by Skye Warren
We purchased our tickets and waited in line for thirty minutes before climbing in. It took another ten minutes before everyone else was loaded inside and the wheel began to turn in earnest.
“So what’s your story?” she asked.
I thought about that while we circled back down to the ground.
“Kind of the same thing. Hooked up with a guy for a while. Left him. Now I’m trying to figure out what to do next.”
“Asshole.”
“Yeah. Except…I mean, yeah he really is. By anyone’s standards, he’s an asshole.”
“But…”
“But nothing.”
“You’re in love.”
“He’s a jerk. If I told you everything he’s done, you would totally agree.”
“You haven’t even told me what he’s done and I already agree with you. But you love him.”
“He’s a priest.”
That gave her pause. Then she shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, I think that matters. Plus other stuff. It’s just so frustrating. I want to go back to the way things were before I found him.”
I frowned, thinking how terrified I’d been that first night. Now here I was making friends in a hostel, exploring a new place on my own. I didn’t have much of a plan or much money, but neither did I have any fear.
My heart skipped a beat. No fear. That’s what I’d been looking for, and I’d found it.
“Well, it doesn’t matter now. I don’t know where he is, so even if I wanted to find him…”
“Which you do.”
“I can’t.”
She sighed, looking out over the purple-and-blue-hued falls. “Well, I know exactly where my boyfriend is. At our apartment with my friend. Who I only let stay with us because she needed a place.”
“That sucks. Big time.”
“So screw them, right?”
“Yeah.”
The word sounded hollow, and judging by the look on her face, she knew it too. But she let me off the hook, and we chatted pleasantly as we grabbed a greasy hamburger from the strip and made fun of the wax statues in the window of the museum.
“I’d better head back,” she said. “I’ve got that interview first thing in the morning.”
“Sure thing. Let me just stop at my car to grab my bag.”
We headed through the thinning crowds toward the hostel. I pulled the small bag of toiletries I’d packed out of the backpack. Something caught my eye. Standing in the open back door of the car, I looked up in the sky and saw an orange-ish light streaking across the sky, like a rainbow but brighter somehow.
“Look at that.” I pointed.
“Oh yeah, I saw that last night. I think it’s a lunar bow.”
The book had mentioned those alongside rainbows but it didn’t have a picture. It was beautiful, more striking than all the colors, I thought. Just one. I felt a smile spread across my face. As silly as it was, I felt like this was what I’d come here to see. After all the official sites, the gorgeous views, just a swash of orange across the sky. Bold, brash. Everything that I wasn’t only a few weeks ago, but not anymore.
I glanced to the side.
There was a large overfill lot meant for people who visited with trailers and RVs. In that lot was a familiar truck, and leaning against the side was Hunter. I couldn’t be sure. His body was nondescript from this far away, his face in the shadows. But it was him.
He didn’t move. He wouldn’t move.
I turned to Sarah. “I have something kind of crazy to tell you. I’m going to leave now, but not in my car. Do you want it?”
“Uh, what?”
“It’s okay if you don’t, but it just sounded earlier like you might not have one. This car is old and not even strictly street legal but it can get you where you need to go.”
“Is this some kind of trick?”
“Take it or leave it.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Take it.”
I tossed her the keys as I headed down the trip. “Nice meeting you, Sarah. Good luck.”
She raised her hand in a tentative wave. “You too.”
I wanted him to come to me. It wasn’t just a pride thing. I needed to know that he wanted this too. I needed him to need me too. Sure, I suspected, I hoped, but this was put-up or shut-up time. This was putting everything on the line just to see if it stuck. It was jumping off a cliff.
The streets thinned out right away. Only the main strand had been crowded. I found the largest street that would take me to the highway and just kept walking.
Twenty minutes later I saw headlights illuminate the road beside me. I put my thumb into the air like I was hitching a ride. The familiar squeak and rumble as the truck slowed to a stop beside me.
The door opened and Hunter was there, a grave expression on his face.
“Where you headed?” he asked, deceptively calm.
“No place in particular.”
“Isn’t that usually the point of hitching a ride, to get somewhere?”
I grinned, repeating his previous sentiments back to him. “I like to travel. Sometimes I do jobs, but in between them, I keep travelling.”
He paused, seeming to think that over.
“Well, hop in then,” he said so softly I barely heard him.
I climbed into the truck and tossed my bag in the back. Without looking at me, he started up the engine and took us forward. Though I didn’t have a destination in mind, I expected him to pull out onto the freeway. Instead he kept going down Main Street past the turnoff.
“Where are we going?”
He reached under his seat and handed me a book. “Got something for you.”
I touched the familiar cardboard cover, traced the lettering. Niagara Falls.
Once the mere thought of this had sustained me, small doses of hope. Now that I’d seen the real thing, I couldn’t regret any of it. The falls were both more beautiful than I could have imagined—and yet meant so much less. They were rock and water, not meant to be anyone’s salvation. Not like flesh and blood.
There was more. A manila folder was tucked between the pages and sticking out from the sides. I opened it. My breath caught at what I read. A full confession written in Hunter’s hand detailing how he’d kidnapped me, the sexual acts we’d performed in clinical terms, and signed by him at the bottom.
