Chapter Thirty #2
“None of that makes sense with the note, though,” I say. “The Harrison who was chasing me here was definitely not suicidal.
He wanted to kill me if I wouldn’t give him what he really wanted, not himself. He wanted power, and I’m pretty sure the demons
were in him.”
“I’m still having trouble imagining that little old man on a killing spree,” Logan mutters.
“There’s something else about that note,” Jack says after a moment, his voice rough. His grip still tight on me. “That’s not
Harrison’s handwriting. It’s Amelia’s.”
We all stare at each other.
“Well,” I say, and then don’t know what to say next. “What does that mean?”
“I can’t tell you how. I don’t know. But . . . somehow, whatever she sacrificed, she made sure that even in the eyes of nonbelievers,
Harrison was to blame for everything that happened. Because he was.” I can feel the way Jack is still internally working through that, but he turns it into determination. The Jack Bellamy way.
“We’re going to find out everything he did,” Jack says, and I can tell that’s more of a vow. “If I have to tear apart every last part of the store and my grandparents’ old house, I’m going to find out every last secret that Harrison was keeping.”
That seems to ring out a little into the night, and that’s when I fully get what Jack was telling me. The dark is all around
us, but it doesn’t press in. There’s no seething weight to it.
It’s just nighttime.
The moon is bright overhead. I can even see some stars.
Even if the clock never struck midnight, it’s officially Halloween and it feels like the first night. Maybe ever. Like we’ve
all been granted a whole new chance at life—
Or maybe that’s just me.
Logan shifts, almost like he’s uncomfortable. When I think of him as always golden, always at ease, and never uncomfortable.
Maybe you were so uncomfortable in your own skin that you had to imagine he was carefree in his, a little voice inside me suggests.
It feels a little bit like an indictment, and I’ve had enough of that sort of thing recently, but I don’t think it’s wrong.
“Hey, asshole,” I say, and Logan looks at me. “I love you, you know.”
Thereby losing all possible points for the year. Maybe for life.
Logan shakes his head. “Get it together, Lex.” But I can see the gleam in his eyes. He looks at Jack. “I’m going to go to
the jail. I might not be able to get Nora out until the morning, but it shouldn’t be too long.” He looks at me. Then back
at Jack. “I think she might have hit her head, buddy. You might want to check for a concussion.”
Jack actually smiles. “I got it covered.”
I let go of Jack and launch myself at Logan, hugging him tight.
And he can posture all he wants, but he holds me. Hard. And he whispers, “I love you, too,” for good measure.
“Bring Nora home,” I tell him, pulling back, and delighted to see that I’ve left mud all over his shirt.
Logan nods, then takes off, his long strides eating up the night. Jack slides his arm over my shoulders. “I don’t have my
bike down here—”
“I want to walk,” I tell him. “Without worrying about the light.”
“You want to test it.”
I laugh a little, leaning into him. “I know we blew up the deal. I know it in my soul, Jack. And I want to feel it. Over and
over again. Celebrate it, even. And the best celebration I can think of is walking through this town and not thinking it’s the creepiest place I’ve ever been.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Jack says.
Another promise.
So Jack and I walk home.
As we get back into Midas proper, we walk through a happy fall night teeming with people—a very different night than the one
I ran through earlier, knowing full well that my life was on the line. As well as everyone else’s.
I like this version a whole lot better. It’s like some kind of harvest festival. Laughter and shouts and low murmurs fill
the air. I can hear kids laughing, and it’s clear that no one is afraid of the shadows. The smell of roasting nuts and sticky
sugar is everywhere.
“Isn’t it . . . too late for all this?” I ask Jack.
He looks around, a little baffled, too. When he holds out his phone, I can see the time reads eight. Not midnight.
Neither one of us knows what to make of it, but Jack comes to a stop and points up. Lights gleam all around us, except the
clock tower doesn’t anymore. Not like it used to. The spotlights still illuminate it, but it’s cracked. And the face is dull
instead of shiny and oppressive.
The time on the face reads 11:59, but nothing is moving, nothing is ticking. It’s stopped there.
They’re gone, I think. And whatever happened with warped time doesn’t matter. It’s the night before Halloween again. The festival is right
and perfect.
And the demons are gone.
It’s like the final knot of tension deep inside my gut loosens. We won. It’s over. I really do need Jack’s support then, because
my knees feel a little weak.
He leads me into the diner and tucks me into a booth. The diner is so packed I don’t have a clue how there’s even one empty
chair, let alone a whole booth, but there is.
“Owner’s prerogative,” Jack says, reading my mind. “I’m making you some food. Once you eat, I’ll take you over to my place.
We’ll get you cleaned up and into bed and this time, there will be no sleepwalking.”
The way he looks at me when he says that makes my cheeks heat up, and I suspect he intends to hold me down to keep me in one
place. I am totally okay with that.
As he heads back into the kitchen, I realize I know nothing about his place. I think I thought he lived in the Swamp Fox Shoppes complex somewhere, so this is a fascinating development.
While I wait, I watch the diner around me. Kids in costumes. A couple grumpy old people complaining about the crowds. Marleen
taking care of business in her inimitable way. Nothing feels creepy. No forked tongues or slurping. This is what a small town
should be, whether there’s a festival or not.
I feel like we made Midas the cute little Hallmark movie it should have been all along.
Jack presents me with the perfect burger, again, and then slides into the booth beside me. I make him eat some of the food.
We don’t really talk. There’s too much to say and it’s been a long few days, so we lean on each other and observe.
We watch Midas come alive again all around us. And it’s wonderful.
When we clear the plate, Jack handles it and then leads me out the back of the diner and onto his motorcycle. I hold on to
him, tight, my chin on his shoulder.
And we ride through the dark.
Through shadows that flirt with the moon and make the trees look mysterious, but leave us entirely alone.
Like we really are safe. Like we didn’t just blow up the deal, we slapped the demons down, too. Maybe even for good.
A girl can hope.
When he pulls to a stop in a narrow driveway, I am in shock.
I never in a million years would have pictured Jack Bellamy living in a little gingerbread-style house on a quiet street on the outskirts of Midas. A light illuminates a wide porch
with a swing on it, and the hint of a garden in front of a big picture window.
He leads me inside, and the decor is decidedly sparse and male, which helps with the shock a little. It’s a little bigger
than Amelia’s house, but not by much. It’s cozy. It’s safe and it smells a bit like him.
I decide I could stay here forever.
Jack insists I take a shower and change into one of his shirts that nearly comes down to my knees. He tucks me into bed, then
showers himself.