The Farther I Fall

by Lisa Nicholas

  She eased slowly from the tangle of Lucas’s arms and legs, not wanting to wake him. Craig and the others had reassured her Lucas was sleeping much more regularly on this tour than in times past, but he still didn’t sleep enough. None of them did. She didn’t turn on a light, but moved over to the window and opened the drapes enough to look outside. A mixture of rain and sleet ticked against the hotel glass, blurring any view she might have had of downtown Seattle. She leaned her flushed face against the cold surface. Her shoulder ached, possibly due to the weather; a hint of things to come as she got older.

  The nightmare came back to her gradually, in pieces. Mostly it was the same as ever: the IED, the shot that killed Janet, the scene replaying over and over. Of late, the face of the body on the ground—the one bleeding out under her hands—was changing. Five days ago it had been Craig. Two nights ago it was Cathy. Tonight it was Maggie, dying under her hands while she was helpless to stop it. It didn’t take a psychiatrist to see where her subconscious was taking her. As exhausted as she was, sleep offered no rest.

  Lucas’s skin rustled against the sheets as he stirred. “… Gwen?”

  “I’m here. Go back to sleep.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Gwen watched the liquid trailing down the windows. “Nothing. Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Well, come not sleep over here.” His voice was edging toward petulant, almost enough to make her smile. She pulled the curtains open so she could watch the rain before crawling back into the bed beside Lucas, who snuggled against her back and pulled her into the cradle of his limbs.

  “Better,” he mumbled against her back. She listened to the quiet sounds of sleet. “Gwen? Nightmare again?”

  “Mm. It’s fine.”

  “You’d say that no matter what.” He kissed her aching shoulder, a soft touch of warmth that she imagined sinking into the damaged tissue. “Want to tell me about it? Must have been bad; you’ve been sweating.” She didn’t answer, and debated feigning sleep. “I know you’re awake,” he said. “Tell me.”

  “I can’t.” Even that much was an effort to say.

  “Then at least look at me.”

  He sounded more alert, and his low, coaxing tone of voice was impossible for her to resist. She rolled over and tucked one hand under her head, letting the other drape over his side.

  “Bad?” he said.

  “Yeah.” One-syllable words she could do. She could feel the weight of Lucas’s gaze sliding over her face.

  “Will you tell me what happened? I don’t mean the dreams. What happened to you?”

  “It was a—” She cleared her throat. Dry details were easy. “We were in camp. One of the lads flirted with me as the convoy was pulling out. Sweet guy.”

  “What happened to him?”

  She shook her head. “It happens all the time. They were lucky—close to camp. Hit an IED a couple hundred meters out. Close enough we could run out to them.

  “So we did, a bunch of us CMTs, and my captain. We ran out there. The first driver—he was already gone. But MacEwan—Jesus, Lucas, he’d just promised to buy me a beer when we got home …”

  His arms tightened around her and she pressed her face against his chest. It was easier when she wasn’t looking him in the eye. “We got him out of the Humvee, me and Janet—Captain Turner.”

  “Was he—”

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t that bad. But sometimes, the IED isn’t the main event. It gets everybody out in the open. Gets the non-front-line personnel out in the open.”

  “Jesus.” Lucas pressed his lips against her hair.

  “The shooting started. I was so fucking stupid, I hadn’t bothered to put on my flak jacket. All I could think about was getting MacEwan out of that Humvee.”

  “And you got hit?”

  “Couple of us did. My captain got it the worst. She didn’t make it.” She didn’t tell him it was her fault. She couldn’t.

  “I’m so sorry.” He sounded as helpless as she felt.

  She let him hold her for a few minutes, never fully relaxing into the embrace. When she drew back, she was careful, so careful, not trusting herself, not yet. “This afternoon, with Maggie—”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “What can I do to help?”

  “Just … don’t let me go.”

  His arms tightened in response, and she felt his mouth press hard against her shoulder, against the scar. He said nothing, just buried his face against her skin. It wasn’t until his breathing had evened out with sleep that she gave herself the luxury of relaxing, letting the sounds of the storm outside the window send her slowly back to sleep.

