by T. L. Haddix
Before Eli could do more than drop his books back in his locker, Noah’d swung. The first punch caught him on the cheekbone. Instinct rose up, as well as the anger that Eli’d been holding back for years now, and in an instant, they were rolling around the hall like two tomcats hell-bent and determined to kill each other.
It took three teachers, including two of the coaches, to pull them apart. By the time they managed to get them separated, both Noah and Eli had scrapes and bruises, busted lips and bleeding noses.
“You bastard! You fucking bastard,” Noah growled. “I’ll kill you for this.”
“I didn’t do jack shit, you freak. You’re crazy,” Eli responded with a snarl.
The crowd that had gathered to watch the fight responded to that with oohs and ahhs. Distracted, the men holding Noah let go long enough for him to break free, and in the blink of an eye, Noah had his hands curled tightly into Eli’s shirt.
“Your little slut of a girlfriend’s been running her mouth, you shithead. Where do you think it came from? Huh? It came from you.”
“Fuck off,” Eli told him.
A feral grin that Eli could still remember with crystal clarity spread across Noah’s face. “I had her first, you know. You remember that the next time you fuck her. She might be yours now, but I had her first!”
He wasn’t quiet about sharing that information, as the teachers had finally gotten a good enough grip on him that they could separate the boys again, and a shocked sob sounded from the sidelines.
When Noah turned and saw Sophie, he staggered as though he’d taken a punch.
“No, Sophie…” he tried, but it was too late. She’d turned and was pushing through the crowd, away from him. Erica, who’d been beside her, smirked with satisfaction and followed.
When he turned back to Eli, his eyes were dead. For the first time since the fight started, the implications of what had happened started to sink into Eli’s brain, and he felt ashamed.
He knew now that Noah’d only been lashing out, that he’d never touched Erica. He’d only said he had to hurt Eli. But then… that knowledge fueled his anger something fierce.
As they waited in chairs on opposite sides of the door to the principal’s office, each of them with their own handler to keep the fight from restarting, Eli’s wounded dignity and nerves kicked in.
The school’s guidance counselor approached with a towel. “Here. Press this over your eye,” she said, handing it to Eli. She moved on to Noah, doing the same, the advice changing to his nose. “Your parents are on the way, boys.”
Though Noah was older and taller, Eli was more heavily muscled, and he’d gotten in several good hits. But Noah’s fury had more than made up for his lanky frame, and Eli had several spots that were stinging fiercely.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Coach Layne asked Eli in a low voice.
“He started it. I was defending myself.”
“Asshole,” Noah sneered from Coach’s other side. “You know what it’s about.”
“Boys, that’s enough,” Coach said.
They didn’t say another word. Not until John and Zanny showed up. As the office was beside the front door, they were the first things their parents saw when they walked in. They stopped a few feet away, staring from Eli to Noah and back in disbelief.
“I don’t know what to even say to you,” John began. He was clearly angry, and he stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head. “Who wants to tell me what this was about? Noah?”
“No, sir.”
“Eli?”
Eli shook his head mutely.
“I didn’t hear you,” John ground out. “What was that?”
Embarrassed at having his father talk to him in public like that when he was fifteen years old and nearly grown, Eli’s jaw tightened with surly anger. “No, sir.”
Zanny, who’d been inspecting his wounds, grimaced. “You’ve both done a good job at beating the stuffing out of each other. Are either of you in any serious pain?” she asked as she moved to check on Noah.
“No,” Eli said.
“I’m fine,” Noah echoed. “Can we get this over with? I want out of here.”
The short answer to that question was “no.” First came the interview with the principal, who met with their parents before calling the boys in. He got no further than John and Zanny at prying the whys behind the fight out of them.
“Well, you’ve both earned a three-day suspension which we’ll let ride over the weekend. You’re out until next Monday. Hopefully by then, you’ll have had some time to cool off and settle whatever differences you have.”
Zanny took Eli with her in the car, while John rode home with Noah in his old beater. “When we get to the house, you go get cleaned up,” she told Eli in a stony voice. “Then once you’re both bandaged and tended to, we’re going to sit down and have a long discussion about this. Understand me?”
Eli nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry, Mom.”
She sighed. “I’m sure if you’re not, you will be.”
But when he got out of the shower and went downstairs, Noah was gone. So was John.
Zanny was pacing in front of the couch. “Sit down. I need to ask you something.”
Eli sat.
“Did you tell anyone about Noah’s abilities? Anyone at all?” She watched him like a hawk and knowing she’d know if he lied, he nodded.
“Erica.” He hated saying her name. Thinking of her hurt, that she’d been with Noah and hadn’t told him. His anger at his brother rose back up a little.
Zanny’s mouth tightened. “And do you know if she told anyone about what Noah can do?”
Figuring he’d better come clean or else he’d find himself grounded until Thanksgiving, he shrugged. “Jeff said something earlier about everybody in chemistry knowing. That’s all I know. So I guess maybe she did.”
