Chapter Three
The light had faded from the sky when Austin returned to the cottage, and he walked the path blind, on memory.
He passed a black pile that smelled of ancient ash and caught the scent of fresh smoke in the air.
Orange light reflected on the living room window, while cardboard covered the broken kitchen window.
Austin entered the cottage with his clothes and shoes bundled in his arms, greeted by the smell of food and the blaze of every light turned on.
In the kitchen, a pot of mashed potatoes rested on the stovetop next to a tray of roasted root vegetables, and a whole chicken was cooking in the oven.
There was a cup of half-drunk coffee next to the food.
Austin surveyed the rest of the cottage.
The living space comprised a large couch facing an open fireplace—lit, crackling and warm—and a bookcase on the far wall next to an unused desk.
Two doors led off from the space. The bedroom door was open, the room empty, while the bathroom door was shut.
Austin trailed ocean water and sand as he walked to the far side of the kitchen.
The utility room was separated from the rest of the space by a curtain.
Austin drew it, revealing the whirling washing machine and dryer.
A basket with a mountain of clothes was set next to the machine, while two neatly folded piles of washed, still-warm clothes rested on top of the dryer.
Austin dumped his clothes into the dirty pile and grabbed a fresh change from the clean one.
He fetched two bowls from the draining board—where every dish Austin owned was currently scrubbed clean and drying—and checked that the chicken was done before dishing up two portions. He waited at a small two-person dining table in the kitchen with his ankles crossed beneath the chair.
Surprise flashed across Liam’s face when he emerged from the bathroom and spotted Austin. He joined him with a grateful, “Thanks.”
The food was incredibly plain. From the taste of the vegetables, not only had Liam neglected to use any spices, he’d boiled any strong flavour out of them too. Austin happily ate.
After a few bites of food, Liam looked more relaxed than he had all day. “Have a nice swim?”
“Yes.”
“Any visitors?”
Austin’s hand paused halfway to his mouth, a flash of anger jolting through his recently settled nerves. He exhaled, trying to keep hold of the calm the ocean had given him. “I don’t get along with any of them.”
Liam just nodded, like he’d expected as much.
“There are a load of octopuses, actually. In the rocks just past the breakers. They hang out with me whenever I swim. Connor’s afraid of octopuses. He won’t come near the water here, and nobody can walk across that shore without it tearing their feet. Even if you’re wearing shoes, you’ll get cut.”
Liam leaned to the side, checking Austin’s feet. They were bare, white and unharmed. “Are you afraid of them?”
Austin took the time to chew. “There’s this huge one down there, about the size of your chest, and she’s the matriarch.
All the little ones bring her food to keep her happy, so she doesn’t eat them.
She watches me.” He’d got a fright when he first spotted her only a hand span away from his face, but there hadn’t been fear.
Austin knew fear and its contours intimately, and maliceless octopuses could never incite the thing.
“She comes and says hi now. She does this.” Austin demonstrated for Liam as best he could with his arm.
“The others copy her, but they never get close to me the way she does.”
“Was she there today?”
Austin nodded.
“Do you bring her food?”
“I’m not one of her followers.” He wasn’t going to liken himself to those simping males trying to earn her affection. His relationship with the matriarch was one of mutual companionship and respect. If he brought her food, that would be over.
Liam chuckled. Austin didn’t see what was funny.
They finished the meal in peace, and Austin watched as Liam cleaned up, then stoked the fire burning in the fireplace, replacing the metal grate in front of it once he was done. Austin concluded he was more settled than bothered to have Liam in his space again.
“Did you move back in with your brother?” Austin asked. “In Georgia?”
Liam went still with his back turned, in the middle of shaking out a throw blanket for the couch. It took a few seconds for his limbs to unfreeze.
“I visited. He’s married with four kids now. A busy man.”
Austin frowned. On nights where he was on an upswing and got Liam alone, he would get the man talking.
What he would do if he wasn’t working for Cessair, where would he be, what would he study, who would he be?
Austin always circled back to that last question.
Cessair had been an omnipotent presence; who Austin might be without him there had been impossible to envision.
