Page 50 of Glorious Ruin
The paramedic nodded, moving closer. “Okay. Hey buddy, I’m Joel. Can you look at me? What’s your name?” Silas didn’t even lift his head. He just gripped my shirt tighter, his knuckles white and his eyes locked onto mine.
The paramedic tried again. “Sir, I need to know if you can feel your fingers. Can you move your right hand for me?”
Silas just stared at me, breathing erratically.
“He can move it,” I answered for him. “He’s just too overwhelmed right now. The shoulder is a major trigger for him.”
The paramedic frowned. “I’m sorry, but I need him to answer, man. I need to assess his level of consciousness. Can you step back a little bit? Give him some air?”
As soon as paramedic Joel moved to touch Silas’s arm, he let out a sharp gasp and lunged for my hand. His breaths spiked as he gripped my palm like it was the only thing keeping him from floating away.
“He doesn’t want me to move.” y voice hardened into a no-nonsense tone as I looked the paramedic dead in the eye. “I’m his fiancé. I’m staying right here.”
Joel paused, glancing at the ring on my finger and the look on my face, before he nodded slowly. “Alright. I’m just going to feel the joint, okay? I’m not going to pull on it.”
Huddled together on the concrete, I whispered reassurances to Silas, kissed his cheek, and held his hand as the guy did a quick check. My focus remained entirely on Silas, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw them.
The phones.
Across the street, the balcony above us, even cars parked along the road. People were standing still. But they weren’t just watching; they were filming. The light of a dozen screens reflected against the windows.
A world-famous pro wrestler, the face of the UWF, was huddled in a ball on a sidewalk hhile another man, his supposed on-screen rival, held him endearingly and called him his fiancé. Callum “Deadlock” Kincaid was kissing the shoulder of “Timeless” Silas Reed in broad daylight.
My stomach turned. This was no longer the aftermath of a bar fight. This was the end of the world as we knew it.
The paramedic sat back, the tension in his own shoulders seeming to drain into the sidewalk. “The shoulder seems stable. It’s likely just a flare-up or a minor strain. The pop he felt was probably nothing more than the scar tissue or the joint resetting under stress. He needs to get it iced and get checked in the morning just to be safe, but he’s not in immediate danger.”
“Thank you,” I said, though I barely heard him.
Reaching into Silas’s pocket, I pulled out his phone. It was already blowing up with notifications he didn’t need to see. I slid it into my own pocket with a set jaw, determined to not have my worry bleed into his spiral.
“Evan,” I called in a low voice. He was standing off to the side, staring at the crowd of onlookers with a complexion that could rival snow. “Get the cars. Now. We’re leaving.”
Silas’s head rested against my shoulder, his body and mind finally starting to settle. I kissed the top of it, ignoring the cameras, ignoring the whispers. And definitely ignoring the fact our lives were about to burn to the ground.
“I’ve got you, Si,” I whispered against his hair. “Whatever comes next, I’ve got you.”
13
THE REED LAND, NORTH CAROLINA
Now playing: Summertime’s Close - Zach Bryan
Thedrivehomewasa suffocating nightmare. The air inside my truck was thick with unexpressed terror. It felt like trying to breathe underwater. I had given the order the second we reached the parking lot in Wilmington, my voice leaving absolutely zero room for argument.
Everyone goes back to where they’re staying. No hovering. No questions.
I needed the crowd gone and the noise to stop so I could get my fiancé behind closed doors and piece him back together.
Silas sat in the passenger seat like a hollow trembling shell of the man, who, hours before, had been laughing in the surf. TheTimelessarmor had completely dissolved, leaving him silently drowning in his panic. He clutched at his bad shoulder, eyes fixed on the dashboard, and his skin a translucent shade of gray. Every shallow, hitched breath he managed to take felt like a physical blow to my ribs.
When we finally pulled up to the house, the truck wasn’t even in park before my hands were moving. From his seat to our room, I moved with a silent but desperate efficiency. I became the strength he required, stripping the salt-crusted clothes from his trembling frame, helping him into comfy clothes, and pulling the heavy duvet back. He moved like a ghost with vacant eyes, completely detached from reality. It was an implosion in its purest, most brutal form.
It was hard to miss while I was pulling the blankets over his chest. His phone. I had placed it on the nightstand while helping Si, but the screen was now projecting a strobe light of catastrophe. The notifications were constant, a flickering blur of missed calls, texts, news alerts, and post tags. The near-continuous vibration hummed against the wood like a rattlesnake’s warning.
I grabbed it without looking at the screen. There was no need. I already knew what every dirt sheet headline would read by morning. Opening the bottom drawer of my nightstand, I shoved the phone as far back as it would go, burying it under a stack of books.
There was nothing I wanted more than to silence the world. To build a fortress around him, even if I knew the walls were already turning to ash. Silas was so deep in his own head, paralyzed by the phantom pain in his shoulder and the trauma of the physical altercation, he didn’t notice the digital execution being carried out on his reputation. He didn’t see the world as it burned around us. And for once, I was grateful for his distraction.
