I drained my glass, set it down slow. “I want to know what happened to her.”
“And if you find out?” Moab’s voice was sharp.
“I’ll put it to rest,” I said. “Or die trying.”
Scarlette refilled my glass. “What if she’s still there? Waiting?”
I didn’t answer right away.
“If she is, I’ll find her,” I said, voice like gravel.
The room settled into silence. Vin started to say something, but Canon stopped him with a look. Moab just stared at his hands.
Scarlette watched me, head tilted. “You ever think you’re supposed to fix something? That maybe this is a second chance?”
I snorted. “If it is, I’m not doing a great job.”
She laughed. “Maybe this time you bring her back.”
I thought about that. About the way her hands trembled when she touched my face, the way her voice broke when she swore at the sky. About the promise I made to her, just before the end. Yeah. Maybe this time I’d bring her back.
I raised my glass. “To Catherine,” I said.
The others hesitated, then joined in. Four voices, one name. It didn’t sound like much, but for a moment, it felt like prayer.When the bottle was gone, I stood and left the table. The others stayed behind, talking in low voices I didn’t care to hear. I walked outside, into the parking lot, and let the rain soak through my shirt. It felt clean. Honest.
Moab found me out front, sitting on the curb under the eaves, a cigarette going limp between my fingers. The rain had let up, but the sky was still bruised and sour, like it could crack open again at any second.
He kicked at the puddle near my boot. “You okay, man?”
I took a drag, let it smolder in my lungs. “Define okay.”
He snorted. “You want to talk, or you want to keep brooding out here like Batman?”
I flicked the cigarette, watched it hiss on the asphalt. “Not a big talker.”
“Coulda fooled me, the way you were spinning those ghost stories.” He sat beside me, legs splayed, shoulders hunched like he was gearing up to tell me a secret. “You believe it. All of it. Don’t you?”
I stared straight ahead. “She was real, Moab.”
He let it hang for a minute. “You think you’re cursed, or chosen?”
“I think I’m stuck,” I said, and it surprised me how much it hurt to say it. “Can’t move forward, can’t stay put. Just rerunning the same shitty highlight reel, every night, over and over.”
Moab nodded, then bumped his shoulder into mine. “What’s the plan?”
“Drink until I black out. Go to Dublin. Maybe get some answers.”
He grinned, mean and brotherly. “Atta boy.”
We didn’t say anything else. We just sat, letting the silence fill up with rain and engine noise and the occasional scream from the pool table inside.
Eventually, we went back in. The others were where we’d left them. Vin was poring over some ancient map on his phone, tracing routes with a trembling finger. Canon was back to arms crossed, jaw set, eyes narrowed at the world in general. Scarlette was alone at the table, two glasses in front of her. One full, one empty.
I sat down. Poured myself a shot. No one stopped me.
Vin was the first to break the ice. “You remember anything else? Any other details?”
I drank, wiped my mouth. “Yeah.”
