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Aleksandar could have told her where the safe had gone, but she’d never told him anything. He couldn’t trust her. He shifted his feet. A twig snapped.
His mother gasped and scrambled to the flashlight, turning it off. At first, Aleksandar thought she disappeared, but when his eyes adjusted to the darkness she was standing in the center of the room holding a pistol in her hand.
She looked at the gun like it was a friend, even as she shookso violently the metal rattled. In a motion so fast he could have blinked and missed it, she brought the gun to her temple and pulled the trigger.
A flash of light. Aleksandar leaped to his feet. Time slowed. His mother fell back. It was a pity no one was there to catch her. A fall like that could hurt her head.
When she landed, time sped back up and Aleksandar’s ears exploded with ringing so loud it overrode all the music in his head.
His mother settled in the ash like it was dirty snow and she wanted to make an angel, but she wasn’t the kind of mother who would ever make snow angels. Her chest was unmoving, which was a relief. Aleksandar had no idea what he would have done if that first shot hadn’t stopped her heart and left her somewhere in between.
The air smelled of fire and spent gunpowder, but underneath it all there was an electric scent, like the second before lightning struck—metallic almost, like the ringing in his ears spun into molten sound. His mother was supposed to smell of honey and roses, not blood and broken hearts.
Aleksandar didn’t know why she did it, though he knew enough to guess. What he did know for sure, was that now, more than ever, he needed to open that safe. Whatever was inside had been important enough that his mother would rather die than live without it.
24
IAN
Ian checked his watch again. Two thirty-five. Another hour of staring at the wall had passed while Alek snored lightly behind him. Earlier they’d swapped spoons and Alek fell asleep with his arms wrapped around Ian’s waist.
Ian carefully slipped from Alek’s clutches and sat at the edge of the bed. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that Alek was still asleep. It would be risky to leave him. What if he needed to use the restroom, or was sick again? What if he fell down the stairs trying to find him? What if he had another nightmare and Ian wasn’t there to wake him?
But Ian was one more sleepless hour away from walking into the middle of the forest and screaming at the top of his lungs. He wrote a quick note for Alek, then unlocked both their phones. After checking the phones were on silent, Ian called Alek’s phone, answered, then put his own phone on mute. He left them both on speaker as a makeshift baby monitor and slipped out of the room.
The Victorian was so quiet that Ian could hear the fibers of the rug squish beneath his feet. He stopped by his room andthrew on jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a pair of socks, then descended the staircase, careful to avoid the squeakier steps.
A full moon illuminated his footsteps on his way to the garage. Wind rustled the ferns and icy dew drops dripped from branches overhead. Ian grabbed a machete and a pair of oversized garden shears, double-checked the contents of his old canvas tool bag, then set off around the exterior of the house to the northern wing where the greenhouse was located.
Their room was in the southern wing, so there was little risk that Ian’s work would disturb Alek. Still, Ian pulled out his phone and confirmed that the call hadn’t ended. He turned the volume up and heard Alek’s faint snoring.
The door to the greenhouse was made of wrought iron vines that tangled and wound their way around the edges before branching inward to frame a keyhole-shaped window. Ian pulled the door open with a rattling screech that made his hair stand on end.
The greenhouse was as overgrown as he’d last seen it. Thorny blackberry bushes strangled the trunks of cedar and redwood saplings. Big leaf maple elbowed in between. There wasn’t so much a glass ceiling than a young forest canopy as most of the glass panels had been punched out by some of the more overzealous trees.
Maybe they’d be better off going scorched earth with it, but he didn’t like using herbicides, especially when he lived in the middle of a forest, surrounded by native plants and animals. As with all things—home improvement and otherwise—the best way out was through.
Ian propped the door open with his tool bag. The glow of the moon and clear conditions made for enough light to work by, but he donned a headlamp just in case. Wearing a pair of rose-pruning gloves that went to the elbow, Ian attacked the blackberry first, ripping vines from the earth by the fistful.
Once he cleared what he could reach, he picked up the machete. He lifted it high overhead and sliced downward, felling the first sapling in his path with a satisfying thwack. After throwing the sapling behind him, Ian moved on to the next tree. Metal slashed through the air. Another satisfying crack. He cut down branch after branch and ripped whole plants out of the ground. In no time, the pile of brush outside the garden door had grown as tall and wide as he was, but he kept going.
Snapshots flashed in front of his eyes with each swing of the blade. Alek sick and shaking in the bathtub. Alek hitting the keyboard with his cast. Alek sliding a ring onto Ian’s finger. Alek’s face when Ian told him the worst thing he’d ever said for the second time. Alek playing the piano before the fall. Alek breaking Ian’s heart night after night and then taking all of it back. Alek reaching out. Ian pulling away. Falling. Falling. Falling. A bloody halo around his head.
Fooling around with Alek earlier had left Ian raw and untethered. It wasn’t that it wasn’t good or that he didn’t want it. Ian had come so hard he felt like he’d been wrenched inside out. What they did in that bathtub was the most honest form of sex they’d ever had. Alek had let himself be vulnerable. He was really trying. Ian hadn’t realized how guarded his heart still was until Alek bared his own heart to him.
Ian had not prepared for, or even expected, the wave of post-nut clarity that knocked him over the head in the fleeting seconds between their shared climax and Alek throwing up. What was he thinking? Alek had a giant scab inside his brain and a cast on his arm. Ian’s heart was still broken.
Ian meant what he said when he promised he would forgive Alek as long as he told the truth. Iandidforgive Alek. He understood Alek’s motivations. Everything Alek did stemmed from love warped by abandonment issues into something toxic and painful.
But forgiveness wasn’t the same as forgetting. Alek had humiliated him. Bullied him. Broken him. Forgetting that would take time.
Ian hacked at a tree trunk that really should have been chopped into firewood with a chainsaw. He swung the machete over and over again, his mind forgoing all thought and emotion. He lost track of time as he lifted the machete on each inhale and sliced it down through the air with each breath out. Finally, the teenaged maple tree broke in two and Ian dragged it out through the path he’d already made and heaved it onto the pile. He paused, breathing hard as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
A frog croaked, but it was otherwise silent. Ian checked his phone. Either the call had dropped or Alek had hung up. Ian didn’t stop to collect his tools. He turned and hurried back to the house.
25
ALEK
