Where Silence Gathers (15 page)

And Andrew is his son.

If he lied to me about this, what else has he lied about?

The risk of discovery has passed, yet my skin is crawling and every instinct I have is screaming at me to leave, get out, run. I don't fight it and put the picture back. Before leaving I make sure that everything looks exactly like it did when I came in. It has to, since Andrew's meticulous nature will sense it straightaway. I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans and grasp the doorknob, pulling it shut behind me.

I'm heading for the parking lot again when I pause next to the front desk. I should go home, where it feels safe—even if it isn't. I shouldn't tempt fate again, especially in light of my recent discoveries. But I've never been very good at doing things I should. So instead of going to my car, I rush up to the receptionist. “Where is Dr. Felix Stern's office?” I ask, wrapping my hands around the edge of the counter to hide the way they're shaking.

The woman turns her head. She's on the phone. Smiling at me, she points the end of her pencil to the left. The opposite direction from Andrew's office. Nodding my thanks, I follow the way indicated by that worn eraser, rushing down the hallway and making sure to glance at each room number.

There it is. I jerk to a halt and stare.

Like all the other offices, there's a plaque on the door. I scan the familiar name several times as I lift my hand and knock. Nothing. But the paper taped beneath the plaque says his office hours are right now. He must be in there. Pursing my lips, I knock harder. The door rattles on its hinges. “Hello?” I call, listening for any movement within.

“Yes, yes, what is it?” A man yanks the door open and stands there, glaring. He's very short, almost pudgy. His suit is brown and wrinkled, and glasses wink at me in the light. Tufts of gray hair surround his ears.

The pause becomes too long, and I know he's about to lose patience again. If he has any. “Are you Dr. Stern?” I manage. Questions crowd in my throat, clambering over each other, making it impossible to go on.

Another pause. The man doesn't respond. The ferocity in his expression fades as he studies my features. Then recognition brightens his eyes, as unmistakable as the dawn. He casts a furtive glance up and down the hallway.

“You look like your father, Alexandra Tate,” he mutters in that thick accent. The same one in the voicemail, the one that answered my call so briefly before hanging up. “You shouldn't be here.” He shuffles back and closes the door a little, using it like a shield. Against me?

“Maybe not, but I am,” I counter, thinking of my dreams, of the files on the flash drive. “I want answers.”

“I can't give them to you.” He starts to shut the door completely.

I jam my foot inside. Pain radiates through my heel. “My father is dead, Dr. Stern. He never spoke about you, and I know there's a reason. I'm not leaving until I find out what it is.”

“You're going to get us both killed!” he hisses. “Leave this alone!”

I'm so shocked that when he moves to slam the door again, I don't stop him.

Eighteen

Time loses meaning again. One moment I'm driving back from Green River, the road signs green blurs. The next moment I'm breathing hard and concentrating on the circular movements of my feet as I pedal to nowhere. The car is back at the apartment and I'm still desperate to find out what it is my father kept from me all those years ago. As if the answer will solve everything, end the war that's destroying my insides. Trees and signs go by unnoticed. All I know is the hurricane of air leaving my mouth again and again.

But then the road ends and I'm forced to stop. The bike falls to the dirt. Something scrapes my ankle and I don't even look down. I stand in the clearing, heaving, closing my eyes as I try to calm.

The sensation within—like tiny soldiers live in my stomach and keep shooting or jabbing at each other—slows. I open my eyes again. It takes me a moment to comprehend where I am, where I unconsciously brought myself when I thought my destination was unknown.

The mines.

Sunlight bursts through the treetops above, casting shivering shadows over everything. Dad isn't standing in the mouth waiting for me, and he doesn't appear when I walk closer. I pause, the tips of my boots touching the very edge of the shadow that the lip of the entrance casts on the ground. The darkness beckons. I strain to see any sign of movement. He could be waiting. Maybe he needs me to believe, to find the strength to go into that oblivion.

“Daddy?” I whisper, as though someone else is nearby, listening. He doesn't answer. Still, I hesitate. I wish Saul's maps could show me the way, could lead me to the right ending of this story. The right choice. I wish that the flash drive held the answers to questions like … is it possible for the dead to come back?

The thought clings to me like a leech, propels me forward until I can no longer feel the warmth on my skin. “Daddy?” I say again, clenching my fists. Fear's strawberry breath cools the space around us and his fingers slide down my arm, brush the edge of my top as I walk out of reach. I call for my father a third time. A fourth time. I'm so deep into the tunnel now that I can see the dim outline of the elevator farther down. Silence rings in my ears.

He isn't here.

I stop. A tear drips off the end of my nose and plops into the dirt. I don't know what I expected. Dad to come out of the shadows, arms outstretched? His voice, telling me that everything will be okay? His reassurances that the past six years have been nothing but a bad dream? Anything but this emptiness, this confirmation that I really did conjure everything. It wasn't real. Any of it. The dog must have fled because she was full or heard something else on the wind. Not because she sensed my dead father.

