Tall, Dark Streak of Lightning (The Dark Lightning Trilogy)

by J. M. Richards

  “Anna…what are you doing here?”

  His tone worried me, and I wondered if he’d briefly lost consciousness or something just then. I decided to keep my tone light. “I was in my woods,” I told him. “When the storm came, I decided this would be a good place to wait it out. I guess you had the same idea. Here, take off your sweater, it’s soaked.”

  He complied, breathing heavily. His black shirt underneath was also damp and tattered. “Anna,” he said sharply, “you need to leave. Just go. Don’t worry about me. You have to get out of here.”

  I gave him a look. “You gonna make me?”

  He opened his mouth but I cut him off. “Hold still,” I said pulling out a couple of alcohol packets. I tore one open and began dabbing his wounds. He flinched as usual, as all tough guys do when their cuts are cleaned after a fight. So I did what my mom had always done: I blew gently on it to cool the stinging. I was distinctly aware that our faces were very close. I tried to focus, but then my eyes strayed and we locked gazes. Stray, wet curls slid down around my shoulders and face.

  “Anna,” he said softly, “thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I whispered.

  “But you need to go now.”

  I leaned back. “Excuse me?”

  “You don’t have to take care of me,” Davin said. “I’ll be okay. I just came in here to rest and be alone.”

  I admit, my ego was wounded. I pulled back. “I suppose that means you don’t want any band-aids, either,” I said, a touch more bitterly than I’d meant to.

  He sighed. “Don’t be upset. I just…I was in a minor scuffle. No big deal. I didn’t mean for you to see me like this.”

  “Minor scuffle?” I echoed incredulously. “Have you seen yourself? You’re not seriously still trying to pass this off as more roughhousing with the guys?” I shook my head. Then I glanced at him. “Davin, honestly…are you in trouble?”

  He gave me a pained look. “No, Anna. Look, I told you, I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, now that you mention it, you look fine.” I began shoving my stuff back in my bag. I stood abruptly to leave and Davin caught my arm.

  Anger, worry, and stress caused me to react abruptly— even petulantly—and I pulled away as hard as I could. I knew he was a lot stronger than me, so normally it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. This time, however, my sleeve was so wet and he was so weakened that I was able to break free. As I yanked back, all that physics stuff about momentum and everything having an equal and opposite reaction must have kicked in. I stumbled back and tripped into a pew, while Davin knocked himself in the head with his arm, causing himself to slam into the wooden surface of his own pew.

  We both groaned; I regained my footing and glared at him, while he cradled his head and looked at me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I muttered. “Just peachy. You?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I just hit my head on the pew when you pulled free.” He sighed, rubbing his forehead gingerly. “Some friend I am, huh?”

  I didn’t say anything…but I didn’t leave, either.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to hold on to you so hard. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to leave all mad at me.”

  “Oh, but you told me to leave,” I reminded him sharply, “and I am mad at you.” He looked up at me. “I came in to help you and you’re just brushing me off.”

  “It’s nothing personal,” he said weakly. He was still rubbing his forehead.

  “Stop messing with that,” I snapped. “You’re going to make it worse.” I sighed and plonked beside him again, picking up another band-aid to finish.

  When his wound was dressed, he sank his head onto my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Anna.”

  I relented. “That’s okay,” I murmured, rubbing his head a little. I could smell his shampoo; it was fresh, like pine needles and lemons. The usual scent of coffee lingered on him too, along with the damp aroma of someone caught in the rain. I wondered how I smelled to him.

  “I mean, I’m sorry, because…you shouldn’t…I can’t be your friend anymore.”

  I pushed him away so I could see him. “What?”

  “Ow, Anna, just listen, please. I can’t be the kind of friend you want me to be.”

  “How do you know what kind of friend I want?” I bellowed, standing. I snatched up my stuff and started to walk away again, not really to leave, but just because I was so frustrated. This time, instead of grabbing me, Davin simply stood and followed me as I paced to the front of the sanctuary.

