And another one of him standing, hands on hips, as Mom led the brown horse that felt like a mountain beneath her, Daddy shaking his head. “Not sure horses are her thing, Vanessa.”
“I’d rather ride Daddy’s back.” She’d slipped off, knowing he’d catch her before she hit the ground.
Those were all she could find, but she soaked the sweatshirt with tears, laughing and crying. It was more than she’d had in so long.
CHAPTER
28
It shouldn’t be there, but it was. He pressed his head again to the wrong side of the chest and heard the rhythm of a heart. He’d heard it when he grabbed the body, heard it beating where it wasn’t supposed to be. The knife had not stopped it, and now the rage was gone and there was only fear—deep, terrible fear.
What was he going to do? He held his head and rocked. Fear coursed through him. They’d find him and hurt him. Nursey had said so. He remembered the blows. If he was seen, if he was seen again …
How could this be happening? Why had they come? They should have left him alone, left his place alone. He looked across at the man who shouldn’t be there. Should not be there. This was his place, his place, his place. Why hadn’t he finished him?
The stranger stirred, pain pulling his face. His breath came out in a soft moan. Any minute he would wake up and it would be too late. He should finish it now, finish him now. He should; he had to.
He stared at the man he’d stabbed without thinking. He wanted to strike again, but the rage didn’t come. The rage didn’t come because the man she’d called Smith opened his eyes. He recoiled, but he didn’t scream and he didn’t look away.
Smith hurt. His hip, his shoulder, his head, most of all his chest where the knife had plunged. Muffled voices hollering had drawn him from his faint. He had heard his phone, or thought he had, though everything seemed surreal.
Someone had clamped a hand over his mouth, pressing his bruised head to a surface as hard as stone. That someone sat across from him now in a state of distress. Smith shifted just enough to ease the pressure in his chest. His wrists and ankles were tied, although he doubted he could put up much resistance regardless. Not seeing Tessa, he prayed she had gotten away.
The man who attacked them held his knees and rocked. “It’s not where it should be.”
“What’s not—” Smith winced.
“Your heart. Your heart! I heard it pumping there. I heard it. It should be here.”
He pressed a hand to his own chest. If he felt his heart there, more was wrong than the protruding mandible, sloping shoulders, and obvious scoliosis. His eyes and skin were pale, his hair sparse. Nature had not been kind. And yet he must be strong to have moved someone half again his size.
Smith fought for breath. “Who … are you?”
He stopped rocking but didn’t answer.
Smith drew a painful breath. His chest felt like sludge. His skin like cold luncheon loaf. Every time he spoke it felt like the knife jabbed him again, but he needed to create a bond. The guy might not be a natural killer, as there’d been opportunity to finish the job and he hadn’t. “I’m … Smith.”
“Donny.” The guy pressed his hands to his mouth, too late to catch the word that came out.
Smith nodded and closed his eyes. “Donny.” He ached. A weight settled in his limbs. By the tacky feel of his shirt, he’d lost a lot of blood, and he felt weaker than he could ever recall.
Donny lowered himself onto his haunches, smelling very much like the grave. This was the person who had invaded Tessa’s room. Had to be.
Smith slumped. Fatigue snuck in beside the pain, weighting his eyelids that descended against all resistance like the slow creep of glacial ice. If he gave in, would he be killed in his sleep—now that Donny had located his heart?
It was quiet, but were they gone, or did they only pretend so they could catch him, trick him, trap him. Like the fox trotting past the nest as though he didn’t see, but seeing and circling and coming back when no one expected.
The hollers had stopped when he’d silenced the ringing phone, and he hadn’t heard them again. Maybe they were gone. He got up and walked, circling while Smith watched. Around and around the cistern, walking, watching, walking, watching. He stopped sharply. “Stop staring. Why are you staring at me?”
“I want to know …” Smith’s face screwed up in pain. “What … now?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!” He’d been out of his head. Scared. So scared and angry. Angry, yes, but not to kill. Smith had scared him and he’d stabbed, stabbed before the tall man could catch him and hurt him. Now, what now?
“Let me … go.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Cannot let you go.” He wasn’t stupid. He knew.
“Help me.”
“No, no, no, no, no.” He would not be fooled. He knew what had to be done, but couldn’t, couldn’t do it. “I know what happens when bad things happen.”
Smith lowered his head to the floor.
Donny stared at him. They had found his place, and the rage had come, and not just the rage but the fear, the awful, awful fear, and he would have nowhere, and people would stare and scream and hurt him, and he’d be shut up, nowhere to run, nowhere to find things, to learn things, no night stars, no rain.
But he looked at the man lying there. Had he meant to hurt him? Maybe. Stop him? Yes. Stop her? He had to. But not hurt her. “Not her.” He clenched his hands. “I never meant to hurt her.”
“Tessa?” Smith rasped.
Tessa. Tessa. Donny moved the name through his mind. “Tessa.
Yes, Tessa. I didn’t want to hurt Tessa.”
Smith’s face twisted. “Did you?”
“No.” He pressed his hands to his face. “She hurt me. She sprayed my face.”