The best he’d managed was to shape his future to fit Connor, who had the vague etchings of a plan when they’d been dating in school: go to Europe with a few friends, work on the coast, never speak to either parent ever again.
“Do you live nearby?” Austin asked, still frowning. One of the few things Liam had mentioned that seemed sincere was that he wanted to reconnect with his older brother, his only living relative. Liam said they hadn’t spoken since he’d joined the military at eighteen.
“I’m in New York.”
A disconcerting feeling flashed through Austin. “You never mentioned New York.” Something with claws scraped against the inside of his ribs. Had Liam always been lying to him? Throwing his pathetic self a bone when he thought Austin was on the edge of hysteria?
Liam tossed the throw blanket onto the couch. “Tammy invited me to stay with her when I left Ireland.”
“Tammy?”
“On the condition I saw a therapist twice a week.”
“Why on earth would you—but your brother?” Austin’s eyes narrowed. “To keep track of me?”
Liam didn’t deny it.
“Waiting for me to go off the rails, is that it?” Austin hissed, rising to his feet.
“I only wanted to—”
Austin’s bedroom door slammed before Liam could finish. Austin thrust his back against the wood, pushing hard enough that his shoulder blades went numb. Was this Austin’s fault?
Years ago, Austin had broken into the house of Connor’s boyfriend, Sam.
To this day, he didn’t know what he’d gone there to do.
Sam’s brother had been home, and Austin ran away, right into Sam’s neighbour, Gary, who caught him red-handed.
Gary wouldn’t listen to Austin’s excuses.
He was going to call the guards. If Cessair found out Austin was causing trouble, the few freedoms he’d managed to get a hold of would be stripped away faster than he could scream.
Austin had purposefully touched Gary’s arm.
He’d purposefully drawn on that power thundering through his veins.
He didn’t consider that he was so close to the ocean.
He didn’t consider that his power, a coiling thing in his body, would respond to fear the way it did.
Gary died. Left in his place was an obsessed, violent man.
One who tracked and followed Austin. Tried to please him in any way he could, and wildly missed the mark every time.
He wouldn’t listen when Austin told him to stop.
Austin’s ragged breaths settled in gasps.
His bedroom came into focus. The fresh bed sheets smelled like linen and lavender, the floor was swept clean of sand, and the short dresser had a large stereo balanced on top.
A USB stuck out of the front, and calming music drifted from the speakers.
Somewhere among the mess of the cottage, Liam had found Austin’s phone, and it rested on the bedside table with a white wire leading behind the headboard to a hidden wall socket.
Austin crossed the room. Without wiping the sand from his feet, he slid beneath the sheets, thrusting one of the pillows hard against his ear to try to muffle the buzzing in his head.
Tears leaked from his eyes as Liam’s actions flashed behind them: defying Cessair, turning on his mentor, leaving Connor to die on the Infinite tanker.
Orbiting Austin, when he should be free.
Austin had no idea if everything between them had been because of his voice. If any of it was real.
He fell into a fitful sleep and woke in the middle of the night.
His overhead light was still on, and instrumental cello music drifted from the stereo.
Austin pushed the pillow off his head and rose out of bed, rubbing his eyes.
He snuck into the living room, where the lights were out and he was blind. He heard Liam’s steady breaths.
Austin quietly approached, finding by touch that the couch had been pulled out into a bed.
Buried under a stack of fluffy blankets, Liam didn’t feel at all like a soldier. He could easily be at a park tossing his nieces or nephews into the air, or perhaps listening to their troubles, quietly accepting whatever they had to tell him.
Austin placed his knee on the couch, and Liam stirred.
Austin froze, waiting until the man settled again, and then slowly continued.
He lay on top of the blankets, resting his ear against Liam’s chest, listening to the steady boom, boom, boom of his heart.
Liam shouldn’t have stirred any feelings of safety.
He’d never been able to shield Austin from any hurt Cessair inflicted over the years, and he couldn’t shield him now from this Wilbur Riley.
Feeling safe was nonsensical because the very blood pumping through Austin’s veins meant that was something he would never truly have.
And yet.
He stayed until the first glimmer of daylight peeked through the edges of the curtains, then slipped back into his own bed.