Laiken

“You know you can stay if you want to,” Wyatt says, standing next to me in front of the car. The sun has barely come up, but I've been awake before it showed its crest.

I look over my shoulder at Kara sitting in the driver's seat. “I know. And I appreciate that. But where she goes, I go.” Even if I want nothing more than to drive this car back to Dominic.

Dominic.

His name creates waves through my skin like a tsunami that swallows me whole.

Looking Wyatt in the eye, I smile with half my heart. “He told me he had to stay behind to keep me safe. Do you think that's right, was it really his only choice?”

“There's something to be said about hiding among the enemy. You'll always know what they're up to. The only people in this world who want to hurt you are all living on that estate. If Dominic can keep an eye on them to ensure they don't come after you, then yes. It might just be the only way to protect you.”

I clench my body all the way down to my toes in my shoes. “Again with the saving me. That makes this number four.”

“What?”

I shake my head so fast my hair whips into my shoulders. “Forget it.” He waits a second, then digs into his pocket and hands me an envelope. “What's this?” I ask.

“It's the most that I can do. Neither of you has any cash, you'll need it if you plan to get your lives sorted and started over.”

I peek inside the envelope and gasp. There's got to be a few thousand dollars in here. “Wyatt, no, this is way too much.”

“It wasn't doing me any good sitting in the coffee can in my kitchen,” he says with a coarse grunt. “Pat would give me shit for hanging onto that for so long. What good is his internship money doing anyone by gathering dust?”

I'm overwhelmed; crashing into him, I grab on fiercely. “Thank you for everything.”

He hugs me back for a long minute, his calloused hands pressing on my spine.

I'm going to miss these hands.

****

TWENTY MINUTES PASS before either of us speaks to each other. “You really want to go back there?” I ask.

“There's nowhere else to go,” she replies.

Formless grief swells inside of me. She's right, and it hurts to know that she's right. No one wants us. Not our father, and not Dominic.

“Do you remember the way home?” I ask urgently.

She shakes her head. “Only vaguely. With some trial and error, though, I'm sure . . .”

“I know the way,” I say. She glances at me, eyebrows drawing together. “Dominic and I made this trip just the other day, remember?” It's burned into my head and it will never leave me. That whole trip will stay with me forever.

We stop for gas after we empty most of the tank. I go into the tiny store, filling a basket with snacks and bottles of water. Kara joins me after pumping the gas, helping me load everything onto the register counter.

She doesn't ask how I'm paying for it all. She probably figured out by watching that what Wyatt gave me in the envelope was money.

The older woman behind the register rings everything up. “Twenty-five fifty,” she says, bored.

Slipping out the envelope, I hand her two twenties. As she gets me my change, I notice her tossing look after look at Kara and me. I'm growing paranoid. “You two sisters?” she asks.

Lying seems pointless, so I push up my shoulders. “Yeah.”

The woman smiles and nods knowingly. “Resemblance is pretty clear, 'cept for the hair. How long it take you to the grow that out?”

Gripping my braid, I pull it over my shoulder and run my hand down it all the way to my hip. “Years,” I say honestly.

She hands me my change and the bags. “Always wanted to grow mine out, but I never know what to do with it once it gets to my shoulders.” She motions at Kara. “Never thought I could rock that look either, though. Don't got the face for it. You two, though? You can work it either way. You're very lucky.”

She's making small talk. I'm so used to everyone around me hiding things, or speaking in double meanings, that something as innocent as a conversation in a store is mind-boggling. It draws attention to how fucked up my life has been. This is one of the few times I've bought something as innocuous as snacks in public, and it's making me sweat.

Will everything be this way? All my interactions clouded by a film of sticky distrust, always waiting for something to fall apart, for someone to betray me? The woman is staring at me with her mouth all puckered up. I hear my rapid breathing and notice I'm freaking out, on the verge of dropping things and running. That's what I need—to run, to just go and go and go until my body shreds itself apart, my essence slipping onto the breeze, my existence erased so I can finally stop wondering what's going to happen to me next.

Kara grabs my hand so fiercely it wakes me from my stupor. Yanking me away, she speaks over her shoulder to the nervous woman. “You're right. We are lucky.” We get outside to our car. Once there, she snatches the bags from me; I forgot I was holding them. “What's wrong with you?” she asks under her breath.

Panic clutches my lungs, my voice straining as it comes out. “I . . . don't know. I don't know.” Eyeing the gas station, I turn back and look into my sister's worried face. Her blue irises are vibrant. Her concern is calming—it's something I'm familiar with.

Right. Familiar.

That's what I need right now.

“Come on,” I say, sitting in the car. Kara stands outside my door, still watching me uncertainly. “Let's get out of here. I want to go home.” Her face lights up when I say that last word.

“Okay,” she says, climbing in beside me, revving the engine. “Now you're speaking my language.”

