Who Knows the Dark (8 page)

The rope unwound from Nox’s wrists, and he panicked, struggling to get up.

“Stay down, you idiot. You’re bleeding,” Rachel said. He felt pressure against his knees and shins, the starless sky above him blinking as the pain erupted. “We got Sam—and Cade—everyone’s fine, and you’re a bleeding moron.” She leaned harder against him until Nox closed his eyes, teeth digging into his bottom lip.

A few seconds later, the clattering noise of everyone joining them on the concrete dock roused Nox. Sam was coughing, and that more than anything propelled Nox to move again. He struggled to sit up—and this time someone helped him.

Their little group huddled together—Nox on the ground, bleeding and woozy, and a dripping wet Cade, with Sam—unbelievably, of them all—standing up and looking concerned.

“What the hell happened?” Nox asked weakly.

“Sam slipped, I went into the water. What the hell did you do?” Cade chattered.

“Hold this,” Rachel said to Cade, indicating the coat on Nox’s legs, which Nox realized she was using to stop the bleeding. “I’ll see what I can find.”

Nox, weak as he was, snapped his fingers at Mason, who had his gun out. “Go with her,” he said, looking up into Cade’s irritated face. “I’m fine,” he added, even as a wave of nausea roiled through his stomach.

“Whatever.” Dripping—and smelling fairly disgusting from the water—Cade pressed against Nox’s legs. “We’re like a fucking disaster movie. Who’d you piss off in another life?” His teeth were chattering, and Nox—instinct over thought—put his arms around Cade’s shoulders.

“My legs aren’t going to fall off. C’mere.” Nox grunted as Cade fell onto his legs and into his arms.

“Ugh. I hate you,” Cade mumbled, burrowing against Nox’s chest.

Blood and dirty water—Nox’s head spun.

S
AM
SAT
on the edge of the concrete, slumped over the bags they’d brought with them. Sliding down through that hole in the dock, he’d been sure it was the end. Cats had nine lives, and if he were lucky, so did he—because God, swinging on that rope, waiting to be pulled up, the sharp edges and the pull of the water….

“Hey, let’s get you into the truck,” someone said, and Sam jumped.

“Sorry.” It was Damian, flashlight in hand, looking about as exhausted as Sam felt. “They got a truck. Rachel and the cop.”

“Mason,” Sam mumbled as he rolled onto his knees and slowly got to his feet. “His name is Mason.”

An arm caught him, someone smaller than him, so it was Rachel, still cursing and grumbling.

“He stood there and glowered. I did all the talking,” she sniped, leading Sam toward the large panel truck idling in the distance. “Damian! Get the bags.”

It used to be a delivery truck, Sam imagined, now basically just rust painted over in industrial white, with several obscene words tagged on the side; it reminded him of the ones used to move Dead Bolt in the city. Rachel brought him around to the cab and hefted him into the passenger side.

“You’re so strong.” Sam laughed deliriously, grabbing the stick shift to pull himself up.

“I’m a badass, darling.” She shoved his butt into the seat.

Sam slumped, still laughing. “Is my dad okay?”

Rachel leaned against the door, looking up at Sam with a smirk. “He’s bloody and grouchy, but I think that’s just a regular Saturday night for him.”

“Pretty much.” Sam sighed. He heard thuds and shouts from behind the truck. “Um… is it….”

Rachel shook her head. “Too much testosterone in one place. That’s why I’m hanging with you.”

“Should I be insulted?” Sam coughed in his hand. Dammit. He’d been doing so well.

“No, sweetheart. I’m sure when your balls drop I’ll find you more annoying than not.”

Sam didn’t quite understand his father’s dislike of Rachel. She seemed cool and could be funny when she wanted to be—plus it was kind of nice to have a lady fussing over him. Some women at his old job and a few online teachers had, but Rachel was…

Kind of nurturing.

And if he wasn’t already entirely sure he was gay, he might have a crush.

While the arguments and arrangements raged behind them, Rachel sat on the floor of the truck, tiny and tough at once, patting Sam’s leg whenever the coughing overwhelmed him.

“Mason’s got a nice ass. I hope you have plans when you feel better,” she teased, leaving him sputtering in ways that had nothing to do with his traitorous lungs.

