He cried out in frustration and pain.
And someone was screaming.
Someone else.
A female someone.
“Stop it right fucking now,” shrieked a voice.
That seemed to snap me out of it. What the hell was I doing? I had been trying to apologize to Griffin, to get help for Christa, and to make things better. I hadn’t meant to get in a fight with him.
I rolled off of him.
Leigh was standing over us. “What the hell do you think you’re doing to my fiancé?”
Griffin got to his feet, breathing hard. “It’s my fault, doll.” He offered me his hand.
I took it, panting as well. “No, I shouldn’t have hit back. I didn’t mean to. I was all about taking it.”
He helped me to my feet. “Shouldn’t have hit you at all. Saw red for a minute there.”
Leigh crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s going on?”
He patted her on the shoulder. “It’s fine, doll. Guy stuff.”
“Fuck that,” she said. “And you’re bleeding all over me.”
Griffin pushed me ahead of him, back into the house.
“Jesus, you’ll bleed all over the kitchen too,” said Leigh.
Griffin stopped, pulling me back. He sighed. “Fine. Then you think you can bring us some paper towels or something?”
She marched over to the patio and picked up the roll that he’d been using to clean the table. She hurled it at him. “Sometimes, I could kill you, Griffin Fawkes. Do you not realize we are getting married in two days, and he is the best man?”
Griffin ripped off a paper towel and handed it to me. “I’m really sorry, doll. I promise not to beat him up anymore, okay?”
I wiped at my mouth, which was bleeding. “Hey, I think I was kind of beating you up.”
He raised an eyebrow at me.
“But you would have definitely gotten me in the end,” I said.
“Do I even want to know what this is about?” said Leigh.
He held up a hand. “Let me talk this out with Silas, okay? I’ll tell you everything later.”
“Fine,” she said. She stalked back into the kitchen, slamming the door after herself.
Griffin ripped off another paper towel and mopped at his face. He took several steadying breaths.
I watched him, unsure of what to say or do.
He put his hands on his nose and cracked it back into place.
I winced.
He showed me his face. “Does that look straight?”
“Uh…” I reached up to move it, then hesitated.
“No, it’s fine,” he said. “Fix it. It’s been broken before. The hell of it is that if I don’t get it straight right away, it heals crooked and then I have to break it the fuck again. You know what I’m talking about, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, once I was on this gig for Op Wraith and my arm got broken. I didn’t set it right, and it was totally fucked.”
“Exactly,” he said, leaning forward.
I adjusted his nose.
“Mother of shit,” he muttered.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He touched his nose again. “That’s better. Thanks.”
“No problem,” I said.
He picked up another paper towel and dabbed at his face.
I got one too.
We stood there for several minutes, holding the absorbent paper up to our various wounds.
“Look, man,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Whatever, I hit you first.”
“No, I mean, I’m sorry about your sister.” I looked at the ground. “I know that’s not enough to say. I know it pales in comparison to what happened—”
“Wasn’t your fault,” he said.
I opened my mouth to disagree with him.
“It wasn’t,” he said.
“I was supposed to protect her. You said it yourself.”
“You tried,” he said.
“Not hard enough.”
He balled up his paper towel and threw it on the ground. “Did you want that to happen to her? Did you give her to Rolf?”
“Well, no, but—”
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “Trust me, it’s not going to help her to put the blame elsewhere. The hardest thing about this shit is that people are always blaming the wrong people. It’s the fault of the guy who did it. It’s nobody else’s fault. And you killed him, right?”
“She killed him,” I said.
He chuckled softly. “Yeah, she’s my sister, all right.” He grimaced. “Damn it.”
“She says she’s okay. She keeps insisting that she is. But she can’t be, can she?”
“No,” he said. He swallowed. “Doesn’t surprise me that she didn’t want anyone to know. Hell, maybe if I had told her what had happened to me, she wouldn’t have thought she had to hide it. But I was too ashamed to ever admit it to her. And I never thought she’d ever have to…” He looked up at me. “I need to talk to her.”
I nodded.
He started across the lawn. “I’m sorry I hit you,” he threw over his shoulder. “Stop blaming yourself, okay?”
* * *
I stayed outside for several minutes before I went back in.
But when I did, I heard Christa’s voice echoing through the house. “Silas is a fucking asshole!”
Leigh and Sloane were both on their hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor. They looked up at me.
Christa careened around the corner into the kitchen. She threw herself at me and began to beat her fists against my chest. “You stupid fucking dick! You promised you wouldn’t tell.”
I let her hit me.
She kept going, calling me names, punching me over and over again.
I just stood there.
Suddenly, she stopped. Her face crumpled, and she looked up at me. “How could you?”
Damn it, I hated it when she cried.
“I… I had to,” I said. “Because you have to deal with it. You can’t run from it. It happened.”
