Gray's Domain: Purgatorium Series, Book Two (8 page)

“What did you say?”

His face turned red. “I was trying to be cool, I guess.”

Bridget waited.

“I had never said a word to her. Not one. I was so stupid back then.”

“Everybody does stupid things.”

“I said something dirty to her. Real bad.”

She laughed. “So? Do you think you’re the only boy to ever do that?”

Daphne was shocked to see how red his face was, even beneath his dark complexion.

“She showed it to her mom.”

“Oh, no.”

“Then her mom called my foster mom.”

“Not cool at all.”

“Before that, no one trusted me enough to give me my own cell phone. I blew it, man.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“I was mortified. Up to that point, my religious foster mom thought I was a good kid. She was always saying how good I was. No one ever thought that of me before.”

“I doubt that’s true.”

“It is.
Really. My real parents didn’t want me.” He crossed his arms and said, “Ah, forget it. I don’t want a pity party.”

“I just wanted to know why you did it.” Bridget stretched out on her back and put her hands behind her head. Daphne felt a little jealous of her beauty. “Everybody who
comes to this place has a story to tell. So you did it because you were embarrassed?”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“That’s kind of a silly reason to want to end everything.”

Daphne jerked her head back with surprise. Why would Bridget say such a thing?

“You don’t get it,” Giovanni said.

“Then tell me,” Bridget said, not looking at him. Her eyes were closed against the bright sun.

Giovanni shook his head and punched a hand with a fist. “I let down the only person that ever believed in me. Now, can we change the subject?”

“But you and your foster mom got past that eventually. Didn’t you?”

Tears formed in Giovanni’s eyes. “She had cancer. It wasn’t long after that…”

“Oh, no.
I’m so sorry.” Bridget sat up. “But you made your peace?”

Giovanni nodded. “I guess. Though I sometimes think that…” he stopped.

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Tell me.”

He looked up into the bright sky and sighed. Then he shook his head and murmured, “Maybe she wouldn’t have gotten so sick if…”

“How could it have been your fault?”

“I exasperated her. I wore her out.”

“No, Giovanni,” Bridget said sternly. “Look at me.”

Daphne’s mouth dropped open when Bridget leaned in and kissed Giovanni on the lips—not on the cheek, and not a quick peck, but a full mouth-on-mouth kiss. Daphne glanced at Cam, whose eyes fell to the floor.

Before Daphne could react, she was drawn back to the screen and to Giovanni’s tears. Then Bridget jumped up from the ground and grabbed Giovanni’s hand, leading him to the edge of the bluff.

“Let’s jump,” she dared.

He looked out at the raging sea below. “You’re crazy.”

“So? It’ll be fun. Come on. I’ve done it before. The secret is to jump way out. You can’t go straight down, or you’ll be bashed into the rocks. But if you leap way out, it’s amazing.”

“No thanks.” He turned away from the edge, wiping his eyes.

She twirled around to face him. “Oh, come on! It’s such a thrill!”

Then, while he faced away from her, Bridget climbed down the edge of the cliff so that only the upper half of her face and hands were visible. She clung to the ledge and screamed.

Daphne was startled and shrieked, then blushed with embarrassment when the doctor and Cam glanced her way.

Giovanni rushed to the edge and grabbed Bridget’s hand.

“I slipped! Don’t let me fall!” Bridget shouted.
“Oh, God! Oh, God!”

Giovanni pulled Bridget to safety. They were both breathing rapidly, as though they’d run a mile. Tears poured down Bridget’s cheeks. She wrapped her arms around him and wept against his chest, thanking him again and again for saving her life.

She was a really talented actress, Daphne thought.

The doctor removed her headphones and smiled at Daphne. “The boy feels better about himself already.”

“But is it wise to lead him on like that?” Daphne asked. “A broken heart might make him worse.”

“Cameron, would you leave us, please?”

Cam nodded and left the room. Daphne felt less comfortable now that she was alone with the doctor.

“I want you to see something,” Dr. Gray said. She went to the desk and pressed the lighted button on her dashboard. After a few moments, she pressed another. Then
she pointed to the same screen they had just been watching, only, this time, it was Cam with Bridget. “This was filmed last summer, Cam’s first day here with us.”

Bridget lay on her towel on the bluff in the same pink bikini twirling a strand of grass between her fingers. Cam stretched out on another towel. Unlike Giovanni, Cam was sunbathing, too. He looked thinner back then and was as white as a sheet.

“This feels nice,” Cam said. “Thanks for bringing me to this spot.”

“Isn’t this the best?” Bridget asked in a dreamy voice.

“If you mean being here with you, then yes,” he said, making Daphne want to gag.

How corny, she thought.

“What’s your story, anyway?” Bridget asked. “I was just told that you’re going through rehab.”

“That’s all there is to it,” Cam replied.

“But why drugs? What draws you to them?” Bridget pressed. She rolled onto her side and propped up her head with one hand, looking down at Cam. “You’re so beautiful, you know that? How could someone so beautiful contaminate himself?”

Daphne could see Cam’s jaw muscles flexing as he gritted his teeth.

“Just wanted to have fun,” Cam said. “I was dumb, that’s all.”

“I don’t believe you. There’s more to you than that. I can tell.”

Cam sat up and looked up and down her beautiful body.

“Has anyone ever told you how much you resemble the young Carrie Fisher?” he asked.

“Who?” Bridget asked.

