Reckless Radiance (22 page)

Chapter Thirty Two

Her hands pressed into the dirt while she convulsed with cries. He was gone. She’d been waiting for it but she never imagined it would happen quite like this. All she wanted was more time with him. She wanted to tell him again and again how much she loved him. She was a fool for not telling him sooner. A breeze swirled around her and she snapped her head up hoping they’d be back but it was only the wind. She was still alone in the woods.

Valerie’s mind went still and she took in a deep breath before blowing out a cloud of steam into the cold atmosphere.
Have faith I will come back for you.
She sighed and brushed the tears off her face with the back of her hands. It had been a very long time since Valerie had had any faith. She barely had faith in herself.

That look in his eyes as he had told her he’d return sent a chill through Valerie. She didn’t know what awaited him in his world. She couldn’t begin to think of what the place even looked like, let alone what might happen to someone like Russell who was clearly in for some sort of punishment. But that look in his eyes … Though mixed with dread and concern, he was sure about something. He was sure he’d come back. Valerie made a choice. With her knees in the dirt, a quiver in her breath and tears still wet on her face, she decided she’d find faith. First in Russell. Then in herself. And eventually in the one she called God.

***

Just two days after Russell disappeared she started making plans. She helped her dad pick out the rest of the supplies for the apartment and went with her mother for all of the decorating items. She called Paige and headed back to Somerset for the first time since the night Russell died in her arms.

The drive was longer than she remembered and her chest tightened with anxious energy the further she got from home. She pulled into the lot behind Penny’s Pie Diner and was hit with a wave of sweet nostalgia. She remembered walking to her car the same night Russell had taken her for tea and the giddy feelings that bubbled within her. If only she’d known then how he would change her life.

The bell above the door pinged and before her eyes had time to scan the room she was nearly knocked over by Paige. Her arms wrapped around her and squeezed her tight.

“You’re here!” Paige squealed. Valerie giggled and squeezed Paige back before she was finally released. They separated and Paige looked Valerie up and down with a grin.

“You look amazing! I guess the country is good for you, huh?” she mused.

Valerie smiled. “I’m happy at home. But I miss you.” Paige untied the apron around her waist and led Valerie by the hand to an empty booth where they sat down.

“Don’t worry about me, Val. That’s what the phone’s for. We’ll make time to get together,” Paige said, swiping a few crumbs that remained on the white speckled table to the floor. Valerie thanked Paige for understanding. She’d done so much for her. She’d managed to get her out of her lease and move her remaining belongings into a storage unit. Paige found a way to smooth things over with Penny and even got a new girl hired in Valerie’s place. Without Paige, Valerie didn’t know if she would’ve shown her face in Somerset again.

“Are you going to tell me?” Paige muttered to which Valerie sighed. She didn’t need to ask what Paige meant. It was the question everyone had been asking her. Her parents, Justin, even Emily Buchanan—who she’d started spending more time with.
Where is he?
It was certainly the exception to the honesty-is-the-best-policy rule. There was no easy answer and there was no way she could answer honestly without being shipped off to the nuthouse.

“He had to figure some things out on his own. I had to let him go,” she replied. It wasn’t the biggest lie she’d ever told.

“What does that mean? Is he coming back?” Paige continued to pry. She wanted to shut the interrogation down but she owed Paige more than that.

“I don’t know. We haven’t talked. But I still love him …” She’d never said the words out loud to anyone other than Russell and The Order. Paige’s eyes widened at the admission.

“Nothing would make me happier than for him to come back but if he doesn’t, I’ll understand.”

Paige nodded and gave her friend a pained smile. “Sounds like you two had one hell of a whirlwind. If you ever want to talk about it, you know I’m here,” Paige said, reaching across the table to give a quick squeeze to Valerie’s fingers. She smiled at Paige and nodded. She pressed her lips in a thin line holding back all of the things she wanted to say. She had taken to writing in a journal given all the things she couldn’t tell her family and friends. It might’ve read like fiction to anyone else but as Valerie flipped through the pages of her blue spiral notebook, she saw the most amazing thing. Her second love story.

