by Sara Clancy
Both of them turned to Meg, seeking some kind of back up from the most direct one of the three. Meg never shied away from any uncomfortable topics and once again was quick to answer the challenge presented to her.
“Danny’s right,” Meg said simply, continuing on as Nicole slumped. “Plus he might not want to see you right now.”
Nicole stilled enough that Danny decided to let her go. “Why? What did he tell you? When did you even talk to him?”
“He fainted.” Meg’s desire to smile at Benton’s possible embarrassment couldn’t compete with her sadness, yet left the promise of a smile, that never fully formed twitching on her lips. “His ego’s probably pretty bruised at the moment.”
Nicole opened her mouth to snap about the stupidity of that when a second thought made her hesitate. “You don’t really think that Benton’s like that, do you? That he would care more about his reputation than Kimberly’s death?”
The girls exchanged a glance and for once, Danny was the first one to get enough nerve to reply.
“We don’t really know Benton.”
“Yes, you do,” Nicole insisted. “We hang out all the time.”
“Yeah, but he only ever talks to you,” Meg said.
“He just tolerates us,” Danny agreed.
Any reply was forgotten when Nicole caught her first sight of Benton. His movements were stiff and an angry bruise was claiming half of his face, but he was there. He was okay. Relief poured through her and she leaped free from the table, quickly covering the distance separating them, and embraced him in a tight hug. They staggered back a few feet, neither ready for the additional weight, but he lifted his arms up to wrap them around her, nonetheless. She felt the tension ease out of his shoulders as he threaded the fingers of one hand into the thick hair she had at the base of her skull.
“I’m so sorry, Nicole,” he whispered. He readjusted his grip on her, as if he could find the perfect way to hold her that would take all of the pain away. “I didn’t know. I didn’t dream of her.”
His voice cracked with the promise of tears and his arms tightened.
“I would have told you,” he said softly. “If I had seen that it was coming for her, I would have told you.”
“I know.”
Her assurance didn’t have much of an effect, not if his broken whimper of a response was anything to judge by.
“I didn’t see it.”
Nicole pulled back, but only far enough to see his face. Constantly shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he kept his eyes locked onto the patch of ground by their feet, refusing to meet her gaze. As gently as she could, careful to avoid the growing bruise that swelled out from his right temple, she cupped his jaw and forced him to look at her. It was a hard task to keep from hurting him, given that the damage traced a thick line down the side of his face, but he didn’t flinch away. When he finally lifted his gray eyes to meet hers, he made no attempt to hide the misery that was etched onto his face. Unshed tears and sleepless nights had combined to rim his eyes with layers of red and black. The bruises highlighted the lines and arches of his face, making him appear sickly, fragile, and far older than his years. But it was his hair that concerned her the most.
Benton didn’t have much love for his hair. He hated how, in the right light, the pale color took on an ashen gray tone. So he devoted a great amount of effort into carefully arranging his hair into a halo of spikes using gel. This was the first time she had seen him looking like he had just come out of the shower. It seemed like a simple thing, but it was such a sharp change from his norm that she couldn’t help but worry.
“This wasn’t your fault,” she said.
Instantly, he skirted his gaze away and turned his head. Stilling her hold on his cheeks, she ducked to recapture his retreating gaze. While he looked at her, he didn’t allow her to lift his face again.
“What happened to Kimberly wasn’t your fault.”
She spoke each word carefully and, while she knew that he heard her, she doubted that Benton believed it. His soft nod didn’t trick her for a moment. She could see it then. That it didn’t matter what she said or if she repeated it until her last breath. Just like her, he was going to keep this weight forever secured on his shoulders. All the motion of his nod did was shatter the last shreds of his restraint, and he rocked forward until his forehead rested against her own.
“I know Kimberly was a friend of yours,” he whispered. “Are you okay?”
It was a source of pride for Nicole that everyone within her hometown was her friend. Fort Wayward didn’t have the numbers to rival other small towns. But a population of a few thousand was still more than enough to make it difficult to spend a decent amount of time with each person individually. She had been racking her brain for hours, trying to remember the last conversation she had had with Kimberly that wasn’t just in passing or involved a class assignment. Nothing was coming to mind, and the guilt of that coated her stomach like tar.
“I’m okay.” Her voice cracked with a dozen different emotions and she closed her eyes tight, as if she could prevent herself from facing them. “I wasn’t a very good friend to her lately. I should have checked in with her more often. I should have …”
Her words trailed off as Benton gently hushed her. For a moment, they just stood in silence, struggling to hold their ground in the current of their fear and grief.
Benton broke the silence with a lulled whisper, his voice becoming intense, “I need to talk to you.”
Reluctantly, she pulled away from the warmth of his body and nodded. But before Benton could continue, Meg and Danny were behind them, awkwardly shuffling and casting them weak smiles.
“Hey,” Meg said, her leather jacket squeaking as she offered Benton a swift wave.
“Hi,” Benton said. After sparing a quick glance to Nicole, he forced himself to continue, “How are you holding up?”
