The Complete Hush, Hush Saga Page 49

  “Hey now,” Vee said. “Blood oaths are serious stuff.”

  Rixon laid his hand intimately on her thigh and grinned affectionately at her, and I felt my chest ache with envy. Weeks ago, Patch would have touched me the same way. The irony was, weeks ago, Vee had probably felt the same way I did now whenever she was forced to hang out with Patch and me. Knowing this should have made swallowing my jealousy a little bit easier, but the pain cut deep. Responding to Rixon, Vee bent forward, placing a kiss on his mouth. I averted my eyes, but it didn’t dilute the envy that seemed to hang like a rock in my throat.

  Rixon cleared his voice. “Why don’t I go buy us some Cokes?” he asked, having the sensitivity to notice that he and Vee were making me uncomfortable.

  “Allow me,” Vee said, standing and dusting sand off her bottom. “I think Nora wants to talk to you, Rixon.” She made air quotes around the word “talk.”

  “I’d stay, but I’m not a big fan of the subject matter.”

  “Uh—,” I began uncomfortably, not sure what Vee was hinting at, but acutely aware that I wasn’t going to like it.

  Rixon smiled at me expectantly.

  “Patch,” Vee said, clarifying things, only to make the air seem ten times heavier than it already was. With that out of the way, she marched off.

  Rixon rubbed his chin. “You want to talk about Patch?”

  “Not really. But you know Vee. Always there to make an uncomfortable situation ten times worse,” I muttered under my breath.

  Rixon laughed. “Good thing I’m not easily humiliated.”

  “I wish I could say the same thing right now.”

  “How are things?” he asked, trying to break the ice. “With Patch, or in general?”

  “Both.”

  “They’ve been better.” Realizing there was a good chance Rixon would pass anything I said along to Patch, I quickly added, “I’m on the upswing. But can I ask a personal question? It’s about Patch, but if you don’t feel comfortable answering, I’m seriously okay with it.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Is he still my guardian angel? A while back, after a fight, I told him I didn’t want him to be. But I’m not sure where we stand. Is he no longer my guardian simply because I said that’s what I wanted?”

  “He’s still assigned to you.”

  “How come he’s never around anymore?”

  Rixon’s eyes glinted. “You broke up with him, remember? It’s awkward for him. Most guys don’t relish the idea of hanging around an ex any longer than they have to. That, and I know he said the archangels are breathing down his neck. He’s bending over backward to keep things strictly professional.”

  “So he’s still protecting me?”

  “Sure. Just from behind the scenes.”

  “Who was in charge of matching him to me?”

  Rixon shrugged. “The archangels.”

  “Is there any way to let them know I’d like to be reassigned? It’s not working out very well. Not since the breakup, anyway.” Not working out? It was tearing me up inside. All this touch and go, seeing him, but not being able to have him, was devastating.

  He ran his thumb along his lip. “I can tell you what I know, but there’s a good chance the information’s dated. It’s been a while since I was in the loop. Ironically—you ready for this?—you have to swear a blood oath.”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “You cut your palm and shake a few drops of blood into the dust of the earth. Not carpet or concrete—dirt. Then you swear the oath, acknowledging to heaven that you’re not afraid to shed your own blood. From dust you came, and to dust you go. In saying the oath, you give up your right to a guardian angel and announce that you accept your fate—without heaven’s help. Keep in mind, I’m not advocating it. They gave you a guardian, and for good reason. Someone upstairs thinks you’re in danger. I’m going with my gut on this one, but I think it’s more than a paranoid hunch.”

  Not exactly a news flash—I could feel something dark pressing against my world, threatening to eclipse it. The phantom behind my father’s reappearing ghost, most notably. I was struck by a thought. “What if the person who’s after me is also my guardian angel?” I asked slowly.

  Rixon gave a yap of laughter. “Patch?” He didn’t sound like it was even a possibility. No surprise there. Rixon had been through everything with Patch. Even if Patch was guilty, Rixon would stand by his side. Blind loyalty above all else.

  “If he was trying to hurt me, would someone know?” I asked. “The archangels? The angels of death? Dabria knew when people were close to death. Could another angel of death stop Patch before it’s too late?”

