by A. L. Tyler
Griffin had lied about the extent of the injury. Someone had done a fair job of stitching the wound shut, but the bullet must have done quite a bit of damage, because it wasn’t a clean exit wound—the stitches ran the length of a good inch and a half. The bullet would have had to have hit something; he probably had a good deal of muscle damage, at least. Lena wasn’t sure if she was disgusted or relieved to see that most of the blood was probably from what appeared to be ripped stitches. As Griffin had said, despite the extent of the damage, the wound was healing up nicely.
“It lodged just behind my shoulder blade, and he had to cut to get it out.” Griffin explained. “The doctor swears I was lucky though, because it only ripped through some muscle. It’s got a good chance of growing back.”
“This looks really painful. Are you sure you want to—?” Lena pursed her lips.
“I’m fine. Just clean it up, and I’ll be fine.”
Trying to hold back the nausea rising in her stomach, she grabbed some gauze and started to dab at the wound with the disinfectant; he was a little too tall to make it easy for her, so she had him lean forward and brace himself on the sink. Warren had claimed that most Silenti were impervious to the majority of infections that occurred in humans, and she wondered if it was even necessary. Better safe than sorry, she continued to use the disinfectant to clean away the blood until the most recent of the ripped stitches had stopped bleeding.
“Okay…you’ve ripped about half of your stitches out.” She said, feeling dizzy. “You’ve got to stop using that arm until it heals over better.”
Griffin bent down and grabbed the roll of medical tape and held it out toward her. “Tape it up.”
“What?”
“The ripped stitches. The gauze and bandages are rubbing, and I think that’s what’s aggravating it.”
Lena took the tape and tried to pay as little attention as possible to what she was doing while still being effective. After she had carefully closed the skin back over, she put a clean dressing over it.
“Okay.” She said, going to the sink to wash Griffin’s blood off of her hands. “Done.”
Griffin stood up and turned around, craning his neck to see the reflection of his injured shoulder in the dingy mirror. He nodded his approval. Lena dried her hands on her jeans.
“Let’s get going.” He picked up the backpack of supplies and walked out.
“You’re welcome,” Lena mumbled before following him.
They drove all afternoon and were forced to stop about fifty miles outside of Tulsa because Griffin was wearing down again. It was getting dark, and Griffin didn’t trust any of the small road-side motels they were passing. He said they would be too easy to find unless they were in a big city, and so elected to park off the side of the road behind some bushes and sleep in the car. Lena wasn’t overjoyed at the prospect; the last time she had fallen asleep in a car, it hadn’t ended so well. It just felt too exposed; but Griffin claimed it was much safer. He even seemed sure that they weren’t being followed at all, but Lena wasn’t sure if his show of confidence was for her sake or not.
Anxiously, she curled up in the passenger’s seat and pulled her new jacket over her as a blanket. Griffin had reclined the driver’s seat back as far as it could go and was staring up at the fabric-lined ceiling of the car. Even though Lena had been sure she wasn’t going to sleep, she found herself drifting off.
“Yes. Two beds.”
The concierge, a thin man with a cartoon-like mustache took the money from Aaron. He turned and smiled at Lena, who was sitting gracefully atop her suitcase with a book held open in her hand. The lobby was done up in reds and golds; it hadn’t been updated since the seventies.
“You’re going to love Egypt. We’re going to see the temples and the pyramids, and hopefully some mosques. It’s one of my favorite places…”
“I know, dad. You’ve told me.”
“Oh, well…You’ve never seen it! There’s so much history, and so much art. I admit, the food has never agreed with me, but—“
“The food never agrees with you. Even those hamburgers in Australia at that place…you know the place. You were sick for a week!” Lena giggled. As she did so, someone off in the corner stirred; she turned her head to look, but whoever it had been was already obscured behind a newspaper again.
“Oh, now that’s not funny!”
“It so was…you couldn’t stand, you couldn’t sit, you couldn’t be in a moving car…you’re such a baby when you’re sick.”
Aaron’s eyes got wide. He smiled. “I’m the baby? You can’t even drive!”
“I can too! In some countries!” The concierge pushed a key across the counter at Aaron. “Thanks…”
“Oh!” Lena got up off of her suitcase and walked up to the counter. “Can I have some extra soaps and shampoos?”
“Of course, Miss.” The concierge smiled and walked into a back room. There was a radio on, and the sound was drifting out through the door.
“ ‘The food doesn’t agree with me…’ You’re so sensitive and picky.” Lena looked around at all the other people in the lobby. A young man, who looked vaguely familiar to her, was standing off in the corner. What was his name? She knew him from somewhere…He was certainly looking at her like he knew them. She threw him a token smile, and finally looked down at her book. “Do you think we could find a bookstore here? I’ve been through this one a few times now. I need a new one…Dad?”
Some bus boys were starting to collect their suitcases onto the elevator. Aaron was staring off across the lobby, at the young man who had been looking at Lena. She knew she had seen him somewhere before…
At Waldgrave. She’d seen him at Waldgrave, but there was something else…
He’d been at the airport. And the ferry before that. And bus stop before that. And the restaurant before that…
She had seen him several times over the years, but she had never spoken to him. Maybe it was because he was always just a little behind them, or maybe it was because he just didn’t feel like talking to her yet. But he had been there, across the years, tracking them down.