Meg shrugged. “I’m fine.” She swirled one finger in the air to indicate the side of his face. “That looks painful. You got all that from just hitting the ground?”
In an abrupt motion, Benton let go of the back of Nicole’s head and sharply pulled up the hood of his jacket, hiding the damage as best as he could.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I guess I should learn how to fall properly.”
He skirted his storm gray eyes to Nicole, looking at her with a clear edge of need. Whatever he wanted to talk about, he wasn’t prepared to wait too long. She nodded her understanding, but it didn’t seem to put him at ease. Stepping back, she clutched one hand in his jacket and fixed a small smile onto her face.
“Benton and I just need to have a quick chat,” Nicole said.
“Privately,” he added in a whisper.
“Privately,” she repeated for the twins to hear. Her smile felt fake and hard, but she couldn’t stop herself from holding it as she stiffly spread her free hand out to indicate the pie table. “So, just help yourself to a slice, relax, and we’ll be right back.”
Nicole wouldn’t have been worried by one of them giving her an odd look. But seeing the exact same suspicious, dumbfounded expression on both of their faces at once was a bit unnerving. It was even worse to glance over and find that Benton was apparently also questioning her mental state. A few weeks ago, she would have surged on, convinced that she could find some way to dig herself out of their skepticism. But hanging out with Benton and witnessing how easily he could do it, had made her begin to doubt her skills of deceit and misdirection. So, instead of staying to deal with it, she quickly made a few more apologies, grabbed Benton’s hand, and dragged him towards the main building of the school. Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed a few teachers watching them as they separated from the group. But no one tried to stop them.
The clank of the glass door opening echoed down the hallway. The minimal number of classes actually in session didn’t make much of a competing noise against her squeaky sneakers. A few people still lingered in the halls, clustered into small groups that
leaned against the locker lined walls. They talked softly amongst themselves, their words interrupted by barely heard sobs, and ignored Benton and Nicole as they passed.
The school itself wasn’t a huge building, but it had been constructed in segments, added to over time, ending with an odd layout like a capital H. They rounded the first corner and found that, while the crowd had diminished quite a bit in this segment, there were still a few people loitering outside of the classrooms. Not willing to risk being overheard, Nicole slowed her pace, waited until she was sure no one was looking, and shoved Benton into the nearest janitor’s closet. It was a tiny space but she did manage to get the door behind them.
“What is your deal with closets?” Benton said as Nicole pulled the small chain that turned on the overhead light. The weak bulb jiggled slightly, casting erratic shadows as it tapped against Benton’s forehead. He swatted at it as he continued, “You know, it is possible for us to have private conversations without being in one.”
Unable to think up a decent response, she decided to just ignore the comment. “What really hit you?”
He stiffened at that. Losing what had remained of his ease, he became oddly fascinated with the floor. After spending far too long staring at his sneakers, he reluctantly glanced up under his lashes to meet her eyes. “A spinal cord.”
She stared at him. A statement like that should have only been uttered with a smirk following close behind. So she waited. He only grew more uneasy in the lingering silence.
“You’re not joking,” she said at last.
He shook his head and her insides turned to ice.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “I’m going to need a little more information.”
Benton groaned. “You didn’t see the horseman, did you?” He rubbed both hands over his face, having forgotten about the damage to the side of his head until his fingers pressed against it. The spike of pain only made him resentful. “Of course you didn’t. You wouldn’t have left if you had.”
“I didn’t want to leave. Mom forced me to. And I was planning to sneak back when she fell asleep, but after seeing my jeep and everything that happened to Kimberly, she watched me like a hawk.”
“I wasn’t taking a shot at you,” Benton said with a softer tone. “I was just kind of hoping that I wasn’t the only one. I kind of feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“What did it look like?”
Her stomach twisted tighter with each word of his description of the stench, and the horseman, and the creature that it rode. Without thought, she wrapped her arms around her torso, tightening her grip as if the outside pressure could somehow ease the ache forming within. Eventually, his words ran out and they stood in silence once more. Bile rose up in her throat, burning the back of her mouth and splashing a foul taste over her tongue as she contemplated what he was telling her. There had been a headless giant draped in raw flesh three feet from her and she hadn’t seen it, hadn’t heard it. Her eyes nervously darted to the dimly lit corners of the room as if expecting to find it lurking there now.
“I don’t understand.” She took in a deep breath. “At the Jump, I could hear it. The horse at least. My jeep is proof that its presence has actual effects. But at the parking lot, I didn’t hear anything. How can it be real and not at the same time? How can it be heavy enough to mess up my jeep, but not solid enough for its footsteps to shift gravel? How is any of this possible?”
Benton bristled, a sharp snarl curling his lips into a bitter frown. “Why are you asking me? I don’t know anything, Nic. Why can’t you get that? If I knew how any of this worked, I would tell you, so stop asking.”
“I’m just thinking out loud,” Nicole defended. “That’s how we’re going to figure this out. Develop a plan.”
“I have a plan. I’m going to grab what I need and get the hell out of town.”
Nicole straightened, her brow furrowing. “You don’t mean that.”
“Like hell I don’t.”
