Chapter Twenty-Six #2
hundred years ever has—is start killing people. When I tell you I believe you, that I know you had nothing to do with Cleo’s
death no matter how much blood was on your body, I mean it.”
I can’t breathe. Because I’ve always wanted people to believe me. Being believed here in Midas has altered me in cellular
ways, I’m sure of it. But to believe me and mount a whole defense? I don’t know if this moment is survivable. My chest is tight. My head is spinning and empty of anything
but him. This.
And the fact he said he loves me.
“You need to hold on to that,” Jack says, very seriously.
“I want to,” I whisper, and I don’t know if I mean the love part, or the believing I’m not a killer part, or maybe I mean
all of the above.
“Then do it,” he says, like it’s that simple.
Then he leans forward and presses his mouth to mine, and I can’t deny the fact that he sure knows how to make things feel simple.
“Jack.”
Jack pulls away and we both look at the doorway of my little makeshift room. Harrison is standing there, leaning on his cane
with an apologetic smile on his face. “Braxton says there’s a bit of an emergency in the kitchen.” He looks at me. “It seems
the lack of scotcheroo on the menu has caused a commotion.”
I put my hand over my heart. “You actually took it off the menu?”
Jack sighs. At me, I think. “All right. I’m coming.” He presses a sweet, quick kiss to my mouth—not like the one before it,
but affecting all the same—and then stands. His gaze lingers on me. “You’re safe here, Lexi.”
I wonder how he can believe that. But then, I also wonder how he can be so sure he loves me, that I am a gift. I wonder a lot of things, but I don’t voice any of them. It’s easier to talk about the scotcheroo scandal.
I aim a smile at Harrison after Jack leaves, but he doesn’t smile back. It takes me a moment to realize that. And another
moment to see that he’s studying me in a way I am not used to from him. It’s not warm.
It’s not exactly cold, but I am reminded of his warning about his grandson. That clearly Harrison is surprised by this more . . . involved nature of our relationship.
“You didn’t have to come up the stairs,” I offer into the awkward silence.
“Oh, it’s good for these old bones to get some exercise every now and again,” Harrison says with a chuckle. “Jack is right.
You need some rest, and I’ll be right outside.”
He smiles at me then, back to warm and reassuring, and I’m unduly relieved.
And it’s a growth moment for me when I don’t tell myself that I imagined that coolness from him. Maybe he has reservations about anyone with Jack. Maybe it’s the fact
I don’t live here. Maybe he always wanted Jack to be with someone else.
Who knows? It doesn’t matter.
“Everything is going to be just fine, Lexi. We’ll make sure of it,” he says gently, with that same certainty his grandson
wields so effortlessly. “Try to sleep now. You’ve been through a terrible experience. You need to recalibrate.”
A lump forms in my throat, but I nod. Harrison pulls the door shut, and I wait to feel safe and sweetly watched over, but
I shudder. Because being shut in this crowded room feels a bit like jail again—
But that’s ridiculous. This room is no cell. My bed is soft and safe. I’m clearly overtired and probably hangry, too—though my stomach still twists at the idea of eating.
I don’t let myself think about Cleo. Or Nora. I’ll start sobbing.
I sink into the covers and pile them over me. Then I pick up one of the heart-shaped rocks and clutch it in my hands. It’s
warm and comforting somehow, not cool to the touch the way I expect. And before I know it, I fall into a strange, shallow
sleep.
I don’t dream. And when I wake up, I’m exactly where I should be, right here in this bed. There is no blood on my hands. I
am safe, just like Jack and Harrison assured me I would be.
Though when I focus on the wall across from me, my heart kicks at me, because all of those hair wreaths are back on the wall.
Right back where they belong, like I didn’t hide them away with my own two hands—
I remind myself that this is not a bed-and-breakfast. This is a store. For all I know, Harrison had a hair wreath buyer come
in who wanted to see them up again. And they are just hair. Just a different sort of textile.
They are still fucking creepy.
I squeeze the rock that’s still in my palm, then get up out of the bed. I shove the rock into my pocket, thinking that maybe
it’s some kind of good luck talisman. After all, I slept. And woke up where I lay down, which always feels like a victory.
I step out into the hallway. The window that looks out over Main Street tells me I was out for a while, because the light
is starting to fade. Out in the big store area where Nora slept that night, I see Harrison sitting in a little armchair in
my peripheral vision. I turn to face him. I think maybe he nodded off, too, and is just waking up now. He blinks a little
blearily.
