Where Silence Gathers (25 page)

“It's supposed to be on your stomach, from your appendix surgery.”

He steps into the shadows and his tone is unexpectedly terse. “I'm dead, Alex. I don't have scars anymore.”

Wrong
, my instincts whisper. Everything about him is so detailed, down to the injuries that caused his death. The crow's feet around his eyes, his unshaven cheeks, the way his smile always pulls to one side. Why should his scar be any different?

“You're not my father,” I realize, slowly, devastatingly. There's another pause, and I wait for him to deny it.

In the silence that follows, we all hear a commotion, people shouting and calling my name. Frederick must be here. He'll find us any moment. But I don't react.

Forgiveness shifts, like he's about to touch me. Instead he steps close to the thing wearing my dad's face and snaps, “She knows now. You can stop.”

The imposter continues to hesitate. No one speaks or moves or breathes. The search party gets closer. Then, as I watch, every feature that created my dad melts away. His floppy ears, his brown eyes, his big hands … until Revenge is all that's left. He looks at me with those green eyes, completely detached, as though none of this touches him.

A myriad of emotions tear through me, making me bleed and die and darken. Shock, disbelief, confusion, fury, denial. A hundred screaming words ricochet up my throat and fill my mouth, and yet all that emerges is, “You
did
rip that book up, didn't you?” I'm not sure why it matters. It just does.

Revenge doesn't answer. And in that instant, I know I'm right. He lied to me. Just like he lied about everything else. “You bastard,” I breathe. It feels like he's carving out my insides with a dull hunting knife. “You psychotic bastard.”

How did I not see it? Everything falls into place, and it makes perfect sense. It wasn't until the night Nate Foster was released that I heard the voice in my head, calling my name. And again the next day, when I was torn between hiding in my safe little bubble and going back to face him. Essentially, whenever I was unguarded or vulnerable, I heard my father. No, not my father. Him. Revenge. The creature I fooled myself into thinking was my friend, was idiot enough to wish for something more with. And every time I got close to Forgiveness, Revenge was there, whispering in my father's voice and toying with my sanity as if it were one of the dolls I used to love.

For what seems like an eternity we both stand there. A moth dares to flutter into the frozen space. “I should have known,” I say bleakly. “My dad would never have done that to me.”

Finally, he tries to explain. “Alex, I—”

“You know what I keep forgetting about that day? When you let me climb the tree?” I demand. To the others, it probably seems odd that this is what I think of. But that memory meant so much to me. Every time I needed strength or an affirmation that I wasn't utterly broken, I thought of it. Remembered that there are some people in the world who don't think it's impossible to touch the sky. This time, I don't wait for Revenge to respond. “I
fell
.”

Wailing, I collapse to my knees. Forgiveness is beside me in an instant. He still doesn't touch me—he won't—but I lower the gun anyway. A deputy bursts into the tunnel and spots us. He calls to the others.

It's over. It's finally over.

Twenty-Eight

YOU ARE NOW LEAVING FRANKLIN.

I look at the sign, unblinking, until it rushes past and disappears behind us. Elvis sings in the background while I search for something else to focus on. A hawk lands on the power line high above. The bird flaps its wings as though it's about to lose balance. And when that disappears, my eyes seek out other simple things and identify them. Tree. Sign. Mailbox.

“Are you sure you're up for this?” Missy asks me. I turn and catch her worrying her bottom lip. “We would understand if you need more time, Alex. Really. After everything.”

After everything. There's so much that it's nearly impossible to select one incident and define it as the one that caused the most damage. My mind goes back to that night a week ago—the night in the mines, the aftermath of killing Travis and letting Nate Foster live. Of discovering that it was my best friend who'd hurt me the most.

Moments after the men found us, Nate Foster saved me from having to come up with any explanations for why he was still tied up and why there was a gun at his feet. “She's hysterical,” he blurted. “A man left me here, and later I heard voices and shots. This girl found me and tried to help, but she didn't want to put down the gun, and she couldn't untie me with one hand. Then she heard you guys and dropped it.”

