Chapter Five
Noa
Valli has been gone for two days, and I’m already a mess.
Do you know how pathetic that is? Two fucking days and I have been counting down the hours until I can see her again, like I’m waiting for her to be released from prison.
All I have been able to do is work. It keeps my hands busy because my brain won’t shut up.
It plays on loop the image of me pulling away from her curb while she waves goodbye with tears in her eyes.
I’m petrified that someone will come for her, even though her front door has been fixed after Cave kicked it in.
There are also new window locks, and Clay upgraded the cameras Cipher put in weeks ago.
Cipher can pull the feed up anytime on his phone, and I have caught him checking it more often than he will admit.
She promised that she just needed a few days to find a new job. I offered to help her, but she declined, which is fair. I just hate that gnawing feeling I have that she could be like everyone else and just leave.
My mom told me I love hard. The first time was when I accidentally killed my goldfish.
I didn’t know they had to always be in water, so I took him to school to show my teacher.
The second time, I didn’t know you could squeeze a pet to death simply by holding it too tight—I only wanted to love it.
I have been terrified ever since that day.
I pull out my phone and check the time: 11:47 a.m. I have five texts left for the day before I hit my ten-text limit. It’s my pathetic self-imposed rule, but I need it; otherwise, I would blow up her phone every five minutes, and she would think I’m crazy—well, crazier than I already am.
My phone buzzes and I get excited, but then see it’s a text from Cipher.
Can you bring some coffee?
I message back.
As soon as I’m done here
Cipher has shut down, disappearing into his head, and the only time he surfaces is to tinker with something at his workbench. I couldn’t sleep this morning and found him there, not having slept all night.
Cave is different; he has not come out of the cornfield. Pre-Valli, that was normal, but I know this is him emotionally retreating.
I spend the rest of the afternoon fixing some broken headstones, a task I’ve been putting off.
Work keeps my mind from going places I don’t want it to, like what if she doesn’t come back?
What if she realizes she is better off without three damaged men, or what if she is already finding someone else?
By the time I leave the cemetery, I have already used my ten texts for the day.
In the last one, I asked her what she’s making for dinner tonight; she said pasta, and though I am kicking myself now for wasting a text, I wanted to know what she’d be eating.
I try to make sure I don’t come across as needy, but I’m totally okay lying to myself.
By the time I leave, grab coffee, and get back to the shed, it’s around five. Walking in it feels wrong. How can one tiny, pocket-sized woman change the entire vibe of a place? Cipher is at his workbench, exactly where I left him this morning.
“Coffee,” I say, setting the cup down.
He nods without looking up. He’s holding himself stiff, one arm tucked close to his chest like he’s guarding the wound without realizing it.
“Did you get any sleep?”
“Some.”
I know that’s a lie; his eyes are hollow, and he has bags under them. A man with a healing bullet graze doesn’t hunch over a workbench all night without paying for it.
I don’t push it; instead, I clean the shed. Within an hour I am twitching with energy, but by seven, Cave still hasn’t come back.
“Do you know where Cave is?” I ask Cipher.
“He must still be in the cornfield.”
That’s what I’m afraid of, since he is normally back for dinner or to check on Cipher.
I eat dinner alone, as the food I put next to Cipher sits uneaten.
I’m a ball of anxiety when I decide to break my rule and text Valli to ask how the rest of her day was.
She responds straight away, saying it was productive, that she has a job interview tomorrow, and she spoke to Leni.
She also tells me she misses us. My chest feels tight.
I want to text back seventeen more times, but there’s a difference between breaking a rule once and burning it to the ground. I miss her.
My phone lights up, but the excitement dies when I see it’s Khodi.
“What’s up?”
“You need to get down here now. And bring Cipher,” he says. I can hear screaming, and my blood runs cold.
“Fuck,” I say. “We’re on our way.”
Cipher stands before I even tell him what’s going on, grabbing his jacket and the keys to his bike. He waves them in the air, and I nod. I almost argue that I should drive, but the look on his face says we don’t have time for that conversation.
We race outside and jump on his bike, and he drives to the edge of the cornfield.
There is a man splayed out on the ground, his face a mess, and his arm is bent at an angle arms shouldn’t bend. More blood is coming from somewhere I cannot see. Cave is standing over him, and for a second, I can’t move.