“Benton, you can’t run away from this.”
“But isn’t it worth giving it a try?” Benton replied with a sharp smile.
“And what about your responsibilities?”
“What responsibilities? I don’t owe anyone anything.”
“You’re the only one who can see this thing.”
“When it wants me to,” he hissed. Suddenly, the space seemed too small to contain all the things that he wanted to express. His legs twitched with the urge to pace and his hands crashed into the shelves as he tried to throw them about. “Don’t you get that? It wanted me to watch. It wanted me to see it rip Kimberly’s heart out of her chest and know that I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. It wanted to make sure that I knew just how weak I am in comparison and, believe me, I got the message.”
“Benton, you’re a banshee.”
“So what? What possible difference does that make? It won’t even let me dream about it.”
The heat in Nicole’s words faded at this. “What?”
Benton flashed his eyes to the side, his chest heaving as testament to the anger that was quickly leaving him. “It ripped me out of its head,” he finally confessed. It seemed to pain him to say it. Almost as if shame was slipping in-between his fear and anger. Still, he forced himself to continue. “In my dream last night, the one I had in the hospital, it knew I was there. And it forced me out.”
“Out of the dream?”
“Out of its mind. It severed the connection.”
“Wait,” Nicole grappled with her surprise to form a meaningful sentence. “I thought your dreams were, like, snippets of the future or something.”
“Me too,” he said.
“So, in the future, the horseman would stop an attack to figuratively deal with you?”
“I don’t know!” Benton’s hands flung out as a new wave of anger hit him. Loose items scattered off the shelves and toppled down to fill the limited floor space. He didn’t seem to notice or care as he snapped, “I have officially lost the few shreds of certainty I have in this world.”
“We’re not going to get anywhere if we keep letting our emotions get in the way.”
Benton laughed, the sound tittering on the edge of hysteria. “The only thing I know for sure right now, Nic, is that this guy terrifies me.”
“I’m scared too,” Nicole said with a soft tone as she reached for his hand. “We all are. But we can’t turn away from this. We have an obligation.”
“Obligation? I’m not old enough to rent a car on my own, but I have an obligation to fight a meat man?” Benton roared. “Why? Because of some fluke chance of my DNA? I’m stuck facing off against every random demon that comes into town?”
“Random,” Nicole repeated as an idea sparked across her mind.
She was smiling now and the sight was enough to throw Benton off of his rage induced rant.
He scrunched up his face and muttered a confused, “Sorry?”
“What if it’s not random?” she said.
“Like,” he said slowly, “someone summoned it here?”
Her hands tightened around both of his arms. “Like we did.”
She watched him expectantly, her fingers restlessly squeezing his arms as she waited to see realization dawn in his eyes, for him to jump onto her train of thought like he normally did. But he just blinked back at her, confusion etched onto his face.
“We summoned it? Have you been doing some dark magic I’m not aware of?”
“Remember the symbol? The one painted on your barn wall?”
“No, I often forget giant things associated with random graves I find in my backyard.”
“No one likes sarcasm, and it was your front yard,” she quickly corrected, before getting back on topic. “Do you remember its meaning? The one Professor Lester told us about?”
It took Benton some actual effort to fight his automatic response in favor of an actual answer.
“He said something about it showing up in an ancient cult somewhere in Europe.”
She
nodded, urging him to go on. He heaved a sigh.
“The cult believed that places where paranormal creatures died will naturally draw in others, possibly stronger beings unless the symbol is put in place, and … Oh, crap. This might actually be our fault,” he hissed out a long breath. “But we put the symbol up. And you’re a perfectionist. If it works at all, then it shouldn’t matter that we killed the Leanan Sidhe.”
“But you haven’t gone back to the graves to check on them, have you?”
He shook his head.
“Me neither. What if the symbols got damaged somehow? It might not work if the lines are broken. Maybe that’s why whoever put it up for Oliver hid it behind a false wall to protect it. And maybe that’s why Oliver’s acting out now. He’s been trying to warn us.”
“No. He’s just a jerk.”
Her mind was spinning with the possibilities, making her words tumble out faster as she ignored his response. “Okay, this could be good. Maybe all we have to do to get rid of this horseman is a simple paint job? Just a couple of touch ups and he’ll move along. We could go do that right now.”
He rolled his eyes. “You have paint in your jeep?”
“Mom’s on shift. We can swing by my place and pick some up.”
“Nic, think this through. You don’t honestly think that no one’s going to notice us leaving school?”
“We’ve been in a closet for the past fifteen minutes and no one’s cared.”
“Yeah,” Benton said, “this school has horrible supervision.”
She bounced on the balls of her feet and shook him as much as she dared, given his injuries. “So let’s go. This whole thing could be over before last period.”
“Seriously?”
“Okay, with travel time, it will probably take us a little longer. But we should definitely be back before my shift at the Buffalo Jump Museum starts.”
“You’re actually working today?”
She propped her hands on her hips but still felt more defensive than righteous. “My co-workers have kids, Benton. I can’t just leave them hanging.”
He was silent for a long moment, his lips pinched into a tight line as he thought.
