CHAPTER FORTY #3
Lachlan leans back, takes a moment to think. He can write for hours and that’s what he’s been doing pretty much every moment he isn’t with Kade.
With Jules.
He rereads the previous section.
After the lake, I started to come back to myself almost in a new way.
Even now it’s hard to think of Roman Sorrenko, and I can’t help but feel if Vasily is really running the Front now, then I failed him more ways than one.
You and I remained very close together, inseparable.
It still feels wrong to tell the story in this way, but you deserve to know and if my Jules really is gone, then I need someone to remember him.
Your tattoo. Your first one. You did it the day before your nineteenth birthday and Carrigan noticed first. It caused a big issue, but together we
Together we what?
Lachlan can’t remember.
It’s not the first time since he began writing this for Kade that he’s come upon something he can’t recall. Almost everything else, even the stuff he wished he could forget, is preserved perfectly, but some things are just unreachable. His hand doesn’t cramp, but his mind is foggy in some areas.
Lachlan closes his eyes.
Back in the Cove with everyone he loved before it all went so fucking wrong, before he lost Mimi and Jules, before Blaire became a stranger, and Danya became an enemy…
What did Mimi say?
‘Fuck,’ he mutters, setting down the pen.
He’s half-filled this notebook already and there’s still so much to tell. So much happened in three and a half years, but as Lachlan skim reads the last sixty or so pages, he thinks maybe a lot of the Sable Key stuff is unnecessary.
It’s strange to read it back.
There’s a degree of catharsis in it.
Processing, maybe.
But Kade probably doesn’t need to know most of these things. He doesn’t even know who Roman was. There’s a lot that’s just for Lachlan, in truth.
The account of a man whose days ahead are numbered.
His stomach gurgles.
It’s almost three AM.
Lachlan needs to eat.
Multiple empty bean cans sit on the floor of the van. He’s desperate for red meat, rare and bloody. He’ll go out soon, get supplies, then come back and finish it tonight so he can give it to Kade tomorrow. Lachlan returns to a certain point and reads the small section over and over.
In black and white, some things are hard to ignore.
Daddy bang bang.
His heart wrenches sharply like it always does whenever he thinks of her. The loss she carved in this world when she left it remains unbearable.
Many things she was wrong about, but Carrigan had one part of her tirade bang to rights.
You’re twisting these kids.
Warping everyone.
He tries to focus, has to focus because when he performed that crazy fucking ritual, he had nothing to lose.
Only now there is.
There had been a reason to live all this time, hidden away.
Kade. Jules. Doesn’t matter.
It’s him, his boy.
He’d know him anywhere.
Lachlan has four more nights until his life is forfeit for failing to kill those responsible for what happened to Mimi and Jules. A poor conclusion, and a wasteful one. The only consolation he has left to offer is this notebook.
A faithful recounting, or so he thought when he started it.
It’s not the first lapse he’s had in recalling specific details since he started writing this to leave to Kade.
Several small anomalies in his otherwise painfully excellent recollection of events gave him pause.
Reliving those three and a half years is difficult enough that a few discrepancies make sense, but Lachlan is cynical at heart.
He wonders about the memory he gave up. The demon said it was a single memory, but clever wording can obscure much.
All he can do now is leave behind a record of his time with the people he loved, something Kade might one day turn to if he ever wants answers.
He pushed Kade away earlier but, God, it hurts to look at the man he loves without a flicker of recognition in those honey brown eyes. Lachlan is sure he saw his Jules when Kade was dancing. Fighting too.
This world has been without Lachlan for seven years.
It’s all so different.
There’s no Danya anymore to defend him.
No Blaire to turn to when things are bad.
No Mimi to love. No Jules to lose himself in.
Lachlan has to face what he allowed to happen.
The scope of his failure.
His stomach growls so loud it interrupts Lachlan’s moody train of grim thought. Ever since he woke after the ritual, he’s been starving and it only seems to be getting worse. Kade is right, it’s probably his metabolism going crazy from all the healing.
He needs air.
Lachlan pulls on a jacket and doesn’t bother to tidy anything inside the stolen van he’s been living out of. On the floor beside the notebook is the letter he found pinned to the van window today.
