Paradise Falls (32 page)

“I’ll be right back.”

She darted into the bathroom to get more towels. One she used to dab the sweat from his forehead. The other she soaked in cool water, rung it out so it was only damp, and spread it above his eyes.

“Can I get you something, for the pain?”

“No. Cloud my head. Just let me sleep. Don’t go.”

“I’m not.”

Still holding his hand, she lowered herself to the bed and stretched out next to him. She was tired herself. Her shoulder hurt, the cut on her face ached, even the bottom of her feet hurt from the gravel in the barn, but most of all, now that she was almost alone with it, she felt the weight of Blondie’s, of
Michael’s
head in her lap, the terrified look in his eyes that faded away to nothing. No matter what he did, whether he deserved it or not, the image welled up until her eyes stung and she had to press them shut. She hoped Ellison had a long time to think about it in the trunk of the car.
 

In his sleep, Jacob stirred and mumbled something. Jennifer’s eyes snapped open. His hand tightened around hers and she wrenched her fingers free from his as they closed into a fist. His whole body went tense, his back arched, and he clenched his teeth. As he writhed on the bed, he shuddered and jerked. His hand snapped up, pressing to his chest.

“Candy,” he muttered.

Jennifer sat up. That was his sister’s nickname. He groaned and babbled something about fire and the bridge and shook the whole bed, grabbing fistfuls of sheet in both hands.

“Jacob,” she said.

He didn’t hear her. His head jerked back and forth, and then his whole body began to move. His stitches were going to come open. Jennifer put her hands lightly on his face.

“Jacob, listen to me.”

All at once, he moved. He shot up from the bed, threw his arms around her and rolled on top of her. Jennifer choked back a scream as he pinned her to the bed. Terror hammered against her temples, but in the dark she realized what he was doing. Still asleep somehow, he was trying to shield her from something with his body, cradling her head in his arm. His eyes were open, but whatever he was saying wasn’t there, in the room with them. His chest heaved against her, his corded muscles as hard as rock. He looked around, and a subtle change flickered through his face as he looked down and saw her, staring back at him, wide-eyed. He pulled away, slid across the bed and right off the edge and landed on the floor with a grunt.

Jennifer skidded up the bed and curled up in a ball against the headboard, trying to will her heart to slow down, to force herself to breath easy, but her breaths came quicker and quicker. She knew, she knew he meant her no harm but that knowledge was carried away in a tide of raw terror from powerful limbs crushing around her, the feeling of weight on top of her and the horror of being trapped, unable to move. Jacob slowly crawled up onto the bed, pausing to gather his strength before he flopped up onto the sheet. He was bleeding, the big cut on his chest pulled open again. Making his way across the bed on all fours, he gingerly reached out to her.

“Don’t
touch me,”
she snapped, pulling away.

Jacob drew his hand back too fast, as from a hot stove. He stumbled to his feet, leaning on one of the bed posters, and without a word turned to lurch towards the door, clutching his chest.

“Wait,” Jennifer pleaded. “Don’t go, please.”

He stopped, leaning on the door frame, and with visible effort turned, stopping to lean on the furniture before he sat down.

“It’s not you,” she said, every word an effort through the choking constriction of her throat. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Jacob collapsed on the bed, covering his eyes with his hands.

Still curled up in a ball, Jennifer plunged her face into her hands, hiding from the world as the tears flowed down her cheeks.

“I don’t want to be this way anymore,” she whimpered, so softly she was sure he didn’t hear. “Why can’t I just be normal?”

Jacob sat up and pressed the towel to his chest. She watched him through her fingers as his breathing slowed.

“I was out of it,” he rasped. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Does that happen a lot?”

“Usually, I’m by myself.”

She swallowed. “Oh.”

He shifted up the bed until he was sitting up next to her, leaning on the headboard.

Very slowly, and very gently, he put his hand on her arm just below her wrist. He took her hand.

“Is that okay?”

She nodded.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

“I know. Stop apologizing. It’s not you, it’s… I can’t control it. As soon as anybody touches me I just panic.” She sniffed and scrubbed at her eyes with her wrist. “I want it to stop.”

