Betrayals (Cainsville Book 4) (40 page)

“This was a crazy idea,” a young man said, in a tone that suggested by “crazy” he meant “good.” Slang from a more modern era.

He continued, “It’ll be a kick. I’m glad you suggested it.”

“I’ve always wanted to try hunting,” another young man replied. “You seemed the right person to teach me.”

“I am indeed,” said the first voice, the accompanying laugh a little boastful, a little arrogant.

I was in the forest, the voices floating over me. When I made my way toward them, I caught a glimpse of my own sneakers and the legs of my jeans. Back to myself, then, but still caught in some vision. I continued toward the voices.

“I really am glad you asked,” the first said again. “I know you and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but you’re Alice’s friend. I get that.”

A noise from the second young man, a grunt that could be agreement, and the first continued, “I mean it. You two have been pals since you were in diapers, and I’ve told her that’s fine with me.”

I finally reached them and peered through the trees to see that they were more boys than men. Maybe sixteen, seventeen. Dressed in hunting jackets and ankle-rolled jeans that put me in mind of the fifties. The boy in the lead was handsome—blond and burly in that captain-of-the-football-team way. The one behind was smaller, dark-haired, with a quiet intensity about him, and I knew, without another clue, who I was looking at. Another Arawn and another Gwynn.

I knew that, and yet …

These felt like relatives of Arawn and Gwynn, but distant. Very distant. I did not see Arawn and Gwynn in these two the
way I saw them in Ricky and Gabriel. Another iteration, but a poor one, the connection weak.

“Did you hear me, Peter?” the blond boy—Arawn—said, glancing over his shoulder

The reply was a quiet, “Yes, I did.”

“I said it’s fine with me. You being pals with my girlfriend.”

The blond boy clearly expected gratitude for his largesse, but Peter only nodded.

The blond boy’s eyes narrowed. “I could tell her to stop seeing you. She’d have to. She’s
my
girlfriend.”

“I’d like to see you try, Carl,” Peter said, his voice low.

Carl’s face screwed up. “What’s that?”

“I said that I’m glad you let her be my friend.”

Carl turned back around, leading the way through the forest. “You’re welcome. But I would like you to back off a little. Hanging out at school is fine, because I don’t go to hers, but no more of this going for sodas in the evening and picnics on the weekend. That’s for
boyfriends.”
He glanced back. “Get it?”

Peter’s voice cooled. “I have never made a move—”

“Course not, because you know you wouldn’t get to first base. She’s got me now. You don’t stand a chance.”

“Then you shouldn’t be concerned.” Peter’s voice had gone ice-cold.

“I’m not.” Carl resumed walking. “I’m just saying it looks bad, and other guys talk. I don’t want that. You can be her school chum. That’s it. You don’t like that?” Carl waggled his rifle, his back still to Peter. “Remember what a good shot I am.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Only if it needs to be, Petey,” Carl said with a smirk in his voice. “But you know your place. And it’s not with Alice.” He glanced back. “Not
ever
with Alice. Remember that. As long as I’m around, she’s mine. I’ll never let her go.”

“Yes, I know,” Peter said.

“Good lad.”

They continued walking. I could feel Peter seething as he watched Carl’s back. They went another ten paces. Then Peter said, “Is that a deer?”

Carl stopped and surveyed the forest. “Where?”

“Up there, to the left.”

Carl waved for Peter to stay where he was and crept forward, his footfalls silent. When he’d gone about five steps, Peter lifted his rifle and aimed it square at Carl’s back.

“No!” I said, stumbling forward through the forest.

Peter pulled the trigger. The shot hit Carl between the shoulder blades and he flew face-first into the dirt. I heard a voice shout, “No!” but it wasn’t mine, it was another, a familiar, deep voice, and I tumbled through into the garden, hitting the concrete of the patio, my cheek against the cool stone, hearing Gabriel shout, “No!”

G
abriel
whiplashed back to the present. He could feel the cold patio beneath his hands. He could smell burning leaves in the air. He could hear Olivia saying his name. All that told him he was back, and yet his mind stayed trapped in the forest, the shot looping over and over.