I give her a weak smile. My hand glides down the seatbelt, the scratchy sound calling back to the time Dominic wrapped the belt in his fingers, trapping me in this very seat. Pinching my eyes shut, I push him away. I replace him as best as I can with images of pine trees rising over a hand-built cabin near slippery stones in a river and leaping deer.

Even if it's not perfect . . . even if Dominic won't be there . . .

At least it will be a place I know.

****

WE MAKE IT TO THE CABIN by late afternoon. It's record time, compared to my last trip. It helped that Kara drove with a heavy foot on the pedal.

She parks the car a yard away from the cabin's front door, but doesn't turn off the engine. “Kara?” I ask.

She's sitting there with her hands bunched around the wheel, eyes wide open, fixated on the worse for wear cabin. “We're really here,” she says quietly.

Reaching over, I turn off the engine. She glances at me when I do that. “I should warn you,” I say, “it's kind of beaten up in there. The place needs a lot of work.”

Her mouth lifts at the corners, growing into a smile that makes her look like she's thirteen again. “Since when has hard work ever bothered either of us?”

For a second I actually forget how miserable I am. Kara's happiness is infectious.

I follow her out of the car and as I do, I notice something sticking to my shoe. Bending down, I lift up the tiny circle and hold it towards the sky where it sparkles brilliantly.

It's a gold sequin.

The sight of it spirals me back into a dangerously warm memory.

The sound of cloth ripping fills our silent bubble. My fingers coil in the bodice of my gown. Sitting up, I rip it from my body. The stitching is strong and well made; I fight with the fabric in great, gut-wrenching heaves until the gold sequins explode all over the floor of his car.

“Laiken!” he shouts, pulling off the road, putting the car in park. “What are you doing?”

“I never want to see this dress again!” My arms flex, the fabric splitting until my upper body is bare. There are almost no lights on this quiet stretch of road. The lamp pole in the distance casts a reddish glow through the windshield, illuminating my skin like I'm standing in the middle of a volcano.

I'm breathing hard, my breasts rising in waves. Gripping the bundled mess around my hips, I catch Dominic staring at me. Our gaze locks. He hasn't seen me naked in weeks and now he's about to see everything I have to offer. But I can't keep the dress on. I need it off of me. I wish I could destroy it entirely. I hesitate a second, then I set my mouth in a serious line and push the dress down my legs. When I'm done, I'm sitting on the car's seat in just my white panties.

I'm still panting.

Dominic is drawing in quick breaths, too.

“You saved me,” I say. “That's the second time.”

“I couldn't let him touch you.”

“You could have.” I track my eyes over his eyebrows, his chin, and his hands where they rest on the steering wheel. “A monster would have.”

But he's not a monster. I know he isn't. My heart is almost full enough to believe this with certainty, but it's his actions that make it fact.

Leaning forward, I kiss him with the same wild energy still curling through my blood. I search for his tongue, and when I find it, feel it dance across my own, I know he's not going to resist. I'm his, but he's also mine.

“ . . . and more wood and water. Laiken?”

“Huh?” My head snaps up—I didn't notice she was talking to me. She blinks at me over the top of the car. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“Before we settle in we'll need wood and water, to start with. It's going to be cold here tonight, looks like a window is broken, too.”

“There's some fresh wood by the fireplace,” I say, dropping my hand to my side with the sequin in it. I stick it in my pocket, hoping she can't see. I don't know why I'm hiding it, maybe because it's a flicker of my relationship with Dominic. I know how she feels about him. “Pipes are messed up. I'll go get us a bucket of water so we don't go through the bottles we bought just by cleaning some floors.”

Kara’s eyebrows remain creased. “Okay. Sounds good.” As she heads into the house, I walk towards the small shed, snatching a relatively rust-free bucket out of it. When I was here the other day, I was doing exactly what Kara is now—creating a to do list in my head.

She's imagining all the ways to make this place a perfect home.

I want to feel the same way she does. I thought I would as we drove.

But, now that I'm here . . .

I don't.

Walking towards the bridge, my heart starts to race. I see the hilt of Dad's knife where I left it. I remember how I fell in the river trying to get the damn thing. This part of the world is supposed to be all about my family, my past. But my present keeps swimming up into the front of my mind.

Dominic is a constant memory. I can't shake him.

He's all over this forest, now. In the air we shared, in the dirt we impacted with our feet, and when I approach the fresh water spring, I remember that we shared this, too. He'd knelt right here on the ground, cupping his hands and drinking.

I picture his sparkling eyes when the icy water moved down his throat. Kneeling on the dirt, I put the bucket down beside me. My reflection in the brook wobbles and contorts. It's exactly how the rest of my insides feel.

Gripping my shirt, I breathe deep. Quit thinking about him. It's a pointless plea. If I want to give him up, I have to try harder. I can't hang onto everything that reminds me of him. Maybe I can't remove him from the air or the water, but . . .