“Cave.”
He turns to look at us, and his eyes are wild. It’s not him. This is a total loss of control. There’s blood on his hands and splattered on his jacket. He points to the man, and Cipher moves forward.
“I know,” Cipher says calmly, and I want to scream. Khodi is standing off to the side and Banks is beside him, but neither shifts closer. “He needs medical attention, Cave. You need to move back so Banks can check on him.”
Whoever the man is, he is conscious, but barely. His arm is definitely broken, and his face has multiple lacerations that are going to need stitches. It looks like he has a wound to his ribs if the blood on his shirt is any indication.
Cave takes a few steps back, and Banks and Khodi move in.
Ares shows up with the medic van, and they load the man inside.
They will get him patched up, and someone will take him to the emergency room.
Thankfully, our contracts are ironclad for this reason.
Everyone is warned not to enter the cornfield.
I even made multiple “enter if you dare” signs after Valli left, since we know Cave isn’t right in the head at the moment.
Nixie has gone so far as to cut access during the day for families, putting up caution tape to stop people going in.
But apparently it didn’t stop this man, though I bet he regrets it now.
Cipher manages to convince Cave to walk back to the shed, so I take the bike and beat them back.
As soon as they arrive, Cave walks into the bathroom.
The shower runs for at least an hour before I lose track of time.
Cipher tinkers at his workbench, but it doesn’t look like he does much.
I pace as my brain screams at me to do something, anything.
This is my worst nightmare. The two people I care about most are breaking down simultaneously, while I just exist, all of us unable to fix each other.
I do push-ups, which I’m terrible at, and scan the perimeter.
As if any threat would get past Cave. Basically I now have my own personal attack scarecrow.
Cave finally emerges from the shower, and I’m almost disappointed he’s dressed; a naked Cave is a magnificent sight. Cipher looks up from his workbench and watches Cave, almost as if he’s afraid that he will vanish if he looks away.
I can’t do this anymore; I’m driving myself crazy. So before I talk myself out of it, I call Valli.
She picks up on the third ring. “Hey, is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I lie. “I just wanted to hear your voice before bed.”
“You’re so sweet,” she says, and the sound of her voice almost makes me want to cry.
“Something happened tonight.”
The line goes quiet. “What kind of something?”
“A guest ignored the warnings and went into the cornfield.”
Valli gasps. “Is Cave okay?”
Her first thought is not for what happened to the person in the field, or if they are okay; she just wants to know how Cave is. How did we get so lucky?
“Cave is fine. He didn’t mean to hurt the guy, I don’t think. He’s been on edge since Cipher was shot, and I think he just snapped.”
“Noa, I need to come back.”
“You don’t have to.”
Secretly I want her back, but I also want her to live her life the way she needs to live it.
“Yes, I do. He is not okay. None of you are at the moment. I am being selfish.”
I sigh. “You’re not being selfish.”
“I am, Noa. All of this is because of me. You all would have gone on with your lives if I hadn’t shown up and disrupted them. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Valli, that’s not why I called you. I only needed someone to talk to.”
“We’re all in this together now. I’ll call Leni’s school and see if I can get an extension.”
“Are you sure?” I ask because I know she won’t accept money from us. Yet I wonder if we were to pay for her sister’s school and take that pressure off her shoulders if that would be okay.
“I have never been so sure of anything in my life,” she says quietly. “Put him on the phone.”
“You remember he can’t talk, right?”
She laughs. “His ears work just fine.”
I walk over to Cave and hold out the phone. “Valli wants to talk to you.”
Cave stares at the phone as if it might bite him before he takes it and brings it to his ear.
“He can hear you!” I yell because he doesn’t even grunt to alert her that he’s now there. I can’t hear what she is saying, but I watch Cave’s face. His jaw tightens, then if I’m not mistaken, the big guy gets glassy eyes. After a couple minutes, he hands the phone back to me.
I sit outside in the dark and just breathe. I’ve been so afraid that we could lose her, and I tried not to be needy so I didn’t push her away, but at the first sign that we really need her, Valli is returning. God knows I have done nothing to deserve her, but I’ll figure out how to anyway.