Silo

Chapter 28

I tore into his room, reached down, and hauled him by the collar of his shirt. Keith barely had a chance to open his eyes before I let my fist fly, sending him falling backwards onto his mattress. "He's alive, you son of a bitch. He's alive, and you didn't bother to tell me." 

Evan came through the door, his glasses noticeably absent as he rubbed the haze of sleep from his eyes. "What's going on?"  

"He's alive," I said, waiting for Keith to get up so I could take another crack at him. 

"Who's alive?" Evan asked. 

"Tyler," Keith choked out, spitting a mouthful of blood to the ground.  

I watched Evan's face contort as he tried to wrap his mind around that impossibility. Evan was unconscious when I dragged him out of the bus, but he knew I'd left Dustin and Tyler there so I could get him out first. He suffered the same barrage of guilt I had, questioning why I pulled him to safety rather than helping Tyler. 

"What are you saying?" Evan asked, stumbling backwards. "You saying that the others all survived? That we're not alone?" 

Evan's confused words were laced with hope; and I shook my head, not even wanting to consider that possibility for a second. 

"Oh we're alone alright. I guarantee no one else survived," Keith said "And trust me, that ain't the Tyler we know. That kid down there is seven shades of crazy." 

"How the hell would you-" 

I didn't get a chance to finish my thought before Keith came at me, clamped his hand around my arm and spun me toward the door. Toward Merry. "Look at her, Jake. Take a good, long look at her." 

"What's your point?" I asked, wrenching my arm free. 

"What's my point? Are you serious? You remember the day we first found her, 'cause I sure do. I don't think I'll ever be able to forget the bruises on her body, or the way she shook in the corner of your room for days, refusing to speak. I didn't think you'd forget either." 

I shook my head, wincing as the memories flooded my mind. I remembered the gash on her head and how she held her breath while I cleaned it. It was nothing but scarring skin now, but the memory of it, the fear I saw in her eyes was as fresh as the day it happened. There was no way Tyler could've done that; no way any of us could've done that. "It wasn't him." 

"Who the hell else do you think it could be?" Keith fired back. "You think all this is just coincidence? That it's not him? Ask her. Ask the girl you've been protecting for the last week who the hell did that to her?" 

Meredith didn't need to answer for me to see the truth; the distant look, the unspoken apology in her eyes, was enough. 

Problem was, although I believed it, I wasn't sure I could accept it. Tyler had been my catcher since Little League when we used to argue over who could spit sunflower seeds the farthest. He made the honor roll and mowed his grandmother's lawn each Sunday. His mom ran the damn concession stand for our games. I let him date my sister for Christ's sake. There is no way the Tyler I'd known for years had become this dark, twisted shell of himself.  

And if he had, so what? Evan and I had pulled Keith back from the brink of hell, and we'd barely known him. Tyler was one of my best friends, the love of my sister's life. I could bring him back. I knew I could. 

"They did something to him," I said as I pushed past Keith and headed for the door. "Whoever found him after the accident...they changed him. He's one of us; he belongs here with us." 

"You bring him here, and I'll leave." The measured countenance in Meredith's voice stopped me dead in my tracks. It wasn't an ultimatum or a threat; it was a promise.  

For a brief second, I weighed my options, trying to quickly assign a value to each one of them. I wasn't willing to lose either of them. I promised Meredith I'd protect her, that I'd never let her see harm again, and I meant it. But Tyler...the debt I owed him, the guilt I lived with for so long. I'd been given a chance to right that wrong, and so help me God, I would. 

"You don't know him, Meredith. He's a good guy. He dated my sister. He was never anything but kind and sweet to her. He's a good guy," I reiterated, for my own sake as much as her.  

"I don't know him? I. Don't. Know. Him?" She spit out, her entire body vibrating with anger. "I lived with him for ten months. I watched his brother die. I watched him take those kids in one by one and turn them into his little army. He protected them, told them they couldn't survive without him, and they believed him. I stood there with my parents and watched as he...." she trailed off, unable to finish the thought. 

I reached out to her when she faltered, "It's not the same, Meredith. I've known him since we were kids." 

She shoved me hard, sent me stumbling back into the concrete wall. "You've known him since you were kids. Good for you," she fumed as she searched the ground for something, anything she could toss my way. Her hand landed on a bundle of Keith's dirty socks and she picked them up and used all her strength to hum them at my head. "I know every scar on his body. I know how many callouses are on his hands, and how they feel against your bare skin when he holds you down. I can count the number of-" 

"Meredith," I interrupted, but she ignored me, continued searching the ground as the unimaginable flew from her mouth.  

"You don't know him at all, Jake!" I dodged a hiking boot as she continued to scream. "Maybe you shouldn't have skimmed my journal. Then you wouldn't have missed the part where he tied me up and threatened to kill me if I ever tried to leave." 

She inched away from the wall, was getting closer to Keith's personal supply of weapons. Her emotions were riding close to the surface as if all the pent up hostility she'd been holding back had finally broken loose. I held my hand up, hoping she'd settle down enough to let me explain. It didn't work and I slid to the right, barely escaping the barrage of empty cans she hurled my way.  

"You drag me out of there, promise me I'm safe, make me believe that maybe, just maybe, life is worth living." Her eyes widened, focused on my face with an anger, an intensity, I'd never imagined her capable of. "Only to drag him back here? Are you crazy? Do you hate me that much?" 

"Meredith, please. You'll see what I mean. Once I get him here, once he knows he's not alone, it'll change. You'll see who he really-" 

"No!" she screamed.  

I don't know what she went for; all I saw was Evan moving, dropping to the ground in front of her. He leaned in, whispered something into her hair and her whole demeanor changed. She dropped the knife I hadn't even seen her pick up and rocked back on her heels, settling onto the cold, damp floor.  

Ahh shit. I spent an eternity getting her to open up to me, to trust me enough to read her diary. And the day she does, what do I go and do? Threaten to bring her worst nightmare back, move him right in here with us. That made me no better than Tyler. No better than any of them.