Gentle vibrations hum under my skin, from my scalp to my toes. It doesn’t feel like anything’s changed. But then, I didn’t feel anything the first time.
“Here you go.”
I open my eyes and take the mirror he holds out. Relief relaxes my muscles at the sight of my face. I drop to the floor and rest.
He takes Fallon’s bags and carries them over to the broken stone slab. He waves his hands over the items and mumbles to himself. And I just sit and watch him. He doesn’t quite stand up straight. He’s a little hunched over, like there’s not enough room for him to stand completely straight, even though the ceiling is several feet above his head. He’s been in that box too long indeed. Even in misty form it must have been cramped.
Pity crawls into the edges of my senses. If I’m honest, I know I would gladly kill some gold-digger whore to get out of a prison like that. It doesn’t make me less afraid of him, but maybe I can stop freaking out just a little.
A gray cloud forms over her things, covering them and the dried blood staining the stone. And much like the metal box, her belongings start to cave in on themselves and break down to nothing.
When I feel like I can walk again, I leave him to reminisce and rest. He said he won’t be going too far for the next few days, but if I should need him and be unable to find him, he tells me to follow his energy. He makes it sound almost like echolocation for the unseen. I can push some of my energy out, and when it meets his, it’ll come back to me and show me where to go. It doesn’t quite make sense, but I’ll try it.
My feet carry me to the outside exit automatically. Before I can open the door, however, I stop. Muted voices come from outside. Heated voices. I draw closer to them and stretch my hearing as far as it will go. Something shifts around me, like someone pulled a curtain away from my face, and suddenly the voices are louder, as if I’m outside with them.
It’s my brother, and he’s arguing with someone. “I don’t want to understand what you did. Because there is no good explanation for that. I just—”
“I’m not trying to justify what I did.” The desperation in Logan’s voice is plain. “I’ll give you some space, because I know you need it. I just don’t want some girl that you’ve known for six months to come between us and ruin everything.”
“It’s not just on her, Logan. It was both of you.”
I pull away from them, and the invisible curtain drops back into place. I don’t know if they’re going to make up, but my heart hurts for Jerod. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be betrayed by someone you trust like that. Probably because I don’t have anyone I trust that much. I take the elevator, thankful it’s after hours. There shouldn’t be very many people left in the office.
I tiptoe through the lobby in case my father is still here, but his office door is closed and Astrid is gone. If she’s gone, he’s gone.
Back in the empty solace of my penthouse, I find Alara’s journal and sit down in front of the window to read. The sun is setting over the city, casting a golden glow over everything. I scan through the entries until I come a word that’s underlined three times: underground.
Sahra used to say that the voice was coming from underground. I always assumed it was coming from above me, because that’s what it sounds like. I wish she was still here so I could talk to her. There’s so much I didn’t understand while she was alive, and it was so easy to dismiss her words as those of a raving lunatic. Sometimes I feel guilty for wishing she was still alive. The voice didn’t come for me until she was gone. It came for me the night she died. That’s how I knew she had passed. That’s when I knew that everything she told me was the truth. But then it was too late, wasn’t it? Then I was the mad one.
I was too young to know that I should keep my mouth shut. It never occurred to me that my family would ever treat me the way they treated her. She was sane once.
I flip to another page. Since I’ve only heard Sahra’s name in passing, I know no more about her than I knew about Alara before getting my hands on this journal.
It’s interesting that she didn’t hear anything until after Sahra died. That’s proof enough that there isn’t some kind of inherited madness. I wonder if it took him so long to talk to me because of how long he had to wait for another girl to be born in this family. Alara had been gone for eight years when I was born. I can just picture him pacing down there. Restless. Waiting. Waiting…
I read some more.
I’m starting to believe the entity is real like he claims to be. He tells me things I shouldn’t know. I tried to explain this to my case worker. How can the voice exist only in my head when he’s telling me things I can’t possibly know? But no one will listen to me. They accuse me of spying on people. It’s all so ludicrous.
The voice tells me I can confide in him. I can’t. I don’t trust him. It’s not that I think he’s lying to me, per se. I don’t believe he is. But there’s something about the whole thing that’s unsettling. I feel as though his intentions are malignant.
He tries to spin it like he just wants out, so he can frolic in the sunlight again, in a sense. But I can’t shake the bad feelings that I get in my gut when I think about him. I think about him a lot. And I know one thing for certain. If I was imprisoned by a family, I would want vengeance.
I slam the journal shut. Now you tell me. I pull my knees up to my chin and stare at the glittering lights below. Aric said he didn’t want vengeance anymore. He certainly could have killed me the second he was free. He didn’t.
Is it super naïve of me to think that maybe he really does just want his life back? I turn away from the window and open the journal again. I stare down at the neat, slanted letters without reading them.
Or maybe I’m just trying to justify my actions because I know it’s too late. I can’t go back and think things through. I got angry and I reacted.