  “Look, Anna, I know the kind of friend you deserve, and I just can’t be it,” he said, facing me from across the aisle. “I’m not dependable—I know that. I’m always getting into odd scrapes—I’m unstable and selfish and unreliable. I know that’s what you and your friends must think.”

  “Not even close,” I argued. “Why would you even say that?”

  He gave me a keen look. “You’ve never thought that about me?”

  “Okay,” I sighed and sat on the short steps that led up to the chancel. “Maybe. Briefly. But that’s not really how I think of you. It’s not what I see in you.”

  His black eyes flickered to my face. “And what’s that?” He sat beside me, hesitantly.

  The friend I’m falling for? The most complex and intriguing guy I know? I couldn’t say any of that. “A guy who’s funny, sweet when he’s not brooding, and obnoxiously stubborn when he’s hurt.”

  Davin smiled wryly. “Oh.” He sighed and was quiet for a moment. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “How did you know I was here?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t. I was just out for a jog.”

  He looked slightly skeptical. “Wearing your backpack?” He hooked a finger under its strap.

  It was rather odd, I had to admit. “It’s just something I sometimes do,” I explained, “so that I can have my keys and water bottle and radio and anything else I need with me. I know serious runners don’t do it.” I shrugged. “Oh, well.” I pushed the focus back on him. “Davin,” I said softly, “won’t you please tell me what happened? Who did this to you?”

  He sighed heavily and did not look at me. “I did this to myself,” he said finally.

  “You should take better care of yourself, then,” I said, tossing him some band-aids. He fumbled with them so I impatiently snatched them back and began applying them to his many cuts. As I took in all his wounds on his fists and face, I couldn’t help but remember once again the news reports I’d seen only an hour before. I’d told my brother in Brazil that I never doubted Davin’s goodness when I was with him. But there in front of me, Davin’s bruises were clearly evidence of some kind of violence. But whom had he been beating, and who had been striking him in return?

  I drew a deep breath. “Davin, I need to ask you something.”

  “What?” He had that guarded look on his face, and I almost relented.

  “Um…what do you know about the Hallway Stalker?”

  He frowned. “You mean that bastard who’s been going around attacking college girls all over the city?” He shook his head. “Not much. Why?”

  I chose my words carefully. “He attacked another girl last night. Beat her up pretty bad. She’s in the hospital.”

  Davin clenched his jaw. “Son of a bitch.” He looked up at me, his eyes dark and angry. “Where?”

  “Duquesne.”

  Davin was silent a moment, and I could see that the news really bothered him. His freshly bandaged fists clenched like they couldn’t wait to tear into something else. Or someone else. “Too bad your favorite hero wasn’t there to save her,” he said bitterly.

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “But from what I heard, he had his hands full last night as it was.”

  “Tell that to the girl who got attacked.” His voice was angry and hard.

  I was torn between defending Dark Lightning and comforting Davin. “I know you don’t appreciate him the way I do. But he helped a lot of people last night. The girl
who got attacked…it was a terrible thing. But it wasn’t Dark Lightning’s fault. There’s a sicko out there who’s targeting college girls. Unfortunately, the world is full of sickos. Dark Lightning can’t stop them all; I don’t really expect him to. I feel bad for that girl, too…but you really seem to be taking it hard.”

  Davin swallowed. “It just, uh, hits a little close to home for me,” he said finally.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I also couldn’t tell if he wanted to talk about it or not. So I simply said, “I’m sorry.” I realized—again—that Davin had a lot of mystery around him, and he was entitled to it. But the question gnawed at me. “How, exactly, does it hit close to home?” I asked carefully. He sighed, and I said quickly, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  “Remember how I told you my sister died a few months before I started college?” He drew another deep breath as I nodded, biting my lip. “Well, she was attacked by someone at our school.” He shook his head, his face full of dark fury and pain. Hearing that, and seeing his reaction, I would never again suspect him even for a second of being the Hallway Stalker.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, knowing how inadequate those words were. But the least I could do was drop the interrogation; whatever his bruises were from, whatever his secrets were, he’d tell me when he was ready.

