The Reaping (22 page)

“You know,” I began, fists on my hips.  “I’ve been completely honest with you and I expect the same in return.  But if you don’t think you can trust me, maybe we shouldn’t be in this together.”

Fury hardened his features and I regretted the words instantly.  I knew, just
knew,
that he was going to turn around and walk out of my life forever.  That was just
not
the kind of thing you said to Derek and I knew it. 

But he didn’t.

I was relieved and more than a little shocked when Derek answered my question, as if his emotional response hadn’t even happened.  And on some level, that bothered me.  It wasn’t like him to acquiesce so easily.  Derek doesn’t compromise.  He just doesn’t.

“As you are well aware, the twinning gene runs in families.  I guess you could say I was fortunate in that my grandfather was a twin and liked to tell stories.”

“What?”  My surprise was genuine.  “You mean your grandfather was cursed, too?”

“I believe he was, yes.”

“But you don’t know for sure?”

“Well, it’s hard to say.  He died before I knew what was happening to me.  But when I think back to the stories he would tell us—ghost stories, campfire stories, bedtime stories—I believe they were drawn from personal experience, not just an overactive imagination like most stories are.”

This was huge.  “Does your father know anything about it?”

Derek shrugged his big shoulders in that way I’d come to love.  “Who knows,” he said, a statement not a question.

“Why do you say that?”

“My father left just after Garrit and I were born.  I never knew him.”

“But you were close to your grandfather. I figured…”

“My
mother’s
father.”

“Ah,” was all I said.  Then, “What about your mother, does she know anything about it?”

“Don’t know that either.  She killed herself three years ago, when Garrit died,” he said, a hint of bitterness evident in his tone.

I couldn’t suppress a gasp.  I did the math and realized that at nineteen, Derek had lost both his brother
and
his mother.  How could anyone survive that?  And the pain he must have felt—might
still feel—
over the way they died.  Derek had taken one’s life and the other had taken her own.  It must be torture for him. 

I tried to temper the pity that rushed in.  Derek would rather be dead than be pitied.  He’d actually told me that once.  “Oh, Derek.  I didn’t know.  I’m- I’m so sorry,” I said, knowing how empty those words were.  I’d just heard them thousands of times from virtually everyone after my father’s death.  And even though I really meant them, I knew they were no comfort, but I didn’t know what else to say.

“I know you didn’t.  It’s alright.”

“What did she think happened to him?”

“She knew exactly what happened to him.”

“She knew that you- that you k-killed him?” I asked quietly.

Derek nodded miserably and my heart broke for him.  I wanted to go to him, to soothe him somehow, but when I took a step forward, he took a step back.  As I’d been warned, he didn’t want my pity.

“Yes, she knew.”

“But how?  How could she know?”

“She knew about the curse.”

“From your grandfather?”

“No.  I think she had more…
intimate
knowledge of it than just from old stories,” he said, bitterness clear and sharp in his tone now.

I stared at him in confusion for a minute before what he was insinuating dawned on me.  “You think she
knew
about the deal?”

“Yes,” he said curtly.

“But how?”

Derek looked at me, something close to hatred in his eyes.  For a moment, I couldn’t tell whether that hatred was for me for opening this old wound or hatred for his mother.  “Well, let’s see, Carson.  What are the only two ways she
would
know something like that?”

I recoiled from the coldness in his voice, from the loathing in his eyes.  I shook my head, not knowing what to say, what he
wanted
me to say.

“Either she knew about the deal,” he said icily, pausing before he continued.  “Or she made it.”  His expression was pained, and it was no wonder, if he actually thought that his own mother might’ve made a deal that cost him so, so much.

“And then she killed herself,” I said, more to myself than to Derek, working the details out in my head.  I knew that Derek saw her escape much the same way I did.  She was so riddled with guilt that she couldn’t live with herself.  And that looked really bad.

Despite the polar temperatures emanating from Derek, I went to him.  And this time he let me.  When I wrapped my arms around his neck, he was stiff at first, but I didn’t let go.  I held on, wishing desperately that I could help him, heal him, that I could comfort him somehow.

After a couple of minutes, when I didn’t budge, Derek loosened up.  I felt his arms wind around my waist and draw me closer to him. 

He let me hold him for maybe a minute before he drew back.  I let him go.  When our eyes met there was only a trace of sadness in the swirling silver depths of his. 

With a weak smile, he ran one hand down my arm and took my hand in his.  “Come on.  Let’s call it a night,” he said, turning in the direction of the road and his motorcycle.

Less than thirty minutes later, Derek was pulling into the driveway at my house.  He let me off so I could go around and open the garage.  I hadn’t been able to find the remote opener since the funeral so I had to use the manual controller on the wall inside the garage.

