Still Mine (23 page)

When the engine dies, Sara sits gasping, her hand over her mouth. From the cab Charlie lets out a whoop, then jumps out to open the truck bed for them, Timber appearing at his feet. Sara slaps at him, angry and then playful, and he heaves her off the truck and kisses her so deeply that Clare has to look away. A kiss like that, Clare knows all too well, can make up for whatever treason came before it.

“You’re insane, Merritt.” Jared extends his hand to Clare. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Clare says, wobbly on her feet.

“Got rid of the fence,” Charlie says, emerging from the kiss. “Let me grab some supplies. We can head down to the gorge.”

“Or we could just build a fire here,” Sara says.

“I’m needed down there. Be prepared, Gorman. I’m always telling you that.”

Charlie disappears into the house and room by room the lights come on. Clare retreats from Jared and Sara and jogs up the hill to the trailer, prying the key from her jeans. The photographs are still strung up side by side in the kitchenette. Clare twists open the bottle of antibiotics and swallows one. In the bedroom she tears off her wet clothes and changes, Derek’s bandage drooping and soaked, the wound still flaring but painless now, dulled by the drinks. She finds a warm sweater and tosses her phone on the bed. Then she bends back the wood paneling along the far wall. Her gun. Clare lifts her shirt and tucks it into her belt along the curve of her spine.

She reaches Charlie’s house again just as a car turns down the Merritt driveway. Sara and Jared band together to intercept whoever has come, Timber barking wildly, tugging against his leash. The car makes a U-turn and stops pointed at them, high beams on. An SUV. Derek Meyer. He rolls down his window.

“Bad idea showing up here,” Sara says to Derek, linking her arm through Jared’s.

“I’m not here to see you. I came to check on her.”

“Me?” Clare says.

Clare thinks of the book she found in Louise’s purse, the inscription to Shayna, the profession of love. She cannot read Derek’s expression.

“I wanted to see how the shoulder was doing,” he says. “I need to speak with you.”

“You’re unreal,” Jared says.

Derek ignores him, stepping out of the running car and circling to avoid Timber. “I would have called, but—”

“Where’s the bouquet of flowers?” Jared asks.

“Shut up, Fowles.”

The lights in the house flick off in reverse succession and Charlie appears, backpack in hand.

“Doctor!” he says. “I did not expect to see you here.”

“I’m not here to see you.”

“Well, good. Last thing I need is a doctor.” Charlie looks around, absorbing the tension. He bends and takes hold of Timber’s leash, pulling the dog to his side. “Hey,” he says. “Why don’t you come down with us. Big night. It’s Gorman’s birthday. Also, five years. We’re celebrating five years.”

“Of what?” Derek says.

“Five years ago Jared came back from the dead.”

“Lucky us,” says Derek.

In a trick of the light Jared appears to lunge right over Sara before he lands on Derek and the two of them tumble to the ground. Sara screeches as Jared straddles Derek and punches him so that blood shoots from his nose. Derek does not fight back, only raising his arms in an effort to lessen the blows to his head. Charlie drops the bag and tugs Jared off the doctor, Timber bounding next to him, barking madly. Before he’s pulled clear Jared slaps Derek across the face, a final insult, once hard on each cheek.

“I’ll kill you.” Derek wipes the blood from his nose on his shirtsleeve.

“Will you now? With what? Your stethoscope?”

This time it is Derek who lunges, and when they land his hands close around Jared’s neck, the blood from his nose dripping into Jared’s bulging eyes. Clare watches them as though they are on television, once removed, out of reach. Next to her Sara and Charlie seem frozen too, and Timber’s bark has turned to a low whine. But it is the sound Jared makes, that wet gag, the muffled cough, the hiss of air escaping without a breath taken in to replace it. Clare knows that sound.

“He’ll die,” Clare says, elbowing Charlie. “He’s going to kill him.”

When Jared’s arms begin to flail, Charlie winds up and boots Derek hard in the stomach. Derek doubles over, gasping.

“You’re dead, Meyer.” Jared massages his neck, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“Never gets old, does it?” Sara says. “You’re both such pigs.”

Derek paces at a distance. Then he charges at them again, his finger in Charlie’s face.

“You,” he says. “You’re killing these people. You and that poison.”

“Gear down, Doc,” Charlie says, calm, Timber antsy at his feet.

