Of Blood and Honey (Fey and the Fallen) (26 page)

Biting her lip, she looked as though she wanted to say something, and he had a terrible feeling he knew what.
I’ll lose her.

She sighed. “It sounds mad. All of it.”

“Don’t you mean Fey?”
Demon. Fallen.

“Liam, don’t.”

“There’s something wrong with me. I’m… not normal.”
She knows. You lied to her. Just tell her already.

“Not at all. There’s nothing wrong with you. I-I’m afraid of what will happen.”

“I was in control.”
What if driving is like the killing?

“No. You skidded. You almost wrecked.”

“I kept it on the road. I knew what I was doing.”

She turned to face him. “Did you? Did you really?”

She’s right. You didn’t. It did.
But the thought of giving up driving was too terrible. “Accidents happen, love. There’s fuck all I can do about that. Anyway, I don’t understand what the problem is,” Liam said. “You know what I do when I’m off on a job.”

“I know. I know.”

“Why is this any different?” he asked, and then lowered his voice out of habit. “At least there weren’t any bullets or prowl cars or—”

“Stop it!” She slammed both palms down on the seat. “You and the other ones—you do what you have to. That’s the way of things. I understand. It’s for our future. For Ireland. But that back there, that was for fun. Liam Kelly, you nearly killed yourself for the fun of it!”

“I need it.”

“You don’t need it. You want it.”

“It’s like the running,” he said. He could feel the headache coming back more fierce than before. It happened sometimes after a long day at the wheel. He assumed it was the pressure of dealing with the other cars and the press of time. “Sometimes I feel I’m going to die if I don’t get out and move. Fast. I feel trapped. Like I’m being buried alive. This. Driving. It’s like the running only better. I’m free.”

“You’re free when you’re at home too.”

“Not like this,” he said, accelerating into a turn and easing the car gracefully around the bend without moving into the next lane. The weight of the car tugged against the grip of the tires, and it gave him the sensation of swinging on the end of a rope. “It feels… it feels so fucking good.”

“Are you saying you’re trapped when you’re home with me?”

“What? No!”

“Because if that’s what you’re saying—”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all!” His foot mashed the accelerator. His temples were throbbing. “Can’t you feel it?”

“I understand that four years of prison has left you with a need to run,” she said, “to feel like there’s no one can catch you. Not even me.”

“That’s not true!”

“But it’s running away. That’s all this is. This need to go fast. And you can’t run from the past. You can’t run from whatever it is those bastards did to you in the Kesh and—”

“I’ll not fucking talk about that.” There was a double bend in the road. It twisted up a hill and down the other side, tracing a path along a lake. It was a beautiful sight, and he’d make her feel what he did by making the car dance. He’d make her understand, but his head ached enough to make him blind.
Out.
He had to get out.
Away.

“You never talk about the Kesh,” she said. “And I’d be fine with that but for the fact that every time you hear the fucking name you flinch or bolt out a door or run from me.”

“I do not.”
Coward,
he thought.
She’s as much as calling me a coward.

“You do. I don’t care what it is you did in that place. It doesn’t matter.”

—to be your first.
It was Sanders’s voice, whispering up from the past. Liam pushed the car through the first bend as fast as he could and willed the rush of wind battering the wind-screen to blast the memory from his mind.

“I’ll still love you,” she said. “You don’t even have to tell me what it was you did.”

Isn’t that sweet?

He whipped through the second bend, and the tires protested with a high-pitched squeal, but he didn’t really hear it. He wasn’t actually listening to anything but the voice inside his head. The shame was overwhelming—that, and the rage came with it. The crush of emotion was so vast it pushed the breath from his body. He wasn’t so much seeing the road in front of him as the inside of that cell.

“Just stop running from it before you kill yourself.”

You like it, don’t you? I can feel it.

“No!”

The car soared over the crest of the hill and came crashing down onto the pavement with a jolt. He felt something in the undercarriage give away. Somewhere in the distance Mary Kate screamed.

I know what you are. I saw it the first time I saw you. And now you know it too.
Sanders had been right. There was something terrible and unnatural in him. He’d responded. He’d—

The water.

