Chapter Twenty-Six
“Dead?” I repeated. No wonder Devon hadn’t gotten any return emails.
“Well, except for one,” Kaydon amended.
“Betsy Klinefelter?” I guessed, since she was the only one Devon hadn’t been able to email.
“How did you know?”
“Dad didn’t have any contact information for her.” I shrugged, “It just seemed like the logical guess.”
“Well, I found her,” Kaydon said, not sounding happy about it. “I’m hoping she can help me.”
Help him? He knew what he was and how he became that way. I was the one who needed help. I was the one destined to spend eternity in hell, through absolutely no fault of my own. Then again, if it was a clerical error that made me an Egrgoroi and sent me back to guide other souls, maybe my fate was still my own. A girl could hope.
“Why do you need help?” I asked.
Kaydon looked at me like I had three eyes.
“You were supposed to die tonight. And I was supposed to make sure you did. Preventing that from happening voided the deal I made with the Panel. I forfeited my second life.”
Of all the truths I’d learned since my eighteenth birthday, Kaydon’s hit me the hardest. The weight of his words, his sacrifice, was too much for me. The world started to spin - faster and faster, like the Vortex at King’s Dominion - and I braced myself for the bottom to drop out from underneath me. My stomach somersaulted, the Shirley Temple sloshing around uncomfortably. Sweat beaded along my hairline at the same time chills ran up my legs. Blindly, I reached to steady myself on something, anything.
Kaydon’s hand found mine. The current that passed between our joined hands was the literal jolt I needed to restore equilibrium. He began dabbing gauze soaked with bottled water across my cheeks to cool the feverish skin.
“Don’t feel badly for me, Endora. The choice was mine, and mine alone. I knew the consequences and I did it anyway.”
I did feel badly for him, though. Of course, I was glad he’d made the choice he had. At eighteen, I’d barely begun to live. There was so much I’d been looking forward to, so much left to do in this world. But that didn’t stop me from feeling guilty that my continued existence on earth came at the expense of another. First Sam died for me, now Kaydon would. Maybe I was evil.
I did the only thing I could think of – I slipped the chain with the dream catcher over my head and brought it to settle around his neck.
Kaydon fingered the pendant. “What are you doing? You need this,” he said and tried to unfasten the clasp with one hand.
“No, you need it. I haven’t had any dreams while wearing it. No messages have gotten through. They can’t send you messages while you are awake, right? Only when you are sleeping, unconscious, or meditating? And they can’t reclaim your soul until you die, so as long as you can stay alive, you and your soul are safe,” I said, praying Dad’s research was accurate.
I wasn’t entirely sure, but from what I’d read, the gods themselves couldn’t pass over the physical plane into our world. That was why they needed the Egrgoroi to do their work on earth. Hermes passed messages to the Egrgoroi while we were sleeping, unconscious, or meditating. Our souls could be dragged into the underworld during those times too, but as soon as we woke up, we would be back in our world.
“Easier said than done,” Kaydon said. “Other Egrgoroi will be sent for me. Once Bryson has recovered from our fight, he’ll probably be hot on my trail.” He released my hand and scrubbed his face with his palms.
“How do you think this Klinefelter woman is going to help you?” I asked.
“She’s a rogue Egrgoroi, as you call it. She voided her contract with the gods years ago and has been on the run ever since.”
“How?” I asked.
Kaydon shrugged. “No clue. That’s what I’m hoping she’ll tell me. Of course, that doesn’t solve the ultimate problem of where my soul is going to go when I finally bite it, but at least I can prolong the inevitable.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said, not realizing what I’d intended to say until the words were out of my mouth.
“Endora, if you are with me and the other Egrgoroi catch up with me, they will kill you too.”
“Um, in case you haven’t noticed, the powers that be already tried to kill me. Since they failed, I would be surprised if killer Egrgoroi aren’t on their way for me already.”
“You’re right,” he conceded. “People are coming for you. The underworld wants you back.”
“So you’ll let me come with you?”
Kaydon sighed. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. When do we leave?”
“I was going to leave tonight…” he trailed off.
“Can we wait until the morning?” I asked. There were some things I wanted to take care of before we left.
“On one condition,” he said and removed the dream catcher from his neck and looped the chain over my head. “You take this. Once we are together again we can take turns sleeping and wearing it.”
