Into This River I Drown (24 page)

But….

Even as he gives a contented sigh in my ear, even as I pull him closer, isn’t there something at the forefront of my mind? Something aside from the postcoital glow, aside from my wishes for the future and my hopes of the present. Things have changed, oh yes. Make no mistake about that. But that’s the funny thing about grief and anger combined; even while buried in newfound happiness, it claws and it whispers. It begs. It howls.

It screams.

It doesn’t let go. And it demands retribution.

cross your heart
hope to die

I am
surprised, when I finally pull myself out from under Cal to get something to clean us up with, to find it’s not even ten o’clock at night. It feels like days have gone by, the violence in the store this morning a distant memory. It could be the postfuck glow, or it could just be everything piled on top of everything else. I don’t know.

I need to talk to Abe tomorrow, though for the life of me, I don’t know what I’m going to tell him. The truth seems like a good place to start, but since I’m not completely sure of the full truth, I don’t want to end up making this worse.

I just need to figure out what to say to him.

But first, I need to figure out what to say to myself.

Always with the damn questions,
I can hear Cal growl already.

No. I have to push through it.

I clean myself in the bathroom, a pleasant ache in my ass that I haven’t felt in a long time. I look at myself in the mirror and try to see if I’ve changed outwardly to match the hurricane on my insides. I can’t tell. I still look like me. I look closer. There’s a small, dark bruise above my clavicle on the right side of my throat. I touch it, and it burns slightly. Cal likes to mark, it seems. There are red marks on my hips that stretch toward my back. His handprints, from digging into my skin, holding me to him as he thrust into me. They are fading already, but each finger is still clearly outlined against my pale flesh.

Changes, even on the outside.

I take a wet cloth out to the bedroom, light from the bathroom spilling out. My mouth goes dry and I almost stumble at the sight. Cal nude, stretched out on my bed, his white skin almost glowing in the dark. He has his arms folded up behind his head, the hair under his arms as dark red as the curls on his chest. His chest and stomach rise slowly with shallow breath. His dick lays spent against a thatch of pubic hair. He has long, hairy legs, muscled and relaxed. For a moment, I wonder if he’s posing and I want to scold him again about vanity, but I can’t seem to make any words come out.

I reach him to find his gaze on me, watching every step I’m taking, my every movement. There’s a low huff of air as I clean him off, the remnants of spunk caught in the red trail on his stomach, the muscles there clenching. I let my gaze trail up his body, and once he’s sure I’m looking at him again, he flexes his arms behind his head. I still my hand on his stomach.

“You like that I’m big,” he says knowingly, his grin all teeth.

“Vanity,” I accuse him weakly. I drop the cloth on the floor and climb onto the bed, suddenly unsure about where to put my hands, where to lie down. This hesitation only lasts a moment as he reaches up and pulls me down on top of him, pressing my face in his throat, his chin against the top of my head. My dick finds this a wonderfully interesting place to be and stirs, but there are other things on my mind.

Cal rubs my back slowly, making lazy circles that cause my skin to tingle. He kisses the stubble on my scalp and rumbles underneath me, a low sound I can feel in his chest.

So many things to say, to ask, and I can’t seem to focus on a single one.

But apparently there’s been something on his mind too, because he’s the first to break. “Benji?”

“Yeah?”

“Why were you at his house?”

I’m confused. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Griggs.”

Oh. That. Fuck. “Why do you think that?” I ask, trying to buy some time. For what, I don’t know. He’s surely felt me tense against him.

He doesn’t sound fooled in the slightest. “Because you lied to the sheriff earlier today. You might have fooled him, but I can tell when you’re lying.”

He’s said this before. “Because you’re an angel?” I ask, unsure if that’s a stupid question or not.

He shakes his head above me. “No. Because I know you, Benji.”

“You say that,” I say slowly. “You say you’ve watched me for I don’t know how long and—”

“Since you arrived here,” Cal interrupts, pressing harder against my back. I almost arch into it.

“What?”

