“Dear God, don’t say it, Branna.”
“And when I was huddled in that bathroom stall at lunchtime, like I had done every day since I started school here, waiting for it to be over so I could go home and find some peace, I heard a voice outside telling me to come out, and that was when I met Annabelle Smith. She and Georgie are the only people who have ever really been there for me since the death of my m-mother, and it is because of Annabelle, that I stand here before you today.”
“You wouldn’t have… I can’t believe you would—”
“You know nothing about me.” Her hand slashed the air again. “Nor of what I was capable of. After all, I had always believed you’d be there if I needed you, and that all changed, didn’t it?”
She walked away from him then and never looked back. It was done, over. He would leave Howling now, and she would once again attempt to pick up the pieces of her life.
“Branna, you want me to take you somewhere?” Buster appeared beside her as she reached the door, his face lined with worry.
“Thanks, but I just need a bit of time alone for now, Buster.” Branna wasn’t sure how she formed the words, when inside she was coming apart.
“I’m worried about you.” The words came out so fast it took her a few seconds to unravel them.
“I’ll be okay, Buster, really,” she added, before pushing open the door and walking out of The Hoot.
Once she was clear of the window, she ran to her van. Fumbling for the keys, she got them in the ignition. After backing out, she pushed her foot down on the gas pedal and shot out of town.
Chapter18
Jake was exhausted. Ethan had arranged an appointment to see the psychiatrist for that day, so he’d flown into Brook and gone straight to see the man. He’d had more emotions wrung out of him in that sixty-minute time slot than he’d experienced in years. Not quite years, Jake amended, thinking of the emotions Branna made him feel.
“How you doing, bud?”
Ethan folded himself into the chair opposite him. Picking up the beer Jake had brought him, he then took a long pull on it.
“I feel like someone’s punching bag without the physical pain.”
Ethan had lived in Brook for two years; it was the closest main town to Howling—two hours forty minutes by car, and twenty minutes by chopper. It had bars, cafes, shops, banks, businesses, and plenty of people.
Around them were the usual sounds of a night just starting: greetings, the clink of glasses, stories being recounted.
“It was always going to be tough, Jake. Besides me, no one else knows what you went through, and even I don’t know everything.” Ethan leaned back on the legs of his chair and let his eyes scan the room. Jake knew he was looking for women, because once he’d been the same way.
“Branna knows some of it.”
“Yeah?” Ethan whistled. “Must be love.”
“I guess it must.” Jake said the words, testing how they sounded in his head. Did he love her? Was it love when you couldn’t stop thinking about someone? He couldn’t stop worrying about her and recalled everything about her right down to the smell of her skin.
“I like her, if that helps.”
Jake lifted his bottle in acknowledgement. “I live my life to please you, Tex, you know that.”
Ethan laughed that deep rumble that made women go weak.
“Dr. Nigel wanted me to ask you if I said anything that day you pulled me out of that school, or what was left of it?” They’d never spoken of that day, so the surprise on his friend’s face was real.
“‘Blood, Eth, so much blood.’” The words were softly spoken, each one slow and precise.
“Anything else?”
“‘I couldn’t help them all.’”
Jake didn’t remember much about the day, but he saw by his friend’s expression that he did.
“It was like you were a zombie, Jake. You kept saying those words: 'Blood Eth, so much blood,’ and ‘I couldn’t help them all,’ over and over again, and all I could do was tell you it would be all right now.” Ethan took another long pull on his bottle. “I thought you were broken, that your mind had gone, and I wasn’t sure it’d come back. But after the long sleep and food, you were back, although then there was this blank look in your eyes, like you were just going through the motions of living.”
