Dead Silence (26 page)

A soft breeze spilled over her skin, and above them headlights shone down on them as a car crossed the bridge. Just for a moment, she could see him clearer, and she knew that he could see her too as the tears she’d fought against spilled onto her cheeks.

He looked stupefied. “
What
. . . what do you mean, you told Chelsea?” His voice no longer sounded husky or quiet. “What are you talking about, Violet? You didn’t tell her what you could do? Not about . . .” He frowned, as if just saying it, even here, while they were all alone, was too much to share. “Not about the bodies?”

But already she was nodding, and even in the faded lights, she knew he understood. He raked his hand through his hair. “Are you crazy? That’s not what I wanted. That was
never
what I wanted. I want you to be honest with
me
.
With me
, Vi. Not to put yourself in danger by telling other people.”

He took a single step away from her, and then seemed to think better of it and came back, positioning himself directly in front of her. If he’d had any notions about being aloof and cool, they were gone now, vanished with the admission of what she’d done.

“Dammit,” he cursed.

“Jay . . .” She closed the distance as she reached for him. When her fingertips brushed the coarse hairs on his arm, heat flushed her face, rushing all the way to her belly. Suddenly
she
wanted to rip his shirt off, regardless of how inappropriate the timing seemed. “It’s just Chelsea. I trust her.” She let her fingers move down, feeling their way along the sinewy muscles of his forearm, letting her thumb trace a circle around his wrist bone, moving until her hand was beneath his, their palms touching. “
We
can trust her.”

He moved then too, his fingers snapping closed around her hand in a sudden, swift movement that startled her, making her breath catch. Her pulse hammered against the base of her throat. “It’s not that you told
Chelsea
that bothers me,” he said warningly. “It’s that the more people who know—no matter
who
they are, no matter how trustworthy they are—the more likely it is to get out. Don’t you get it?” His grip lessened as he tugged her, so softly she didn’t even realize at first that she was being tugged. She was standing so close to him that she could practically
feel
his heartbeat across the distance. His eyes, normally playful and gentle and ready to smile, were on hers, brimming now with something intense and urgent as he willed her to understand.

Violet held her breath as she frowned. “I didn’t want to lie anymore,” she tried again.

But Jay was shaking his head. “No, Vi. You’re wrong. You’ve got this all wrong.” And suddenly they were no longer standing apart; they were no longer separated by the breadth of their heartbeats. Jay was squeezing her against him, crushing her. Not hugging or stroking her, but
crushing
her. She felt his fingers clawing at the back of her shirt, balling the thin fabric in his fists as he clutched her to him, and she could feel the days and weeks and months of frustration and fear and whatever else he’d been holding back come pouring out of him as he groaned achingly into her curls . . .

. . .
And he crushed her
.

She might have complained—needing to breathe and all—but instead she remained still, and silent, waiting for him to regain himself as he rocked and squeezed her. She concentrated on the fact that he was touching her at long last, and that through the small gasps she was able to take, his T-shirt smelled of car grease and Irish Spring soap, exactly like it should smell. Like him. And that she’d missed that smell more than she’d ever thought possible.

After a few agonizing minutes, he exhaled, dropping his chin against the top of her head. “I want you to lie. You
need
to lie, Violet. Just not to me.”

She wanted to nod and tell him she would, that she would lie her ass off . . . whatever he wanted her to do as long as he’d keep holding her like this. And maybe if he’d take his shirt off too. But she knew that wasn’t an option. “I can’t. No more lies. No more secrets, Jay. Besides, Chelsea already knows. There’s no going back now.”

He shook his head, but didn’t let go. “Fine,” he said, and she swore his grip tightened again when he said it. “But that’s it. Swear to me that Chelsea’s the last one, you won’t tell anyone else.”

“I can’t do that either. I might have to tell someone else,” she said, but she was grinning now because it was hard to take him seriously when he’d let go of her shirt and his hand was moving low across the base of her spine. He was making it hard to think about anything but the path his hand was taking. She wiggled against him, and he groaned again, but this time for an entirely different reason than he had before.

She stopped then, realizing that she still had things she needed to tell him, and if she didn’t tell him now, she’d feel like she was still keeping secrets from him. “Wait,” she said, taking the barest step back and reaching for his hand, forcing him to pay attention. “I need you to know something. My imprint . . . it’s gone.”

It was his turn to go motionless, his hand falling away from hers. “Gone? How is that . . . ? How?”

Without waiting, Violet told him, before she could change her mind. “It was Rafe. Rafe got rid of it for me.” She explained to him about her grandmother’s journals, about the way the echoes and imprints vanished when the heart was separated from the body. She described what Rafe had done to Caine’s body for her.

She told him, too, about Dr. Lee, his involvement in the Circle of Seven, the sleeping pills he’d been giving her. Everything.

And Jay listened. Wordlessly.

When she was finished, she reached up and absently smoothed a stray hair away from his forehead. He stopped her, catching her hand and her awareness. “Why do you think he did it?” he asked, and Violet strained to see him better in the dull light.

“Dr. Lee?” she asked back, being intentionally obtuse. She knew exactly who he meant.

“Rafe.” He said the name with obvious distaste. “Why do you think he would risk so much for you? He’d get in a lot of trouble if he got caught.”

Violet shrugged, still warring with that part of herself that wanted to avoid the truth. But she couldn’t be that girl anymore, not with Jay. Shaking her head, as if her internal struggle had reached the surface, she said, “For a lot of reasons, I guess. Because he’s my teammate. Because he’s my friend.” She shrugged again as she glanced away from him. “But mostly because he likes me. I think he’s always liked me.” Her voice had gone soft, and was muffled by the river behind them.

