Crescendo

CHAPTER 14

ONCE BACK INSIDE COLDWATER’S CITY LIMITS, I drove the Mustang across town and took Beech to Deacon. The rain continued to patter down in a somber drizzle. The road was narrow and winding, evergreen trees crowding right up to the edge of the pavement. Around the next bend, Scott pointed to a complex of Cape Cod–style apartments with tiny balconies and gray shingles. There was a run-down tennis court on the small lawn out front. The whole place looked like it could use a fresh coat of paint.

I angled the Mustang into a parking space.

“Thanks for the ride,” Scott said, draping his arm on the back of my seat. His eyes were glassy, his smile hitched up lazily on one side.

“Can you make it inside?” I asked.

“I don’t want to go inside,” he slurred. “The carpet smells like dog urine and the bathroom ceiling has mold. I want to stay out here, with you.”

Because you’re drunk. “I have to get home. It’s late, and I still haven’t called my mom today. She’s going to freak out if I don’t check in soon.” I reached across him and pushed open the passenger door.

As I did, he coiled a lock of my hair around his finger. “Pretty.”

I unwound the curl. “This isn’t going to happen. You’re drunk.”

He grinned. “Just a little.”

“You’re not going to remember this tomorrow.”

“I thought we had a bonding moment back at the beach.”

“We did. And that’s as far as our bond is going. I’m serious. I’m kicking you out. Go inside.”

“What about my car?”

“I’ll take it home tonight, then bring it by tomorrow afternoon.”

Scott exhaled contentedly and relaxed deeper into his seat. “I want to go inside and chill solo with Jimi Hendrix. Would you tell everyone the party’s over?”

I rolled my eyes. “You just invited sixty people over. I’m not going to go in and tell them it’s called off.”

Scott bent sideways out the door and threw up.

Ugh.

I grabbed the back of his shirt, lugged him inside the car, and gave the Mustang enough gas to roll it forward two feet. Then I engaged the foot brake and swung out. I walked around to Scott’s side and dragged him out of the car by his arms, being careful to avoid planting my foot in the contents of his emptied stomach. He flung his arm over my shoulder, and it was all I could do to keep from collapsing under his weight. “Which apartment?” I asked.

“Thirty-two. Top right.”

The top floor. Of course. Why should I expect to catch a break now?

I dragged Scott up both flights of stairs, panting hard, and staggered through the open door of his apartment, which was alive with the chaos of bodies pulsing and grinding to rap turned up so loud I could feel pieces of my brain shaking loose.

“Bedroom’s at the back,” Scott murmured in my ear.

I pushed him forward through the crowd, opened the door at the end of the hall, and dumped Scott on the bottom mattress of the bunk bed in the corner. There was a small desk in the adjacent corner, a collapsible cloth hamper, a guitar stand, and a few free weights. The walls were aged white and sparsely decorated with a movie poster for The Godfather Part III and a New England Patriots pennant.

“My room,” Scott said, catching me taking in the surroundings. He patted the mattress beside him. “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Good night, Scott.”

I started to pull the door shut when he said, “Can you get me a drink? Water. I got to wash this taste out of my mouth.”

I was antsy to get out of the place but couldn’t help feeling an aggravating tug of sympathy for Scott. If I left now, he’d probably wake tomorrow in a pool of his own vomit. I might as well clean him up and get him some ibuprofen.

The apartment’s tiny U-shaped kitchen looked out on the living-room-turned-dance floor, and after squeezing through the packed-in bodies blocking the kitchen’s entrance, I opened and closed cabinets, hunting for a glass. I found a stack of white plastic cups above the sink, flipped on the tap, and held a cup under the faucet. As I was turning to carry the water back to Scott, my heart jumped. Patch stood several feet away, leaning against the cupboards opposite the refrigerator. He’d separated himself from the crowd, and his ball cap was pulled low, signaling he wasn’t interested in soliciting conversation. His stance was impatient. He glanced at his watch.

Seeing no way to avoid him, aside from climbing over the counter directly into the living room, and feeling I owed him civility—plus, weren’t we both old enough to handle this maturely?—I moistened my lips, which suddenly felt dry as sand, and walked over. “Having fun?”

The hard lines of his face softened into a smile. “I can think of at least one thing I’d rather be doing.”

If that was an innuendo, I was going to ignore it. I boosted myself onto the kitchen counter, legs dangling over the edge. “Staying the whole night?”

“If I have to stay the whole night, shoot me now.”

I spread my hands. “No gun, sorry.”

His smile was bad-boy perfection. “That’s all that’s stopping you?”

