JERKED FROM A dreamless sleep, I awoke in a tangle of covers and clothes. Sunlight slanted in from the blinds on the window. Late afternoon. The sun came up on the opposite side of the building in the mornings. Daniel lay beside me, out cold, a thin sheen of sweat across his forehead. It was stuffy in the small room, the air thick and still. We’d fallen asleep. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep.
I’d never slept with a man before.
Sitting there in the overbright room, I realized I wasn’t panicked. I wasn’t scared. It somehow felt right. Different. A little strange … but right to be inches from Daniel’s sleeping form. He stretched on his back across one side of the mattress, both arms laid over his head, his stomach exposed where his shirt had ridden up.
Isaac on the altar.
The thought made my eyes drift to the Aqedah. The ancient knife sat on my bedside table beside the dog-eared, thrift-store copy of The Wasteland and Other Writings by T. S. Eliot, highlighted red by the cheap alarm clock.
Something shrilled under the covers. My phone. My phone was ringing. Throwing the comforter aside, I dug it out of my pocket, reading the display to see who was calling before putting it to my ear.
“Mom?”
My mother’s voice came across the line. It sounded hollow, echoing lightly, like the connection was off. “Charlie, are you okay?”
It was a strange question, and she didn’t sound right. “I’m fine.” I sat up and shook my head to clear it. “What’s going on? Is everything all right?”
Please don’t say Dad’s heart, please don’t say Dad’s heart.
She cleared her throat on the other end of the phone call. “Well, dear, there’s been … I don’t know how to…” She took a deep breath. “Something’s happened.”
Oh, God.
My finger joints ached around the phone. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t speak the words into existence. I took my own deep breath and forced myself to go on. “Is it Dad?”
“What? No, why would you ask that?”
“Mom, just tell me what’s going on.”
“Something happened to the four boys … to the four boys who hurt you.” Her voice trailed off.
Her words were a cold jolt down my spine, and numbness spread along my ribcage. Swinging my legs off the bed, I stood and walked over to the window, trying to think.
“Are you there, dear? Did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you.” I didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Do you want to know what happened?”
I know what happened.
“What happened?”
“They’re … dead. All of them.”
I know that. I was the one who killed them, but I can’t tell you that.
The thought was cold, already compartmentalized away from my core. It had been dealt with and filed away. I needed to respond to my mom, to tell her something. Silence boomed on the phone. I said what I thought I would have said if I’d had no foreknowledge, if I hadn’t played a hand in the men’s deaths.
“Good.”
My mom took in a sharp jerk of breath.
“What else do you want, Mom? You know what they did to me. I don’t feel sad for them, not at all.”
“I know, Charlie. I know. It’s just that—”
A voice broke in, cutting her off.
A man’s voice. “Hang up, Mrs. Moore.”
The bad connection wasn’t a bad connection at all.
My mom’s voice wavered. “I’m sorry, dear. They made me call.”
“It’s all right, Mom. I’ll talk to him.”
“I can call our lawyer.”
“Mrs. Moore, clear the line. Right now.” The man’s voice was sharp, commanding. Used to being listened to.
“Mom, you should go. I don’t think I need a lawyer.”
“I love you.” I could hear the start of tears in her voice. I’d heard that same catch a thousand times before.
“I love you too. Kiss Dad for me.”
She didn’t say anything else, but I could feel her leave the line. I didn’t speak, waiting to let whoever was there go first. That felt safer, smarter. I didn’t know how to do this. I’d have to lie.
I didn’t have to wait long.
“Miss Moore, I’m Special Agent Bronson. May I ask you a few questions?” The voice was quiet—not speaking quietly, but quiet of its own nature. It didn’t sound like a voice that ever yelled at the game on TV or screamed at the dog. It was a voice that spoke little and only once, and if you weren’t listening it wouldn’t repeat itself.
I pushed the phone harder against my ear. “Okay.”
“Have you left your city of residence in the last twenty-four hours?”
Tyler Woods’s house was in my parents’ city, in the same district where I had gone to high school. Five and a half hours away from where I lived now.
“No,” I lied.
“You have not flown or driven from your home in the last twenty-four hours?”
“I went to work and then to a friend’s apartment, but that’s all.” Lie.
“Thank you, Miss Moore. That will be all for now.”
“Wait, what? That’s all you want to know?” Silence echoed. I wasn’t sure he was still there. “Mr. Bronson?”
“Special Agent Bronson,” he corrected. “There is one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Miss Moore, do you own a sword?”