Clearer in the Night (36 page)

He took two steps towards her, his grin too big and too white, before I got in front of him. I moved so fast that the world blurred around me. I put my hand in the center of his chest. He didn’t press against me, but all that ooey gooey crap that he had layered into his eyes was gone.

“Do you really think that you could stop me, Caitie? If I decided to push?”

Sophie was making a low, keening sound. I reached my other hand back without taking my eyes off him. I felt her fingers find mine and squeeze. “I don’t know,” I said. “But I bet I’d give you a run for your money. And word on the street is that my sister is tougher than she looks.”

I felt her surprise behind me, followed by a hint of…joy? Delight? She came up behind me, lending her weight to mine. “That’s right,” she whispered. “I’m not alone anymore. You can’t scare me now.”

Mom finally roused from her stupor in the living room. “Wes, I’m sorry. If I’d realized what happened between you and Cait, I wouldn’t have allowed you inside. You should go now.” She held herself as straight as she ever did anymore; it was something.

He flashed a look at Sophie and me, pure murderous disgust, but when he turned back to Mom, he was the class president picking up his prom date all over again. “I’m sorry to have misunderstood, Mrs. Murphy. I hope Caitie and I can work things out, but I won’t trouble you again.” He slid between us and Mom and walked out the front door, closing it neatly behind him.

Sophie sagged against me, and I got my arm around her, supporting her gently. She was shaking again, and she made a sound like a gaspy sob, but no tears. Not yet. “It’s okay,” I said. “He’s gone. You’re safe. He’s gone now.”

Mom watched, distant, as I got Sophie moving, settling her on the couch. “He followed me,” she said. “I was sure he wouldn’t, I never told him about this place. I have no idea how he followed me here.”

If Eli saw her now, he’d never think she could be the monster who’d attacked me. “You know him. Right?”

She nodded. “I didn’t…before. I didn’t tell you everything.”

Mom looked like she was going to fall utterly to pieces. “You know what would really help?” I said, ducking to catch her eye. “Some lemonade. Do you think—?”

“Of course!” She leapt off the arm of the couch where she’d perched. She shot me a grateful look, then ran.

“Tell me,” I said.

Sophie buried her face in her hands again. “It’s utterly humiliating.”

“He fooled everyone. Me included. It’s okay. Just tell me, so we can make sure we’re all safe.”

“It didn’t—it didn’t happen exactly like I said before.” She paused, and I was quiet, giving her the space to tell it her way. “Dad was crazy, I didn’t exaggerate that part. He wouldn’t let me work, he wouldn’t let me make friends. I don’t know why I didn’t just leave. It seems obvious now, but then, I was just—it was him and me, and what was going to happen to him if I left? You know?”

“I know. I really know.”

“I met Wes, and—everything was different. I mean, I’d never really dated anyone, but it’s not like I was a nun. I met him in a coffee shop, and we spent hours talking about roasts and brew times and total nonsense.”

My brain hung up on that detail. “Coffee? He told me he hated coffee.”

She shook her head. “He always had a coffee cup in his hand when I knew him. And—maybe he was just the first guy who talked to me instead of trying to talk me out of my pants. He got there, in the end. He wanted me to run away with him, and—dammit, Caitie, I told him I would, if not for Dad. And then we talked about him, and he got this look.” She got quiet, and she stared at her hands.

“Do you think he killed Dad?”

She shook her head. “No, he was with me that night. I’m sure he didn’t. But when I went to our rat trap apartment, it was to get my stuff and go, no matter what Dad said. No matter how convinced he was that they would get me, or even him. I went there to abandon him. There’s no point in lying about that.” She shivered, and I put my hands over hers. “I couldn’t even look at Wes after that. The only thing I could think was to come back here, and try not to remember how I’d failed him.”

“I don’t think—” I started to say, but she didn’t hear me at all.

“I told Wes that I wasn’t going to take off with him, and he—Caitie, I thought he was going to kill me. I don’t know what stopped him, but it wasn’t me. He beat me bloody and left me. He said I’d get what I deserved.” One tear sparkled in her eye, but she scrubbed it away before it could fall. She shook herself, and forced a smile. “I’m sorry he’s here. I’m sorry you got involved with him.”

“It’s not your fault. I got stupid, really stupid, and I got him on my shoes. It’s done now. He’s a jerk, but do you really think he’ll come back here?” Because she’d said he was with her the night Dad died, right? Just a coincidence. And just a coincidence that he followed her back here and found my pants to crawl into. But he hadn’t followed her, he’d showed up two weeks before her. Coincidence. Right?

Mom chose that moment—she’d been waiting outside, trying not to listen—to burst back into the room like a ray of overexcited sunshine. She carried a tray, loaded down with cookies, glasses, ice, and a pitcher of lemonade. “Here’s to my family,” she said, “together again.” And she grinned at Sophie, but the look she gave me—it made me shiver.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 17

I knew it was a dream, but I couldn’t make it stop. There was someone chasing me, and escaping was impossible. I ran harder and faster, but whoever it was kept pace with me. I wasn’t afraid, exactly, but I couldn’t make myself stop moving. I had to get where I was going, or get away from where I was, or something, but I had to be away from here. Wherever here was.

