Ivar, Mads, and the baby Winter was carrying now would never know that I was absent.
Setting him back in his bed, I pressed my lips to his head and handed him his stuffed snake, smiling to myself as I remembered the Godzilla that I got Em. I wondered if she still had it.
Heading to the back of the house, I descended the stairs into the catacombs, seeing Rika had talked Michael out of covering the uneven stone stairs with wooden ones.
How long had it been since I’d been here? The night Damon, Winter, and I went off the bridge?
I walked along the hardwood floors, fake flames flickering on the walls inside their sconces and knowing there were a dozen or so rooms down here. I wasn’t exactly sure where they put her, but I tried the first room I came to and twisted the handle.
The door gave way, opening wide, and I stepped inside the dark room, light from the corridor spilling in and revealing the body on the bed, under the sheet.
“Will?” she said, turning over.
I looked down as she rubbed her eyes, seeing the lacy black bra under the jean overalls she wore, my pulse instantly pumping in my neck and my dick twitching with life.
Fuck. I loved her in overalls.
I gazed at her olive skin, and the brown hair on her head hanging down her arms. The plump chest and the pink lips.
And the rope that was around her wrists this morning back around her neck, the slack hanging between her breasts and inside her overalls.
I smiled.
Sitting up, she scooted over to me, and I stood in front of her, looking down at my Little Trouble who hadn’t changed a bit from how badly she pissed me off and got me hard in high school.
“Micah and Rory are staying at an apartment in town.” I reached over, caressing her cheek with the backs of my fingers. “You want to join them?”
She shook her head.
I moved to the other cheek, caressing what was mine and then taking her jaw, gently holding it.
“They’ve got food upstairs,” I murmured. “You want food?”
Again, she shook her head.
I tipped her chin up, loving how she played. It pleased me.
“You want to stay with me?” I taunted.
Slowly, she nodded.
Reaching into my jacket, I took out a case and set it on the bedside table.
“I refilled your prescription for your glasses.”
I was able to talk Dr. Lawrence here into contacting her doctor in California and getting her most recent prescription filled.
“Where’d you get the overalls?” I asked.
“Found them in Rika’s closet.”
“And you’re down here alone, despite the door not being locked?”
She didn’t move.
The outfit, the rope, the willing and waiting in bed… I wondered when the fight would come, because it would, but God, I loved that she wasn’t rushing back to being my enemy. Fucking her in this bed tonight might be nice.
Pulling her up, I sat myself down in her place and pulled her into my lap, wrapping my arms around her.
Sweat cooled my pores, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath, the last year or so and everything in the last twenty-four hours making my head spin.
For five minutes, I needed something to hold on to.
I tightened my hold, smelling her hair and damn near tasting her. If she hadn’t shown up at Blackchurch, would I really have sought my revenge? Would I have chased her down in California and made her pay?
And how would I have done it?
I’d learned about the pictures and the lies almost two years ago, after Damon’s father was killed. Then it was six months of trying to chase away the rage with globetrotting, running, and drinking before I knew what I had to do. That was when I went to Blackchurch.
I dreaded dealing with her, because even still—after the betrayal—I hadn’t wanted to lose her.
“I should’ve come to you,” she finally said. “I wish I had come to you and explained and faced you then.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, knowing it wasn’t all her fault. I wasn’t a passenger in all of this.
I should’ve stayed. When she walked off on me after the meeting in the dean’s office, and I threatened her that I could get anyone—I should’ve stayed.
She hadn’t needed a boyfriend. She’d needed a friend, and I’d been selfish and arrogant and spoiled. I should’ve been whatever she needed, whenever she needed me. She didn’t owe me her heart just because I wanted it.
If I’d cared, I would’ve been more patient.
Throwing her to my side, I let her land on the bed and I shot off the mattress, walking out of the room.
“Will…?”
I can’t. I can’t right now. I closed the door, grabbed the key off the wall, and locked it, keeping her safely inside.
“Will, no,” she cried, banging on the other side of the door. “Don’t go, please.”
I tipped my forehead into the wood, desperate to have heard those words from her a million times in the past.
“Will,” she called again. “Stay with me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the urge to rip the door open and climb into that bed with her.
“Stay with me,” she said again.
I shook my head, trying to clear it.
“What will he do if he knows you’re in town?” she asked.
I turned away and walked toward the stairs. “He already knows.”
I was sick of this same story.
Sick of not having her. Sick of Martin Scott. Sick of not seizing the life I was meant for.
It was time to end this.
I was ready for new adventures.
I climbed the stairs and stepped back into the house, closing the door behind me as I headed for the dining room.
Rounding the corner, I looked at them all seated at the table, Damon stopping mid-sentence as everyone turned to me.
“You got a nanny here?” I asked Winter.
But Rika answered instead. “My mom is.”
Good enough. “Put on something black,” I told them, heading back out of the room. “Let’s go.”
“Why?” Alex called out. “What’s going on?”
But I was already gone.
