Token of Darkness (15 page)

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He shrugged. How could he blame her for coping in her own way? Maybe the smoke burned away the shadows.

“You’re up early,” she added. “Or late, I guess.”

“You too.”

“I don’t sleep well lately.”

“Me either.”

He leaned against the wall next to her. She tried to wave away secondhand smoke, but he just ignored it. The falling rain was heavy enough to leave a fine mist on his face.

“It’s good to hear you’re seeing friends again,” she said. “Have I met Brent before?”

“I don’t know,” Cooper said. “He was at a couple parties
last year with Delilah. We got to chatting the other day. He had a tough summer, too.”

“I’m glad you have someone you can talk to,” she said, and it was obvious in her tone that she meant it. She put out the cigarette and they both moved back inside. She went to the junk drawer, and asked, “Want to play a round of Go Fish?”

“Sure.” Anything to kill time.

The conversation was stunted at first, but at least they were talking for the first time in a long time. They started on neutral topics like how his classes and her job at the bank were going, but as the night wore on they ended up speaking about the accident, and everything that had happened since.

They talked about the hours she had spent in the hospital, wondering if he would survive, and knowing from the doctors’ expressions that none of them thought he would. Without mentioning the way they had transitioned into real life, he told her in halted phrases about his nightmares. Almost more painfully, he finally described how mentally and physically exhausting the early sessions with his physical therapist had been, back in the days when it seemed like recovery might hurt more than it was worth.

He wished he could tell her about Samantha, too, who was always there, saying things like,
“You’ve got a body. It hurts, but it’s yours. Trust me when I say you should be grateful. You might never be a football star again, but that’s not all there is to life.”

They both jumped when there was a tentative knock at
the door at almost five in the morning. Cooper went to answer it, and frowned when he saw Brent.

“Brent, it’s not even sunrise.”

“I was going to walk around to your window, since I figured force of habit might have woken you up by now,” Brent said, “but I noticed the light on here.”

“What happened to eight?”

“Brent?” Cooper’s mother sounded concerned. “Come in. Is something wrong?”

The question made Brent flinch. Cooper took a closer look, and realized Brent’s face was pale and his lips were pinched. He was also soaking wet.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he answered, a little too quickly. Cooper could tell his mother didn’t believe a word Brent said, either, but she didn’t object when he added, “I’m an early riser. I know Cooper is, too. I figured it might be all right to stop by.”

“Come in,” Cooper said.

Cooper’s mother stepped into the hall for a moment, and came back with a dry towel from the linen closet, which she handed to Brent. He accepted it with a soft thank-you and tried to dry off a little as she said, “I’m going to head to bed. You two boys can talk.”

She obviously didn’t believe Brent’s assurances that nothing was wrong—neither did Cooper—but knew better than to press the issue.

The instant she had closed the door, Brent seemed to collapse. He barely made it into a chair, and then he leaned
forward until his forehead was on the table and took deep, shuddering breaths.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s raining.”

Cooper sat down next to him, confused. “What’s going on?”

Brent shook his head. “I don’t know. I could sense it though, with the same part of me that hears thoughts, for just a minute, and it was …” He put his head back down, and rubbed his temples. “I don’t know. The storm kept my mum awake. I needed to go somewhere else. It’s raining too hard to go to the woods.”

Brent wasn’t making any sense, but Cooper wasn’t going to question him at that moment. He just asked, “Can I do anything for you?”

Brent shook his head. “Just … be quiet a minute.”

The request was made in vain—the phone rang at that moment, making Brent wince as Cooper hurried to answer it. It wasn’t unusual for Cooper to be up at this hour, but why did everyone else seem to be?

“Hello?”

“Cooper?”

He recognized John’s voice, and clutched the phone tighter. No one called at this hour with good news. “What’s happened?”

“Delilah’s in the hospital.”

W
hile Brent curled up to nap on the couch, wearing one of Cooper’s father’s shirts as his own dried on the back of a kitchen chair, Cooper carefully worked his body through the exercises his physical therapist had prescribed. Supposedly, if he did them daily, he would maintain nearly normal functioning.

The fear of ending up off his feet again, however, wasn’t what had driven him to be diligent that day. He was waiting for a phone call. He had been waiting for almost three hours. The sun had started to rise, and the rain had let up a little, but still no more word since John’s call. All he knew was that Delilah was in critical condition. John hadn’t had a lot of details and the hospital hadn’t been willing to give many more when Cooper asked. But Cooper was on the list of people who would get a call when anyone learned
anything
, most of all if Delilah was going to be okay and when she could have visitors.

He grabbed his cell phone when he heard ringing, only to find it still dark.

Brent let out a grunt and rolled enough to pull his own phone out of his pocket and answer with a sleepy, “Yo.” He yawned. “Hi, Ryan … Yeah, I heard. … No, I don’t know anything you don’t know.” Brent sat up straighter, the last vestiges of grogginess disappearing from his expression. “I heard
that
, too. What was—”

His eyes widened as Ryan must have answered. Cooper crossed the room, but couldn’t make out what Ryan was saying.

Brent nodded as he said, “Yeah, we’ll be there.”

He clicked the phone shut, and then looked up at Cooper.

