Silas (37 page)

“
Do I even want to know what
this is about?” said Leigh.

He held up a hand. “Let me
talk this out with Silas, okay? I’ll tell you everything
later.”

“
Fine,” she said. She
stalked back into the kitchen, slamming the door after
herself.

Griffin ripped off another
paper towel and mopped at his face. He took several steadying
breaths.

I watched him, unsure of what to say or
do.

He put his hands on his nose and
cracked it back into place.

I winced.

He showed me his face. “Does
that look straight?”

“
Uh…” I reached up to move
it, then hesitated.

“
No, it’s fine,” he said.
“Fix it. It’s been broken before. The hell of it is that if I don’t
get it straight right away, it heals crooked and then I have to
break it the fuck again. You know what I’m talking about,
right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, once I was
on this gig for Op Wraith and my arm got broken. I didn’t set it
right, and it was totally fucked.”

“
Exactly,” he said, leaning
forward.

I adjusted his nose.

“
Mother of shit,” he
muttered.

“
Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t
mean to hurt you.”

He touched his nose again.
“That’s better. Thanks.”

“
No problem,” I
said.

He picked up another paper towel and
dabbed at his face.

I got one too.

We stood there for several minutes,
holding the absorbent paper up to our various wounds.

“
Look, man,” I said. “I’m
sorry.”

“
Whatever, I hit you
first.”

“
No, I mean, I’m sorry about
your sister.” I looked at the ground. “I know that’s not enough to
say. I know it pales in comparison to what happened—”

“
Wasn’t your fault,” he
said.

I opened my mouth to
disagree with him.

“
It wasn’t,” he
said.

“
I was supposed to protect
her. You said it yourself.”

“
You tried,” he
said.

“
Not hard
enough.”

He balled up his paper towel
and threw it on the ground. “Did you want that to happen to her?
Did you give her to Rolf?”

“
Well, no, but—”

“
It’s not your fault,” he
said. “Trust me, it’s not going to help her to put the blame
elsewhere. The hardest thing about this shit is that people are
always blaming the wrong people. It’s the fault of the guy who did
it. It’s nobody else’s fault. And you killed him,
right?”

“
She
killed him,” I said.

He chuckled softly. “Yeah,
she’s my sister, all right.” He grimaced. “Damn it.”

“
She says she’s okay. She
keeps insisting that she is. But she can’t be, can she?”

“
No,” he said. He swallowed.
“Doesn’t surprise me that she didn’t want anyone to know. Hell,
maybe if I had told her what had happened to me, she wouldn’t have
thought she had to hide it. But I was too ashamed to ever admit it
to her. And I never thought she’d ever have to…” He looked up at
me. “I need to talk to her.”

I nodded.

He started across the lawn.
“I’m sorry I hit you,” he threw over his shoulder. “Stop blaming
yourself, okay?”

* * *

I stayed outside for several minutes
before I went back in.

But when I did, I heard
Christa’s voice echoing through the house. “Silas is a fucking
asshole!”

Leigh and Sloane were both on their
hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor. They looked up at
me.

Christa careened around the
corner into the kitchen. She threw herself at me and began to beat
her fists against my chest. “You stupid fucking dick! You promised
you wouldn’t tell.”

I let her hit me.

She kept going, calling me names,
punching me over and over again.

I just stood there.

Suddenly, she stopped. Her
face crumpled, and she looked up at me. “How could you?”

Damn it, I hated it when she
cried.

“
I… I had to,” I said.
“Because you have to deal with it. You can’t run from it. It
happened.”

“
Fuck you.” Tears poured
over her cheeks.

I looked away.

Griffin appeared in the
doorway. “Christa, it’s not his fault.”

She rounded on him. “I don’t
want to talk to you about this. I don’t want you to
know
about
this.”

“
I know how you feel,” he
said.

“
No, you don’t,” she
said.

“
Actually,” I said. “He
does. You should talk to him.”

She narrowed her eyes at
him. “How could you know?”

“
Maybe I don’t know
exactly,” said Griffin, “but I’ve been through things. Come here,
I’ll tell you about it. We’ll talk.”

“
You haven’t been through
this,” she said.

I cleared my throat.
“Christa, he was in jail.”

“
What the fuck does that
have to do with…” Her face changed. “Oh.”

“
Come talk to me,” said
Griffin.

She swallowed. “Okay,” she
said in a tiny voice.

The two of them disappeared out of the
kitchen.

Leigh got up. Her eyes were
huge. “What the hell is going on?”

* * *

I was sitting on the patio
outside later. I had a beer, but I hadn
’t
touched it, and it was gathering condensation on the
table.

Leigh opened the door and
eased outside. “Hey.”

“
Hey,” I said.

She sat down opposite me.
“So, last year when Griffin and I were captured by Marcel and his
guys, they took him away from me one day for hours. And when they
shoved back down the stairs, he was… Griffin and I never talked
about what happened, but it was pretty obvious that they, you know,
did things to him again.”

“
Shit.” I looked at my
hands. “I didn’t know that.”

“
Yeah, I’ve never had a
reason to talk to you about it. To anyone, really.”

I wasn’t sure what to
say.

“
We don’t talk a lot, you
know? About the stuff we’ve all lived through? Like you and Sloane
and the reason that Op Wraith recruited you? Something to do with
your parents?”

