Crescendo, Hush 2

by Becca Fitzpatrick

  Scott kept his expression hostile, but beneath all the cuts and bruises, he seemed to pale. “You’re making a big mistake,” he said, only he was looking right at me. “If I go to jail, I’m like a rat in a cage. He’ll find me and kill me. The Black Hand will.”

  He sounded genuinely terrified, and I was torn between silently congratulating him on a well-delivered act … and thinking maybe he really had no idea what he was capable of as Nephilim. But how could he be branded into a Nephilim blood society and have no clue that he was immortal? How could the society have failed to mention that?

  Scott didn’t move his eyes from mine. Adopting a pleading tone, he said, “This is it, Nora. If I leave here, I’m dead.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Detective Basso said, shutting the door hard. He turned to me. “Think you could stay out of trouble the rest of the night?”

  CHAPTER

  20

  I RAISED MY BEDROOM WINDOW AND SAT ON THE LEDGE, thinking. A refreshing breeze and a night chorus of insects kept me company. At the far end of the field, a light blinked on in one of the houses. It felt strangely reassuring to know I wasn’t the only person still awake at this hour.

  After Detective Basso had driven away with Scott, Vee and Rixon had examined the lock on the front door.

  “Whoa,” Vee had said, staring at the mangled door. “How did Scott get the deadbolt to bend like that? A blowtorch?”

  Rixon and I had merely looked at each other.

  “I’ll stop by tomorrow and install a new lock,” he’d said.

  That had been over two hours ago, and Rixon and Vee were long gone, leaving me alone with my own thoughts. I didn’t want to think about Scott but found my mind straying there anyway. Was he overreacting, or was I going to find out tomorrow that he’d been mysteriously roughed up while in police custody? Either way, he wouldn’t die. A few bruises, maybe, but not death. I didn’t allow myself to think the Black Hand might take it further than that—if the Black Hand was even a threat. Scott wasn’t even sure the Black Hand knew he was in Coldwater.

  Instead I told myself there was nothing I could do at this point. Scott had broken into my house and pointed a knife at me. He was behind bars because of himself. He was locked up, and I was safe. The irony was, I wished I could be at the jail tonight. If Scott was bait for the Black Hand, I wanted to be there to face the Black Hand once and for all.

  My concentration was dulled by the need for sleep, but I did my best to sort through the information I had. Scott was branded by the Black Hand, a Nephil. Rixon said Patch was the Black Hand, an angel. It almost seemed like I was looking for two different individuals sharing the same name….

  The hour had stretched long past midnight, but I didn’t want to sleep. Not when it meant opening myself up to Patch, feeling his net close around me, seducing me with words and his silky touch, confusing me more than I already was. More than sleep, I wanted answers. I still hadn’t been to Patch’s apartment, and more than ever, I felt certain that was where the answers were.

  I tugged on dark-wash matchstick jeans and a black fitted tee. Because the forecast called for rain, I opted for tennis shoes and my waterproof Windbreaker.

  I took a taxi to the easternmost edge of Coldwater. The river shimmered like a wide black snake. The outline of factory chimneys beyond the river played tricks in the night, making me think of hulking monsters if I looked at them from the corner of my vision. When I’d walked to the five hundred block of the industrial district, I found two apartment buildings, both three stories high. I let myself into the lobby of the first building. All was quiet, and I assumed the tenants were tucked in their beds. I checked the mailboxes in the back, but there was no listing for Cipriano. Not that Patch would be careless enough to leave his name behind, if he really was going to great lengths to keep his place off the radar. I climbed the stairs to the top. Apartments 3A, B, and C. No apartment 34. I jogged down the steps, walked a half block down, and tried the second building.

  Behind the main doors sat a cramped lobby with scuffed tiles and a thin coat of paint barely masking red and black graffiti. Just like the previous building, mailboxes stood in a line at the back. Near the front, the air conditioner rattled and buzzed while the door to an old cage elevator stood open like mesh jaws waiting to snap me up. I bypassed the elevator in favor of the stairs. The building had a lonely, derelict feel to it. A place where neighbors minded their own business. A place where nobody knew anyone else, and secrets were easy to keep.