I drum my fingers along the pages and notice for the first time how weathered they are. Not weathered by age, but wrinkled like Alara often wrote in the journal by water. Something about it presses against my brain, like my subconscious thoughts are trying to remind me of something, but I shove them away. She got to travel. My brothers have been all over the world. I’ve barely been out of the city.
Well, that’s going to change. As soon as I have my passport in hand, I’m booking a trip to Scotland.
My stomach churns. Thinking about my own trip has reminded me of the one I booked for Fallon just hours ago. Her death weighs on my chest—a giant, heavy, mini-mountain of regret.
And I think about Alara’s words again. I don’t trust him. If I hadn’t trusted him, Fallon would still be alive. If I’m being really honest, it’s not her being dead that’s bothering me. It’s my hand in it. If she had just gotten run over, I wonder if I would feel anything at all. I hope I wouldn’t be happy about it, at least.
I flip through the journal until I find where I left off. I read the last entry again. Alara died thinking that her letter would reach me, that I would have some clue about what’s going on. If I write her words off as being misguided or paranoid, aren’t I part of the problem?
What if Aric does want something more than freedom?
21
What It Means
Unfortunately, my passport is delivered at the same time my father and grandfather step off the elevator. Grandpa’s face lights up when he sees me, but my father glares holes into the delivery man’s back.
Just perfect.
He stalks over to my desk. “What the hell is that?” He snatches the envelope my passport is in and dumps it out on the countertop.
I grab it before he can touch it, and tuck it under my arm.
“Jade?”
My grandfather watches on from a respectable distance, but he can see and hear everything.
“Why do you have a passport?” My father reaches for it, and I hop out of my chair and back away.
“I can have a passport if I want.”
He blinks at me, the look on his face a mixture of ra
ge and disbelief. “Where do you think you’re going with that?”
“Everyone else takes a vacation. I’m taking a vacation. I put in for time off with HR this morning.”
His ears redden. “Where are you going?”
“Scotland.”
The redness spreads to the rest of his face. “You’re not going to Scotland.”
“You can’t stop me. And honestly, I can’t imagine why you would want to.”
“Listen, lady, you need to stop lying to me and watch yourself. I can make life very hard for you.”
My own anger blooms in my chest. “I’m not lying about anything. I’m taking some time off. Deal with it. I can’t believe you’re still trying to control me!”
“You are lying. I know you are, because you made a mess of my office yesterday, and I know what that means.”
“What does it mean? Tell me.”
“I don’t have time for this.” He takes long, hard strides across the hall, most likely heading for the conference room. According to his schedule, he’s due for a meeting or some rot in half an hour.
I probably should have been more careful about putting stuff back in the safe, but running off with a torn-up letter that’s rightfully mine anyway is hardly making a mess of anything. Way to respect your sister, asshole.
My grandfather approaches the desk. “I’m about to head down to the bar to catch up with some old friends, but I have a few minutes if you want to join me for a round.” He takes in the look on my face, then adds, “Or I can just stay up here.”
I sit back down and tuck my passport away in my purse. Then I fold my trembling hands on top of the desk.
“You want to go to Scotland, huh? I think it’s a real shame you’ve never been. It’s a beautiful place. You’ll really like it.” He props his arms up on the counter. “For what it’s worth, I one hundred percent think you should be able to do whatever you want. You’re too young to stay cooped up all the time.”
“Thank you.” I’m definitely way too old to have my father telling me what I can and cannot do.
He reaches over to pat my hands. “Things will work out. When are you leaving?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t booked anything yet, but I asked to be out the next couple of weeks, so I guess I’ll figure it out and leave by Monday.”
“Stop by on your way off. We’ll go out in the backyard, feed the ducks, have some coffee. Just us. I promise.” He smiles, and the soft skin around his eyes wrinkles in a friendly way.
I manage a small smile in return. “I’ll do that.”
He gives me a nod and heads off for the bar.
I pull up a travel site and look to see what’s available this weekend. I wasn’t exactly planning on going anywhere this soon, but I have to get away from my dad. I also don’t want to give him too much of an opportunity to sabotage me. I shouldn’t have even told him where I was going.
Griffin passes by on his way to the elevators, and stops when he sees the distress on my face. “What’s going on?”
I shake my head. “I’m thinking of going to Scotland this weekend.”
He nods. “Sounds good. You want company?”
I turn away from the computer. “You want to come with me?”
“Why not? I’m flexible.”
I shake my head, but the corners of my lips turn up. “I’ll let you know.”
“I have to head out, but seriously, call me if you need to talk later, okay?”
“I will.”
When he’s gone, and I’m alone in the lobby, at least for a moment, I talk aloud to the empty office. “Are you here? Can you hear me?”
Silence hangs around me, thin and vacant. Agitation crawls along my back. I’d almost gotten used to hearing his voice and having him around. It was starting to become oddly comforting. For a moment, I have an urge to go down into the tunnels to talk to him. I look at the main office schedule and go find Kaius instead. He’s free until the conference starts anyway. Maybe he can vent a little with me.
22
So Sudden
The paramedic’s words blur around my ears.
