Flutter (29 page)

And when I began to kiss him, really kiss him, and melt my body into his, he responded hungrily, and he did not push me away.

I awoke the next day in the early-morning hours, with only the faintest bit of light filtering into the barn. A note sat on the pillow beside me.
Out back
was all it said.

I dressed quickly. I could hear Ash behind the barn. It sounded like he was chopping wood.

I heard a new noise then, tires on gravel, and my stomach turned. A million thoughts flew through my mind. I shoved my feet into my boots and nearly fell down the ladder, running toward the sliding barn door.

I quickly grabbed the handle and pulled the door open a tiny bit, peering out at the drive. There was a car parked
in the driveway, a nondescript green sedan. I couldn’t see much, but then a figure came into my view. Someone walked up the steps to the house. It looked like a woman, maybe a young girl, my age. She rang the doorbell, waited a few moments, and then she looked through the window of the door on her tiptoes.

Ash intercepted her then, on the porch. And I could see them talking. They were only a few hundred feet away. He listened, nodded.

But there was something familiar about this figure. I opened the door to the barn a bit more and stepped out, sheltering my eyes from the rising morning sun blaring off the snowdrifts.

The girl turned around then on the porch, and I saw her. Gia. The same sparkly, cat’s-eye glasses, the same bright smile, but her hair was short, a pixie, and her eyes were round with worry.

“Gia!” I cried. “How did you? When? Dad’s not—!”

“Emery,” she said, and she ran over to me and squeezed me. I responded, knowing instantly something was wrong, terribly wrong.

“Oh, Jesus, Emery. It’s bad. I couldn’t risk getting in touch over the phone. I came to warn you.”

“I know what we’re up against,” I told her.

“No, you don’t,” Gia said.

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“This.” Gia pulled her messenger bag off her shoulder.

She walked toward her car then, which I realized must have been a rental, and she emptied the contents of her bag on the hood. She looked at the items and then looked at me solemnly.

“Your dad,” she said.

On the hood of the car lay a cell phone, an envelope thick with cash, and a small plastic case, holding what looked like two syringes of amber-colored liquid.

“My father gave you this?”

“I was with him in Esperanza. Them. He wanted me to come with them to find you. So I just played along. What could I do? I figured I’d try to help you out, tip you off somehow. I was at the bus station when … well, however you got away.”

“Is he on his way?”

“No. After you two got away, he gave me this. Told me to wait for you in Ann Arbor. See if you showed up there. He gave me this stuff. He paid me, Emery. And he gave me the shots—the drugs. ‘Just in case she initiates a problem,’ he said. He told me that it would be ‘best for everyone invested in this’ if you would come happily, of your own accord, with your friend. He wanted you to come back and not know what he was capable of. Unless … unless you wouldn’t come quietly.”

My mouth hung open in disbelief. Even after everything that had happened, I still couldn’t believe it had come to this.

“I’m so sorry,” Gia said.

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t think of anything.

“So how did you know to come here? Now?” Ash asked.

“I told Dr. Land that I was going back to Ann Arbor. He rented me a car, sent me on my way. He was off to check Charlevoix. I think the guy at the library told him something about that. But I stayed yesterday in Esperanza, and I asked around. I remembered that lady at the bakery, and she remembered me. She liked me, believed me. I could tell she was protecting you. But I eventually convinced her I was on your side. She gave me your name, Ash, a little information. I worked out what I could, found your address. I’m just so glad that luck was on our side. That you were here.”

Ash let out a bitter laugh then. “Luck,” he said under his breath.

“There’s something else,” Gia said quietly, wringing her hands in front of her.

“What?” I said, unsure if I could take any more.

“Your Nan,” she said quietly. “She passed away, Emery.”

“Nan?” I whispered, bringing my hand to my mouth. I instantly thought of the loop, my Nan.… I couldn’t believe— But yes, yes, I could believe it, couldn’t I? I had seen her with my own eyes. I had met her there.

“Nan,” I whispered, thinking of Mom, knowing they were together now. “My Nan.”

“Maybe we could go back together … for the funeral. Talk to someone, anyone. Get my parents to take us to the police or—”

“Gia,” I said quietly, “I can’t go back there.”

