by Zoey Parker
Still, why this one? Why let that get to me? I just couldn’t put my finger on it, the same way I was still struggling to come up with a way to describe the way I felt going home every day. The sudden but predictable surge of joy that slapped me sideways every time I put my key in the lock of the apartment door and opened it, when I knew Carmen would be waiting for me on the other side with a sunny smile and something new around the place to show me.
It felt domestic as hell. Downright silly, if I thought about it logically. And yet, somehow…right.
I shook my head and redoubled my effort. This wasn’t the way I’d expected shit to go, not by a long shot.
I dropped the box in the hallway with a thunk next to the pile of other crates that had yet to be inspected. I walked into my office, where Duncan and Jay were handling the job of sorting through the documents to see if there was anything relevant in the mess. Both of them were bleary and red-eyed. I saw papers, weighed down at the corners with random objects, beneath the stream of an oscillating fan in an attempt to dry out some of the wetness that had crept in after the floods of a few months prior. “Any luck?” I asked coldly.
“It’s slow going, boss,” Duncan said. His voice was thick with exhaustion. He ground the heel of his hand into his eye socket and blinked hard a few times like he was having trouble getting the world to sit still. Jay, sitting next to him, looked patently ridiculous with reading glasses on. In normal circumstances, I would have made fun of him, but I was still stewing over how sharply I’d reacted to Slick a little bit earlier.
“We’ve found a few things here and there. Whoever first organized that basement deserves a medal. They should be designing fucking cryptography puzzles, because I can’t make heads nor tails of any semblance of logic to the way they boxed shit together. And of the little pieces we do find that’re relevant, half of ’em are drenched or molded all to shit.”
I nodded. “Well, nothing else to do but keep on moving. This is important. Robinson gave us something valuable. I’m not about to let this investigation fall apart again. They murdered our brother. Don’t forget that.”
Both men nodded. They were beat to hell by the tedious job, but they knew how much it meant to me and to the club. They were good men, some of the few left in this shithole of a world.
“Both of you should go home for a bit. Get some shuteye,” I said. “You’ll be more useful in the morning when you’re fresh.”
Nodding again, Jay stood and rubbed at a kink in his neck. He and Duncan trudged out of the office with their heads hanging tiredly. I followed them out, pulling the door shut and locking it behind me. As we approached the open staircase that led down to the basement, Slick emerged with a dusty box in his hands. He dropped it down and straightened up.
“That’s the last of ’em,” he said.
I looked around. “Where’s Spark?”
Just then, we heard a series of smacks, shouts, and then a gunshot from below. I was the first down the stairs, with the other men close on my heels. We tumbled down and fanned out onto the dank wooden floor below. I saw that every man had a gun or a knife drawn in his hand.
Spark crouched with his back to us. “Spark, you okay?” I asked cautiously.
He slowly pivoted around and stood up at the same time. As he did, we saw that he was holding up by its tail the biggest, ugliest rodent I’d ever seen in my life. What was left of its head was a bloody mound. In his other hand, Spark held a smoking gun, and on his face, he wore a huge, idiotic grin. “Got the fucker,” he announced proudly.
The tension was sucked out of the room as we all laughed or groaned.
“Goddammit, Spark,” Jay cursed. “I thought you got fucking ambushed or something.”
“You big, dumb asshole, you had us all going for a second,” added Duncan.
We trooped back up the stairs, feeling worn through but still managing to find the humor in the situation. Little by little, the anxiety that had been working its way into a tight little knot in my stomach began to loosen.
The men said their goodbyes and took off one by one, loading up on their bikes and rumbling down the road to sleep for a few hours before getting back to the files. I was the last one to leave. The sun was starting to kiss the horizon.
Grabbing my cell phone, I dialed the number of the little burner I’d bought for Carmen. She picked up on the second ring. “Hi,” she said brightly.
“Hey, you at home?”
“No, I stepped out to get a quick couple things I needed.”
“Need a ride?”
“Sure! If it’s not too much trouble.” She rattled off the name of a store I vaguely recognized, and I took off to pick her up.
She was waiting out on the curb with a small pale green bag looped over her forearm when I pulled up out front. “Get anything good?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she quipped. “It’s a surprise, though.”
“Who said you were allowed to have secrets?”
“Certainly not you, Mr. Killmore.”
“Carmen…” I growled warningly.
“I know, I know, you hate that. But I think it’s funny. You’re gonna have to make me shut up.”
“I just might. I just might.”
She clambered on and wrapped her thin arms around my waist. We slid out smoothly onto the road. It was only a half mile or so back to the apartment. But just as we approached the intersection where I normally took a left to go back home, I paused, rolling to a gentle stop. “Are you in any rush to get back?” I asked cautiously.