Valerie gave Paige another hug and took the keys to the storage unit from her before sounding the bell above the door one more time. She promised to call and Paige promised to visit soon. She hoped they wouldn’t drift apart. If Valerie needed anything, it was people in her life that cared about her.

Standing in front of the orange overhead door of unit fifty-one at Sam’s U-Store, Valerie stretched her neck from side to side preparing for what was inside. She knew it was only a few boxes since her apartment had come furnished but she also knew it was the final step. Once she moved her remaining clothes, cooking utensils, and knick-knacks home to Greensburg, it would be official. It felt like she had one foot in Somerset and one foot in Greensburg for a while. Maybe even the entire time she’d been gone after Gabriel died. After this, she’d be back in Greensburg for good where she’d try to do two things—carry on and wait.

She crouched down to unlock the door and hoist it up, sliding it on its tracks. The noise seemed to echo in her ears as she peered in the dank space. She picked up the first box and slid it into the backseat. When she stood up to move for the next box her heart stopped. Her eyes locked with his and she felt her face turn pale as she steadied her back against the open car door. His hands went up in surrender and he remained still as he spoke.

“I’m not here to cause trouble, Val,” Henry said.

Her wide eyes looked him over carefully. He’d lost a little weight, gotten a nice haircut and there was something else. Something was different about his stare but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“I tried to catch you at Penny’s but you drove away before … Look, I followed you here but it’s not what you think.”

Valerie swallowed and felt the fearful lump in her throat bounce. Words wouldn’t come to her. Her hands had balled into fists at her sides.

Henry lowered his hands along with his head and shoved his hands in his pockets, closing inward on himself. She’d never seen him like that. He was almost vulnerable. The Henry she knew had always been over-confident. He was a smug bully, not this eyes-on-the-ground little boy. She wanted to ask him what he was playing at but language continued to escape her.

“A few days after you left I started this outpatient treatment,” he started.

“Rehab?” she blurted.

Henry met her eyes for a second before nodding. Now she saw it. There was shame and regret painting his face. Slowly her fists relaxed and she waited for him to continue.

“There are these steps and … well, I just want to apologize. Everything I did to you, the things I said … I’m really sorry,” he said as he sucked in a breath. For a moment she thought she saw a shudder go through him. He shook his head and scrubbed at his eyes.

“God, Valerie, I killed someone. And then I made you …” He was overcome with tears. Valerie’s stomach rolled. Despite the voice in her head that told her not to, she rushed to him and made him look her in the eyes. His eyes were glazed and red but not in the same way as when she’d seen him drunk so many nights. He was a genuine mess.

“You didn’t kill him, Henry,” she said firmly. His eyes tightened on her and he shook his head again.

“That’s not possible. I don’t remember all of it but I remember cleaning up a lot of blood after you left.
Too much
blood. I have nightmares about putting his body in that trunk,” he choked, pointing at her car.

She grabbed his face with her hands and forced him to lock gazes with her again. “You have to believe me. What you did was awful but I watched Russell survive that bullet. You did not kill him.”

Henry’s face fell and he quickly wiped his face. He cleared his throat and straightened. Valerie looked at him and her brow rose as if to ask him if he believed her. A slight nod from Henry was all she needed.

“Where is he?” he asked. A reluctant smile curled her lips.
Even Henry wants to know,
she thought.

“It doesn’t matter, Henry. He’s alive,” she said. The assurance in her voice was faked. She had no idea if he was alive but she’d started praying for it to be true the day he disappeared. She sighed and took a few steps back to her car. She wanted to get out of that town even more than she had before.

“So, you two …” Henry’s voice floated off onto the wind. She turned to him as she pushed another box into her backseat.

She forced a smile the way she always did when someone brought up Russell. Her hand tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear as she held back everything she wanted to say to him. “I really need to get the car packed and head home. I’m glad you’re getting well.”