Tracking her down.
Lena sat up so fast that she almost hit her head on the roof of the car. She was ice cold, everything from her skin down to her bone marrow. Goose bumps were breaking out on her arms and legs, and she felt like she needed to shiver but somehow it just wouldn’t happen. Every nerve in her body was creeping. How could had she missed him all those times?
It was easy, really; she had never taken much notice of the people around her because they were always changing, and he had always fallen just short of remarkable. Aaron didn’t like to focus on the past—her life was about forgetting and moving forward until she came to stay at Waldgrave. Those reasons, plus the fact that she hadn’t been a Silenti back then. Of course Griffin had been following her—he had had two weeks of paid vacation to do whatever he wanted with, and he had been running Daray’s errands since he was thirteen. Lena imagined she had probably been very high on that list of errands.
“Lena?”
She looked over at Griffin, who was gazing at her with a very confused expression. How could he have kept this from her, over all the years? She suddenly felt sick, and she popped the car door and got out. Behind her, she heard Griffin let loose a string of expletives before doing the same.
“What are you doing?! Lena!”
She stopped about fifteen feet from the car, and keeping her back turned to it, she said, “You were there all that time! All that time, Griffin…”
Behind her, there was only the ambient chirping of crickets in the humid dark. The sun wasn’t going to be up for several more hours, and she wasn’t sure if she could bring herself to get back in the car with him.
Griffin didn’t deny it. “It’s…it’s not what you think. He told me to watch you, because he couldn’t get the votes to bring you home legally. He just wanted to be sure you were okay.”
Lena turned around. Griffin was standing just ou
tside the pool of light cast by the open car doors. Lena had one hand on her hip and the other covering her mouth; she wasn’t sure what to say. He hadn’t actually done anything wrong, but it certainly felt like he had.
Griffin was breathing heavy; his face was pale, and Lena knew he was bleeding again. He held his hands out toward her. “I never would have put you on that train if I had known. He never told me that Aaron would die in the crash.”
Now he had done something wrong. Lena stared at him for a moment before the words clicked in her brain. Her voice quivered. “Oh…oh, God, Griffin, tell me you didn’t…”
She turned away again. She was shaking so badly that she felt like she was going to fall over. She sat down on the ground and felt like she was going to vomit; he had been chasing them. They had been running from Griffin, Daray’s right hand, all along—and he finally snagged them on that train crash in Egypt. Griffin had chased them there on purpose. Somehow, Daray had known the train would crash. Daray knew everything; he knew where she was, he knew when Darius Corbett was trying to kill her, and things always seemed to magically go his way. He was a great magician in the Silenti world, pulling all the strings, getting all the votes, and making people disappear; but now that Lena saw how he did it, she wasn’t impressed or mystified. She was sick to her stomach—knowing what went on behind one of Pyrallis Daray’s tricks was like watching sausage be made.
Lena felt shell-shocked; she wasn’t even sure she was breathing anymore. Griffin had known so much about her when she first came to Waldgrave, and no one had stopped to question why. She had trusted him so much because he had such a preternatural understanding of all her moods and nuances. She wasn’t even sure if she believed him now—he had been, and even was, obsessed enough with her to do it. He was very capable of putting Aaron in his coffin if he felt it was for Lena’s protection. It was why he had taken to carrying a gun. She threw her hands up in the air.
“And then you lied about your lies!” Lena shouted. “You tried to cover this up by making me believe they were just dreams!”
He certainly had a talent for making people trust him. It was a requirement for leadership, so Lena wasn’t surprised. Every time, just when she started to think that they really were making progress, that maybe they were finally standing on an equal footing, some lie or other flew in her face to remind her that he was the mastermind behind everything—he was ultimately in control the whole time. He was using her or manipulating her to an end, just as he had been taught to. And she was always stupid enough to go back to him, because his lying apologies were so believable; someday soon he was going to make a very effective replacement for Pyrallis Daray.
But she wasn’t going to go back to him again. He had hurt her too many times.
Behind her, Lena could hear Griffin get back in the car and slam the door unnecessarily hard. She hugged her knees up to her chest and tried to digest the fact that she had befriended the person who was responsible for her father’s death. He was responsible for everything. About ten minutes later, she heard Griffin get back out of the car.
“Get in the car, Lena.” He ordered.
“No.”
“Just…what?” He said through gritted teeth. “You’re just going to stay here, sitting in the middle of nowhere? So help me, I will leave without you.”
What a lame lie. They both knew he wouldn’t. “Then do it.”
“Okay…okay. What do you want me to do?”
Confused, Lena turned around. All she could see was his outline against the little interior lighting from the car. “What?”
This time, he yelled. “I said, what do you want me to do, damn it!”
Lena stared at him as the words echoed around them and then died. Griffin started walking towards her and Lena shot up to her feet to back away.