A fist pounded on the door.

“What the hell is going on in there?” Katie shouted.

Jennifer gingerly pulled her hand away from Jacob and went to the door. She wiped her eyes and cracked it open.

When Katie saw her she gasped.

“I’m fine,” Jennifer said, trying not to sound as if she’d just been weeping. “Jacob’s stitches came open. Tell Faisal to bring me what I need to patch him up again.”

“Jenn,” she said.

“I mean it, Katie. I’m fine. I want to be here.”

Jennifer waited by the door. Katie brought the supplies back herself. Jennifer locked the door behind her and moved to the bed.

“Lie down.”

Jacob pushed back down the bed to lie flat on the mattress. Jennifer crawled up next to him, peeled the bandages away and winced.

“You need to go to the hospital.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ll talk you through it.”

Again, she cleaned his wound, trying not to think too hard about what she was doing, and keep her fingers from trembling. Then she had to re-stitch it. This time, he had her apply a thin layer of clear adhesive, almost like superglue, and let it dry to a fine, rubbery layer before she put more bandages over it.

“Now lay still.”

“I’ll try.”

Closing up the kit, she set it aside, and went to wash her hands. Blood from the fine folds in the skin of her fingers turned the sink pink. She went back to the bed and lowered herself down beside Jacob.

“What are you doing?”

“Be quiet,” she said.

His whole body was a bruise. She tucked herself up against his arm, and very slowly and deliberately put her head on his shoulder. The touch of his skin was soothing, but at the same time the proximity to him made her shudder with irrational unease.

“I’ll be fine. You don’t have to.”

“Would you leave me?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not leaving you. Now be quiet and go to sleep.”

5.

The room was pitch black. Jacob blinked a few times, unsure if his eyes were open or closed. He could feel every inch of his body, a map of agony. The cuts on his chest and sides blazed in fiery lines, and every place the baton struck was a dull, tight ache. The pain was relieved only by a soft tickling sensation on his shoulder.

He looked over and went still, too bleary from sleep to understand what he was seeing. Jennifer’s head rested on his shoulder. The tickle he felt was her warm breath on his skin. She lay curled up next to him, both of her arms wrapped around his, her thick auburn hair spread out behind her in a wave. Her eyes darted under their lids and she licked her lips in her sleep. He didn’t dare move, for fear of disturbing her. The bandage on her face sickened him and he looked away.

His fault. He dragged her into this.

The recoil still shook his wrist, the snap against his palm still stung. He could feel heat from the shot as he hung upside down, aimed Ellison Carlyle’s sidearm at the boy’s chest and squeezed off a single shot. You can’t shoot to wound, that was a myth. Hit him in the leg and he’d bleed out through the artery. Hit him too low and shatter his hip and leave him to die in agony. A gun is a killing tool, and it was all he had.

Jacob couldn’t aim for his head. Too much risk of hurting Jennifer. Aim anywhere else and he’d face the same risk, or give him the chance to cut her. So it had to be messy, right through his lungs. There was no other way. None he could see.

Jennifer shifted in her sleep. She moved closer, pulled his arm against her chest. He wanted to look away but could not. The most beautiful woman in the world was in his bed. He was supposed to be thrilled, but all he could see was the bandage. Somebody else he failed. It was all his fault, involving her in his insane crusade. When he closed his eyes he tasted something bitter, like tarnished copper. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Over and over he tried to justify it, writing a case against the boy in his mind. He was an exploiter of children, a criminal, in all likelihood a murderer, but still a child himself. When Jacob came upon him before in that motel room, when he heard the boy speak of the deaths he caused, Jacob saw only the crime, not the person behind it.

When he died with his head on Jennifer’s lap there was no crime, just a scared, confused child. Now all he could think about was the total lack of understanding in his voice. Teenagers think they’re invincible. It’s the way they’re wired, it’s glandular. There is nothing that confuses a hormonal boy more than the prospect of his own imminent end. He can’t fathom it. Jacob had seen it before. In an overturned MRAP, a child surrounded by other dying children.