“Not in particular,” she said.
“Want to see something?”
“Yeah, sure.” She sounded confused but I could hear her smile.
“It’s a bit of a ride, just warning you.”
“That’s fine, Ben. I like riding with you.” She adjusted her grip on my sides.
I nodded, settled back into the seat, and swung the bike to the right. We took off, headed for the highway.
Twenty minutes of open throttle later, we edged off the road underneath a big sign for the state park. The asphalt turned into hard-packed dirt that got gradually less and less smooth as we rode deeper into the grounds. The landscape on either side of us was lush with late summer flowers blooming in the light of the setting sun. Yellows, purples, and faded greens were swept across the ground as far as the eye could see, like big, messy brushes of paint.
We approached the foothills and slowly the road died out altogether, leaving me to weave the bike around the bigger potholes. I tried to go as carefully as I could, since I was worried about jolting Carmen around too much. The idea of the baby was constantly gnawing at the back of my head. Until now, it had been just a theoretical thing, not a real one. But it was happening, whether I liked it or not. I hadn’t yet decided if I did.
Soon, we were cruising between the rolling hills. We reached a point where the terra cotta clay gave way to gravel. I brought the bike to a halt and killed the engine. Silence took over. I sat still for a second, listening to nothing but the hush of the window in the tall grasses. I could feel Carmen tensing behind me, wondering what was going on.
I climbed off and then helped her off as well. “Come on,” I said. “Not much farther.”
She followed me as I wound my way confidently behind one hill, towards where two massive boulders were nestled against each other. I turned to face her. “This is the last part,” I said, “but it’s the hardest. Think you can handle it?”
She screwed up her face in a pouty scowl. “Of course I can,” she said.
I grinned. “Let’s go, then.” I walked up to the boulders and found the familiar handholds. Even after all these years, I remembered exactly where they were. “Watch how I do it,” I instructed over my shoulder. I began to climb. It was easy. My body knew the path. Right hand up, right foot followed, left hand, right hand, then swing over the top. Before I knew it, I was ten feet off the ground. I spun back around to look down at Carmen where she stood below me. “There’s not enough room fo
r you to get up if I’m up here, too, so I’m going to drop off the other side,” I said. “But I’ll still be right here. Don’t worry.” She nodded.
I tried to ignore my nervousness as she got ready to climb. From this angle, the belly she was growing was even more obvious than it was when I looked at her straight on. I couldn’t believe that there was a baby in there. My baby. It was too crazy to comprehend. I never thought I’d see the day when I became a father. On the other hand, I still wasn’t sure I would.
I turned around and looked below. The ground dropped off sharply, and a thin patina of high branches hid the ground from view. It was a completely blind jump. But it was one I knew. I slid off the rock and landed with a gentle thump on the other side.
When I’d regained my feet, I dusted off my hands on my pants and turned to look back up at the way I’d come. Then I held my breath and listened close as I waited for this girl—my wife and the mother of my child—to come careening through the treetops.
Chapter Twenty-One
Carmen
I bit my lip as I climbed up the boulders. Ben had disappeared on the other side, but I was too focused on the climb to feel nervous now that I couldn’t see or hear him. I dug my fingers into one little outcropping of rock, then lunged up to grab the next. I found a good rhythm as I moved inch by inch up the face of the dusty stone.
My legs were aching from holding me up by the time I reached the top. I sat down with a satisfied sigh. When I looked back over to see how far I’d come, I was pretty impressed with myself. It’d been a while since I’d done something so adventurous and outdoorsy. I’d forgotten how good it felt to tackle a physical challenge like that.
Turning to the other side, though, was a whole different story. Thin, flat tree branches with broad leaves crisscrossed over each other, forming a canopy I couldn’t see through even a little bit. “Ben!” I called.
His voice came back muffled. It didn’t sound like it was that far below me, but I felt nervousness start to creep its way into my system nonetheless. “I’m right here, Carmen,” he said.
“How do I get down there?”
“You have to jump.”
“Jump? Are you crazy? I have no idea where I’m landing!”
“I’m right here. I’ll catch you.”
I swallowed. My throat was dry all of the sudden and I noticed my hands were shaking. I couldn’t remember why I’d agreed to go on this crazy walkabout in the first place. Ben hadn’t even told me what it was he was showing me, for crying out loud. This was the last time I’d be following him blindly into the wild, I was sure of that. Never again.
I squinted and tried to find a gap in the leaves to peer through, but there was nothing. They didn’t look too strong or thick and I wasn’t afraid of getting whacked in the head with a stiff branch. But the nervousness pumped through me anyway. This was miles outside of my comfort zone.
