Like I was his wife.
I want to ask him why, but the words die in my throat.I doubt he’ll give me a straight answer.And even if he does, the answer will probably be a bitterly disappointing one.Lee almost refused to marry us in the first place.Maybe Curse imagined that if we didn’t kiss, the whole thing would fall apart.That we’d be revealed as a sham couple, and Lee would refuse to sign the license and register the marriage after all.
I’m glad that’s not how things transpired.I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if we’d made it through the whole ceremony, only for Lee to have second thoughts right at the end.Curse tosses his bag into the backseat, and it lands heavily with the metal of his weapons.
“Now what?”I ask as Curse starts the engine and peels away from the curb.
“Now, we keep moving,” he says.“We’ll continue north.Elio owns a property not far from here, in Springwater, but I’d rather not stop that soon.Leo and Robbie will return to Toronto to help Elio and the others in the search for Messina.”
Leo and Robbie’s vehicle is already moving, pulling out from its spot and disappearing.Across the street, Lee comes through the doors again, propping one of them open.The cold people who’ve been waiting, mostly men, head inside.I hope that the cash Curse left behind can go towards some more food for their breakfast drives.It momentarily makes me feel a little lighter to think that at least one good thing could come out of this situation.
The sun isn’t quite rising yet, but the air above has taken on a slightly grey tinge.Like the sky is a black item of clothing that’s gone through the laundry one too many times, fading out the dye.Curse drives us forward, away from the church with its red brick and its round window and its hungry people.Rain splatters onto the windshield, slowly at first, then faster, pummelling the glass.It’s so cold out that I’m surprised it’s raining.Shouldn’t it be snow?
Curse takes us through downtown.When another large building of orange-red brick catches my eye, I give a small gasp, my fingers tapping on the glass of the window, as if I can somehow touch it.
“What is it?”Curse asks, his words bound by a thread of dark urgency.
“Oh.Nothing really,” I say quickly.“I just saw the library.”
Curse says nothing in reply.The library slips past us, vanishing along with the rest of the life I once knew.
After I stopped trawling for empty, abandoned buildings at the age of sixteen, I replaced that hobby with libraries.I started spending time in places filled with words, with other people’s stories, instead of places with all of the memories rotted and ripped out.Maybe one day I’ll get back there.Back to a sort of life where I can spend time in libraries again.Not as a job, perhaps, like I’d done in Buffalo, but at least as a patron.And if Aurora Bianchi can’t do it, maybe Angela LeBlanc can.
Aurora can never be a normal person.Not really.But Angela can.
Or at least, she can pretend.
But I imagine it now, imagine being in some sunlit library somewhere, running my fingers over the books, breathing in the papery scent.
And it feels like I’m in a building as empty as that Montreal warehouse.
Because he isn’t with me.
I don’t know how the hell to let go of him.Even now.
Curse seems to become more and more tense as we drive, which is strange, considering the wedding part is finished now, and we haven’t had any sightings of Alessandro following us.But when he nearly slides through a red light, I realize why.
“Is it freezing rain?”I ask, clutching my seat as the car lurches to an unsteady stop.
“Yes,” he replies.“Probably the storm the minister mentioned.”
“An ice storm?”
Curse gives a tight nod.
“We’re going to have to stop at the house in Springwater after all,” he says.“Roads are turning to shit already.”He doesn’t seem happy with this turn of events.But then again, is he ever?I haven’t seen him truly smile since he was eight years old.Eight years old, tucking a stolen flower into my hair, and calling it an angel’s wing.
Dawn unfolds as we drive, but there’s no colour in it.It’s hard to even tell it’s happening at all.Everything, everywhere, is the churn of grey and the relentless spew of the icy water.Curse moves impossibly slowly, and when I glance at his profile, I find the muscles of his face pulled tight with focus.
With the rain as distorting as plastic curtains around the car, I almost don’t notice when we’ve left the city limits.It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it situation.One moment, we’re crawling through a residential subdivision packed with sleepy, single-family homes.The next, we’re in a sprawling rural landscape, the city street now a country highway.
Winding through farmland and forest, we spend another fifteen minutes or so in the car before arriving at a huge, grey house with a black roof and doors.Unlike the house we stayed at in Toronto, this one doesn’t have a big gate to get through.It feels a bit too open, protectionless.Until I remember just how dangerous the monster inside the house with me is.Until I remember the way he slit Marco’s throat without blinking.Until I remember that the only way that Alessandro was able to get past Curse on the train was by completely disabling him with drugs.I don’t see how he’d be able to incapacitate Curse now, or how he’d get into the house, lack of gate or not.I don’t even know where Alessandro has ended up at this point.If he knows Elio and the others are looking for him – which he must by now – there’s even a chance he’s gone back to New York to lay low for a bit.
But will he stay away for the full thirty days?
Somehow, I doubt it.
The feeling of something weighty and warm falling into my lap draws me out of my thoughts and back into the present moment.Curse has dropped his leather jacket onto my legs.
