by W. J. May
A chill ran down Rae’s arms as he recycled her words from in the basement.
“That being said, I have but one request. A ‘last meal’ if you will. My one final act before I’m taken away to die.” His eyes fastened on his daughter’s. “I want to go home.”
Chapter 14
“I can’t believe this is happening again.” Devon’s knuckles clenched white on the steering wheel as he raced through London traffic, trying to get to the far side of the city. “I can’t believe you talked me into it. Again. That Simon Kerrigan is back in our trunk. Again.”
Rae patted him soothingly on the shoulder. “Relax. It’s different than it was before. We’ve got the anklet. The inhibitors. Plus, Julian would’ve told us if anything was going to go wrong.” She leaned back, staring with fixed confidence towards the horizon. “No. This is going to work.”
Devon shot her a sideways look. “Honey…you remember that I was the one who helped train you how to lie, right?”
Rae bit her lip. “Damn. I thought I was doing so well.”
He threw up a hand in exasperation, keeping the other locked on the wheel. “How can you joke, when we’re—”
“Because I wasn’t joking about it being fine,” she insisted. “Julian really would tell us if anything was going to go wrong. He saw us seeing the house. Walking around. Talking. And coming back in time for dinner.” She cocked her head contemplatively to the side. “He also said that he saw us picking up some wine on the way back, but I think he might have been messing with me.”
Devon snorted under his breath and glanced in the rearview mirror as he cut around two tour buses filled with gawking tourists. “He’d just better be right about that.”
“Hey,” Rae squeezed his arm again, “would you bet against a psychic?”
Devon paused. Then conceded. “No, I wouldn’t. Especially Jules.”
“See?” She turned towards the horizon once more. “Me neither.”
It was a good thing, too. Because they were risking an awful lot.
* * *
When Simon had first made his last request, Rae had kind of spoiled the moment. She’d wanted to let the question ring out in the quiet. Give it its proper moment. But almost immediately after, she’d had to ask for clarification.
She couldn’t help it. She didn’t know where ‘home’ was to a man like Simon Kerrigan. For all she knew it was a storage locker somewhere, filled with human heads.
The actual answer to that question felt like a kick in the teeth.
“Do I turn up here?” Devon asked with a frown, trying to remember the directions.
With MacGyver’s photographic memory, Rae pulled up a mental map and searched for their current location. Her eyes blinked out of focus for a second before blinking back.
“Yeah. It’s a right on Penny Lane.”
“Penny Lane?” Devon lifted his eyebrows as he made the turn. “You lived on Penny Lane?”
Rae smiled humorlessly. “Somebody had a sense of humor…”
Over the years, Rae had thought about her childhood home more times than she could count. Since reliving it when she travelled back in memory to the day of the fire the image had stuck with her, popping up at random times when she wasn’t expecting it.
The faded yellow of the kitchen paint. Her childhood artwork hanging on the wall. There was a huge tree in the backyard. A giant elm in which someone had built her a treehouse. Perhaps that someone had been her father.
But for whatever reason, it had never occurred to her to try to go back and actually visit. Of course, the bulk of it must have been lost in the fire, but perhaps the foundation still remained. Or maybe someone had rebuilt it, restoring it to its original glory. Perhaps the land had been cleared clean. Turned into a community garden or some other lovely thing. Perhaps that elm tree was still there, its branches still holding that beloved treehouse where she’d played all her childhood games.
The possibilities were too numerous to count, filling her with a kind of strange excitement she never knew she’d been missing. But whatever she had been expecting by the time the car pulled up to the driveway, it certainly wasn’t what she found.
The place was a shrine.
Not to the brief life of her family. But to the fiery death of it.
She couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t even get out of the car. All she could do was stare in numb horror through the window, vaguely aware that her father was still locked in the trunk.
“Honey?” Devon’s eyes had swept over the burnt skeletal frame of the house for only a second before turning back to Rae. “This isn’t… Are you sure you want to do this?”
Already Rae’s eyes were burning with forbidden tears. They prickled and stung, blurring the edges of the hollowed-out living room, right where the flower bed was supposed to be.
But she refused to cry. She had already mourned this death a long time ago. It would do no good to start reliving that all now. She thought back to her bus drive to Guilder the first time and when she’d seen smoke and realized someone’s house was on fire. She remembered her breathing and focused on that.
With a determined nod, she climbed out of the car without another word—sweeping her long hair back into a ponytail as she slipped a pair of protective sunglasses over her eyes.
“I’ll be fine,” she said shortly. “We’re not here for me anyway.”
On that note she motioned to the trunk, and Devon used the key-fob to open the trunk and release her father.
Simon got out slowly, stretching his limbs and blinking as he looked around.
If Rae hadn’t thought the man was capable of remorse before, she certainly wouldn’t have said that now. There was no describing the look on his face. It was so far past bereaved, such a profound kind of pain, that it transcended all words. He stuck his hands in his pockets, and for a minute he found himself in the same boat as his daughter. All he could do was stare.
