Darkness Bound (A Night Prowler Novel)

by J. T. Geissinger

  Another random memory popped into Jack’s head.

  The bitch is back, remember?

  She’d been talking to Hawk. Yelling at him, actually. What about? When?

  Nola was carefully watching her face. “Jack. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to tell anyone anything.”

  Just tell them the truth. Whatever you remember. I know you’ll be fair.

  Jack’s hands were shaking. She stared down at them, feeling on the verge of something vast and black and inescapable, a worm hole about to suck her straight into oblivion. Was she losing her mind? Is that what had happened to her out there in the jungle? She’d lost all semblance of sanity?

  “No . . . I . . . I have something I want to say. Something that needs to be heard.”

  Nola sighed. Gazing at the crowd out the window she said, “Okay. But afterward you might want to get on the next flight to Canada.”

  Or Antarctica, Jack thought, bracing herself for the onslaught as the limousine driver got out to open her door.

  It’s funny how the sound of a camera shutter shooting rapid-fire can sound completely innocent or like a machine gun, depending on where you’re standing.

  That was one of two dozen haphazard thoughts crossing Jack’s mind as Nola, acting as defense, guided her by the arm through the crowd of reporters who were shouting questions and shoving microphones in her face.

  Their attention felt carnivorous. She kept her head down, concentrating on getting inside as quickly as possible without being mauled.

  Security rescued them as soon as they were inside the glass lobby doors. Surrounded by a team of uniformed men, burly and formidable enough to get the most aggressive of the reporters to back off, they made their way in a tight knot toward the amphitheater and were ushered into a small antechamber adjacent to the main room. It was calmer there, quieter, but Jack’s heart pounded so hard it felt like it might claw its way right out of her chest.

  Security left, and then it was just Nola and Jack in the room. She flattened her back against the closed door, panting.

  “Where’s Ed?” she asked Nola, lifting a shaking hand to her forehead. “I thought he’d be here already.”

  “He is. He’s out front, holding court with the mob. You didn’t see him on his soapbox?”

  She should have known her boss would be front and center of this madhouse. Ed O’Malley, Executive Editor, was an old-school, tough-as-nails journalist who closely resembled a circus ringleader both in appearance and personality. He thrived on this kind of chaos.

  Nola checked her watch. “Ten minutes, babe. Can I get you anything? Water? Advil? Cyanide?”

  Jack smiled weakly at her joke and pushed away from the door. “Maybe just a few minutes alone.”

  Nola squeezed her arm, understanding as she always had that Jack needed solitude like other people needed air.

  “Okay. I’ll be right on the other side of that door. I’ll knock when it’s time, if Ed hasn’t come to get you yet.” Nola blew her a kiss, and left through another door that opened directly to the amphitheater. The murmuring of the gathered crowd swelled, then disappeared once the door swung shut.

  A carafe of water stood on a small side table in the corner. Jack set her handbag down, then poured herself a glass, wishing instead for another shot of Patrón. She guzzled it, then lowered herself into an uncomfortable plastic chair to wait.

  The sound of the clock ticking on the wall grew louder and louder, until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She leapt to her feet and began to pace.

  Someone rapped sharply on the door. She jumped, nerves screaming, then crossed the room. She reached for the knob but before she could grab it, the door swung open forcefully, slamming Jack right in the face.

  Fireworks exploded behind her eyes. Pain sliced through her head. The room tilted, narrowed, and went black.

  The next thing she knew, she was lying on her back on the floor, blinking up into Ed O’Malley’s florid, worried face.

  “Dolan! Dolan! Are you all right?”

  Warped and echoing, his voice sounded as if it were broadcast from underwater. There was a watery aspect to his face, too, and the room behind him, everything wavering and slipping, the colors faint and blurred.

  Crouching beside her, Ed helped her sit up. He pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket, shook it out, and pressed it against her face. “Jesus, Dolan, you’re bleedin’ like a stuck pig. Is your nose broken? How d’you feel, darlin’; talk to me!”

