her jacket, purse and shoes and headed down to the garage.

“Ashley, oh my God, how did you get here? Did you drive in
this weather?” Ryan knew it was an asinine question—of course she had—but he
couldn’t bear to think about what could have happened to her now that the winds
were blowing over 130 miles per hour and the rain was making visibility
practically impossible. Well, at least that was what he’d overheard people
saying while he waited to have his hand x-rayed, and then while he’d waited
again to have his four broken knuckles and his fractured wrist cleaned up and
casted. He gave no thought to the throbbing in his right arm as he drank in
Ashley’s appearance before pulling her tight to his chest with his left arm,
and having her near him after everything that happened with Leo was like honey
on a sore throat—warm and soothing. Just as that thought hit him, so did the
next one.

“Ash,” his voice shook as the chill ran through his bones.
“Ash, baby, what are you doing here?” He wasn’t sure what she knew about her
brother and he didn’t know if it was his place to tell her. Maybe her parents
already broke the news. She looked horrible. She was soaked through. Her eyes
were puffy and red. She looked…broken.

“I-I woke up and Leo wasn’t home. He was supposed to come
home.” As if the dam holding her memories suddenly broke, her body stiffened
and she pushed away from him. The pain of her rejection hurt more than the
broken bones in his hand.

“Ashley, please.”

“No. Ryan. What are you even doing here?” Her gaze dropped
to his freshly casted limb. “Oh my God, Ryan, are you okay? What happened?
Honey…” She reached for his injured hand but stopped mid-motion pulling her
hand back to her body. Ryan could practically see the turmoil in Ashley’s face
over the simple gesture of touching him. In that second he went from hopeful to
crestfallen. “Ry, my mom told me that Leo was in a bad accident. Were you with
him?” He wanted to cry, to scream, to rage as she lifted her gaze from his
casted arm to his eyes.

“Princess.” He reached out to touch her biceps but his
fingers never met her skin, and the look on her face just as he was about to
make contact nearly made him sick. She didn’t want his touch. He’d hurt her too
badly. He had finally pushed her too far.

“Ryan.” Her voice was soft but missing the warmth it had
held since the day they met years ago. “Ryan, where’s my brother? I want to go
see him. He’s probably asking for me. He hates this place.”

Oh God, I can’t tell her this. How do I tell her that
he’s gone. I can’t.
“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t…”

“What can’t you do, Ryan?” Her eyes narrowed as the question
came out slowly from her mouth again. “Ryan, what can’t you do?” He stood there
staring at her tall willowy frame and watched her eyes grow more brown than
green, searching his face for answers that he never wanted to give her. “Ryan,”
she snapped. “Where. Is. My. Brother?”

He gulped for air like a fish out of water as panic began to
strangle him like a fist at his throat. Was it possible that she had no idea?
Slightly, the fingers on the uncasted hand furled and unfurled as his breathing
accelerated.

“Ryan,” she said, “after everything we’ve been through,
aside from today…before you were,” she choked back a sob, “through with me—”

“Ashley, I never meant it, I’m so sorry—”

She put up her hand to stop his apology. “It’s in the past,
Ry, but if you ever loved me, if you and Leo are the brothers you always claim
to be, you’ll tell me right now…where is Leo? I need to get to him…now.”

He saw the desperation in her beautiful face. He felt her
tension. Saw the way her shoulders were squared. She needed to know. “Come on,
let’s go find your parents. They should probably tell you.”

“Goddamn it, Ryan!” Ashley was on her feet, her hands
clenched into fists, her eyes wide open in fear—or maybe it was realization—but
her voice was loud and insistent. Ryan had never ever heard Ashley use this
tone, let alone seen the ferociousness in her face. “Tell me where my brother
is or so help me God, I will make a scene so large they will need a horse
tranquilizer to put me out. Do you hear me?”

If she wasn’t so upset, if the situation hadn’t been so
heinous, it would have been hysterical.
I can’t wait to tell Leo about this.
Oh, I can’t. I can’t ever tell him anything again.

“Ryan, you’re crying.” Her bottom lip trembled, “just say
it, Ryan.” She whispered and tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. “Just
say it, so my brain can process what my heart already knows. Please, Ryan.”

Inhaling deeply, Ryan sat down on the plastic chair and took
Ashley’s hand to guide her down next to him. “He’s gone. He’s gone, Ash. He’s
gone. He’s just….gone.”

The two of them embraced, their bodies woven together like
an afghan, and they wept, sobbed, wailed and mourned for what felt like hours.

At some point, Ryan saw two firm hands settle on Ashley’s
shoulders, and he slowly unattached himself from Ashley to see who had the
nerve to disturb them during the worst moment in their lives.

“Dad. Oh, Dad!” She cried as she jumped up and threw her
arms around her father. “Dad, he’s gone. How can that be?” Ryan watched as she
released herself from her father’s embrace and stepped back putting distance
between them. The sadness in her eyes morphed into confusion and then anger. He
could barely hear her voice when she began to speak.

“Why couldn’t you save him?” She accused. “All our lives all
you did was brag about all the people you’d saved.” Her rage was palpable, her
volume increasing. “So
those
people get the great Dr. Kynde, but once
again, your kids get shit, right? That’s how it goes? I don’t know why I’m
still surprised.” Her cheeks reddened more with each tear that fell.

Her father reached out to stroke her arm but she brushed his
caress away. “Honey, Leo was already gone when he got here.” Her father’s eyes
were red-rimmed and bloodshot. “Ask Ryan, he was with him in the ambulance.
There was nothing anyone could do for him, Ashley. I would have saved him if I
could. I would do anything for the two of you.
Anything
!”

“Except be a father,” she bit out acridly. Ryan watched as
Dr. Mitchell Kynde flinched from his daughter’s verbal slap. “I want to see my
brother. I want to see Leo, now. Either one of you will take me to him, or I’ll
find him myself. We’ve stuck together and loved each other when everyone else
let us down”—Ryan watched her eyes focus on him and her father—“I will
not
let him lay in some room alone now. I won’t abandon him. He wouldn’t have left
me either.”

Her last blow was aimed directly at Ryan. If he hadn’t known
from the tone of her voice or the words she spoke, her face would have given
her away. “Leo may be gone, but he and I will
never
be through. Ever.”
She turned away from them to make her way down the hall to the morgue.