He took a long, slow drink of water. “Things got ugly before the seventh day of the seventh month. Fights and fires, vandalism. We were busy, me and Cal and Gage. I called her. I shouldn’t have called her, but I did, to tell her I missed her, that I’d be back in a couple of weeks. If I hadn’t wanted to hear her voice…”
“She came,” Layla said. “She came to Hawkins Hollow.”
“The day before our birthday, she drove down from New York. She got directions to the farm, and showed up on the doorstep. I wasn’t there. Cal had an apartment in town back then, and we were staying there. Carly called from the kitchen of the farmhouse. Didn’t think she’d miss my birthday, did I?
“I was terrified. She didn’t belong here, wasn’t supposed to come here. When I got to the farm, nothing I said would budge her. We were going to have this out, that was her stand. Whatever was wrong, we were going to have it out. What could I tell her?”
“What did you tell her?”
“Too much, not enough. She didn’t believe me. Why would she? She thought I was overstressed. She wanted me to come back to New York for tests. I walked over, turned on the burner on the stove, and stuck my hand on it.”
He did the same now, in the little office kitchen, but stopped short of holding his hand to the burner. What would be the point now? “She had the expected reaction, human and medical,” he added, switching the burner off. “Then she saw my hand healing. She was full of questions then, more insistent that I go in for tests. I agreed to everything, anything, on the condition that she go back to New York. She wouldn’t, not unless I went with her, so we compromised. She promised she’d stay at the farm, day and night, until I could go with her.
“She stayed that night, the next day, the next night. But the night after…”
He walked to the sink, leaned against it as he looked out the window to the neighboring houses and lawns beyond. “Things were insane in town, and in the middle of it, my mother called. She woke up when a car started outside, and she’d gone running. Carly was gone. She’d driven off in the car she’d borrowed from a friend to drive down from New York. I was frantic, more frantic when Mom told me she’d been gone twenty minutes, maybe a little more. She hadn’t been able to reach me, just got static when she tried.”
When he broke off, when he came back to sit, Layla simply reached across the table to take his hand.
“There was a house on fire over on Mill. Cal got burned pretty bad when we got the kids out. Three kids. Jack Proctor, he ran the hardware store, had a shotgun. He was just walking along, shooting at anything that moved. One barrel, second barrel, reload. A couple of teenagers were raping a woman right on Main Street, right in front of the Methodist Church. There was more. No point going into it. I couldn’t find her. I tried to find her thoughts, but there was so much interference. Like the static on the line. Then I heard her calling for me.”
He didn’t see the houses and lawns now. He saw the fire and the blood. “I ran, and Napper was there, blocking the sidewalk. He had his car pulled across it. Had a ball bat, and came at me with it, swinging. I wouldn’t have gotten past him if Gage hadn’t taken him down, and Cal right behind with his burns still healing. I climbed over the car and kept running, because I heard her calling me. The door to the library, the old library, was open. I could feel her now, how afraid she was. I went up the steps, yelling for her, so she’d know I was coming. Carts hurtling at me, books flying.”
Because it was as real as yesterday, he squeezed his eyes shut, scrubbed his hands over his face. “I went down a couple of times, maybe more. I don’t know, it’s a blur. I got out on the roof. It was like a hurricane out there. Carly was on the ledge above, standing on that spit of stone. Her hands were bleeding; the stone was stained with it. I told her not to move. Don’t move. Oh God, don’t move. I’m coming up to get you. She looked at me, and she was in there, for an instant it let her come all the way out so she could look at me with all that fear. She said, ‘Help me. Please, God, help me.’ Then she went off.”
Layla moved her chair beside his, and as she had the night before, drew his head down to her breast.
“I didn’t get there in time.”
“Not your fault.”
“Every choice I made with her was the wrong one. All those wrong choices killed her.”
“No. It killed her.”
“She wasn’t part of this. She’d never have been part of this except for me.” He drew back, drew away so he could finish. “Last night, I dreamed,” he began, and told her.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” Layla told him. “I don’t know what I should say to you. But…” She took his hand, pressed it between her breasts. “My heart aches. I can’t imagine what you feel if my heart aches. Others who know what happened, who know you, have told you it wasn’t your fault. You’ll accept that or you won’t. If Carly loved you, she’d want you to accept it. I don’t know if you were wrong to lie to her. And I don’t know if I could accept as truth everything I know if I hadn’t seen and experienced it myself. You wanted to keep her separate from this, to keep what you had, who you were, who she was apart from what you have, who you are here. I know what that’s like, the wanting to keep everything in its proper place. But your worlds collided, Fox, and it was out of your control.”
“If I’d made different choices.”
“You might have changed it,” she agreed. “Or it all would have taken a different route to the same end. How can you know? I’m not Carly, Fox. And like it or not, we share what’s happening in the Hollow. They aren’t all your choices now.”
“I’ve seen too much death, Layla. Too much blood and pain. I know more’s coming, and I know we’ll all do whatever we can, whatever we have to do. But I don’t know if I can survive if I lose you.”
It was his sadness that lay on her heart now. The unbearable weight of his sorrow. “We’ll find a way. You’ve always believed that. You’ve made me believe it. Come on. You’re going upstairs to lie down. No arguments.”
She cajoled, bullied, and nagged him upstairs. By the time she got him into bed, he was too exhausted to argue, or make suggestive jokes when she undressed him and tucked him in. When she was sure he was asleep, she ran down to close the office, then back up again to call Cal and ask him to come.
Layla put her finger to her lips when he came in the back way. “He’s sleeping. He had a rough night, and a rough day. A nightmare,” she added, gesturing him into the kitchen. “One that blurred me and Carly together.”
“Oh. Shit.”
She poured coffee without asking if he wanted it. “He told me about her, not without considerable struggle, and considerable pain. He’s worn out now.”
“Better he told you though. Fox doesn’t do well holding stuff in.” He started to drink, lowered the mug and frowned. “How did coffee get in here?”
“He bought me a coffeemaker.”
Cal let out a half laugh. “He’ll be all right, Layla. It hits him sometimes. Not often, but when it does, it hits hard.”
“He blames himself, and that’s stupid,” she said so briskly, Cal lifted his brows. “But he loved her so he can’t do anything else. He told me as soon as he knew she’d left the farm, he tried to find her. You were burned getting people out of a house-kids out-some guy was shooting up the town, that son of a bitch Napper came at him with a baseball bat, and he’s sick because he couldn’t stop her from jumping.”
“Here’s what he probably didn’t tell you, stop me if I’m wrong. He was burned, too, not as bad as I was, that time, but bad enough. When the call came through, he took off ahead of me and Gage. On the way he kicked Proctor- that was the guy with the shotgun-square in the nuts, tossed Gage the gun, and kept going. He punched out one of two boys tearing into a woman on the sidewalk. I got the other one, but it slowed me down. And there was Napper. He got a good swing in with that bat. Broke Fox’s arm.”