“Shooting you wouldn’t kill you,” I pointed out. “One of the downsides of being immortal.”

He nodded, a fierce smile creeping out beneath the shadow of his ball cap. “But you would if you could?”

I hesitated before answering. “I don’t hate you, Patch. Yet.”

“Hate’s not strong enough?” he guessed. “Something deeper?”

I smiled, but not enough to show teeth.

We both seemed to sense that nothing good would come of this conversation, especially not here, and Patch rescued both of us by tipping his head toward the crowd behind us. “And you? Staying long?”

I hopped down off the counter. “Nope. I’m delivering water to Scott, and mouthwash if I can find it, then I’m out of here.”

He caught my elbow. “You’d shoot me, but you’re on your way to nurse Scott’s hangover?”

“Scott didn’t break my heart.”

A couple of beats of silence fell between us, then Patch said in a low voice, “Let’s go.” The way he looked at me told me exactly what he meant. He wanted me to run away with him. To defy the archangels. To ignore that they’d eventually find Patch.

I couldn’t think about what they’d do to him without feeling trapped in ice, cold with fear, and frozen by the sheer horror of it. Patch had never told me what hell would be like. But he knew. And the fact that he wasn’t telling me painted a very vivid, very bleak picture.

I kept my eyes nailed to the living room. “I promised Scott a glass of water.”

“You’re spending a lot of time with a guy I’d call dark, and given my standard, that’s a hard-won title.”

“Takes a dark prince to know one?”

“Glad you’ve hung on to your sense of humor, but I’m serious. Be careful.”

I nodded. “I appreciate your concern, but I know what I’m doing.” I sidestepped Patch and edged through the gyrating bodies in the living room. I had to get away. It was too much standing close to him, feeling that wall of ice so thick and impenetrable. Knowing we both wanted something we couldn’t have, even though what we wanted stood an arm’s reach away.

I’d made it about halfway through the crowd when someone snagged the strap of my cami from behind. I turned back, expecting to find Patch ready to give me more of his opinion, or maybe, more terrifying, throwing caution to the wind to kiss me, but it was Scott, grinning lazily down at me. He brushed my hair off my face and leaned in, sealing my mouth with his. He tasted like mint mouthwash and freshly scrubbed teeth. I started to draw back, then realized, what did I care if Patch saw? I wasn’t doing anything he hadn’t already. I had just as much right to move on as he did. He was using Marcie to fill the void in his heart, and now it was my turn, with Scott.

I slid my hands up Scott’s chest and laced them behind his neck. He took the cue and pulled me in tighter, tracing his hands down the contour of my spine. So this was what it felt like to kiss someone else. While Patch was slow and practiced and took his time, Scott was playfully eager and a little sloppy. It was completely different and new … and not altogether bad.

“My room,” Scott whispered in my ear, lacing his fingers between mine and pulling me toward the hall.

I flicked my gaze to where I’d last seen Patch. Our eyes met. His hand was stiff, cupped at the back of his neck, as if he’d been lost in deep thought and had frozen at the sight of me kissing Scott.

This is what it feels like, I thought at him.

Only, I didn’t feel any better after thinking it. I felt sad and low and dissatisfied. I wasn’t the kind of person who played games or relied on dirty tricks to console myself or boost my self-esteem. But there was still a certain raw pain burning inside me, and because of it, I let Scott guide me down the hall.

Using his foot, Scott nudged open the bedroom door. He killed the lights, and soft shadows settled around us. I glanced at the small twin mattress on the bottom bunk, then at the window. The window was cracked. In a panic-induced moment, I actually imagined myself slipping through the crack and disappearing into the night. Probably a sign that what I was about to do was a huge mistake. Was I really going through with this just to make a point? Was this how I wanted to show Patch the magnitude of my anger and hurt? What did it say about me?

Scott took me by the shoulders and kissed me harder. I mentally flipped through my options. I could tell Scott I was feeling sick. I could tell him I’d changed my mind. I could simply tell him no….

Scott shucked off his shirt and tossed it aside.

“Uh—,” I began. I looked around once more for an escape, noting that the bedroom door must have opened, because a shadow blotted out the light spilling in from the hall. The shadow stepped inside and closed the door, and I felt my jaw go slack.

Patch tossed Scott’s shirt at him, catching him in the face.

“What the—,” Scott demanded, yanking the shirt over his head and rolling it down to cover himself.

“Fly’s down,” Patch told him.

Scott yanked on his zipper. “What are you doing? You can’t come in here. I’m busy. And this is my room!”