“You don’t think everyone knows about your little operation? You’ll be taken down.”

“Is that so?” Charlie takes gentle hold of Derek’s hand and lowers it. “The thing is, people around here can disappear and no one much cares. You see how that works? You might want to watch yourself.”

“You’re a thug,” Derek says.

“I might be,” Charlie says. “But I like to think I’m a good friend too. And good friends don’t snitch.”

“I’m not afraid of you, Merritt.”

Charlie laughs. “No?”

“Leave, Meyer,” Sara says. “Get the hell out of here.”

“You’re trash,” Derek says. “All of you. Junkie trash.”

“You love it!” Sara yells. In the harsh light of the high beams she appears ferocious, her face twisted. She picks up a stick and moves to where Derek stands, chin up, defiant.

“I hope you all die here,” Derek says.

Sara spits in his face. Derek lifts a hand across his mouth to wipe it. Then he spins and walks to the car, Sara and Jared calling to his back. As he drives past them, Jared bends to collect a rock and throws it at Derek’s rear window. Though it bounces off the roof, Derek doesn’t slow. His taillights fade down the driveway.

“You okay?” Sara asks Jared.

“Fine.”

“You need ice?”

“No. Let’s just go.”

Charlie wrestles his backpack on, then grabs a box from his truck, crouching down to quiet Timber before they leave the dog and set out on foot. Clare follows the rhythms of the others, planting her feet one in front of the other across the back field, allowing Jared to guide her as they descend the steep path. Clare can’t quite process what just unfolded, all of them turned against Derek with a fierceness that should scare her. Ahead Clare can see only the bob of Charlie’s flashlight beam and hear peals of laughter from Sara. Though she can’t see it, the sound of the creek comes to her too. Hold on, Jared is saying to her. Or maybe she imagines his voice. She can’t bear to speak to him yet, she the bystander who did nothing as Derek strangled him. She had a gun. She could have intervened.

Up ahead Clare finally catches sight of a bonfire. The sleeping bag on the tree branch. When they reach the pit Clare scans the faces gathered around the fire, younger mostly. A few nod in bored acknowledgment. This is meant to be a party, people building a fire so high that it jabs at the branches, at the black sky above. But no one is talking. A girl on the far side looks like she might be fifteen, sixteen. Where is your mother? Clare would like to say to her. Charlie takes a gas can from the box and shakes some onto the flames, sending a ball of fire so high that the crowd takes a collective step back.

Jared pulls a flask from his coat and pours drops on the cut under his eye. Then he drinks, tilting whatever booze it holds straight down his throat. He offers Clare the final sip. This sort of closeness is not natural, she thinks, this pack of people shut in by these mountains. Jared takes a seat on the ground and tugs on her arm until she drops down beside him. With the heat of the embers so close, Clare can’t tell if it’s still raining. She thinks of Louise in her hospital bed, whether she’s woken yet to find herself untied. A wave of guilt hits her. What did she do?

Once the flask has been replenished, Jared hands it to her again. The whiskey still burns long after she’s swallowed it.

“What was Derek saying about your shoulder?” Jared asks.

“Nothing. I gashed it. It was getting infected.”

“You went to see him?”

“He’s the only doctor in town,” Clare says. “I had no choice.”

“I guess not,” Jared says. “So why does it bug me?”

Clare keeps her eyes to the fire, offering nothing. Across the fire Charlie has taken hold of a younger man, lifting him off his feet by the scruff of his shirt. He tilts him so that the man’s back grazes the flames, his boots kicking, panic on the face of the girl who stands beside them, Charlie’s teeth gritted, his words an inaudible whisper. Sara yanks at Charlie’s arm until he sets him down, and then Charlie just laughs, patting the man’s shoulder as if he meant it as a joke. Their lap of the fire finished, Charlie and Sara take a seat next to Clare and Jared.

“So,” Charlie says to Clare. “My guinea pig. I’m awaiting word on your experience.”

“I lost it,” Clare says. “My clothes got washed at the hospital yesterday. It was in my pocket.”

“That makes me unhappy,” Charlie says.

He extends a closed fist to Clare, nudging her to open her hand.

“Let’s try again, shall we?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I do. I think so.”

Clare looks to Jared. He only shrugs, but then he lets Charlie drop a baggie in his own hand.

