Toy Soldiers (Helford #1)

(30) Sanctuary

And there we were, lying supine on the roof of Jonathon’s home, with nothing to keep us company but the sound of the wind and the stars spelling out constellations in the inky black above us. His hand was in mine, holding it tightly, as I could feel the reassuring heat of his body beside mine. The moment I had gotten to his house after receiving a call from him asking me over late at night, I hadn’t quite known what to expect, but this wasn’t far from what I had imagined. His voice had been shaking, and his invitation was tentative, as if he wasn’t sure if this idea was the best he could have had. And I accepted only because I wanted to hear what he had to say, because I wanted to understand as much of him as I could.

He had led me up to the rooftop without speaking a word to me, only with a small distant smile before he took my hand and turned his back to lead me up the stairs. I hadn’t seen his father and that was probably for the better. I still didn’t understand a thing about Alexander DuPont, and I wanted to know a little bit more before I was able to look the man in the eye one more time.

I could hear Jonathon breathing, low and steady. I closed my eyes and just listened to it, breathing with him.

“What do you believe in?” Jonathon asked me after an hour of silence.

I turned my head to look at him. I caught his profile, looking up at the stars. The light from the street above casted an orange hue to his face, and it made him look like he was miles away, too far away for anyone to touch.

“What do you mean?” I murmured.

“God? Heaven?” He looked at me, his eyes smoldering. “Hell?”

I could have told him a million things without telling him anything about me. I could have smiled without humor and assured him that I only believed in Hell because I knew about the total evil of the world, because I knew that there was something evil that had its hand in the world for people like me to exist. Hell had to exist because I certainly wasn’t going to Heaven. I could have told him that without seeming like a monster, without him having to know a bit of my past.

Instead, I didn’t answer him. I just asked softly, hesitantly, “Do you?”

“I have to,” he told me, and then looked back to the sky. I watched him see the stars, watched the light sizzle from his eyes and join the ones above us. “I like to believe they do, at least. Because if there is a God, that means there is a Heaven, and that means that everyone I lost is there.”

I watched as a mask better than Rian’s, better than mine, came over Jonathon’s face. It made me sick. It was so wrong to be there, so wrong that he would ever need to be anyone other than simply who he is. I hated to think that he had any connection to the world that I lived in, that our worlds were closer to being the same than I wanted to believe.

I didn’t say anything. It felt like all of the emotions I had tried to shove down into my body, all of the ones in the corner of my mind, it felt like they were coming out to play, and I couldn’t let that happen. When he spoke of his family being somewhere better, I had to push down the thoughts of my own family, because I had a feeling that they weren’t standing next to Jonathon’s.