Even more shocking was the letters beneath them. Signed witness statement from Laura and James. A small pain stabbed my heart imagining Laura’s horror and confusion at learning the truth. And some man named Roger Wilbourne, proprietor of a diner and gas station, who had seen a girl call for help, who’d found three unconscious men on his property later that day. Hunter had collected statements from them that were both factual and damning.
The truck slowed to a stop.
I looked out the window. The sign on the old building read Niagara Falls NY Police Department. My stomach churned with revulsion. No.
With an impassive expression, he nodded for me to get out of the truck. To go into the station and hand these documents over. The gesture took me back to that first day at the motel. The forced casualness, the banked desire. He’d claimed to want my body that night, but he’d really needed so much more.
This wasn’t about right or wrong, love or hate. If I sent him back to jail, no matter that he was stronger now, he could get raped again.
“I would never send you back,” I said through gritted teeth.
He stared at me, gaze burning with unnamed emotion. “What the fuck do I care if I go back? I can’t keep you either way, so what do I care where I am when I’m alone?”
I shuddered from some combination of shock and want. We were standing in the water at the top of the cliff, the water rushing around us, threatening to pull us under.
“Why can’t you keep me?”
His expression was incredulous. “You know what I did. How it was between us. Even if we don’t tell anyone else, you know.”
“I forgave you that night, remember.�
�
He snorted, unbelieving.
“You were a priest. Of all people, you understand forgiveness.”
Something dark flickered in his eyes, and in those shadows I remembered what he’d once told me. I didn’t scream, Evie. I prayed. And fallen over the cliff, crashed into the water as fast and as deep as any person could do. It wasn’t a surprise he’d become isolated and cold in the aftermath. It was a surprise he’d survived at all.
“Don’t you see? I can’t ever be normal again. Never be the kind of man who can give you a real home—”
“I had a home. For twenty years I was trapped inside one. Now I want to roam. With you.”
“I’ll never be the kind of man who can be gentle with you, Evie. Not like you deserve.”
He was talking about sex, promising me more nights of bruising hands and forceful sex and sweaty, panting, screaming into the dark.
I met his gaze. “I’m not the kind of girl who needs gentle. You aren’t the only fucked-up person here, you know.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that,” he said mildly.
“And I was broken long before we even met.”
“You’re not broken.” He almost snarled the words, his ferocity terrifying, compelling. “I love the way you are. The way you’re terrified but do it anyway. The way you stand up to me when you shouldn’t.”
I climbed over to him, throwing my knee over and straddling him. His whole body tensed as if it had been shocked, rigid instead of welcoming.
“What about the way I fight for us,” I whispered, “even though you’re trying to push me away?”
In a rush, he grasped me to him, sucking in lungfuls of air as if he’d been underwater, his face buried in my hair. “Yes, that. God, Evie. Jesus Fucking Christ, Evie.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that,” I teased, but then he was kissing me, consuming me, and I was falling, drowning, battered and bruised by the rapids, never wanting to surface. His hands were everywhere, fluid on my thighs, my breasts—but not stopping there, never resting, just moving over me as if making sure I was all there, as if taking inventory, possession and never letting go.
A rap on the window wrenched us apart. Outside, a police officer stood, implacable and severe.
Hunter rolled down the window.
“Everything all right in here?” The cop directed the question to me.
Hunter tensed beneath my thighs, as if I might say no, actually, I’m being held against my will and then hand him the signed confession.
“I’m fine.”
One eyebrow raised. “You sure, ma’am?”
I blushed as my vulnerable position, splayed over Hunter’s lap, came to me. I must look ridiculous to him, helpless to him, and I was.
“Well, I am a bit embarrassed.”
The cop hid a smile. “Yes, ma’am. Just making sure.”
He headed back into the station.
I watched him go as a rush of exhilaration pumped through my veins. But when I turned back to Hunter, the air rushed from the space. His eyes were rimmed with red. His lips trembled.
“You honor me,” he said.
I swallowed. It wasn’t my fault if he went to prison, wasn’t my fault if someone there hurt him. But the truth was, it wasn’t mercy that kept me mute or stayed my hand.
I’d found in Hunter a kindred, broken soul. We didn’t fit in with the rest of society and never really would—but neither did we deserve to be locked away or abused for our issues. We hadn’t asked to be this way. All we wanted now was to live in peace.
In his own fucked up way, he’d honored me that day at the motel. He’d picked me instead of anyone, he’d plucked me out of my nothingness.
I rested my forehead against his.
“Let’s go,” I murmured.
His body released its tension, reveling and accepting. “Where to?”
“I have something to show you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Niagara Falls Ontario Canada is known as the Honeymoon Capital of the world.
Hunter found us a hotel that had an overflow lot for his truck, and we went back to Niagara Falls the next day. We covered the same ground, the same tours, the same boat ride, and I found it all the more exciting with Hunter’s sardonic presence.
As we disembarked from the Maiden, I asked the lady at the desk whether she knew of Sarah who worked there.