  He swallowed hard. “Yeah, well, maybe now you can begin to see why I’m so screwed up. And why all the crap I’m dealing with just makes me a bad friend.”

  I leaned back thoughtfully and began packing my kit back up. “I don’t think that’s true,” I told him. “Sure, you’re dealing with a lot, but I honestly don’t think you should have to face it by yourself. You already told me you’re not close with your family, that you haven’t made any good friends here,” I counted on my fingers, “and that you quit going to your therapist. I mean, who else have you got?”

  “I can’t do that to you,” he shook his head. “You deserve someone who can really be there for you.”

  “But see, I’m really blessed. I have family and friends I can go to. Everyone should have at least one person like that,” I said. “Including you.”

  His lips twitched, but he didn’t reply.

  “Just tell me this,” I said, as I finished and tucked my kit back in my bag, “do you have anyone else you can talk to? I mean really talk to.” I sat back.

  He frowned. “No, not really.”

  “Are you telling me after all this time, you still haven’t made any other good friends?”

  He shook his head. “The thing is,” he said, drawing a breath, “my grandpa always said that you have to be a friend to have them. And what do I do for anyone? I mean, there are a couple of guys I kinda hang out with, go to the movies, eat with, that kind of thing. But we don’t talk. Not about anything important.”

  “These guys don’t notice when you run off or come back all banged up?”

  “Nah.” Davin sighed. “People only see what they want to see, right? They don’t notice that much, and when they do, they’re just not that curious. They are satisfied with simple answers, unlike you. But then, it’s not like they really know me. To tell you the truth, you’re not just the closest friend I have…you’re pretty much my only friend.”

  His words smote my heart. Some friend I’d been, allowing myself to be distracted by Chad’s pretty face most of the semester. I bit my lip again, not sure what to say to that.

  “And that’s just not a fair burden to put on you,” he went on. “Which is why I can’t go on being friends with you. I just don’t want to keep letting you down and hurting you when I can’t do for you what you’ve done for me.”

  “Oh, will you drop your Spider-Man complex?” I growled.

  He stared at me, startled. “My what complex?”

  “Spider-Man complex.”

  “What’s that?” He had that alarmed and bewildered expression he used to wear a lot when we were first getting to know each other.

  “It’s just a term I made up—like how at first, he decides he can’t be with Mary Jane because he’s afraid of what will happen to her because of him? You’re basically doing the same thing.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “So, in this analogy, you’re Mary Jane?”

  “You got that right, Tiger.”

  For a moment his face softened in a smile. Then he drew a breath and looked at me very seriously. “You’re so good to me, Anna. I don’t get it. Why? I can’t do anything for you. I can’t write you more than once a summer—I can’t even sit through an entire meal with you. Why would you even want me as a friend?”

  Lightning flashed outside and a loud crack of thunder made me shudder. We had moved off the steps and were both sitting in the aisle with our backs to the sides of the pews, across from each other. Both of us were still wet and slightly chilly, and I shivered before replying.

  “Davin, you’re—” I sighed, mid-sentence. I’d never been terribly good at expressing my feelings off the top of my head, and there were a lot of feelings I wasn’t sure I wanted to express. “You taught me how to drive,” I said.

  His lips twitched upward ever so slightly. “Just one lesson.”

  “Ah, but what you didn’t know was how many times my dad and my brother had tried to teach me before that. You succeeded where others had failed. You know what else? You’re considerate. You act like you don’t care about people, but that day we met, I watched you push that jerk out of the way so a car wouldn’t hit him. You know, I always wondered about that. Why did you help?”

  He didn’t answer right away. “Well…who else would have?”