Reaching into my pocket, I lift out the gold sequin. His face flashes through my memory—how stunned he was as he saw me tear the dress from my skin. He'd been impressed by my strength. He'd kissed me and made my world bright again.

Pressing the round bit of gold between my thumb and forefinger, I hold it to the muted sunlight. It glints like a lone star in the sky. If I can't even throw this away, what hope do I have of ever letting Dominic leak from my soul?

“Laiken,” Kara asks. “Did you get the water yet? I saw all the mud inside, I really want to get cleaning and . . . what are you doing?”

I spin around, stunned to see her behind me.

Her attention moves to my fingers. I don't react fast enough to hide the gold sequin. Her eyes narrow in a way that tells me she knows exactly what I'm holding. I don't have the time to wonder how. “Even here, miles and miles and miles away from him, you still can't let go,” she whispers angrily.

“It's not that easy.” I clutch my hand around the sequin. “I love him, Kara.”

“I don't want to hear that!”

“Why does it matter if I say it out loud? It's not like he's here, right?” It kills me to say that last part.

Kara slides her foot on the damp ground, advancing a step. “Let go of him, Laiken. It's better if you just forget him as fast as possible.”

“There you go again, trying and tell me what's best.”

“It's more than talk! Have you taken a second to think about all the things I've done? You're so caught up in how he makes you feel,” she says mockingly. “But I've suffered to keep you safe. I wanted so badly to talk to you, be close to you, when I arrived on the estate but I knew I couldn't! I hid in secret, keeping an eye on you to make sure nothing happened to you!”

My hunch was right. She’d been spying on me on the estate. It was how she knew to send Dominic after me at Franklin's.

She breathes wildly, still talking. “I warned you about Dominic because I know what he is, and if you would just listen and accept it—”

“You're wrong!”

“I'm not wrong, he's a killer, Laiken! A killer! Bernard is dead!” she screams, the sound echoing through the forest. Birds screech as they fly away, startled by the noise.

I move my arms, trying to decide what to say. The sequin glints in the light—she fixates on it like it's a grenade ready to go off. I see her looking. I know it's her target. “Wait,” I begin, trying to put it in my pocket. Her arm slices out and catches my wrist.

The gold sparkles as it falls in the river.

“No!” I gasp, my mouth hanging open.

“You're impossible!” She curls her fists in the front of my coat. “What else are you hanging on to, huh? What else of his is in your pockets?”

“Nothing!” I grunt, going off balance as my sister yanks at my arms. With a twist of her body she throws us into the mud. The wind explodes out of me; I'm dazed as she begins emptying my pockets. Wyatt's envelope is thrown in the dirt, as is a small, square piece of stiff paper.

The mud suctions around my body. I grab her wrists, trying to push her off of me, but she's stronger. “Stop this,” I manage, still struggling for air. “You can't make me forget him.”

“You should want to!” she wails, sitting up. Her face is a wall of rage. “He killed him. He killed him. He killed him!” Kara's voice rises until my ears ring. “Dominic killed Bernard. How could he do that? How could he take him away from me?”

In the face of her explosive anguish, I go limp. She's breathing fast, her breath steaming around us both. Short hair sticks to her face in places, the disheveled mess adding to her mania.

All the things she's said to me come rushing back.

Bernard and her had spent so much time together in his home. Her time there was good. He'd taught her how to drive. She'd told him about our promise.

Kara trembles, closing her eyes as tears stream down her cheeks. “I loved him so much. He was the only person who took the time to get to know me. Every time he came home during school breaks we would have so much fun together . . . all three of us. Bernard, me, and even Dominic. I couldn't picture us being anything but good friends until . . . until our first kiss. Then I couldn't picture us as anything but destined to be together. I fell in love with Bernard so easily I barely noticed it.” Her eyes darken. “And then Dominic betrayed us both.”

The weight of her words crushes me more than her body. “Kara, no. Oh, no.”

“Maybe this is how I'll make you understand. If you know how much I loved Bernard, how much it hurt when he was taken from me, then will you listen when I say that Dominic is a viscous monster. He took him away from me. I can never forgive him for that.”

It's not my place to break Dominic's promise to Bernard, I know it, but it's the one shot I have at making her understand. I'm going to see Kara every day if we make our home here. There can be no secrets between us. And I can't spend another moment with her believing lies about the man I care so much about. “He didn't do it, Kara.”

“He was the only one there with him! Who else could have pushed Bernard off the mountain?”

“No one pushed him,” I say, struggling to get the words out; they keep cracking apart in my mouth. “Bernard killed himself.”

“He wouldn't,” she says, staring at me in confusion. Her uneasiness shifts into accusation. “So that's how it is, you're willing to make up a cover story for Dominic.”

