by Scott Tracey
“Time for you to leave, Jade.” Jason’s voice echoed from the hallway. Even though I couldn’t see, I knew he was in the doorway watching the two of us. Whatever his real feelings about Catherine, Jason tolerated her daughter’s visits. I think it bothered him that she was the only other person who visited me regularly, but he never said anything.
Jade’s voice was slow in coming. “Okay,” she said, in a subdued tone she’d never taken with anyone else before. Jason had that effect on people. I could feel her get close again, as her arms wrapped around me. “Be careful,” she whispered in my ear.
Once she was gone, Jason settled himself against the edge of the bed. I heard the shift of the paper-thin sheets as Jason tried finding some sort of comfortable balance. “It’s about time for you to come home. Are you ready?”
I curled up in the chair, straining my body toward the light I could feel, but not see. “I don’t know. It’s been awhile since I had one.”
“You’re stuck with me, Braden. Maybe it’s not ideal, but there’s still a lot we don’t know about each other. I can help you.” Jason again tried the concerned parent routine, which seemed to be just another mask that was slipped on as the day went on. Sometimes, I caught a glimmer of the man underneath. That was the thing. I was never really sure who he was.
Stuck. Trapped. I had the school; I could go to the football games. I could fail Algebra just like everyone else. I just couldn’t be friends with my friends.
“When do the bandages come off?” I turned away from the window. Sunlight wasn’t something I wanted to see now anyway.
“We’ll take them off before we leave. I’ve got your glasses right here.” Jason wasn’t taking any chances.
“Then let’s go.”
¤ ¤ ¤
The sun was just starting to set when I started swinging. Two days in Jason’s home, and everything was still so surreal. It was like a museum. Even the furniture looked like antiques. I was supposed to be on “strict bed rest.” Jason thought it was for the best. “This way, things can settle down,” he said.
The fact that his almost-blind son had managed to sneak out of the house and slip away to the park was probably going to royally piss him off later. But I had to get away. More importantly, I had to see him.
While I still could.
Trey crossed the park slowly, dressed in thick layers. During my week in the hospital, I’d missed the day when fall really hit the town, and leaves started falling everywhere. Now, there was a solid crunch-crunch as Trey made his way across the leaf-covered grass.
“You showed up.” Somehow, I managed to conceal just how scared I felt at seeing him again.
“Hi.” Short and sweet. Trey sounded and looked tired. There were thick, dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was scattered and limp.
I wanted to say any number of things. Anything. I wanted to see him smile, to roll his eyes and admit that maybe I could take care of myself after all. “Did you tell her?”
That had been my argument for seeing him. To find out how much Catherine knew about me. If Trey had told her my secrets.
Trey’s jaw flexed, but he shook his head. “I should have, but I can’t.”
“Jason thinks Lucien might have told her after all.” I was giving him an out, a way to tell his mother and know that Jason would never find out about it.
“What about him? Does he know about you and me?”
Jason refused to discuss the feud with me. It had taken days to convince him of the truth of what Lucien had been up to. Even now, I don’t think he believed me. I was asking him to believe my story—that Lucien had been playing both sides against each other.
A demon wouldn’t have died, but Lucien wasn’t a demon anymore. When Grace had ripped the power out of him, he must have been left as something close to human. All humans die eventually.
“I told him. He thinks it was a bold, strategic move,” I said, emphasizing his exact words. “I think he’s not very comfortable talking about it, because of the gay thing. He wasn’t expecting that.”
“How long have you known?” Trey looked up at me, and I saw the hurt I’d put there. He’d wondered the same thing, thinking I was using him. We didn’t have to talk about it to know it was true. Suspicion was one of the building blocks of our relationship.
“That he was my father?”
Trey nodded.
Lying didn’t even cross my mind. “The day you picked me up, when it was raining.”
He grunted. I’d known the truth almost as long as I’d known Trey. Had it really only been a couple of weeks?
“Lucien?”
