20

Vic

Vic broke the kiss.

“Did you put the safety on?” he asked, taking the pistol from Adam’s hand to check it.

“Missed you too,” Adam said, though he grinned.

Vic reached out a finger, lifted Adam’s chin and turned his face side to side.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I should be asking you,” Adam said with a shrug. “You’re the one trapped down here with my cousin.”

“Jodi’s okay,” Vic said.

“Now I know something’s wrong.”

Vic chuckled, because he didn’t know what else to do. John had grabbed Mel. He had Vic’s scythe, had control of the Reaper.

“Really,” Adam said, voice low. Their arms were still locked tight around each other. “You’re okay?”

“I am now,” Vic said, meaning it.

In his chest the line between them sang. This, them, was right.

“You got my aim, son, that’s for sure,” a voice said from behind them.

Adam went rigid in Vic’s arms. Adam always clenched his fists when it was fight or flight and everything Vic felt from him said that this time it would be fight.

“My father,” Adam growled.

“Robert Binder,” the ghost said. “Senior.”

Vic blinked at the ghost, but made no move to separate from Adam. Given the choice he might never let Adam go again.

He had to do a double take.

Robert looked more like Adam’s brother. Vic did the math. Bobby was around the same age Robert had been when he’d died. Vic guessed that Senior had lived the same hard life as most of the backwoods Binders. Bobby hadn’t, but his recent grief had added a lot of years to his features, lending them a similarity.

“Well, there’s a story here,” Vic said, looking between the Binder men and settling back on Adam. He looked tired, worn down, but a road trip through hell would do that. Vic took him at his word that he wasn’t hurt.

“I’ll tell you on the way home,” Adam said.

Vic squeezed his eyes shut.

“We can’t get home, at least not the same way we got here,” Vic said. “John took Mel.”

“Wait, the Mel? You found her?”

“That’s who John took. But how did you know about her? Sara.”

Vic growled her name.

“She’s why we’re here,” Adam said. “One reason.”

“John’s the other?”

“Yeah.”

“You have to end him,” Vic said.

“Yeah,” Adam said again.

Vic could feel his misery. Adam wasn’t a killer, but the problem remained. John had to be stopped.

“We can’t let him keep her,” Vic said. “And he has my scythe. He has the Reaper.”

Adam bent to press his face against Vic. His breath was warm on Vic’s chest. Vic craned his neck, pressed his face to the top of Adam’s head. He could use a shower. He didn’t smell bad, a little grungy. A bit of shampoo, something with lemon, lingered. Vic breathed him in. Adam. His Adam.

“Three bullets,” Adam said. “And I hit him with the car. I was hoping it would be enough, that I could kill him that way.”

“I’m not sure he can die here,” Vic said. “Even if he could, he’s drinking up the ghosts.”

“Like a demon?”

“You know about the demons?” Vic tightened his grip.

“Yeah.” Adam pulled free enough to cock his head to where his brother had tugged his father to the side. “We pulled our dad out of one. It was posing as a hotel, trapping ghosts inside it.”

“No wonder John didn’t take Jodi,” Vic said. “If he can eat the ghosts, then this place is like a nonstop buffet. Jodi’s just a snack.”

“Please don’t call my cousin a snack,” Adam said.

“You know what I mean,” Vic said. “The spirits are like an endless battery.”

“Then how do I end him?” Adam asked. “The promise is binding, Vic.”

“I’m not judging you,” he said, looking Adam in the eye. He meant it.

They’d fought over this before, how Adam and his brother had acted outside the law, but John was exactly that, outside the laws of nature.

He’d killed a lot of people, and what he was doing now, consuming the ghosts, had to be just as bad if not worse. Vic’s heart hurt. Right and wrong were getting turned upside down, and Adam was in pain.

“Are we going or what?” Jodi asked.

“We’re not leaving Mel,” Vic said, shifting out of Adam’s arms, though he left their hands entwined. “Even if we could.”

“You don’t even know her,” Jodi spat.

“I know her about as well as I know you,” Vic said. “And I like her a whole lot better.”

“There’s also Vran,” Adam said.

“The elf kid?” Vic asked. “The brat?”

Adam nodded. “He came with us, saved us, but we lost him. He might still be alive, but we can’t leave him either.”

“We know where Mel is. We should start there,” Vic said.

Adam let out a long breath and turned to his father.

“This is as good a stop as any, Dad. John went north. We’re probably not heading any farther west.”

“I’ll come with you,” the ghost said. “Maybe. Wait, who’s John?”

“Your grandpa,” Bobby explained. “Our great-grandpa.”

“What?” the ghost sputtered. “How?”

“He’s kept himself alive by killing his descendants,” Adam said. “He killed Sue and Noreen. He nearly killed Bobby.”

“What’s he going to do to me?” Robert asked with a shrug that Vic would never tell Adam he’d clearly inherited. “I’m already dead.”

“He’s eating ghosts now.” Adam waved at the melted town. “Like the hotel. Like a demon.”

Robert’s brow furrowed in thought.

Adam’s hair was blonder, his features softer. This man carried his life in the curve of his spine. He looked beaten down, the same kind of wear stamped on Tilla Mae’s features.

