Cold Shadow (Cold Country #2)(102)

Brody Harper jumped into his head. He had a bad habit of doing that … for a dead man.

Harper had messed with his head that day. Made Nathan do shit he wouldn't even do with Quinn. He tried to pretend it was all against his will. Shame wouldn't let him think he'd enjoyed rape. Sometimes he thought he had. Other times he thought he deserved what Harper had done because he'd almost enjoyed the sex. He said he would have killed Brody Harper with his bare hands. He'd had the chance. He'd fucked him instead.

Quinn stood in front of him, he was dressed in a pair of jeans so faded they were nearly white, the tears in them were long past fashionable. One knee was entirely gone, only white threads held the lower part to the upper. The t-shirt was black because Quinn was always in something black. At least it was black when he'd bought the shirt at the first concert they'd ever gone to. The summer before senior year they'd lied to everyone and took off for Baltimore to see Guns N' Roses. The shirt was what had given them away. They had to work two weeks of hard labor at the plant without pay to keep their parents from killing them.

"That was the best fucking concert," Nathan said. He'd had the worst fucking crush on Axl Rose. Because Axl reminded him of Quinn. "I do not regret one minute of those two days. Our first road trip together. I had this fantasy. I never wanted to tell you. God, you, me, and Axl Rose in their bus. I don't know if it was a sex fantasy or … " He smiled at the look on Quinn's face. He had no idea what Nathan was even talking about. "I never thought you'd go country. You know that, right? I think I knew you would one day be up on a stage somewhere with women throwing panties at you. And repressed gay boys having secret sex fantasies about you. I just always thought you'd be Axl Rose. I never expected you to be Johnny Cash."

"Rock died that year, or didn't you notice?" Quinn crouched on the ground. He was barefoot. His hair curled wildly around his face. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. 

"Cobain came and it changed. It didn't die." Nathan pulled his shirt on over his head. "He was hot too. He was brilliant. And tormented. Not unlike you. You would have done well in grunge."

"I loathe flannel." Quinn laughed, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "I had my own fucking Courtney. But anyway, by the time I got up there, even grunge was dying. Country was in." He shrugged. "I love the music. All of it. It is what it is."

Nathan jumped off the wall. The concrete scraped his ass. He didn't give a shit. He was past feeling anything. He stepped into his jeans and buttoned them. He needed a hot shower and about a million hours of sleep. He'd have to go back to the station in a couple of hours. He should have taken them home and …  "What do we do now?"

Quinn's face remained passive. Too passive. "I don't know."

He'd expected him to say start over. They were always starting over. There had been too many new starts with old shit filling the trunk.

"I can't read," he said because he needed to hear the words. "I might not have a job when that gets out. I can't read. I can't write. I can't make fucking letters be letters. He fucked me up that night when he bashed my head in. I've been seeing a specialist once a week. I've been driving down to Chattanooga every Tuesday morning to try to fix my brain. It's not working. Everything is upside down and backward. Sometimes it's sideways. Sometimes the letters aren't even letters. I've been faking that shit for two and a half years."

"Okay." Quinn stood up slowly, dragging the word out. He'd been the only kid in school who knew Nathan couldn't read in the eighth grade.

"I'm scared," Nathan said, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. "I got him killed. I almost got you killed. I remember him, you know. Drew. I remember him from that day in the Bosnian forest. I had blood all over me. Most of it was mine. It was winter. They took my boots and beat me nearly to death. They shot Gentry in front of me. He outranked me and Jesus … I killed the motherfucker who shot him. I snapped his fucking head like … ripping off the head of some motherfucking doll. I killed them all, Quinn. I dragged Gentry off the cold ground and I carried him. His men, my men, were all bleeding. We weren't going to make it another night. I heard the trucks on the road and I didn't trust that they were ours until it was almost too late. Drew was in the last truck. He was sitting in the back. He was the one that saw me. If he hadn't seen us that day, we would have died in the fucking forest that night. I didn't see anyone but him. He almost fell out of the truck to get to me. They took Gentry and I fell onto him. I remember him. He was so fucking young. He looked like some baby and I couldn't stop thinking that he was so fucking pretty. I thought I was dying and he was some fucking angel in fatigues. And now he's dead and I got him killed. What do we do now? Just tell me how to start over again, because I don't fucking know how to start over this time."