“Are you insane?” I told Patch, blood rising in my cheeks.

Patch sliced his eyes toward me. “You don’t want to be here. Not with him.”

“You don’t get to make that call!”

Scott brushed past me. “Let me take care of him.”

He made it another two feet before Patch shoved his fist into Scott’s jaw with a sickening crunch.

“What are you doing?” I yelled at Patch. “Did you break his jaw?”

“Unnuh!” Scott moaned, clutching the lower half of his face.

“I didn’t break his jaw, but if he lays a hand on you, it will be the first of many things to break,” Patch said.

“Out!” I ordered Patch, thrusting a finger at the door.

“I’m going to kill you,” Scott growled at Patch, opening and closing his jaw, making sure it still worked.

But instead of taking the cue to leave, Patch crossed to Scott in three steps. He flung him around to face the wall. Scott tried to get his bearings, but Patch slammed him against the wall again, disorienting him further. “Touch her,” he said in Scott’s ear, his voice low and threatening, “and it’ll be the biggest regret of your life.”

Before leaving, Patch flicked his eyes once in my direction. “He’s not worth it.” He paused. “And neither am I.”

I opened my mouth but didn’t have an argument. I wasn’t here because I wanted to be. I was here to shove it in Patch’s face. I knew it, and he knew it.

Scott rolled around, slouching against the wall. “I could’ve taken him if I wasn’t wasted,” he said, massaging the lower half of his face. “Who the hell does he think he is? I don’t even know him. You know him?”

Scott obviously didn’t recognize Patch from the Z, but there had been a lot of people there that night. I couldn’t expect Scott to remember every face. “I’m sorry about that,” I said, gesturing at the door Patch had just exited through. “Are you okay?”

He smiled slowly. “Never been better.” That said with a welt-like bruise blooming across his jaw.

“He was out of control.”

“Best way to be,” he drawled, using the back of his hand to wipe a ribbon of blood from the crack of his mouth.

“I should go,” I said. “I’ll bring the Mustang back after school tomorrow.” I wondered how I was supposed to walk out of here, past Patch, and maintain any level of self-dignity. I might as well stroll up to him and admit he was right: I’d only followed Scott back here to hurt him.

Scott crooked his finger under my shirt, holding me in place. “Don’t go, Nora. Not yet.”

I unhooked his finger. “Scott—”

“Tell me if I’m going too far,” he said, tugging his shirt up over his head for the second time. His pale skin glowed in the dark. He’d clearly been spending a lot of time in the weight room, and it showed in the lines of muscle branching down his arms.

“You’re going too far,” I said.

“That didn’t sound convincing.” He swept my hair off my neck and nuzzled his face in the curve.

“I’m not interested in you this way,” I said, putting my hands between us. I was tired, and a headache was buzzing between my ears. I was ashamed of myself and wanted to go home and sleep and sleep until I forgot this night.

“How do you know? You’ve never tried me this way.”

I flipped on the light switch, flooding the room with light. Scott threw a hand over his eyes and staggered back a step.

“I’m leaving—,” I began, then broke off as my eyes fixed on a patch of skin high on Scott’s chest, halfway between his nipple and collarbone. The skin was warped and shiny. Somewhere deep in my brain, I made the connection that this must be the branding mark Scott had been given when he swore allegiance to the Nephilim blood society, but it felt like a hazy afterthought, dull in comparison to what had really arrested my attention. The brand was in the shape of a clenched fist. It was identical, down to the exact shape and size, to the raised stamp on the iron ring from the envelope.

With a hand still flung over his eyes, Scott groaned and reached for the bedpost to steady himself.

“What’s that mark on your skin?” I asked, my mouth gone dry.

Scott looked momentarily startled, then slid his hand down to cover the mark. “Some friends and I were horsing around one night. It’s nothing serious. It’s only a scar.”

He had the audacity to lie about it? “You gave me the envelope.” When he didn’t answer, I added more fiercely, “The boardwalk. The bakery. The envelope with the iron ring.” The room felt eerily isolated, detached from the throbbing bass out in the living room. In an instant, I no longer felt safe trapped back here with Scott.

Scott’s eyes narrowed and he squinted at me through the light, which still seemed to hurt his eyes. “What are you talking about?” His tone was wary, hostile, muddled.

“You think this act is funny? I know you gave me the ring.”

“The—ring?”

“The ring that made that mark on your chest!”

He shook his head once, hard, as if to shake off his stupor. Then his arm lashed out, shoving me up against the wall. “How do you know about the ring?”