  ***

  Maggie sat with Gwen and Lucas in a coffee shop across the street from the hotel, cradling a cup of tea she wasn’t drinking. “This is bullshit,” she said. “Come on. I don’t even have a headache anymore!”

  “You were only scheduled for two more stops anyway,” Gwen said. Maggie had a concussion and a strained neck, but no signs of a fracture. Several people had congratulated Gwen, saying things would have been much worse without her help. It left her with a sour stomach.

  “Yeah, and I’m going to make them.”

  “No you’re not.” Gwen called up that particular type of patience she hadn’t had a use for in months, the kind for dealing with stubborn soldiers who insisted they were fine and didn’t need any more medical treatment. “Do you understand what a concussion is? It is a traumatic brain injury. Your brain, Maggie. You’re not going out on stage and pogoing around. You’re still wearing a cervical collar, for God’s sake.” She indicated the padded brace around Maggie’s neck.

  Maggie grimaced. “Lucas, come on, tell her.”

  He shook his head. “This is between you two.”

  “Coward.”

  “I know where he sleeps,” Gwen said. She reached across the table and touched Maggie’s arm. “I mean it. We’ll miss you around here, but the doctors are right.” She twitched an almost-smile. “Besides, my sister would kill me over the liability issues alone.”

  Maggie squeezed Gwen’s hand. “They’ll catch her, Gwen.”

  Gwen and Lucas exchanged a glance and Gwen tried to smile. The Seattle police had found the remains of a small detonation device hidden in the lighting rig—not a lot of power, just enough to blow loose an already substandard piece of the rigging. Remotely detonated and absolutely untraceable. The detective in charge of the case hadn’t been very reassuring. “Yeah. We’ll see.”

  “This girl is really serious, isn’t she?” Maggie looked between the two of them.

  “Just as well you’re getting out,” Gwen said. “It’s only going to get worse before it gets better.”

  Maggie sighed. “I suppose it’s back to the studio for me.”

  “Work, work, work,” Lucas agreed. “You know … you could throw it all over and come back. We could form another band.”

  Maggie shook her head. “I couldn’t, really. I’ve got two more albums on my contract, and besides”—she reached up and patted his cheek—“you’re a lovely fling, darling, but I don’t want to marry you.”

  Lucas leaned back in his chair and sprawled lazily. “They don’t appreciate you the way I do—isn’t that reason enough to leave? They’ll never give you what I can.”

  Maggie laughed and glanced at Gwen before turning back to Lucas. “In case you missed it, I’m kicking your ass on the charts. Besides, if we got back together now, everyone would say you sold out.”

  “I’m trying to sell out,” Lucas said. “But you seem to have too damn much artistic integrity.” He barely managed to say it with a straight face.

  “Children,” Gwen said holding her hands up between them. “Maggie has a flight to catch. Do you have everything?”

  She nodded, rising to her feet. “You don’t have to come to the airport with me,” she said.

  “Yes, I do,” said Gwen.

  Lucas stood as well and kissed Maggie on the forehead. She pulled him down to whisper something
in his ear. He straightened and grinned at her. “If you change your mind, you know how to reach me.” He gave Gwen a quick kiss and then walked back toward the hotel. Once he was safely inside, Gwen picked up Maggie’s bags.

  “Come on, let’s get you to the airport.” She paused. “What did you say to him?”

  “Nothing I’m going to tell you,” Maggie said with a grin. “But you should ask him sometime soon.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Gwen okay? You guys were really quiet on the way here.” Craig walked him down the hotel hallway. Lucas’s legs were cramped from spending three hours in a van, surrounded by tense silence on all sides.

  “Yeah,” Lucas said. “We argued this morning.” It had been ridiculous—nothing more than cranky snapping at each other after not enough sleep. He tried not to worry that it meant more. “Aww,” Craig nudged him. “First fight? That’s kind of adorable.”

  “You still sleeping alone?” It sounded meaner than he meant it. Maybe. Lucas wouldn’t have another chance to talk to Craig for sixteen or seventeen hours. This was his only opportunity to change the subject and get some information at the same time. Craig gave him a look that said, Now? Really? and Lucas shrugged.