The page inside contains only a few words written in outrageously beautiful handwriting. Meet me tomorrow night, where once we shared home - V
It’s cold outside tonight and being at the very top of a high-rise parking lot makes it even more so, but he has a clear view through the telescopic lens of the Tower from here, so it’s fine for what he needs.
Unarmed. Starving. Hollow in ways no food could touch.
Lachlan hops up onto the ledge.
It’s wide enough to walk along.
He can practically hear her in his head when he closes his eyes.
One sunny day doing cartwheels together.
Daddy do one, Daddy do one!
Lachlan performs a perfect cartwheel along the ledge, unconcerned by the drop, his balance immaculate.
He lands with ease.
‘There you go, princess,’ he whispers to himself. ‘Daddy did one.’
His ears prickle suddenly, alerting him to the presence of someone behind him. Lachlan stays still, looking out across Varrow City as he leans into instincts instead of turning around.
He still remembers her perfume.
‘You know, you never did tell me your real name.’
She comes to join him, stands up on the ledge too.
From here, Lachlan can just about discern the outline of the Tower.
‘I liked Bee,’ she says.
‘So did I. What do you want?’
‘Julian gave me the book back,’ Blaire tells him. ‘We traded information. He is almost as blinded as you are. I shone a little light.’ She looks at him. ‘Why did you tell him he’s a Brightling?’
‘Because he is, and I’m not allergic to the truth like you.’
‘You never let me explain.’
‘You have no right to.’ His mouth twists. ‘Not anymore. Anyway, I don’t wanna hear your bullshit. You told me enough.’
‘I should have been honest from the start.’
‘Nah, wasn’t quite your style, was it?’
‘Lachlan—’
‘Why didn’t you tell me he was alive?’ He finally looks at her. Wrapped in a dark, warm overcoat, Blaire looks much as she ever did, save for her hair that reaches her waist.
‘It’s hard to explain when you won’t let me speak.’
‘Would you actually explain or just tell me more fucking riddles?’
‘You think anything you don’t understand is a riddle, Lachlan.’
‘I don’t give a fuck about curses or magic. I never did.’
‘I know,’ she says softly. ‘That’s why it must be you who breaks it.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me Jules was alive?’
‘A bubble only needs one point of contact to burst.’
‘See? Riddles. Riddles and poetry. I’m sick of it.’
‘If my sister and I could have told you from the start with even a small hope of you still taking the job—’
‘Yeah, go on and justify it. Talk all your shit about the bigger picture. The needs of the many. Whatever you need to tell yourself.’
‘You, for all your faults and failings, are the key.’
‘The key to what?’
She stares out at the city. ‘To worlds beyond.’
‘What memory did it take?’ he asks. ‘The demon?’
‘There was no demon, Lachlan,’ she says at length, turning away and hopping down onto the safe side. ‘Only a mirror. Now drop your sulk off the side of this building and go back where you belong.’
To him, is left unspoken but Lachlan hears it all the same.
She’s probably long gone when he says, ‘Not yet.’
Lachlan Tanner postpones his hunger for now.
He sits down on the ledge, gaze fixed where the compass of his heart naturally swings. There’s rain coming soon, clouds gathering for hours now.
He’ll finish his account tonight, give the notebook to Kade tomorrow.
He’ll return to the Tower and make it right somehow.
It’s a selfish plan, in truth.
He just wants to see him, be near him.
Jules. Julian. His Jewel.
The love of his fucking life.
Maybe there is still some good he can do.
There has to be.
Staring towards the Tower, Lachlan hopes Kade is getting some sleep, though if he knows his boy, he doubts it. Night was always when Jules got up to his best tricks, caused the most trouble. Lachlan smiles to himself, holding the memories close as they come flooding back.
Bodyguard.
What he wouldn’t give to go back.
But that time, no matter how fresh writing makes it feel, is gone forever. All he has is now, and a handful of tomorrows.
It starts to rain. Slow at first, then a cascading downpour sets in. Thunder rumbles somewhere out across the city, but there’s no lightning yet.
‘Four more nights,’ he whispers to himself, sodden.
Four more chances.
He’s not going to waste them.
Not this time around.