  “If you’re doubting Patch, you’ve got the wrong guy.” His tone had cooled. “I know him better than you. He takes his job as guardian seriously.”

  But if Patch wanted to kill me, he’d crafted the perfect murder, hadn’t he? He was my guardian angel. He was charged with keeping me safe. No one would suspect him . . . .

  But he’d already had his chance to kill me. And he hadn’t taken it. He’d sacrificed the one thing he wanted most of all—a human body—to save my life. He wouldn’t do that if he wanted me dead.

  Would he?

  I shook off my suspicions. Rixon was right. Suspecting Patch was ridiculous at this point.

  “Is he happy with Marcie?” I clamped my mouth shut. I hadn’t meant to ask the question in the first place. It had spilled out in the moment. A blush brushed my cheeks.

  Rixon watched me, clearly giving his answer some thought. “Patch is the closest thing I’ve got to family, and I love the guy like a brother, but he’s not right for you. I know it, he knows it, and deep down, I think you know it too. Maybe you don’t want to hear this, but he and Marcie are alike. They’re cut from the same cloth. Patch should be allowed to have a little fun. And he can—Marcie doesn’t love him. Nothing she feels for him is going to tip off the archangels.”

  We sat in silence, and I struggled to stuff my emotions deep down. I’d tipped off the archangels, in other words. My feelings for Patch were what exposed us. It was nothing Patch had done or said. It was all me. According to Rixon’s explanation, Patch had never loved me. He’d never reciprocated. I didn’t want to accept it. I wanted Patch to have cared about me as much as I cared about him. I didn’t want to think I’d been nothing more than entertainment, a way to pass the time.

  There was one more question I desperately wanted to ask Rixon. If Patch and I were still on good terms, I would have asked him, but that was a moot point now. Rixon was just as worldly as Patch, however. He knew things other people didn’t—particularly when it came to fallen angels and Nephilim—and what he didn’t know, he could find out. Right now, my best hope at finding the Black Hand was through Rixon.

  I moistened my lips and decided to get the question over with. “Have you ever heard of the Black Hand?”

  Rixon flinched. He studied me in silence a moment before his face blazed with amusement. “Is this a joke? I haven’t heard that name in a long time. I thought Patch didn’t like to be called it. Did he tell you about it, then?”

  A slow freeze gripped my heart. I’d been on the brink of telling Rixon about the envelope with the iron ring and note claiming the Black Hand killed my father, but found myself grasping for a new response. “The Black Hand is Patch’s nickname?”

  “He hasn’t gone by it in years. Not since I started calling him Patch. He never liked the Black Hand.” He scratched his cheek. “Those were back in the days when we took jobs as mercenaries for the French king. Eighteenth-century black ops. Enjoyable stint. Good money.”

  I might as well have been slapped across the face. The whole moment felt unbalanced, tipped on its side. Rixon’s words ran over me in a blur, as if he was speaking in a foreign language, and I couldn’t keep up. I was immediately bombarded with doubts. Not Patch. He hadn’t killed my dad. Anyone else, but not him.

  Slowly the doubts began to fall by the wayside, replaced by other thoughts. I
found myself picking through facts, analyzing for evidence. The night I gave Patch my ring: The moment I’d said my dad had given it to me, he insisted he couldn’t take it, almost adamantly so. And the mere name the Black Hand. It was fitting, almost too fitting. Forcing myself to hang on a few more moments, holding my emotions carefully in check, I selected my next words carefully.

  “You know what I regret most?” I said, my tone as casual as I could make it. “It’s the stupidest thing, and you’ll probably laugh.” To make my story convincing, I pulled a trivial laugh up from someplace deep inside me that I didn’t even know existed. “I left my favorite sweatshirt at his house. It’s from Oxford—my dream school,” I explained. “My dad picked it up for me when he went to England, so it means a lot.”

  “You were at Patch’s place?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

  “Just once. My mom was home, so we drove over to his place to watch a movie. I left my sweatshirt on the sofa.” I knew I was walking a dangerous line—the more details I revealed about Patch’s house, the higher the chance something wouldn’t match up, and my cover would be blown. But along the same lines, if I was too vague, I was scared it would tip Rixon off that I was lying.