  “We talked, at least.” Craig had insisted on pushing the luggage cart; he always did. He sighed. “She wants to know what I plan to do if the kid’s mine.”

  “What do you plan to do?”

  “I’ll take care of him, of course. Don’t know how great a dad I’ll make, but …”

  “Talking is good, though, right?”

  “Yeah,” Craig said. “All this, though, the kid, Maggie getting hurt … I just want it to stop for a minute so I can regroup, you know?”

  Lucas laughed. “You’re in the wrong profession, man. We don’t do regrouping here.” He thumped him on the shoulder. “Couple more weeks, and then you can get a break.”

  “Here’s yours.” Craig stopped and opened the room door, stepping in for the now-obligatory check to make sure it was empty. Probably ridiculous, but Gwen was already over at the theater, and she insisted on it.

  “All clear?” Lucas tried to keep from smirking.

  “All clear. Asshole.” Craig grinned at him. “Now go get your beauty sleep while the rest of us do our jobs.”

  “Have fun.” He closed and locked the door behind Craig, then leaned against the door with a sigh. The idea that a couple as solid as Craig and Cathy could still fall apart didn’t seem fair. Lucas was almost positive he’d never fathered a child, but the idea that one of his old mistakes could resurface, could shake up what he had with Gwen …

  Hell, maybe one already had. And if anyone had a vast collection of old mistakes to choose from, it was him.

  Lucas rubbed his eyes. The smart thing to do would be to do what Craig said and take a nap. He sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off his boots, then leaned up to pull the pillows into a comfy pile. His fingers brushed something resting on top of the sheets. There, beneath the pillows, was a manila envelope with his name scrawled across the front. The weight of it pressed heavy against his fingers as he lifted it. Heart starting to pound, he took the envelope over to the desk and sat down to open it.

  A cell phone tumbled out, along with a note that simply read, Turn this on. Now. Thinking of the tiny detonator in Seattle, Lucas nearly didn’t do it, but irresistible curiosity made him press the power button. After it powered up, the message notification chimed. In the email was a note:

  Lucas:

  I’ve been patient. I’ve waited for you. Put your toy soldier away. If you can’t do it, I’ll do it for you.

  You owe me. You belong to me. Don’t make me regret everything I’ve done for you, you unappreciative prick.

  The notifications came in, several in a row. Three photo messages, all with the same subject. Gwen in the theater lobby in Seattle talking to the theater manager. Gwen on her cell phone walking along a sidewalk—which city? Lucas couldn’t tell at a glance. Then, worst of all, the back of Gwen’s head, close up. And neatly drawn around it, crosshairs. The photographer couldn’t have been more than three feet behind her. There was a caption set on that one: It would be so easy.

  He upended the envelope over the desk, looking for anything else. It was empty.

  Lucas read the email several times over, flipping from it to the photographs. He reached for his own cell phone to call Gwen.

  It rang. And rang. Voice mail picked up, so he hung up and dialed again. While it was ringing a second time, the new phone chimed another notification. Another photo of Gwen, this one from an elevated distance. She was talking to Cathy at the foot of a stage—“Oh God.” Gwen was wearing one of the new tour T-shirts in the photo. The one she was wearing today. Right now. The caption read, So very easy.

  Her voice mail picked up again and Lucas fought the urge to fling the phone across the room. He dialed Craig, although he couldn’t have gotten there so quickly.

  Voice mail. What the hell was going on? He dialed Cathy with one hand while pulling his boots back on with the other. If nobody was going to answer their goddamned phones he didn’t have a choice. Swallowing the bile in his throat, he pocketed both phones and his keys and unlocked the hotel room door.

  ***

  “It’s not that I don’t want kids,” Cathy said as she and Gwen worked on setting the lights. The stage was twenty feet below and Gwen handed Cathy tools as she worked out in the rigging. “I just don’t want them right now.”

  “And you’d probably rather he was having them with you?” Gwen said, desert-dry.

