Adam fell through the air, shrieking with pleasure, as he hit the river and plunged to its soft bottom. He gazed up through the tannic water, rippling with sunlight, and thought—as he did every time, lungs straining—I’m not going to make it. But he did, bursting into the air, flinging water from his hair and mouth as he heard Danny and JJ laughing… Except that wasn’t Danny he heard laughing; Adam heard himself, and shuddered with the sense of divergence.
But then something shifted—he was shaken loose—and Adam was somewhere else, someone else. He was with the boy, Aaron. His eyes were shut in a stupor that felt both reassuring and wrong, like the moment you begin to realize you’ve eaten too much candy and are going to be sick. Because with the boy’s eyes closed, Adam couldn’t see anything, and some part of him remembered that’s why I’m here. To see.
Adam felt a hand on his own—in his own physical body—and with it, a lifting of the fog. In order to see, Adam needed to go back where he’d been before. Back to Danny. Adam felt the key around his neck, and remembered the cool river water, the simultaneously hilarious and revolting sensation of a piece of slimy grass stuck to the side of his face. And he felt himself return, except this time his body was bigger, more sure. He (Danny) sat sideways on a cheap motel bed, leaning forward. One palm was damp. Why is it damp? Somehow Adam knew the why was important.
It was damp from pressing against a child’s mouth. Damp from the child’s breath, trapped beneath it. Danny’s hands were suffocating Aaron.
Danny, no…
The hands hesitated and released their pressure, but remained pressed to Aaron’s face. Fear and anger knit together into something stronger as Adam screamed, No!
Pain ripped through Adam’s skull, as though his brain were covered by skin that was being peeled slowly away. The primal, deafening sound that accompanied the pain made him wonder if his ears were bleeding. Part of Adam knew that he was making that sound happen—not alone; with some help—but he didn’t know how to stop.
Harlan’s fingers squeezed Adam’s so tightly the pain cut through everything else. That’s when Adam realized—it wasn’t that he didn’t know how to stop, it’s that he didn’t want to. Harlan tried to push him out, to make him stop, but Adam was unwilling to let go of what he desperately wanted to destroy. Just a little longer…
Enough, Harlan’s voice said, before giving Adam one last mighty shove and releasing his grip on his hand.
Adam’s palms fell to the floor and his head dropped to his chest. He opened his eyes, frantically searching… there. His kneecap shifted sideways painfully when it struck the hard wooden floor. Adam scrambled forward and got his head over the trashcan just in time, vomiting until he thought he’d die—either choke to death or asphyxiate. Finally, ears ringing, he was left with the sour smell, his throat acid raw and his eyes tearing. Adam coughed, wiped his face with his hand and saw a light smear of blood. He blinked away the tears in time to see a red drop fall. His nose was bleeding. Not like Teddy’s had been, pouring everywhere, but a small trickle.
He looked over his shoulder and saw Teddy and Harlan still sitting, eyes shut. Harlan roused first. Adam made his way to the man on still-shaky knees and sat on his heels, watching Harlan blink and waiting for him to speak. He was afraid to disturb him, unsure whether Harlan’s eyes saw what was in the room in front of him or some other place entirely.
Harlan’s body jerked, as though flinching from something Adam couldn’t see, and he inhaled a big wheezing breath. He tried to speak, but it seemed his vocal cords wouldn’t cooperate. Harlan cleared his throat, closing his eyes momentarily as if doing so pained him, and said, “Bring us three jars.”
The kitchen of the tiny house seemed a world away now. “Which ones?”
Harlan licked his lips and swallowed noisily. Adam could hear the stickiness of his throat. “Should have an A on the lid.”
Adam braced himself against the cot, standing on unsteady legs. He made it to the kitchen in a kind of fugue where each step was lost to him by the time he’d taken the next one. Adam stared at the rack of Mason jars. Carrying three at once was a challenge. He grabbed one firmly in his hand, hugged the others to his belly with the same arm, then used his free arm to support the jar bottoms.
By the time he reached Harlan, Teddy was coming around as well. Harlan took the jars and swirled one in his hand before passing it back to Adam. “Drink this.”