Reluctantly, I agreed. It seemed a little selfish of me since his predicament was my fault. If he’d just let Bryson have me, he would still be on course for a good afterlife. For any life.
A bright yellow car pulled to a stop in front of us, Diamond Cabs painted on the side. I helped Kaydon to his feet. He pulled his tux jacket closed, holding it in place with one hand. We looked like quite the pair. Kaydon bore the marks of his fight with Bryson. The hem of my dress was torn, my feet were covered in small scratches and dirt since I was still barefoot, and both of us had soot from head to toe. And we probably smelled horrible.
“Where to?” the cab driver asked as we slid into the back seat. He didn’t bother turning around at first, just looked at us in his rearview mirror. Apparently what he saw was abnormal enough that he felt the need to turn completely around in his seat to gawk.
Kaydon rattled off my address, then shoved several twenties through the rectangular hole in the Plexiglas divider. “I have more if you hurry,” he added when the driver continued to stare.
We rode in silence. Kaydon rested his head against the seat and closed his eyes. My throat was raw from the smoke I’d inhaled, so I drank the remaining bottled water and tried to fit the rest of the puzzle pieces into place. One of the things that bothered me most was why tonight? Bryson could have killed me on my birthday. Had Kaydon not been there, the lake creature would have done it for him.
Oh god. That was why Bryson suggested I jump. He had tried to kill me. If I’d died in the water, no one would have questioned whether it was an accident. Like Devon had said, people disappeared in Caswell Lake all the time.
“Kaydon?” I said softly. The cabbie had the radio on, but I didn’t want him to overhear our conversation. Not that he was likely to believe his ears if he did.
“Yeah.”
“When did you have the dream about me? The dream about tonight.”
“The night before we met. Why?”
“Just curious,” I mumbled.
My mother’s Saab was not in the driveway when the cab dropped us off twenty minutes later. I found that strange since her social life was non-existent. Maybe she’d gone into the office?
At the front door of my house Kaydon and I said goodnight and agreed to meet, where else, at The Moonlight Diner at 6:00 a.m. Kaydon instructed me to pack one bag with several changes of clothes and my toiletries. Absolutely no cell phones, laptops, or anything else that could be used to track us. That was to keep our families and friends safe. Until we figured out how get the other Egrgoroi off of our backs, we were a danger to be around.
I called Mom’s cell and left a voice mail when she didn’t answer, explaining that I’d eaten something bad at dinner and came home early. That way, if she heard about the fire on the radio or whatever, she wouldn’t worry about me. When she knocked on my bedroom at one a.m., I pretended to be asleep.
Once I was positive that she was asleep, I found the stationery Elizabeth had given me the previous Christmas and began writing letters to all of my friends and my mother. I would mail my friends’ to them before we left town. Mom’s I would leave on the kitchen counter. To Devon and my mother, I told the truth. Whether Mom believed or not, I at least wanted to her to know that I hadn’t run away for nothing. Elizabeth and Mandy got a very watered-down version of the truth. I told them both that I was following my dad’s research trail in the hopes that it would lead me to him. I left out the part about being targeted by underworld gods and marked for death.
At 5:00 a.m. Sunday morning I left my house. I arrived at the diner thirty minutes early to find Kaydon’s Jeep already there. He took my bag of clothes and the stack of Dad’s books and research that I’d brought along and tucked them in the back seat alongside his own belongings. I patted the Bug’s hood and told it goodbye, leaving the keys on the front seat for when the police found and returned it to my mother.
“So where are we going exactly?” I asked Kaydon once we were winding our way through the back roads of Westwood in the direction of Pennsylvania.
“Traverse City, Michigan,” he told me.
“How far?” I wanted to know, since I’d never heard of Traverse City, Michigan. Not that I knew much about Michigan in general, except Detroit was there.
“Thirteen hours maybe? We can stop at a hotel if need be, break up the trip.”
A horrible thought occurred to me. “Um, Kaydon? I don’t have any money. I mean, I have like twenty bucks in my wallet and a credit card for emergencies…”
“No credit cards,” he said. “And don’t worry about the money. I cleaned out my trust fund earlier this week as a precaution. We should be good for a while.”
We discussed the possibility that my father had actually succeeded in finding a way into the underworld. I knew the seven cities where he believed the gates were located. Now we just needed to figure out which one he’d used.