As I walked toward the front door, I could see the green of the grass in the light of the street lamp.  At the time I hadn’t realized I’d done it, but my upset over Dad the day of his funeral had killed all the grass at the house, too.  So one of the first things I did when I learned to control my power was to fix the grass at the house as well as at the cemetery.  I was hoping that no one would pay much attention to it, but that those who did would just think we’d put down sod.

I let myself in and walked through the dark house to the garage where I hit the button to raise the door and let Derek in.  He had been staying at my house since that Sunday when Leah had left after spending the weekend.  He always slept on the couch, though it was getting harder and harder to leave him out there when I really wanted him with me.  Though he didn’t share my bed, I think it made us both feel better when he was close. 

In deference to the sterling reputation my dad had ensured that I build for myself, we hid Derek’s bike inside the garage so that the neighbors wouldn’t talk.  Not even Leah knew how close we’d gotten or that he spent his nights with me.  Or at least that’s what I’d thought until that next Thursday on the way to school.

“So, is Derek ever going back to…wherever?  Or is he just going to stay with you forever?”

Her comment stopped me in my tracks.  I just stared at her, my mind spinning through excuses, my mouth opening and closing like a fish’s.  “Uh, I, uh.  He- um we- why would you think—”

Leah just smiled a knowing smile, apparently enjoying my discomfort.  “Don’t even try to lie, Carson.  I know things,” she said mysteriously, winking at me behind her clam-shell glasses.

“What do you mean?  What kind of things?”

“I don’t know.  I can just tell that something’s going on.”

“What do you mean?”  What had happened to my vocabulary since September?  It seemed I was always asking the same questions and then just repeating myself over and over and over, like Rain Man.

“I don’t know,” she said again, shrugging.  Now I had
her
repeating herself.  “It’s just a feeling I get.  It’s hard to describe.”

Though that was hardly a bothersome or telling remark among friends, considering the things I’d seen and experienced in the last few months, things of a supernatural nature, I took exception to her comment. 

“A feeling?”  I asked, trying to appear nonchalant as I resumed our walk to school.

“I guess that’s a good way to put it.  Maybe it’s just intuition.  Women’s intuition,” she said with a plucky grin.

“Sure it is,” I said doubtfully, dramatically narrowing my eyes on her. 

After a few seconds, her expression sobered and she said, “Just be careful, Carson.  Derek is- he’s—”  I watched Leah struggle for an adequate description.  “Just be careful,” she repeated. 

“I
am
careful, Leah, but,” I paused to look at her.  “Why do you say that?  It’s like you think he’s…I don’t know,
dangerous
or something.”  I tried to sound unconcerned, but I had to admit that her warning was making me uneasy.

“I don’t know, Carson.  I mean, he
is
a lot older than you and—”

“Five years is not a lot.”

Leah shrugged.  “I guess not, but he, uh.  He’s—” she stammered.  “Just be careful,” she finally said, for the third time.

“I will,” I assured her, my smile much lighter than my heart.  We dropped the conversation on that note, but it was far from forgotten.  I had just tucked the dialog away for later dissection.

School was uneventful, as usual.  My meteoric rise to fame over the milk in Stephen’s face ordeal was surpassed (in magnitude and longevity) only by my plummet to a less-than-zero status after the incident at the lake.  The fallout wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, though.  My father’s passing seemed to have subdued the worst of the ridicule.  Looks like even in death I owed my father a debt of gratitude.

I walked through the halls largely unnoticed, just as I had in previous times, and somehow I drew comfort from that.  I’d gotten a taste of what I used to dream about and found out it is totally overrated.

Walking home was typically the high point of my day.  After I left Leah at her driveway, I was always excited to get to my house and see if Derek was there.  I loved it when he was.  It still bothered me to come home to an empty house. 

On days when he wasn’t there when I got home, he usually arrived within an hour or so.  I tried not to ask too many questions about his day; he was very vague with his answers and I found that a source of frustration and, deep down, concern.  That was another thing that caused my trust in him to waver.

As I strode up the driveway today, something looked different, but it took me a second to put my finger on it.  Derek’s bike was parked in the driveway, as it usually was during “acceptable” hours.  The garage door was open, as it often was.  The front door was closed, as it usually was. 

Then my eyes flew back to the garage.  That’s it!  The garage was empty.  The Camaro was gone. 

I stood in the driveway debating how I felt about this newest development when I heard a deep, throaty rumble.  I turned to see what it was. 

Coming down the street, toward my house, was the Camaro.  And at the wheel was Derek.

Feelings of anger, sadness, accomplishment, bitterness, pride, and pleasure collided inside me in a complicated emotional wreck.  I carefully schooled my features as Derek slowed and made the turn into the driveway.  I took a few steps back to give him ample room to pull past me into the garage, but he didn’t advance that far.  Instead, he stopped right in front of where I stood.

With a smile that I rarely got to see, Derek shifted into park and got out of the car, the idle motor throbbing quietly.  Rather than shutting the door behind him, however, Derek held it open and swept his arm toward the driver’s seat, indicating that I should slide inside.