The disappointment in his mother’s eyes was something he’d not expected, even though looking back, he knew he should have.
“You know there’s going to be fallout from this. Go to your room. When your father gets home, we’ll decide what’s going to happen.”
“Where is he?” Eli asked as he stood.
A flash of pain crossed Zanny’s face so fast that if he’d not been looking at just the right moment, he would have missed it. “Noah is going to stay with your grandparents for a while. John’s taking him up there.”
As he’d climbed the stairs, Eli had been glad. He didn’t want to see his brother, didn’t want to share a roof with him. Not after what he’d said about Erica.
But once John was home that evening, any gladness that Noah was gone evaporated. Zanny had sent Molly to stay with their Aunt Emma for the night, and Eli saw that was a smart decision once the discussion started.
“I’m so angry with you, I don’t know where to even start,” John told him. “And your grandfather? Buddy, it took all the talking and convincing I could muster to keep him from coming down here and wringing your neck. You know how important it is that no one outside the family ever learns about what we can do. What the ever-loving, fucking hell were you thinking, Eli?”
The curses were startling, as his parents had the philosophy that foul language wasn’t usually necessary to get a point across, and it was vulgar besides.
“Erica isn’t just anyone, Dad. I love her.”
John stared at him at that, stunned. “You what?”
Eli swallowed. “I love her.”
His father walked to the door and stared out to the street, rubbing the back of his neck with both hands, his posture reflecting his tension. “Go to your room. I can’t deal with this right now. We’ll finish the discussion later. For now, you’re grounded. Act like you know what that means.” He didn’t look at Eli as he spoke.
Feeling sore and emotionally drained, he went.
By Sunday evening, the full weight of what had happened was starting to sink in. For the first time since he could remember, not counting when someone had been sick, they’d not gone to the farm for Sunday dinner with his grandparents. Molly was with Emma again, and the tension in the house was nearly overwhelming.
“We have two options we’ve been entertaining,” John told him as they sat around the kitchen table. “First is that we pull you out of the school you’re in and send you somewhere else until the end of the year. That way, Noah can graduate with his class.”
Eli’s jaw dropped. “What? Dad, you can’t do that to me! What about baseball?”
“Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s behind about baseball. After what you did, you’re lucky we’re not pulling you out of school all together to send you to boarding school over in Knott County. Hopefully, this will blow over, and everyone will write off the fight to jealousy over a girl. But you endangered everyone in this family by blabbing to Erica. Have you told her anything else about the family, about what we can do?”
It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked that question over the last few days. The answer hadn’t changed, thankfully.
“No, Dad. I swear I didn’t.”
“Keep it that way.”
“Yes, sir.” He glanced at his mother. “What’s the other option?”
Zanny reached out and took John’s hand, presenting a united front that Eli had never felt further excluded from. “That’s the option your brother has chosen. He’s going to stay with Owen and Sarah until he graduates. And he’s going to switch to the county high school. He doesn’t feel like he has anything to go back to at Hazard. To be very honest, we were leaning toward the first option, but he suggested the second.”
“Guess I owe him for that, huh?” Eli asked, subdued.
“No. All you owe him is an apology and privacy,” Zanny said. “What you did, what Erica did… I can’t begin to express to you how hurtful that is. Not only to Noah but to all of us.”
Eli scowled. “He’s not innocent in this.”
“He’s sure as hell not as guilty as you are.” John glowered at him. “Noah’s not without blame for some of what happened, but don’t you dare try to put the responsibility for this off on him. As for whose shoulders it’s on, that guy is sitting at this table.”
“And further,” Zanny said before Eli could respond, “you need to think long and hard about the influence Erica has on you. We know better than to tell you that you can’t see her, but you’d better make damned sure that she’s worth the sacrifice you’re making with your family before you burn a bridge you can’t repair. You’ve already burned that bridge with Noah.”
She had to stop and swallow before she could continue. “You’re more than old enough now that you should understand actions have consequences. You’ll have plenty time over the next few weeks to think about that, as you’re going to be grounded until further notice.”
The next few months passed torturously slow. Molly, who was only nine at the time, didn’t understand why Noah was gone or what the tension was about. Though they went to the farm for Sunday dinners after the first week, Noah and Eli didn’t speak to each other. Except for the time when they had to be in the same room while eating, they kept as much of a distance from each other as possible.
Losing his brother’s friendship, as rocky as it had been, stung a bit. Less when Eli thought about the taunting claim Noah had leveled, that he’d been intimate with Erica. He asked her about that, and she’d tearfully admitted it was true, but that Noah had discarded her as soon as he’d gotten what he wanted.
Eli found that hard to live with. He almost broke up with her because of it. But he loved her, or whatever passed for puppy love combined with a very healthy dose of teenage lust, and he’d put his brother’s duplicitousness to the back of his mind.