His eyes still burned. His nose ran. His throat felt like fire. But he understood. Skunks and weasels and other things stung or shot noxious fluids when they were attacked. He circled.
Smith’s voice got rough. “Let me … go.”
“I can’t.” Donny circled the other direction. “It’s done and it can’t be undone. No one can know, no one. No one but … no one but her.” The thought took hold. “Yes. Yes. If anyone is going to know, it’s her, Tessa. Tessa can know. Call her. Tell her to come. Tell her to come alone. Only alone.”
Smith rasped, “No.”
Donny blinked. “Tell her to come, or I’ll push you in the well.” He saw Smith’s fear of going into the water without hands free, without legs free to kick. Donny shuddered. He didn’t want to do it, but she had to come. All he wanted was her to come. “Tell her.”
Smith winced. “No.”
Donny circled the well, pacing the stone cistern that was his place, his hollow, his burrow. His home! Why had they tried to take it? “I want to talk to her. I want to make her see. She will understand. She won’t take it. She won’t take it away.”
“Take … what?”
“My place.”
Smith laid his head back and closed his eyes. His breath got thick and heavy. Playing possum? Donny crept over and shook him. Smith screamed in pain. His wound bled again. Donny pressed the phone into his hand. “Tell her.”
It had been almost two hours since Bair left. Tessa wanted to call, to know where they were, when they were coming, but she couldn’t remind them she was part of this. She hoped Bair hadn’t mentioned her at all, just told them Smith was missing and shouldn’t be. That something must have happened.
Snuggled into her father’s sweatshirt, sleeves rolled at the wrists, she paced the office. She had to do something. She was supposed to wait, but she couldn’t stand it much longer. She’d seen the knife in Smith’s chest, shaken his unresponsive body, but the thought that he could be out there, not dead but dying …
She was not waiting any longer. As she looked for a pen to leave Bair a note, her phone rang. Her breath caught as she flipped it open. “Smith!”
He rasped, “Come to the field.”
She neared the field and didn’t see Smith. If he had collapsed in the longer grasses, she might not see him until she was upon him. “Smith?” The Bobcat stood empty and still undrivable. She scanned the field as she crossed the fresh-cut labyrinth’s perimeter. “Smith!”
She shrieked as someone jumped from behind the Bobcat and grabbed her. The smell of him cloyed as his hand clamped her mouth and nose. She fought to free the arm he’d trapped against her side, to claw his hand from her face, to breathe. Her knees buckled, and she tried to use her fall to break his hold.
Her lungs burned, crying for air. She tried to bite, but he’d pressed her face to the ground, his hand like a surgeon’s mask, cutting off her air. She felt herself softening, her eyes darkening. The hoarse whisper on Smith’s phone must not have been Smith’s voice. Her mind grew fuzzy. She couldn’t … fight. …
She was beautiful and soft, and he didn’t want to hurt her. If she’d been a rabbit, he could have snapped her neck, but he didn’t want her dead, didn’t want her hurt. He wanted her there, wanted her to know, to hear, to see. She would understand, had to understand.
Any minute she would open her eyes. He hadn’t held on any longer than necessary to make her stop fighting. He didn’t want to tie her, but he’d had to. She was smaller, weaker than Smith, but he couldn’t let her fight, couldn’t let her run. She had to understand.
But what if she didn’t? He’d have to stop them, stop them both, but how could he? They’d seen. They would take it all. They shouldn’t be there but they were. He looked at her soft face, reddened where he’d gripped her, closing off her breath, but only until she stopped fighting. Could he stop it for good?
Moaning, he rocked on his haunches, knees beside his ears. He had watched her dream, wanting her to see him, but now she would open her eyes, she would look and she would scream. She would scream and maybe the rage would come and he would hurt her, hurt her before they hurt him. He didn’t want to—didn’t, but he had to. What else could he do?
CHAPTER
29
Smith? She opened her eyes to his face, all gray hues and haggard hollows. Her chest seized. She couldn’t touch him, couldn’t feel if his flesh was warm or chilled, because her hands were bound behind her. Inching closer, she heard his labored breathing. Smith!
She searched the dim space and located the light source, a camp-style lantern turned very low, barely illuminating a circular pit lined with stacks of … books? Borrowed from the private library, and other places, no doubt, books and gadgets were packed and piled like a strange nest.
She didn’t see the monster, but she smelled him. The whole place reeked of him—or he of it—damp and musky. She turned and he was there, sitting like a gargoyle, watching her.
She swallowed the lump of fear in her throat and pushed up to sit, inwardly recoiling at his protruding jaw crowded with teeth, his pale eyes staring, but not with malevolence, with dread. He was not a monster. He was a young man, malformed, angry and pathetic, but real. Looking at him, she was less afraid than angry herself. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
“Not me. You did it.” He jammed a finger at Smith. “He did it. And the other one.”
“We’ve done nothing to you.”
“You tried to take it.”
Smith stirred but didn’t wake up. She pressed back against him, just to feel him there, living and breathing. “Take what?”
