Where Silence Gathers (24 page)

Footsteps.

“Oh, Alex!” Travis singsongs. My veins burst in terror and adrenaline. I shove away from the wall and keep going. Travis waits a beat. When I don't answer, he bellows,
“
Alex!
” His voice is too close. There's a manic abandon to the way he says my name, and I know that he's a predator and I'm the prey. If I can just beat him to the ladder, get to my car …

No. That's what he'll be expecting.
Be smarter than him.
I push myself harder and try to ignore the way my head is throbbing. My hand trails alongside the wall now to adjust my steps to the dips and curves. Once again I'm counting, struggling to remember the number of steps it took and the twists we made to get to here. Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine. My palm scrapes over an angle and I breathe as quietly as I can, shuffling forward and feeling out the secrets of the mines. Yes, this is the first turn. He took us right, which means that the left would take me back to the ladder.

All my instincts are howling to dive, to go, to flee toward the certainty of light and air and life. Shuddering, I force myself to step back. Then I shuffle along the wall until I find a gap big enough to tuck myself inside.

Not a moment too soon. Travis thunders past, seething. Every pore of my skin is twitching, anxious, eager to crawl away. But I force myself to be still and wait. His mutterings become fainter. I begin to relax, thinking I've outsmarted him and there's distance between us … until he whispers in my ear, “I know you're here.”

A scream ricochets up my throat and it's just about to emerge when I comprehend that Travis is moving away again. “I can smell your pretty sweat!” he shouts. My muscles are locked into place, so rigid that one twitch will shatter everything. There's a thud, like a fist meeting packed dirt. Travis lets out a deafening scream. The darkness watches me cower, and I know it's smiling. The salty taste of tears slips inside my mouth and my heart sounds like a chorus of bombs in my ears. That's when I realize the rock is no longer clutched in my shaking fingers. Panic sears through me, and I try to tell myself it doesn't matter. I won't be able to surprise him again, and he has the gun. What could I use that would—

The pick.

If I can get to it, find it, I won't be so helpless. Purpose surges through me, and after listening a few seconds more, I leave the safety of my hiding place. Nothing happens. To keep the fear at arm's length, I focus on everything my father said about the pick. It's in the very first tunnel, which would mean it's near the very first entrance. Closer to the surface.

I'm going in the wrong direction.

But I can't go back; there's a very real possibility of slamming into Travis. The only option is finding the tunnels no one has ventured into for years. Tunnels my father told me nothing about. It's them or Travis. Picturing Nora's ruined face, I run.

Dad's voice follows me through each blind turn.
They hung it on the wall, as a way to remember where we've come from and where we're going.
The floor starts to slope upward. Once the surface feels close I thrust my hand over my head to feel the wall, alert for anything man-made or out of place. Suddenly my foot catches on something jutting out of the ground and I go sprawling. A tree root. Did he hear that? Biting my lip to trap a cry of pain, I'm just about to push myself up when my name booms through the darkness again.

“Alex!” a different voice calls, young and frightened and out of place beneath the ground. I freeze. That doesn't sound like Travis.

“Hello?” I shout-whisper, terrified that he will hear and come.

No answer. Stupid, stupid, stupid! It has to be Travis. No one else is down here. Some part of me doesn't believe it, though, and I stay where I am. Watching. Waiting. Even if it's a trick, I can't leave this place wondering if I've abandoned someone to a fate that was supposed to be mine.

Somehow he finds me. The lantern bobs into view, held aloft by one hand. A moment later, Travis himself. I tense, about to bolt, but then I see he's not alone. Whoever he's dragging behind him is short and painfully small, shrouded in shadow so the identity remains a mystery. Every organ inside me droops, as if it knows anyway. Knows before my mind fully does.

“Looks like you have a shadow,” Travis pants, eyes gleaming with triumph as he wrenches someone forward. The light falls over the newcomer's face, and I want to sob.

Angus.