“We… I….”

Rachel waved her hands. “Stop, don’t hurt yourself. I’m just teasing. You both are a little sickening, but it’s the only thing that isn’t entirely made of shit at the moment, so….”

Sam dropped off. He woke with a start as the back of the truck rattled; someone had slammed the door. A second later the driver’s side door opened, and then Cade—drier and dressed in clean clothes—jumped into the truck.

“Rachel’s in the back, which she isn’t happy about, but she said to make sure you keep the blanket on yourself, okay?”

“Hey,” Sam said. “Sorry about….”

Cade put one hand up as he stuck the key in the ignition with the other. “I’m sorry I slipped and went into the water and nearly knocked your ass down. Saving you was the least I could do.”

“Thanks. I owe you—twice.”

Cade snapped his fingers. “Good point. I’m marking that down.”

The truck rumbled to life.

“Everyone else is in the back?”

“Yeah. I got into a slap fight with your father about who got to drive, but guys with ripped-up knees can’t manage a clutch, therefore I won.” Cade looked delightedly evil before the cab light flickered out. “And now we ride, my young friend. The Creel Farm awaits.”

S
AM
FELL
asleep again as Cade navigated the truck onto the highway. A cheap, disposable cell sat ominously in Cade’s pocket; he would drive for two hours, then stop to place the mother of all calls.

His mom would be his main defender; she desperately wanted him home anyway, and so he was arriving with a warrant out for his arrest and a host of ragtag freaks in his back pocket? He’d distract her with big puppy eyes—that had worked for most of his life—and then throw sickly and sweet Sam into her arms.

Ammo against his father’s dislike of his lifestyle—the dirty laundry of which he was depositing on their doorstep. A bit of leverage to at least give them enough time to make a plan. Feverishly, Cade focused on the potential scenarios.

Arrest.

Cast out into the night.

Sticking around and having his father be an endless source of frustration and judgment.

How hard he prayed for number three.

“Lord, it’s me again, your favorite hooker. I would just like to ask that you shine a bit of luck in our direction, because God knows… well, you know. You know we need a break right about now.” Cade gripped the steering wheel, barely able to keep the shitty truck on the road. “We could also use a transmission miracle, if you’re not too busy.”

He’d spent most of his life without a plan, playing fast and loose with the idea of having goals. He had fallen into his life at the Iron Butterfly, and just as quickly he’d been cast out, with little more than the clothes on his back. Every time Cade’s brain darted to the idea of his money—if it was still in his accounts, if he’d have anything since the Butterfly was smoking ruins—it made him physically ill. Empty pockets, no prospects.

He was his father’s every snide comment come true.

Depressing.

“And oh hey, this is the guy I’m sleeping with—boyfriend? Yeah, no clue,” he muttered to himself. “First I’m going to avoid prison, then we’ll talk.”

“Hmmm?” Sam coughed from across the cab.

“Shhh, go back to sleep.” Cade tightened his fingers on the wheel, concentrating on the road and not his current laundry list of dramas.

C
ADE
KNEW
this drive well enough—highways to byways to increasingly smaller and less cared-for roads. The Creel Farm sat two hours southwest of Charleston, a tiny oasis in the center of a massive housing development, paved roads, and strip malls. With so many displaced by the superstorms, life in the South became more appealing—so much farmland ripe for the picking for developers with big insurance settlements and a desire to increase their bottom line.

Once upon a time, the Creels had been rich on tobacco money, generations of the men making a fortune through the lungs of other people. Bless addiction, they’d laugh. But increasingly radical weather and economic downturns kept carving out pieces of the farm. A cousin got hooked on the ponies and sold his corner. Two uncles got caught in messy divorces and lost their shares to bankruptcy. A few generations got morals and Jesus and didn’t want to become rich on the backs of other people’s misery.

The empire became a square getting smaller and smaller every year.

Now the last Creel—Lee Sr.—farmed a modest plot of land braced up against some protected forest. He was the last holdout, more stubborn than all those before him. Despite the McMansions dotting his view and the super Walmart down the road, he was determined to keep the family tradition alive.

And he only needed one son to do that.

Cade saw a small turnoff ahead, one he knew led to an abandoned quarry. He slowed the rattling beast of a truck, pulled over, then stopped once he was entirely off the main road.