“I’ve done everything—I’ve been your friend, I’ve kept your secrets, I’ve helped you to do things that no one in their right mind would let you do, I’ve allowed you to make friends with whoever you would make friends with! I’ve been patient. I’ve given you space, and companionship, and told you everything you asked me to even though it was against my better judgment! I cried with you. I grieved with you because of Ava—and I’m still grieving with you. I’ve saved your life twice, and in the process I got broken ribs, a broken nose, a bruised kidney, a split lip, and shot! And I would do it all again!”
Lena tripped over something in the dark and fell backwards, landing in what felt like soggy grass. Griffin had stopped walking toward her. They were so far from the car now that she could barely make out his silhouette against the starry background as the damp ground started to soak through her jeans.
“My entire life has been consumed by you since I came to Waldgrave. All I ever wanted was the best for you—I knew the train was going to crash because he told me so. It was to bring you back here, where you belonged. He didn’t tell me it would kill Aaron. I’m sorry. You’re all I’ve thought about since the first time I saw you in Ireland, and nothing I’ve ever done has been good enough for you…So please, just tell me what I have to do to make you like me.”
The words rang into the silence. Once they were gone, the silence began to buzz in her ears as she stared into the darkness. If not for that buzzing, she probably would have been able to hear both of their heartbeats. Lena couldn’t tell if Griffin was still standing in front of her or not, but she hadn’t heard him move away. When she finally spoke, her voice was much more level and certain than she had thought it would be.
“I don’t think I could ever feel that way about you, Griffin.”
There was a long moment of silence; somewhere nearby, a cricket started chirping. Eventually Lena heard Griffin move off, and then he briefly reappeared by the car. He got in and shut the doors, plunging them both into darkness when the interior lighting went off. Lena crossed her legs and leaned forward, holding her face in her hands; just when things were starting to sort themselves out, something else had to come up. She wanted to hate Griffin for what he had done, but she didn’t. It was an insult to Aaron’s memory that she was so inclined to forgive what he had done.
Part of her felt guilty for not being more grateful to Griffin for doing everything he had done, because he was right—he had put up with a lot from her over the last few years. She was a prized possession and an asset to her grandfather, and Lena could only imagine what Griffin’s upbringing had been like. All his life, he had been fed on the idea that someday he was going to inherit her. But that had been then, and he knew her now. She couldn’t forgive him for what he had done; he was sorry she was hurt, but he wasn’t sorry about what he had done to her life. He was so arrogant and egocentric that it was impossible he would ever be able to understand.
But what was she supposed to do? She couldn’t get back in the car, and she couldn’t stay where she was. It was at least a day’s walk to the nearest phone, and she wasn’t sure how safe she felt about hitchhiking. She wasn’t going anywhere until the sun came back up anyway, so she stayed sitting on the grass. The cricket finally stopped chirping.
It could have been minutes or hours later, but the interior of the car finally illuminated when Griffin got back out. Lena watched as he started walking towards her; he had put his jacket on, and he had his hands thrust down in the pockets. He stopped about ten feet away from her.
“Please get back in the car.” He said, this time more subdued.
Lena still wasn’t sure what to do; she wasn’t going to forgive him, and she wasn’t going to dishonor her father’s memory by making it look like she had. She didn’t want to send him any messages that would undermine the seriousness of what he had done. She tried to keep her eyes averted from the dark, shadowy form standing before her.
He sighed. “You can hate me if you want to, but you have a responsibility to everyone else to finish what you started here.”
Griffin turned and left. He got back in the car, and left his door ajar so that the lights would stay on. After much consideration a
nd weighing of options, Lena finally got up and trod her way across the soaked field to the car. There was just a hint of sunlight creeping into the sky, and Griffin was staring at the steering wheel with the same empty, emotionless look that he usually took on when handling political situations. When he heard her door slam shut, he turned the ignition and got back on the highway.
*****
CHAPTER 14
It was several hours before either of them spoke again. Lena wasn’t sure if she felt it was necessary to clear the air before they moved on, or if she just wanted to put him through a little more agony for everything he had done to her.
“So, what happens after he dies?” She asked; her tone was flat. She felt like all of the emotion had been sapped from her.
Griffin took his eyes off the road and looked out his side window for a moment. When he returned his gaze, he was utterly impassive. “Life goes on.”
“No. I mean, do you really intend to keep living there?”
“You would prefer that I moved out.” Griffin remained expressionless, but Lena thought she detected a slight edge of defeat.
Even though he wasn’t looking at her, she stared hard at him. “I would.”
“Then I will. I’ll pack everything up and take it back to my parent’s estate.”
Lena went back to looking out her window, where the landscape was becoming decidedly plainer as they got further north into Oklahoma.
“I know you don’t really want me to leave.” He accused.
“Only because you’re a manipulative bastard.” Lena didn’t look back at him. “Now stop reading my thoughts.”
Griffin went silent. Fifteen minutes later, Lena decided she still wasn’t done with him.
“Did you kill my grandmother, too?” She asked, this time with malice.
Griffin didn’t answer immediately, which caught her off guard.