Chapter Eight
Logan drives back along the main highway, then takes the turn into Midas. We start heading down the narrow street. In the
daylight I can see that there’s a river down there, a silvery whisper at the bottom of the hill.
Then there’s that sharp curve in the street and we drive under the imposing stone gate.
It’s been open each time we’ve driven in or out, but it bothers me.
Or maybe what bothers me is how quickly it could close, locking the town up tight.
It makes me wonder why something like this would be necessary.
“Why would anyone want to trap everyone on Main Street?” I ask out loud, peering up at the massive slab of concrete.
“It’s not a trap,” Logan informs me, likely feeling chatty again since my lack of argument about staying here could be taken
as an agreement to stay, and . . . I guess it is. “It’s to save the town from floods. I read up on it last night when I couldn’t sleep. I guess floods are a big deal along the Mississippi.”
For a man who was riveted by a creepy old mine shaft, he’s pretty blasé about an entire river engulfing a town.
Except apparently this giant, fortress-like wall will stop it.
That doesn’t make me feel any better.
Neither does the drive down the main drag. Because unlike last night when there was not a single soul to be seen, there are
people everywhere now, swarming in and out of all the shops. Chocolate shops, antique shops, clock and watch shops—no, thank
you.
I remember Nora mentioning something about fall festivals, but this is giving Times Square on a weekend night—another place
I avoid like the plague.
Logan inches through traffic, the narrow street bumper to bumper, and I want to claw my own face off. I never thought I was
claustrophobic until this moment. I start ripping off the necklaces I usually wear, since the feel of them—the weight of them
on my neck—makes me feel like I’m being choked. I toss them in the cupholder, a jumble of sweaty silver and gold.
“Why are you going so slow?” I demand of Logan. I adjust the vents and make the AC as cold as it will go. It’s so hot in here
it feels like a stomach flu.
“So I don’t commit vehicular manslaughter, Lexi,” Logan says on a sigh. He’s not sweating or looking too uncomfortable, but
his grip on the wheel is tight as he navigates down the overcrowded street.
That reminds me why I’m subjecting myself to this instead of buying myself a plane ticket and an Uber to get me out of here.
I make myself breathe. I tell myself that the crowd should feel like any given day in New York, but it doesn’t. There’s something
wrong about all these people being here. It just doesn’t sit right, and not only because I don’t really understand why anyone would choose to come play tourist in an Iowa town I never would have heard of if my dad wasn’t from here.
And it feels more wrong as the clock tower heaves into view around a bend in the narrow road. As we inch down the street,
it’s there. Down at the far end, looming.
The afternoon sun is behind it. I should find it beautiful. I tell myself I do.
But it makes me want to scream.
I remind myself to keep the crazy on the inside.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I practice my deep somatic breathing and pretend I am somewhere, anywhere, else. One-two-three, everything is fine.
The car stops and I pop my eyes open. Logan’s paused at a stop sign. Pedestrians seem to stream around us. Families with shopping
bags. Older couples with canes, helping each other along. It’s nice, I try to tell myself.
But then I glance out the passenger window and there is a woman standing there, hunched. Yet, she’s looking right at me. She
seems a little dead behind the eyes, and that wouldn’t bother me overmuch—I’ve been to Staten Island, unwillingly—but one
of those eyes is a pale, unearthly blue. The other a dark, dark brown.
Staring right at me.
And when I stare back, her lips widen into an ugly smile.
She takes a lumbering step toward the car, an arm outstretched like she’s going to just . . . open my door and come at me.
Or worse, get in.
But just as I’m about to actually scream, the car moves forward. Logan is driving again.
And I can’t breathe. I certainly can’t stay here—what was I thinking? That man at the gas station. Raccoons—entrails and mine-shaft lurkers. The woman who was right here a second ago, but now seems to have vanished. They’re all coming for me. I know it.
I want to put Jack in his diner on that list, but I can’t actually believe any man that hot could be coming for me like these gross, forked-tongued and dead-eyed things seem to be doing. Surely he was not given the gift of that jaw to use
it for ill.
I decide to cling to that.
The crowds dissipate a little as we drive, and I can breathe again. Everything gets familiar again. The glare seems less harsh,
the crowd less malevolent. No more dead-eyed crones at intersections. Logan pulls the car to a stop in a spot in front of
Darling Knits & Notions. It’s not so busy in this part of town, a little ways off the main drag, but there are people outside
the store.
People we know, which feels like an upgrade from creatures and carcasses. It’s Nora, speaking to the oh-so-friendly Jack.
I note that his obnoxious male beauty was not a function of bad sleep and no caffeine, because he looks even better in the
light.
That doesn’t make it any better that he had some kind of intense reaction to me on sight that might not have been a forked
tongue, but still hurt my feelings. And may or may not have been lurking at windows last night.
Nora lifts a hand in a wave as Logan parks. Jack does not. He gets that arrested look on his face again when he sees me. Then he scowls and strides across the street, disappearing into the diner as if he
never saw us at all.
Maybe he didn’t, I tell myself. But I know better.
When we get out of the car, I smile at Nora. Because she’s been so nice, and I want to hold on to any nice there is. Logan,
by contrast, doesn’t look at her as he pops the trunk and starts grabbing grocery bags.
“Can I help?” Nora offers sweetly. “I always helped Amelia with her groceries. It’s a shame there’s no parking closer to the house and—”
“Not necessary,” Logan says, sharp and overloud, cutting Nora off.
Then he proceeds to grab a ridiculous number of bags as if to prove he can handle it all on his own.