  The third floor was dead calm. I walked past apartments 31, 32, and 33. At the back of the hall I found apartment number 34. I suddenly wondered what I was going to do if Patch was home. At this point, I could only hope he wasn’t. I knocked, but there was no answer. I tried the door handle. To my surprise, it gave.

  I peeked inside at darkness. I stood motionless, listening for movement.

  I flipped on the light switch just inside the door, but either the lightbulbs had burned out or the electricity had been shut off. Pulling the flashlight out of my jacket, I let myself in and shut the door.

  The rancid smell of spoiled food overwhelmed me. I aimed the flashlight in the direction of the kitchen. A skillet with days-old scrambled eggs and a partially full gallon of milk that had soured to the point of bloating sat on the counter. It wasn’t the kind of place I imagined Patch calling home, but this only proved there were many things I didn’t know about him.

  I set my keys and handbag on the counter and pulled my shirt up over my nose in an attempt to block out the stench. The walls were bare, the furniture sparse. One antiquated TV with rabbit ears, probably black and white, and a ratty sofa in the living room. Both were out of view of the window, which had butcher paper taped across it.

  Keeping the flashlight beam low, I made my way down the hall to the bathroom. It was stark, other than a beige shower curtain that had probably started out white, and a dingy hotel towel draped over the rod. No soap, no razor, no shaving cream. The linoleum floor was peeling back at the edges, and the medicine cabinet over the sink was empty.

  I continued down the hall to the bedroom. I turned the knob and pushed the door inward. The stale smell of sweat and unwashed bed clung to the air. Since the lights were off, I figured it was safe to raise the blinds, and I forced the window open, allowing fresh air inside. A streetlight’s glow trickled in, casting a hazy gray around the room.

  Dishes caked with dried food were stacked on the nightstand, and while the bed had sheets, they lacked the crisp look of freshly laundered linens. In fact, judging by the smell, they hadn’t seen laundry soap in months. A small desk with a computer monitor sat in the back corner. The actual computer was gone, and it occurred to me that Patch had taken great care not to leave any trace of himself behind.

  I crouched in front of the desk, opening and closing drawers. Nothing struck me as out of the ordinary: pencils, and a copy of the Yellow Pages. I was about to close the door when a small black jewelry box taped to the underside of the desk caught my eye. I ran my hand under the desk, blindly peeling the box free from the tape holding it in place. I lifted the lid. Every hair on my body stood on end.

  The box held six of the Black Hand’s rings.

  At the far end of the hall, the front door creaked open.

  I shot to my feet. Had Patch returned? I couldn’t let him find me. Not now, not when I’d just discovered the Black Hand’s rings in his apartment.

  I looked around for somewhere to hide. The twin-size bed stood between me and the closet. If I tried to walk around the bed, I risked being seen from the doorway. If I climbed over the bed, I risked the bedsprings squeaking.

  The front door closed with a soft click. Solid footsteps crossed the linoleum in the kitchen. Seeing no other choice, I boosted myself onto the windowsill, swung my legs out, and dropped as silently as possible onto the fire escape. I tried to pull the window shut behind me, but the sliders stuck, refusing to budge. I ducked all but my eyes below the window, keeping them trained inside the
apartment.

  A shadow appeared on the hall wall, stretching closer. I ducked out of sight.

  I was scared that this was it—I was going to be caught—when the footsteps retreated. Less than a minute later, the front door opened, closed. An eerie silence once again settled over the apartment.

  Slowly I brought myself back to standing. I stayed that way another minute, and when I was certain the apartment was in fact empty, I crawled back inside. Feeling suddenly conspicuous and vulnerable, I strode down the hall. I needed to go somewhere quiet, where I could sort through my thoughts. What was I missing? Patch was clearly the Black Hand, but how did he play into the Nephilim blood society? What was his role? What the hell was going on? I threw my handbag over my shoulder and headed for the exit.

