“I’ll stay with him. We’ll go to the safe house.” Declan pipes up from the back seat. I didn’t even know he was in here.
“Okay, I’ll bring you there now. I’ll send Doc up too. You got the bags in the back?” Roe asks him.
“Yep. I’m all ready to go.”
Looking between them, confusion clouds my brain. “How did you know what I was going to say?”
Declan smiles softly, “A little bird who knows what it’s like to have a sick sibling called me. He wants you to get healthy too. For yourself and for her.” Fucking Dieter.
18
Chapter Eighteen
Declan
We walk through the door of the small cabin surrounded by woods and nothingness, and immediately I start working on draining things I find in the cabinets. Grabbing bottles, I flick the caps off and into the trash can and dump four at a time down the drain. I go through the two bedrooms and find all the stashes that I’ve personally hidden around here from when I was a teen and would come up here with Roe and our Da. After emptying every ounce of alcohol down the drain, including the mouthwash, hand sanitizer, cologne, rubbing alcohol, and vanilla extract, I finally take a breath. Call me extra, but I don’t do things half assed, and that includes drying out my baby brother.
Mac watches me do all of this with rapt attention. He doesn’t say a word, but I notice how he shifts his weight fromone foot to the other, his hands buried deep into his pockets; he’s anxious. After I’m done and have all the containers in one trash bag, I nod to Rowan. We talked about this on the way to pick him up. He was coming here on his own volition or by force. It didn’t matter to me which one. I was coming here with him regardless. It just made sense.
The twins are off at college and way too young to have to deal with this, so that counted them out. Rowan runs the entire organization and has Clara and Rhett to think about. Kieran has Phoenix at home. He would have done it without question, but he and Mac are best friends. I don’t think he could have handled watching this shit. He’s also needed back in Jersey. We have a thing going on with some missing guns, and he’s needed there. I can do most of my work from here, and what I can’t will wait until I get back.
“Can you take this bag out with you?” I ask Rowan, keeping Mac in my peripheral vision. He’s looking twitchy and I don’t like that shit.
“Yeah, Doc will be up here in a few. If it starts before he gets here, you remember what to do?” The question is unnecessary, but I answer anyway.
“Yeah, I got this.”
I wanted to be a paramedic my entire life. So much so that I’ve all but memorized any and every medical book I could get my hands on from the time I was about eight. So him asking if I remember how to handle him when he inevitably starts seizing is redundant. He knows I know, and he knows we’re going to get through this.
“Yeah, you do. Call me if you need me. Text me every hour. I want to know it all.” He pulls me in for a quick hug before moving to Mac and wrapping him up in a tight embrace.
“You’ve got this, brother. You’re better than this shit.” Rowan means to be comforting, but I can see the irritation flashing in Mac’s eyes.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” He brushes Roe off of him. Rowan pulls back, and when he does, he holds up the pistol Mac had in the waistband of his jeans.
“You won’t be needing this. What else do you have on you, Mac?”
“Nothing.” Mac won’t look him in the eyes.
“Come on Mac, either you can hand the shit over or we can hold you down and search you. I don’t want to do that shit, but I will.” I groan out. He’s going to make this shit so hard on me. I can already tell.
He stands there, a look of pure hatred on his face for a few minutes before grumbling and handing over his knife and the snub nosed revolver he keeps at his ankle.
“I’m done with this shit.” He throws his hands up and storms off into one of the bedrooms. I’m not worried about him finding anything to drink in there or in his bags, seeing as I packed his bags and he’s never been here before to stash shit.
Rowan turns back to me and runs his fingers through his hair, pulling at the strands on his nape. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay with him?”
Brushing him off, I laugh, “Yeah, I handled ‘teenage Mac’ just fine. I’ll be fine.”
He doesn’t even crack a smile. “I’m serious. You text me constantly, and call me if anything happens.”
Nodding solemnly I pull him into one more hug. “Yeah, Rowan, I got it. Promise.”
He hugs me back for a few seconds before grabbing the trash bag and leaving. I wait until I hear the SUV pull farenough away that I can no longer hear it before shouldering my duffle bag and heading into the room Mac isn’t pouting in. Dropping my bag, I look around the room. It was the one Da always used. If I close my eyes, I can almost convince myself he’s still here.
My Da and I were extremely close. He raised us to only be able to rely on each other, and because of that, he created a mini army of boys who would do anything to help the other. Looks like that’s still relevant as adults too. Da always told me that it was mine and Rowan’s job to watch out for our brothers. They were younger and looked up to us. We had to set a good example. Thinking back on it now, I realize we must not have set a good example for us to be in this situation right now. I’ve looked into Al-Anon because the guilt has been eating me alive since I first noticed Mac was drinking excessively about a year and a half ago. I’m not sure if I’ll go or not, but maybe I’ll make that deal with him once we come out on the other side of this week.
Deciding to check on Mac, I leave my Da’s room and wander into the room Rowan and I shared when we would come up here. Mac’s laying on top of the covers of the queen sized bed to the right of the room, farthest from the door. His body is curled up into himself, and his eyes are closed. He isn’t asleep though, I can tell by his breathing. Like I used to when he was little and had nightmares, I move over to the bed and sit on the floor, leaning my head back against the side of the mattress. My phone vibrates in my pocket, but I ignore it.