Twenty-Seven

Dirt sprinkles down on our heads as thunder growls above. Angus stands there, his shirt wrinkled and the laces on one shoe undone. Before this I kept thinking how much he'd grown, how old he seemed, but now all I see is a scared little boy. “He has nothing to do with this,” I manage after a choking silence, clenching my fists. “Let him go.”

Mocking me, Travis taps his chin as if in deep contemplation. His hairline is clotted with blood. “I don't think so,” he decides. “See, I think this kid will keep you in line.”

Possibilities tear through me. Pretending Angus means nothing to me, throwing myself at Travis, trying to cut another deal. In the end, Travis makes yet another decision for me. He yanks the gun out of his belt and puts it to Angus's head. “Walk,” he instructs. Helplessly, I start to edge around him.

Quick as a flash of lightning, Angus finds my wrist in the dark and begins to tap, tap, tap in our language. There's no time to figure out what he's trying to say.

As I move forward, Travis doesn't try to hide the fact that he's inhaling my hair. The same moment his nostrils flare, a pale hand reaches for me from the shadows. I shriek and recoil. Without pausing, Travis swings the gun and the lantern toward it—Disgust's eyes go wide, and I realize that he must have been answering his summons—and pulls the trigger. Angus screams and the wall explodes. There's a ringing in my ears.

Before the dust settles I recover and rush toward Angus, pull him after me down the tunnel. We don't even get ten seconds of freedom before Travis's hand wraps around my arm and hauls me back with such force that I lose my footing and fall. “You want to make this harder?” he shouts. A glob of spit lands on my cheek as he leans over me. “Fine! I like a challenge.” Agony radiates through my face yet again from the strength of his fist.

Angus's frightened face swims into view. “Run!” I try to tell him, coughing. Something hot and wet dribbles down my chin. A rusty taste slips into my mouth. Smirking, Travis straightens and gives me a kick in the ribs. I hit the wall and cry out. He says something that I don't bother listening to. Angus is no longer hovering in the background, and somehow I push myself up, wanting to know if he's escaped.

Relief squats in front of me when I see that he's gone. The Emotion's expression is tight as he touches the cut on my lip. Out of the corner of my eye, I see that Hope is standing behind him.

“What do you have to be relieved about?” Travis demands, looking in the Emotions' direction. Right. He can see them. They vanish but I still bask in their essences. It's the strangest thing, reveling in the other plane's power. With a jolt, I comprehend that I'm smiling. Travis notices this the same time I do, and he scowls. Tightens his fingers on the gun. From this angle his face looks like a skinless skull. “Dr. Stern doesn't have to know,” he says, almost to himself. “I could tell him something went wrong. I could tell him it's your fault. Which it is, isn't it? You just wouldn't cooperate. All you want to do is play.”

Play? Laughter bubbles up and bursts out of my mouth. Enraged at the sound, Travis flies at me and shoves the barrel against my forehead. Suddenly nothing is funny, and the mines are so quiet I can hear the rain again.

The surface. It must be close.

“I've never seen a face explode before,” Travis whispers. His breath reeks of death and decay. “This should be interesting.”

The urge to fight and survive rises up again, but there's no place for it to go. Travis's finger is closing in on the trigger, about to pull. Any moment Death will come … this is the end he saw when our eyes met that night. As I wait for the inevitable rupture of light and pain, it occurs to me that I'll never see Briana's smile again, never hear Georgie's rambunctious laugh, never taste my aunt's burned eggs, never listen to my uncle play those forgotten pianos. And I'll never have another chance to touch Revenge or argue with Forgiveness. Somehow, I thought it wouldn't be so hard to leave it all behind.

Not wanting the last thing I see in this world to be the twisted face of Travis Bardeen, I close my eyes. There, in the darkness, is my family. Mom, Dad, and Hunter … along with everyone else. The people I let down and tried to let go. And I know now, more certainly than I've known anything, that I wouldn't have been able to swallow those pills tonight. To say goodbye. Forgiveness was wrong; the most difficult choice wasn't him. It was living on when my family didn't.