  “Fair enough,” I admitted. “But after that…even though sometimes you acted like you wanted to have nothing to do with me, you invited me to sit with you at lunch, and took me downtown, and to that New Year’s Eve party. And the truth is, back when we started Dubsy, when I didn’t have anyone to talk to, you were there for me, too. So, you want to be a loner, yet you did let yourself kind of become friends with me. You didn’t have to.”

  “I know.” The faint smile on his lips grew stronger. “I don’t know why, exactly. I told myself I shouldn’t. I’d seen you in class before we met, and when you stopped to bandage my arm, I was a little impressed. But it was more than that. I was intrigued by you.”

  “So you said.” I still wasn’t sure if that was entirely a good thing or not.

  “I still am, you know. So compassionate, so beautiful, so mysterious…I’m still trying to figure you out.”

  My head spun. He thought I was beautiful? I struggled to keep my composure. “Yeah, well, I’m not actually mysterious. And while you’ve been trying to figure me out, I’ve been trying to figure you out. Like right now.” I shifted. “You’ve been trying to push me away the whole night. Why? Either you’re trying to ditch me, or you have some misguided notion that your noble self-sacrifice is what’s best for me. So, which is it? And be straight with me.”

  Davin was silent a moment. “Wow, you really pegged me,” he said finally. “I just keep thinking that if I push you away, then you won’t have to deal with all my crap. The stuff I’m wrestling with I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

  “Yeah, except you haven’t ever told me what any of your issues and problems are, so I’m not exactly dealing with them, am I?”

  “You have to deal with what it does to me,” he argued.

  “Which is what?”

  He indicated himself—and his many injuries—in one sweeping motion of his hand. “I would have thought you’d have bandaged me up enough times to know.”

  “Can I be honest with you? I don’t mind putting band-aids on you. In fact, aside from being concerned about how you got hurt, I actually kind of enjoy it. I know that sounds weird, but at least I know I’m doing something tangible to help you. And sometimes it feels like that’s all you’ll let me do. I can’t get at your inner troubles to help mend you there, but I can deal with your physical injuries. When you won’t even let me do that�
�” I shrugged. “I feel like I’m failing you as a friend.”

  He digested that with a heavy sigh. “What a pair we are. Both of us guilt-ridden over a friendship we can’t seem to do without, no matter how we try.”

  “I just wish you wouldn’t try so hard to push me away,” I told him. “The thing is, I may not always be able to be there for you. I have other duties, too. And I…can’t guarantee that I’ll always be acting in your best interests or always put you first. So just let me be there for you when I can. I want to. I care about you,” a lot, “so let me show it.”

  He appeared to be considering this. Then his dark eyes flickered back to me. “Okay,” he said quietly. My heart leapt. “On one condition,” he added. “I know you have a lot of questions and concerns about me, like the fact that I am all beaten up or that I’m always running off somewhere. But,” his eyes were pleading, “if you really are going to continue to be my friend, I need you to just trust me for now without knowing all the answers. I told you before that I couldn’t promise that you’d ever know, and that’s still true. I know that would be hard for you, so consider carefully. I hate to have strings attached to our friendship, but this is just how it has to be for now. If we’re going to remain friends, if I agree to stop pushing you away, you’d have to understand that there are some things I just can’t tell you.”

  I chewed my lip. “Well,” I said, considering, “if it’s that important to you, then okay, I guess.” I studied him a moment, curiosity already gnawing at me. I was also concerned; by agreeing to stop prying, was I complicit in his self-destructive behavior? Was I an enabler?

  He tilted his head, watching me. “Really? You’re okay with not having your questions answered?”

  “I wouldn’t say I’m okay with it,” I objected. “But I respect your request. Doesn’t mean I’ll stop being worried about you when you turn up like this, either,” I added.

  There was another flash of lightning, and this time the pause was longer before the rumble of thunder came. We sat in silence for a few minutes, looking out the two tiny windows set in the pair of front doors. The glass was smeared with rain, but I could still see trees writhing outside. “Wild storm,” I sighed. “Reminds me of home. Only colder.”