I watched something register on her face then, acceptance, defeat maybe. “Okay,” she said after a long moment. “I believe you. I get it,” she said.

“Thank you,” I told her. I hugged Gia then. “Thank you for warning me, coming here.”

I stared long and hard at the syringes on the hood of the car. Dad would never be able to let me go. He would never be that future dad. That dad didn’t exist, and it broke my heart.

“Your father will find you soon,” she said, shoving the syringes and stuff back in her bag. “You’ve got a day at most, I bet. If that. Especially if I don’t answer his calls.”

I noticed for the first time that Ash held a tiny evergreen tree in one hand, a Christmas tree, and I sensed that this was something he’d wanted to surprise me with. But I also realized that our time was done here. Things had turned.

“And don’t use your email. Or use Wi-Fi,” Gia said quickly. “I think that’s how he tracked you to Esperanza.”

“I haven’t used it here,” I said. “Thank you.” I grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

“Should we go to the cops here? What do you think?” Gia asked, breathless.

“No, we can’t,” I said.

Gia looked from Ash’s face to mine. “Is there more to
this story? Are there more reasons you’re running?” Gia asked finally.

I looked at Gia. She seemed small, scared. My gaze flitted to Ash.

Ash simply nodded at Gia. “Yes.”

“You can fill me in later,” Gia offered. “But you need to figure out what you’re going to do before they show up here. I mean, he’s calling it a matter of national security, Emery. He’s saying
you
are a matter of national security—”

“NSA,” I whispered, hardly believing it, thinking of yesterday, the scene at Dala Cabin.

“Emery,” Gia said, “they have a new theory. They are very serious about finding you. It’s some kind of big—”

“We know,” Ash offered without looking up. “We know what it is.”

Gia let out a sigh. “They wouldn’t tell me, of course, but it sounded big.”

We three looked at each other. “Near-death experiences,” I whispered. Gia looked stricken.

Ash cleared his throat. “And there are a lot of people who would go to great lengths to protect a … specimen … a secret that could prove an afterlife.”

The seriousness of the situation sank in.

How long had Dad suspected this? How long had the team not told me? I thought of how my dad had asked me
outside Dala Cabin if I had thought about death. Had he been testing me? Seeing whether I had figured it out?

“Do you want to go back?” Ash whispered. “Maybe they can do something. They—”

“No,” I answered. I had come this far. And I was getting control. I was not going back, leaving Ash and permitting a section of my skull to be surgically removed.

We stood in silence, unsure of our next move.

Suddenly Ash’s posture stiffened. He dropped the evergreen tree next to him and grabbed my arm.

He pointed into the distance, off toward the highway, shielding his eyes from the sun. “There,” he said, pointing down the winding path to where we first turned into the lane for the A-OK Ranch.

“Who the hell is that?” he said through clenched teeth.

I peered past the early-morning sun. “A red truck. It’s coming up the road. You think it’s the person who’s living in your house?”

“That’s my father’s truck,” Ash said. “Let’s get in the barn.”

I grabbed Gia’s hand, and Ash pulled us both into the barn, sliding the door behind us. He stood still and quiet, peering through the slats of the barn door, and I could see his chest rising and falling quickly, too quickly, his fists clenched at his sides.

“Who do you think it is?” I whispered, still holding on desperately to Gia’s hand and Ash’s arm. “Your uncle?”

“Emery, I might be losing my mind, but I swear that it looks like my father driving that truck.”

I pushed him out of the way then and looked through the slats of the door. The truck came hammering down the lane, too fast, the back tires fishtailing, the driver obviously recklessly, crazily drunk. Ash leaned over, above me, and watched as well.

“No,” Ash said. “It can’t be.”

“Maybe he made it. Maybe he lived.” I felt the buzzing, the thrum, my constant companion, beginning to swell behind my eyes.

The truck screeched to a halt right behind Gia’s rental car, and I watched as a large, lumbering man unfolded himself from the driver’s seat. The same man from the wedding album, just bigger, thicker. With years of hard work and anger and violence woven thickly into those muscles. He turned his head toward the barn for a second, and I saw his face. He had the same dark hair as Ash, peppered with gray, but that was where the resemblance ended.