  Dazed, Jack was unable to speak. Her eyes couldn’t focus. Her brain was fuzzy, her thoughts amorphous as smoke. Beyond the ringing in her ears and the throbbing in her nose, she remembered she was in the New York Times Building. She remembered she was here for a press conference. She remembered . . .

  “Oh God,” Jack breathed, going ice cold.

  She remembered everything.

  Like a sharp kick that shakes the fruit from a tree, the blow to her head had knocked all the stuck memories loose. They flooded her, mercilessly lashing her with sound and color and scent and taste. Everything she’d forgotten came back in one huge fireball of recall, exploding in her brain like a supernova.

  Her father.

  Her mother.

  Her brother.

  Her childhood.

  The article.

  The pictures.

  The lost weeks . . .

  Hawk.

  She burst into body-wracking sobs and collapsed into Ed’s arms.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he muttered, patting her on the back. “I’m glad I never saw you cry before this, Dolan. It’s downright disturbin’. You never would’ve got that last promotion.”

  Nola arrived and started barking at Ed like a rabid dog. “What the hell did you do to her? Did you break her nose? There’s so much blood!”

  “I opened the door into her face.”

  “What?”

  “It was an accident!”

  “Christ, Ed!”

  “C’mon, help me get her to her feet. There’s a restroom in there.” He jerked his head to another door on the opposite side of the room. “Get her cleaned up, let me know if you need me to call an ambulance. Otherwise the limo can take her to the emergency room. I’ll reschedule the press conference—”

  “No!” Jack choked between sobs. “We’re having the goddamn press conference!”

  “Dolan, you can’t go on television lookin’ like you went twelve rounds with Mayweather!” Ed slung an arm around her waist, Nola took the other side, and they lifted her as she held onto their shoulders. She wobbled a moment, then shook her head to clear it, and wrenched herself out of their arms.

  “Five minutes!” she cried, hysterical. “Don’t cancel it!”

  Nola and Ed exchanged a glance, but didn’t contradict her. They’d seen her in this mode too many times, knew it was useless to try to talk her out of something once she had her mind made up. She knew she had to pull herself together, however, or Ed would never let her go in front of the cameras, no matter how vehemently she argued she could.

  She stumbled to the restroom, locked the door behind her, crossed to the enamel sink, and sagged against it, breathing as if she’d run a sprint. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, at her bloody face and haunted eyes, thinking one word over and over again.

  Hawk.

  She lowered her head and closed her eyes. Blood from her nose dripped with a soft, regular plash into the sink.

  She did love him. He was the man she loved, the only man she’d ever loved, and she’d left him behind in a jungle on another continent, with no way to contact him, no way to let him know she remembered everything, including them.

  Especially them.

  She suddenly realized he’d been relieved she didn’t remember her past because he’d rather have her forget him
than remember all the pain, all the sickness she’d forgotten. Even though it must have killed him to have her forget, he preferred that than seeing her in pain.

  That seemed like the most beautiful and the most awful thing in the world.

  Shaking violently, she turned on the faucet, splashed water onto her hot face. She washed away the blood, feeling for a break in her nose but not finding one, not that it mattered if she did; she didn’t give a damn how she looked. Suddenly all she cared about was an enchanted man who lived in a rainforest thousands of miles away with his enchanted rainforest family, hiding from the rest of the world.

  Hiding because of people like her. People like she’d once been. People full of so much anger and hate even their ignorance had a hard time carving out space for itself.

  Jack pinched her nostrils between two fingers and ripped a wad of paper towels from the wall dispenser. When the blood flow stopped, she tossed the towels into the trash, then slowly removed her jacket, slung it over the top of the toilet stall, and unbuttoned her shirt.

  She turned around and looked over her shoulder.