  I had my hand on the doorknob when a strange noise penetrated my thoughts. A clock. The soft, rhythmic tick of a clock. I frowned and turned back to the kitchen. The sound hadn’t been there when I came in—at least, I didn’t think it had. Listening intently, I followed the muffled tick across the room. I crouched down in front of the cabinet below the kitchen sink.

  With growing alarm, I opened the cabinet. Through all the panic and confusion, I made sense of the contraption sitting inches from my knees. Sticks of dynamite. Duct tape. White, blue, and yellow wires.

  I stumbled to my feet and ran out the front door. My feet clattered down the stairs so fast I had to hold the handrail to keep from falling. At the bottom, I shoved my way out to the street and kept running. Flipping my head back once, I saw a snap of light an instant before fire erupted from the windows of the third floor of the building. Smoke billowed up in the night. Debris of bricks and wood, glowing orange with heat, hailed down to the street.

  The far-away sound of sirens ricocheted off the buildings, and I alternately speed-walked and ran to the next block, terrified of drawing attention, but too distraught not to flee the scene. When I rounded the corner, I broke into a wild sprint. I didn’t know where I was going. My pulse was all over the place, my thoughts reeling. If I’d stayed in the apartment another few minutes, I’d be dead.

  A shuddering sob escaped me. My nose was running, my stomach cramping. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and tried to focus on the shapes jumping out of the darkness ahead: street signs, parked cars, the curb—the deceptive shimmer of lamplight on windows. In a matter of seconds, the world had turned into a confusing labyrinth; the truth there and not there, shifting out beneath my feet, vanishing when I tried to look it head-on.

  Had someone tried to blow up evidence left in the apartment? Like the Black Hand’s rings? Was Patch responsible?

  Ahead, a gas station came into view. I staggered around to the outside bathroom and locked myself inside. My legs were wobbly, and my fingers trembled so hard it was all I could do to coordinate turning on the faucet. I splashed frigid water on my face to startle me out of sliding into shock. Bracing my arms on the sink, I breathed in gulps and gasps.

  CHAPTER

  21

  I HADN’T SLEPT IN OVER THIRTY-SIX HOURS, EXCEPT FOR very briefly Thursday evening, when Patch had met me inside my dream.

  Staying awake through the night hadn’t been a struggle; every time I felt my eyes dipping closed, the explosion would blaze across my mind, jolting me upright. Unable to sleep, I’d spent the night thinking about Patch.

  When Rixon had told me Patch was the Black Hand, he’d planted a seed of doubt inside me that had swollen and blossomed with the worst kind of violation of trust, but it hadn’t choked me completely. Not yet. There was still a part of me that wanted to weep and shake my head adamantly at the idea that Patch could have killed my dad. I bit my lip hard, concentrating on the pain there, rather than remembering all the times he’d stroked my mouth with his finger, or kissed the curve of my ear. I couldn’t think about those things.

  I hadn’t bothered crawling out of bed at seven for summer school. I’d left a series of phone messages for Detective Basso throughout the morning, then the afternoon, and on into the evening, one call every hour, none of which he’d returned. I told myself I was calling to check on Scott, but deep down, I suspected I just wanted to know the police were close. As much as I disliked Detective Basso, I felt a tiny bit safer believing he was only a phone call away. Because a small part of me was beginning to believe maybe last night wasn’t about destroying evidence.

  What if someone had tried to kill me?

  In the middle of all the thinking I’d done last night, I’d shifted around the fragments of information I had, trying to make something fit. The one clear fragment I kept coming back to was the Nephilim blood society. Patch said Chauncey’s successor wanted to avenge his death. Patch swore nobody could trace Chauncey’s death back to me, but I was beginning to fear otherwise. If the successor knew about me, maybe last night had been his first stab at revenge.

  It seemed unlikely that anyone had followed me to Patch’s apartment so late last night, but if there was one thing I knew about Nephilim, it was that they were very good at doing the unlikely.

  My cell rang in my pocket and I whipped it out before the first ring had time to finish.

  “Hello?”

  “Let’s go to Summer Solstice,” Vee said. “We’ll eat a little cotton candy, catch a few rides, maybe get hypnotized and do stuff that would make Girls Gone Wild look tame.”