“I have good news and bad news,” he said. “The good news is, Ryan says Delilah is probably going to be okay. She nearly drowned—no, I guess she
actually
drowned, since the paramedics had to resuscitate her. The bad news …” He hesitated. “Ryan says she left his house with Samantha. So, either the force that overpowered Delilah—probably the same one that nearly put me out of commission
—was
Samantha, or it was something else Delilah summoned. In which case Ryan says, and I quote, ‘A little fish of a power, like Samantha seems to be, may not have fared well.’”

Cooper had to sit down as he felt himself pale. “I haven’t seen Samantha since Ryan’s house.”

“Ryan recommends we go to the hospital and see if Samantha is with Delilah. He’ll meet us there.”

“Brent—” How could he even begin to express the way his heart was pounding in his throat at the thought of driving down
that
road … the one he had been on months ago … to the hospital where he had spent weeks. …

Of course, he didn’t need to say it out loud.

“You must have been on that highway since the accident.”

Cooper shook his head. “I was nearly unconscious from medication when I came home from the hospital, and my physical therapist is local. And …” He looked out the window. “This doesn’t look like good driving conditions.”

“Listen. Delilah and I didn’t part on the kind of terms where I’m inclined to go racing to her hospital bedside, and I can’t check on Samantha without you,” Brent said. “I’m willing to drive you there so you can do both those things, but only if you have the courage to get in the damn car. Otherwise, Ryan will just deal with Samantha as he sees fit.”

That was enough to motivate Cooper, even if Delilah’s condition hadn’t been. Two people he cared about were in danger, one of whom had been at his bedside when he woke from nightmares of hell and had stayed with him as he struggled back from it.

Samantha couldn’t be evil
.

    Once Cooper was determined to go, there was still his mother to convince. She looked like she wanted to lock them both in the house, despite Brent’s repeated assurances that he would practically
crawl
down the highway, and Cooper’s promise to call when they reached the hospital.

“If the rain gets heavy again, you’ll pull over instead of trying to bear it out, right?” she asked Brent.

“We’ll pull over and we’ll call you to let you know we’re delayed,” he said for perhaps the fifteenth time.

Cooper and Brent left the instant she nodded, before she could consider changing her mind.

“We’ll only be on the highway for fifteen minutes or so,” Brent said as he backed out of the driveway. “If you can’t handle it on your own, I’ve got half of my mother’s medicine cabinet in the glove box. We can always pass you off at the hospital as grieving and distraught, even if you’re drugged out of your mind.”

“I’ll manage without,” Cooper said, looking doubtfully at Brent. The casual offer made Cooper realize that, if it weren’t for Brent’s telepathy and Cooper’s extraordinary circumstances, there would probably be more reasons for their not associating than different schools.

Fear took hold as they approached the highway, where other cars were streaming past at disconcerting speeds despite the weather.

“Breathe,” Brent whispered as he checked his blind spot, and merged onto the highway. Cooper pressed his palms to the dashboard, and drew deep breaths, closing his eyes tightly and wishing he could drown out the rapid
whoosh-whoosh-whoosh
of Brent’s wipers struggling to keep the windshield clear.

“Calm, Cooper,” Brent said. “It isn’t happening now.”

Cooper pulled in another deep, rattling breath.

“This was a bad idea,” he said.

“Pills are in the glove box,” Brent replied.

He wasn’t planning to take any, but Cooper used the offer as an excuse to snoop into Brent’s life, and to distract himself from what was going on outside the car—namely, movement, road, water, and other cars. “Why do I get the impression you have a very different life than I’m used to?” he pondered out loud as he looked through the collection of prescription drugs. Brent had said they were from his mother’s medicine cabinet, but several bottles had Brent’s name on them. “Please tell me you do not take this crap when you’re driving.”

“I don’t even take it when I’m sleeping,” Brent answered. “When the telepathy got strong enough to be a problem, and I kept ending up in the hospital, doctors always gave me more migraine prescriptions and sleeping pills. I didn’t take them because they only made the voices worse, but Mum kept filling the prescriptions if I didn’t and—
Damn it, Cooper, stop it!”

Cooper wasn’t sure what he was doing at that exact moment to cause the outburst. “Stop
what?”

“Stop … thinking, asking questions,” Brent replied tightly. “All I have to do is hit the brake or swerve a little to
give you a heart attack, and I swear to God I will if you keep prying.”

The words, coupled with the shout, were nearly enough to cause the threatened reaction on their own.

“Cooper.
Cooper!”
Brent’s words jerked him out of the memory. “I’m sorry. I’m tired, and it takes enough concentration to drive without being swamped by your flashbacks that I say stuff without thinking. I don’t like to talk about myself, and I
really
don’t like to talk about my family, so do me a favor and keep off that subject.”

Cooper nodded. If Brent’s mother was as unstable as Brent made her seem, Cooper could understand why Brent didn’t want to talk about it. He could also guess why telepathy might come in handy.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I won’t ask more about your family, but would you talk about
something?
Please. I’m just trying not to think.”

“Well, that’s kind of you,” Brent replied. He paused a moment, and then said, “How about Delilah? There’s an interesting girl for you. Doesn’t date jocks. Practices black magic in her spare time. On an unrelated note, she likes to dance naked outside on the new moon.”

That image was enough to distract Cooper momentarily from his memories of the accident.

Brent laughed, and then said, “For someone who has never dated her, you have a
remarkably
accurate image of her, down to the tattoo on her left hip.”

Cooper felt himself blush, as he stammered some kind of excuse about teams and traveling and parties and occasional lack of privacy. “And you two dated?” He still couldn’t picture it.