Silas (33 page)

I was glad he was dead.
Really fucking glad. He didn’t deserve to be alive. And killing him
meant that a lot of other people wouldn’t suffer. But it didn’t
really change how I felt.

“
What’s going to happen to
his body?” she said.

“
I don’t know,” I said. “I
guess at some point, someone will find him.” I’d done a thorough
cleaning job on the house before we left, getting rid of any
evidence that Christa and I had ever been there. Op Wraith had
trained me well on how not to leave a trace.

“
Not gonna call the
police?”

“
What would be the point in
that?”

“
Yeah,” she said quietly, “I
guess you’re right.”

The rain was picking up. I
switched the wipers to the next highest setting. The blades whisked
back and forth, flicking away the raindrops.

“
Listen,” she said. “I don’t
want anyone to know.”

“
Know about what?” I
said.

“
About… what
happened.”

“
What do you mean?” I said.
“I already told Sloane that he’d been chasing us through the woods
trying to kill us.”

“
No, I mean what Rolf did to
me,” she said. “That he… raped me.”

I clenched my jaw. “Christa,
I’m not sure—”

“
No,” she said. “Silas, can
you just promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“
I don’t think that’s a good
idea. I think you should talk to someone about it.”

“
I don’t
want
to talk to anyone
about it. I want to forget it happened.”

I let out a harsh little
laugh. “Well, you and me both, but I don’t think that’s going to
happen anytime soon. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“
You can’t?” She sounded
surprised. “But you didn’t even see it.”

“
I know that,” I said.
“But I think about… I wonder about things. I
picture
things.”

“
Like what?”

“
Seriously?”

“
What do you wonder about?”
Her voice was brittle. “Maybe I can clear it up for
you.”

“
Just forget it.” The rain
was coming so heavy that it was tough to see. I needed to
concentrate on the road anyway.

“
No,” she said. “I want to
know.”

I didn’t say
anything.

“
What do you wonder
about?”

I tightened my grip on the
steering wheel. “I said to forget it.”

“
Tell me,” she
insisted.

I sucked in breath. Fine.
“Your shoes.”

“
My shoes?”

“
Did he take off your
shoes?” I said. “They were off when I woke up. I can’t remember if
they were on when I went dark. If he did, why did he
bother?”

She laughed. “You’ve got to
be kidding me.”

I shook my head. “I wish I
was.”

“
I can give you a
blow-by-blow if you want, Silas.”

“
No,” I said.

“
No?”

“
I’m sorry,” I
said.

“
He unbuttoned my pants
first, and he pushed them down around my ankles,” she said. “But he
couldn’t get my legs apart, so he took off my shoes to get my pants
off.”

“
Stop it.”

“
You wanted to
know.”

I felt sick again. I clenched my
jaw.

“
That help you out?” she
said.

“
Not really,” I
said.

The only sound was the slap of the
windshield wipers.

“
God damn it, Christa, I am
so sorry. I let you down.”

“
Like I said, I’d like to
forget it ever happened. Don’t tell anyone about it.
Please.”

Not talking about it seemed
like a good idea to me right then. I thought if she said anything
else that I was going to have to pull over and throw up everything
I’d eaten that night. So I nodded, staring straight ahead.
“Fine.”

She reached over and turned on the
radio.

She turned it up. Loud. Too loud for
conversation.

* * *

Sloane was hugging me so tight that I
thought she was going to bust my ribcage.

I squeezed her back, planting a kiss on
the top of her head.

She said something into my chest, but
it was muffled.

“
What?” I said.

She repeated it louder, but
she still had her head buried against me, and I couldn’t hear it. I
laughed. A real, happy laugh. Something I felt like I hadn’t done
in a long time.

I extracted myself from my
sister, still laughing. “I cannot understand you if you’re talking
into my clothes like that.”

She brushed tears away from
her face. “I was afraid you were dead.”

“
Oh, come on,” I said.
“We’re invincible, remember?”

“
But you were gone, and we
didn’t know anything,” she said. She gestured behind her at
Griffin, who was hugging Christa. Leigh had her arms wrapped around
the both of them. She was crying too. The five of us were in the
parking lot of a gas station somewhere outside of Morgantown. The
sky was the color of bone. On the horizon, the first streaks of
dawn were overtaking the sky. “Griffin and I were trying to figure
out where Rolf was. We figured it had to be Rolf. But he owns so
much land, Silas. It’s huge. There was no way we were going to be
able to search all of it. We were considering going to the police
or something.”

I raised my eyebrows.
“Griffin wanted to go to the police?”

Leigh released her fiancé
and his sister and turned to me. “He called Knox first. He was
trying to get together as many ex-Op Wraith assassins as he could
to try go looking for you guys.”

“
Wow,” I said. “I didn’t
think you and Knox were really on speaking terms.” Apparently,
Griffin had tortured him for days or something. For some reason,
Knox wasn’t real friendly with him afterward.

“
We’re not,” said Griffin.
He let go of Christa, but he kept his arm around her
shoulders.

Leigh hugged me. “It’s good
to see you.”

I hugged her back. “You guys
have no fucking idea how good it is to see you.”

“
Shit,” said Sloane, more
tears pouring down her face. “You’re not okay, are you? What the
hell did he do to you?”

I shook my head. “It’s not
important. He’s fucking dead. It’s over.”

“
Yeah,” said Christa. “It’s
over. We don’t have to talk about it ever again.”

Griffin touched Christa’s
forehead. “What happened?”

She ducked out of his arm,
covering the wound above her eyebrow self-consciously. “I don’t
even know. I fell or something.”

