“And now, nowhe’sback and…” Her voice turns breathless, but I hear the panic, the way she tries to regulate her breath because she was talking abouthim. “So, no, Chase, I’m not okay. I’m…”
She doesn’t finish, and yet, I hate that I wish she had.
I hate that a small part of me wants her vulnerability.
I reach out and grab the back of her neck, run my thumb across the bone when the door at the deck slides open and pulls both of our attention.
Rusty steps out, a crinkling garbage bag in hand. He looks around at the same time I raise my chin and call out to him.
The old man jumps out of his skin.
“Fuck, son. I think I might have, possibly, just shit myself.”
Laiken chuckles beside me and I can’t help but smile at the sound, how light it sounds in comparison to the words she’d just voiced. I want to play that perfect trill on repeat, and record it for later.
If only.
Rusty counters Laiken’s laughter with his own. “Not really.” He smiles at her, then says with a jerk of his chin, “You kids all good?”
“You know that guy—” I ask, pausing to choose my words carefully when Laiken takes over, filling in the blanks.
“That blew his head off?” she finishes.
The muscles in my throat tense at the way she says it, as though it’s a statement so simple to voice. And perhaps it wouldbe that easy for me too if I didn’t have regular flashbacks of the barrel in my own mouth.
Rusty nods and rests a hand on a chair at the table.
“Do you know who he was?” I ask. “He was in lockup with me and he said some weird shit to both of us about being doomed and needing to pray.”
Rusty drops the bag to his feet and grabs the chair with his other hand, leaning over it with a sigh.
“Yeah, that’s Neil May.” He pauses and shakes his head. “His daughter, Tiffany Anne May was the first victim of Devil’s Peak’s second killer.” He pauses as if there’s more to say. “His wife…the last of the first.”
He doesn’t say Kevin Campbell’s name, he doesn’t have to.
A chill cuts down my spine so deep that I feel the skin pull back from the bone.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, sweet girl.” Rusty is looking at Laiken when he speaks, and she swallows roughly before turning away.
I push my arm against hers. It’s my way of letting her know that I’m here, that I’m not going anywhere.
Rusty continues to speak, though now he’s flicked his eyes on me.
“Losing his wife all those years ago, then his daughter, it fucked up his entire life.” He’s white knuckling the chair. “I tried to help the guy, but he told me he deserved nothin’ good because of what happened to them, because he couldn’t stop it, because he couldn’t protect them.” Rusty is shaking his head, his curls breaking loose and echoing the movement. “Fucking sad. One half of him died with his wife, the other, with his daughter.” He makes a point to drill his eyes into me when he says, “That’s why we have to keep pushing forward, not back. And why we have to remind ourselves of what the ones that are sitting above would want for us. Because if we can’t do life for ourselves…” His blueeyes are glimmering at the surface. “Then we have to do it forthem.”
He gives me a deliberate nod, and for some reason unknown to me, I nod back, as though I’m resigned to the path he’d unintentionally just paved for me.
I’m standing in the middle of a bright yellow room.
A double bed draped in charcoal gray sheets is pushed against the far wall, a scarred wooden desk stationed at the other, and my bag that Chase brought in earlier placed beside it.
Floor-length sheers sweep across the paint splattered timber floor, the wind dragging them away from the open window as I walk further into the room.
I notice Chase hasn’t followed me, and when I glance over my shoulder, I see him leaning against the door jamb, his arms crossed, with one ankle propped on the other. His muscles pulsing across his shoulders, straining against his T-shirt.
“This okay?” he asks at the same time I nod.
“Yeah, thanks,” I whisper, turning and stepping closer toward the bed.