Henry nodded and that same frailty seemed to wash over him as he raised a hand in goodbye. He turned with his hands placed back in his pockets and walked away.

Valerie sighed and felt her mind speed up. Only a few more boxes and she’d be on her way back home. She popped the trunk and the sound chilled her as she remembered the night Henry had been so hung up on. It felt like a hundred years ago. She set a box inside the empty trunk and maneuvered it to the back trying to make room for all she had left when her hand brushed against something shoved deep inside. Valerie pulled out the item and instantly welled up with tears. Russell’s bullet-torn shirt was gripped tight in her hand. She lifted the fabric to her face and breathed in deep. Though it had been hiding in her trunk for weeks, it still smelled like him.

She’d only had a few days to deal with it. She was still struggling with the belief that her prayers would do any good at all but in that moment, holding definitive proof that he had ever been in her life, she tilted her head to the sky and prayed.

“Have mercy on him. Please don’t let him suffer. Please give him back to me. Please give him back to me.”

Chapter Thirty Three

Russell didn’t know if it was the cell or his mind playing tricks on him but when he pulled his mind from forced sleep, he tried to grasp how long it felt like he’d been confined. Four years? Three? The idea that he was waiting for something was long gone. He’d accepted the fact he was there for good. At first it was terrifying. But slowly he let it in. He let fear and the sorrow meld together and fill him completely. He’d never see her again. The thought shook him to his core but he knew there was nothing he could do but live with it.

Suddenly he felt the familiar buzz of someone entering his cell. He hoped for a second it would be Gabriel. Perhaps seeing his face would bring him comfort.
Doubtful.
When his eyes adjusted he saw Kalliope, one third of The Order, standing before him with a blank face.

“It is time, Brother,” she said flatly.

“Now? How long have I been here?”

Her form showed confusion on her face and her words took a second too long to emerge. “In the time of Earth it has been mere weeks,” Kalliope replied.

Relief and frustration swirled inside of him instantaneously. She was still waiting for him. Kalliope asked him to follow her and he went willingly through the mystic doorway he would’ve never been able to use on his own. Through the passageway was another room filled with his brothers and sisters and at one end of the room was a face he’d never seen before. But when words sounded from the face he knew exactly who it was.

“We have made a decision regarding the fate of our Brother Russell,” the voice proclaimed.

***

It was the first week of December and snow had been on the ground for three days. The apartment was finished and Valerie felt a bittersweet twinge each time she moved another box from her childhood bedroom. Her father had done an amazing job. He’d thought of everything right down to the small closet-like cubby where he’d built a desk for her. She’d signed up for community college classes that started in January much to everyone’s surprise. Online classes. She wasn’t ready to go anywhere just yet. She was as shocked as anyone that by the year’s end she felt more at home than she ever had before. She was rooted to Greensburg and she couldn’t believe how much she loved that feeling.

But too many days had gone by and she was starting to doubt whether or not Russell would come back. With doubt starting to push through in her mind, she did what she’d been doing each time her uncertainty got the better of her. She went to church.

Like most of the days she ventured through the sanctuary doors, the inside was empty. She took a seat on the wooden pew at the front of the large, open space and lowered her head. Moments passed and her mind was doing the talking. She’d stopped asking for him to come home and had started asking for continued strength in dealing with the loss of him. She asked for her family to be kept safe and well. She asked for peace for Gabriel. Her prayers became second nature and she realized that her moments alone in quiet worship brought her great comfort.

The sound of footsteps roused her from her meditation and she glanced around the church to see who’d joined her. It was Pastor Clemens. He caught her eye as he approached and smiled.

“Valerie,” he said with a bit of surprise in his tone.

“Hi, Pastor,” she replied. She rose from the pew and slipped back into her dark green wool coat. Her eyes focused on the large black buttons that she worked together. When she looked up at him again, she noticed a look of concern on his face.