Page 88 of The Sixth Spring

Will took a breath and turned to start his walk back to the spring.

Just as he did, blue and red flashing lights pulled up behind him.

A police car.

Will’s heart dropped into his stomach. The door opened and Gary was quick to get out of the car, one hand sliding to his gun like a threat.

“Been lookin’ for you,” Gary said. “You lied to me before, about what you were doin’ out the other morning. Did a little digging, and found a few things in a dumpster near there that belong to you.”

Panic and fear flooded his system. He knew, he’d found the bags of sugar.

Will had the immediate impulse to run, but the surprise of the confrontation and the way Gary’s hand was hovering on his gun kept him rooted in place.

In all the years they’d known each other, Will had never considered Gary to be a significant sort of threat. But now, right now, seeing the man’s hatred clear on his face, Will knew he would pull the gun. If Will turned and tried to run, the man would use it as just cause.

So Will didn’t. When Gary got to him and wrapped a hard hand around his arm to yank him toward the back of the police car, Will didn’t fight him. He went in stunned silence, body moving on autopilot.

It was only as the door shut, locking him inside, did Will think of Itori.

Itori, at the spring, waiting for him to show up.

And when he didn’t…?

Chapter 17

“Thought you were bein’ clever, I bet,” Gary said as he started the car.

Will pressed his lips together and stayed silent. Anything he said now could only hurt him. Whether he was guilty or not didn’t matter, not really. The only thing that mattered was Itori. Was getting back to him.

How though?

Now that Will was in the back of a cop car, there weren’t a lot of opportunities for escape. Gary hadn’t cuffed him, but that was about all Will had going for him.

He looked out the window as Gary started to turn the car around.

His eyes landed on a trailer. In the window, there was a face.

His father.

Their eyes met. Will knew immediately that his father recognized him in the back of the car. They stared at each other across the distance, weighing the value of what was left between them.

Then his father reached over, and the blinds snapped shut.

Well fuck you too, Will thought.

No matter how this all ended, he’d never come back here. He was wiping his hands clean of it. Fuck him.

The car started back toward the center of town.

Gary drove slow, negotiating the rough roads, and Will’s thoughts went back to Itori. What would happen when Will didn’t show up at the spring? Itori had said if Will’s answer was no, that he not come back. Then Itori would…

I will leave and–see what may come of it.

Itori had expressed on several occasions that he wasn’t confident about the length he had to travel on dryland for another waterway, and the energy it would require. They just simply hadn’t been able to shore him up enough, not with the way he was being drained.

In his head, Will could see it–Itori taking those first steps, forcing himself to stagger through the pain of the stretch. Walking deeper and deeper into the land, forced to keep going even when his steps started faltering.

And what happened when the stretching band of his energy finally snapped? When he’d used himself up and could go no further?