“I don’t know,” I said fretfully.
“Carmen,” Ben called back. “Do you trust me?”
That was a serious humdinger of a question. Did I trust him? There was more baggage attached to that than I could wrap my head around. Who knew four little words could have so many implications?
I trusted him not to murder me in my sleep. I guessed that was a start. We’d spent enough nights under the same roof for me to feel pretty certain that he wasn’t about to slip a knife between my ribs when I wasn’t looking, just to get rid of me. He’d even taken to sharing the bed with me after I’d called him out for complaining about the kink in his neck he’d earned from too many consecutive nights on the couch. After that, he’d agreed to sleep alongside me, though he still refused to even come close to making physical contact.
I trusted him to make me laugh, too. There was something about that wild grin of his that made me feel a little wild myself. It felt good to relax in his presence, to let him sweep me away in the little eddies of conversation I loved getting lost in with him. He knew how to poke and prod until I was almost annoyed with him, but then he’d look at a new piece of furniture or a dish I was cooking for the first time, and turn on me with such a look of wide-eyed surprise and amazement that I couldn’t help but flush with pride. It wasn’t the kind of look I was used to receiving. My mother had made me feel that way, but she’d been gone for long enough that I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to have someone be impressed with something I’d done or made.
But did I trust him? It was more than those things. It was more than safety or giggles. It was the way I found him staring at me sometimes. Like I was a mythical creature he’d never seen before, only heard about. It was a bizarre look, and if anyone else had looked at me that way, I might’ve called the cops and reported a stalker or a psychopath. But on Ben, it was the opposite. I wanted to curl up inside that look, bathe in it, let it rinse over me and nestle me in its warmth. I couldn’t explain why I felt that way or what it was about him that made it feel so special. I just knew it did.
I knew I was falling for him, even though I tried not to admit it. When I woke up before him or when he fell asleep while I was still up, sometimes I’d taken to glancing at his face and seeing a sense of calm confidence there, even when he was deep into his dreams. It made me melt in weird, unexpected ways.
So did I trust him? I took a deep breath and answered his question the only way I could think of.
I jumped.
# # #
I broke through the treetops heels first. Little branches snapped under my weight as I plummeted downwards. I kept my eyes squeezed shut and my arms crossed over my chest. I couldn’t help but screech just a tiny bit.
I opened my eyes just after I’d passed through the leaves, only to see the ground hurtling up at me. But there, right below me, with his arms spread wide and waiting, was Ben. I slammed into him, but he gauged my speed perfectly, squatting low to make my landing as soft as possible. He caught me around the hips, snatching away all my momentum at once, and then gradually set me back on my feet.
“Told you,” he said.
I was too out of breath from the excitement to answer, but smiled and nodded. He had told me. I’d trusted him. He’d been there. Funny how such a simple little thing could feel so big and overwhelming.
He kept his hands lightly on my waist for a moment longer than he needed to. I didn’t mind, though. After soaring through the air, I liked being grounded by him, connected to him, knowing I was here and he was there and neither of us was going anywhere without the other.
“That was the hard part. Just around this corner, and you’ll see,” he told me. He grabbed my hand. I twined my fingers between his and let myself be led onto a path that sloped down and away around an ancient, craggy-looking tree.
The second we stepped around it, my jaw dropped.
It was hands down the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in nature. A waterfall off to our right splashed gently down onto wet, mossy rocks, collecting at the bottom in a clear little pool that in turn fed a winding, playful brook. The water churned past our feet and disappeared into the foliage a few dozen yards down towards the right. Both sides of the river were festooned with lush green trees and bushes, birds twittering from branch to branch, and flowers springing up underfoot. It was like a postcard come to life. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I felt Ben looking at me and I turned to face him, still stunned.
“Like it?” he asked with an impish grin.
“Like it? I love it. It’s unbelievable. I literally don’t know what to say.”
He ran a hand through his hair and laughed. “It really is something else, isn’t it?”
“How’d you find this place?” I gushed.
“Jay and I used to come here when we were kids. We had these little dirt bikes—real pieces of shit looking back on it, but back then, we thought we were the baddest dudes on two wheels on the whole face of the earth.” He shook his head as he chuckled at the memory. “We used to go ripping around all over this park, trying to pop wheelies off the top o
f the hills. You know, dumb stuff. The kind of thing teenagers with too much testosterone and free time do. It’s a dangerous combo.”
I kept looking around in amazement as he talked. Everywhere I looked, something new bloomed or peered out at me. I thought I caught the eyes of a little woodland creature, a fox or something like that, sneaking a glance from the underbrush. I felt like Pocahontas, though I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have arrived here on a motorcycle.