“She’d be new,” I explained. “Just hired.”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t think so. But I don’t run orientation, so I wouldn’t really know.”
I hoped Sarah had taken the car and gone home. The falls were beautiful, but I knew that any place could be a cage if you felt trapped.
Hunter surprised me by stepping forward. “Excuse me, do you have any trail maps for hiking in the national park?”
“Of course.” The woman slid a glance down his body. “I’m guessing you’re looking for the more advanced trail routes.”
I blinked. Was she flirting?
“You might say that. Just looking for a great view.” He pulled me close.
The woman eyed his hand around my waist then grinned. “Understood. You know, if you’re really hardcore, there’s a whole route mapped out. They call it a self-guided tour. You hike and camp on your own but the maps will guide you as you go. It takes you all around the whirlpool and the hotspots in the park.”
His eyes lit up. “That would be perfect.”
Hardcore? Oh yeah, that was him.
We wove through the crowds while Hunter started ticking off all the things we’d need for the trip. I was silent—speechless, really. Astonished at the easy way he donned a solicitous manner with her. That was him, I realized. The old Hunter who had gone to seminary school and counseled families. And maybe the true Hunter still underneath all those rough, jagged edges.
I was surprised, too, that the woman didn’t see what he was. I supposed he looked handsome and rugged in the waffle tee and faded jeans, with an ever-present layer of scruff on his jaw. If she sensed any of his wildness, it only gave him a more compelling edge. Something different from the dads who emerged from minivans in the parking lot around us in polos and khaki pants.
We found an outdoorsy store nearby and loaded up on new clothes and gear, trying on clothes and making faces at the ones we didn’t like. Hunter snagged me in one of the dressing rooms for a kiss. As if we were a couple. The idea of us as a normal couple was…quite frankly, terrifying. But also amazing, and I suspected the two always came as a pair.
The world looked different in the park. If the gorgeous view of the falls were the front parlor, then the park was the family room—less impressive but more relaxing. It was the same thing we’d done in the smaller waterfalls where we’d stood in the water and looked down, although this place was much more expansive and these rivers were miles away from the falls themselves.
The ground we covered turned orange, the skies grew vibrant.
We walked a hundred steps carved into rock to reach the peak of a mountain, and the view had stolen my breath. Or maybe that was because the air was thinner there, but I felt rooted to the spot, indelibly planted into the ground, connected to the earth in a startling and soulful bond. This was the Niagara I had dreamed about, the true wonder that hadn’t been commercialized.
Hunter was affected too. Some of the lines in his face had eased, the russet glow painting his face with wonder. But despite our auspicious beginning, he became increasingly distant as time passed. Considering Hunter was already so thoroughly contained, that was saying something.
He grew more pensive. Sadder with each passing day. The physical strain of the climbs and the harsh environment acted as buffers. It was hard for me to talk, much less convince him to open up, but with every step, it became clearer I would have to. We set up the tent and opened up the top. Sex beneath the stars, murmured conversation about the vistas or animals we’d come across, and then sleeping wrapped up in his arms. Bliss, if I wasn’t sure something dark brewed ben
eath the surface.
Now my whole body ached with newfound activity. My throat was dry. Hunter held out the canteen without looking over. I took a gulp and returned it to his outstretched hand. He insisted on carrying the bulk of the gear.
I covered my eyes with my hand and squinted at the trail ahead. As far as the eye could see, there were shades of orange and yellow, golden rock and a blinding sunset. Far in the distance I could see heavy clouds and the slanted stripes of rain. There were a hundred different climates here, flash floods beside a desert, but it had been a full day since we’d met the river.
Dizziness distorted my vision. My foot landed on loose pebbles, and I skidded down the incline a few feet before Hunter’s firm grasp caught me. He set me right again.
“You okay?” His voice was gruff, dry from the dusty air.
“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.”
He grunted and continued ahead.
His head bent low, skin beaded with sweat. The start of a beard obscured his expression, but I knew his mouth would be drawn tight, lips parched. We were both at the ends of our endurance, though his physical strength far surpassed my own.
The little safety class we’d taken warned us that people still died here every year, and though I doubted it would come to that, neither did we need a case of acute exhaustion. We wouldn’t reach the basin with its shops and watered campgrounds before nightfall, which meant another night of camp.
We should bed down now so we didn’t lose too much water, but Hunter seemed hell-bent on going forward, like he was trying to get away from something. Or trying to drown the darkness in exhaustion.
He shortened his strides for me, but I still struggled to keep up. Unlike some of the other straggling groups we sometimes waved to in passing, he and I stayed close, within five feet at all times. It was a safety precaution, both physical and emotional. He was my ship in a tempestuous sea. I was the talisman he kissed before a storm. Even distracted and discontent, he always kept me close.
My breath began to come in pants, my vision blurry. He rounded a corner, and relieved to hide my weakness for a moment, I leaned back against the jagged rockface. As a testament to how bad off I was, the cool prodding of rock into my back felt relaxing, massaging out some of the kinks in my muscles. Even my skin felt tight—parched.