Standing there, watching a boy he knew was supposed to be Gwynn—supposed to be
him
—shoot Arawn in the back. It sent him tumbling into memory, of being in the abandoned psychiatric hospital, when Ricky had been knocked out in the belfry. He’d been hanging there, wounded, as the voice in Gabriel’s head whispered.

Look at him. He’s barely hanging on. He’s bleeding badly. It’s a four-story drop. The fall would likely kill him, and if it didn’t, he’d bleed out before help came. All you need to do is stay right where you are. Or better yet, walk away. No one knows you were up here.

Gabriel knew now it had been Tristan, trying to convince him to abandon Ricky.
Let him fall. Let him die.
But Gabriel could never shake that first impression. In his memory the voice was Gwynn. And Gwynn was him.

And
what was worse, there had been—for one second that seemed in his memory to stretch to an eternity—a moment where he’d considered it.

Ricky gone. Olivia yours.

That guilt—that incredible guilt—was like nothing he’d felt before. There had been a moment where he’d thought of Ricky dead and been glad of it. Now he’d seen it happen to another Gwynn, another Arawn. A Gwynn without his Matilda, unable to bear seeing her with
him
, convinced that if
he
was gone, the path would be clear. Opening that path with cold-blooded murder.

Gabriel dimly heard Olivia saying his name, felt her shaking him. But it was as if she called from another dimension, one he could not reach because he was trapped in that forest, seeing the boy shoot over and over, and thinking,

That could be me.

Yet there was also the beginning, when he’d first fallen into Olivia’s vision, when he’d
been
Gwynn. Running to her after she fell, his heart pounding, the relief when he saw she was all right. In that moment, there was no barrier between Gabriel and Gwynn. It’d been him running to Olivia, because that was who he saw, who he heard, in Matilda’s voice and her words and her smiles and her gestures. Olivia as Matilda, as much as he was Gwynn, feeling exactly as he felt when Olivia was hurt.

At that moment, he’d understood what Olivia meant. What she’d wanted to show him. That the figure he held in his head—the arrogant, thoughtless, obsessive bastard—was not the whole of Gwynn. Not even, perhaps, a significant part of Gwynn. Instead, he’d been a boy, deeply in love, unable even to think of the pact he’d made with Arawn, because if there was even a flicker of hope that Matilda might reciprocate his feelings, then he could no more remember his vow than he could remember to breathe when
she turned that smile on him. Foolish, yes. Dangerous, certainly. But that was the power of hindsight.
Being
Gwynn,
feeling
what he felt, it was forgivable.

He’d cleaned the blood from her lip, and he’d run through the storm carrying her, and he’d huddled in that cave with her, and she’d teased him and they’d laughed, and it felt like some forgotten memory. Like something he’d shared with Olivia, but had slipped his mind, and now he had it back and he wouldn’t push it away again. He’d put it back where it belonged, on a shelf in his memory, bright and shining, ready to be picked up whenever he wanted it. And he would thank Olivia for it. Thank her and apologize, because she was right.
This
was what he needed. An understanding that there was so much more to Gwynn than he’d realized.

And then came the other memory, of the other Gwynn, the boy in the forest. It took that pleasant memory and shattered it like glass against stone.

Forget the first Gwynn. The second is what counts. That’s my future. That’s what I’m capable of. The most unimaginable betrayal … not just of Ricky, but of Olivia.

“Gabriel, please.
Please.
”

It was the “please” that snapped him back, looking up at Olivia, then rising onto his elbows, realizing he was lying on the patio floor.

“Did you …?” She swallowed. “You saw it, didn’t you? The visions.”

“Yes.” His voice came hollow, barely recognizable, as if still in that distant, lost place.

“I did not do anything to cause that,” she said.

He struggled to focus on her voice against the pull of the vision, threatening to drag him back. When he didn’t answer, her
voice rose in panic. “I
didn’t.
I wouldn’t know how, and I’d never do that when you didn’t want to see it.”

“I know.” He meant it, but with that hollow ring, his voice lacked conviction, and fresh panic sparked in her eyes.

“You have to believe me,” she said. “I would never—”

“I
know,”
he said, forcing himself to sit upright. “You fell, and I grabbed you, and that seemed to cause it.”

