Chapter 15
He woke to Nate already awake beside him, which happened sometimes. Nate slept light and woke before the house did, some crew habit he'd never lost. Usually Jude rolled into him and went back under. This morning Nate's breathing was wrong. Not fast. Just not the breathing of a man who was resting.
Jude lay still for a moment with his cheek against Nate's chest and knew.
Not what. Just that something was coming.
He sat up. "Tell me."
Nate looked at the ceiling for one more second. Then he looked at Jude. Not the trained calm. Not the warm. Just open, all the way open, a man about to do something that was going to cost him.
"Rand is the one who's been feeding kids to the ring," Nate said. "He's the man on this side of the bridge. The money, the venues, the contacts across the river. It's him. It's been him. It has to be"
Jude heard it.
He sat on the edge of the bed. The river was still going by. The lamp was still on. None of it had moved. He understood it'd never be that again.
Not because of the trafficking. He knew about the trafficking. He'd stood in front of the board and done the math himself, venues and dates and the gap that opened when he walked out the door. He knew what Rand was.
But knowing what Rand was and knowing it was Rand were two different things.
Rand, who laughed at other people's expense and called it charm.
Rand, who'd cried at the kitchen table over the Electric Forest pullout and accepted tea and let Jude make it.
Rand, who'd said I love you and you're nothing without me in the same week, sometimes the same hour, and meant both with equal sincerity because to Rand those were the same sentence.
"He knew me," Jude said.
"Yes."
"He knew who I was. He knew what the shows meant to me. He knew-" He stopped. Opened his throat. "He built it around me on purpose. Not just the venues. Me. My face. What I meant to those kids." He looked at the river. "I was the point. Not incidental. The point."
Nate didn't answer. There wasn't an answer. Jude wasn't asking for one.
He thought about the night Nate had come to the clubhouse.
Three texts, lowercase. The truck. He thought about this time and days after that when Rand had called every day, crying sometimes, threatening sometimes, and Jude had nearly gone back twice.
Once got as far as his hand on the door of Rand's building before the memory of one Tuesday pulled him back.
He'd nearly walked back in. While kids were missing. While Rand was the reason.
"I almost went back to him," Jude said.
"I know."
"After. After Nate, after you came. He called and I almost-" The stutter was there now, the old jam, not stage fright but the other kind.
He pushed through it. "I w-w-w-was this close to going back because I thought m-m-m-m-maybe if I just talked to him, m-maybe if I could m-m-make him understand-" He laughed once, short and airless. "Fuck."
"You didn't go back."
"I almost did!" He pressed his palm to the glass. Cold. "If I had. If I'd gone back and he'd kept the band going-" He didn't finish it. He didn't need to. The number on the board was seven and the gaps had been closing and Rand had been desperate.
Nate crossed the room. Didn't say anything. Put his hand flat between Jude's shoulder blades, warm and still, not rubbing, not moving. Just there.
Jude stood at the window with Nate's hand on his back and watched the river. A man he'd loved had been a monster all along. Jude had been the costume he wore to work.
After a while he went to the bathroom.
Not to be sick. He'd passed that point. He stood at the sink and ran the cold tap and looked at his face in the mirror.
He'd been looking at this face for two years in dressing rooms, bathrooms, the black window of a car at night.
Foundation over the jaw. Concealer over the cheekbone.
Setting powder, then stage makeup on top, layer on layer until nothing underneath was visible and the face in the mirror was Hollow Bright's Jude, who was fearless and bright and had no bruises.
The bruises were mostly healed now. Faint yellow at the temple. Nothing on the jaw. He hadn't needed concealer in two weeks and hadn't put it on and some mornings forgot to notice.
He looked at his face.
The brightest smile. Rand used to say that.
You've got the brightest smile, baby. Said it like he said everything, like he was handing Jude a gift.
As if the smile was something Rand had located and extracted and polished and presented to the world, not something that had been Jude's before Rand was in his life.
The smile in the mirror now wasn't bright. It wasn't anything. It was just his face. His, before Rand and after Rand. Rand had borrowed it without asking and put it to work.
He turned the tap off.
Went back to the bedroom. Sat on the edge of the bed next to Nate, not against him, just beside him, their shoulders an inch apart.
"I want in," Jude said.
"Jude-"
"I'm not asking to go operational. I know what I am and I know what I'm not.
" He looked at his hands in his lap, still now.
"But I was inside it for two years. I know the venues, the promoters, who Rand talked to after shows, which kids he paid attention to.
I know his patterns." He paused. "I know things the crew doesn't know they need. "
Nate was quiet for a moment. "I'll take it to Marcus."
"That's all I'm asking."
Another silence. Outside, a boat on the river, a low horn.
"You okay?" Nate said.
Jude thought about the honest answer. Found it.
"No," he said. "Not right now. But I'm going to be.
" He picked at a loose thread on the knee of his jeans.
"I was in it and I didn't see it and kids got hurt.
I can't fix that. I couldn't have fixed it then either.
I didn't have anything to fix it with. I know that.
" The thread came loose. He balled it up and held it.
"But I'm not going to sit in this house and wait for someone else to fix it now. I'm not doing that."
Nate put his hand over Jude's, the closed fist with the thread in it. Didn't say anything. Didn't try to reassure him or correct him or reframe it. Just put his hand there and left it.
Jude unclenched his fist. The thread fell. Nate's hand stayed.
"Okay," Nate said. Just that.
Jude leaned his head against Nate's shoulder. Not collapsing. Just resting, briefly, before whatever came next.
The river went by. The house made its usual sounds.
Somewhere downstairs Marcus was probably making coffee, Ghost probably already at his wall, the work already moving without them.
Elijah and Jack were out closing the net and pretending the rest of them didn’t see that those two had a world to work out between them.
Jude sat with his eyes open and thought about Junior, who didn't have a last name, who'd trusted a dark room, who'd been at one of his shows.
He wasn't going to forget that. He wasn't even going to try.