by Kaylee, Katy
“And don’t do anything stupid or get yourself into trouble, or else Aiden really will kill me.”
“Yes, Matteo. Whatever you say.” Beth told him, patting him on the shoulder before the other man finally turned and got in the car.
Beth just snorted out a laugh and I grabbed her hand, pulling her close to his side with a tug sharp enough to have her falling against me. She looked up at me in surprise, her eyebrows climbing her forehead in question.
“There seems to be a lot of hugging going on, and none of it involves me.” I gave her my best pouty puppy dog look and she burst into a fit of giggles.
“I can’t believe it,” She gasped after she finally regained some of her composure, “You’re jealous.”
“That’s ridiculous. Of course I’m not.”
“You are. It’s sweet.”
“I’m not sweet either.” I growled, unsure how the conversation got so far out of my control so quickly. It was a particular talent of Beth’s.
“I know,” she sighed, smiling up at me, “you’re the big bad Aiden Diorno.”
“That’s right.”
Beth hugged me then, wrapping her arms around me and I just breathed her in, reveling in the feel of her.
“There, is that better?”
“You know what? It really is.” I grinned down at her, walking around to open the passenger side of my car. I waited for her to get in before going around to the other side and climbing in myself.
I started the engine, feeling the expensive car rumble to life before pulling away from the lab parking lot and onto the highway. But I found myself driving away from the city, in the opposite direction of my house.
After a few minutes as the city skyline began to disappear in the rear view mirror Beth shot me a questioning look.
“Where are we going?”
“I wanted to show you some place special to me.” I told her. Also, I was hoping to distract her enough from what they had just found out that she wouldn’t keep insisting that they go there. I knew exactly what kind of place that bar was, and I knew exactly what type of people went there. The worst sort. Dangerous, rough. It was no place for Beth. They would eat her alive.
We drove for a long time, following the road down the coast until we reached a clearing just as evening was staring to settle in.
The sunset turned the sky a brilliant rainbow of colors and it was a perfect, beautiful moment as I parked the car off the shoulder of the road and stopped the engine. I could feel Beth’s curious gaze on me and I glanced over at her. The beauty outside had nothing on her. Just looking at her made my chest ache and I had to tear my gaze away as I climbed out of the car, breathing in the warm spring night air.
I walked around the car, opening the passenger’s side door for Beth and I felt a thrill shiver through me as she placed her hand in mine, letting me pull her to her feet. She looked around in wonder, taking in the towering trees, the sound of the coast roaring gently in the distance, the vibrant sunset turning everything cotton candy colored.
“What is this place?” Beth asked, her eyes reflecting a rainbow of colors as she turned to look at me. “Is this what you wanted me to see?”
“Come on, it’s just ahead. I’ll show you.” I still held her hand in mine, not letting go as I led her through a forested path. The shadows were starting to grow longer but there was still enough light to see the curve of the path up ahead.
When we reached the small clearing that overlooked the bay, the sight caught at me like always, drawing back childhood memories. We slowed to a stop at the railed edge, just watched the sky darken overhead in perfect silence, only the sound of the breeze and the waves below.
“You know, I never pegged you for a nature boy.” Beth said after a long time had passed. The evening color show had faded into deep indigo and the sky overhead was like blue velvet, stars starting to wink to life across it.
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Beth.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
I smiled a small smile at the teasing note in her voice, but it slowly faded as I gazed out over the scene below.
“My father used to take me here, when I was little. We would go camping. Get away from the city. This is where he taught me all the most important lessons about life.” I paused for a moment, “How to take care of myself, how to take care of others, how to use leaves as toilet paper.”
“Yep, crucial life lesson, that last one.”
“Hey, it’s helped me out more than a few times.” I laughed, and after a moment, she joined in.
The laughter slowly trailed off and Beth turned to me, her gray eyes unreadable in the darkness.
“You and your father must have been really close.”
“In a way.” I said with a shrug.
“In a way? What does that mean?”
“My father was never really…” I trailed off, wondering what to say, how best to say it. “It was complicated.”
“Believe me, I know all about complicated families.” Beth said with a snort and I let my eyes close shut, my mind drifting back to when I was a child.
“My father was more like a teacher to me than he ever was a dad. He would take me on jobs, show me the ropes. We never did normal father son things. Never tossed a ball around or played sports together. It was always work. Always the family. It was my responsibility. He drilled that into me. Duty, responsibility, and above all family.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a childhood.”
“It was…different.” I tried to force a laugh but it came out raw. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. Tell me about your childhood.”
* * *
Beth
I glanced over at Aiden at his question.
“My childhood,” I repeated softly, the memories rising despite my best efforts. “My childhood was very normal.”
“Normal, huh?”
“I mean, as normal as anyone else’s,” I shot him a sideways glance, “Well, not everyone’s I guess. But we grew up in middle America. We played in the backyard and my mom made meatloaf for dinner.”
I laughed, thinking about those summer nights in the college town we had grown up in. It had all seemed so important then, getting the degree, impressing my parents, proving my sister wrong.
