“Leith?”
I turn to my father. He looks up at me and tips his head to the side curiously. “What are your plans with the girl?”
I’m angry at myself for botching up the evening, for bringing home someone that will prove problematic in the long run. “Make fucking sure she doesn’t snitch on us.”
Whatever it takes.
He holds my gaze for a moment before he looks back at the fire.
“A good plan. Assuming you’ll stay here for the night.”
“Aye.”
“Good night, son.”
As I leave the room, I can hear him talking in low tones to my mother. Both of them are speaking Gaelic, and though all of their children speak it as well, it’s the language of the northernhighlands, old-fashioned and cumbersome. I haven’t spoken it in ages, and I wonder why they choose it now.
I leave the room and head to the hallway. I check the front door. Though the main locks have been tended to, no one’s drawn the deadbolt. I slide it into place, satisfied my family’s locked in safely for the night. I turn and listen, for any sound at all. I’m not even sure what I’m listening for.
A clock chimes in the kitchen. It’s one in the morning. A witching hour in some cultures.
I walk upstairs to my room, but before I go down the hall I pause and go up the second flight of stairs to the third floor.
I don’t go down to her room, though. I stand on the landing and listen.
Is she afraid? Is she cold?
Do I care?
I go back downstairs and march to my old room, the one I had as a wee lad growing up with my brothers. I bang the door open harder than I need to. I look around at the room I haven’t inhabited in a while. It’s spacious and rustic and impeccably clean. This home was built as a hunting lodge initially until my father bought it three decades ago, and had it built up and extended to accommodate the growing needs of our Clan.
I don’t go to bed, not at first. I find a bottle of whisky I keep in the cupboard and pour myself a second drink, then a third. I light a fire, then pace back and forth in front of the flames before I finally feel the effects of the alcohol. The events of the evening play like scenes from a movie.
The dark graveyard. Father MacGowen’s pleas, the worried look on his face. The man who tried to kill the woman tonight. The way his neck snapped in my hands, the sudden knowledge I’d decidedly taken a human life. It’s not a first for me, and I don’t regret it, but it’s a sort of numbing tragedy every time it happens, like a part of my soul is stripped away each time.
Then the woman… God, the way she looked at me when I defended her life. Her small hand in mine when I took her to the car, the way she looked at me with the utmost trust.
She shouldn’t trust me. My God, what is wrong with her that she’d trust the man who’d murdered right in front of her?
The way her eyes looked straight into mine as if she was reading my very soul before I threatened to punish her. The way she looked small and uncertain when I laid her in the bed.
Who is she?
There’s something about her that sets her apart from other people, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.
I strip out of my clothes and toss them into the hamper, then quickly get ready for bed.
Will she speak when I ask her tomorrow? Or will I have to punish her?
And why does the thought of punishing her not sound like a terrible thing at all?
I punch down the pillow and slam my head on it, as if I can suddenly will myself to sleep. Doesn’t work, of course. Naturally.
I close my eyes, but every time I do, I can see her looking at me, those wide, almost innocent eyes meeting mine in some sort of unencumbered honesty.
They aren’t quite innocent, though, are they? Something tells me she’s seen more than an innocent would, long before tonight.
I reach for my phone and type a few things in. Did anyone hear anything at the graveyard? Any tweets or posts or mentions online about the events of this evening? But I find nothing at all.
