Page 37 of Where Light Cannot Follow

Untouched pastries sit in the center of the table, smelling faintly of cinnamon and butter. Of Christmas mornings and fresh things coming out of the oven. It dredges up memories I don’t possess, but they linger anyway, right on the edge of recognition.

Tears prick my eyes unexpectedly, and I blink them away rapidly.

This is unacceptable. I don't understand where this is coming from. Perhaps it's the bad feeling wrapping around my bones, keeping me from lifting the pen, signing the forms. Perhaps it's because this time of year is dense with my worst memories. Any man, no matter how disciplined, is prone to the occasional moment of foolish sentimentalism.

I look back at the door.

No one is there. But it feels imperative that I rise, walk to it, whisper, don't go. Which makes no logical sense.

I'm not signing this paperwork. Things that seem too good to be true usually are. And something in me knows this entire arrangement is wrong. Every instinct I've honed over fifteen years is screaming. Abruptly, I stand.

"Mr. Dante," Whitmore glances up at me, his brow furrowed, "everything all right?"

"Why do you call me Mr. Dante?"

He frowns. "Sir?"

A flicker of memory surfaces. A furrowed brow beneath golden curls. Lips quirking into a smirk. Ancient eyes that hold too much sorrow for their youthful face. The disrespectful drop of a title to my name that inexplicably feels less like disrespect and more like recognition.

"Dante! Please!"

The scream breaks through in a rush right as water spills over my mouth. I choke, sucking in sludge, choking on grit and salt and grime. I sputter and slash my arms forward, attempting to swim, but the water drags me down.

"Dante?"

"Virgil?!" I gasp.

He’s here, in the water beside me, tears streaming down his face, his eyes bright and searing. He's not swimming, though. Not struggling.

"How do we get out?" I jut my chin above the waterline.

Virgil rises slightly, pulling himself up, gravity merely a suggestion to him. His sweater doesn't even appear damp, much less muddied or damaged. He releases a shaky breath. "You broke the loop."

"I'm drowning."

"I can't help you." Virgil sounds desperate. Hopeless.

I remember, then. I'm in hell. I'm dead. I was consumed by a loop. "Damn it," I scream, releasing all the mortal restraint I'd so carefully armored myself with. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

"Swim, Dante! Try to make it to shore!" Virgil pushes himself forward toward a narrow spit of sand that stretches ahead and leads into darkening mist.

I follow, holding in my panic and fury, and swim. I focus on the strokes, my arms crashing into the water. The suit jacket drags me down, forcing my head under. I come up to Virgil crying my name, and I fumble with the buttons—the jacket, the vest, four thousand dollars of Italian wool—and let it sink.

Then I push again. One arm. Then another.

Just make it out of the water. That's all I need to do.

Massive birds with jagged wing feathers circle ahead. I'm fairly certain I can't die again here, but what happens if one drowns in hell? The shudder that thought sends coursing down my spine propels me forward.

Clumps of dead grass, stripped branches and something that might be bone float in the water. I push my face through them, gagging as the debris spreads across my skin. But it doesn't matter. Escape does.

Virgil hauls himself onto the sandbar, but he doesn't drip with lingering moisture. He turns and beckons me with both hands, his gaze fixed on me with an intensity that makes me suspect if some wild beast charged him, he wouldn't even notice. He'd embrace oblivion if it meant my salvation.

My feet find the muck of the swamp's bottom, and I stumble forward, sputtering water, dripping tea-brown sludge, draped in damp moss and bits of bark and sediment.

Virgil reaches for me, like he might grip my arms and steady me, but then his hands shoot back to his sides. "Oh, Dante. Fortuna be thanked."

I stand there breathing, my shirt plastered to my skin, my hair matted to my skull. Virgil looks at me like I offer salvation or damnation or perhaps both wound together.