I flinched.

“
I’m not trying to bring
that up or anything,” she said. “I’m only saying that we could
talk.”

I took a deep breath. “I
don’t talk about that. About my parents.”

“
Okay,” she said. “You don’t
have to.” She chewed on her lip. “Do want to talk about what
happened with Christa?”

I swallowed. “I don’t
know.”

“
I felt really helpless,”
she said. “After they hurt Griffin? He was different afterward. At
first, he was just out of it. Kind of blank and destroyed and so,
so vulnerable. It was awful to watch.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“
But then,” she said. “I
told him that he needed to switch off. You know, like they taught
you at Op Wraith.”

I nodded again. I didn’t see
the point in telling her that I’d never been trained in that. That
my ability had been innate, and that now it was simply
gone.

“
And then… well, then he was
kind of scary.” She twisted her fingers together in her lap. “I
didn’t know what to do. There was nothing I could do, you know?
Like, I couldn’t take it back. I couldn’t save him. And I couldn’t
make it better. I held him. I… tried to make it better. But…” She
shook her head.

“
Yeah,” I said again. “It
was a lot like that for me too.”

She got up out of her seat
and wrapped her arms around me.

I hugged her back.

She released me. “I don’t
know if that helped.”

“
I don’t know
either.”

“
I think it helped me,” she
said. “I never told anyone about it. If you ever want to talk.
About anything. I’m here.”

I gave her a small smile.
“Thanks.”

She took another breath. She looked at
the door.

I wondered if she wanted permission to
escape now.

“
Griffin says that we should
go ahead with the wedding. He says that it’s what Christa wants,
and that she’ll be able to handle it. But, um, if you don’t think
we should, then I would be okay with putting it off.”

“
Oh,” I said. “No, you
should have the wedding. We should have something to celebrate
around here.”

“
You really think
so?”

“
I do,” I said.

* * *

There was a soft knock at my bedroom
door.

I crossed the room to open
it.

Christa stood there in her
pajamas, holding a bottle of Jameson’s. “Hi.”

I opened the door wider to
let her in. “I didn’t think you were going to speak to me ever
again.”

“
Well, I tried a shot of
whiskey to get me to sleep. It didn’t work. I guess I need to stay
with you tonight again. If that’s okay.”

“
Sure,” I said.

She held out the bottle to
me. “You want some?”

I took a drink. The liquid
burned its way down my esophagus. I sat down on the bed, setting
the bottle on my bedside table. “So, you don’t hate me?”

“
Not really,” she
said, sitting down next to me. “It was good to talk to Griffin. I
don’t think I’ve ever talked to him like that before. I feel like I
know him in ways I never did.” She cocked her head. “I know things
about him that I’m not sure I
wanted
to know.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“
He got pretty graphic when
I pushed,” she said. “He, uh, said it helps to talk about what
happened. To talk about being… raped. He said every time he tells
someone, he feels like it has just a little bit less power over
him.”

“
I guess that’s probably
true.”

“
But he said he thinks it
might always have some kind of power over him.” She studied her
fingernails. “That scares me.”

“
Yeah,” I said.

“
But if Griffin could get
through everything he went through, then I’ll be okay. What
happened to him was so, so awful. It happened over and over again,
and there were lots of different people and they did it lots of
different ways.” She made a face. “And he’s strong. And he’s happy.
And he’s all right. So, eventually, I guess I’ll feel like that
too.”

“
You will.”

“
But I guess I don’t
actually feel like that right now.” She sighed. “Even though I
really wanted to.”

“
I’m sorry I told him,” I
said. “I know it wasn’t my secret to tell. I was worried about you
is all.”

“
Well, it kind of was your
secret too,” she said. “You were there.”

I grimaced.

She reached over and picked up the
bottle. She took another swig and made a face.

“
So, what are you going to
do? Are you going to go see someone?”

“
Like a psychologist?” She
shrugged. “Griffin didn’t seem to think it mattered if I did. He
went on and on about that French woman you told me about.
Apparently, she soured him on the entire profession. But, um, there
are counselors on campus that I can talk to when I get back to
school. If I feel like I need to.”

“
Oh,” I said. “Right.
School.”

“
After the wedding, I guess
you’ll go back to your classes too.”

I nodded.

She handed me the
Jameson’s.

I took another drink. I held
it for a minute, trying to work up the courage to speak.

See, I’d had an epiphany
earlier when I was vacuuming. I’d realized that I was in love with
her. Maybe I’d realized it in a fucked-up way, but the two of us
were both pretty fucked up. She’d been through hell. I’d been
through hell. She was crazy, and she scared the fuck out of me. But
the thought of not seeing her anymore scared me worse. I didn’t
want her to go back to school. Texas was practically the other side
of the world.

I gave the bottle back to
her. “What, um, what if you didn’t go back?”

“
You want me to drop out of
school?”

“
No. But maybe you could…
transfer. You could stay here. I’d like it if you stayed
here.”

Her face fell. “Silas, this
is about what you were saying last night, isn’t it?”

“
I know you’re pissed at me
for telling Griffin,” I said. “But I’ve never felt this way about
anyone before, and I don’t want you to go away. I want you to be
here. I want us to be… together.”

She got up off the bed. “God
damn it. I’m not going to be able to sleep here after
all.”