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"Say hi to Layla for me. "
He closed his eyes, relief, guilt, gratitude rushing through him. "I will. See you later. "
Maybe he was a little dizzy when he stepped outside, a little shaky in the knees, but when he made himself look, the door of the old library was closed. His gaze traveled up, up, but no one he loved stood poised for death on the narrow ledge of the turret.
He crossed the street again. She was at her desk when he came in the front door. She flicked him a glance, then looked deliberately away.
"There are messages on your desk. Your two o'clock called to reschedule for next week. "
He walked to her, held out the flowers. "I'm sorry. "
"They're very nice. I'll go put them in water. "
"I'm sorry," he repeated when she rose and made to brush by him.
She paused, just two beats. "All right. " And taking the flowers, walked away.
He wanted to let it go. What was the point in dredging it all up? What could possibly be the point? It wasn't about trust, it was about pain. Wasn't he entitled to his own pain? Hurting, he strode back to the kitchen where she filled a vase with water.
"Listen, are we supposed to turn ourselves inside out, show off our guts? Is that what it takes?"
"No. "
"We don't have to know every damn detail about each other. "
"No, we don't. " She began to slip the tender green stems into the water, one by one.
"I had a nightmare. I've had nightmares almost as long as I can remember. We've all had them now. "
"I know. "
"Is that your way of dragging it out of me? To agree with everything I say?"
"It's my way of controlling myself so I don't kick your ass and step over it on my way out. "
"I don't want to fight. "
"Yes, you do. That's exactly what you want, and I'm not going to give you what you want. You don't deserve it. "
"Jesus Christ. " He stormed around the little room and in a rare show of violence kicked at the cabinets. "She's dead. Carly's dead. I didn't save her, and she died. "
Layla turned away from the sunbeams in the bright blue vase. "I'm so sorry, Fox. "
"Don't. " He pressed his fingers to his eyes. "Just don't. "
"Don't be sorry because you lost someone who must have mattered a great deal to you? Don't be sorry because you're hurting? What do you expect from me?"
"Right now, I don't have the first clue. " He dropped his hands. "We met the spring before my twenty-third birthday, when I was in New York, in law school. She was a medical student. She wanted to work in emergency medicine. We met at a party.
We started seeing each other. Casually. Casually at first, for a while. We were both studying, crazy schedules. She stayed in New York during the summer break, and I came home. But I went up a few times because things were getting more serious. "
When he sat at the kitchen table, Layla opened the refrigerator. Instead of his usual Coke, she brought him a bottle of water, and one for herself.
"We moved in together that fall. Crappy place, the kind of crappy place you expect a couple of students to be able to afford in New York. We loved it. She loved it," he corrected. "I was always a little out of step in New York, a little on edge. But she loved it, so I did because I loved her. I loved her, Layla. "
"I know. I can hear it in your voice. "
"We made plans. Long-range, colorful plans, the way you do. I never told her about the Hollow, not what was under it. I told myself we'd stopped it, during the last Seven. We'd ended it, so I didn't need to tell her. I knew it was a lie. I was sure it was a lie when the dreams came back. Cal called. I still had weeks to go in the semester, my job as a law clerk. I had Carly. But I had to come back. So I lied to her, made excuses that were lies. Family emergency. "
Not really a lie, he told himself now, as he'd told himself then. The Hollow was his family.
"I went back and forth, back and forth, for those weeks between New York and the Hollow. And I piled lie on top of lie. And I used my gift to read her so I could tell what sort of lie would work best. "
"Why didn't you tell her, Fox?"
"She'd never have believed me. There wasn't a fanciful bone in her body. Carly was all about science. Maybe that was part of the attraction. None of this would or could be real for her, I told myself. But that was only part of the reason, maybe that was just another lie. "
He paused, pinching the bridge of his nose to relieve tension. "I wanted something that wasn't part of this. I wanted the reality of her, of what we had away from here. So when summer came and I knew I had to be here, I made more excuses, told more lies. I picked fights with her. It was better if she was pissed at me than that any part of this touch her. I told her we needed to take a break, that I was going home for a few weeks. Needed some space. I hurt her, and justified it as protecting her. "
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. "
"My God. "
"Gage went in like a battering ram, and Fox took off again. It took both of us to take Napper out. Fox was already running up the stairs when we got inside the old library. And it was hell in there. We were too late, too. She was jumping, hell, she was diving off that ledge when we ran out on the roof. I thought he was going to go over after her. He was bloody from fights, from being rammed by books that flew around like missiles, and God knew what else. There was nothing he could do. He knows it. But once in a while it takes ahold of him and gives him a good, hard squeeze. "
"If she'd believed him, believed in him and done what he asked-what she promised him-she'd be alive. "
Cal kept his calm gray eyes even with hers. "That's right. Exactly right. "
"But he won't blame her. "
"It's harder to blame the dead. "
"Not for me, not at the moment. If she'd loved him enough, believed in him enough to keep her promise- only that, to keep her promise-he wouldn't have had to risk his life to try to save her. I didn't say that to him, and I'm going to try very hard not to. But I feel better now that I've said it out loud. "
"I've said it out loud, and to his face. I felt better, too, but it didn't seem to do the same for him. "
Layla nodded. "There's something else. Why Carly? She wasn't part of the town, but she was infected, apparently, in minutes. So strongly that she committed suicide. "
"It's happened before. It's mostly people who live in the Hollow, but outsiders can get caught up. "
"I bet most of them get caught up as victims of someone who's infected. But here she is, the woman one of you loves, and she's caught up immediately. I wonder about that, Cal, and I wonder how it was he heard her calling, that she was able to call him, that she was able to wait until he ran out on the roof so he had to watch her jump. "
"Where are you going with this?"
"I'm not sure. But it might be worthwhile to have Cybil do a search on her, a genealogy. What if she's connected? What if Carly was on one of our twisted family trees?"
"And Fox just happened to fall in love with her?"
"That's the point. I don't think any of this just happened. Cal, have you ever been in love-really in love- with anyone before Quinn?"
"No. " He answered without hesitation, then took another contemplative sip of coffee. "I can tell you Gage hasn't either. "
"It uses emotions," she pointed out. "What better way to cause pain than to use love against one of you? To twist it like a knife in the heart? I don't think she was just infected, Cal. I think she was chosen. "