  My heart, which had been up in my throat, slid back into place. Not Detective Basso, then. “Hey.”

  “What say you? You in the mood for some action? You in the mood for Delphic?”

  Honestly, I wasn’t. I’d planned on redialing Detective Basso at sixty-minute intervals until he picked up one of my calls.

  “Earth to babe.”

  “I’m not feeling well,” I said.

  “Not feeling well how? Stomachache? Headache? Cramps? Food poisoning? Delphic is the cure for just about all those things.”

  “I’m going to pass, thanks anyway.”

  “Is this because of Scott? Because he’s in jail. He can’t get to you. Come have fun. Rixon and I won’t kiss in front of you, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

  “I’m going to put on my pj’s and watch a movie.”

  “Are you saying a movie is more fun than me?”

  “Tonight it is.”

  “Huh. Movie this. You know I’m not going to stop harassing you until you come.”

  “I know.”

  “So make this easy and just say yes.”

  I blew out a sigh. I could sit home all night and wait for Detective Basso to get around to answering my calls, or I could take a small break and start up again when I got back. Besides, he had my cell phone number and could reach me anywhere.

  “All right,” I told Vee. “Give me ten.”

  In my bedroom, I squeezed into a pair of toothpick jeans, pulled on a graphic tee and cardigan, and finished the look with suede driving mocs. I smoothed my hair into a low ponytail, offsetting it so it hung over my right shoulder. Having not slept in more than a full day, my eyes were ringed by smoky circles. I brushed on mascara, silver eye shadow, and lip gloss, hoping I looked more pulled-together than I felt. I left a rather bland note on the kitchen counter for my mom, telling her I’d gone to Summer Solstice at Delphic. She wasn’t due back until tomorrow morning, but she surprised me more often than not by coming home early. If she did make it home tonight, this was probably going to be one time when she wished she’d drawn out her trip. I’d been practicing what I was going to say to her. Whatever I did, I couldn’t break eye contact when I told her I knew about her affair with Hank. And I couldn’t let her get a word in before I told her I was moving out. As I’d practiced it, I planned to walk out at that point. I wanted to send her the message that it was too late to talk—if she’d wanted to tell me the truth, she’d had sixteen years to do it. Now it was too late.

  I locked up and jogged down the drive to meet Vee.

  An hour later, Vee squeezed the Neon into a parking spot between two oversize truc
ks that extended into our space on both sides. We rolled down the windows and boosted ourselves out backward to keep from scratching the paint by opening the doors. We crossed the parking lot and paid our way inside the gates. The park was more crowded than usual due to Summer Solstice—the longest day of the year. Right away I recognized a few faces from school, but for the most part, I felt like I was standing in a sea of strangers. Most of the crowd was wearing jewel-toned butterfly masks that concealed half their faces. One of the vendors must have been selling them at a discount.

  “Where should we start?” Vee asked. “The arcade? The fun house? The food vendors? Personally, I think we should start with the food. That way, we’ll eat less.”

  “Your logic?”

  “If we stop by the vendors last, we’ll have worked up our appetites. I always eat more when I’ve worked up an appetite.”

  I didn’t care where we started. I was only here to distract myself for a couple of hours. I checked my cell, but there were no missed calls. How long did it take Detective Basso to return a call? Had something happened to him? I had a black cloud hanging at the back of my mind, and I didn’t like how it made me feel ill at ease.

  “You look all pasty,” Vee said.

  “I told you: I don’t feel great.”

  “That’s because you haven’t eaten enough. Sit down. I’ll go get us some cotton candy and hot dogs. Just think about all that relish and mustard. I don’t know about you, but I can already feel my head clearing and my pulse slowing.”

  “I’m not hungry, Vee.”

  “Of course you’re hungry. Everybody’s hungry. That’s why they’ve got all these vendors.” Before I could stop her, she marched into the crowd.

  I was pacing the walkway, waiting for Vee, when my cell phone chirped. Detective Basso’s name showed on the screen.

  “Finally,” I breathed, flipping the cell open.