Why he chose to save me, I don't know. Maybe he'd made some promises of his own. Or maybe he's not the monster I made him to be. Maybe he's just human, with light and darkness like the rest of us.

When I told Frederick about Dr. Stern's part in what happened, he sent out an APB. But Dr. Stern hadn't run; he was at his house, cooking dinner as if it were every other night. During the initial questioning about his involvement, he denied everything. He didn't know that Angus, hiding behind a tree, had seen him leaving the mines and was able to describe both him and his car. He faces kidnapping charges now, along with attempted murder. Especially in light of the information Christine and Nora Masterson gave about their own experiences with him.

All I can really think about, though, is the fact I haven't seen Revenge or Forgiveness since that night.

“I want to do this,” I say to Missy. For once, it's nothing but truth. She nods and concentrates on the road, still fretting. It will take some time, but eventually she'll see that things have changed yet again. This time for the good. And it's a change of my choosing.

An hour later we're here. Missy offers to walk me in. I smile and shake my head, trying not to cringe when I get out of the car and my injured rib protests. She watches me all the way to the doors, and I know she'll be right there waiting for me when I'm done.

“My name is Alexandra Tate. I have an appointment,” I say to the receptionist at the front desk. With a kind light in her eyes, she directs me to an open doorway at my back. I go in only after a brief hesitation.

“You can shut that,” the man says. I do. Then I sit down without any convincing.

His office is cheerful. The walls are yellow, and a picture of a rainbow hangs on the wall. Under the rainbow it says in cursive lettering,
YOU ARE THE CREATOR OF YOUR OWN DESTINY
. Dr. Goodwin is just sitting there watching me, his hands folded. He has white hair and a layer of fat under his chin. He seems entirely normal, like someone you'd see sitting in a coffee shop reading a newspaper. “Hi, Alex.” He smiles. “Why are you here today?”

I have no control over my hands, and they twist in my lap until they look malformed, a pile of skin and fingers. It feels like talking will make me shatter into a million pieces. There are already so many cracks that I'm not sure I can take another one in the delicate glass that forms me. But that's not true. My bruises are fading and my ribs are healing. Here I am, alive, when I've faced death so many times. It's not because of fate or what my family wanted. It's because of what I wanted … even if I didn't know it.

My eyes meet Dr. Goodwin's, and I'm not glass anymore. I'm steel. “I made a choice.”

When we pull up in front of the apartment, Revenge is waiting. And he's not alone. Seeing this, my heart pounds harder and Disbelief hovers in the backseat.

My aunt twists the key and climbs out. She doesn't see Revenge's visible companion, since the railing conceals them. She just starts for the stairs, then realizes I'm not following. “Are you okay?” Worry appears, rolling his eyes.

Though it's the hundredth time Missy has asked me this over the past week, I don't snap. “I'm fine. Just want to enjoy the fresh air for a little bit, if that's all right.”

She swallows and walks over to touch my cheek. “Don't stay out here too long. You shouldn't be standing so much.” I nod. She pulls away and heads up the stairs. Then comes the sound of a door closing.

The moment it echoes through the clearing, Revenge releases her. Eggs bolts toward me. Her damp nose sniffs my hands, my legs, my arms. Joy leaks through my chest as if my heart has exploded, and I lower myself to the ground to hug the dog I thought I would never see again. When I got back from the hospital two days ago and her body wasn't under the stairs, I just assumed Saul had found and buried it.

Eggs whines happily and licks my face. I gag, jerking back. “Oh my God, Eggs, you
reek
.”

But I keep stroking and petting her. She's warm and solid in a way my father never was during our encounters.
This
is real. Finally I look at Revenge. “How—”

He shrugs, hands shoved in his pockets. “Called in a favor. It's not like we're breaking any rules, right? I didn't interfere in
human
affairs.” He flashes me a shadow of that grin I know so well.

At a loss of what to say, I settle for the same words Nate Foster did in the tunnel. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” Revenge rocks on his heels, and it's easy to imagine a white flag over the two of us. We're both painfully aware, especially now, how much things have changed. I open my mouth, to ask why or what happens next. But then Revenge blurts, “I'm not human, Alex.”