He knew what to do. He’d drown it out of himself. Whatever it was that Sanders saw. Kill it. No one had to know. He steered the car for the lake and slammed the accelerator pedal to the floor. A car passing the opposite direction blared its horn. The moment the RS’s wheels left the pavement he knew he’d made a terrible mistake. He mashed the brakes to stop it from happening but was too late. Mary Kate screamed as the car plunged off the bank and into the lake. The impact with the water came as a crushing jolt. His hands slipped from the wheel, and he smacked his head on something. Mary Kate’s scream was cut off. Freezing water poured in through the half-open window. His mind muzzy, he watched uncomprehending as a waterfall was created from automobile glass and lake water.

Mary Kate coughed, and his brain snapped into focus at once.

Get her out,
he thought.
Got to get her out.

He shoved himself against the car door three times, but it wouldn’t budge. The car was filling up. He didn’t have much time. At the moment the car was floating but any second it’d start to sink. Mary Kate moaned.

Think, damn you!

He punched the seatbelt clasp and got it undone on the second try. He tried unrolling the window and got it for the most part before the handle broke off in his hand. Even more water rushed in.

“Fucking hell!”

The opening was wide enough. He could push her through. Turning to her, he saw there was blood on her face. He blinked.
I’ve killed her,
he thought.
I’ve fucking killed her.
The water was gushing in faster. It was at his hips now, and the car was sinking.

Not now. Get her out. Worry later.

His hands were freezing as he plunged them into the water and grasped the seatbelt clasp. By some miracle he got it on the first try. She slumped, but seemed to be coming around.

“Mary Kate, love. Go through the window. Do you hear me?” He pushed her toward the driver’s side. His teeth were clattering in his head.

“What happened?”

Coughing and sputtering, he helped her through just before the car went under. He held his breath, but he’d not gotten a good gasp before the water closed over his head. There was a pocket of air along the ceiling, and he shoved his face against the vinyl covering the roof and gulped as much air as he could, then he half-swam to the window and slipped out. When he surfaced he saw she’d made it to the bank and two strangers were helping her out of the water.

“Liam is in there! You have to get him out!”

He swam to shore with his head pounding something fierce. Touching lakebed at last, he crawled across the rocks and mud with his vision pulsing with the beat of his heart. Focused. Blurred. Focused.
I almost killed her,
he thought. He looked back, and the RS1600 was nowhere to be seen.
Fuck. What am I going to tell Bobby?

“You must sit down, miss.”

“He’ll drown!”

Liam used the last of his strength to drag himself up on his feet, then stagger to her. “Here, Mary Kate. I’m here.” He dropped to his knees and winced as he hit the rocks.

“My wife went for a doctor,” one of the strangers said. “Help will be here soon.”

Mary Kate’s hand reached up from between the Good Samaritans and grabbed his. “Liam!”

“I’m here.”

The big man in the brown anorak moved aside so he could sit next to her. More than anything, Liam wanted to lie down and sleep, but his head was killing him, and he felt dizzy.

“You all right, sir?”

“Am.”

Mary Kate started to cry. “I’m sorry.”

“What have you to be sorry for?” Liam asked. “I’m the one to blame. Jesus. I’m sorry.”

She sat up and threw her arms around him. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I lost control,” Liam said. “Was my fault. Let the anger get the best of me. I’ll never do it again. I’ll talk to Father Murray. There has to be something he can do.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Shhhh. There now,” he said, smoothing her hair. She was wet and shivering and so was he, but he did what he could to warm her anyway by pulling her tight to his body. “It’s all right.”

“The car—”

“You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

Someone brought a blanket and wrapped it around the two of them. He focused on making Mary Kate comfortable until help arrived.

“You’ll have to get back to the driving again,” Oran said. “You can’t hold the wreck against yourself forever.”

“I know,” Liam said.

“It’s been four months.” Oran stared into his pint while the pub clientele shouted and laughed around them. “Éamon has been very patient.”