Somewhere along the Pennsylvania turnpike, I noticed just how dark the circles underneath Kaydon’s eyes actually were. I insisted that he pull over and let me drive so he could sleep. He pulled the Jeep into a rest area ten miles later and we switched seats. I gave him the dream catcher and this time he didn’t argue. Since I was pretty tired myself, I ran into Starbucks for a pick-me-up. When I returned to the car, Kaydon was fast asleep in the passenger seat.
Kaydon had programmed Betsy Klinefelter’s address into the GPS, so I didn’t pay attention to street signs or landmarks or anything, I just drove. The radio kept me company and I kept my off-key belting to a minimum so I wouldn’t disturb my sleeping passenger. Every time I glanced at the clock, I thought about what my friends were doing. At noon, I wondered if Mom had found and read my note. At three, I wondered if Devon and Elizabeth were asking each other if the other had heard from me. At six-thirty, I imagined that Mr. Wentworth and his team of private investigators were officially working my case.
I felt worst about leaving Mom. With my father still missing and all of her living family in California, she was all alone in Westwood. Maybe Mr. Wentworth would help her through this, I thought. They had rekindled their friendship in light of Dad’s disappearance after all. Most of all, I hoped that when she read my letter, she would understand.
“Why did you let me sleep so long?” Kaydon demanded at eight o’clock.
The sun had set and the only light by which to see was that of oncoming traffic on the two-lane highway I was driving down. Still, I could tell Kaydon’s chestnut waves were flattened on the right side of his head from where he had it resting against the window. His tee shirt was rumpled and his eyes still heavy with sleep, but he looked adorable.
“You obviously needed to,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but you have been driving for like eight hours by yourself.”
“I’m fine,” I told him. “The radio and your GPS have helped me get by.”
“Pull over. I’ll drive the rest of the way.”
“Why don’t we stop for the night?” I suggested. “I’m getting tired and hungry, and you probably need to eat too.”
“Where are we now?” Kaydon wanted to know. “We can’t have more than like an hour or two left.”
“We don’t,” I said reluctantly. “But do you really think we should show up at her house in the middle of the night? She doesn’t even know we’re coming.”
“You’re right,” Kaydon agreed grudgingly. “Let’s stop, rest and eat. Tomorrow, though, we leave at the crack of dawn.”
“You’re the boss,” I said, flashing him a smile.
I pulled off Interstate 75 North just outside of Bay City, Michigan and into the first hotel parking lot I found. Kaydon went inside the main entrance to rent a room, while I stretched my legs and grabbed our bags.
“Front desk guy said there are a couple of restaurants up the street a little ways and one inside the hotel. They also have room service. If you don’t mind, I’d rather just order something to the room,” Kaydon said when he trotted back to the car ten minutes later. “Oh, speaking of rooms, I only got one. Is that okay? It has two beds,” he quickly added.
“It’s fine,” I assured him. Of course it was fine. I mean, after running away from home and being hunted by underworld assassins, how big a deal was having a slumber party with your maybe boyfriend? So what if it would be the first time I’d ever slept in the same room with a guy? I was eighteen now; adults did things like this, right?
Kaydon grabbed our bags from where I’d set them next to the Jeep and led the way to the hotel room. As promised, it had two beds. It also had a decent-size bathroom and a flat screen. Kaydon showered while I ordered dinner from the enormous room service menu.
When Kaydon emerged from the bathroom, he wore only a pair of jeans with plaid boxers peeking over the waistband and my dream catcher. His hair was still wet, and both that and the necklace’s prism caught and held all the light in the room. I knew that he had a good body from all the hugging and cuddling we’d done, but wasn’t prepared for how defined his chest and stomach would be. I swallowed the ridiculous urge to say something stupid like, “Milk sure does a body good” or “Where’s the gun show?” It was definitely not the time for my lame jokes, no matter how much I usually laughed at them.
Kaydon walked confidently to his bag and tugged a shirt free, like he was used to having a girl ogle his half-naked body. He probably was, I realized. After all, he’d probably done something with Jamieson to precipitate her asking him to the prom. Not to mention the fact that guys who looked like Kaydon weren’t usually virgins.
I couldn’t help but be disappointed when he pulled a white tee shirt over his head and flopped down on the free bed.
“What did you order for dinner?” he asked.
“Burgers and fries,” I admitted. The menu had been overwhelming and I panicked, ordering the first thing I saw that was at all appealing.
