Page 23 of Requiem & Reverie

“Yes. I will. But I need you to keep this between us. Don’t say anything to Jonah, or Carl might just slip through my fingers before I can get to him.”

“And … how do I know … you’re telling the truth?”

He lifts the necklace from my throat and stares down at it. “Your sister had one like it. She was wearing it that night. As I held her, she kinda talked a little deliriously. Said if she ever saw her parents again, she’d tell them she was sorry. And that she loved you all.”

Eyes filled with tears, I shake my head. “Nora wouldn’t say that. Not to me.”

“You’re right. The word she used was lanu, or something. I thought it was her name.”

The sound of the word is an ice pick, chipping away at my heart. “She overdosed then—that’s how she died? No … beating, or burning, or drowning?” My nose stings with the threat of more tears, which I swallow back. “She died in your arms.”

“Yes. She seemed at peace. Like she’d fallen asleep and didn’t wake up.”

Tipping my head back, I close my eyes and imagine that. Imagine her dying quietly, peacefully in the woods, wrapped in his sweatshirt as he held her. It’s far more comforting than the thought that she burned alive, or died alone. “I won’t say anything. I promise.” My thoughts spin like a tornado, and I try to nab the bits he’s offered, to make sense of the confusion. “You think Carl is after me, then?”

“For the longest time, I didn’t know why. But I think he might be trying to recreate what happened that day.”

“With me.”

“I won’t let that happen. I couldn’t save your sister because I was a boy. A weak and frightened boy. I’m not that boy anymore, Nola. I won’t let him hurt you. Or Oliver.”

I’m overcome with hope and sadness, and a clashing of emotions that have my head aching, my eyes burning. Wrapping my arms around him, I pull him into me and kiss him. I don’t know why. Maybe because he’s the bearer of something. Some news that connects my son, my sister, and answers questions that have long plagued me. Or maybe the human connection feels nice. The momentary slip into something less dark.

The front door slams shut, breaking our kiss.

“Jonah.” I slide my hands away from him, and wipe away the evidence of tears still hot on my cheeks. “You have to leave.”

Taking the nape of my neck, he draws me in for one more kiss. “Get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”

Striding past me, he slips out of the bedroom window, makes his way down the roof of the porch, and I just reach the window, as he leaps to the ground.

I want to believe him more than anything. More than my fears, or the voices in my head, telling me he’s wrong.

More than my doubts that I’ll ever see my son again.

8

Voss

Up the street, I make my way to my car, parked a few houses away from Nola’s place.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her everything. I wanted to. For reasons that don’t make a damn bit of sense to me, I feel compelled to confess everything to this woman, to clean the slate and have her see me for what I truly am. A purging of sorts, letting all that shit from my past hit her like a dose of reality, a reason why she should’ve walked out of that elevator the day in the hotel and told me to fuck off.

Not even I can face that part of my history without wanting to swallow a bullet, so I’m fairly certain she’d have taken that harder.

When the time is right, I’ll tell her everything, what I was forced to do that night, even at the risk of her despising me for almost following through, but for now, she doesn’t need to know that part of my history.

I wasn’t lying about trying to save Nora, though. After Carl forced me on her, I stole a moment of weakness, as he laughed at me, mocking me. I’m certain, had it not rained the night I carried her out of that house, had it not been freezing cold and dark, I could’ve probably gotten the two of us to safety. But fate didn’t see it that way, and I blame myself for that. For being cursed from birth, to lose everything that mattered to me.

I didn’t know the girl. Didn’t know where she was from, but I’d resigned myself to help her—my single most objective having been: get her away from Carl.

I failed.

Not just her, but myself. Her father. Her mother, and her brother. But most of all, I failed Nola.

Won’t happen twice.

I’ve spent every evening the last couple days parked outside of her house, or at Harvey’s place, waiting for any sign of the white van to show up, but it hasn’t. He knows I’m watching closely now, and he’s undoubtedly waiting to make the next move. Between the police drive-by that happens a couple times a day, her brother staying the night, and me watching like a hawk, she’s pretty well guarded.