“They’re going to run an autopsy to see what went wrong, but it’s looking like he had a heart attack.”
The four of us stand nearly frozen in the middle of the downstairs lobby, my brothers and me and our father.
According to the woman who looks almost too young to be a paramedic, Grandpa came down here for drinks. All of his friends and former colleagues said they had a great time—nothing seemed amiss. Then Grandpa walked outside, fell over, and died. Right out there on the sidewalk in front of the building.
I try to remember if he seemed unwell at all, but he looked like he always did—perfectly healthy and perfectly content.
I turn to Kaius. “Healthy people don’t just drop dead without warning. Do they?”
His face is drawn tight, a look that’s becoming the norm for him. He shakes his head. “He just had a physical, like last week. Everything was great. I…I don’t understand.”
The paramedic offers us a look of sympathy and pulls our father off to the side.
Jerod’s eyes are red and puffy. He stares out the front doors, just…looking lost. “He’s the healthiest man I know…knew.” He moves in closer to me and Kaius. “How is he just gone like that?” He sniffs and rubs at his eyes. “Everything is going to shit.”
“What’s everything?” Kaius asks.
Jerod looks back and forth between us. “I don’t want to complain.”
I shake his arm. “Go on. What is it?” I know. But I’m not supposed to already know, am I?
Kaius nods. “Please.”
“Fallon and I broke up.” His voice is so heavy as he speaks. “She um, she cheated on me.”
“Damn, I’m sorry,” Kaius mutters.
“With Logan.”
“Shit…”
I swallow hard. “How did you find out?”
“She told me. She was acting so strange, but I never expected that, you know. Then I talked to Griffin. And then Logan.”
Kaius lets out a long breath. “Man…I’m so sorry. That…that doesn’t even make any sense. Did he say why he did it?”
“I don’t care why he did it.”
“And you shouldn’t. Nothing excuses what he did, but he’s got to have some reason for acting like that.”
Jerod shrugs. “He said some bullshit about how she wasn’t good enough and how he was just trying to expose her and things got out of hand. Or whatever.”
I can feel his heartache. It radiates over my skin and poisons my insides.
“So that happened,” Jerod says. “Now Grandpa is dead out of nowhere. This has been such a shit week, and it’s only Tuesday.” He lets out a bitter laugh.
Kaius claps his shoulder. “Come up to my place. Let’s do some stupid guy stuff.” He gives me a nod. “Do you want to come?”
They need some bonding time. I know things haven’t been great since the party. I shake my head. “I think I might go hang out with Griffin actually.”
Kaius grins, and Jerod manages to smile a little as well, for a second.
“Tell him what happened for me, will you?” Jerod asks.
“That’s the first thing I’ll tell him.”
I get Griffin’s address from Jerod and go upstairs with my brothers to grab my phone and jacket. I stand in front of the elevator for a few minutes and try to breathe away the ache in my chest. Tears prick my eyes, but they won’t properly fall. The conversation I had with my grandfather at the mansion fills my head.
“You know, grandpas get old and die suddenly when they’re as old as me.”
I guess eighty is old…but doesn’t someone’s health have to decline at least a little bit before they drop dead?
What if he’s not at home? I didn’t bother to even text him first or anything. That was stupid. He has a life, unlike me.
I step out of my ride and wrap my jacket tighter around my body as the heavy wind is making everything chil
ly.
Griffin’s renting out a detached apartment behind a nice country-style house. The sun is setting behind it and casting a violet halo around the light brick exterior. I walk up the concrete drive that wraps behind the house and look around for his car. I don’t see it.
I pull out my phone and open the app for the car service.
Griffin sticks his head out of the front door of the apartment, a wide grin stretched across his face. “What are you doing all the way out here?”
“I didn’t see your car.”
“Carport in the back.” He gestures for me to come over. “This is a nice surprise.”
“Maybe not.”
He steps aside so I can squeeze in past him. The front door opens into a nice living area, filled with large landscape prints and color.
“This is nice.”
He shrugs. “It’s not a penthouse, but I like it.” His eyes scan my face, and his smile falters some. “Gee, who died?”
“My grandfather.”
His smile fades completely. “Jade…” His eyes widen. “What? How?”
“They told us he had a heart attack, but…” I shake my head and a few warm tears finally slide down my cheeks.
Griffin slides his arms around my shoulders and pulls me to his chest. “Damn…I loved that guy.” He rubs my back. “I’m so sorry.” I lay my head on his shoulder and stare over at a painting of a long stretch of road that disappears into snowy mountains. The road looks like it goes on for miles.
“I hate that I’m bothering you,” I say.
“What? No. I was just reading. I was actually about to call Jerod and see how he’s holding up, but I’m guessing not well.”
I shake my head. Not well at all. Griffin smells like something spicy, like ginger cookies almost. “Do you cook?”
He laughs. “Yeah? Why?”
I pull back. “I didn’t know that.”
“If you’re hungry, I have a shepherd’s pie and snickerdoodle cookies cooling in the kitchen.”
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