“I’ve watched you since you were born,” he says. “You were mine from the beginning, just like the rest of the people in Roseland. The moment you crossed back into the town after coming home from the hospital, you were mine. That was a good day.”

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “It was?”

“Yes. I was very happy that day. But you haven’t answered my question. Why were you up at that house?”

“That was the night I was looking for you,” I say guiltily. “Griggs had come by the house and made those stupid threats, and I thought….”

“You thought what?”

Now I do try to pull away, but he doesn’t let me go. In fact, he pulls me back down to him and tightens his grip on my back. I put my face in his neck and inhale his earth scent. “I thought you might have gone up to his house. I thought you might try to send him away.”

“To where?”

“The black.”

Cal tenses beneath me. “So you thought I was going to attack him because of what he said?”

“I didn’t… I don’t know, Cal.”
Like I don’t know anything about you.
“You were pretty scary when you said that to him.”

A sharp intake of breath. “Do I scare you?” He sounds scared himself.

Does he scare me? If he does, it’s only because of the unknown, which I hate to admit makes up a big part of who he is. I tell myself I wouldn’t have just slept with him if I had feared him, but something inside me disagrees, telling me I probably would have done so regardless. He’s kinetic, dynamic, a moving storm over an open plain. He’s dry lightning, ozone-sharp and devastating. If there is fear there, it’s so wrapped up in everything else I don’t know how to separate it.

But I’ve waited too long to answer and he’s starting to breathe heavier underneath me. I prop myself up so I can look into his eyes. He’s wary, but doesn’t look away. “Should I be scared of you?” I ask him.

He opens his mouth and closes it again almost immediately. He furrows his brow and frowns. “I don’t want you to be,” he says finally. “But maybe you should be. Regardless, you shouldn’t have gone to his house, Benji. He could have hurt you. You need to stay away from him.” This seems like a slip on his part and he winces.

“Why do you say that?” I ask him, refusing to ignore it.

“He’s not a good man, I think.”

“You
think
? Or you
know
?”

He looks away and I can’t stop myself from leaning down and brushing my lips against his rough cheek. “I’ve been trying,” he mutters, leaning into my lips.

“Trying what?” I say against his face.

“There’s this… knot… in my head. I’m trying to untangle it, but the more I pull, the tighter it gets. I can remember certain things. I can remember
many
things. I remember Roseland becoming mine, only seven people here. I remember watching it grow. The buildings. The houses. The people. Many were good. Some were not. But it didn’t matter, because they were
mine
. I wasn’t made to judge. That is not my job. I was made to assist them, because sometimes, people need a little help. Just a nudge.” He shakes his head. “You think that God is some all-powerful being, and maybe he is. But I don’t understand. If he’s supposed to be, then why is there a need for someone such as me? Why is there need for other guardians? Or why is there need for any angels at all?

“If he really wanted it, nothing bad would ever have to happen. There would be no need for someone such as me. The threads are knotted in my head and chest and I want them to separate, but I don’t know what that would make me. What is God doing? Why do I exist, Benji? Why must I follow these threads? Why do I have control over certain things, but can’t stop others?”

He’s getting worked up, his chest rising rapidly, his heart thumping wildly under my fingers. I try to quiet him down, to tell him it’s all okay, but he shakes his head angrily. “You want to know, don’t you? What happened to Big Eddie? You want to know so bad, don’t you?”

Yes. Yes, I want to know more than anything. I shake my head. “No, Cal, I don’t need to—”

“It’s there, Benji,” he says angrily, knocking his hand against his head sharply. “It’s all in there somewhere. The threads. The pieces. I just can’t find them. I don’t know how to start. I don’t know where to begin. I am not Death. I cannot control it, but I am
aware
of it. There’s a difference between what I do and the inevitable.”

“Like the Wallaces? The fire?”

A short bark of harsh laughter. “You knew?”

“You smelled like smoke.”

“You were smelling me?” he asks, surprised and pleased.

“Uh… sure. The fire?”

He nods. “Sometimes, Death can be avoided. The thread isn’t completely black, though it’s getting there. It still pulses with life, but time is short. Only when I find a thread of complete black do I know there’s nothing I can do. The Wallace family still had color. Greens and reds and little Emily was this bright pink, so alive. It wasn’t their time.”