“Please, listen. Bernard knew what he was doing when they went on that trip. He didn't want to live anymore. He was hurting so much.” Looking into my sister's eyes as I deliver this information is cruel, for me and for her. “But he didn't want anyone to know that he committed suicide, he was afraid about how it would make them feel.”

How it would make HER feel, I realize now.

Her expression pinches together. “No,” she says under her breath. “If he was suicidal, I would've known.”

“No one knew,” I say, trying to sit up.

She doesn't budge. “He would tell me. I would have seen the signs. He loved me, and that . . .”

“That's why he kept it from you.” My vision is getting blurry, my head heavy. “He must have known it would hurt you, if you thought he didn't want to live anymore.”

Kara has stopped blinking. “Then this is my fault. Isn't it? If I was more aware . . . I . . . I could have seen the signs, I could have done something, stopped him, just . . .”

I push upwards, and this time, she slides off of me like she's a weightless human shell. We both kneel in the mud. “It wasn't anyone's fault,” I say gently. “Especially not yours.”

My sister doesn't respond. She just stares at the ground.

Putting my hand on her shoulder, I will myself not to cry. Not yet. I have to be strong. “Dominic blames himself for not being able to stop Bernard, too. He believes that it's his responsibility that he's dead. The guilt that he owns is massive. He doesn't need people like you or me telling him that he's responsible because he already thinks it. But he didn't push Bernard off that cliff. He didn't, and you have to believe me.”

She drills her hands in the muck until she's buried to her wrists. “I called him a murderer,” she whispers.

“A lot of people did.”

She looks at me, but her eyes are empty. It's like she's in shock. “He really didn't do it?” I shake my head patiently. “Then, all this time I've been hating him, when really . . .” she trails off, unable to finish. “Oh, God. He blames himself for Bernard's death, and I blamed him too, and it's not even his fault. I feel awful. He's not the monster, I am.”

“It's okay,” I assure her, putting my muddy arms around her upper body. “Everything is okay.”

“It's not,” she says in my ear. “It's not and it won't ever be.”

Closing my eyes, I think about Wyatt, how he lost his son and managed to keep living. “All we can do is move forward. You and I, we can do that here.”

Kara's grip goes slack. I don't know why, until she leans over, plucking something from the mud. It's the square piece of paper that came out with the envelope of money. “Where did you get this?” she whispers thickly. She turns it so I can see that it's a photo of us as kids.

I'd forgotten all about it. “In a book at the Complex, in our parents' room.”

She stares at it hard. Her fingernail traces the corners, like she's committing the shape of it to memory. “We were so innocent,” she says. “We didn't know what was waiting for us.”

I don't have a response. I've thought the same thing many times.

Kara shakes herself then she gazes around at the brook and the trees. “Nothing about being here feels right, does it?”

Is she talking about the cabin? “It's just because everything is wrecked,” I say, trying to comfort her. “Some elbow grease and everything will be better than before.”

“No. It's not about broken windows or chipped walls or water damage. Laiken, this place doesn't feel like a home because it isn't. Home is more than just a place that you sleep in. It's more than a roof or walls. Home is warmth and comfort and safety and love. The one thing that gives that to you isn't here.”

Deep down, I make sense of what she's saying. But it doesn't bring me joy. Yes, of course I'd be happier if I was with Dominic. But there's no way for me to make that happen.

“Dominic can't ever be here,” I say bitterly.

Her smile is thoughtful. “True. Not with the way things are right now.”

Kara helps me to my feet, and as she does, she makes a face and clicks her tongue. “I'm so sorry about your hair, it's filthy. It'll be a lot of work to clean it up, but I swear I'll help.”

Reaching back, I run my hand over the leaves and twigs and mud stuck in my hair. I think about the photo she's holding. Our bright smiles, our naive, youthful belief in a future that didn't belong to us.

But maybe it still can.

I start to jog through the woods. “Laiken?” she calls after me.

I continue to run; I hear her behind me as she follows. It's easy for her to keep up with me, it always has been. We get to the bridge and I race across it, reaching for the knife that I'd jammed into the railing.

Testing the heft of the blade, I hoist my hair high off my neck. Kara's eyes fly wide, she covers her mouth, watching in shock as I tear the knife through my thick brunette strands. The braid hangs in my fist like a dead python, heavier than all the wishes I've clung to since I was small.

“Why did you do that?” she asks, still unable to wrench her stare away.

Smiling with a certainty so bright it lights up my heart, I drop my hair at my feet. “It's time you and I finally started over. And, for the record.” I tap her on the nose, leaving a smudge of dirt. “I'll still end up with the longer braid.”

Kara's blue eyes glisten. They shift under the layer of unshed tears, growing bigger and bigger until it's all I can see. But when she hugs me in her strong arms, I do see something else. It's our names, carved eternally into the wood of the bridge.