The sound I'm expecting—a bullet bursting from the chamber—doesn't come. Instead, the stillness is shattered by Travis's ear-splitting screech. Something snaps. My eyes pop open, and for a moment they don't accept the sight before me. The image of Hope standing over Travis, watching coldly while he cradles his limp wrist. Then I notice the gun resting in the dirt. Instinct takes over and I lunge for it. Travis glances up, realizing what's happening, and dives for it at the same time. He beats me to the gun and lifts it with his good hand. Just as he's about to put his finger on the trigger again I grab his broken wrist and yank it with all the strength I have left. Travis howls and I try to grapple the gun from him.

“You
bitch
!” he snarls, leaning away and kicking at me. I hold on like a pit bull, feeling something inside me crack when his heel makes contact. I can't hold back a scream of my own, but I don't relent. When it becomes apparent his hold on the gun isn't going to break, I put all my body weight into the struggle and take the gun in both fists, slowly turning it toward him. Travis fights it—though he's weakened—and for a minute we're locked together, straining and trembling
and grunting. My middle finger travels from the handle to the trigger, just barely brushing it. Travis's elbow knocks my jaw and I grit my teeth and push harder. Stretching and reaching … reaching …

The tunnel detonates in a blend of white and soundlessness.

Blood splatters my face, and I'm easing away from Travis. The air around us becomes considerably cooler as something approaches. Travis isn't moving now, and his eyes are as glassy as Eggs's were when I found her at the bottom of the stairs. A shadow moves. Death. This time he doesn't address me. He just leaves, taking Travis's soul with him.

Some part of me is aware that I'm pressing my back to the far wall, putting distance between me and the dark pool leaking out of the body. The body. Dead body. I killed someone. Travis is dead, dead, dead.

Minutes or hours pass—I'm not sure which—and my brain registers that a voice is coming from a long distance. It's telling me I can put the gun down, so my hands open and something falls out of them. Hits the earth with a soft sound. A face looms close and I blink. Again and again, until Hope's blurred features come into focus. Eventually I figure it out—she was the one who broke Travis's wrist and made it possible for me to claim the life I didn't realize I wanted.

“Thought you couldn't interfere?” I rasp.

The Emotion's eyes take in my dirty hands, my torn clothes, my battered face. “It was worth it,” she says. With that, she vanishes. And I'm alone.

No, wait. I tilt my head and my breathing quickens. Maybe I'm wrong again, because a new sound echoes through the tunnels. Not a footstep or a voice. I don't know what it is. Is there a chance this still isn't over? Using the wall for support, I stand on shaky legs. The circle of light goes fuzzy for a moment and it seems like I've died and entered a realm made entirely of muted color and sharp sensation. One of my ribs feels broken. All I want to do now is lie down and let the darkness take me for the rest of the night, but I resist the urge. I've allowed it to have me for too long. So I pick up the lantern, ignoring the jarring voices of my wounds. After a long hesitation I get the gun, too. Pretend that it's not wet and cold and sticky. Then I make my way through the mines again. With each step the sound gets louder, human and strangely muffled. “Angus?” I call, wincing.

The sound answers, more frantic and adamant. Up ahead, another light appears. It spills out of a tunnel opening to the right. I falter in surprise, and Emotions join me in the tunnel. I lick my lips and take comfort in their presence; they're proof that I've survived. Cautiously, I round the corner. Their hands slip off my shoulders as I walk toward the brightness. And when I realize who it is making the sounds, his eyes glinting with a sheen of terrified tears, I stop. My grip on the gun, out of habit or pure instinct, tightens.

“You,” I whisper.

He's tied to a chair, secured by layers and layers of duct tape. Even his mouth is covered, preventing him from shouting for help. I stand there, gaping, and Travis's words suddenly make sense.
We don't have Saul
, he'd said. I thought that meant they had no one, but I hadn't let him finish. And the note.
I have what you want most.

Nate Foster stares up at me.

His gaze begs me to help him. Feeling as though the tunnel has collapsed and I'm walking through rocks and dirt, I slowly approach. Of its own volition, my hand reaches out and peels the tape off his face. The second it's gone Foster gasps, his chest expanding and contracting violently. “Thank y-you,” he says. Nothing else. It makes my blood run cold, that these are the first words he's spoken to me. An expression of gratitude.