“But… my father?”

“I can’t remember,” he says hoarsely. “Benji, you have to believe me. I wouldn’t keep this from you. I promise you I wouldn’t.”

A dark part of me wonders at this, wanting to berate him, poke him further until he cracks. It seems awfully convenient, this dark part says, that of course he wouldn’t remember. An angel fell from the sky and couldn’t remember the people he was supposed to protect? What are the chances of that?

I try to push the doubt away, but it’s latched on and wants to burrow. “What do you remember?”

He closes his eyes with a heavy sigh. “I remember… On High. It’s beautiful, Benji. Beautiful like you wouldn’t believe. It’s warm and bright. It was supposed to have been made by God himself during the seven days of Creation. It’s a lovely place. But it’s also a lonely place. We rarely interact with each other, the guardians. The other angels. Decades could go by without seeing another one. Whenever one of my people traveled away, they would be watched by whoever’s jurisdiction they fell into, and vice versa. If an outsider comes here, I must protect him or her as if they are my own. There was never a need for me to speak with another guardian, so time would pass. I remember being busy. All the time. There was always something to do, some thread to be followed. But since I’ve been down here, it hasn’t been like that. There’ve been times I’ve been called, but not as much as I was used to.

“Your father is in here,” Cal says, pointing to his head and chest. “Tangled in this knot. I don’t know how to pull him out. I can’t remember that day. I can’t remember many of the days that followed. It’s there, somewhere, but I can’t find out how to fix it. I want to fix it so bad, but I’m scared to see it too. I’m scared of what it will show me.”

“Why, Cal?” I ask, not knowing if I want the answer or not.

He reaches up and cups my face, lifting his head to kiss me sweetly. I feel blind against him. “Because,” he says as he pulls away. “Because if I untangle it, I’ll see what really happened. I’ll see why I couldn’t save Big Eddie. I’ll see what I did wrong and why I didn’t do more to try and stop it. I’ll see the truth, and you’ll hate me for it. Out of everything I can remember, it is you I see the most, Benji. The day Big Eddie left is gone. It’s in the black. But after? Oh, the day after and every day that follows, there are pieces I can touch, things I remember and it’s all
you
. I hurt because
you
hurt. All I wanted to do was make it all better, to make it all go away, to wrap you up so you wouldn’t hurt anymore. You carried the weight of the world on your shoulders, and I just wanted the burden to be easier for you, to help you carry it so you would realize that you weren’t alone.”

“Stop,” I croak, my eyes burning. “Just… don’t.” I don’t want to hear this. I
can’t
hear this.

He ignores me, kissing me again. “I broke the rules, I think. I would come partway down, just so I could touch you, just so I could take some of your pain away. But it wasn’t enough. You were sinking further and further into the river, and I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let you drown. So I….”

Like you let my father drown?
I think before I can stop myself.

I press my head against his chest. “So you what?” I say, my voice muffled. I’m trying to regain some of my composure, but it’s a losing battle.

“I don’t know,” he whispers. “It’s there, in the knot. I remember you calling for me, and not just the night I fell. Even before that, I could hear your aching, because it was too much like my own. I was lonely up there. I was lonely without you and I had to come down. You finally called for me. You
screamed
for me. I had to come. I… I just don’t remember how.”

“You bastard,” I mutter weakly. “You bastard.”

“I’m sorry, Benji. I don’t know… I don’t know what else there is.”

He looks miserable when I raise my head from his chest. I am angry, yes, but I don’t know if it’s at him. I’m trying to believe him about what he can and can’t remember, but it seems to be too much of a coincidence. The one person who can answer every question I’ve had about that day also happens to be the one person who can’t remember any of it?

“What about Griggs?” I push. “What about him? Or Mayor Walken? Or the smoker? The smoker who—” I stop. The name. What was his—

Memories, rising.

Walken:
You seem to forget, Traynor, that you are operating in
my
town, with
my
permission, which makes me
your
boss.