  “This is going to sound awful, but I don’t mind that part so much.” She paused as if she were gauging Gwen’s reaction. “I mean, I’m not thrilled that he cheated, but we’re not exactly in an industry that prizes monogamy, you know?”

  Gwen thought of the ever-present groupies and assorted followers. She’d seen Lucas dodge and deflect their advances, but logically knew that hadn’t always been the case. And would it be going forward? She forced a smile for Cathy. “No, I guess it’s not.”

  “Shit, I didn’t mean it to sound like that.”

  “No, it’s fine. So you can deal with the cheating. What is it then?” Speaking of dodging and deflecting.

  “Craig’s taking this as some cosmic sign that it’s time for us to settle down. Like, he thinks that if we just get off the road and find a house with a picket fence somewhere everything’s going to be perfect.” She wrinkled her nose as she fought with one of the bolts on a canister light. “He’s talked about finding somewhere near Nashville so we can see the kid—he hasn’t even taken a damn paternity test yet.”

  “That does seem like jumping the gun a bit.” Gwen’s phone buzzed at her hip, but between balancing Cathy’s tool kit and keeping her own balance, her hands were full. “Damn.”

  “I’m almost done,” Cathy said. “I just need to get these gels into place. I can do that by myself.”

  “Thanks.” Gwen scooted back and climbed down to the stage. Once her hands were free, she dug her phone out of her pocket. Two calls from Lucas, no voice mail. She stood in the middle of the stage, surrounded by partially assembled equipment and instruments when she heard her name.

  Lucas was offstage, partly concealed by a stack of speakers, motioning her over.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Gwen demanded when she reached him. “Did you come here by yourself? What were you thinking?”

  “Shut up and listen to me. She’s here.” He pulled an unfamiliar mobile from his pocket and showed her a picture. It couldn’t have been taken more than twenty minutes prior, before she and Cathy had gone up into the rigging. She crowded Lucas back from the stage even further, backing him into a corner and putting herself between him and the rest of the auditorium. It was sheer instinct, and ridiculous—even if she was still out in the auditorium somewhere, she wouldn’t be able to see them from there, much less hurt either of them.

  “Gwen—”

  “Not now.” She snapped at one
of the stagehands, “Get someone on every door. Tell David we’ve got a possible intruder. Get his people on it.” When the stagehand stood staring at her, she barked, “Now!” To another: “Where’s Craig? Get him here.” Lucas fidgeted behind her. “Just wait,” she told him. “Once we know it’s safe—”

  Her words cut off as the backstage area was plunged into darkness. All around them was the sound of stagehands cursing. Pocket flashlights flared here and there. “Give me one of those.” Someone put one in her hand and she trained it around them. “Come on, we’re getting out of here. Put your hand on my shoulder.”

  More than anything she wanted the comfort of the Sig in her hand, but there were too many other people, too great a risk of someone else getting hurt. Instead she was left creeping through the darkened backstage, Lucas breathing loudly behind her, with only a flashlight in her hand. Her skin prickled all over, the sense of an enemy there but out of sight dominating every thought. The darkness felt solid enough to push through. The exit had to be right in front of her, it couldn’t have been more than twenty feet from where they’d been standing—

  Lucas’s hand left her shoulder.

  “Lucas!” She spun around, shining the flashlight where he’d been. “Lucas?”

  “Gwen!” He sounded farther away than seemed possible.

  “Someone get the fucking emergency lights on.” She ran for the sound of his voice, barely dodging wires and equipment in the dark, vaulting over a monitor at the edge of the stage and into the auditorium. The auditorium floor slammed into her feet as she landed in a crouch, hard impact traveling all the way up her body to her skull. She started running up the aisle, her heart pounding in her ears. “Lucas!” The box of merch showed up in her flashlight beam just as she hit it with her shin. It nearly cost her her balance, but she recovered and kept going, bursting through the doors at the back of the theater into the bright daylight in the lobby.

  Lucas stood not far from the front door, and before Gwen could say anything, his knees buckled and hit the floor. “Lucas!” He looked up at her, paler than ever, three bright red parallel scratches down the right side of his jaw.