“Even now that you’re a mere mortal?” She steps nearer.
I want it, that peaceful thing that rests inside of her, that turns blue eyes into calm pools. I want it to blanket my confusion and make everything black and white like it is for her. It’s right here in front of me, in her, but it’s a world away.
Her eyes widen. Her gaze suddenly warms. “Let’s escape. Let’s go camping,” she says. “I’ve been working too hard at school. I’ll run home and tell my parents, and we’ll take off.”
I stare at her. She’s never skipped out on anything.
“With Koss gone, our crew will be pulled and questioned more and . . . I should probably be here. I’m not certain what they do to people who take off.”
Her face still beams. Responsibility used to get her every time. Not now.
“Don’t you have stuff to do?” I swallow hard. “No plans with anybody?”
She smiles. “That depends on what you say next.”
She’s good. No, she’s perfect.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
CHAPTER 22
IT’S TWO HOURS BEFORE SALOME returns, her oversize gym bag in hand. She bounces up to me, throws back her hair, and winks. “Let’s get out of here.”
We walk hand in hand, my fire gear slung over my shoulder.
“I was thinkin’ you’d changed your mind,” I say, and we hike toward the base and my waiting Beetle.
She laughs like she did years ago. “My dad would have liked that.”
I freeze. “I don’t want to mess up—”
She grabs my arm. “We just needed to have a little talk about trust.”
“He doesn’t trust me alone with you anymore?”
“Oh.” Salome smiles and leans into me. “I think he trusts you just fine.”
We reach the villa, exceptionally quiet today, as if the buildings themselves mourn.
I frown and hand her the keys. “Probably best if you pick up the car, in case the crew is wandering around the lot. I’ll wait across from Randall’s.”
Minutes later, she appears, and I take her place behind the wheel.
We both know where we’re going, though it’s been years. We drive south, through the mountains where our crew dropped, where Koss dropped. Red-flag fire-risk warnings keep us on the alert, and a haze darkens the sun. Hours later, the breeze kicks up, the air clears, and my body relaxes. The smell of dead things vanishes, and the sound of Salome’s laughter surrounds.
I love this drive. I love this drive with her. She rubs the tension from my shoulders, and I take long looks at my friend. So beautiful.
“What are you thinking?” she asks.
“Huh?”
“Right now. What are you thinking about?”
I swallow hard. “Things I can’t say and things I can’t do, and things I want to say and want to do.”
She shifts in her seat. “Like what?”
The car eases itself onto the shoulder, and I sit and stare straight ahead.
Salome takes my hand. “Like what?”
She asked.
Koss is dead, a victim of getting too close to me. But I can’t fight this right now.
I reach over and touch her lips. “That was the first thing.”
Her lips part, kiss my fingers. “And then?”
My hand caresses her cheek, her neck, moves to her thigh. “I guess this is what came next.”
“Were you ever thinking of this?”
Salome bends forward and brushes her lips across my ear, my cheek. She smiles and kisses my neck, gently bites my lip, and pulls away. For a moment, she is my world. I am perfect; my heart thumps perfectly. We are perfect. And we kiss.
We draw together and stay that way. My hands, usually wandering during a kiss, tremble against her back.
Minutes later she pulls back and breathes deep. I blink hard.
“Honestly, I hadn’t let myself think that far ahead,” I say.
“That’s one of the irritatingly wonderful things about you.” She rests her head on my shoulder. “I know I’d always be safe with you.”
Salome’s never wrong. Except now. Especially now. I know two things: I’m totally confused, and she’s never been in more danger.
WE GET TO MY DAD’S MOUNTAIN—Hank’s Hill. The name fits because Dad owns the whole thing. It was a gift for Mom. Not many guys would think to buy their wives a mountain; hand it to Dad, he thinks big. Tree-lined at the bottom, the top is covered with wildflowers and scrubby bushes. It’s what Mom loved. She’d come here to paint the sunrise. Sometimes the sunset. In the years before she left, only the sunset.