  Pink and white and distinct, the raised welts stared back at her almost accusingly, every ripple and pucker blatant evidence of all she had lost and gained and lost again, that fragile, magical hope that had filled her full to bursting in those lazy, loving hours in Hawk’s arms. He’d given her hope, and so much more. He’d given her a dream so huge it was at once terrible and beautiful, a thing so precious and bright it outshone all the horror and hopelessness of her life.

  Peace. He’d given her a taste of peace, and she thought that even one small sip was a gift of immeasurable value, because at any moment in the long years that would come, she could remember that feeling. She could take it out and hold it in her hands and cherish it, and remind herself that once, however fleetingly, she had been loved.

  Jack re-buttoned her shirt, her fingers trembling, a roar like a thousand wing beats in her ears. She donned her jacket, wiped away the rest of her tears, smoothed her hands over her hair, and stood there for a moment longer, looking at herself in the mirror.

  “What am I supposed to do now?” Jack whispered hoarsely to her reflection.

  Just tell them the truth. Whatever you remember. I know you’ll be fair.

  The truth.

  She nodded, hearing Jenna’s ghost-like voice in her head. “All right then, dragon lady. Fuck it. That’s exactly what I’ll do.”

  Then she turned away from the mirror, withdrew her prepared speech from her jacket pocket, tore the sheets of paper in two and threw them in the trash, and went out to meet the press.

  “Hawk!”

  Someone was calling his name, but Hawk couldn’t be bothered to find out who, or why. He couldn’t be bothered with much of anything at all, as he’d determined he was going to spend the rest of his life right here in this room, on this bed, staring up at this ceiling, while the world and everything in it passed him by until one day he’d die and be done with it all.

  Or, as he’d realized during his trek through the jungle, he might get lucky and be killed in the invasion. The thought of death in battle—where he could, at least, take down as many of the colony’s enemies as possible before forfeiting his own life—was the one thing that had ultimately made him turn back. He could use a few people to kill right about now.

  He was aware that his reaction to Jacqueline’s leaving had blown far past Shakespearean levels of melodrama into the ridiculous, but he didn’t give a damn. She was gone. His life was over. Whether he eventually died of a broken heart or at the business end of a gun was just splitting hairs.

  So whoever was calling his name could go right on doing so until his tongue fell out. Hawk wasn’t moving from this spot. A rock sailed over the edge of the porch railing, bounced off the mattress, and landed in the middle of his chest with a painful thud.

  He leapt up with a muttered oath, rock in hand, and went to the railing, snarling in fury. He leaned over, arm cocked back to retaliate, but restrained himself when he saw who it was.

  “The Queen wants to see you,” said Zaca, peering up at him from the forest floor below. “Says it’s important.”

  The Queen. Another strategic planning meeting, no doubt. He didn’t know why their enemies hadn’t attacked yet, but when they got here, they were in for a big bloody surprise, he knew that.

  The story of what Hope and Honor had done to Caesar had spread like wildfire through the colony. People were talking about them as if they were weapons of mass destruction, which Hawk thought they probably were. When he wasn’t thinking about Jacqueline, he was thinking about Olivia Sutherland’s face when she said “The children can take care of themselves.”

  Gave him the willies. Didn’t matter, though. Everything that mattered had walked out of his life. And didn’t even remember him, anyway.

  Zaca waved his hands overhead. “Hey—you listening to me, old man?”

  Hawk didn’t even have the energy to return the playful insult with one of his own. He nodded and withdrew, leaving Zaca to stare up with a worried look, until he wandered off, hands stuffed into the pockets of his shorts.

  Hawk dressed in no particular hurry, then headed out.

  When he arrived at the Queen’s residence, he was welcomed by Morgan. “Has your shoulder healed yet?” she asked, her expression revealing nothing.

  He nodded. “Why?”

  “Oh, just wondering. C’mon in.” He followed her through the house to the living room, where Leander was standing with his arms crossed, behind Jenna, on the settee. Both of them were staring at a satellite television screen.

  The image on the screen was frozen. It was Jacqueline.