“You’re either with us or you’re against us,” Charlie says. “Isn’t that how the saying goes?”

Sara laughs but then makes eye contact with Clare and her smile fades. A sense of helplessness washes over Clare as she lets Charlie shake a small pill into her cupped hand. Next to her, Jared downs his. They all watch her. Clare sets the pill on her tongue. If she were sober she might have the resolve, enough strength to insist against it. But she was never good at swimming against the tide, at being the one to say no, especially if she was fearful of the response such a snub might incite. She scrapes her tongue with her teeth, the pill dissolved. Charlie reaches for his flask and douses the fire again, and this time the flames shoot high enough that Clare thinks the branches above might catch. They sit in silence, passing the flask until it’s empty.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Jared says to Clare.

“It’s too dark.”

“I have a flashlight you lovebirds can borrow,” Charlie says.

Clare blinks. She can feel it wrap her. A color comes to everything, the fire a perfect orange, tiny hues of blue shooting out of the highest flames.

“You coming?” Jared’s hand is outstretched.

Clare allows him to pull her up next to him. She feels light. The plaid of Jared’s shirt feels so textured, its pattern a perfect match to the angles of his body. The beam of the flashlight bounces as they walk, crisp air replacing the heat of the fire. Jared guides her to the creek. He wades through it in his boots, soaking his jeans to the knees.

“Come,” he says.

“I’m not crossing that.”

“You sound like her.”

The bonfire is a bright ball in the distance. Clare arches to check for the steel of her gun against her back.

“Never once in my life did I see her cross the creek,” Jared says. “It was a weird superstition of hers. She was afraid of the other side. My point is, she wouldn’t have crossed on her own that night.”

“Maybe someone carried her.”

“She’d have kicked and screamed.”

“Not if she was unconscious,” Clare says.

Jared pivots and walks to where the gorge drops off, shining the flashlight to light a path for her to follow. Clare wades into the creek too, arms out for balance, the water numbing her feet, icy and perfect. She should be asking questions. What did Louise say?
He’s taken her. I saw him.
But Clare’s wits are not about her. The disquiet has been washed away. She joins Jared at the edge of the gorge, the beam of the flashlight disappearing into the emptiness below.

“You’re not scared of me anymore,” Jared says.

“I’m not scared of anything right now.”

Clare takes hold of two overhanging branches on either side of her and leans, tipping over the edge. She feels the skin of the gash bend open, a tickle of hot blood run down her shoulder.

“Don’t do that,” Jared says. “You’re right on the edge.”

“It would be easy, wouldn’t it?”

“What?”

“To jump. To push someone.”

The muddy earth gives way under Clare’s sneakers. She loses her footing and dangles, the weight of her own body stretching the muscles of her arm. One leg kicks loose over the edge. Jared grabs her at the waist and swings her so that she loses her grip on the branches. Then he pins her arms to her side, lifting her. Her back is flat against him, his face just behind hers, his breath on her neck, the flashlight on the ground beyond them. Clare kicks. Does he mean to save her? He could just let go and Clare would plunge forward and down, gone.

Clare isn’t afraid. Her body is relaxed.

Jared drags her backwards and spins her. They stumble pressed together back through the creek, water kicked up so Clare inhales a mouthful that sets her to coughing. Her sweater comes loose from her waist and falls to the water, snagging and curling itself around a rock in the stream. The gun has come loose too. Clare hears the splash. By the time she regains her footing Jared has retrieved the flashlight, and they both scramble and somehow he has the gun, his hand squared on the grip. He aims the light at her face so it blinds her.

“Were you planning to shoot me?” he says.

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” Clare says.

With the light in her face Clare cannot detect his movement, whether the gun is lifted, pointed at her. She hears a click. Jared opens the casing and lets the bullets drop into the water.

“You always carry a gun?” he asks.

He takes a step closer, angling the flashlight up so Clare can see his face.

“It’s for protection.”

“From what?”

She can see it in Jared’s eyes. The pieces clicking together, too obvious all along, her gun in his hand, Clare O’Dey with her questions, her pretense, coming to Blackmore with her rickety camera. They stand there at an impasse, only the sounds of the creek and the hushed chatter of those by the fire. Finally Jared takes her arm and leads her to sit on a log. He sets the gun down on the far side. Clare’s eyes have adjusted. She can make out the shapes of the trees.