Calla stood poised on the threshold of Vincent's house, her finger hovering over the doorbell.
I want to know the truth.
The dogs hadn't yet caught her scent. She could still turn around. Turn around and—
And what? Ignore him? Pretend that he isn't breathing down your neck, ready to expose all your secrets?
She pressed the doorbell, only to realize that the damn thing didn't work. So she rapped her knuckles against the screen door instead, and grimaced when the chorus of dogs immediately sprang to life.
He doesn't know what he's getting into. She'd told herself this again and again, each time she caught her reflection in the mirror—and the cold, dark look in her eyes. He doesn't realize what's waiting at the end of this rainbow.
Vincent would find no pot of gold, no glorious truth revealed. He would find only darkness and death.
He would damn them all.
"Back!" Vincent's harsh order reached her before his shuffling footsteps did. And then he was pulling back the door and glaring through the screen—
"Hey," she offered lamely.
"Calla!" He immediately stepped outside, struggling with the broken screen door and fighting to keep the pack of dogs at bay—a mixture of hounds and retrievers. While Vincent's back was turned, she pinned the nearest dog with a narrow-eyed glare. Its bark faded off into a low whine.
"Sorry," she muttered as he finally wrestled the door into place, panting. He wore only gray sweatpants and a white tank top, which emphasized his chest in a manner that was far too distracting, given their current predicament.
A predicament he hasn't brought to your doorstep yet. Why hadn't he approached her with his wild theories? Did he suspect the truth? Did he fear her?
But as he gazed down at her, she saw no fear. Only embarrassment. "Hey. I wasn't..."
"I know." She wrapped her arms around his middle. He immediately embraced her, sighing into her hair.
"I'm glad you came," he murmured, the sound of the dogs nearly drowning out his words. "Wanna get out of here?"
"Only if you do." She smiled up at him. His broad grin told her that was exactly what he wanted to do.
He nodded to his truck. "Wait in the truck. The keys are inside." He shoved aside the screen door and disappeared back into the house, cursing at the dogs as he went.
Smiling to herself, Calla turned and trotted down the steps, onto the cracked walkway below. The front yard looked as it always did—littered with an assortment of beer cans and fast food wrappers, most of it overflowing from the garbage bin near the road. She wrinkled her nose at the mess, and at the man who had caused it, sitting somewhere within that wretched house.
She'd met Vincent's father only once. The encounter had been an unpleasant one, with the din of the dogs as their backdrop. The reek of alcohol on his breath, the red rimming his eyes, the stains on his shirt...none of it had had much effect on her.
It was the way he spoke to his son. The way Vincent sometimes flinched if the man so much as spoke.
He'd grunted at her from right there on that porch, muttered something about another one, eh? to his son, and that had been that. He'd disappeared inside without another word, leaving Vincent standing in the front yard, fuming, with his arm around her waist.
Calla climbed into the passenger seat and started the engine, rubbing her hands together to ward off the frigid air. Vincent no doubt had gone to grab a jacket, maybe even an overnight bag. He had the art of packing down to a science.
Calla fiddled with the radio while she waited, but this far back into the woods, there were no decent stations. She sat back and sighed, hands in her lap. She knew that spending this time one-on-one with Vincent was risky. And not because she still had reservations about their physical relationship; they'd definitely made progress in that area, even though they had yet to "do the deed", as Cooper would so succinctly put it.
No. She was far more concerned about his other extracurricular activities—and his questionable taste in tutors.
Calla checked the dashboard and frowned. Ten minutes had already passed. Vincent wasn't one to linger in his home, considering how much he loathed its owner. She rolled down the window and craned her head outside, into the biting air beyond.
Trees rustled. Dogs bayed. And from somewhere inside the house, she heard it: the sound of breaking furniture.
Calla spilled out of the truck and hit the ground running. She fell into a familiar sprint, and within seconds had bounded onto the front porch. She could hear shouting now, a flurry of wild curses—
She ripped the screen door off of its one remaining hinge and burst into the house. The smell hit her first: alcohol and piss. She scowled into the darkness within. The air was barely warmer than it had been outside.
