December 20, 4:46 pm
Oh shit.
Oh shit shit shit.
Oh shit.
“Spencer, keep ’em closed.”
I do, because I don’t want to open my eyes and confirmed that what just happened…just happened. I don’t want to believe that Dad killed someone right in front of me.
“C’mon, walk along with me.” He takes me by the arm. “Keep ’em closed.” I’m led somewhere. I stumble a couple of times from not knowing where to step. My knees feel like I left them somewhere else, in another reality that a gunshot pushed me out of. “Stay there.”
I hear a door close.
“Eyes shut, Spencer. Now take off your shirt.”
It’s enough to finally break the lock on my tongue. “Wh-what?”
“Let’s just say there’s something on your shirt that I’d rather you didn’t see, okay?”
“Dad? What did you do?” He pulls the shirt off me. It’s a little cold in this room. I don’t hear any traffic, so I’d have to guess we’re still inside wherever we are and that there isn’t an open window anywhere near. “God, please say you didn’t kill that guy.”
“I didn’t kill that guy. Eyes shut.”
I know he’s lying.
Something’s put in my hands—fabric, I can make out sleeves. I start to put it on. “Not yet.”
Something wet rubs my cheek, my forehead, just under my right eye, my chin. “Okay, now you can put it on.”
The process is slow, methodical. I actually have to stop and remember how to put on a shirt, work buttons. The fabric is smooth, maybe silk. I have to wonder where he got it. “Dad…”
“Not yet.” He takes me by the arm again, leading me. I hear more doors shut, and the path isn’t straight; we wobble and curve and swerve our way through rooms. He doesn’t speak as we move, other than occasional instructions of direction changes, or asking me to step high.
“Dad, what did you do?”
“Spencer.” He sighs. “Son, I know you don’t really want the answer to that question. Let’s just say the Cobalt Order probably isn’t something to worry about anymore. Don’t ask why, that’s a story you don’t want to carry, and it’s taking every ounce of willpower I’ve got not to tell you.” His voice has the edge he had a few years ago, when Selah stole his mind, when he nearly killed me. “Now stop asking.”
I couldn’t say how long we moved through corridors, rooms. If we were taking a direct route through the place or avoiding people or what. I know that I’m under no compulsion to keep my eyes closed and that I can have the truth if I just look and see.
But I don’t want to see. Not this.
I can figure out what probably happened, but until I open my eyes, it’s just a theory, a story I’d maybe tell later, with some boasts thrown in, because maybe, if it’s a story, then it’s not really happening to me. If I don’t open my eyes, if I don’t see the blood splattered on my face, on my clothes, then I can tell myself it didn’t happen. I can come up with something improbable, but still possible, something to squeak through the cracks of reasonable doubt.
I won’t have to accept that my father may very well have killed a lot of people to get me out of here. I should be okay with it, really. There are a bunch of movies about this very thing, though the badass action-hero father is rescuing his daughter or avenging her honor. That’s what stories tell us now, that it’s okay to take so many lives if you’re protecting an innocent, if you’re protecting your family. People would tell you that, you know?
But those people didn’t feel their fathers wipe blood off their face and possibly brain matter from just under their eyes. And my father knows that. He’s a violent asshole who walked out on me and my mother, but he knows that. And I don’t know what to do.
We enter a garage. I can hear the echo of our steps, the openness of the air, the change in temperature. I hear him tap a car door, the locks instantly giving way to him, the alarm bleeping once, futilely, before his special, personal Coyote trick kills it off.
He helps me into the passenger seat, buckles my seat belt. I’m suddenly reminded of long drives to arcades that had Skee-Ball, where he’d run petty scams so I’d have money for the machines.
“Keep ’em closed.”
He gets in, starts the car by tapping the ignition, his knack of opening any lock applying to automobiles as well. The engine doesn’t roar, it’s quiet, thrumming, probably high-end, as the passenger seat is leather. The imposed darkness of my closed eyes takes a brighter tint a few seconds later, signaling we’re outside.
“Dad?”
“You can open your eyes now.”
We’re in a Jaguar, not Rourke’s Jag, and we’re definitely in Destry Bay, given the traffic. Dad is cloaked in a fine suit, to give the impression he didn’t steal the car. Reflexively, I cloak in a similar fashion when he looks away, not for the same reason. He’s taking streets that’ll lead us into Grunstadt. His face is calm, but every now and then he glances at me and smiles.
I want to ask him. I should ask him. “Dad?”
“Yeah, son?” His voice is weary, like when he’d come home from work. I never knew if he had a real job or was running games in Tolon Park or around Allora. He gave up the Feud for Mom and me, as long as he could, at least. He looks at me, smiles. “Never thought I’d see Rachel’s eyes again.” He gives my nose a playful tap.
“Dad, we need to talk about what happened.”
“Just…a couple more minutes, okay?” He takes a deep breath. “Just a couple more minutes where we’re a father and son in an eighty-thousand-dollar Jag and, I don’t know, on our way to a boardwalk down in Jersey for old times’ sake. Sorry it’s not the ’Vette. Got stolen again. Damn Foxes.”
I should worry about saving James, getting to him, but that doesn’t feel like a priority. “Dad, we can’t go to Jersey.”
“I know.” His grip on the steering wheel tightens for a few seconds. “Just let me have it, okay?” He sets his jaw, the cracks growing in this temporary facade. “I didn’t have it with Hank, Thornton never wanted it, just…” He shows teeth while hitting the steering wheel. “Just let me have it with you a couple more minutes, okay?”
“Dad?”
Another long breath, a few more seconds of silence as we get on the expressway leading into Grunstadt and eventually the Benedict. “Yeah?”
I sag in the car seat, look at him—at me—catch my blue eyes, my mother’s eyes in the side view. “Lie to me?”
My father glances at me, nods silently and proceeds to tell me everything. Everything. The sidhe he beat to a bloody pulp to get the manor’s address, every look of fear, every thread cut for Fate, every bullet expended, the satisfaction taken in ending almost a thousand combined years of life. A Bard must hear the stories, after all, no matter their subject or violence, no matter how it’ll change the way a son will view his father, no matter how damaged the old fractured, frayed, less-than-perfect image of my father will now become.
So I did him that service in my request. I gave him the gift of uncertainty, asked a Coyote to give a fabricated account, so for a little longer he’s not some violent killer. There’ll be the chance it was all a lie, that he just snuck his way into the Cobalt Order’s house, got me out of there and knocked out the sidhe for his trouble, nothing more.
I know that’s not the truth, but for saving my life, for my father’s sake, I’ll try to believe.