Silas (9 page)

And she pushed me away.

“
Damn it. What the fuck is
your problem?”

“
I…”

“
I’m not cool with that,
okay?” She backed away from me. “You don’t get to kiss me out of
nowhere. Fucking way out-of-line aggressiveness.” Her nostrils
flared. She was shaking. “I think you need to leave.”

CHAPTER SIX

I woke up in the darkness,
and I didn
’t know where I was.

I’d been dreaming. The awful
dream about Sylvia. The awful dream where she screamed.

At first I thought I’d woken
up with Sylvia, in her soft, warm bed, and I panicked, because I
wasn’t supposed to fall asleep with her. The rules were clear on
that front. I knew better. But I always wanted to, afterward, with
her in my arms. I always wanted to hold her close and
relax.

I felt for her next to me, for her
small, sweet body.

But she wasn’t
there.

I wasn’t with her. I sat up
in my bed, blinking until I was sure that I saw the familiar
surroundings of my bedroom.

Not with Sylvia. Dreaming
about Sylvia. Sylvia was dead.

I was drenched in sweat, and I felt
clammy and afraid.

I hated that dream.

I shuddered.

But it was wrong somehow. It
wasn’t the same dream. Because…

Because it hadn’t been
Sylvia this time.

It had been Christa.

Rolf stalking over to her as
she crawled away from him, her body already broken and
bleeding.

She was begging him, pleading for him
to stop. Tears were streaming down her face.

And he didn’t
care.

He shot her and shot her and shot her.
Her body dancing as the bullets riddled it.

It was my fault. He’d never
have done it if it hadn’t been for me. I’d made him hate her, and
he had to hurt her after he knew.

But she’d been stupid,
playing the kinds of games she played with a man like that. She
should never have tested him the way she did. It was her fault too.
She was the one who’d started all of it with me. She had a choice.
She didn’t have to be with me.

But, no, it had been
Christa
, not
Sylvia.

Why had I dreamed about Christa that
way?

There was no way that Rolf
would ever hurt her. Absolutely no way. He didn’t even know she
existed. He thought I was dead. He’d seen me go out a window seven
stories up. He hadn’t been able to follow Sloane’s car.

We were safe.

It seemed cold it my room.

But my shirt stuck to my back with
sweat.

I got up and went to the
dresser. In the top drawer, I’d stashed a gun and some bullets.
Methodically, I loaded the gun.

We were safe. Sloane was safe. I was
safe.

Christa was…

Christa was with Griffin and
Leigh. She was fine. Wasn’t she?

Shit.

I set the gun down and
stripped off my sweaty pajamas. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a
t-shirt. I slid the gun into the waist of my jeans, right at the
small of my back. I put a lock-picking kit in my front pocket. I
didn’t know if I’d need it, but I might.

I did a quick perimeter
check, making sure that none of the windows or the doors to the
house had been breached.

I checked Sloane to make sure that she
was okay.

She was sleeping on her stomach in her
bedroom, one of her arms dangling off the bed.

I made sure that she had a
gun in her room. I loaded it for her, and I left it right next to
her bed, so that if she needed it, it would be right
there.

And then I got in my car,
and I drove back to Griffin’s and Leigh’s apartment.

I was being an idiot. I knew
that.

I was overreacting. There
was no reason to think that Christa wasn’t safe.

But I wasn’t going to be
able to sleep unless I made sure.

The parking lot was dark and
silent. All the cars seemed to stare at me with their blank
headlights. I darted past them like a hurried thief, moving through
the night quickly and silently.

The apartment was on the
second floor. There was a set of outdoor steps. They were made of
concrete, and they’d been painted green. But the paint was peeling
away, and I could see that before they were green, they were once
blue.

I took the steps as quickly
as I could without making noise. I crept up them. I didn’t want
anyone at the top to know that I was coming.

If there was anyone there.

Which there
wasn’t.

There couldn’t
be.

I made it to the front door
of the apartment without seeing a soul.

The door was locked.

That was a good sign, right?
Rolf wouldn’t have broken in and locked the door behind himself,
would he?

I thought about knocking, waking them
up in there.

But if I was wrong, if Rolf
was inside, then knocking would alert him to my
presence.

So I picked the lock instead, doing it
as slowly, carefully, and quietly as I could.

When I was done, the door swung open
slowly. I needed to talk to Griffin about getting a deadbolt for
his door. It was far too easy to get inside.

Inside the apartment, it was silent and
still. There was nothing but shadows there.

I tiptoed inside, gently
shutting the door. I drew my gun.

I checked in the closets.

I checked the bathroom.

I looked in on Griffin and
Leigh, who were both asleep together. They were spooning. Griffin’s
arms closed protectively around Leigh.

I swallowed, thinking that
I’d feel better if I could sleep that way with Christa. I wouldn’t
have to worry about whether she was okay if I was there. I could
protect her.

Christa.

She was asleep on the couch, clutching
the covers tight around her chin.

I knelt next to her.

She was safe.

She made a soft noise in her
sleep, shifting slightly on the couch.

She was beautiful. And she was safe.
Safe.

* * *

“
Why did I wake up to find a
gun loaded on my bedside table, Silas?” Sloane was eating cereal at
the kitchen table. It was late morning, but it was Friday, and she
didn’t have any classes on Friday. I, on the other hand, had one in
about an hour and a half.