“You know, my sister and I never really got along.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” I gave a soft, broken hearted sigh, thinking about Leah, thinking about our complicated relationship. “Growing up, we were total opposites. Leah was always a risk taker. She wouldn’t say no to any dare, no matter how stupid or dangerous it was. I was the bookworm of the family.”
“I’m not surprised,” Aiden said with a soft laugh, “You’re still a bookworm.”
“But not Leah. She always said that life couldn’t be found in a book. It could only be experienced.”
I shook my head, looking up at the stars that I had dedicated my life to studying.
“She was right, you know.” I laughed bitterly, “Life can only be experienced, but sometimes, sometimes it’s better just to live safe behind a book. After we lost our parents, Leah spiraled out of control. We both did.”
I gazed up at the velvet night, wishing more than anything in the world that I could have those years back to spend with her, those years back that I had wasted.
“It was so hard for us to get along, even though we were the only family we had left. She was all I had, and I saw her maybe once a year. Twice if I had to.”
I shook my head, guilt and pain eating at me, “And now she’s gone.”
My eyes were drawn once more to the sky overhead. The stars and constellations, the murky waves and patterns of far off planets and galaxies. It called out to me, as always, the vast expanse making me feel small and somehow enormous at the same time.
“Do you see that tiny cluster of stars over there? Just above the horizon?” I said suddenly, pointing out into the air in fr
ont of me.
Aiden shook his head.
“Look, six tiny stars. They are a little misty this time of year. Just above that top of that big tree.” I pointed again and after a minute, Aiden nodded.
“Yeah I think so.”
“That is Pleiades cluster. My favorite constellation.”
“Playa-what?”
“Pleiades.” I repeated, staring off into the distant night sky. “It’s about sisters. Seven of them. It’s a Greek myth. The seven sisters of Atlas, the titan who held up the sky.” I blinked back a sudden sting of tears, “It’s hard to imagine, but those stars are actually nearly four hundred light years away. They are so bright that we can still see them clearly even from here. They are hundreds of times brighter than our sun.”
We both fell silent, both still and wondering as we stood there together in the dark, both wrestling with our own grief and loss.
“Why space?” Aiden’s sudden question shook me out of my reverie.
“What?”
“Why space? I never asked you why you chose to study that. The universe. Cosmic mysteries.”
“Cosmic mysteries.” I said softly, nodding, “that’s a good way to put it. At first, that’s what I thought drew me. The mystery. Exploring the unknown. Sort of made me feel like a cowboy in the wild west, you know? Exploring brand new territories. But after a few years I realized it wasn’t anything so exciting that had really, truly drawn me to study the cosmos.”
“Then what was it?”
“It makes me feel…connected, I guess. Connected to everyone.” I shrugged, looking up into the night, “It makes me feel less alone.”
Aiden’s arms wrapped around me from behind and we fell silent once more but my thoughts were in turmoil. Over and over again, they kept going back to what Will had discovered, what we had heard back at the lab, and what Aiden had revealed.
“I have to go.”
I had whispered the words so softly that I wasn’t sure Aiden had even heard them but then I felt him stiffen at my back.
“Beth, I really don’t think…”
“You understand, Aiden. You understand why.” I turned in his arms and looked up at him, his pale blue eyes reading dark sapphire in the velvet black surrounding us. “Duty. Responsibility. And above all–.”
“Family.” Aiden sighed the word, finishing my sentence and I could see it in his face. Even if he didn’t like it, he did understand. I had to go to that bar, no matter how dangerous Aiden said it was. I owed it to my family. I owed it to my sister. I had to go.
Chapter 27
Beth
I walked down the dark alley of the docks, and I was assaulted by memories. Memories of those long, awful nights that I had spent searching for any clue or sign of my sister. Those cold, lonely nights spent lurking around the abandoned docks, spying on the underbelly of the city. And that night. That night that I had seen Aiden for the first time in ten years. He had been like a ghost appearing out of the mist.
“You know, you had my men convinced that the docks were haunted,” Aiden said suddenly, startling me as his voice reached out to me in the darkness of the night.
“What? What are you talking about?” I asked absently, still trying to shake off the cobwebs of memories that clung to me with their sticky webs. I glanced over at him, struck not by the first time by his silhouette, by the innate, deadly grace that he always carried with him. Like a predator stalking prey in the night.
Aiden walked beside me, the collar of his coat turned up against the damn wind blowing in off of the water but he didn’t seem to feel it. I felt that chill all the way to my bones despite the warmth the summer evening had brought.
It always seemed colder by the docks. Or maybe that was from the memories too.
“My men,” Aiden said again. His voice was a low, humor filled rumble when it reached me. “I guess they must have heard you one night, or seen your shadow move. Billy and Remy aren’t the brightest tools in the toolshed.” Aiden shook his head, a small grin tilting up one corner of his mouth, “They were convinced that the docks were haunted. They even gave you a nickname?”
