Page 27 of A Sublime Casualt
“She’s hiding from someone.” My heart quakes throughout my body as if it were me. “A trick gone bad?” The words fly out of my mouth before I gave them permission to, and now I can’t take them back.
Theo shoots me a hard look, and I’m quick to say, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” He dips his face in his hand a moment. “It’s probably true at this point.”
We get back to the footage and watch for what feels like hours to no avail. Lizzy walks back down the hall before running down to the elevators and pressing the buttons like mad, but there’s no footage showing her getting off the elevator. When we bring this to the manager’s attention, he informs us the main elevator has two doors, one that leads to the lobby and one that leads toward the back for the service workers. If she went out the back way, there wouldn’t be any footage. Rodger helps us copy the digital images, and Theo emails them to himself. He demands the names and information of everyone who checked in and out of the hotel over a seven-day period in either direction just in case, and Rodger complies as if this were a stickup. Theo copies and sends all of the information to himself, and we thank the poor guy profusely before taking off.
No sooner do we get out into the chilled night air than Theo pulls me aside, wraps his warm arms around me, and buries his face in my neck. I hold him like that a good long while as he takes in breath after breath, kissing his way to my lips before lingering over them.
“You’re an angel who dropped out of the sky, you know that?” He pulls back, the whites of his eyes replaced with crimson tracks.
“I’m no angel. Trust me on that.” A nervous laugh shakes my belly before all traces of a smile leave my face. “I want to say something to you, but I don’t want you to say anything in return.” I press a finger to his lips and bear hard into those crystalline eyes. “I have never felt this way about anyone. I have never felt so alive, so whole and healthy—so very normal than I do with you.” The entire world seems to be holding its breath to see if I can do it. “I love you, Theo.” I swallow hard as his grin spreads wide. “You have stolen my heart, and I don’t want it back.”
Theo cradles my face in his palms, his thumbs brushing over my cheeks, wiping away the tears I hadn’t even noticed I shed.
“Look at me,” he whispers, joy lighting him up from the inside. “I love you, Charlie Neville, and you can never stop me from saying those words. I’m just sorry I didn’t say it first.” He presses a heated kiss over my lips. “I love you.” It comes from him lighter, his eyes twinkling under the stars. “I love you, I do.” He sweeps my hair from my eyes and peppers my face with kisses. “Come home with me.”
And I do.
* * *
Days whizby in a blur with me working at the Hideaway and Theo patrolling the mean streets of Wakefield. We spend our nights grappling with the riddle of his missing sister, pouring over the footage endlessly but to no avail. Theo enlisted Jackson to help him run the names on that list the manager gave us. Seventy-two patrons in that span of time. Twenty-four that checked in that day and the day prior. Jackson says he’s able to run credit checks through his accounting firm, but it’s slow going. He’ll have to do it in batches. He says it’s perfectly illegal, but Theo said he’d take the fall for it if he had to.
But on this Friday night, with its glacial winds and black starry night, Theo has driven us to Des Moines, to the Rock House where I am primed to have a night that I will remember, and my siblings will, too—they just don’t know it yet. It was a two-hour drive, so Theo surprised me by renting a hotel room nearby. He says he looks forward to the adventure and challenged me to a pancake rematch at the local IHOP in the morning. I told him he was on and assured him he would lose. He will.
The Rock House is a cave of a building, red brick inside and out, and the music is so loud from the opening band that my ears beg to bleed.
“I guess I’m too old!” I shout to Theo while hiked on my tiptoes. “The music is way too loud.”
He shakes his head, his adorable dimples sinking effortlessly into his cheeks, and I fall in love with him all over again. As much as I’m dying to meet with Peavey and Devyn, I’m equally as anxious to get to that hotel with Theo and unleash on him tonight. It’s been a wild week and this, right here, feels like a fantastic crescendo.