“
I put it there,” I said,
getting a banana out of the hanging basket.

“
In the middle of the
night?”

I sat down at the table.
“Maybe.”

“
You had a dream, didn’t
you?” Her voice was sharp.

I started to peel the
banana. “What does it matter?”

She set down her spoon. “You
know why it matters.”

I’d gone through a faze
where the dreams had gotten pretty bad. It had been a few years
ago, back when we were still working for Op Wraith. I’d gone a
little nuts, and Sloane had to cover for me. She’d been worried
that if the people running Op Wraith found out I was so unglued,
they’d just order a hit on both of us. We were a package deal after
all, and if one of us were damaged, we were both useless. Op Wraith
didn’t much go in for repairing damaged assets. It used people
until they couldn’t be used anymore. And then it got one of its
other assets to terminate the damaged ones.

“
It’s not the same,” I said,
taking a bite of the banana. “We’re not under French’s thumb
anymore. We’re okay.”

She looked worried. “Last
time, you lost your shit.”

“
I’m not like that now.” But
I wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“
So, you just got up last
night and made sure I had a loaded gun and then you went back to
bed?”

“
Pretty much.” I ate more of
the banana.

“
You’re lying to me,” she
said. “What aren’t you telling me? What else did you
do?”

I studied the wood grain on
the table. “I might have… broken into Griffin’s place to check on
Christa. In my dream, Rolf was killing her, and I couldn’t shake
the image, and I just needed—”

“
Silas!”

My shoulders slumped.

“
Did you bring a gun with
you?”

“
Well, yeah, if Rolf had
been there—”

“
Why would you think he was
there? Because your dream tipped you off?” Her voice was steadily
rising.

When she put it like that,
it sounded completely stupid. “No one saw me. They were all
asleep.”

She sighed. “This is bad,
Silas.”

“
It’s not.” I finished the
banana. I got out of my chair and went to the trash can, where I
deposited the peel. “It’s fine. I promise I’m okay.”

“
Why Christa?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
You have feelings for
her. You
like
her.”

I rubbed my forehead. I
didn’t say anything.

“
Jesus, Silas.” Sloane went
back to her cereal. “Well, she’s not going to be your girlfriend if
you’re all paranoid and freaky, so you’ve got to get over it,
okay?”

“
I don’t want her to be my
girlfriend,” I said. “I don’t want a girlfriend at all. Girlfriends
are just things that make you vulnerable.” But I was already
screwed on that point, wasn’t I? Christa pushed me away, telling me
she wasn’t into kissing me, and I was still so freaking worried
about her safety that I had to drive across town in the middle of
the night to make sure she was okay. God damn it. I was screwed.
How the hell had this happened to me?

“
I make you vulnerable,”
said Sloane. “Don’t I?”

“
You can handle
yourself.”

“
Right, that’s why you make
sure that I’m always the sniper. Because you’re sure I could handle
myself if I fought hand to hand.”

I sighed. “Look, this is all
because of Rolf. If I would have killed him, I wouldn’t be feeling
this way. I need to find him. If I find him and I take him out,
then all of this will stop. I’ll know that we’re okay.”

“
We
are
going to do that,”
she said. “After the wedding.”

“
What if I can’t
wait?”

“
The wedding is
tomorrow
. You can
wait.”

“
Is it?” I was disoriented.
I hadn’t been keeping track of the days. That wasn’t a good
sign.

She nodded.

“
Oh,” I said. “Well, then,
Christa will be leaving soon, won’t she?”

“
Yeah, I guess
so.”

“
Good. That’ll be better.” I
started out of the kitchen.

“
Silas, some serious shit is
going down with you, and you need to stop shutting me
out.”

I kept going.

Sloane caught up with me on
the steps. She got in front of me. She was yelling. “Look at
me.”

I wouldn’t.

“
You can’t just act like you
don’t care about anything, you know.”

“
Maybe I
don’t
care.”

“
You’ve been like this ever
since we did it,” she said. “That’s what broke you.”

I knew what she meant by
“it.” She never talked about it. Hell, I didn’t like to talk about
it either. When I thought about it, it was all red spatters and
screams and the metallic smell of blood.

“
If I could have helped
you,” she said. “If I hadn’t wimped out—”

I grabbed her by the
shoulders, cutting off her voice. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done
now.”

“
It does matter,” her voice
was a whisper. “You’ve never been the same.”

I grimaced. “Well, neither
have you.” I let go of her and started up the steps.

“
Silas—”

I looked down at her. “You
know that it’s always bothered you more than it bothered me. That’s
why it made more sense for me to do it. I don’t blame you for not
helping. I never have, and I never will. Please don’t think that…”
I shook my head.

“
You changed
afterward.”

“
We both did,” I said. “But
the dreams and stuff. The paranoia? That’s all Rolf. It’s got
nothing to do with you. Please believe me.”

She crossed her arms over her
chest.

I turned away and kept going up the
steps.

* * *

Griffin stood up at the end
of the table, lifting his glass. Everyone got quiet.

We were all at the rehearsal
dinner before the wedding. Everyone who was part of the wedding
party was sitting at a big table at Oliverio’s, an Italian
restaurant in town. The wine had been flowing freely, and everyone
seemed loose and relaxed.