I glanced at the clock on the Mustang’s dash. “You know it’s three thirty-one in the morning, right?”
Russ turned in the driver’s seat. “Were you sleeping?”
Yeah, I wish. “No, I kept thinking I heard Annie playing that damned Prelude, but…”
Russ raised an eyebrow. His intuition or vibrations or whatever no doubt told him I was awake.
“Fine. But seriously. Why are we here?”
Russ turned his face toward the fields of dead vines. The lightning flashed creepily in his eyes. “About six months before Ian died…”
“Ian Mackenzie?” The name alone made me itchy and uncomfortable. Russ seemed drawn to him in the same way he was drawn to his grandmother’s book of recipes. Like it could either kill him or seduce him. Or kill him in the process of seducing him.
“Do you remember that summer?” Russ asked.
I stared at him. Of course, I remembered that summer.
When Russ first arrived in St. Hilaire, he’d immersed himself in every bit of mumbo jumbo the town had to offer. And then he’d…lost it. His father was working all hours, and Russ had started playing poker with Ian a lot. And one night, right before the gates closed for the season, my phone rang, and the only sound on the line was Russ’s voice saying my name and that he was in the woods. I’d never run so fast. I found Russ alone and disoriented and, over Harriet’s protests, brought him back to Hampton House.
I stayed silent. There was no reason for me to answer Russ’s question. He already knew the answer.
“That night I lost…” Russ’s voice cracked. He stopped a minute to regroup before finishing, “…a series of poker games to Ian.”
“Go on.”
Russ closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was a study in control. “We hung out. That’s what Ian wanted for winning. For me to hang out with him.”
Of all the euphemisms Russ could have come up with, “hung out” was probably the stupidest. “Hung out? What? You built model airplanes together or baked cookies or…?”
Russ narrowed his eyes. “Do you want a play-by-play, because…”
“No. Stop.”
The silence between us threatened to blow out the car windows.
“Look,” Russ said eventually. “It wasn’t like that. But you knew Ian and I had been dancing around things, and it was kind of a relief to be able to use the bet as an excuse. Anyhow, not that it matters, but we were just hanging out that night. Talking, mostly.” I couldn’t look at Russ’s face, so I concentrated on his wrist where he was rubbing his tattoo so hard, I wondered if it would come off. “I know you didn’t like him. I get that. But I actually did. Mostly. In small doses anyhow.”
All the reasons why we never discussed Ian Mackenzie.
“We were in the woods the night you found me because I had some botany assignment for school. Honestly, Dec, that’s the last thing I remember; I don’t even remember calling you. The next thing I knew, I was at your house. Ian and I didn’t talk much after—I couldn’t figure out how to both spend time with you and spend time with him. You always got angry, and Ian was…too much. I had to make a choice. Then…then it was too late.”
“Why are you telling me this now?” I didn’t bother to keep the hurt out of my voice. And I wasn’t even sure what the cause of it was. Anger? Jealousy? Nothing fit.
There was a glint of determination in Russ’s eyes when he said, “Alex isn’t going to stop. You know that, right? He’s totally unhinged.”
“He’s a Mackenzie. It was bound to happen at some point.”
“Well, I’ve had enough of it,” Russ said. “And he’s just going to keep coming after the piano until…”
“The piano? Until what?”
Russ ran a hand methodically over the stitching in the Mustang’s upholstery and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Alex wants to talk to Ian. That’s what all this is about. The piano is some weird part of that. So I tried to facilitate a meeting between him and Ian so he’d leave you and the piano alone.”
I had to walk away before I did something I’d regret. The door opened soundlessly and the field’s oppressive darkness enveloped me as soon as I was away from the car. My anger surged in a way that scared me. I balled my fists and waited for it to pass, but the rage just curled hard into my stomach.
Behind me, a car door opened and closed. “Dec?” Russ called.
I spun around. “Why are you doing this?”
Russ leaned his hands on the car’s hood. “Because,” he said softly, “you don’t have a lock on grief.”
His words stung. “No. Of course I don’t. By all means, tell Alex freaking Mackenzie how sorry I am for his loss.”
Russ charged around to my side of the car. “Do you think I don’t understand how messed up you are about your parents? Do you think that I, of all people, don’t understand that?”
I didn’t answer, but I didn’t walk away either. I wanted to forget that this was my best friend, but I couldn’t. However angry and hurt I was, I knew what Russ meant to me as well as I knew anything. “Fine,” I said. “You understand.”
Russ paused, then said, “I’m not making excuses for him. For them. For any of them. But if I can stop Alex…”
“And cement your position with the Guild, right? That’s really it. Because no one has figured out how to contact Ian, and if you do it, you’ll be their golden boy.” I reached out and grabbed Russ’s hand, pushing his dark coat up his arm until the green-tinged puncture mark was exposed. “Is it worth this?”
Russ’s eyes narrowed, and he pulled his arm back, but his voice stayed even. “It can’t only be worth it when it’s to help you. It’s either right or not.”
My jaw tightened. “See, that’s where we differ. I told you I don’t want you putting yourself at risk for me. Or for Annie. And certainly not for Tristan. And yes, I probably screwed up by asking you to help me. I’m sorry. Really, I am. But Alex Mackenzie doesn’t give a shit whether you live or die. And neither does your beloved Guild, who, by the way, I just found out set my parents up in the hope they’d have little medium babies.”
I watched as Russ’s entire body tensed. “Bloodlines,” he said. “That’s what Rice was talking about at the festival. Strengthening the community through bloodlines.”
I wanted him to condemn the idea, make the obvious connection to the racial and religious purity programs we’d discussed in history class, but he stayed silent, biting his lip and pissing me off. I filled him in on everything else I’d learned about my dad being able to hear Tristan and Tristan saving me after the accident. Then I said, “If they screwed my dad over, they’ll do it to you, too. Why don’t you see that?”