  She stood behind a Plexiglas podium in front of a large crowd of seated people. A view of trees and greenery loomed open behind her, light reflected off wide expanses of glass. A title at the bottom of the screen read, “Live from the New York Times offices, reporter Jacqueline Dolan.”

  A press conference.

  His heart seized. His stomach clenched. He wanted to say something but all that came out of his mouth was a choked noise of shock.

  “You’ll want to see this,” Jenna said without turning around. “It was recorded just an hour ago.”

  Leander looked at him, gestured to a chair. The expression in his eyes, Hawk noted, was one of faint amusement.

  He sank into the chair, grateful he no longer had to stand because his knees had started to shake.

  Jenna pushed a button on the remote control in her hand, and the image sprang to life. Jacqueline’s soft voice filled the room.

  “Thank you all for coming. I won’t take up too much of your time, and I won’t be taking questions. After today, this is the last time I’ll speak publicly on this subject.”

  She paused and gazed down at the podium, her hands gripping tightly on either side, her chest rising and falling erratically. She looked wan and exhausted, with purple bruises of sleeplessness beneath her eyes. He drank in the sight of her like one who’s gone too long without water, gasping and gulping it down, until something made him blink.

  Were those drops of blood on the collar of her white blouse?

  Stomach in knots, he leaned forward in his chair.

  She looked up, stared slowly around the room at the gathered faces, then focused her gaze directly into the camera. “Someone recently accused me of being a bigot. And . . . he was right.”

  The clicking of camera shutters. The lights on her face, searingly bright.

  “There are few things in life more difficult than seeing yourself objectively, especially when what you might see if you look too closely is something ugly, or painful, or small. I thought I knew everything about myself. I thought I was a good person. But it took forgetting everything to remember that I wasn’t a good person. In fact . . .” She swallowed, blinking into the glare. “I’m ashamed of m
yself. The things I’ve said and done have spread misunderstanding and distrust, prejudice and hatred, and if I could take them all back, I would.”

  The silence in the amphitheater was deafening. Hawk’s heart was clenching and twisting, and he put his hand over his chest, pressing hard against his sternum as if it could help.

  “I owe an apology to those I’ve harmed with my ignorance. The op-ed I wrote—“The Enemy Among Us,” for which I was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize—is so filled with ugliness it disgusts me now to read it. The people it maligns are not deserving of such a thing. In fact, I think it safe to say they’re deserving of nothing less than our utmost respect and admiration. They’re different from us, yes. Their ways are foreign and their culture strange, but that only means we should work harder to understand them, and find ways to bridge our differences so we can live together in peace.”

  Hawk closed his eyes, struggling for air, sick and aching and so swamped with longing he wanted to scream.

  “This planet doesn’t only belong to the human race. It belongs to every living creature on it. Equality isn’t an ideal that can be applied according to the whim of popularity, or toward one race or gender or species in lieu of another. We either believe in equality for all—all—and strive toward that . . . or we’re nothing but a bunch of hypocrites.”

  There was another beat of silence after she stopped speaking. Then the room erupted into noise, everyone shouted at once, questions were volleyed, cameras clicked furiously.

  “There’s one last thing I’d like to say.” Jack held up a hand and the roar slowly dulled to a restless murmur.

  The cameras zoomed in tight on her face so it filled the screen. Pale skin, dusted with freckles. Bloodshot eyes fringed in a curve of brown lashes. Her mouth, the lower lip full and trembling. She inhaled a long, deep breath, nostrils flaring, and for a gut-wrenching moment Hawk thought she might cry.

  Instead she said in a steady, soft voice, those blue eyes burning, “Lucas Eduardo Tavares Castelo Luna, you underhanded son of a dung beetle . . . I love you. With all my heart and soul, I love you. I’m not a religious person, but because of you, I believe in miracles. You taught me how to be loved. I never knew what that meant before, I was too busy feeling terrible and hating myself and thinking that’s the way things were always going to be, but you gave me the gift of yourself and a glimpse of happiness, and for that I want to say thank you.”