“Fuck you.” Tears poured over her cheeks.
I looked away.
Griffin appeared in the doorway. “Christa, it’s not his fault.”
She rounded on him. “I don’t want to talk to you about this. I don’t want you to know about this.”
“I know how you feel,” he said.
“No, you don’t,” she said.
“Actually,” I said. “He does. You should talk to him.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “How could you know?”
“Maybe I don’t know exactly,” said Griffin, “but I’ve been through things. Come here, I’ll tell you about it. We’ll talk.”
“You haven’t been through this,” she said.
I cleared my throat. “Christa, he was in jail.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with…” Her face changed. “Oh.”
“Come talk to me,” said Griffin.
She swallowed. “Okay,” she said in a tiny voice.
The two of them disappeared out of the kitchen.
Leigh got up. Her eyes were huge. “What the hell is going on?”
* * *
I was sitting on the patio outside later. I had a beer, but I hadn’t touched it, and it was gathering condensation on the table.
Leigh opened the door and eased outside. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said.
She sat down opposite me. “So, last year when Griffin and I were captured by Marcel and his guys, they took him away from me one day for hours. And when they shoved back down the stairs, he was… Griffin and I never talked about what happened, but it was pretty obvious that they, you know, did things to him again.”
“Shit.” I looked at my hands. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, I’ve never had a reason to talk to you about it. To anyone, really.”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“We don’t talk a lot, you know? About th
e stuff we’ve all lived through? Like you and Sloane and the reason that Op Wraith recruited you? Something to do with your parents?”
I flinched.
“I’m not trying to bring that up or anything,” she said. “I’m only saying that we could talk.”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t talk about that. About my parents.”
“Okay,” she said. “You don’t have to.” She chewed on her lip. “Do want to talk about what happened with Christa?”
I swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“I felt really helpless,” she said. “After they hurt Griffin? He was different afterward. At first, he was just out of it. Kind of blank and destroyed and so, so vulnerable. It was awful to watch.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“But then,” she said. “I told him that he needed to switch off. You know, like they taught you at Op Wraith.”
I nodded again. I didn’t see the point in telling her that I’d never been trained in that. That my ability had been innate, and that now it was simply gone.
“And then… well, then he was kind of scary.” She twisted her fingers together in her lap. “I didn’t know what to do. There was nothing I could do, you know? Like, I couldn’t take it back. I couldn’t save him. And I couldn’t make it better. I held him. I… tried to make it better. But…” She shook her head.
“Yeah,” I said again. “It was a lot like that for me too.”
She got up out of her seat and wrapped her arms around me.
I hugged her back.
She released me. “I don’t know if that helped.”
“I don’t know either.”
“I think it helped me,” she said. “I never told anyone about it. If you ever want to talk. About anything. I’m here.”
I gave her a small smile. “Thanks.”
She took another breath. She looked at the door.
I wondered if she wanted permission to escape now.
“Griffin says that we should go ahead with the wedding. He says that it’s what Christa wants, and that she’ll be able to handle it. But, um, if you don’t think we should, then I would be okay with putting it off.”
“Oh,” I said. “No, you should have the wedding. We should have something to celebrate around here.”
“You really think so?”
“I do,” I said.
* * *
There was a soft knock at my bedroom door.
I crossed the room to open it.
Christa stood there in her pajamas, holding a bottle of Jameson’s. “Hi.”
I opened the door wider to let her in. “I didn’t think you were going to speak to me ever again.”
“Well, I tried a shot of whiskey to get me to sleep. It didn’t work. I guess I need to stay with you tonight again. If that’s okay.”
“Sure,” I said.
She held out the bottle to me. “You want some?”
I took a drink. The liquid burned its way down my esophagus. I sat down on the bed, setting the bottle on my bedside table. “So, you don’t hate me?”
“Not really,” she said, sitting down next to me. “It was good to talk to Griffin. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to him like that before. I feel like I know him in ways I never did.” She cocked her head. “I know things about him that I’m not sure I wanted to know.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“He got pretty graphic when I pushed,” she said. “He, uh, said it helps to talk about what happened. To talk about being… raped. He said every time he tells someone, he feels like it has just a little bit less power over him.”
“I guess that’s probably true.”
“But he said he thinks it might always have some kind of power over him.” She studied her fingernails. “That scares me.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“But if Griffin could get through everything he went through, then I’ll be okay. What happened to him was so, so awful. It happened over and over again, and there were lots of different people and they did it lots of different ways.” She made a face. “And he’s strong. And he’s happy. And he’s all right. So, eventually, I guess I’ll feel like that too.”
“You will.”
“But I guess I don’t actually feel like that right now.” She sighed. “Even though I really wanted to.”