Heading out to Kai’s car, I pulled a duffle out of the trunk and dug out a black sweater, pulling off my suit jacket and unbuttoning my shirt right there in the driveway. I pulled on the black top, stuffed my jacket and shirt into the trunk with the bag, and pulled on the black ski cap as I ran back into the house.
In minutes, I’d pulled Michael’s old Mercedes G-Class out of the garage, loaded in the supplies I needed, called Kai and Banks and Micah and Rory, and stuffed a couple of sandwiches into my mouth as the rest of us made our way out to the cars.
“Winter not coming?” I asked Damon as he climbed into the passenger side seat.
“Not pregnant, she’s not,” he said. “She’s staying with…” And he waved his hand like he couldn’t remember the name. “Christiane.”
His mom. His birth mother, that was.
And Rika’s.
It seemed he now tolerated her presence for the sake of the children, and for Rika, but there was still a grudge there that hadn’t disappeared since I was last in town, apparently.
I sat down as Alex climbed into the back, and I fastened my seatbelt, spotting Michael trying to get my attention from the window of his Jag.
I cut him off. “Just follow me!” I told him.
Not giving him a chance to argue, I sped off in his G-Class with the supplies, and with Alex and Damon, while Michael and Rika followed in his other car.
It didn’t take us long to reach the warehouse, which was usually dormant the rest of the year, but now alive with activity as the famed Coldfield.
As it was otherwise known in October when it was transformed into a haunted theme park.
This was where we partied in high school, the abandoned factory a playground for kids who wanted some shelter f
rom the weather for them and three hundred of their closest friends and a few kegs of beer.
This was where Misha came to write his songs and lose himself when the pain of Annie’s death was too much to bear.
This was where Damon, Kai, and I beat up Emmy’s brother, getting drunk and making my knuckles bleed until I couldn’t feel anything else that night.
This was where I found out I had something to bring to the table. Something worth a damn to our future.
“What are we doing here?” Michael asked as we walked past the lines of patrons waiting to get inside.
Howls and creaky sound effects filled the air as fog hovered above the ground and “Pumped Up Kicks” by 3TEETH blasted over the speakers. The smell of hot dogs and popcorn drifted up my nostrils, and squeals went off behind me as the actors jumped up on a group of girls. Men and women in masks stood around, all creepy and frozen and shit, staring at people in the distance and trying to scare the crap out of them.
Kai and Banks jogged to catch up to us, and I looked past the gate, seeing Rory and Micah standing near the beverage cart.
I didn’t stop. Heading into the warehouse, tarp and walls constructed to create various chambers hung around, creating a tunnel, and Micah and Rory fell in line, following.
The cold, wet dark hung everywhere, and we jetted past patrons laughing and screaming at the actors hanging in the rafters above and trying to grab for them.
I stepped into a room and dug a ring of fifteen-thousand keys out of my bag, finding the one that accessed the doors in the Mad Scientist section of the park. Passing the boiling vats of body parts and lava lamps of eyeballs, I fit the key into the door, opened it, and ushered everyone inside.
Michael stood back, his eyes narrowed on me. “You own Coldfield? You?”
I gave him a tight smile.
I paid for it. I helped design it. But I hired managers to handle everything else. I took part in it when I wanted to, but I knew I wasn’t fit to deal with the business side there for a while, so I installed a seasonal team that would.
And good thing too, since I was gone for a long time.
We entered the hallway, and I locked the door behind us, opening up another one and turning on the light inside.
Rock walls and steps, like the catacombs, burrowed into the ground, darkness consuming what lay beneath.
“What is this?” Rika asked me.
I half-smiled. “This is Coldfield.”
The real one.
Leading the way, I momentarily regretted not calling Misha for this, as I knew he’d love it, but I didn’t want him involved. Not for this.
I descended the stairs, winding through the tunnels as electric-powered lanterns lit our way, and the rush of the river and the sea hit the walls all around us.
A track laid ahead, and I threw my bag into one of the cars with the containers of gasoline I’d had put here yesterday in one of the many calls I’d made.
Kai looked around at the rooms and tunnels forking off in different directions. “I can’t believe we didn’t know this was real.”
“You knew about this?” Banks asked him.
But it was Damon who replied as he looked around, “A few whispers from the old timers here and there, but I didn’t know anyone who’d actually been here.”
“What is this place?” Rika asked me.
I checked the supplies on the rail riders, making sure we had everything I’d instructed. “Remember how we learned the town was settled in the thirties?”
“Not true?” Rika teased.
I shook my head. “No.”
That was either a lie or misinformation.
“Two-hundred years ago, the river forked off into three streams instead of just one, and the settlers built bridges to cross them.” I gestured to them to take their seats. “The arches of the bridges were rooted deep in the land, creating twenty-one chambers—or vaults—between the arches, underneath the ground.”
Alex and Damon took a seat in the first car, while Kai and Banks took the second, Rika and Michael took the third, and Micah and Rory took the fourth.