There was a sensation of cool liquid in Adam’s mouth, but nothing else. He watched as Harlan swirled the other two jars, removed their lids, and handed one to Teddy, who still hadn’t spoken. Blood trickled from the man’s nose, and Adam put his hand up to his own. It seemed to have stopped. He nodded at Teddy. “Your nose is bleeding again.”
Teddy blotted his nose with a handkerchief before sipping at the jar with a shudder.
“I can’t taste it,” Adam said. He seemed to have lost his sense of taste.
“Lucky you,” Teddy croaked.
Thirsty, Adam drank halfway through the quart jar before finally asking, “What just happened?”
Both men continued sipping at their own beverages.
“I know it was Danny,” Adam said, “and I know he had the boy. Is Aaron okay? Where are they?”
Harlan stretched his legs out straight and slid down to his elbows. Any lower, and he’d be lying down. “I don’t know. I don’t know if the boy’s okay, and I’m not sure where they are. A cheap motel, but one cheap motel looks pretty much like any other.”
Adam set his jar on the floor next to him. All for nothing. He’d run away from Cold Springs—probably made things worse by doing so—and it was all for nothing. They’d learned nothing.
“Easy,” Harlan said. “That’s why we had Teddy on the team, too. While you and I anchored ourselves to Danny, your uncle was digging around, trying to find stray bits of impressions and information that no one thinks is important enough to protect.”
He turned to Teddy, and for a moment Adam thought Harlan’s uncertainty matched his own. Then Teddy said, “Loganville. He’s in Loganville, across from a used car lot.”
Harlan said, “That’s not more than an hour or so from here.”
“True, but I doubt he’s going to stick around and wait for us. Best thing to do is call it in. What do you think the chances are that the path around back is a quicker road out?”
“You’d know better than we would,” Harlan said. “There are a lot of things around here you’d know better than we would.”
Adam watched the two men staring at each other, unable to figure out the source or the meaning of the uneasy undercurrent. It had been there before they’d embarked, but not nearly so strong.
“Drink your tea,” Teddy said. “I need one of those sandwiches. Adam, you got the keys? Not sure we didn’t lock up out of habit.”
Adam found them on the nightstand and tossed them to Teddy, who caught them and asked, “You want one too?”
The thought of peanut butter turned Adam’s stomach, but that same stomach felt as if it were eating itself. “Sure,” he said.
The worn springs of the cot protested as Teddy pushed off, standing only on his second attempt. He had a bit of a limp on his way to the door that Adam hadn’t noticed before, a slight drag of his left leg that reminded Adam of someone else. He waited until Teddy had passed through the door before asking, “What really happened? What’s going on?”
Adam got the impression Harlan was only half listening to him, head cocked at an angle as if he were listening instead to a storm on the horizon, trying to calculate when it would arrive. “Harlan!” he said.
Harlan finally met his eyes, and once again, Adam saw the same uncertainty he felt.
“I’m not sure,” Harlan admitted, and headed for the door. As he reached the threshold, the sound of the pickup’s engine cut through the air. “Shit!” Harlan shouted, and broke into a lurching, old man jog, Adam close on his heels.
Teddy must have decided the unfamiliar path around back of the house wasn’t worth the risk. He was turning the truck around, pointing it back the way they’d come. It took a moment for the implications to sink in: Teddy is leaving the property, and leaving us behind.
“Teddy!” Harlan bellowed, but stopped a few yards past the front steps. So did Adam. Either Teddy would stop, or he wouldn’t. Chasing him wouldn’t make a bit of difference, and Adam really didn’t have it in him to keep running.
Teddy paused, truck idling. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll call it in on the way. And I’ll send someone for you.”
“Eventually,” Harlan said.
Teddy pursed his thin lips, at best slightly apologetic. “Eventually,” he agreed.
“This about Virgil?” Harlan asked.
Teddy shook his head, but Adam thought it was less an answer than a refusal to answer.
“You don’t want to be part of this,” Teddy said. He nodded in Adam’s direction. “And they’re not done with him yet. Keep an eye on Adam.”
The truck kicked up gravel as it sped toward the steep road and Teddy battled the temperamental clutch.
Harlan said, as a cloud of dust enveloped them, “I always do.”