  “I’m impressed. He likes to keep his home address off the radar.”

  And why was that? I wondered. What was he hiding? Why was Rixon the only person allowed into Patch’s inner sanctum? What could he share with Rixon, but no one else? Had he never allowed me inside because he knew something I’d see there would unravel the truth—that he was responsible for murdering my dad?

  “Getting the sweatshirt back would mean a lot to me,” I said. I felt somehow removed, as if I was watching myself converse with Rixon from several feet away. Someone stronger, more clever and contained was saying the words rolling from my mouth. I was not that person. I was the girl who felt herself crumbling into pieces as fine as the sand beneath her feet.

  “Head over first thing in the morning. Patch leaves early, but if you’re there by six thirty, you should catch him.”

  “I don’t want to have to do it face-to-face.”

  “Want me to pick up the sweatshirt next time I’m over? I’m sure I’ll be over there tomorrow night. This weekend at the latest.”

  “I’d like to get it sooner rather than later. My mom keeps asking about it. Patch gave me a key, and as long as he hasn’t changed the locks, I could still get in. Trouble is, it was dark when we drove over, and I don’t remember how to get to his place. I didn’t pay attention, because I wasn’t planning on having to drive back and get my sweatshirt, post-breakup.”

  “Swathmore. Near the industrial district.”

  My mind netted this information.

  If his place was near the industrial district, I was betting he lived in one of the brick apartment buildings on the edge of Old Town Coldwater. There wasn’t much else to choose from, unless he’d taken up residence in one of the abandoned factories or vagabond shacks by the river, which seemed doubtful.

  I smiled, hoping I appeared relaxed. “I knew it was over by the river somewhere. Top floor, right?” I said, taking a stab in the dark. It seemed to me Patch wouldn’t want to hear his neighbors stomping around above him.

  “Yeah,” Rixon said. “Number thirty-four.”

  “Do you think Patch will be home tonight? I don’t want to bump into him. Especially if he’s there with Marcie. I just want to get the sweatshirt and get out.”

  Rixon coughed into his fist. “Uh, no, you should be good.” He scratched his cheek and cast me a nervous, almost pitying, look. “Vee and I are actually meeting up with Patch and Marcie for a movie tonight.”

  I felt my spine stiffen. The air in my lungs seem to shatter . . . and then, just when I felt all semblance of my carefully controlled emotions fleeing, I was speaking clearly again. I had to. “Does Vee know?”

  “I’m still trying to figure out how to break the news.”

  “Break the news about what?”

  Rixon and I both swung around as Vee plopped down with a cardboard crate of Cokes.

  “Uh—a surprise,” Rixon said. “I’ve got something planned for tonight.”

  Vee grinned. “A clue, a clue! Pleeeease?”

  Rixon and I shared a quick glance, but I looked away. I didn’t want any part of this. Besides, I’d already tuned out. My thoughts were robotically sifting through this new information: Tonight. Patch and Marcie. A date. Patch’s apartment would be empty.

  I had to get in.

  CHAPTER

  16

  THREE HOURS LATER, THE FRONTS OF VEE’S THIGHS were toasted red, the tops of her feet were blistered, and her face was swollen with heat. Rixon had taken off an hour ago, and Vee and I were lugging the umbrella and beach tote up the alley branching off Old Orchard Street.

  “I feel funny,” Vee said. “Like I’m going to pass out. Maybe I should have gone easy on the baby oil.”

  I was lightheaded and uncomfortably warm too, but it didn’t have anything to do with the weather. A headache sliced down the center of my skull. I kept trying to swallow the bad taste in my mouth, but the more I swallowed, the queasier my stomach grew. The name “the Black Hand” skipped around my mind like it was taunting me to give it my full attention, stabbing its nails into my headache every time I tried to ignore it. I couldn’t think about it now, in front of Vee, having enough foresight to know I’d shatter the moment I did. I had to juggle the pain a little longer, tossing it up in the air every time it threatened to crash down. I clung to the safety of numb devastation, pushing the inevitable off as long as I could. Patch. The Black Hand. It couldn’t be.

