She spent most of the time in bed, staring at the door, hoping it would burst open to reveal Daniel’s return. When she did get up, it was to go to the bathroom. Take a quick shower. Ghost down to the kitchen to pick up food and bring it back—as if he would somehow change his mind only if she were laying her head on his pillow.
The day after that was exactly the same. Well, except that sometime after noon, her phone went off. She all but lunged for it on the bedside table—only to discover that it was someone who wanted to talk to her about the warranty on her car.
“You’ve got to call Candy for that,” she muttered as she hung up on the telemarketer.
Back onto the pillow—and it was then that she finally fell asleep. She knew this because she was able to be present in a dream that repeatedly laid claim to her, her hyperawareness causing her to be awake within her subconscious’s dance of delusions.
Naturally, it was about Daniel.
And he was dying.
The images, sights, and sounds were all based on memories. She had been present many times when he’d crashed. She had watched him turn blue and gasp for breath, or be unable to respond to simple commands. She had seen the medical staff rush in and had to jump back, jump out of the way. She’d begged and prayed for his survival. And naturally, all of that terror was where she went: She was at his bedside down in the clinic, and he was fighting for breath, clawing at the air in front of him for relief, nothing but a wheeze coming out of him—
Now is when you call for help, she told herself.
Straining with everything she was worth, she called out to the closed door. Screamed for Gus, even though she’d been told he’d left, hollered for someone, anyone, to—
Her grandfather was the one who stepped into the room.
And abruptly, she traded places with Daniel: Lydia was now the one in the bed and she had no idea where he had gone—no, wait. That wasn’t true. He had died, and now she was dying, too. Of a broken heart.
Her grandfather came up to her bedside. He was dressed in his tweed jacket and his wool slacks, his pipe in his hand, his bushy gray eyebrows down low, as if he were very concerned about her.
“Have you come to say goodbye,” she choked out.
As always, he said nothing. He just stared down at her.
“Help me, Grandfather. What shall I do?”
Wordlessly, her grandfather’s arm raised and swung around to the door, his knurled finger pointing out into—
Lydia woke up in a rush, the dim contours of the bedroom she had shared with Daniel familiar and strange at the same time.
“Grandfather? Are you here…?”
When there was no answer, she wrapped her arms around herself and wept. She wanted to be mad at Daniel for misjudging her as he had, for jumping to a logical conclusion that nonetheless made no sense. Instead, she just felt like he had died, even though he was still alive.
And that dream was right.
She was in the process of dying, too.
In her soul.
* * *
About fifty miles to the north, not far from the Canadian border, Daniel sat outdoors in front of a crackling fire, his eyes lost in the flames that spit and hissed inside their circle of stones. From time to time, he coughed, partially from the cold irritating his shot-to-shit lungs, partially from the smoke, definitely from the dryness of everything.
The campsite he’d rented for the night had been free. Which was what happened when it was off-season and no one was monitoring their property. He’d just driven right around the flimsy arm barrier across the entrance to the campgrounds and kept going until he identified the most defensible position. After that, he had liberated some cordwood from under a tarp by the communal restrooms, and settled in for the night.
For two days, he had driven around upstate New York, memories of Lydia and his former boss in that cave version of a love shack burning him as if the images were acid on his skin, inside his veins, down his throat.
After he hadn’t been able to find her at the WSP or at Candy’s house, he’d guessed where she would go. Of course it was the mountain. Half of her was made for living up in those elevations, and he had always known she was happiest up there. He’d been seeking answers as he’d driven his bike up the broad trail, a violation of the WSP’s stated rules, but hey, the goddamn organization was dead. Who the hell was going to enforce its standards and regulations against him?
When he’d gotten to the summit, he’d smelled the woodsmoke and followed the scent to an outcropping of boulders. A little walk around had revealed the passageway into the cave with its heated spring.
And the rest was history.
Funny how when you found your woman with a man you knew was a sociopathic killer, you kind of didn’t think about your cancer anymore. Nope. And in spite of her betrayal, all he could think about was the danger Lydia was in.
He’d wanted to call Blade all day long. But what kind of threats could he leverage against the guy to get him to stop seeing her? And even if he had buttons to push, he wasn’t going back to Lydia. There was no going back.
Groaning, he repositioned himself, stretching out even more against a rock and crossing his legs at the ankles. Then he linked his arms over his chest. It was going to be hellaciously cold tonight, but then he was numb all over. He wouldn’t feel a thing.
He could kill Blade—he really could. The bastard had seduced—
“No, I did not.”
For a split second, Daniel became convinced that he’d dubbed in the voice of the man he’d been thinking of—but then a long, lean figure stepped into the firelight.
Funny, it was kind of like what they had done before in April, when Blade had found him on the run and threatened him with Lydia’s life if he didn’t follow through and eradicate C.P. Phalen’s lab.
Ah, good times, good times. And here they were again—and he was not surprised. Blade always knew where his men were, almost like they’d been chipped or something.
“I could shoot you where you stand,” Daniel muttered. “I really could.”
When the motherfucker didn’t say anything, he looked up at his old boss properly. Blade’s expression was remote, his lean face a mask of composure in the flames’ orange and yellow flickers.
“If you came here to gloat,” Daniel said, “don’t bother. I told you, you can have her. You win. You taught me the lesson of disobeying an order—how long were you working this angle, by the way? I assumed you backed off bombing the lab site because you knew there was too much attention in the news already. Like, if there was an explosion, things could get too messy, what with all the press about the dead wolves and the red herring with that hotel site killing them. But no, you were playing a long game with me, trying to get me back through working her, weren’t you.”
Blade just stood there.
Like a statue.
“Oh, okay, you came to kill me, not have a chat.” Daniel unlinked his arms and put them out. “Truthfully, this is great. Euthanize me. Put me out of my misery. You’d be doing me a favor—”
“I’m in love with her.”
“What.”
Of all the things Daniel had expected the man to ever say? That wasn’t it; not about Lydia, not about anyone or anything.
“You heard me. I’ve bonded with her—not that you’d understand that kind of thing as a human.”