“Did you get some rest?” he asks, his voice scratchy. He struggles to get up out of the chair.
I rush over to help him. “I think so.”
“Good. Jack wants you to meet him at the clock tower.” Harrison smiles as I help him to his feet and hand him his cane. “I’m
going to walk over with you so you aren’t alone. And make sure we stay in the light.”
“Why the clock tower?” I ask, something in me internally resisting this idea. It’s nearly dark. Why would I go to a potential
demon zone? Why would Jack want me to? Especially with poor, unsteady Harrison.
“He found something and he thinks it has an answer,” Harrison tells me.
I’m not sure why Jack wouldn’t have told me that himself, but then again, I was asleep. He probably didn’t want to wake me. But the idea of that clock tower . . .
“Did he go over there alone?” I ask, worried he’s done something overly noble.
“Logan was going to meet him there.”
“Okay.” It has to be okay. It’s not full night yet, so it’s not like it’s entirely dangerous yet. The danger is at night. We have to be together in the dark. And how bad can it really be if Jack is sending me with Harrison?
Maybe this is why he left Harrison here. So I would know it was safe. I look out the window again, where it’s not getting
any brighter. “I guess we should get going before it gets too late?”
Harrison nods and I help him down the hall and stairs. He seems more and more unstable as we go, particularly on the stairs.
“You need to be getting better rest, too,” I tell him, remembering what Nora said about his balance getting worse when he
doesn’t sleep well.
He pats my arm. “I will after Halloween,” he assures me. “Just got to muddle through until then.”
I think we have to do more than muddle, but he doesn’t. He’s old and frail.
We’ll do the fighting while Harrison muddles, I tell myself.
Outside the diner, Harrison straightens. He reaches into the pocket of his woolly cardigan and pulls out something that glints
a bit in the light from inside.
My stomach heaves when I recognize it.
It’s the furry hair locket.
“Oh, my goodness,” I say, my voice much too high. “Where did you find that? I’ve been looking everywhere.”
For a moment I think Harrison is going to challenge me on this obvious lie—maybe tell me exactly where he found it. Right
there with all the hairy horrors, making it pretty clear that I put it there. Which I did.
But he doesn’t do this.
I make myself smile gratefully as I take the hideous thing from him. He stares at me, and I realize I have no choice but to slip it on over my head.
It thuds against my collarbone with more weight than something so small and delicate should have, surely. And I consider indulging
what feels like a few dry heaves within, but there’s no time for this.
Not with Jack and Logan in that fucking tower waiting for us.
“Good, good,” Harrison says, his gaze on the necklace. “Now we can go.”
He seems to steady himself as we head down the street. The crowds have dissipated a little with the sun setting. There will
be more of a dinner crowd later, but even tourists seem to feel that they shouldn’t be lurking in the shadows out here.
Harrison waves off my arm when I offer it and begins to walk on his own. “You follow my pathway now,” he tells me, without
looking back.
I nod, even though he can’t see me. But he doesn’t stay in the light like he said we would.
He seems to skirt into and out of shadows in a way that makes me more than uneasy.
Especially when trying to follow him, one of my feet hits a shadow, and I swear the necklace moves, there against my collarbone. Tickles.
Like little tendrils of hair have escaped and are brushing against my skin.
I nearly cry out in horror, but instead, I just keep both feet firmly in the light and it doesn’t happen again.
I’m aware once more that there aren’t as many streetlights on this part of Main Street as I think there should be. I stare
up at the clock tower, looming there before us, and feel the way I usually do when I see it.
Like it’s a scream in my head and I should be running in the opposite direction.
But if Jack is waiting, if Logan is waiting, we have to get there. Because three of us might not be enough, but two is even
worse odds.
A set of three middle-aged couples is lurching toward us, laughing loudly like they’ve recently hit the winery on the other
side of town. They weave their way toward us, part for Harrison, and then one of the bigger men nearly crashes into me.
I manage to jump out of the way, but when I glare back at the clueless group, I stumble a little on an uneven slab of sidewalk,
and I’m sure I’m going down—
But I manage not to fall. I frown down at the crack in the sidewalk, my gaze catching. I can see a little rock in the crack.
In the shape of a heart.
Your mother is always looking down on you two, Dad would say, picking up the stone. He’d hand it to one of us to hold.
And Amelia had the same thing. A collection of heart-shaped stones, some passed down and some found.
On a whim, I reach down and pick up the rock. I slide it into my other pocket, so I can be balanced between the two hearts,