Time to face the music.

Sam mumbled in his sleep but quickly fell back under. Cade opened the door quietly and then slid down onto the road.

In the light from the truck, he dialed the familiar numbers to the landline his mother insisted on.

One ring, two.

“Creel Farm.” His brother, LJ. Cade had a second to decide if he wanted to disguise his voice and ask for his mother before that was decided for him. “Cade?”

“How the hell did you know it was me?”

“No one calls this number ’cept bill collectors and you.” LJ’s drawl registered more welcoming than he might have imagined. “You okay?”

Surprised, Cade opened his mouth to speak, but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Was he okay?

Probably not.

“I’m alive. How’s that?” Cade said finally. “Have people been around there asking questions?”

“Oh yeah. Sheriff Vance brought some suits over. They said they needed to ask you some questions about a bombing.”

Cade’s breath caught. “Did they say why?”

“Well, something about a material witness warrant. I took a picture of it with my phone while they were arguing with Daddy.”

Interesting tactic—claiming that Cade was just a witness despite what the official word was back in New York. At the mention of his father, Cade winced. Better rip that bandage off.

“How’s he taking it?”

LJ laughed. “He went all out—waving his shotgun, ten-minute screaming fit about the government taking away the land of real Jesus-loving Americans, then he threatened to call the media and the militia. It was ugly. Those suits ran out of here as quick as they could.” LJ paused for a dramatic moment. “I’m pretty sure at least ten percent of it was how he really felt, and the rest he just made the hell up.”

“Do you think they’re watching the place?” Cade’s stomach dropped. What if they bugged the phone lines?

“Nah. I got cameras set up around the perimeter, and Daddy’s been takin’ walks with his gun lately. If he spotted anything, we’d be bailing him out of jail right about now. Plus I made sure they can’t get into the phone lines.”

A weird relief rattled Cade’s knees. “I don’t know what that means, but good. Great.”

“You coming to see us?”

“How’d you guess?”

“I don’t hear no noise or anything, so I’m guessing you’re out of the city.” LJ paused. “Plus I just traced this call, and you’re over by Devil’s Quarry.”

Cade almost dropped the phone. “This is a disposable cell—you shouldn’t be able to do that.”

LJ laughed again. “Yeah. You shouldn’t be able to.”

Before Cade could ask, there was a shuffling at the other end, and a feminine voice said his name.

“Caden Lee!”

“Oh hey, Momma.”

His mother cried through most of their conversation; Cade’s main contribution was about eight hundred “yes ma’ams” and a few dozen “I’m okay, reallys.” He managed to work in the part about a sick teenager and swore to her on the Lord and every dead ancestor in the family tree that he was innocent and so were his friends.

She trusted him.

Lee Creel Sr., however—that was a different story.

Nothing surprising about him slamming into the house so loudly Cade heard it through the phone. Nothing shocking about his insistence he didn’t want to speak to his son at this time.

Then more slamming and his mother’s quiet sigh.

“So I’m going to get back on the road. We should be there in about forty minutes,” Cade said finally. “Tell LJ to open the back barn up—I’ll come in through the fire road and put the truck in there.”

“All right.” His mother sounded reluctant to let him off the line. “Be careful, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She told him she loved him and then hung up. Cade leaned against the door, sagging with the effort of dealing with his family. The sound of crunching gravel made him jump as a shadow came around the side of the truck, startling him further.

“Everyone okay?” Nox asked, limping toward him, dark and hidden in the shadows.

Cade waved the phone at him. “Called my mom. We’re a go for hiding in plain sight,” he said, joking weakly. “Glad to see no one killed you. What’s your body count in the back there?”

Stepping into the circle of light from the truck, Nox looked as tired as Cade felt. “Mason wouldn’t let me strangle Rachel.”

“I knew I liked that kid.” Cade pushed off the door, his body protesting movement with various creaks and snaps. “We’re about forty minutes out. I’m going to drive in round back—there’s this road no one really knows about—and then we’ll be in the barn. We can sneak into the house from there pretty easy.”

Nodding, Nox leaned in to check on Sam, who was still snoring peacefully in the front seat. “Good job.”