I study him, noting details I hadn't been able to see when there was so much distance between us. One of his front teeth is chipped. There's a splotchy birthmark hovering just above his jawline. His hair is receding to the point that it's hardly more than fuzz. He's ugly in every sense, which makes sense; only an ugly person could murder an entire family.

It occurs to me that Foster is completely silent now. He sits in that chair and, though fear still lingers in his countenance, there's also an eerie calm. Like he recognizes me. My skin prickles and I set the lantern down next to the one already here. “Do you know who I am?” I ask him quietly. The time for silence has passed. The gun has never been steadier in my palm.

“You're Alexandra Tate,” Foster replies. And then he makes time stop when he says, “Go ahead. End it.”

This can't be happening. I'm hallucinating or dreaming. “Do you know why—”

“Of course I do. I see their faces in my sleep. Every night. Just like I saw you sitting outside my house. I can never escape it … and I don't deserve to. So just finish it, please. Now.” His Adam's apple bobs, and Foster actually leans his head closer to the gun. His eyes flutter shut.

Shock roots me in place, until I'm a tree made of flesh and everything unresolved. “Y-you saw me?” I manage.

Guilt crouches next to Foster, and she touches the birthmark on his cheek with familiarity, like she's done it thousands of times before. He looks up. Tears fall out of those eyes now, leaving streaks down his crusty cheeks. “Many times,” he answers hoarsely. “When you were in your car, when you stood outside the window. Each time, I hoped you would finally come inside and end it. But you never did.” He pauses, and Guilt is joined by Sorrow and Resentment. Strangely, it feels like a betrayal that they're going to him. Then I realize that despite my new doubts, Nate Foster doesn't have any. He believes it was his fault. He wants to be punished. Doesn't that mean something?

“It means he's a good man, in spite of what happened the night of the accident,” Forgiveness murmurs.

“I thought I told you not to come.” I keep my attention trained on Foster, even when the Choice steps so close that his minty scent blocks the ones of blood and sweat. My insides quiver and the gun handle becomes slick.

Forgiveness disregards this, of course. “I know that you made a promise to your family, to honor them,” he says. “And I know that every day is a struggle for you. Even though the people in your life don't know it, you're constantly fighting the urge to give up. But do you know how you can really honor them, Alex?
Keep fighting
. Lead the lives they should have had, would have wanted for you to have. Do you really believe they wanted
this
for you?” He gestures to Foster, who's staring at me in utter confusion. He can't hear Forgiveness; he only hears what seems like nonsensical babbling pouring out of me.

“I'm just so tired,” I sob, uncaring. The gun begins to slip and I adjust my hold again. “I-I don't want to die … but I don't know how to live, either.”

“No one does, Alex. That's what makes it so beautiful.” Forgiveness says it tenderly, and the intensity of his gaze makes me feel like something beautiful, too.

“It's ugly,” I say through my teeth, shuddering. “Just like him.” Nate Foster becomes the center of my universe again, fading in and out of focus. Forgiveness responds, but the words are overpowered by the ringing in my head, piercing and painful.

“You can do it, honey.”

This voice brings me back, and the sight of my father is the motivation I needed. He stands next to Foster's chair, smiling sadly. “Dad?” I say, searching his face for some sort of affirmation that he's real and this is what he wants.

His eyes are warm. They don't waver. “Go ahead,” he urges. As if there's any doubt to his meaning, he raises his hand and points at Nate Foster. “Come on, honey. I know you can. Pull the trigger. Do it.”

“
Do it
,” Nate cries.

But now I'm staring at something else. When my father lifted his arm, his shirt rode up, exposing a strip of pale skin. Even after the shirt covers it again, I keep looking, knowing that something isn't right. Like a missing piece in a large puzzle.

Then it comes to me in a quiet burst. The piece falls into place, and I begin to see the patterns and the meaning. “Dad … where's your scar?”

My father frowns. “What scar, baby?”