“Sounds good to me,” he said.
Dinner arrived while we were watching NCIS reruns and taking bets on whether Betsy Klinefelter was likely to slam the door in our faces. I had the odds at three to one she would. By the time we finished eating, I was so tired my eyes wouldn’t stay open. I dragged myself to the bathroom and changed into a pair of flowered pajama bottoms and a pink top, brushed my teeth, and washed my face.
When I was finished, Kaydon did the same, except for the flowered pajamas. He wore St. Paul’s lacrosse sweatpants and nothing else. Instead of climbing back into his own bed, he laid down next to me in mine. As much as I enjoyed staring at Kaydon sans shirt, having him so close to me sans shirt made me nervous. He’d made a point to say the room had two beds, leading me to believe he’d correctly assumed that I would be nervous sharing one with him. In my head, Devon’s voice was telling me to man up and stop being such a prude.
My hands were clasped in my lap and rested on top of the sheets covering my legs. Kaydon ran one fingertip across the back of my hand and up my arm to my shoulder then traced my collarbone before cupping my cheek in his palm. The rush of conflicting sensations – heat from the electricity burning between us, the chills of anticipation – made me feel feverish.
“Thank you for coming with me,” Kaydon said, resting his head on my shoulder and gazing up at me.
My throat was so tight it was a chore to swallow, let alone talk, so I just nodded. Kaydon tilted his head up farther, his hair smooth as silk on my shoulder, and kissed my cheek lightly. Then, he rolled off the bed and onto his feet. He unhooked the clasp of the necklace and bent down, swept my hair to one side, and fastened the chain around my throat. On his way up, Kaydon kissed the crown of my head. In three strides he was back in his own bed and turning out the lamp between us.
“Good night, Endora. Sleep well,” he said.
I just sat there, dumbfounded. Was he serious? A kiss on the forehead? That was how he said goodnight to his maybe girlfriend on their first night alone together? I reached over and switched the light back on.
Kaydon was lying on his back, hands folded behind his head staring at the ceiling. “Yes?” he asked without looking at me.
I opened my mouth, though I had no idea what to say. Had I really been about to ask him why he didn’t try and make a move? Instead, I asked an even more embarrassing question.
“Kaydon, are you my boyfriend?” I reached for the light switch before he could see the tomato my cheeks were starting to resemble. Kaydon beat me to the lamp and pulled it out of my reach.
“Don’t you think our relationship is a little beyond boyfriend/girlfriend, Endora?” he asked pragmatically.
I had no answer for that. So, instead of saying anything meaningful, I just said, “Oh, okay. Goodnight,” and tried stretching for the lamp again.
“Are you wondering why I didn’t try and rip your clothes off just now?” Kaydon asked, sounding amused.
The flames of Tartarus cannot be worse than the ones burning my face this very instant, I thought, and closed my eyes like that would somehow make it all go away.
“You were shaking. You clearly aren’t ready. That is okay. I just don’t want to rush you or make you feel uncomfortable,” Kaydon continued.
I sat in silence, pondering the ramifications of this.
“Endora Lee, do you want to have sex with me?” Kaydon asked with mock seriousness.
“No,” I said too quickly. “I mean, I do maybe one day. Not today…tonight…now. Not right now.” Stop rambling, Eel.
“Then for tonight I will stay over here. If you would like to join me, the covers are always open. The decision is yours.” Kaydon was trying hard not to sound like he was making fun of me and I appreciated the effort, but felt stupid all the same.
Kaydon turned off the light and repositioned it halfway between us on the night table. I closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep. Half an hour later, I was still awake and had a strong suspicion Kaydon was too. In the car he hadn’t snored or anything, but his heavy breathing had been audible over the radio. The hotel room was completely silent.
“Kaydon?” I whispered into the darkness, just in case he was actually sleeping.
“Yes?” he replied immediately.
I smiled. “Say I do come over there and get in bed with you… can I keep my clothes on?”
“You’re the boss.”
I threw the sheets on my bed back and hurried over to Kaydon’s bed before I lost my nerve. He held the covers up so I could climb in and then wrapped his arms around me. I curled up with my back against his bare chest, my head on the same pillow as his. Kaydon kissed my shoulder, then my neck, and finally the corner of my mouth.
“’Night, Eel,” he whispered.
“’Night, Kaydon,” I said and finally fell asleep.