“Honey, I’m too old.” He winks, and my stomach bisects with heat. We head over to our seats, a small table that resembles a drum and tall leather chairs close enough to the front to make you feel uncomfortably in the fun zone. One of my fears in life is to get called up on stage and asked to sing along, or worse, gyrate my hips to the music. And on a night like tonight, where we can reach out and touch the stage, it’s a panic-riddled possibility. As soon as the cover band is done and Jeremy Newton takes the stage, everyone is on their feet and it’s a free-for-all. Good seats be damned. We are lost in a tangle of bodies, and my adrenaline hits its zenith. I haven’t stopped scouring the audience ever since we stepped inside. I’m half-afraid Theo might notice my skittish behavior, but he seems completely entranced by the music, bobbing his head along, tapping his feet while keeping time.
Theo positions himself behind me, his chest pressed against my back, arms around my waist, and it limits my range of how far I can crane my neck. A warmth encapsulates me. A supernatural spark of electricity rides through me.
My God, they’re here. I scan the crowd slowly. I can feel them. My entire being is pulling toward them like a magnet. I spot a redhead near the dark hall that leads to the restrooms, and my insides explode with heat. I would bet my life that was Devyn.
I pull Theo’s head down toward me and bury my lips in his ear. “I’m heading to the bathroom. Be right back.”
He hikes his head in that direction and starts to lead us.
“No, stay here!” I shout up over the music. “I don’t want to lose our spot! I’ll just be a few minutes.” I wrinkle my nose and hold up my phone. “I’ll be safe.”
He frowns before relenting and watches as I melt into the crowd. Theo is protective—overprotective, and he probably should be after what he’s been through. I know he feels personally responsible for what happened to his sister. He’ll go the rest of his life hyper vigilant when it comes to the safety of the ones he loves, and it makes me feel honored knowing that it’s me—for now. I can only pray Theo and I will last, but good things never last for long in my life. Like Peavey and Devyn. It all ends way too soon.
The night we found our mother dead, she was covered in blood, her hair spilling over her face in long sticky shards. They said she OD’d. I still stand by my claim that she was murdered. But I was simply shouting in the wind, a murderer myself in the making. That’s when we knew we had to take things into our own hands. It was kill or be killed— we were already dying.
The crowd purges me into a narrowed hall where the music dampens just enough to give your ears a much-welcomed respite. The dim lighting is met with a red sign in the back that readsRestrooms. I head into the girls’ bathroom and find a line that snakes straight to the door. I head deeper into the room. The lights are so bright I’m squinting as I pause to look at every face I see. A fierce panic sets in. My God, what if I miss them? What if we are in the same air space, a shoulder’s length away, and we miss out on this magic moment because of my foolish decision to surprise them? My body breaks out into a cold sweat, and I feel dizzy and nauseous all at once.
“Devyn?” I call out, but the rumble of voices drowns my voice. “Devyn?” I shrill so loud half the line pauses to gawk at me. “Are you in here? It’s me, Devyn. You know who I am!” Nothing like an ambiguous line like that to make you sound like a psychopath. “We were inAnnie Get Your Guntogether,” I shout while crouching to look at the legs of the women behind the stalls, only it doesn’t do me any good. I don’t even know what shoes she owns anymore.
A gentle tap comes from behind, and I spin to find familiar eyes, a beautiful face that I dream of nightly, and our arms collapse over one another as we spill a river of tears. There is no feeling in the world like finding your home, holding your heart in your hands, feeling love the size of the planet enveloping you in its pure light.
“Is it you?” she wails into my neck, dousing me with her warm tears. “How is this happening? Is it over? God, I love you. Don’t you ever leave me again.” Her childlike wails break my heart, and I can’t bear it anymore. What have I done? My God, I’ve only made it worse. A knife in the heart before Christmas.
“Dev?” a male voice calls out from the entry, and I take her by the hand as we head over. I pull my brother into the mouth of the lady’s lounge and grip him with an embrace strong enough to subdue the world. The three of us hold onto one another, sobbing far longer than we should.
He pulls back and examines me. Peavey isn’t the boy I left behind. His chest is broad, his face wider. He’s filled out, and he has muscles bulging under that shirt. He looks like me in male skin. Devyn looks twenty-one with her raccoon-like makeup, those dark crimson lips. And I’m afraid for them both. Afraid the world has hardened them without my permission, but then I remember what I did and realize it was me who turned them to stone.