“I know.” Liam had just gotten off his shift for the day, and the headache thumping behind his eyes was one of the worst yet. He’d argued with Mary Kate multiple times about getting in to see a doctor, but he’d held his ground. Eventually, the ache in his head died down and his vision was right again, but ever since the accident the headaches at the end of the work day had gotten worse.

Oran lowered his voice. “It has to be tonight.”

“I know.” Liam sipped from his pint.
To drive again. Really drive.
It’d been so long.
Will it be safe?

“The job is in a few days.”

“I know.”

“Will you stop with the ‘I know’ already?” Oran asked. “You’re starting to sound like a parrot.”

“I know.”

“You wee bastard.” Oran shoved his shoulder. “You’re sound, all right.”

The sudden movement caused the ache in Liam’s brain to crank up a notch. He took a long drink of cider and prayed the pain would fade.

“You don’t look so good, mate,” Oran said.

Liam shrugged. “Bit uneasy, is all.”

“Everything good at home?”

Shrugging again, Liam said, “Hasn’t been great since, well… you know. We get on each other’s nerves.”

“She’ll come round. You both had a wee scare is all.”

Liam nodded. He didn’t tell Oran that he and Mary Kate hardly spoke to one another without it ending in a row. It’d gotten to a point that even the running didn’t help. His head hurt too much, and he was sick of thinking about it.

“Elizabeth says Mary Kate is learning to drive.”

“Aye.”

“It wasn’t your fault, you know. Bobby looked the car over. The fucking tie rod gave way. He feels terrible. You shouldn’t give up the racing.”

“I could have killed her.”

“You didn’t.”

“I could have.”

“How many times do I have to—”

“You weren’t there.”

“Maybe so,” Oran said. “But I know you. And I know you’d never hurt Mary Kate. Not on purpose. It was an accident.”

Liam looked away, his jaw tensing and his heart aching to compete with his head.
Not on purpose.
“Do you have a car in mind?”

“I do.”

“All right,” Liam said. “We’ll do it. Tonight.”

“Now you’re talking sense.”

Finishing off his pint, Liam stood up. “Think I’ll go home now.”

“Stay. Have a few more,” Oran said. “Relax.”

“Can’t,” Liam said. “Mary Kate will be home early, and I need to finish with the carburetor before she gets there. The fucking choke on that damned taxi gives me trouble once a week. I’d buy a new carburetor, but I’m paying Bobby for the RS.”

“He said you don’t have to. The insurance paid off.”

Liam shrugged.

“All right,” Oran said. “I’ll meet you on the corner at eleven.”

Getting into the taxi, Liam started the engine and headed home. Thanks to the choke, the engine died three times along the way because the idle was off, and it wasn’t getting enough fuel in the mix. He wanted to hit something, anything, by the time he got home. His head was splitting already, and another hour with his head under the hood didn’t sound remotely good, but it had to be done. He pulled into the car park and decided to grab some aspirin first. He locked the taxi and went up the stairs to the flat. When he opened the door he stopped and blinked. Mary Kate was there already, and she was wearing something that amounted to a few bits of gauze and some ribbon.

“Welcome home,” she said.

He felt his mouth drop open.

“Are you going to shut the door?” she asked. “Or would you rather I caught cold?”

“Wha—” He swallowed and then shut the door. Through the fog of his aching brain, he tried to think of an anniversary date or a special occasion missed, but it was the end of July. There was nothing. “I—I—”

She moved close and put her arms around him. Suddenly, his headache was of much less importance. “I wanted to apologize for last night. Well, the last few nights, actually. All right. The last few months.”

Ever since the crash, she’d been distant and quiet. He’d begun to think she was frightened of him, and it’d taken its toll on him. He’d started to wonder if she would leave him after all. The black thing living under his skin was becoming more and more of a problem. “Oh.”
Fucking brilliant,
he thought.
She goes to all this trouble and all you can say is “Oh”?

“There’s something I need to talk to you about.” He felt her press even closer so that her body just touched his.

“Ah, yes? What is it?”

“You were right. We should have a baby.”

“What?”

“It has to be now. Please. Or it’ll be too late.”