Suddenly my knees buckle, and I fall. A sob echoes into the blackness. Mine. I wrap my arms around myself and rock back and forth, back and forth. “Please, please,” I whisper, uncertain of what I'm even pleading for. Something inside me cracks. Everything pours through that tiny opening: longing, anguish, regret, need. Emotions come like the apparition I believed my father to be. Not a single one of them speaks. I can't see their faces, I can only feel them. On my head and shoulders and back. Their scents combine and overwhelm, but one is stronger than all the rest and resounds in my mind, even in this state.

Chocolate.

I think I whimper his name. I can't speak past the pain searing through me. There aren't any words that will help me, anyway. I lift my face, and my eyes must have adjusted to the darkness because now I can see. His beautiful, familiar features stay when all the other Emotions drift away. For the first time since I've met him, Revenge looks … helpless. His hands hover over me. “Alex, Alex, Alex,” he keeps murmuring, as if saying my name will bring me back.

And it does. Another minute passes, and the unbearable pain begins to retreat. Retreat, but not surrender. It never does. I put my palms on the ground and try to take even breaths now. “I wanted him to be real,” I say eventually, shuddering. A hiccup escapes me.

Revenge still speaks softly, probably worried that anything louder will break me again. “He's as real as you make him, Alex.”

The wetness on my cheeks is drying. I straighten, unflinching this time when our eyes meet. The truth rises to my lips and I don't try to stop it. “I've missed you.”

My best friend doesn't hesitate. And I know that this is his truth, too. “I've missed you.”

I push myself up and brush my knees off. In unison, Revenge and I leave the tunnel, walking back toward the light. The moment we emerge I squint up at the sky, needing something to anchor myself to as I ask the question that's been tossing me around like a violent wave these past few days. “Is it true? When I choose, I'll never see you again?”

Exactly seven seconds pass. Revenge fidgets in that way of his, and it's clear he's trying to decide whether or not to lie. There are so many lies around us, though, that I'm choking on them. It takes the last of my strength not to beg.
Please, don't lie.
Finally he meets my gaze and says, “Yes.”

Hope has a way of sneaking up on you. It's a craving that ebbs back when you least expect it. Even though you know it's wrong, you can't help but want a taste of it now and then. Then you pay. There's always a price to pay for hope. I feel myself deflate.

“Why didn't you tell me?” I whisper. Overhead, a squirrel jumps through the treetops, and a branch snaps. The sound echoes.

“I … ” More silence. He's probably trying find the right thing to say. I know what I want to hear most: that everything will be okay. Except that it won't. People move on, people live their lives day-to-day just trying to cope. But I think there's a small part in all of us that's just waiting for the next awful thing to happen. Everything is okay until it isn't.

As Revenge continues to grapple for those impossible words, I release a long breath. I need to focus on something else. I need to change the subject. Gathering my hair into a ponytail, I go to a fallen tree and sit. The elastic band snaps into place.

“A lot of strange things have been happening and I don't know what to do with any of it,” I say abruptly.

My friend settles down next to me and crosses his legs at the ankles. Normally I would comment on the fact that he's wearing what looks like a bullfighting outfit, but not tonight. “Like what?” he asks.

“Well, the book, for one thing. That was a mature stunt you pulled. Really, I was impressed.” I glare, thinking about it.

“Book?” Revenge repeats. He honestly seems confused. “What are you talking about?”

My blood runs cold. If Revenge wasn't the one who was in the apartment last night, then who? My instincts insist Forgiveness wouldn't have done something like that. I turn away, muttering, “Never mind.”

It's already twilight. The sun has begun to lower, fusing with the horizon. Hues of yellow and orange spread over everything. Another missed day of school. “Maybe none of this matters. I mean, it has nothing to do with Nate Foster.”

“Have you been to the house lately?” he asks.

“No.” I sigh, picturing that front door. Untouchable, unreachable. “I don't think I have it in me, Revenge. To kill someone. Even after what he did to my family.” This is a day of hesitations and pauses, because yet another silence falls between me and Revenge. It's not as uncomfortable as the others; thoughts of my encounter with Dr. Stern distract and consume me. The message Dad left on Andrew's answering machine.

Then Revenge shifts. I turn and find that he's staring at me with an odd expression. I tilt my head in questioning. Slowly, he says, “Death isn't the only revenge, Alex.”

“What do you mean?”

As a response, Revenge jumps to his feet. “Let's go. Your car is at the apartment, right?”

By the time I get back, my body is aching again and all I want to do is crawl into bed and sleep and sleep and sleep, but Revenge is waiting on the bottom step. My gaze slides past him to a strange car parked in front of the shop—the same one that was hovering by the curb at the playground, that first night I talked with Forgiveness at the lake.

Andrew. I'd completely forgotten that he was planning to come see me.