Things had gotten worse here. Much worse.
Vincent's father stood in the center of the living room, towering over his son, who was slowly pushing himself off the floor. The dogs had gathered around them, tails wagging and barking, barking, barking. As Vincent got to his feet, a beam of light filtering in from the nearby window hit his face. His nose and mouth were a bloody mess.
Calla didn't think. She reacted. In an instant, she remembered standing at the threshold, one hand lingering on the chipped doorframe, her eyes wide as she took in the scene before her. In the next, she was moving, striding across the living room. Her boot connected with one of the dog's snouts, and it scurried away, whining. The rest followed suit.
Vincent's father took notice of her then. His eyes, foggy with drink, narrowed on her. He raised a finger in her face—when had she gotten so close to the man? "You—"
A hand reached out and grabbed that finger. But not her hand, as she'd half-expected. Calla watched, fascinated, as the hand twisted the finger aside. It gave a sharp snap, and suddenly Vincent's father was on his knees, howling in agony.
Vincent turned to her, his eyes wide. He grabbed her shoulder. "Go. Get out—"
"Boy," his father roared, already pushing himself to his feet. "You're gonna regret that, you little shit!"
Vincent released her and shoved his father back. He fell into the nearby armchair, spluttering. The armchair groaned beneath his weight. One of the legs had already broken off.
Vincent whirled on her. "Now—"
"Get your things," Calla said, tense. She didn't look at him.
Vincent cast his father a glare, but his old man didn't bother standing a second time. He sat slumped in the armchair, panting and cradling his injured finger.
What a pathetic waste of human life, Calla thought, completely absorbed by the image of him in that chair. One of the dogs scuttled forward and licked his elbow. He barely reacted. A man like this wouldn't be missed. I could bury him alive and no one would notice. Or I could leave his rotting corpse right here in the living room for the dogs to enjoy.
Her eyes flickered to a stain against the wall. Beer dripped down into the carpet, where a shattered bottle lay, discarded. The sight made her tense up. She saw Vincent's father there, in the chair. But then it wasn't his father at all. It was Rachel, and she was dead, bleeding out on the floor—
No. It was his father. Just his father.
I'll pull out your teeth, she thought as their eyes locked. His were bleary. Unfocused. One by one. And I'll take that broken finger of yours. Snap it right off. I'll cut it into tiny pieces and feed them to you. And then I'll peel the skin off your back and hang it outside to dry. It wouldn't be so different from the cat...
Something in his eyes shifted. Even in his alcohol-induced state, his instincts had kicked in. Run, they whispered as she faced him down. Run run run run run run—
"Calla," Vincent murmured, his fingers wrapping around her wrist. She tore her eyes away from his father. He'd thrown on his letterman jacket and had a bag over one broad shoulder.
He jerked his head toward the door. Calla followed him, her eyes lingering on the dog guarding the open door. Its ears flattened as she passed. A low growl slipped through its teeth, and then they were gone, out into the cold.
The air brought her back to her senses. She gulped it down, chest heaving. Vincent wrapped her in his arms, and it was only then that she realized she was shaking.
He thinks I'm upset. She rested her head against his shoulder, numb. He doesn't realize. He doesn't know...
The beast in her bones was not fear—it was fury. Fury enough to tear the world in two. Fury enough to soak her skin with. Cold and hard and fast.
She closed her eyes. "I shouldn't have come," she whispered. The words kept the beast at bay, even as it prowled within her chest, biding its time.
You've kept me locked up too long, it whispered to her. Let me out. Let me out to play.
LET. ME. OUT.
"I'm sorry," Vincent said into her hair. His words were a whisper, and still they broke. "I'm so sorry."
She leaned back and took his face between her fingers. "You have nothing to apologize for." Her fingers brushed the edge of his mouth, his nose, at the blood there.
Rivers and oceans of it, the beast purred.