“Can’t you just drop me off in the real world?” Jodi asked. “There has to be a way back.”

“It’s not the worst idea,” Adam said. “I’d rather not have you and Bobby with us when we find John, but he has Vic’s scythe. As far as I know that’s our best ticket home.”

“How did you get down here without it?” Vic asked.

“We drove,” Adam said. “Sara told us how. She sent us to get Mel. I think she sent you down here so we could bring her back with us. Mel’s important, but I don’t know why.”

“She’s Sara’s daughter,” Vic said.

“How is that possible?” Adam asked.

“Mel said she was a dream, Sara’s dream.”

“Where is he taking her?” Jodi asked.

“There’s a city out there,” Vic said. “To the north. They went that way.”

“Do we know what’s there?” Adam asked.

“Demons,” Vic said.

“I don’t like it,” Adam said with a grimace. “He can kill them, and they can’t kill him back.”

“It also means leaving the road,” Vic said. “That’s dangerous.”

“We have guns and salt. Water and food too if you guys need it,” Adam said.

Vic put a hand to his stomach. He missed eating, but didn’t need to.

“I’m good,” Jodi said.

“Us too,” Adam said. “We don’t know enough about how this place works.”

“We know someone who can help with that,” Vic said. “He won’t be happy to see us back so soon, but we can head back west, talk to Shepherd. He’s another demon.”

“Why would he help us?”

“He respects Mel. Some of the demons are different, are conscious. He called her ‘Mother.’ ”

“Creepy,” Adam said. “But okay.”

Jodi eyed the car and shuffled her feet.

“You left her once before,” Vic said. “You can do it again.”

“I know,” Jodi snapped. Her face softened. “It’s just hard, you know?”

“Yeah,” Vic said. “We can’t leave you here. It’s not safe, but you can stay in the car when we get to Sanctuary, if that’s what you want.”

Adam watched with a curious expression.

“I’ll explain on the way,” Vic said. He turned to Robert Senior.

He didn’t like the man. There was no way Vic could after what he’d done to his family, especially to Adam but he had to say it.

“They eat ghosts where we’re going,” Vic said. “The ones they call the Lost, who don’t speak anymore. I think you’ll be fine, but you should know. That’s what they do.”

“Been eaten before and I’m still here,” Robert said.

“Are you sure?” Bobby asked, taking his dad by the arm.

Vic took the chance to whisper to Adam, “You sure about this? About him?”

Adam squirmed, and Vic could feel the mix of feelings through their connection. It was a lot, a buzzing static on the verge of painful.

“I don’t trust him,” Adam said. “But he wants to help. And it’s good for Bobby maybe, to talk to him, to get to see him.”

“But not you,” Vic said, feeling the distance Adam had put between him and his feelings.

He’d changed a bit, healed a bit, and Vic smiled despite where they were and what they had to do because he’d healed a bit too. He’d made some decisions about his future, and it had settled something inside him that had been off for a while, even if he hadn’t really known it.

“He’s been down here the whole time?” Vic asked.

“Yeah,” Adam said. “The hotel made them relive the things they regret. I got a look into its head, and his. I think he’s genuinely sorry.”

“But it’s too late, isn’t it?” Vic asked. “The damage is done and all that. You’re done with him, with it.”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “I’d like to be. I want to be.”

He was still sad, still scarred, but he was healing. Vic kissed him, just because he was there, just because he could.

“I missed you,” Vic said afterward.

“I missed you too.”

Adam was better in some regards, but worse in others. He wasn’t trying to hide it.

“What happened?” Vic asked.

“I killed the demon,” Adam said. “The hotel. I tried not to. I tried to spare it, but it didn’t leave me a choice, Vic.”

Vic let out a breath.

Only Adam could regret killing something that had tortured the dead.

“When we got here, the demons caught us,” Vic said. “They made me remember things. Awful things. I don’t think they’re evil, not in their natural state. That’s what they’re meant to do, but the ones like Shepherd, they’re alive. They make choices.”

“It wouldn’t let them go,” Adam said. “Dad and the others. It had them trapped. It wanted to keep them—to keep Bobby—forever so it could feed on his regrets.”

“Then you did the right thing,” Vic said firmly. “As much as it sucks, as much as it hurts, you did the right thing.”

“Yeah. That doesn’t make it any easier.”

“I know,” Vic said.

He squeezed Adam tight again. Adam had been five or six when his father had died. It had been a long time, but the old hurt remained. Your dad was still your dad, and Adam had missed him and grieved for him, even if he hadn’t known he’d been dead. All that was mixed up with the hurt and the anger. Despite it all, despite everything, Adam had set the man free.

Vic bent to whisper into his ear, “Think they’d mind if I took you behind that wall and made out with you for a while?”

“I don’t really care if they do mind,” Adam said, squeezing Vic back. “But we should get this over with. I want to get you home. I want you, us, out of here.”

“Then what?” Vic asked, putting on a teasing smile.

“Then . . . everything,” Adam said, squeezing him back.

It would be okay, Vic decided. They would be okay.