I decide to let him. Men like to prove themselves with unnecessary feats of boring strength, so they should.
“I . . . I’m halfway through digitizing the inventory,” Nora continues, her gaze darting between Logan and me. “I can email
it to you when I’m done.”
“Email it to your lawyer. He’ll email it to me,” Logan replies, though he sounds strained since he’s attempting to carry something
like a hundred pounds of groceries all on his own.
I roll my eyes toward Nora and mouth, men. She smiles a little, but I can tell Logan’s curtness hurts her feelings. I guess that’s going around. Oddly enough, that
makes me feel better.
I offer her a smile and wave goodbye before closing the trunk and following Logan down the alley. I make a point to examine
the alley as we go, since it’s still light. It’s just an alley, and much nicer than many alleys back home. There are weeds
poking through the bricks and muck in the cracks—mud, I correct myself, and think of floodwaters—and no beady-eyed monsters of any kind.
Back at the little house, Logan grunts at me and I understand this as an order to dig the house keys from his pocket. I fish
them out, then struggle with them, jiggling the knob and muttering until I manage to get it open.
I don’t look back into the yard, because my neck prickles and I don’t actually want to know if something’s watching us.
Once inside, Logan slings all the bags onto the small table in the kitchen.
“Feel manly?” I ask him.
He glares at me like he’s actually pissed, which is weird. “Since I did everything, why don’t you put the groceries away?”
“Since you’re acting like a prick, I think you should put the groceries away. What is your problem with her? She’s perfectly nice and—”
He cuts me off. “Look, Lexi, if you want me to handle things—all the things, all the time—you don’t get to have everything be your way.”
He might as well have thrown one of those grocery bags at me.
And I know it hurts because there’s a kernel of truth in there. I do let him do all the things. It’s how we work. It’s always how we’ve worked. But he’s never used it against me like it’s been
bothering him our whole lives. He’s never lashed out at me like it was a bad thing. Not without some teasing. Not without that Logan-ness to make it okay.
The fact that I have decided to stay here in all this small-town menace for him makes it worse.
I feel martyred and unjustly attacked, and not in a fun way that I could turn into a little drama or two. I swallow at the
unexpected lump in my throat. I don’t have any sharp words in return. I don’t have anything. I’m too exhausted, this is all
too much, and he wants to stay here so we can continue to not act like ourselves.
Worse, I am going to have to stay with him, because apparently it’s only my neck that prickles in warning.
So I turn on a heel and go into the tiny bedroom that is mine. He doesn’t need a bed. He can sleep on the couch forever.
I take a shower in the tiny bath with its plastic shower curtain that feels better suited to an insane asylum as I pull it
closed. There is a tidy line of shampoo and soap, all Mary Kay brand in the scent apple and almond, which isn’t quite as offensive as I expect it to be. Though no one would confuse it for La Prairie, either.
The water is nice and hot, but the pressure leaves a lot to be desired. When I get out I try to read. I pull out my latest
knitting project. I am not going back out into the main part of the house until Logan apologizes.
But he doesn’t.
The afternoon wears on. Bright and gold outside, then the light begins to fade.
When it feels like a socially acceptable time to go to sleep—if I were geriatric—I go through my careful skin and sleep routine,
step by centering step.
The more you remind yourself of how real you are, by touching your face and looking in the mirror and truly grounding yourself
in your body, my therapist liked to say, then you can carry that into your bad dreams with you and remind yourself of the same thing there.
I make sure to take a sleeping pill, because last night was enough of a lesson in what happens when I don’t. I lock the bedroom
door in an attempt to keep myself from wandering out again. But even if I do, and even if Logan is mad at me, I know he won’t
let me get out of the house. He’ll protect me from myself and whatever keeps me from being normal, despite himself.
Just like I decided to stay here to protect him, no matter how irritating he can be.
But even as I think that, I’m suddenly cold.
And it’s dark.
Freakishly dark, when it was barely dusk outside just seconds ago.
Are my eyes open? Am I awake?
“Lexi.”
I turn toward the voice in the dark. Even though it doesn’t sound like Logan, it must be. Deep and male, and who else would be helping me find my way through a thick, heavy darkness like this?
But I don’t feel safe, and I can’t see. It’s cold, and my feet are bare against rough ground. So rough and painful I don’t want to step forward, but it’s like I have to.
Something cuts my heel. I want to cry out, but I can’t.
“Lexi!” The voice is more insistent this time, but I don’t recognize it. Should I run away? Call out for Logan?
It’s a dream. Just a dream. I’ll wake up and my feet won’t hurt. My teeth won’t be chattering.
One-two-three, everything is fine. One-two-three, your imagination can’t hurt you.
Maybe I’ll wake up back in New York. Maybe this whole thing was a very involved nightmare, and I’ll laugh about it over brunch
with proper espresso drinks and all the egg whites I could ever want.
There’s a little pinprick of light in front of me. I squint, moving forward even if it feels like I’m walking on glass. Even
if it begins to feel wet, like my feet are bleeding.
I realize that huge stone flood wall is what I can see. It’s almost glowing here in the moonlight, while the black night seems
to ooze around me. I hear something far off, but coming closer.
A kind of . . . slurping.
I want to run. It’s not a great time to have bare, bloody feet.
“Lexi.”
The voice is firm this time. And right behind me. A big, hot hand clutches my arm. I whirl around, and then instinctively
throw up my hands to fight him off.
Because it’s not Logan. Or anyone safe.
It’s Jack.
Who is still not happy to see me, I can tell. Epically unhappy, as a matter of fact.
Even here in hell.