What was harder to deal with was the change in his relationship with his grandparents. Owen and Sarah Campbell’s disappointment had been hard to endure. For several months after the fight, Owen had very little to say to Eli. And he’d put a moratorium on the family as far as anyone discussing anything related to paranormal abilities around Eli. He was deemed untrustworthy by a man whose love and respect had always been a given in his life, a high price to pay indeed.
Several times over the next few years, the conversation would grind to a halt when Eli walked in the room. Knowing why, knowing that the family he loved so much didn’t trust him? That had crushed Eli. He’d tried to pretend it didn’t bother him, but it did.
He didn’t go to Noah’s high-school graduation. He didn’t go to the celebration the family held at the farm to see Noah off as he set out for Europe. Noah had asked specifically that he not be there.
Eli didn’t find out until later that the request had been made mostly because Erica had bumped into Noah in town, and she’d run her mouth about how funny she and Eli and all their friends, especially Sophie, had found Noah’s exile. It wasn’t true, but Noah—hurt in a way that Eli had only as an adult begun to understand—didn’t know that.
To this day, more than a decade after the fact, thinking about the web of lies Erica had built for the purpose of destroying his relationship with his family so that she could insinuate herself in his life hurt. Eli was ashamed of his behavior, ashamed that it had taken him so long to break free of her clutches and see the truth about his late wife. She’d never been intimate with Noah, not even so much as a kiss. But he didn’t realize that until after her death when the truth finally came out.
Noah had only used that jab to hurt Eli the same way he’d been hurt. And it had worked—that knowledge had always been in the back of Eli’s mind, knowing Erica and Noah had been intimate… except they hadn’t. And if he hadn’t been so blinded by her, he’d have realized his brother never would have done that to him but especially not to Sophie.
Tired, exhausted really, he closed his eyes. He needed to sleep, but he didn’t know if rest would come. There were so many things he had done that he still had to answer for. So many apologies he had put off for no reason other than stupid pride. And the knowledge that had the wreck ended differently, he never would have gotten a chance to set them right? Maybe that weighed on him most of all.
Chapter Eight
Noah loved the way morning crept up on Dragonfly Creek Farm, the two-hundred-acre spread his Uncle Ben and Aunt Ainsley owned just outside Lexington, Kentucky. He particularly found the summer mornings enchanting, with the hot sun sliding up over the horizon, burning away the hazy fog that rolled across the pastures and fields.
He’d say he was, in fact, a morning person, except that he was also something of a night owl. The truth was, Noah didn’t sleep much. Most nights he was lucky if he could close his eyes by midnight and find slumber. And if it lasted past six or seven a.m.? Well, chances were he was sick or exhausted or both. He settled for getting a couple of good, solid nights’ sleep every week scattered amongst the nights of insomnia.
But this morning, he was happy he wasn’t the kind of person who slept in. He would have hated to miss the sunrise. He’d slipped outside to the patio off the kitchen, and was watching the world come awake around him. As much as he loved his home on the mountaintop in Perry County, something about the rolling farmland in Woodford County also called to him, satisfying a different need.
“Morning, sunshine,” a man said from behind him.
Noah turned, smiling at Ben Campbell. “Morning.”
His father’s younger brother walked to stand beside him at the balustrade, his own coffee in hand as he gazed out over the land. “This never gets old.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
They didn’t say much as they stood there absorbing the moment.
“How are things between you and Eli?” Ben asked after a bit. He pe
rched on the wide concrete rail. “Any better?”
“Quite a bit, though we still have a long way to go,” Noah said quietly. “I hope it stays positive.”
Ben nodded and glanced down at his coffee mug. “So do I. The two of you were so close when you were little. It’d be nice to see you regain some of that.”
Observing Ben was like looking into what the future held for Eli. From the time Eli’d been small, everyone had said he was a carbon copy of Ben. There was some truth to that, Noah thought, though Ben’s hair was a warm brown streaked with gold and Eli’s was dark blond. He himself was eerily like his grandfather Owen in looks and in temperament according to his grandmother.
Noah certainly had a strong affinity for the patriarch of their little clan, he knew that. He could almost communicate with his grandfather without words, always had been able to. And he’d always had a close relationship with Ben, as well, his uncle understanding him on some levels that even John couldn’t, Noah thought.
“I’m afraid to trust him,” Noah admitted softly.
That was an admission he’d been struggling with since they’d seen Eli was going to be okay. He couldn’t talk about his fears with his father because he didn’t want to put John in a position where he had to potentially take sides, and he’d been reluctant to mention his concerns to his grandfather. The weight of the worry about Eli was enough for the octogenarian to carry, even though Owen Campbell was in better health than most men twenty years his junior.
“Any reason in particular?” Ben asked.
“Nope. He’s given me no indication whatsoever that he’s still the same punk he was in high school. I just… I don’t want to open myself back up again if he is.”