I looked down at the
pavement. This was shit. We couldn’t hide this from Griffin. He was
her brother. He should know.

“
Did she fall a lot?”
Griffin was glaring at me.

I flicked my gaze up to meet
his for a second, and then I studied my hands. “I’m sorry she got
mixed up in all of this. I’m really…” Suddenly, I got choked up. I
turned around, running my hands through my hair. I couldn’t face
him.

“
It’s fine,” Christa was
saying. “I’m fine, Griffin.”

“
Some guy was hunting you
like you were a deer or something,” said Griffin. “How could you
possibly be fine?”

“
Fuck,” I
muttered.

“
Neither of you seem fine,”
said Sloane, and there was an edge in her voice. I turned to see
that she was giving Griffin a back-off look. She was looking out
for me. She didn’t need to do that. I’d fucked up bad, and Griffin
had every right to be annoyed with me.

“
I’m fine,” I said. “This is
all because of me. But Christa—”

“
What are we going to tell
Mom?” said Christa.

Griffin turned to her.
“Mom?”

“
Yeah,” she said. “I mean,
she doesn’t know that you were an assassin or whatever,
right?”

He grimaced. “You know about
that, huh?”

“
I sort of had to explain
stuff when I kept coming back from the dead,” I said.

He nodded. He rubbed the top
of his head. “Let me worry about Mom, okay? You don’t need to worry
about anything except dealing with whatever you need to deal
with.”

“
I don’t need to deal with
things,” she said.

Griffin raised his eyebrows.

Leigh reached out for
Christa’s hand. “Hey, you’re probably in shock, you
know?”

“
No, I’m not,” said Christa.
“Look, Silas took all the bullets. He totally protected me. It was
about as bad as a camping trip that you’re not really prepared
for.”

“
Christa, don’t,” I said.
“You know I didn’t—”

“
I even learned how to spear
fish.” She smiled brightly.

Griffin dragged a hand over
his face. He came over to me and hugged me. “Thanks for looking out
for her, man.”

I let him hug me, but I
didn’t hug back. “If I’d been looking out for her, she never would
have been there.”

He released me. “You brought
her back to me, didn’t you?”

I looked away.

“
She’s alive.”

“
I’m
fine
,” said Sloane.
“Jesus, Griffin, you always treat me like I’m five years
old.”

Griffin rolled his eyes. He
grinned. “She’s fine. She’s yelling at me, so she’s
fine.”

I looked at her over his
shoulder. Why was she doing this?

She wouldn’t meet my
gaze.

“
Look,” said Griffin,
“Sloane and I can, um, get rid of Rolf’s car. Why don’t you let
Leigh drive you back into town? Maybe you guys want to go somewhere
for breakfast?”

“
Sonic,” I said. “Right,
Christa?”

She gave me a small smile.
“Yeah. That would be nice.”

* * *

The Sonic carhop leaned in
the window. She was on roller skates. Christa said that they always
wore roller skates. The carhop
’s blonde
hair was pulled into a sloppy ponytail, and she was wearing too
much lipstick. “Are you three gonna be able to eat all of this?”
she asked as she handed Leigh three bulging paper bags.

“
Oh,” said Christa, leaning
across from the passenger seat to help take the bags, “you don’t
understand. This is all for me.”

The carhop laughed. “You
gotta tell me how you stay so skinny eating this much
food.”

“
I’m totally bulimic,” said
Christa.

The carhop’s eyes
widened.

“
Kidding,” said Christa.
“Um, not that eating disorders are funny.”

“
Right,” said the carhop.
“Well, y’all enjoy that.”

“
Thanks,” said
Leigh.

Christa handed me the bags.
“Stick these back there with you, Silas.”

I accepted them. I’d been
quiet, but Christa had been a chatterbox. She and Leigh were
discussing the wedding, which had been canceled on account of us
going missing. Christa was convinced that Leigh needed to salvage
it.

“
So,” said Christa, digging
out some cheesy tater tots. “You lost your reservation at the place
you were having the reception, and they’re booked for
months.”

“
It’s not that big a deal,”
said Leigh. “The way Griffin and I figure it, we’ve got money to
burn, and losing the money pales in comparison to your safety.” She
put a hand behind the seat to back out of the Sonic parking
lot.

“
You lost the money you paid
for it?” said Christa.

“
Like I said, not a big
deal,” said Leigh.

“
But that’s not fair. You
didn’t use it.”

“
Well, we canceled the day
of,” said Leigh. “They couldn’t re-rent it to someone else. They
didn’t have time.”

“
Oh, that sucks,” said
Christa. “I totally ruined your wedding.”

“
It wasn’t your fault,” said
Leigh. “Anyway, Griffin and I were thinking it might be better to
get married in a few months. Maybe July or something. Once
everything’s calmed down.”

“
No,” said Christa. “You
can’t do that. July will be sticky and hot, and you’ll be dying in
that dress.”

“
Well, we thought we
might do it inside instead,” said Leigh. “I mean,
I
thought. Griffin hasn’t
really wanted to talk about the wedding. Honestly, I haven’t
thought about it much either. We’ve been so
worried.”

“
You guys have to get
married now,” said Christa. “I mean, Mom and I are still here. We
have the dresses. What about your cake? What happened to your
cake?”

“
It’s in our refrigerator,”
said Leigh, making a face.

“
See? Perfect. You have the
cake. All we need is a place to have the wedding.” Christa leaned
back to look at me. “Silas, you want the wedding to go on,
right?”