But years ago, before, the Lees would come with us to the hill. Once a month we’d pile into the shack Dad built smack on the top. No running water. No electricity. Just a view to kill for and a weekend laughing with friends. There was no better place to be.
Salome and I spent hours in search of “blue rocks.” I’ve never found them anywhere else but on the plateau that forms the top of Hank’s Hill. The rocks were opaque and blue like her eyes are blue. We collected them in a rock jar, planned on selling them for big money. We’d become wealthy rock salespeople.
The Beetle winds the thin strip of earth that snakes toward the top; the poor engine revs and whirs all the way.
“Get out and push, will ya?” I smile.
Salome throws open her door and unbuckles her belt.
“Hey!” I reach for her and grab her leg. “I’m kidding. I was only kid—”
She laughs at me; soon I laugh, too. We quiet and sit in comfortable silence—the kind you enjoy only with a friend who knows everything you’ve done, everything you desire. Well, almost everything.
My hand is still on her thigh. I grit teeth and force my fingers back to my side of the car.
Hands that took life shouldn’t deserve this feeling.
CHAPTER 23
THE SHACH IS STURDY OAH and pine logs plugged with pitch. Weatherworn gray, it’s as rustic as Dad’s mill is lavish. A simple porch, one double-hung window. When I was growing up, it was a castle; Scottie and I were the kings, and Salome was our queen.
We climb the three steps, unlatch the door, and push inside. The smell of sweet earth says I’m home, and for a moment pushes out the awful.
Salome runs her hand along the sill. “It’s been, what, eight years since we’ve been here? Since Drew died.”
“Yeah, and Mom left.” I frown and let my gaze wander. “Doesn’t look eight years empty.”
There’s not a cobweb anywhere, and canned food is stacked neatly in the corner of the main room. I walk through to the bedroom tucked in back. It’s clean with a pillow and a freshly made bed.
“Recent visitors,” I say. “But there’s only one way to be sure.” Close in size to the bedroom, the outhouse stands fifty paces off the shack. I leave Salome, walk out back, pull the pin, and swing open the door. Toilet paper.
“So much for time alone,” I mutter, and rejoin Salome. “Somebody has found really cheap rent. Doubt we’ll be alone tonight.” I toss my things into the open bedroom. “Let’s wait and see who shows.”
Salome raises an eyebrow. “As long as you see them first.”
We plunk onto the porch and stare at the sky and at each other. A feeling grows and grows and draws me to her. When I watch her tongue gently touch her teeth enough times, or replay our time in the car, I know she burns inside. But her words stay innocent and safe—things I no longer am.
Inside, the monster awakens. First with a yawn, then a stretch, then a roar. It doesn’t like to be denied and searches for a rush.
“I can’t sit around.” My mind races. “The gulley.” I decide aloud. “Remember it? I wonder if I could still ride it down.”
Salome leans into me. “It’s eating you again.”
I know what I’ve done with that one kiss. This half expression of what I want—it’s killing me. I now live in this horrible middle place where I can, but I can’t, and nothing will be the same. I’ve felt. I’ve
tasted. Like a drunk condemned to life in a bar, I now must live inches from my addiction and fill the urge with something else.
I fall across her lap, and she pats my shoulder. “Okay,” she says. “The gulley.”
I leap up, dash inside, and dig in the closet. I yank out the rusted wooden sled by the hand brakes. My chest aches, and I push outside. “Can you believe the sled was still there?” Salome isn’t where I left her, and I walk the porch, the sled’s runners thumping against the wooden floor slats. “Salome?”
“I’m over by the trench!” She stands in the distance, her fingers locked behind her head, and stares over the hill’s lip.
Cleared of rocks, the gulley extends down the mountain to the tree line. Like a bobsled course at the Olympics, it’s steep and winding and unforgiving. As a child, I spent hours digging and smoothing and racing down the mini-gorge.
“Step back.” I jog to her and point the sled down the hill. “I won’t be long.”
She plops on the front of the sled. “This is our time. We do this together.”
I stare at her back, her trusting back, and ease down behind her. My arms and legs straddle her body; I feel her warmth.
