“She made me promise,” I told him through chattering teeth. I’d begun to shake head to toe. I put my newly named gun on the table before I accidentally shot myself in the foot and hugged myself. “We vowed to each other that if one of us turned, the other would smoke her.”
He stared at me, his eyes wild and disbelieving. I could tell he wanted to lean down, touch what remained of her clothes, her being, but his broken ribs barely allowed him to stand. His doctor had only consented to release him for our team’s funerals if he’d promise to stay with a family member. Since I lived closest to the cemetery, he’d chosen me.
“You’re lying!” he cried. “Jessie would never make that kind of deal! She’d want to live no matter what!”
“No.” I tried to shake my head, but all it would do was jerk. I swallowed reflexively. No longer just trembling now, I was seizing. Having some sort of convulsive fit that made me feel like I was standing on top of a jackhammer. I clenched my teeth together, forced myself to talk through them. “
You
want her to live no matter what.”
“You’re such a fucking hypocrite!” David yelled. “If Matt had been standing on your threshold, asking to come in, you’d have thrown open the door. Hell, you’d have slit a wrist for him!”
I didn’t say a word. Useless to tell Dave that Matt and I had made the same deal as I’d had with Jessie. What did it matter anyway? If he wanted to be mad at me, if that helped him get through this nightmare, let him. It was the least I could do.
I dug my fingernails into my sides, sank them deep and concentrated on the pain. It helped. Kept me from taking the next step, which was walking over to the wall and banging my head against it till I passed out.
“I can’t stand the sight of you for another second,” he said, spitting the words like venom. “I’m getting out of here.”
I nodded, too wounded by my own terrible losses to let this new hurt do more than take its place in line. While he went to his room to pack, I took a few minutes to pull myself together. Then I gathered up Jessie’s remains. They made a pitifully small pile for such a bright, vibrant woman. I put them in a cedar-lined box that Granny May had given me when I was a little girl and handed it to Dave on his way out.
“It’s what’s left of her,” I said. “You can keep it or bury it. Whatever you want.” Tears sprang into his eyes as he took the box from me. “I loved her, Dave. I loved them all.”
He nodded. “You may have. But you were in charge. So it’s your fault they’re dead.”
I’d nodded.
Yes. My fault, my fault, my fault . . .
Later he’d sort of apologized for that last remark. But he’d never really forgiven me for Jessie. And I still didn’t blame him. I guess I’d never pursued another real conversation about her with him after that because I hadn’t wanted to see that expression on his face again. But here it was, plastered across Vayl’s visage like a movie on a screen.
“Cirilai did not warn me,” he said.
“Vayl, this ring is better than a hotel wake-up call. You must’ve felt
something
. It’s been zapping me left and right about you.”
He dropped his head. Shook it a few times. When he looked up again, his whole face seemed to have tightened, as if a decade’s worth of worries had suddenly dropped on his head. “What do you think this means?”
“Why are you asking me? It’s your ring. You should know why you’ve become disconnected from it.”
From what it represents. Come on, pal, isn’t it obvious
?
He threw back his shoulders. Determined, it seemed, to soldier on despite the growing evidence against the wisdom of his current course of action. “It does not matter. You are obviously fine. Our mission is still on course for completion. And Zarsa will be ready for the turning by week’s end. Everything is on track.” By the tone in his voice, I thought he was trying to convince himself more than me. Normally I would’ve grabbed him by the shirt and shaken some sense into him. But at the moment I couldn’t find one give-a-crap bone in my body.
“Okay,” I said. I turned to go.
“What did you say?”
I looked over my shoulder. Why would he be mad? I’d just agreed with him. “I said fine. You’re right. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to —”
“I most definitely
do
mind!”
I turned back to face him, always a good choice when dealing with a madman. “Vayl,” I said gently, so as not to push him clear off the deep end, “what is it that you want?”
“I want you to yell!” He stopped, looked surprised at himself, rushed on. “You have been” — he searched for the words — “on my case, how you say, in my face, ever since I took up with Zarsa. Frankly, it has infuriated me to no end!”
“Uh-huh. And now that I’ve stopped, you want me to start again? Aren’t you kind of undermining yourself here just a little bit?”
“Yes! But when I fight you, I do not have to listen to my own doubts.”
