Chapter 4 #2
Cillian tightened his grip on the rifle, thinking about what Samantha had said and the furious evidence of a terrifying night she’d somehow survived. “We don’t have any proof.”
Mac looked back at him, eyes narrowed beneath the brim of his hat. “You grew up here. It’s always a bear when it comes to outsiders.”
“And what are we supposed to believe? That it was the lights?”
“Don’t,” Mac said sharply, stepping closer. “Don’t name them.”
Cillian frowned, uncertainty crawling beneath his skin. “They’re just stories, aren’t they?”
“What do you think?”
“Sometimes I think I don’t know the forest, and I grew up here.”
Mac’s mouth twisted into a hard little smile. “Good. You might survive it, then.”
Cillian looked back at the cabin, at the marks of something that had tried desperately to get inside but ultimately was denied. The reports would say it was a bear, but Cillian wasn’t so sure now.
Mac clapped him on the shoulder before nodding back the way they’d come. “You’re overdue for lunch. Let’s head back to the road. I’ll help Lee handle the medical examiner when she makes it out here. We’re going to be patrolling in pairs after this.”
“Going to let her drive in the forest?” Cillian asked.
“Emergencies mean paperwork, but it’s paperwork the higher-ups can accept for vehicles near the reservoir.”
They trudged back down the path to the road, and Cillian didn’t let go of his rifle until they met up with everyone else. The medical examiner hadn’t arrived yet, but another patrolman had. Samantha sat in the back of his patrol car now, and Cillian was fine with that.
Cillian racked his rifle and drove away from the scene of the crime, not hungry after such a stressful morning, to say nothing of yesterday. Rather than turn on the radio, he called his mom.
“Hey, Mom,” Cillian said when she picked up. “Are you in Amherst?”
“My vacation isn’t until next week. I had to get through the drunken stupidness of the Fourth of July first, so yes, I’m still home,” his mother replied cheerfully enough.
“Was the emergency room that bad again?”
“I feel like people get stupider about fireworks every year.”
“Packed for your cruise yet?”
“Not yet. Did you want to come for a visit and help me out?”
“Probably not a good idea right now.”
Her tone changed from loving and welcoming to worried in a nanosecond. “Why? What’s wrong?”
What Cillian always called her mom radar seemed to be working fine. “I don’t know if you’ve heard the news yet, but Juliana and Ray were killed yesterday. It was a bear attack.”
The line was silent for long enough that Cillian thought he’d lost the connection. When his mom finally spoke up, her voice was quiet and flat, a thread of worry running through it. “A bear?”
Cillian glanced out the side window at the trees rushing past and the shadows beneath the branches before wrenching his gaze back to the road he was driving down. “That’s what Mac says.”
“That’s what the rangers always say during times like this.”
“What do you mean?”
His mother ignored the question. “What about Aisling?”
“She’s okay.” Cillian paused before saying, “Bran came back for her.”
“Ah.” His mother paused to clear her throat. “Have you spoken to him?”
“I kind of had to since I was the one who found Aisling.”
“So he’s back in Pelham. Will he stay?”
Cillian frowned, grip tightening on the steering wheel. “I don’t know. Why do you ask?”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t go on my cruise.”
“What? Mom, no! You’ve been looking forward to it for months. There’s no reason for you to stay.”
“It’s not safe in Pelham if there’s a rabid bear.”
“All the more reason for you to go on your cruise. There are no forests out in the middle of the sea near the Bahamas.”
“You’re in Pelham.”
“I’ll be fine. I know the forest.”
“I’d feel better if you left.”
“I’m not going to abandon my job for something like this.”
“Even if it meant you’d be safe?”
“Mom,” Cillian sighed. “I won’t leave Pelham. It’s just bears. I’ve been trained to handle those kinds of encounters.”
He wasn’t going to let Mac and his fellow rangers patrol alone. Then there was Bran.
He couldn’t stop thinking of Bran.
It was his mother’s turn to sigh. “Fine. Stay in town. But Cillian?”
“Yes, Mom?”
“Remember what I’ve always told you. No matter what, never trust a witch.”
It’d been his mantra as a child, whispered admonishments that were almost like a prayer when his mother spoke in the quiet corners of the town they found themselves in.
Cillian hadn’t understood the warning as a kid or a teenager because the only witches in town were the Gallaghers, and they’d never been anything but kind.
