I've Got You - John Stoker

Amarillo, TX - October 1979
John listens, a chill slipping down his spine, as Dad’s sharp whistle sets all three ranch dogs to howling. Beside him, Carmen clutches her dull stake, white-knuckled, leaning forward. Even though she’s only eight, she’s already been training with Momma, mastering the basics of holding a stake and protecting her vulnerable neck and wrists. John remembers his own training, Momma showing him how to grip the stake and where to strike.
He pulls Gabe a little closer to him as Dad continues. His little brother is the odd one out from John and Carmen. He seems destined to become the healer in the family. Gabe’s been tying bandages on the ranch dogs and the poor unsuspecting barn cats since he’s been old enough to understand knots. John’s never forgotten seeing the old tom, Julio, racing across the yard looking like an escaped mummy, wrapped in half of the roll of bandages from Momma’s first aid kit.
John thinks Abeula Rosa is secretly disappointed it’s not John who shares her gift for care and gentleness, along with her Second Sight. Ever since he had his first Seeing dream two years ago, of laying in a grave and watching the dirt shoveled in on top of him, he’s been taking lessons with Abeula Rosa to try and understand the extent of the gift he has. But just because John had one recurring vision and has the ability to see through fae glamours doesn’t mean he’s anything else like his Abuela. Like Momma and Carmen, he’s a fighter, a defender. Here to protect people from the monsters. Gabe, he’s the one who can fix things.
John pulls his little brother a bit closer as Dad continues narrating the tale of John’s namesake and his journey to the dark, gloomy castle of Dracula. “I got you, don’t worry.” Gabe’s listening wide-eyed, it’s his first time hearing the story. Dad’s reading the abridged version for his benefit, John knows because he’s old enough now to be trusted with the yellow-leather-bound first edition that sits in the office and has great-grandpa’s signature in the front. It’s a whole lot creepier than the illustrated children’s version Dad’s reading now. But John knows it’s all real, and it makes him proud that someday he’s going to be just like ‘Quincey Morris’, his other namesake.
He’s wondered, ever since he had that dream about the grave, if he’s destined to meet the same fate as the heroic, doomed Texan whose family line is in his mother’s blood. He glances down at Gabe, and a fierce protectiveness surges up in him, even as the echo of his own soundless screams seems to flood his ears, and the smell of fresh earth crowds out the scent of hot chocolate and chili in the room. It always seems like he gets the vision a little stronger around Gabe. But if it means he’s going to die to protect his little brother, he can handle that. Gabe’s the one who can fix things, after all.
Gabe snuggles into him, his curly hair tickling John’s nose, and John leans down over his little brother’s head as Dad finishes the chapter and closes the book.
“Don’t worry. I got you. It’s fine. Nothing’s gonna hurt you while I’m here.”
…
Amarillo, TX - May 1992
When he repeats those words, twelve years later, on the bloodstained floor of an Amarillo warehouse, John wishes he’d understood what his vision really meant.
“Don’t worry. I got you. It’s okay.” He repeats it over and over, like that’s somehow going to make it true. Like their roles have been reversed and he’s the healer. But as much as he wants it to be possible, he can’t change fate.
He just wishes he’d known he saw it coming.
“I got you.” He whispers it over and over, even as he feels blood soaking the brown curls, even as his little brother goes cold and limp in his arms. “I got you.” But he doesn’t.
When someone comes to take Gabe’s body, John doesn’t want to let go. He couldn’t hold on strong enough to keep his brother alive. He can’t make himself let go of all he has left of him. It takes someone trying to pry his hands away, and the searing pain of his broken one when they do, to make him let go.
And when they lower his brother’s coffin into the ground, and John picks up a handful of Texas soil in his good hand and lets it fall onto the pine box with an empty thud, he thinks it would have been better if he’d been the one in it.
Gabe was the one who could fix things, after all. And this time, John’s the one who needs the fixing.