“Merchants stored their goods down there, and there were even taverns and stores,” I continued, checking their seatbelts. “Over the years, it changed hands, popular among the smugglers, criminals, and pirates. They hid and lived down here, connecting all of the vaults under the three bridges with these tunnels, so they could get anywhere in town undetected.”
“Shit,” Damon murmured. “That’s awesome.”
“How did you find it?” Michael pressed.
“I looked for it.”
Rory snorted as Micah smiled, looking excited about all of this.
“This is why you bought the warehouse,” Alex guessed.
“One of the reasons.” I took my seat in the first car with them and buckled in. “I also just like haunted houses.”
“Are there other entrances, other than the one at the warehouse?” Damon called up from behind me.
I looked over my shoulder, grinning. “All over town. And there are even more underground vaults in Meridian City between Delcour and Whitehall.”
“What the fuck?” Kai blurted out, but it sounded more like he was turned on than angry. His city house, the Pope, and Sensou were all in the Whitehall district and he’d have plenty of reason to use the underground transit system if he wanted. Especially if we, and the people who worked for us, were the only ones who knew about it.
“Shift the lever to three and press the green button,” I yelled back. “After that, just enjoy the ride until you see my arm in the air. Then, start to bring the lever back down and engage the brakes.”
A giggle escaped Alex as she shifted excitedly in the seat next to me. Emmy back in the catacombs drifted through my mind, but she didn’t need to be here for this.
“Let’s go,” I called out.
Pushing the lever up to notch three, I pressed the button, the hydraulics hissing, and we shot off, cruising through the tunnels at about thirty miles an hour.
Normally, I’d go a little faster—kick it up to notch five—but this was their first time, and I didn’t want anyone to lose me. Coasting left and then right, I felt the wind blew through our hair, and Alex laughed next to me as the tunnel ahead loomed black and haunting. The grips on the wheels hugged the track, no steering necessary, since I hadn’t built track leading off anywhere else in town yet.
That was on my agenda, though.
“We should have helmets!” Damon called up.
Helmets? Pussy.
“For the kids, I mean!” he clarified. “You know they’re going to use this a lot.”
I nodded. Okay, that made sense. This was going to be a blast for the boys, and when they were teenagers, there was no way we were keeping them from it.
We cruised under the riverbed, past more dark vaults, under the village, across Old Pointe Road, and I spotted the fourth red light ahead, each one signaling a stop, and that one was ours.
I held up my arm, giving them a heads up, and I grabbed the lever, slowing us down little by little, so Kai and Banks didn’t rear end me and cause a pile up.
Pulling to a stop, the brakes screeching under us, I yelled, “Hit the button again!” The railcars came to rest, and we all climbed out, everyone following my lead as we grabbed the red, plastic gasoline containers.
“Are we doing what I think we’re doing?” Kai asked.
But I didn’t answer. They wanted the Cove gone, and they wouldn’t leave me to this on my own. Everyone won. They’d help.
Climbing up onto the platform, we headed through a door and into the tunnels underneath the theme park. When the place was in business, the workers used these tunnels to avoid the crowds if they needed to get across the park, and as ways to operate the animatronics, but everything had been abandoned for years.
I looked left and right, searching for any eyes to be sure. I didn’t want any fatalities or witnesses. The place was empty, though.
“Hey, it’s Rika,�
�� I heard Erika say behind me. “I need you to get to the fire station and borrow an engine. Bring it to the Cove and hook up the hoses. We’ll need it. And hurry.”
There was a pause as whoever on the other end answered her.
“Thank you,” she said and hung up.
I shot a look back to our mayor.
“I can’t commit arson and purposely put civil servants at risk, Will,” she explained. “Lev and David will contain the fire.”
I nodded once. Good thinking. Those two earned enough to do anything we asked them to.
Swinging myself around the railing, I jogged up the stairs and walked through the shop, papers and dust coating the floor as I exited into the park.
The stars dotted the night sky, the sea air tickling my nostrils as we strolled through the park and took in rotting paint and wood and the quiet bumper boats and Ferris wheel.
A lump filled my throat, and my heart pounded like it did when I had her in my truck that night after the game, and like that Devil’s Night I torched all of her hard work and the only presence she had left to torture me with in this town.
I wasn’t sure if she was going to forgive me for this, but I had to do it. I had to know if there was anything beyond this for us.
“Why are we doing this, Will?” Banks asked.
But I was done explaining myself. “Because I said so.”
I was done living in the past. I had an ocean of tomorrows to get busy building, and I was ready to live.
I looked to Michael and Rika. “Take the west side.” Then to Kai and Banks. “Past the swings.”
The four of them ran off to douse as much as they could with the fuel they had, and I walked toward the coast, the pirate ship, and Cold Hill with Alex and Damon.
“Are you sure this isn’t an impulse thing?” Alex asked.
“Are you sure he’s sober?” Damon asked her instead.
“Shut up,” I griped.
I realized that my life decisions could be characterized as questionable, but not every crazy thing I did was because I was drunk.
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