31. Attila
31
ATTILA
H is knees buckle and give out.
“Goddammit!” I curse, running to prop him up before his head hits the ground. The last thing I need now is more injuries on Caleph. I need him lucid and functioning and coherent. That’s why I didn’t want to bring him here with me.
He’s sustained too much physical trauma to be of any use to me right now, and I don’t want him falling apart mentally as well. And now that’s precisely what’s happened.
I’d been surprised when Caleph made it clear how much the woman meant to him. I’d met her before on a yacht a few weeks ago. Yes, she was pretty. Yes, she was captivating. But damn, when did we decide to start having feelings for women or let them become our weakness? As long as I’d known Caleph, I couldn’t ever remember him having a serious relationship or caring about anyone enough to start one. That’s the way it had always been, be it me or him. Flying solo. That’s the way we liked it. So imagine my surprise when I realized he was in love with her. Now she was just one more thing to worry about.
And by the look of his face now as he studied the van and his body went rigid with fear, it was obvious that Caleph was in so deep, he probably wouldn’t be able to recover from her loss. This is precisely what I wanted to avoid. And if it is Ariadne in the van, it means all our plans are shot to hell and we’ll have to launch a revenge campaign instead.
We don’t even know that the body in the van is Ariadne’s. I need Caleph to get himself together, otherwise he’s no use to me. This woman being his weakness could very well be his downfall.
This is a side of humanity I don’t understand. Caleph and I both come from violent backgrounds where one or more of our family members was brutally killed. Going through something like that numbs you. It causes you to switch off your emotions, making you immune to feelings and fears. I switched off my humanity a long time ago, and I never looked back. Obviously, for Caleph, some sector of his human side was still functioning for him to have gone and fallen in love with the reporter.
* * *
As if the stars are conspiring against me, my friend at the bureau suggests it may speed things up if we could identify some of the items in the van. When he spells out what those items are, I tell him he’s gone mad and spit at the sidewalk. How will identifying shreds of fabric from the clothes the victim was wearing and jewelry help Caleph? He will never ever come back from something like that, and I won’t let it happen.
“Take your DNA and send it to the lab!” He shrinks back at my tone as I tower over him. He’s been helpful over the years, but I know it helps that he’s terrified of me. “I’ll get her hairbrush to you within the hour.”
“I’ll do it.”
Caleph’s firm voice breaks into our confrontation.
“There is no way I’ll let you near that van.”
I’ll hit him over the head to avoid that happening if I have to.
“Not your call,” he snaps, turning toward the van.
There’s a ferociousness to him even as he does a slow march toward the van, lifting his chin in defiance. In preparation. He’s the strongest, most level-headed man I’ve ever met. But this woman has made him vulnerable. Which, in a way, is not all bad if it turns out to be Ariadne in that van, because it means he’s going to have to unleash his beast. I hate to say it, hate to think it even, but that’s exactly what it will take to put Caleph back on an even keel again.
I follow him, watch him as he straggles the last few steps toward the van, as though his brain has just caught up with him and is telling him to retreat. He pushes on, putting on a brave front, until the forensics team make way for him and he steps forward, looking at the corpse once again.
“There’s this,” one of the forensics officers hold up a baggie. There’s some sort of fabric in it. Caleph takes it in his hand and turns it over. I look over his shoulder down at the bag, notice how his hands shake, his fingers fluttering against the bag. It’s only a scrap, about the size of an apple, but it’s obviously denim, the edges so charred, I don’t know how the fire missed this section.
“What else?”
One of them produces a baggie with a gold chain covered in soot. There’s a pendant on the end; clearly visible even after it had been buried in fire residue. A little gold oyster with a pearl inside it. Caleph fingers the pendant, pressing it between his fingers, before he looks up and catches his breath, holding in his emotions. The reaction we’re getting out of him tells me they must be hers. I can’t ignore the way her belongings are affecting him. “Caleph?”
My friend’s pain is not something I’m used to. We do so well hiding behind our demons that pain is not in our vocabulary. If we need to feel, we do it behind closed doors. I’m surprised at how his pain is causing me confusion, riddling me with mixed feelings. I want to punch something, destroy something if it will help erase his anguish.
“They’re her things,” he whispers.
He shakes his head, and just as his shoulders start to quake, he straightens to his full height and lifts his head with a newfound sense of resolve.
He pushes past the forensics team and approaches the van, standing at the open door looking in at the charred body. I don’t know why they haven’t removed it yet. There must a process they’re following.
He fixates for a long time on the hair, then his eyes move down the body slowly. It’s literally a bag of bones. I don’t know what more there would be to see, and I don’t understand why he wants his last memory of Ariadne to be this one. How will he ever be able to get this image out of his mind?
When he tips his head to the side and travels down the length of her legs to her feet, he pauses thoughtfully for the longest time. I look toward the floor of the van where her feet would have been. In their place are the remnants of a pair of banged up, scorched sneakers that haven’t been bagged yet. A smile starts to curl at the edges of his lips, and I think my best friend has finally lost his sanity along with his humanity.