“I’ll never let anything happen to you, do you know that?” I ask.
“I do.” She ducks her head. “Tell me when it’s over.”
This is so wrong. My brain sucking Salome into my world. But nothing will touch her. I would die before that.
I push off. We gain speed instantly and hurtle down the trench. We weave, and I bend and hold Salome tight. She does not scream. She trusts, which is worse than a scream.
But I see, and what I see is wonderful and terrifying. The bottom fast approaches. The gulley once banked to the left to form a gentle stop, but the turn is now a rock wall, a mound of sediment built up from years of rain.
“Don’t look!” Pebbles pepper my face and sting like a thousand needle jabs.
She turns and yells. “I’m not!”
I dig in the left brake, and we bank up the side and out of the trench. Speed carries us on toward the tree line. We won’t survive.
“On my word, lean backward!”
She nods. “It’s bumpier! What happened?”
“Now!”
I wrap arms around her and tug. Chipped rock sets my back on fire, but I wince, lift my rear, and let the sled race on ahead. I am now the sled, the heels of my boots chattering, grinding us to a halt. Behind me, where my back should be, I feel only pain. Not pain on skin, just pain. The skin is gone. But Salome is still on top, safe in my arms.
We stop, and I groan.
“I’m opening my eyes now. Oh, Jake!” She scrambles off. “There’s blood around you—”
“Tell me you’re okay,” I whisper.
“Turn over!”
“Say it.”
“I’m okay. Now turn over before I slug you!”
I roll slow. “How bad?”
She gasps, swallows, and clears her throat.
“It’ll hurt a lot more when I’m done digging out the stones. Stay here.” Salome scampers around Hank’s Hill. She’s gone for a long time, and I sit up, then try to stand. But my feet slip, and I land hard on my side, groan, and stay down.
I bake in the sun, feel the hill move beneath me.
Then her voice, gentle. “Up we go.”
Soon I lie in bed, while Salome digs in my back with her tweezers. I focus on her hand on my head, separate myself from my own body. It’s the only way not to scream.
Finally, the tweezers plop onto the bedside table.
“I think that’s most of the big ones,” she says.
“Seemed a good idea at the time,” I say, and roll onto my side.
Salome stands and gives a puff into her bedroll. “I bet they all do.” She sighs and kisses my cheek. “That’s for watching out for me.” She winds up and belts my shoulder. “That’s for almost killing you.”
CHAPTER 24
NOBODY COMES DURING THE NIGHT. I get up in the morning, put on a loose shirt. It feels remarkably good. I feel remarkably good, considering the last days. The guilt over Koss has ebbed from a tidal wave to a lapping, slow and constant. This, I think, is due to her. If one thing separates Salome from the rest of world, it’s that she does not blame.
I find her on the porch, still and deep in thought.
“Mornin’,” I say.
She lifts strands of blond over her ears, and the day gets brighter.
“How’s the backside today?”
“Oh, it’s been better. I, uh—” I plunk down beside her. “Our little slide down memory lane was really stupid.”
She nods slowly. “What’s stupid, what’s needed; it’s hard to tell the difference with you.” She points. “Do you see that brook down there? Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yeah.”
Salome opens her mouth, changes directions, and chuckles. “I’ve decided. Today, I’m in charge. I’m in charge of what we do. I’m in charge of where we go. Everything is up to me.” She flashes a look I’ve seen on her mother. “You have no say in the matter.”
I grin, feel a searing across my shoulder blades, then grimace. “No say. Got it. Where to first?”
“I’ll be honest.” She scoots away, faces me, and rests her head in one hand. “The reason I wanted you here is because I don’t want you there. I want you off Mox’s team and preferably out of this town.”
“It’s not so simple anymore—”
“This is a shut-up moment. You have no say.”
I slap my hand over my mouth.
“But here’s my problem, mine and yours. You think the only way to live, the only way to lift that cloud fuzzing your head, is to walk Mox’s death tightrope. I don’t like the option, but ever since you joined the feds, that crew is the only light you see. Since you need that adrenaline boost to feel sane, it would seem that Mox and his insane Immortals are a perfect fit.”