“Oh yeah? What was it? The Scary Scientist? The Reprehensible Researcher?” I teased, secretly tickled at the idea of his men scared of little old me.
“They called you the Devil of the docks.”
“Oooh. Spooky.” I bit back a laugh, “Did you ever tell them it was just me or do they still believe that they are being haunted by the devil.”
Aiden just shrugged, his grin growing wider with a hint of his own devil there.
“Nah. I was going to but…ever since they came up with that story, they haven’t fallen asleep on the job once.” His low chuckle warmed me through like fine whiskey, “I’ll tell them eventually. Maybe.”
I shook my head, both of us laughing under our breath and it distracted me long enough that I forgot my fear and dread for a moment as we turned down an even darker alley.
Aiden sobered as he lead me over to a brick wall barely discernable in the dark, but as we drew closer I could see that it was covered in graffiti and spray paint.
“Is this the spot?” I asked softly and Aiden nodded in answer.
I shivered, glancing around.
“My sister was here,” I whispered, taking in the darkness, the damn and cold. “this was where she lived her last, horrifying moments. Alone.”
Suddenly, Aiden was there in front of me, his hands grasping each of my arms as he turned me to face him.
“Are you sure about this? You don’t have to. I can do this on my own.”
“No.” I breathed out the word, “But I need to do this, Aiden.”
“You don’t. You really don’t.”
“Yes, I do.” I said, repeating my words, my voice implacable. Aiden grew silent, his jaw tightening as he fought himself, fought what he wanted to say, which I already knew what that was. He wanted me to turn around and go home. To just give in without a fight. To not argue with him. Well, that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen. This wasn’t about him, or me. This was about Leah.
“I just…” Aiden started, then bit off the words abruptly, biting his cheek as he looked away, staring out into the night, searching for answers but they weren’t out there. I knew. I had looked. I had scoured the dark looking for clues and I’d turned up nothing at all, “Christ I wish you would just worry about your own neck for once. It’s dangerous in there.”
I could hear the anger in his voice, but underneath that was the real problem. The fear. The worry eating away at him.
On impulse, I reached out, grabbing his hand and cradling it in both mine. I gave it an extra tug when he didn’t look back at me right away.
“I’m well aware of the situation that I’m walking into, Aiden.”
“I really don’t think you are.” He huffed, irritation mixing in with his blend of emotions now and I glared at him, fighting to temper my own anger.
I bit my tongue, not saying anything, just looking up at him so that he could see my resolve. So that he could see just how serious I really was. And how seriously I was not going to be deterred.
I glared up at him until he finally threw his hands up in frustration.
“Fine,” He bit off the word, so hard it was like a brick hitting the broken concrete beneath my feet. “But there are some rules. You break the rules and we leave immediately, got it?”
“What are the rules?” I asked instead. I wasn’t about to agree to something without knowing the terms. That was a recipe for disaster.
“You stay by my side the entire time. I mean the entire time, Beth. No going to the bathroom. No ordering a drink by yourself. And sure as hell no talking to anyone!”
“That’s the whole point. That’s why we are going in there, Aiden. To talk to people. To ask questions and find out what happened.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers as if he was fighting off a headache. After a pained moment he looked down at me again.
“If
you go in there and start interrogating these people you’re going to get yourself shot. Or worse.”
“What’s worse than being shot?” I murmured the question under my breath but Aiden obviously heard. He arched one brow at me and I put my hands up in surrender, “Okay, okay!”
He still didn’t seem satisfied, pinning me with that steel hard stare of his and I let out a long suffering sigh.
“I promise, Aiden. Your show, your rules. I won’t leave your side. Just consider me your shadow.”
He stared at me for another long moment, obviously trying to figure a way out.
“Jesus. I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”
“We’ll never find out if we stay out here, will we?” I give him a wide smile, but he doesn’t find it funny. He just shook his head one final time at me, letting out a slow breath like a balloon deflated.
“Alright, let’s go get this over with.” He said softly, defeated but not about to let me rush in on my own. Aiden turned, not away from the brick wall but towards it. I glanced around in confusion.
“Well? Where is it? Where is the infamous bar?” I asked, still looking around dumbly and Aiden shot me a sly smile.
“You study the big mysteries of the whole universe but you can’t see the door in front of you.” He was obviously holding back a chuckle at my expense and I gave him a droll look before pointing out the obvious.
“What door?” I looked around once more but didn’t see anything but a brick wall covered in graffiti and some very inventive sexual suggestions. “I don’t think that’s even anatomically possible.” I whispered under my breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. It was nothing,” I answered, fighting a blush. “What was that about a door anyway? If you’re messing with me just because you don’t want me to go to the stupid bar…”
Aiden didn’t speak. He just reached out and knocked against a dark circle of dripping black spray paint and a moment later, the brick itself seemed to be moving as an outline of light suddenly appeared in the dark alley.
I watched in shock as the light grew wider and wider and then there was a very large bearded and tattoo covered man standing on the other side. He glared at Aiden, and then leered at me.