“Cillian?” his mother pressed.
“I won’t,” Cillian dutifully promised. “Have fun on your cruise.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
He ended the call, letting the thrum of the engine fill the cab for a few minutes before he switched on the radio.
Music kept him company all the way to Red’s Diner because even if he didn’t eat, he still needed to take a break.
Mac would supervise the handover of the crime scene to the police, and the medical examiner would hopefully finish her job in a few hours. Cillian’s report could wait.
Half a dozen cars were parked in the lot adjacent to Red’s Diner. The start of the lunch crowd wasn’t that terrible, and when Cillian pushed open the glass door, bell jingling overhead, he knew he’d have his pick of empty booths or tables, but the booth taken in the corner caught his eye first.
His heart rate sped up a little as he locked eyes with Bran, the sounds of the diner fading out to nothing in that moment, as if they were the only two people there.
It felt like a sucker punch to the gut, same as last night when he’d seen Bran for the first time in seven years.
The ache of Bran’s absence that he’d lived with since the end of high school dug itself deeper, reminding him of what he’d been missing and which his memory refused to give up.
Now that Bran was back, Cillian didn’t want to let go again, even though he knew he didn’t have the right to hold on anymore.
There was just something inside him demanding that he try.
Cillian swallowed hard, making a split-second decision he hoped he wouldn’t regret. He nodded at Lottie as he passed by the register, giving her a quiet hello before he reached Bran’s booth. The younger man was holding on to a mug of coffee with a white-knuckled grip, table empty of plates.
“Mind if I join you?” Cillian asked.
“Yes,” Bran said with the same clipped ruthlessness he’d greeted Cillian with last night. It left a sour taste in Cillian’s mouth, one he was determined to wash away with some company.
“It’s been a while.”
“I haven’t been counting.”
Cillian bit the inside of his cheek. “I just want to talk.”
Bran’s fingers flexed around the coffee mug, gaze dropping. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“Well, I do, so you can listen while I take my lunch break.” Cillian took a seat before he could second-guess his decision, staring defiantly across the table at Bran.
Bran scowled at him. “I don’t know why anyone ever thought you were a pushover when we were kids.”
“I had you to fight for me.”
“You don’t have me anymore.”
The words cut like a knife, and Cillian would’ve bled out from them if the wound had been real.
He clenched his teeth, refusing to look away.
Bran had changed; of course he had. Cillian knew he was still the same height as when they’d graduated high school, but that was the only thing that hadn’t changed.
He’d grown out his dark brown hair a bit, the faint wave to it much more prominent now.
Those hazel eyes that had always caught Cillian’s gaze with silent mirth in homeroom and other classes when they were younger now looked at him with a wealth of emotion he didn’t think was meant for only him.
Lottie bustled up to the table, notepad in her apron and pencil tucked behind one ear as she set a glass of soda in front of Cillian.
She was an older woman in her fifties and co-owner of Red’s Diner.
Her graying red hair was the signature look for the women in her family and the reason for the name of the diner that had existed since the early 1900s.
The crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes deepened when she smiled at them.
“Well, doesn’t this feel familiar? I remember serving you boys as kids, and now look at you, such handsome young men. Your usual, Cillian?”
“Thanks, Lottie,” Cillian said, deciding he was hungry after all.
“Coming right up, sweetheart.” She turned her attention to Bran, expression softening. “And for you and your sister? You both finally ready for lunch?”
Bran shook his head, letting go of his coffee mug. “We’ll be leaving as soon as Aisling finishes up her game.”
Cillian looked past him at the far corner of the diner, where Lottie’s mother and father had built a small arcade nearly forty years ago. Aisling’s distinctive white-blonde hair was barely visible over the top of a seat in the racing car game he and Bran had always played when they were kids.
“All right, then. Let me know if you want anything to go.”
Lottie bustled off to put in Cillian’s order, and he knew he only had a short window of time to convince Bran to stick around. He’d never been any good at small talk, but he tried. Cillian cleared his throat and pointed at the tattoo covering Bran’s right forearm. “That’s new.”
Bran wrapped his left hand around his tattooed forearm. “Let’s not pretend you’re interested in me.”
Some curl of anger crept into Cillian’s voice, despite how hard he tried to push it back. “How about you don’t put words in my mouth? I wasn’t the one who changed my phone number before running off to college.”