He glanced up at the house.
You did it
, he thought, and felt rather foolish thinking it, but he knew that was the answer. The house gave Olivia the visions she needed, and he’d gotten them through her. Because, yes, he needed to see another side of Gwynn. But he also needed to see
that
side, the ugly and jealous side. To face it.

Face what? The possibility I could kill to win her? Not even to win her, because if I did that, I could never have her. Even if she came to me, I could not be with her, knowing what I’d done.

“That’s not you,” she blurted.

He looked at her.

“You saw Gwynn and then you saw the two boys, Carl and Peter, right?”

He tried not to flinch at the names. “Yes.”

“Peter isn’t you. It was different, wasn’t it? With Gwynn, you
were
him, right? Seeing through his eyes.”

He nodded.

“And Peter?”

“I was watching from the forest.”

“Exactly. An actor in one and an audience in the other.” She sat on the patio edge and twisted to face him. “It’s like … spokes on a wheel. Gwynn is at the center. One spoke is you. Another is—or was—Peter. You and he aren’t connected except through Gwynn. They’re … variations on a theme. From the same initial
source, like distant cousins of a common ancestor.” She peered at him, face drawn, anxious. “Am I making any sense?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“But it might help. If we can work this out—”

“No.” He said it sharper than he intended. But she didn’t draw back. She sunk, as if defeated.

“I need to leave,” he said.

“I know.” And there was, in her voice, that same hollow note, not distance but resignation.

Goddamn it, say something. Don’t run away. You don’t need to have this conversation. Just don’t run from her.

She’d called him a coward, running away whenever she pulled him toward something he didn’t like. It was not so much cowardice as ego, and not even so much protecting his ego as safeguarding the supports that kept it intact.

Success bolstered his ego. Doing what he was good at and avoiding failure in every possible way. He’d first realized that in high school, when he’d dropped out of geometry, not because he disliked it but because he wasn’t good at it. Algebra came easily. Calculus was also fine. But there was something about geometry that he could not wrap his mind around. So he dropped the course.

The moment he discovered he did not have the knack for something, he stopped trying to do it. Empathy, friendship, dating, relationships in general. He embraced a challenge only if he knew he
could
succeed.

The hard truth of the matter was that Gabriel was spoiled. He got what he wanted, and did not want what he could not get.

“May I ask you a favor?” Olivia said. She continued without waiting for an answer. “Go to Rose’s, please. I don’t want you driving home, and I know you don’t want me around, so just do that. Please.”

She didn’t look at him when she said it. It was not as if she was intentionally avoiding his gaze, but as though she simply couldn’t be bothered facing him. Resignation dragged down her voice to a monotone, as if she were reading instructions from a card.

Just go, Gabriel. I’m done with you.

She was tired of him. Tired of tiptoeing around his moods. Tired of putting up with him.

Then why do you?

He’d asked her that because he wanted an answer. No, he wanted a declaration. Not of love but of
something.
Of friendship, of commitment, of caring.

He’d wanted her to say what he could not. He’d put the burden on her.

I’m not good at this, so I won’t do it. You will.

Only she hadn’t. Her face had crumpled and her eyes had filled with tears, and he’d pulled back sharply, trying to figure out what he’d done, what he’d said. It was only when she walked away that he realized she hadn’t heard
Please tell me why you stay
but a sneering and sarcastic
Why do you stay, then?
Even if he hadn’t said it that way, that’s what she’d expected.

She rose. “Your jacket is inside. I know you keep your keys in the pocket. I’m taking them. If you insist on having them back, come and get them. But I’d really like you to stay at Rose’s tonight.”

Let Rose deal with you. I can’t. Won’t.

Could he blame her? No, not at all.

She got as far as the door, and then turned and said, her voice gentler, “If you want to talk, you know where I am.” A pause, and a sadder, “I won’t hold my breath,” before she went inside.

Go talk to her. Just go talk to her. Or tell her you don’t want to talk about it, and talk about something else. Or tell her you
don’t want to talk at all, and work beside her instead. Just stay with her. Show her you won’t run. That you’re making progress. That she can count on you.