She’s my anchor, my sail, the second half of my heartbeat. She grounds me, electrifies me, excites me, astounds me with her brilliance and talent, and loving her is the easiest thing I’ve ever done… effortless, natural, true. Always there, my cheerleader, my coach, my teammate, my perfect fit.
Kid brother, trusty sidekick, ever-present reminder to bounce, to stay lively and propitious, to never take life too seriously. Pop Rocks for the soul.
Father, the man to whom I owe my skepticism, my rationalism, the Bedrock of Me, the source of my hunger to do right, to fix the world…
Rachael’s tattooed chest gushed blood, flayed by a maniac. Now, her body was bisected on subway tracks, shoved by a stranger. Raped. Worse.
“No,” I muttered.
Lucas’ face flaking black, house fire flames consuming his body. Head crushed on concrete, a parkour move gone bad. Shot, bam-bam-bam, strutting Alphabet City punks back to settle their tenpin score.
“Please, no.”
Dad’s screaming face, dunked in a men’s-room toilet in One Hogan Place, parole violator dead-set on payback.
“God, if you can hear me…”
But He didn’t.
The visions blasted on, kaleidoscopic, tungsten-flares of midnight murder and mania, of my beloveds’ lives ending terribly, quietly, slowly, bullet-train fast. And then, a life’s worth of feeling the gaping World Without, with a new breed of nyctophobia: a darkness of the heart, no reason to keep beating. My fuel, my fire, gone forever.
Forever.
Tears slid down my smashed face. I glanced at the dashboard clock.
7:23 AM.
Nightmare minute.
If they were dead, it was my fault. All. My. Fault.
“Please, God. Please.”
90 MPH now.
And then, as the car screamed ever-southward, just miles away from Claytonville Prison: skeleton song.
I’d already been clutching my cell phone, watching for reception bars to wink on-screen. My thumb frantically jabbed the “voice mail” button; the thing could’ve dialed in at warp speed and it still wouldn’t be fast enough.
First message. 10:38 PM last night. Rachael.
Z? Lost you. Come back to the city—don’t go up there, please.
Second message. Also last night. 11:07. Dad.
Call me back. We need to work this out.
Third message. 6:30 AM today.
I smiled and wept.
“Z, it’s Rachael—”
“—and Lucas. Bro, you’re—”
“—It’s us. Please call when you can. We’ve been up all night—”
“—dude, Dad’s flipped his shit, you gotta—”
“—shut up, Luc. So yes, please call. We’re in a bad place over here… and thanks to your father, so’s your blind man. Wicked stuff is about to go down, Z. Call back. I love you.”
“’Dore!” Lucas called.
The voice mail ended. I dialed Rachael’s cell. She picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, it’s me,” I said. I struggled to keep my voice even; I’d been exhaustion’s punching bag—the surge of elation was too much. The tears still came. “You’re… you’re alive.”
“You are, too,” she replied. Her voice trembled, and I realized she was doing the same thing, miles away. I smiled through the tears. We were puzzles pieces clicking home, in sync once more.
“Oh Jesus, Zach,” she said. “You have no idea… you’ll never, ever know.”
I did, a little. A World Without.
“I’m coming home,” I said. “I want… No. Need. I need to see you, be with you.”
“Are you okay?”
I glanced at the ghoul’s eye staring back at me in the rearview mirror.
“No. No, babe.”
And then I said the only thing I could say. It was stupidly inadequate. Words are sometimes like that—failures of our species, hollow caveman grunts strung together to represent things bigger than the world itself.
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Z,” Rachael said. “Oh, baby. You should be. You’d better be. I love you, but you’re in the red, don’t think for a minute that you’re not. Listen to me. If. You. Ever.”
I wiped away my tears, nodding. “Yeah.”
“No, I need to say this. If you ever do anything like this again, we’re through. It’s simple math. We’re together, Z; we’re a couple. That means we’re coupled together, to each other. You can’t just run off. You can’t fight a war by yourself.”
“I thought I was protecting—”
“I know what you thought, and it was chivalrous and noble and selfless… and pretty damned selfish. This isn’t about you, baby. It’s about us. If you want to keep me in your life, then keep me in your life. We’re a team. We fight our wars together. If you want to fight on your own, then have the courage and decency to tell me to my face. I like love letters, Z—but I don’t truck with lone letters. Get me?”
I did, and told her so. Rachael didn’t believe in the Dark Man as I did; she hadn’t heard its skitter-slide, hadn’t felt its icy breath on her neck, hadn’t seen. She didn’t understand… but that didn’t make her wrong. No, she was absolutely right. I never tried to explain. I abandoned her and Lucas, fueled by obsession and a need, a primal, seemingly-cellular need, to see it done.
I was more like my father—and Richard Drake—than I’d ever imagined.
“I love you, geek goddess,” I said.
“I love you back, hottie artist,” Rachael replied. “You’re in the doghouse, but at least you’re loved.”
I smiled. “I’ll take it.”
“And now the bad news,” she said. “Your dad called Lucas last night after he tried to reach you. He’s pulling Drake out of The Brink.”
I stiffened… and winced. “He’s what?”
“He’s leveraging yesterday’s accident as a reason to transfer Drake.”
“Emilio…” I muttered. “He’s probably doing it to bolster his case. Literally. Get Drake out of The Brink, make him out to be a violent psychotic, get him away from me. ‘Conflict of interest’ no more.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he wants to protect you. We don’t know, but he told Luc that he’s bulldozing through whatever red tape to make it happen. He’s on a tear, Z, calling in big favors. It’s happening today, and there’s apparently nothing you or Brinkvale can do about it. At noon, Drake is gone… and it’s over.”
“Over,” I said. I glanced at my satchel resting in the passenger seat. There was a letter and two photographs inside—things Drake had consciously—or unconsciously—wanted me to find. Why?
“Dunno.”
“What was that?” Rachael asked.
I looked back to the road ahead. A green exit sign rose on the horizon: Claytonville.
“I don’t think it’s over, Rache,” I said. “Answers. I need answers.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
A wave of guilt, thick and sickening, passed over me. I couldn’t tell her about Uncle Henry. That was black, soul-wracking family history. I didn’t believe the revelation would fundamentally change the way she saw me, felt about me… but it would damn my father in her eyes. And my late grandmother, who had gone along with the plan. And then the secret would fester between us, with Lucas oblivious, intangibly damaging us, all three of us. It wasn’t a fair burden to share.
It didn’t feel right to tell her. But it wasn’t right to not tell her.
“Do you trust me?” I asked.