“My place. You dug it up and it’s not yours. It’s mine.”
Dug it up? The labyrinth. She looked up and saw the underside of the disk. She was beneath the labyrinth. “It isn’t ours or yours. The property belongs to someone named Rumer Gaston. We’re only building his house and gardens.”
“No! You can’t. It’s mine.” His face twisted. “Mine.”
She didn’t want to pity the beast who’d stabbed Smith and suffocated her. But he seemed terrified. What if he had no one and nowhere else to be? She looked around. Smith had said the meadow sat on a stone shelf. How had they missed this? “What is this?”
“A natural cistern. The well used to fill it with water, but now it doesn’t come up by itself.”
She turned. “Is that the well?”
“Are you thirsty?” He got up more swiftly than she would have guessed he could, given the curvature of his spine and gangly limbs.
She nodded, more to keep the connection with him than from any real thirst. He went to the hole, drew water, and poured it into a cup. He brought it to her mouth. She sipped. If it were contaminated, then he’d be sick, wouldn’t he? “Thank you.”
“It’s a pure artesian spring. Like the water in bottles.”
It startled her that he knew about bottled water.
“How do you know that?”
“I know lots of things. I read lots of books.” He raised the cup and drank from it. “Mmm.” He moved his tongue over his jumbled and protruding teeth. “My water, my books. My place.”
“How did you get here?”
“Nursey brought me.”
“When? How long have you been here?”
“Nine years.” He acted as though that were no big thing.
Hard to tell his age with the deformities, but he couldn’t have been more than a boy. “How old were you?”
“Eleven.”
“She took care of you?”
“She brought me things. Food and books. Then she didn’t come anymore. I get my own things.”
“How?”
“I find them.”
Tessa shook her head. “Why are you living here, in a well, in the dark?”
“It’s a cistern. I like it dark.” He squinted.
“Light hurts your eyes?”
He glowered. “You hurt my eyes.”
“You hurt Smith.” She raised her chin. “And me.”
His breath came rapidly. “Why didn’t you scream? When you woke up and saw me, why didn’t you scream?” He circled the well. “Why don’t you shudder? Why don’t you scream when you look at me?” He stopped in front of her.
She met his eyes. “I’ve lived with monsters. I would know if you were one.”
He grabbed himself in his arms and circled. “You shouldn’t have come. You don’t belong here.”
“You have to let us go. Smith needs help.” She half turned to look at him lying there. “Listen to how he’s breathing. He needs a hospital.”
“His heart’s on the wrong side.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Feel it. Feel it.”
“My hands are tied.”
He stopped and stared at her. “If I untie them, you’ll hurt me. Spray me.”
“I don’t have any more pepper spray. Check my pockets if you don’t believe me.”
“You’ll get away.”
“I’m not leaving Smith.”
He circled again like a lion in a cage, pacing, pacing, as in its mind it ran the savannah plains. “If you try anything, I’ll drown you in the well.”
“I won’t.” She had to help Smith, but she didn’t want to wound the pathetic person before her. When he’d attacked, she had fought back with everything she had. Now she’d glimpsed his reality. She bent forward so he could reach her hands.
He cut her free with the bloody knife he’d plunged into Smith’s chest. “Feel it. Feel his heart.”
She put her hand to Smith’s chest, her breath catching on a sob as she felt its beat.
“Why did you touch him there?”
She frowned. “That’s where the heart is.” She stiffened as he squatted before her, his chest heaving with choppy breaths.
“Feel it. Feel mine.”
She extended her hand, but he grabbed her wrist a
nd moved it to the other side.
“There. That’s where the heart is.”
She felt the rapid pump on the right side of his sternum and realization sank in like Donny’s blade. “You meant to kill Smith.”
He jerked back. “I didn’t want to. I … I had to stop him. I needed you to understand and he got in the way. He got there before I … I didn’t want to.”
“But you would have. If you hadn’t been wrong about hearts.” Her sympathy vanished.
He gripped himself, shuddering. “He would have seen. He would have taken it. You won’t take it away from me.”
“It’s not my decision.”
Once again fear filled his face, fear and confusion. Once again her anger faded. Did he even know the trouble he was in?
“What’s your name?” She held his pale amber eyes, their thick, lashless lids blinking slowly.
“Donny.”
“Donny, I have a friend who can help. He works with people who haven’t been treated well. He’ll help us know what to do.”
He shook his head. “They’ll put me in a cage. She told me. She told me what happens when bad things happen.”
“You mean when people do bad things?” At the least she’d make him own his actions.
“Yes. Yes, but I didn’t want to. I wanted you, and he … he should not have been there.” He gripped his frizzled hair. “No, no, no.”
“We won’t press charges.” In case he didn’t know what that meant, she said, “We won’t let them put you in a cage. Dr. Brenner can help. He’ll take responsibility.” She believed that, but truthfully she’d say anything to get Smith medical care. Immediately.
She turned and felt the pulse in Smith’s neck. “He needs a hospital, Donny. If he dies, I can’t help you.”
The Edge of Recall Page 23