Swearing under my breath, I hurry to the Saturn and hope no one saw me. Revenge appears in the passenger seat. There's a strange tightness to his mouth, like he's anticipating what's about to happen but wants to hide it. Almost as if, like me, he doesn't know what he wants. But that can't be it, since he's Revenge. Right?

“So what are we—” Someone raps on the windshield. I jump and shriek. Missy circles the hood and peers in at me, frowning, and I quickly roll down the window. Fear doesn't bother to offer commentary this time, and Revenge scowls at the delay.

“Didn't you see Andrew's car?” My aunt puts her hand on the edge of the door. Her wedding ring glitters. “He's here to see you.”

“I can't talk to him right now,” I say. Bewildered, Missy begins to argue. I shift gears and reverse before she asks questions I can't answer. Now Guilt joins us in the tiny space. She's so big that her head bumps the ceiling, and her face makes me think of a pig. Beady eyes, flat nose. I grind my teeth when she caresses my head. “This better be good,” I tell Revenge.

Missy fades in the rearview mirror as Revenge says, “Oh, it will be. Trust me.”

My headlights guide the way down the mountain. It begins to drizzle. Revenge and I don't speak again, not even when I turn onto Sanderson Road. After a minute the house comes up on the right, a structure of white. Tonight it almost glows, as though the Fosters are the ghosts and not my father.

It hasn't been long since my last visit, but somehow it feels like years. Once we get close I switch the lights off, as usual, and pull into my hiding place beneath a huge tree. It offers an excellent vantage point of the house. Only one car is in the driveway this time. “Where's Jennifer?”

“Visiting her mother.”

Uncertain, I start to reach for the glove box like I usually do. My heart pounds harder.

“You won't need that,” Revenge tells me, getting out. A
whoosh
of air follows in his wake. I hadn't realized how warm it is. The mountain can't seem to decide which season to cling to. Either that or the Seasons themselves are feeling fickle. Cutting the engine, I swiftly follow. Mist rolls over the lawn and we creep—I creep—from tree to tree. The chandelier above the dining room table is so bright that it illuminates half the yard. I recall the night I watched Jennifer Foster cry over her kitchen sink. This time, though, Compassion is nowhere in sight. Approaching, I grip the windowsill and dare to look inside.

But Revenge keeps going. “This way.”

“What are you—”

“Just trust me, okay?”

Pushing aside my reservations, I tiptoe around the side of the house. Revenge stops and watches me expectantly, standing by a window. Through the glass I see a living room. A couch with a floral pattern, a coffee table with a bowl of fake fruit on it, lamps with beads dangling from the shades. But all of that fades away when I see people move in the shadows. Light from the hallway falls over them. Though the only sounds around us are frogs and crickets and wind, I can imagine the sounds they are making.

Nate Foster has a woman up against the wall, and they're kissing.

“See the possibilities?” Revenge breathes. Excitement—a petite creature with spiked black hair—quivers beside me while I dig out my cell phone, turn on the camera, and take a picture. Nate Foster and the woman who isn't his wife appear on the screen, forever documented in pixels and promises. My fingers tremble and I tear away from the sight to look at my best friend.

Words are impossible. As if he understands, Revenge smiles into my eyes, and we've never been more connected than in this moment. Those words from six years ago echo in the tiny space between us:
That's the question, isn't it, Alexandra Tate? What do you want?
Suddenly it doesn't matter that he's going to disappear, it doesn't matter that part of what I want I can never have. “I could kiss
you
right now,” I whisper, grinning.

Slowly, the mirth dies in his garden-green eyes. We stare at each other, neither of us moving away or acting like the heat doesn't exist. We're both thinking about that almost-kiss in the attic again, the one we've both secretly agreed not to acknowledge. I study his features even though I have all of him committed to memory. His hair, the color of embers or an exposed wire, glints. His lips, generous and sober, have never been more tempting. I think of those minutes in the mines, how he was the one to come when I was most broken. I want to touch him so badly, and I can tell he does, too. The heat intensifies until we're burning in it.

“It's my turn to show you something,” I say finally.

He frowns, clearly puzzled. Turning my back on Nate Foster—they're on the couch now, still oblivious to our presence—I walk back to the front of the house. Fireflies flare and fade over the grass like dying stars. Revenge trails after me. I go right up to the front door and face him again, willing him to realize that this is my silent promise. My unspoken vow that soon, I will let go of everything and choose.

Never looking away from Revenge, I touch the door. Just one touch. But it feels like so much more.

It feels like the beginning of the end.

Screams drift through the wall.

Ever since I got home there's been an idea in my head, the notion that the instant I touched the Fosters' door, the darkness I tried to contain beneath my skin was released. It now seems to freely affect everyone around me. Angus's parents, Saul and Missy. Their arguments are an orchestra coming from every side, notes and harmonies made of bitterness and worry and anger.