Shame filled her like the icy waters beyond.

She remembered once, when she and Jay had come to the river on a clear May day—far too early in the year for the sun to have warmed the waters that were just beginning to melt off the glaciers, trickling down from the mountains. But they’d decided it was warm enough to go swimming, and they’d searched the shoreline for a good spot, finally finding a place where the water pooled away from the rocks, where it was still and deep and calm.

They’d stripped down to their underwear under the late spring sun, and had climbed up into a tree that hung over the spot. Without so much as testing the water with their toes, they’d clutched each other’s hands, and on the count of three, they had jumped.

If their parents had known what they’d done that day, they’d have been grounded for life.

But Violet could still remember how the too-cold water had felt when they’d plunged into it. The way a million frost-tipped needles had skewered her skin all at once, making her want to gasp even as water filled her nose and mouth. The way her lungs had compressed in on themselves, feeling as if they would shut down and might never breathe air again. The way every muscle in her body had felt paralyzed and her legs had refused to kick even when she’d started sinking toward the bottom.

She felt that way now. That’s how the shame of not telling Jay about Rafe’s feelings sooner felt . . . like needles and squeezed lungs and useless muscles.

And just like that day in the bitter waters of the river, it was Jay who saved her, who dragged her to the surface as he held on to her.

His hand on hers was safe and solid . . . and lifesaving. “And what about you, Vi?” he questioned, pulling her gaze back to his just like that. “Who do
you
like?”

She would have come up coughing and sputtering, the same way she had when he’d pulled her out of the river, but this answer was easy and came to her lips without a second thought. “You, Jay. It’s always been you. It always will be you.”

He reached for her then, and she was off her feet in an instant, giggling breathlessly as they landed in the sand beneath them. “I knew you’d say that,” he told her as he buried his face in the hair that curled wildly around the side of her face.

The sand was still warm from the late summer day, and it molded around them, cradling them. “Then why’d you ask?” she insisted, already breathless and surrendering to his touch.

She could feel him grinning as his lips brushed over hers. “Because I wanted to hear you say it.” And then he kissed her, his tongue slipping past her lips, and the sounds of the river faded, along with the light of the bridge and the worry of secrets kept and those revealed.

“Wait,” she gasped, whispering as she reached up and pushed him away from her. She tried to sound serious as her heart hammered painfully inside her chest, but it was so terribly hard with him watching her like that, his eyes wide and expectant.

“What is it?” he asked, his breath hot against her own.

She grinned back at him, feeling devious and wanton. “I’m gonna need you to take off your shirt now.”

CHAPTER 13

“GRADY!
GRADY
, WAIT UP!” VIOLET SHOVED HER way through the crowded hallway, hoping he could hear her above the ruckus. Hoping he’d care enough that it was her calling for him to stop.

She doubted he really wanted to talk to anyone at the moment. He hadn’t exactly received a warm “Welcome back!” from the student body. It was more like the cold shoulder with a side of “What are you looking at, creep?”

It didn’t matter that the police had exonerated him, and that no charges had actually been filed against him. The damage had already been done. In the eyes of the White River student body—maybe in those of everyone in Buckley—Grady was a murderer. Or at least close enough.

Violet was panting after chasing him up a second flight of stairs, weaving her way in and around students in her path. When she heard Grady’s name being passed between two girls who weren’t even trying to keep their voices down, Violet glared at them.

“Get a good earful?” one of the girls sneered at Violet. “This is a private conversation, why don’t you mind your own beeswax?”

Violet thought about stopping, about confronting the two of them right there in the hallway, but she hesitated on the words
beeswax
, giving them each a second glance. They were young . . . freshmen probably.
Ninth graders.
What kind of bully would that make her if she lit into them, even if they deserved to be set straight?

She shot them an impatient glare, deciding to ignore their ignorance. “Grady,” she called again, when she saw him lingering in front of a bank of lockers.

He glanced up when he heard her, and she saw the look in his eyes—the one that said he wasn’t sure whether to stand there and wait for her, or to dart away. To disappear into the crowd and avoid her—and everyone else—altogether.

She couldn’t blame him really. She was sure it had been rough so far . . . and it was only halfway through his first day back.

Opening his locker, he shuffled through papers and books as she approached.

“I was starting to wonder if you were ever coming back,” she said, suddenly feeling awkward and unsure. She wanted him to know he had an ally, but she also remembered that not so long ago she’d wanted nothing more than to avoid him. The same way everyone else was doing now.

“Me too,” he said, digging a book out of his backpack and shoving it in his locker. “I probably wouldn’t have if my parents hadn’t’a gotten sick of watching me play Call of Duty all day. But, hey, lucky for me everyone’s excited to see me.” His voice sounded flat . . . empty. “Look at them. I’m, like, some sorta pariah.” He nodded down the hallway, and almost all the kids in the vicinity pretended they hadn’t just been watching him seconds before as all eyes shot in different directions. “They won’t even look at me.”

“That’s not true.” Violet touched his arm. “
I’m
glad you’re back.”

“Yeah, well, you might be the only one. No one’ll even talk to me.” He rummaged around in his locker some more. “I might as well have done it.”

Violet tried to imagine being in his shoes, to have everyone talking about you, wondering what kind of person you are. Wondering whether or not you really were a killer.

She watched as he pulled out the same book he’d just put into his locker. He held it in his hands, looking at it as if it were foreign, as if trying to remember what he’d come there for.