  Vee came to a halt. “What is that?”

  We were standing in the parking lot at the rear of the bookstore, a few feet from the Neon, and we were staring at the large piece of metal attached to the left rear tire.

  “I think it’s a car boot,” I said.

  “I can see that. What’s it doing on my car?”

  “I guess when they say violators will be towed, they mean it.”

  “Don’t get smart with me. What are we going to do now?”

  “Call Rixon?” I suggested.

  “He’s not going to be very happy about having to drive all the way back out here. What about your mom? Is she back in town?”

  “Not yet. How about your parents?”

  Vee sat on the curb and buried her face in her hands. “It probably costs a fortune to get a car boot removed. This will be the last straw. My mom’s going to ship me off to a monastery.”

  I took a seat beside her, and together we pondered our options.

  “Don’t we have any other friends?” Vee asked. “Someone we could call for a ride without feeling too guilty? I wouldn’t feel guilty about making Marcie drive all the way out here, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t do it. Not for us. Especially not for us. You’re friends with Scott. Think he’d come get us? Hold on a minute . . . isn’t that Patch’s Jeep?”

  I followed Vee’s gaze down the opposite end of the alley. It fed into Imperial Street, and sure enough, parked on the far side of Imperial was a shiny black Jeep Commander. The windows were tinted, a glare of sun reflecting off them.

  My heart accelerated. I couldn’t run into Patch. Not here. Not yet. Not when the only thing keeping me from breaking down sobbing was a carefully constructed dam whose foundation cracked deeper with every passing second.

  “He must be here somewhere,” Vee said. “Text him and tell him we’re stranded. I might not like him, but I’ll use him if it gets me a ride home.”

  “I’d text Marcie before I’d text Patch.” I hoped Vee didn’t detect the strange, dull note of distress and loathing in my voice. The Black Hand . . . the Black Hand . . . not Patch . . . please, not Patch . . . a mistake, an explanation . . . The headache seared, as if my own body was warning me to stop this line of thinking for my own safety.

  “Who else can we call?” Vee said.

  We both knew who we could call. Absolutely no one. We we
re lame, friendless people. No one owed us a favor. The only person who would drop everything to come to my rescue was sitting beside me. And vice versa.

  I directed my attention back to the Jeep. For no reason whatsoever, I stood. “I’m driving the Jeep home.” I wasn’t sure what kind of statement I intended to send to Patch. An eye for an eye? You hurt me, I’ll hurt you? Or maybe, This is only the start, if you had anything to do with my dad’s death . . .

  “Is Patch going to be mad when he figures out you stole his Jeep?” Vee said.

  “I don’t care. I’m not going to sit here all evening.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Vee said. “I don’t like Patch on a normal day, never mind when he’s got his temper on.”

  “What happened to your sense of adventure?” A fierce desire had taken control of me, and I wanted nothing more than to take the Jeep and send Patch a message. I envisioned bumping the Jeep into a tree. Not hard enough to deploy the air bags, just hard enough to leave a dent. A little memento from me. A warning.

  “My sense of adventure stops short of a kamikaze suicide mission,” said Vee. “It’s not going to be pretty when he figures out it was you.”

  The logical voice in my head might have instructed me to back away for a moment, but all logic had left me. If he’d hurt my family, if he’d destroyed my family, if he’d lied to me—

  “Do you even know how to boost a car?” Vee asked.

  “Patch taught me.”

  She didn’t look convinced. “You mean you saw Patch steal a car, and now you think you’ll give it a try?”

  I strode down the alley toward Imperial Street, with Vee jogging close behind. I checked for traffic, then crossed to the Jeep. I tried the door latch. Locked.

  “Nobody’s home,” Vee said, cupping her hands around her eyes to peer inside. “I think we should walk away. Come on, Nora. Back away from the Jeep.”

  “We need a ride. We’re stranded.”

  “We still have two legs, leftie and rightie. Mine are in the mood for exercise. They feel like a nice long walk—Are you crazy?” she shrieked.