She straightens her legs and lifts her arms in a full-body stretch. Makes me want to hold her.
“So there’s the problem I’ve been thinking about for, well, months.”
“I don’t think we’ll have this problem forever. There are things you don’t—”
Salome places her hand over my mouth. I raise my hands.
“So I need to convince you that you can feel alive when you’re not floating in caves or embedding rocks into your back.”
She throws back her hair, and her voice strengthens. “You irritate me, Jake King. I have one regret from last year. My prom. I waited all year for my senior prom. I waited for my neighbor to ask me, but the idiot was busy preparing for immortality by jumping out of airplanes.”
“Wait—”
She slugs me. “Yes, airplanes. Meanwhile, my dress, my beautiful green dress, hung laughing at me. Four guys, stable, considerate, on-the-ground guys, asked me to go. Four! Four times I said no. Well, today you will finally ask me. So ask!”
“Is this an excuse to whack me?”
“Ask!”
“Um, Salome, would you like to go to the prom with me?” I scratch my chin. “How was that?”
“Wonderful. And I would absolutely love to!” She jumps up, runs inside, and brings out a crinkled green dress. “It got messed up in the bag, but I’m not going to let your months in smoke-jumper training destroy my senior prom.”
She’s joking, I see it in her face. But the words hurt because they’re true.
Salome looks at me. It’s a wide look that could mean anything. “What’s the matter?” She fiddles with the dress in her hands. “You don’t want to take me?”
“That’s not it. I’ve messed up everything.”
“Then today,” she says, “make it right.” Her voice lowers. “Please.”
I slap my thigh, jump up, and wince from the pain in my back. “Yeah.” I gain steam. “Yeah! I’ll give you a prom to remember, my beautiful neighbor.” I frown, stroke my loose T-shirt. “Hmm. Can’t wear this to prom. Let’s head to town.”
We drive down into Mandre. Bar, gas station, superette. That’s it. No way I’ll find a suit in this speck of a town.
“We’ll need to head to Holdingford for your suit,” she says.
“Holdingford?” The vise on my lungs tightens. “Rose.” Koss’s fiancée, Rose, lives in Holdingford.
“Don’t worry,” Salome says. “I’m sure they’ll have a flower shop.”
Then it hits. The lunacy of it. All the horror and sadness and loss of the blaze, all the hope and joy and anticipation of my neighbor squeezed into these days. And in the middle—me—responsible for it all.
I peek at Salome. She beams. I can’t take today away from her. Not now.
We enter Holdingford and shoot the day spending what little money I have. Tuxedo, corsage, food for the evening, music for the dance. Salome has her hair done; I get mine cut. And everywhere I listen for the name Rose. Because Koss is why I’m still here; he’s the one who pushed us over the edge.
I wonder if Rose even knows.
We return to the shack with the sun screaming at our backs. My date lays out my clothes on the porch and bounces inside. “Knock in an hour.”
“An hour?”
“Don’t even try to figure it out. You’re a guy.” She shuts the door.
I glance at the tuxedo. A monkey suit for a monkey boy. I dress and wonder about the fire. Does it still burn? Did it reach the house? Is the department looking for me? Mox surely didn’t take any credit for what happened. And what business does a killer have dressed like this? Doing prom with a girl like Salome? I touch my boutonniere and close my eyes. I see it burn. Flower, stem. Then my tux. But I don’t feel it.
Left alone, thoughts flood. I shouldn’t be here. I should be taking my punishment. I—
Behind me, a throat clears, and the shack door slams shut. I check my watch. I’m late.
I rise and knock.
“Be right down!” she calls.
“Down? Hey, I have to talk to you! Open the—”
The door swings, and Salome stands before me. Shoulders tan and beautiful, eyes sparkling. She’s a magnet. She erases every thought from my mind, and I step closer. My hands reach out and caress her waist. I swallow, puff out air, and pull my hands back.
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