“I don’t understand,” he murmured. “Why would they just leave it like this?”
It was a good question. The neighborhood in question was the kind of place you’d see featured in Stepford Magazine. A pristine utopia. Pretty as a postcard. Not a blade of grass out of place. All lit up under the glow of a million holiday twinkle-lights.
It wasn’t the kind of community that would allow such a tragedy to remain standing. Then again, the Privy Council had a way of leaving tributes of things they thought should teach a lesson.
For all she knew, there was a chance the rest of the common world couldn’t even see it.
“Come on.” She nudged her father gently in the back, pushing him forward. “You wanted to see it, right? Well, here it is. Home sweet home.”
Together, the three of them made their way into the house.
… Into what was left of the house.
Mom should be here. Rae shook her head. She was thankful she wasn’t.
Not a single piece of debris had been cleared away. The charred framework of the lower story still stood precariously in place, and the entire thing reeked of rain and ash. Rae automatically switched out of Devon’s tatù to something that had a less heightened sense of smell.
“Your mother found this place,” Simon said quietly, running his hands over one of the burned banisters that now led up to nowhere. “Saw it in an ad online and called me up at three in the morning just to drive out and see it. The second she did, she fell in love.”
Rae followed every gesture like a hawk. Filed every word away for later analysis. “But not you?”
He glanced over his shoulder, shrugging indifferently. “It was…good for your mother. Good for raising a family. In that regard, I thought it was just fine. Aside from that, it was a little suburban for my tastes.”
Of course. He’d rather be in a sewer somewhere, trying to raise an army of mutant spawn.
Devon looked over with a sudden grin, and Rae blushed to the roots of her hair. She hadn’t realized that she’d projected the thought telepathically.
; The entire exchange was lost on Simon, who continued wandering aimlessly through what was left of the house. Touching things. Seeing things. Feeling things that none of the others could.
It wasn’t until he got into the section of the house that had once been the kitchen. Here he suddenly stopped.
While Rae had seen firsthand that this place had gotten the worst of the fire, the marble tile had protected it so there was actually the most left. Bits of scorched sheetrock and twisted wires were littering the ground—creating a ghostly wasteland. And a neat blanket of ash had levelled the entire thing out, except in two places.
All three of them saw it at the same time. All three of them looked pointedly the other way.
The two body-sized imprints in the rubble, visible even after all this time. Spaces just wide enough for two bodies to have fit inside, protecting the tile beneath them all the while.
One was Kraigan’s mother. The other was meant for Simon.
Yes, there were definitely some supernatural preservation forces at work. This place was warning about the dangers of playing God. A testament to what happened when you tried to fly too close to the sun. You got burned.
“We were having a fight,” Simon muttered. “The worst fight we’d ever had. One that would have settled things, one way or another.”
One way or another.
The hair on the back of Rae’s neck stood on end. Devon reached out to take her hand.
“It was my fault,” he continued, speaking as though the two of them weren’t there. “The whole thing. All this…this mess. I was the one to blame.” He knelt and picked up a shattered picture frame, turning it over in his hands. There was no image left inside the frame, only melted, moldy nothing. “I was always the one to blame.”
It was then he started to cry. Genuinely cry. Without a care in the world as to who was watching. Both Devon and Rae froze for a second, caught completely off guard, before they stepped into the relative privacy of the backyard to give him a moment to himself.
A moment to grieve.
The icy chill in the air was welcome, and Rae gulped deep breaths of it as she turned her back on the man still crouched and weeping. Unable to watch a moment longer. “This was a mistake,” she breathed, fixing her eyes on the sky. “A huge mistake.”
A pair of warm arms circled around her chest.
“No, I don’t think so,” Devon murmured. “I did when we were driving over here. I actually thought it was one of the craziest things you’ve suggested so far. But now that we’re here, now that we’re actually standing here…” He cast a quick look over his shoulder, “I don’t think it’s a mistake.”
Rae leaned back into him, biting hard on her lower lip so she wouldn’t cry. “I didn’t think it would hit me so hard,” she admitted softly. With Simon wearing his ankle monitor, only Devon would be able to hear. “I thought this place would have been turned into something else. A garden or a swimming pool. Another house, with another family living in it. One that didn’t know the terrible things that happened here. One that could start clean.” She wiped her eyes and shuddered. “But being here? With him?” She shook her head back and forth, and pulled in a broken, silent sob. She suddenly wanted her mom. Except that wasn’t fair to her mom either. “Devon, I can’t do it.”
The arms around her tightened.
“Yes, you can.” His breath warmed the side of her neck as he leaned down to murmur in her ear. “Rae Kerrigan, you are the bravest, strongest, most capable person I know. The best girl I’ve ever met. If anyone can do this—it’s you.”
His voice soothed her fraying nerves as his words instilled a deep confidence. A feeling of trust and security that she should have found in her childhood home, but instead she found in the boy standing in her backyard.
After a minute, the tears stopped coming. Another minute after that, she caught her breath.
“Just the best girl, huh?” she teased, forcing a bit of levity. “Not the best person?”