In his dreams the fire was beautiful, awful, a seductive monster of sublime glory. It slid over everything like liquid and consumed whatever it touched. His friends, his family, his sister sank into the maw of a metal monster, its gullet glowing furnace hot as it breathed columns of steam in the heavy snow, but it left him alive.

He thought about himself, when he lost his anchor, his whole family gone, holed up in his uncle’s basement without any guidance, without anybody to follow. If it hadn’t been the Army, was there a gang that would have taken him? When he saw the kid dying on Jennifer’s lap again it was his own face he saw, unscarred, shoulder length hair from before the Army barber shaved it off. There but for the grace of God.
 

As he reached for sleep it danced out of his grasp and every moment he was more awake.

Jennifer made a small sound, turned, and threw her arm over him. He winced as her hand landed on a bruise, and sucked in a breath. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, made a tiny contented noise and shifted again. Her long leg slid over his. Her calf hooked his leg. She mumbled something and writhed on the bed, then went still.

Carefully, he reached over and pulled the blanket up over her shoulder. She liked to be covered up. With her other hand, she took the edge and tucked it under her chin, without waking. With her hugging his arm, he still couldn’t move. Fixing his gaze on the ceiling, he pushed everything out of his mind, as difficult as it was with her warm breath on his skin. He had to plan his next move.

Things fell together. A sequence formed. Ellison tied Elliot to the drugs, and the Leviathans, but it was the bar that nagged him. Kids, like the girls from the motel room. A dozen, maybe more. If there were as many as ten in there at any given time they probably had twenty, all hooked on heroin and strung out in a shack somewhere, waiting to fall prey to an infection or an overdose or the rages of one of their
clients
and be discarded like so much trash.

Suddenly, the drugs were less of a priority. There were children hurting right now, and here he was lying in bed. So he had a few cuts. He’d had worse. The clock said three in the morning.

Jennifer woke up. Her eyes fluttered open, and Jacob tensed, waiting for her to panic and jump back. He could feel her tense, but she held still for a moment before lifting her leg away. She started to pull away and he sighed, but she didn’t let go.

She lifted his arm up and tucked under it. Jacob waited, his stillness a silent request for permission. As she snuggled up to his side he properly put his arm around her, resting his hand on her hip. He just barely touched her at first, until she softened and he let the weight of his hand rest on her.

“You smell,” she said.

He blinked.

“Excuse me?”

Jennifer giggled. It was a soft, bubbly little sound. He savored it, and the silky feeling of her hair on his arm. She must have been growing it out her entire life for it to be so long.

“Are you awake?” he said.

“Yes, I’m awake.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of them spoke for a while.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“You can keep saying that, but I’m not going to believe you.”

“I know. But I’m going to keep saying it.” She sighed. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes. Yes it does.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve had worse. He cut you.”

She winced. “It’s nothing. You did a good job patching it up. It doesn’t even hurt.”

“It’s a bad cut. It’ll probably scar.”

She touched the bandage, swirling her fingers over the tape. “Well, you heard what he said. He was going to make us a matched set.” She sighed. “Besides, I’ve had worse. How did you do all that stuff?”

“What do you mean?”

“After Ellison beat you. You still got up and did all that
stuff
.”

He looked at her.

“One time my Dad took me to the range with him,” he said. “We forgot to take the staple gun with us, and we needed to put targets up on the backboard. He drove the staples into the two-by-fours with his thumb, and I asked him ‘how did you do that?’ and he looked at me and said ‘because I choose to.’”

Jennifer snorted. “Very Zen. I wish I could have met him.”

“He’d have liked you.”

“What about your Mom?”

He laughed softly. “Mom was a little cagey about me dating.”

“You went out on dates?”

He nodded.

“I never did,” she sighed. “I wasn’t really allowed.”

“I know, you said. Was your mother always like that?”

“It wasn’t so bad when I was small. She was demanding, pushy. I had to get straight A’s in school, I had to play soccer and softball and if I ate too much at dinner she’d dress me down. I had to join the chess and debate clubs in eighth grade and be a mathlete. I wasn’t a very good mathlete. I know this sounds stereotypical, but I don’t know how you do all that math stuff.”