I closed my eyes. “Jason covered it up. No one knows what really happened that night. They’re saying Lucien booked a flight out of Seattle a few days ago.”
Jason wouldn’t tell me how he’d cleaned up the mess. The body, the damage to Lucien’s office, any of it. Lucien had vanished. One of the nurses claimed he’d taken a better-paying job in Massachusetts somewhere.
“I miss you,” I whispered.
I thought he might walk away then. But instead, Trey held out his hand. He looked so scared, like a little boy instead of the man I knew.
I threw myself off the swing and into his arms. Arms that wrapped around me, so tight I could barely breathe.
“She’ll tell you to kill me someday, won’t she?” My words were muffled against his jacket, but I had to know.
I felt him nodding, his cheek rubbing against my hair. “She’ll expect me to try.”
“What do we do?”
Trey disentangled himself from me and turned away. He cleared his throat as his hand moved to his face. “Just be careful, Braden. Everything’s different now.”
I watched him go, my eyes welling even before Trey was out of sight. All the times I’d tried not to cry, and now all I could muster up was a few tears.
I got back on the swing, rocking back and forth for over an hour as I tried to process everything. Everything that had happened, and where I ended up. I’d tried to find a normal life, and everything crumbled down around me.
When I finally looked back up, I saw that the sun was about to set. Jason was parked on the street in front of me. Of course he knew where I was. He didn’t get out, and I didn’t make him wait.
“You said everything you needed to?” Jason asked, turning up the heater as I shivered. He didn’t even mention that I’d snuck out.
“More or less.”
Jason pulled off into the street, driving us back toward his house. “It gets easier. Just remember, you’re safe. You don’t have to hide anything. I’ll take care of you.”
All the right words, just the wrong person. But Jason was trying. I knew that, and knew I had to give a little, too. “I know.”
At the light, he turned to me. “You can’t see him anymore. You know that, right?”
I thought about that on the rest of the drive. Looking out the window, I saw Belle Dam laid out around me, a town still full of secrets I’d barely glimpsed. It was like a game. And the only thing left to do was to make it my own.
“It’s like Trey said. Everything’s different now.”
THE END
About the Author
Scott Tracey aspired to be a writer from a young age. Today, he is a member of The Elevensies, with his debut novel Witch Eyes, and is an active blogger and vlogger alongside fellow YA authors at TheBookanistas.com and YouTube.com/YARebels. Tracey lives near Cleveland, Ohio, and can be found online at his home site, www.Scott-Tracey.com.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, there wouldn’t be a book without Colleen Lindsay. Gratitude doesn’t begin to cover it. And many thanks to Leah Clifford, the first person to read, the first to tear the book to shreds, and the first to declare her love for it. I will never f
orgive you for the tiny pine trees, but at least this is an easier way of making an impact.
Thanks to the good friends who’ve been there for me along the way: Tiffany Schmidt, Gretchen McNeil, Karsten Knight, Lisa and Laura Roecker, Courtney Summers. You’re always there when I need something—thank you. To Jessica and Lee Verday, the best cheerleaders ever when I suffered from Panic Face. Patrick MacDonald and everyone at Querytracker, who helped me refine the query that landed me an agent.
My editor Brian Farrey, for resonating with Braden’s story from the minute he read it. And thanks to Steven Pomije, Marissa Pederson, Ed Day and everyone else at Flux who has been so supportive since day one. To Ginger Clark, thank you; you make my life easier on a daily basis.
My appreciation to all the friends who never understood the writing process, but were supportive anyway: Jacinda Espinosa, Daniel and Ryan (the brothers Burnett), Erin Saar-Hanes; to my friends from Team Sparkle and the YA Rebels, thank you so much. The English teachers who always chided me for reading in class: Mary Primm, Elaine Hurst, and Kathy Knox; all of you encouraged me to write and taught me how to do it well.
Last, but definitely not least, to my family, who believed in me when I said, “I’m going to write a novel,” and supported me when I could not support myself.