I frown, turning slightly when Eggs tries to lick my mouth again. “I know … ”

“No, you don't. And it's my fault, really.” He purses his lips, focusing on his shoes. That gelled mane of his looks like liquid fire in the twilight. “I've lived so long and met so many of your kind. I've been there through so much destruction. And I enjoyed every second of it. Until you.” He still doesn't look at me, and my heart is pounding so hard he must be able to hear it. “At first, you were just another game. I waited and put ideas in your head. But along the way, you grew up, and I forgot to keep my distance. I forgot to love the game. Instead, I just loved you.”

For a moment, I stop breathing. We stare at each other now, me and this creature who I once considered my best friend, once believed myself to be in love with. Then I tear my eyes from his and take two steps away. Emotions touch me with gentle hands, but I won't let myself look at them. Eggs is the only one that matters among all this warmth and summer oblivion. She cocks her head. Her attention is quickly diverted when a dragonfly zips past her nose. When she runs into the trees I'm not afraid, though, because some things come back.

Suddenly I swing around to face him again. “You don't do that to someone you love, Revenge.”

He doesn't react like he usually would, like I expect him to. He stays calm, and his voice is subdued when he counters, “Didn't you do the same thing to the people you love?”

Silence. Birds chirp. An airplane soars overhead. In that silence I realize that Revenge is right. In the ways that matter, it is the same. I know better than anyone that love encompasses everything it means to be human. Laughter, pain, shadows, suns. To love is to stay when it's hard and leave when it's necessary. Sometimes it's wrong and unhealthy and doomed. Sometimes it isn't. And sometimes it makes us do things no other emotion would. “Revenge—”

“I fought it. I tried to ignore it and push it away. The trick with your father? That was nothing compared to what I've done in the past. At least, it should have been nothing.” Agitated now, he starts to turn away.

I move so he can't. He glares at his shoes again and I want to touch him so badly. Not a kiss or anything romantic. Just a touch—like when Missy brushed my cheek—to let him know that even when everything seems ruined, there's always something to salvage in the wreckage. “You don't have to explain any more. I understand,” I say.

At this, he looks up. His expression is so anguished that the cold stranger in the mines seems like a distant memory. “Do you know why I fell in love with you, Alex? Out of all the mortal women on this earth, why you were the one to make me forget what I am?”

Sniffing, I shake my head. Revenge smiles a little. “You're so
alive
. A part of you has always thought that you died the day of the accident, right? But that was the biggest lie of all. When I was supposed to be on the other side of the world, focused on retribution, I just wanted to be near you.”

He falls silent, and so do I. Does he expect me to feel the same way? I might understand the reasons for his actions, and I might even be able to forgive him eventually, but that part of us did die in the mines. I open my mouth to stumble over a response and Revenge shakes his head to stop me. He's not smiling anymore. There's still a softness in his gaze, though. “One day you'll get off this mountain,” he tells me quietly. “You'll leave all this behind. You'll meet new people and see new places. Maybe even fall in love.” He pauses. “And I want that for you. Because you deserve it.”

It's the most I've ever heard Revenge say, which is considerable since he's never been the sort to hold back. There's nothing else to add, really—he knows me better than anyone. He probably knows my thoughts before I do. Like now, because he turns away again. And this time I let him.

He starts toward the woods on soundless feet. Just as he's about to walk out of my life, I realize that there's one more thing to say. “Revenge,” I call. He faces me. Eggs darts around him and prances toward me. Kneeling to pet her, I keep my focus on him and swallow. “For what it's worth … you made me forget, too.”

The Choice smiles. His shirt flutters in the breeze. Watching him, I remember when Eggs ran from me—after I'd bathed her and fallen asleep with her warmth against my back—and I'd realized that some things can never be truly tamed. Revenge doesn't belong to just one person. He belongs to everyone lost or bound or broken.

I bury my fingers in Eggs's thick fur and watch him vanish in the trees.