“No! No!” she shouted. “I trusted you!”
Nora could almost hear her father’s voice coming out of the parrot’s mouth. She dropped the receiver and stepped back, heart lodged somewhere in her esophagus as she listened to the sounds of her dad dying.
“Please! Don’t do this! Please! Charles!”
With one final, eardrum-shattering scream, Jessica plummeted from the top of the pay phone, diving straight towards the concrete. She caught herself just before colliding with the ground, swooping back into the air and landing on the shoulder of the man whose name she’d just called out.
28
Case # 73588
Charles Ezra Bird
Age: 26
Cause of Death: Struck by Vehicle / Choking / Car Accident / Murder
Over the years Nora had sorted hundreds of case files, each filled with fear and curiosity and banal paperwork. Each etched on Nora’s memory like a scar, a reminder of what not to do so she wouldn’t end up in the next file. But Charlie’s file was different. Charlie’s file held only one thing: a promise that Nora couldn’t hide from Death anymore. No, she would have to face it. And for the sake of her brother, she would have to win.
* * *
Nora followed Jessica’s macabre dance in a daze, her focus finally, dizzily, landing on Charles just as Jessica did. Charlie had also spun to face their uncle, his face crumpled in the same shock and heartbreak that ran like a blade through Nora.
“You?” was all she could muster.
Charles shoved his hands sheepishly into his coat pockets. Nora thought she saw him blush, as if he were a teenager who’d just been caught shoplifting instead of a man who’d murdered his own brother.
“He didn’t give me a choice,” Charles said, almost meekly. “I tried to reason with him, but you know your father.”
“No,” said Charlie, more severely than Nora had ever heard him. “We don’t. We never got the chance.”
“He was stubborn,” Charles continued. “When old Mars Bar got an idea in his head, he wouldn’t let it go. He couldn’t. He was like a man possessed.”
“You tried to talk him out of going to S.C.Y.T.H.E.,” said Nora. Her mouth felt as though it were filled with cotton. Her hands tingled. Beyond that, though, she wasn’t entirely sure she was still in her body at all now.
“He wouldn’t listen,” Charles sniffed, as if he was about to cry. As if he had any right to be the one about to cry. “I swear I tried. I took them out to a nice dinner, him and Hannah, best restaurant I could afford. I was on one of my supply runs, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to talk things out, brother to brother. Letters can only do so much. But he said Virgo Bay wasn’t right. It shouldn’t exist. He had no choice. No choice, can you believe that? I told him if he did it, if he turned us in, it would cost us everything. Grandpa Oliver would die of old age. Mom would die of that long-ago heart attack, or worse once the authorities got a hold of her. And eventually, the rest of us would die too. But did he listen? No. Of course not. He scoffed at me. Said people die. That they had to die. Well, he was right about that.”
Nora found herself leaning heavily against the pay phone for support, her limbs weak, her neck suddenly a dry noodle under the weight of her spinning head.
“You understand, of course,” Charles continued, his attention squarely on his niece. “I know you do. We’re the same, you and I. I’ve seen it in you for as long as you’ve been here. You understand things the way I do, the way Grandpa did before he went mad. Charlie, now, he’s like your father. Stubborn. A wild card. I knew as soon as I was found out, as soon as Silver gave me away, I couldn’t possibly trust him to understand the sacrifices it takes to keep death at bay. No, I couldn’t risk him ruining everything. But you—you’re just like me. You know what it’s like. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do to keep yourself safe. It’s unfortunate, but the best things in life will always come with a cost. And eternal life? Nora, that’s priceless. I know you feel it too.”
Nora could feel herself losing her grip on the pay phone and slipping slowly towards the pavement. She wanted to argue, but her tongue wouldn’t let her. It knew it would only make her a liar. Because at the end of the day, he was right. She’d wanted what he had. From the moment she’d found out about the Blind Spot, she couldn’t shake that want. It only seemed to grow.
“Your father never understood. It’s why he left. And Patty…when she found out what had happened, she changed. Started spending more time with Oliver and buying into his ravings. She’s the one who tried to bring the town down this time. Waited for me to leave on my supply run and brought Silver to Charlie behind my back. That bird knows all my secrets, and Patty figured it was only a matter of time before she revealed them. She was always too cowardly to do it herself. She even keeps GrandpaOliver in the dark. And yet, that coward still betrayed me. Well, you of all people must know how hard it is to count on your own siblings. But, Nora”—Charles’s frustration turned to something soft and tantalizing—“this life, this safety we have here, it can be yours too. Forever. It’s easy, really. All you have to do is leave the past in the past. The past is an easy place to get lost in, remember? Why not think about your future instead.”
Nora’s eyes flicked over to her brother.
“What about Charlie?”
“What about him?”
“You tried to kill him.”
Charles shook his head. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, Nora, I never did. I just needed to protect myself, my life.”
“So you’ll let Charlie live?”
“If he’ll leave well enough alone, I see no reason why we can’t all be one big happy family.”