Pressed up against her cheek, she felt him grin.
“You’re also my favorite girl. Want me to talk about that?”
She laughed shakily. “Maybe not with my father standing just a bit away.”
He pulled back with a tender smile. “Good point.”
For a second, she almost lost herself and kissed him. Then, all at once, something else caught her eye. Something that had escaped the fire entirely, and was swaying slightly in the breeze.
“My treehouse.”
He turned around and followed her gaze to the giant elm.
Sure enough, not only was the tree intact but so was the fortress within. Its little turret peeked out from the highest branches, still covered in paint and the deteriorating stickers she’d plastered inside all those years ago.
“It was my escape.” Her lips turned up both fondly and sadly at the memory. “The place where I’d go to play and hide when my parents were fighting.”
How strange to be looking at it now with Devon—the man she was going to marry.
“How did you possibly climb all those stairs as a child?” he muttered incredulously. “You’re so clumsy…”
Hmm… the man she might not marry after all.
She elbowed him hard in the chest, but gazed up into the branches with a slight smile. “Our kid is going to need a treehouse, you know.”
It was sudden. It was excited. And it was sure.
It was also the first time ever that either one of them had said something serious about the possibility of one day having kids. Well, aside from that one time when they’d barely been dating and he’d shot the possibility down. Now, Rae couldn’t believe she’d said it. She certainly hadn’t meant to. Something about being back in the old yard had made her blurt it out. It had felt almost normal for a moment.
She shyly peeked over her shoulder, to see Devon literally frozen in shock. His lips were parted as if he’d been about to speak, and his eyes were locked on the treehouse like it was some sort of cosmic symbol—not a few waterlogged planks nailed into an elm.
Then, before her very eyes, a radiant smile started inching up the sides of his face. One by one it brightened all his features, so that by the time he looked down at her, with the full force of it twinkling in his eyes, it was almost blinding.
“Oh yeah?” For a split second he forgot about Simon entirely, pulling Rae into his arms with the reckless abandon of a man in love. “A treehouse, huh?”
She bit her lip, trying and failing to hide her grin. “I’m afraid it’s a deal-breaker.”
He slipped a hand beneath her hair, pulling her in for a kiss. “Done.”
It was a perfect moment. A ray of hope rising from the sunken ashes.
But just as they were leaning in, a throat cleared suddenly from behind them. Devon’s hand disappeared at once, and the two of them sprang apart like they’d been shocked.
Simon was leaning against the crumbling frame. Arms crossed over his chest. A small smile playing around his lips. A completely impossible-to-decipher emotion dancing in his eyes.
“Thank you. For letting me come here.” He looked at each one of them in turn. While Rae blushed to high heaven, Devon straightened up with a stab of boyish nerves. “I’m ready to go back now. That is…unless the two of you want more time.”
Devon couldn’t get away fast enough. “Not at all.” He didn’t make eye contact as he skittered past Simon, out the door.
Rae followed closely behind, keeping her head down and her hands stuffed innocently in her pockets.
He didn’t see anything. We didn’t even kiss. I’m just being paranoid.
But as they hurried past him down the drive, she could have sworn she heard him chuckle.
* * *
The next two days passed in a surreal kind of blur. One part of Rae wanted to spend every waking moment she had with her father. Good or evil, he was about to be taken away forever either way. Another part wanted to avoid him at all costs. Terrified that she would latch on more than she ha
d already accidentally done, and his imprisonment would be that much harder.
I wonder if they’ll ever let me visit, she thought as she headed down the stairs the morning of the fourth day. After everything I’m going to see today, I wonder if I’ll even want to.
She hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep the entire night before. Every time she closed her eyes, she kept jerking awake with the same terrified thought.
I’m about to step into my father’s past. I’m about to see all his sins. I’ll remember them forever.
The fear of it was enough to make her consider going to Gabriel’s room to see if he had any more of that handy sedative. Enough to keep her tossing and turning until the alarm on her clock finally sounded, like a death toll, calling in the executioner.
The second it did she slammed her hand down, unintentionally shattering it in the process.
Devon opened his eyes as a collateral piece of shrapnel whizzed past his face. “Rough night?” he asked kindly.
Kindly, indeed. He was pretending now, for her benefit. In reality he’d probably slept even less than her. Every time she rolled over he’d reached out and squeezed her hand, trying to soothe her back to sleep.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, conjuring a trash bin to sweep the mess inside. “I guess I’m just a little wound up. For what’s about to happen.”
He simply nodded and kissed the back of her hand. “I’m going to be there the whole time. Standing right next to you. I promise.”
She nodded and pretended to busy herself with the clock as he got up to dress, both ignoring the simple fact that was going to render that promise relatively useless.
Because I’m going in there alone. It doesn’t matter whether Devon’s going to be standing next to me in the real world or not. I’m still going in there alone.
By the time she got down to the kitchen, the entire gang was there. Simon included. It was hard to gauge the exact mood, but if Rae had to guess she’d say it was a bit depressed.