So she wasn’t a
Star Wars
fan, Daphne thought.

“You know. Princess Lea?” Cam explained.

Bridget held up one hand and gave the Vulcan greeting from
Star Trek.
“Live long and prosper.”

Cam slapped his forehead. “Now I know we could never be together.”

Bridget laughed and playfully shoved him. “So you use humor to mask your true feelings,” she said, a little too casually, Daphne thought.

“What do you want from me?” Cam asked with a half-laugh.
“Blood?”

“I’ll leave that to the ghosts that wander the island,” Bridget teased. Then she added, “Most people who get addicted to drugs don’t have much self-worth. Do you think that’s true of you?”

He shrugged. “Never gave it much thought.”

“Do you have any passions, any major interests?”

“Comic books, movies, novels—mostly sci-fi and fantasy.”

“You like to escape.”

“Exactly.”

“Because?”

“Some worlds are better than this one, I guess.”

Bridget jumped to her feet. The sun was beginning to set, and the sky was full of glorious pinks and purples. “What about all this beauty?” She swept her arms open to the sky.

Cam kept his eyes focused on Bridget, and a shiver of jealousy ran down Daphne’s back. He didn’t reply.

“Don’t your parents love you?” Bridget asked. “That’s why most kids turn to drugs. They feel unloved.”

“I think I’m getting burned,” Cam said evasively as he climbed to his feet. “I need to get out of this sun.”

“But it’s going down,” she protested.

“Not soon enough.”

Bridget took his hand and led him to the edge. “Let’s jump in!”

Cam looked out over the raging sea below. He shrugged and said, “Okay.”

“Be sure to leap out as far as you can,” she said. “You don’t want to get bashed into those rocks below.”

“You sound like you’ve done this before.”

“Yep!
And it’s amazing. Ready?”

She held his hand and counted to three, and then the two of them leapt out into the sea.

Daphne held her breath.

Another camera provided a new angle of them flying over the edge and down toward the water. When they popped back up, Bridget screamed.

“Help me, Cam! Oh my God! Help me!”

The camera followed Cam as he swam to Bridget’s side.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

Blood spilled from Bridget’s arm as she held it up and floundered in the water. “I think I broke my wrist. Oh my god, it hurts! And I can’t keep myself up!”

Daphne couldn’t tell this time if Bridget was acting or truly injured as the flailing girl sunk beneath the surface. Cam wrapped an arm across her as she collapsed and fell limp. Daphne watched on as Cam towed Bridget to the beach and carried her up the steps of the boardwalk as fast as he could, with the same look of intensity on his face and the same heavy breathing as Daphne had just witnessed in Giovanni.

Hortense Gray flipped a switch and removed her headphones. Daphne took hers off, too, wondering why the doctor had decided to show this to her.

“Everything I do serves an important purpose,” Dr. Gray explained. “I want you to remember that.”

Daphne didn’t know what to say.

“The patients in my charge are suffering, and I help them learn to love themselves, which in turn allows them to love life.”

“But…” Daphne started to ask again about Bridget’s role and the possibility of broken hearts, but the doctor continued.

“Cam’s father abandoned him when he was a young boy, and although he adjusted adequately throughout grade school, his lack of self-worth raised its ugly head when he became a man and left for the university.” She returned her headphones to her ears and said, “There’s one more thing I want you to see.”

Daphne put the headphones on and stared at the screen, feeling a bit like Ebenezer Scrooge with the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Chapter Seven: Giovanni at Christy Ranch

Daphne descended the stairs from the second floor of the main building to the lobby, thinking about the videos the doctor had shown her. The last one had been Cam’s Limuw ceremony. His biological father had come along with his mother and step-father. It had been heart-wrenching to watch Cam face off with the father who had abandoned him.

In the weeks after his ceremony, Cam had recovered by having revenge on his father. Daphne didn’t see any of that footage. According to Hortense, he eventually reconciled with all three parents and devoted himself to helping the doctor on the island.

As Daphne thought more about what the doctor had said, and as she reflected on her own progress with her parents and Brock, she thought she might like to volunteer, too, after her parents and Brock’s therapy was finished. It must be a good feeling to know you helped other people.

When she stepped from the foyer out into the bright sunshine, Cam was waiting for her. Now why wasn’t she surprised?

He thrust his palms up to her and said, “You don’t have to tell me. That’s not why I waited.”

“Okay.”

They started walking toward the pool.

“I don’t even want to know,” he added.

“Fine.”

“She showed you my scene with Bridget, didn’t she,” he said without inflection.

“I thought you didn’t want to know.”

“I don’t.”

She jerked her thumb toward the pool, where Brock was swimming laps. “He’ll be doing that for a while.”

“Good.” Cam took both her hands. “Because there’s something you might want to see.”

He had a strange smile on his face, like a kid about to play a joke.

“Okay.” She shrugged. “What?”

“Giovanni’s about to take the horse-riding excursion. Come with?”

Daphne frowned. “I don’t know.”

Cam put his hands on his hips with a look of exasperation. “Oh, come on! You’d get to be a watcher.”

Daphne lifted her chin, her curiosity piqued. As much as she hated getting thrown off of Pearl, she was rather eager to see what it was like to be a watcher. Hortense had assured her getting bucked off had been a fluke. And it would be thrilling to see Giovanni’s reaction to the exercise. Even more exciting would be the opportunity to see more of how everything worked on this island.

A smile crossed her lips. “Well, alright.”