“My God,” Ash whispered. “Emery, that’s him. Alive and in the flesh.”

“It’s him,” I said. My skin crawled, the look in his eyes was so dull, so animal. My eyelids fluttered then, but I pushed it back, clenched my fists.

“I left him for dead, Emery.” Ash turned from the door then, and his hands went to his head. “How can this be possible?”

Gia looked out the slats through the door and turned to us, taking a few steps back from us, looking from one of our faces to the other. “He’s drunk.” She looked stricken. But she didn’t ask any questions.

And I was silently glad for it. It was too much to think about explaining this right now.

“I just can’t believe it,” Ash said. He shook his head and paced.

I watched through the slats as Ash’s father walked one time around the green sedan, scanned the property, and then started up the front porch. He walked the slow, labored walk of a drunk, tripping over one of the porch steps. He turned the key in the front door and let himself in.

“That bastard killed my mom and brother,” Ash said through gritted teeth. He repeated it, louder, to Gia and me. And then he repeated it again, practically yelling it. His words bounced off the barn walls, echoing and hanging there in the empty space around us.

“Ash, calm down,” I told him.

“No, I will not!” Ash walked to the door, banged his fist on it. “I have to talk to him, Emery. He has to hear me out. I will never be free of this if I don’t.” Ash stopped then, regaining his composure, turning toward me squarely.

“I have to do this. And then I’ll finally be free of him.”

“Do what?” I squawked. My heart leaped in my throat then.

“Just talk to him.”

“I understand,” I said quickly. “But not now. Not now, when you’re upset. You’re angry. He’s obviously drunk. You’re in shock over everything. You can’t—”

“Now,” Ash said. “I have to, Emery. I’ll never be free of this if I don’t.”

“No,” I told him. “This is crazy. You can’t just walk right in there. I won’t let you! This is crazy!”

Ash quickly grabbed me to him, held me close. “This is nuts,” he said, putting his face in my hair. He breathed in deeply. “We’ll leave after I talk to him. Start fresh, anywhere you want. Just stay here with Gia. I’m calm. See? I just have to talk to him.”

“No,” I said, feeling my heart beat hard. “You can’t leave me. Not now. Not like this.”

“Gia,” Ash said, turning toward her. “Stay with Emery. You may have to revive her if she loops.”

“Like CPR?” Gia asked, visibly swallowing.

“Yes.” Ash nodded. “Can you do that?”

Gia nodded, her eyes wide.

“Do you have a cell phone?” Ash asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“If I’m not back in ten minutes, call the police.”

“No way!” I screamed, and I pulled Ash toward me. I pulled him by his arms toward me, locking my hands around his wrists for everything I was worth. I would physically keep him here if I had to.

“Be reasonable, Ash,” I said, trying to sound calm, smiling
at him. But something about my face must’ve given me away. I bit back the thrum behind my eyes.

Ash kissed my lips lightly. “Fight that flutter, okay?”

I laughed at the silliness of that saying, but only in an attempt to lighten the darkness I saw in Ash’s face. “Ash, you don’t
need
to see him. You’ll never get what you need from him—forgiveness or closure or—”

“I have to face him, Emery, just one last time.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I have to show him that I’m not him, that I—”

“You aren’t him, Ash. That’s why you don’t need him.”

He tilted his head to the left a little. He looked at me, but past me. He thought on this.

“Just walk away, Ash. We can start fresh.”

“Just you and me,” he answered, a faraway look in his eyes. I let his wrists go then, and he rubbed at his stubble. He pinched the bridge of his nose, turning from me. His shoulders sagged, and his head dropped into his hands.

“He’s my father.”

“I know he is,” I whispered. “But you are so much more than his son.”

Ash sighed deeply. “I can be free of him now.” It was almost a question.

“I think you can.” He turned back to me then, and I reached out for him. His long limbs folded into me, his head resting on top of mine.

We stood like that, together for a long moment, the
early-morning sun slanting through the barn roof, covering us with its golden light. I listened to Ash’s breathing as it slowed. I felt his heart beat next to my ear.

“I saw my grandmother in the loop the other day,” I said, still reeling from the news of her death, from Gia showing up, from everything.

“You did?”

“The first time ever in a loop.”