Here was the clearing where I’d been attacked. My heart started to thump and pound, my breath came in huge puffs of air. I spun in circles, trying to see everywhere at once. There was something turning with me, visible out of the corner of my eye. I tried to catch it, tried to see, but it was like trying to watch a dust mote with your eye, every time you moved, it did too, and you’d never see it clearly, never catch it. There was light coming from somewhere high up, and it suffused everything, lit everything with a soft, cold, fire. And then I looked up.

The moon stared back at me, slid inside of me. There was no way to fight as it bent my limbs, pulled my bones apart, reformed my spine. The agony was desperate but distant, and when I was the one on the ground, everything felt so right, so true, and I threw my head back to the sky and screamed my joy. ‘Euphoria’ wasn’t enough of a word to describe this feeling.

There was a scent on the wind. I inhaled it, savored it. It was spicy and rich, sex and fear. I took a step forward, and then I was running, running fast, running toward her. The girl. She’d wandered here, alone, and she was terrified, and I was—

—screaming, shaking, the world was shaking. A sharp crack exploded, white hot, across my face, and I lashed back before my eyes even opened. I heard the oomph as all the air rushed out of whoever had hit me, and then the crash-thump as they slammed into my bureau and fell to the floor. There was a soft groan.

I shook the nightmare off like flecks of water, and forced my eyes open. My room. Sophie on the floor, collecting herself, staring at me. I’d thrown her, hard. That dream. It had felt so right, so natural, to be stalking a girl in the woods. It had felt so incredibly good to use all my senses, all my speed, all my ability for once, just for a moment, just for one awesome moment.

But Sophie, who was slowly picking herself up off the floor, was staring at me in horror. Oh, God. I checked in on the mental defenses that Eli had helped me build, and—fuck. I locked them down like he’d taught me to. One bad dream had completely destroyed them.

“Sorry,” I said, not that it was going to be anywhere close to enough.

“Bad dream,” she said, not exactly asking. “Have them often?”

Didn’t used to. “It’s been a long week.”

The smile she offered was the most genuine emotion I’d seen on her face yet. “That it has.”

We sat in silence for a bit, her on the floor, me on the bed. “So, did I scream?”

She shook her head.

“Then how did you—”

“I could hear you. And saw it. Like I was watching a movie, not like it was my dream, but I couldn’t get away from it.”

Ah. Well. “About that.” I couldn’t think of anything to say. I’d thought she would cut me off. But she was quiet, waiting. I sighed and glanced at my clock. Five a.m. Too late to really try and go back to sleep. I’d toss and turn for an hour, and then get up more tired than I was now. “How do you feel about hot chocolate?”

“I feel very good about it.”

Both of us in the kitchen at the same time was awkward. She kept reaching for things at the same time that I did, and then we’d both blush and apologize. She had some kind of insane idea that you made hot chocolate with water and a microwave. It was a point of honor to clarify this with her.

“I remember,” she finally said as we sat down with hot cups of steaming heaven. “Mom did this for us, when we were little. I’d forgotten.”

I wondered what else had been forgotten, after years living with a crazy man. It didn’t sound like he’d done much beyond keeping her clothed and fed, and even that seemed questionable at times. “Did you really come back here just on a whim?”

She sighed, and her shoulders caved in. “No. I’ve know you were here for a couple years now.”

“How?”

“Facebook. Dad never knew I had an account. He might have actually killed me if he’d known. He was…firm about computers. And cell phones. But I set up an account at the library, one day, and when it asked for a hometown, I put in Meredith Falls. And then it asked me if I knew you.”

“My profile is private.”

“It showed me your profile picture. It was enough to be sure.”

“Why didn’t you come back? Contact me and let me know you were okay?” The feeling inside me—it was like I’d swallowed the cold depths of the lake, and I was freezing to death and full to bursting. I tried to breathe, but there was nowhere for my lungs to expand.

“I didn’t know that you thought anything was wrong. Dad sometimes said he left to keep you safe, or sometimes because you were bad for us, and we needed to get away, but the way he put it, I thought you always knew exactly where we were. And, I don’t know, I was used to it. I didn’t think Mom would have let me go without a fight.”

I was going to vomit all that cold water, and the lake weeds, too. And maybe even a lake monster. Her voice was tight, bitter—she was furious. It wasn’t Mom’s fault. It hadn’t ever been. “What more could she have done? They told her that you and Dad were dead. She tried to drink herself to death so that she wouldn’t have to face it. She kept this house like a memorial for your life. She killed off every good thing that was left so she could finish her life in mourning. What exactly more could she have done?”

Tears stood out on Sophie’s eyelashes. I thought she’d dash them away, but she was too stubborn. “I don’t know. She was my mother. I was just a kid. She should have protected me.”

“He made me choose.” Mom stood in the doorway, swaying, her arms twisted around her middle like they might hold her together. She was in the same rumpled clothes she’d been wearing last evening. “He said we’d all be safer from the watchers if he left and took one of you with him. I wanted all of us to go, but—he didn’t want that. So he made me choose. Which of you would stay and which of you would go.”

Sophie was as white as the walls. My hands were shaking in a rhythm to match the quivering of my stomach. “And you chose her,” Sophie said. She didn’t point at me, she didn’t look at me, but the poison in her voice killed me all the same. “You chose her to stay, and me to go with him. To be dragged around, twisted, and tortured by him. You chose to keep her.”