Vincent went to wipe the edge of his mouth with his sleeve, but she shook her head and forced his arm back down. "Don't. Here." She made for the driver's side. "Get in."
He didn't argue as he jumped into the passenger seat. Didn't argue as she settled in, familiarizing herself with the knobs and levers and pedals. She still didn't have her license, but that wouldn't stop her.
She leaned over and popped open the glove compartment, dragging out a handful of napkins. "Here."
Vincent gathered them in his lap and stared down at them, as if he might be able to find the answers of the universe somewhere in the paper.
I wish it were that easy.
She focused on the road ahead as they pulled away from the house—away from the pain and the confusion that had been those last five minutes. But there was no leaving it behind. Not really.
The pain and confusion lingered—in the air between them, in the bruises along his jaw and under his eyes, already blossoming to their full potential. Calla searched for the words that would dull the pain. Those simple, magic words. They had to exist. They had to.
A fool's hope, she chided herself, glancing sidelong at Vincent. There is no bandaid for this.
Vincent turned away from her, pointing his face toward the window. She thought nothing of it as she followed the bends in the road, letting it take her to a place she knew would offer them a few hours of privacy. But as the silence stretched, punctuated only by the dead rattle of the radio, she began to hear a different sort of sound. A gasping, wretched sound.
She turned, alarmed. Vincent held his face in his hands. His shoulders shook.
Calla immediately pulled the truck over to the side of the road. She wrestled with the gear shift for a few seconds, cursing her ineptitude, until she'd finally managed to put the truck in park.
"Vincent," she whispered, leaning over the center console. Her hands found his face. She hauled him toward her, so that his face was buried in her shoulder. "Vincent." His name was a plea on her lips. Tell me how to fix it, she wanted to say. Tell me what to do.
But there was nothing to do, no words to say. So she held him. And she waited.
She wasn't sure how much time passed. The sun had begun its descent over the treeline, plunging the world into twilight. Her body had started to protest—her joints locking up, her fingers going numb from running through his hair, again and again—when he finally straightened, searching her face for disgust, or embarrassment, or discomfort. Some sign that she found his breakdown to be a weakness.
She leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. He closed his eyes and leaned into her once more, wrapping his arm around her waist.
They said nothing as she drove on, around another bend in the road. A left turn. Another curve. And then she was pulling off the road, back in their old spot—the place he'd taken her for their anniversary. Her skin lit up with the memory of his hands against her. When she looked at him again, his eyes were on her.
Lingering. Longing.
Grief does strange things to people, she thought, cutting the engine and opening the door. He followed her lead.
Calla grabbed the quilt she'd spotted in the backseat and took his hand. Together, they trekked through the path in the trees and to the now-overflowing creekbed. Vincent took the quilt and laid it out on a bed of damp grass. The warmth of the sun still lingered on the ground, soaking into their skin as they reclined, hands intertwined.
Vincent twisted to face her. She did the same.
"Calla." Her name on his lips did inexplicable things to her. She closed her eyes against a tidal wave of memories. The sound of his father's bones breaking. The sensation of the knife in her hand. The warmth of skin and blood beneath her fingers as she—
"Calla," Vincent whispered again. She opened her eyes and traced her finger against the bloody split in his lip. He shuddered and pulled her close, and then closer still.
His lips pressed against her forehead. "Please." He said the word with such conviction. As if this—this moment, suspended in eternity—was all there would ever be.
Calla wanted to feel the same. She wanted to. But she could not.
She could not—because she knew what the future held. Blood and darkness and death. Her path had been laid before her long ago, and that path led to a place where he could not follow. Where he would not follow.
She helped him out of his jacket. His boots. His shirt. Layer by layer. Piece by piece. Until he was bare before her, and she before him.
Bare. Exposed.
And still, he couldn't see it—the thing beneath her skin. The beast in the dark.
"I love you," he whispered in her ear.
She cradled his face between her hands. And even though she knew it was a lie, she whispered the words back.