“I’m sorry I told him,” I said. “I know it wasn’t my secret to tell. I was worried about you is all.”
“Well, it kind of was your secret too,” she said. “You were there.”
I grimaced.
She reached over and picked up the bottle. She took another swig and made a face.
“So, what are you going to do? Are you going to go see someone?”
“Like a psychologist?” She shrugged. “Griffin didn’t seem to think it mattered if I did. He went on and on about that French woman you told me about. Apparently, she soured him on the entire profession. But, um, there are counselors on campus that I can talk to when I get back to school. If I feel like I need to.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right. School.”
“After the wedding, I guess you’ll go back to your classes too.”
I nodded.
She handed me the Jameson’s.
I took another drink. I held it for a minute, trying to work up the courage to speak.
See, I’d had an epiphany earlier when I was vacuuming. I’d realized that I was in love with her. Maybe I’d realized it in a fucked-up way, but the two of us were both pretty fucked up. She’d been through hell. I’d been through hell. She was crazy, and she scared the fuck out of me. But the thought of not seeing her anymore scared me worse. I didn’t want her to go back to school. Texas was practically the other side of the world.
I gave the bottle back to her. “What, um, what if you didn’t go back?”
“You want me to drop out of school?”
“No. But maybe you could… transfer. You could stay here. I’d like it if you stayed here.”
Her face fell. “Silas, this is about what you were saying last night, isn’t it?”
“I know you’re pissed at me for telling Griffin,” I said. “But I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, and I don’t want you to go away. I want you to be here. I want us to be… together.”
She got up off the bed. “God damn it. I’m not going to be able to sleep here after all.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t do what you’re saying, Silas, and if I curl up with you in bed I’m leading you on.”
I felt defeated. “You don’t want to stay here. You don’t want to be with me.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I like you. I’ll miss you. But I don’t want to be with you.”
That hurt worse than I thought it was going to. I actually winced.
She paced in front of me. “Look, it wouldn’t work for so many reasons, Silas. I’d be uprooted, and I wouldn’t know anyone, and I’d be clingy, and you’d hate it.”
“I don’t think I would,” I said. “I think I could definitely be down with you clinging to me a little bit.”
She smiled at me sadly, still pacing. “Well, I wouldn’t be. I don’t want to cling. I’m not that kind of girl.”
“What kind of girl are you? The kind that has sex to feel powerful?”
“I might be marginally fucked up.” She pointed at me. “Not any more fucked up than you are, Mr. I-Was-a-Prostitute.”
Well. She had a point. But I guessed she didn’t see that as a reason that we were perfect for each other, the way I did.
“Anyway, I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of sex in my near future. I think you were right. Maybe we both have too much sex.”
“But you’re leaving.”
“I have to.” She stopped pacing. “I can’t be with you. You remind me of what happened. If I was with you, I’d never get away from it.”
That stung. My nostrils flared.
“I’m sorry. I know that’s not fair,” she said. “But it’s true.”
“You can’t sleep without me,” I said. “How are you going to not be with me?”
“I can sleep without you,” she said. “I’m only afraid to. But I’m going to have to face that fear. Probably tonight.”
“No,” I said. “You can at least stay with me tonight.”
“I can’t.” She took another drink of Jameson’s. “You know, we talked about this. The night you told me about Sylvia. You told me you didn’t believe in love.”
“That was then,” I said. “I think I do now.” I cringed, realizing what I’d just admitted to her.
But if she understood my implied meaning, she didn’t let on. “I said that Griffin and Leigh seemed so close. And you said it was only because they’d killed together.”
“I didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“No, I think you did.” She bit her lip. “That’s what we have, Silas. We don’t know each other very well, not really. We went through this really harrowing experience, and we killed people, and it bonded us. But that’s all it is.”
“It’s not,” I said.
She hugged the bottle close. “It is.” She turned and went to the door. “I’m going back to my bed.”
“Christa, you don’t have to do that. You could stay. It would be nice to be close.”
“It would be confusing,” she said. And she ducked out of the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I stood next to Griffin. I was wearing suit over a white t-shirt. Griffin was fidgeting. His friend Oliver was the other groomsman, and he stood next to me. I barely remembered Oliver from the bachelor/bachelorette party.
Our backyard had been groomed and cleaned, but it wasn’t overly adorned. We stood in front of the flower garden that Sloane tended. There was a little stone walkway that would serve as the aisle for the bride. It was flanked by rows of white chairs, which had been filled with people. I didn’t recognize most of them. Griffin’s mother was in the front row. I thought her name was Beverly, but we hadn’t spoken much. The other guests were various friends of Griffin and Leigh. There wasn’t much in the way of family, however. Leigh’s parents were both deceased. Neither she nor Griffin seemed to have extended families. Overall, it was a fairly small gathering. Maybe thirty people total.
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