“You’re hurting me,” I said with venom, but I was shivering with fear. I realized that Scott wasn’t pretending. Unless he was a much better actor than I imagined, he genuinely didn’t know about the envelope. But he did know about the ring.

“What did he look like?” He fisted my camisole and shook me. “The guy who gave you the ring—what did he look like?”

“Get your hands off me,” I ordered, pushing back. But Scott weighed a lot more than me, and his feet stayed planted, his body trapping me against the wall. “I didn’t see him. He had it delivered.”

“Does he know where I am? Does he know I’m in Coldwater?”

“He?” I snapped back. “Who is he? What’s going on?”

“Why did he give you the ring?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know anything about him! Why don’t you tell me?”

He shuddered hard against the raging panic that seemed to grip him. “What do you know?”

I kept my eyes nailed to Scott’s, but my throat was clenched so hard it hurt to breathe. “The ring was in the envelope with a note that said the Black Hand killed my dad. And that the ring belonged to him.” I licked my lips. “Are you the Black Hand?”

Scott’s expression still held deep distrust; his eyes darted back and forth, judging whether or not he believed me. “Forget we had this conversation, if you know what’s good for you.”

I tried to yank my arm free, but he was still holding on.

“Get out,” he said. “And stay away from me.” This time he let go, giving me a shove in the direction of the door.

I stopped at the door. I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants. “Not until you tell me about the Black Hand.”

I thought Scott might throw an even more violent rage, but he merely nailed me with a look he might give a dog if he caught it squatting on his lawn. He scooped up his T-shirt and made like he was going to stretch it back over his frame, then his mouth curled into a threatening smile. He threw the shirt on the bed. He loosened his belt, yanked down his zipper, and stepped out of his shorts, leaving him standing in nothing but fitted cotton boxers. He was going for the shock factor, clearly trying to intimidate me into leaving. He’d done a pretty good job of convincing me, but I wasn’t going to let him get rid of me that easily.

I said, “You have the Black Hand’s ring branded on your skin. Don’t expect me to believe you know nothing about it, including how it got there.”

He didn’t answer.

“The minute I walk out of here, I’m calling the police. If you won’t talk to me, maybe you’d like to talk to them. Maybe they’ve seen the branding before. I can tell just by looking at it that it isn’t good.” My voice was calm, but my underarms were damp. What a stupid and risky thing to say. What if Scott didn’t allow me to leave? I obviously knew enough about the Black Hand to upset him. Did he think I knew too much? What if he killed me, then threw my body in a Dumpster? My mom didn’t know where I was, and everyone who’d seen me enter Scott’s apartment was wasted. Would anyone remember having seen me tomorrow?

I was so busy panicking, I hadn’t noticed Scott had taken a seat on his bed. His face was bent into his hands. His back was quivering, and I realized he was crying silently, great, convulsive sobs. At first I thought he was faking, that this was some kind of trap, but the choked sounds low in his chest were real. He was drunk, emotionally unhinged, and I didn’t know how stable that made him. I held still, afraid one slight movement might cause him to snap.

“I racked up a lot of gambling debt in Portland,” he said, his voice scratchy with desperation and exhaustion. “The manager at the pool hall was breathing down my neck, demanding the money, and I had to watch my back anytime I left the house. I was living in fear, knowing one day he’d find me, and I’d be lucky to get off with broken kneecaps.

“One night on my way home from work, I was jumped from behind, dragged into a warehouse, and tied to a folding table. It was too dark to see the guy, but I figured the manager had sent him. I told him I’d pay him whatever he wanted if he’d let me go, but he laughed and said he wasn’t after my money—in fact, he’d already settled my debts. Before I could figure out if it was his idea of a joke, he said he was the Black Hand, and the last thing he needed was more money.

“He had a Zippo, and he held the flame against the ring on his left hand, heating it. I was sweating bullets. I told him I’d do whatever he wanted—just get me off the table. He ripped open my shirt and ground the ring into my chest. My skin was on fire, and I was yelling at the top of my lungs. He snapped my finger, broke the bone, and told me if I didn’t shut up, he’d move down the line until he broke all ten. He told me he’d given me his mark.” Scott’s voice had dropped to a rasp. “I wet my pants. Right there on the table. He scared the hell out of me. I’ll do whatever it takes to never see him again. That’s why we moved back to Coldwater. I’d stopped going to school and was hiding out at the gym all day, bulking up in case he came looking for me. If he found me, this time I was going to be ready.” Cutting off there, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

I didn’t know if I could trust him. Patch had made it clear he didn’t, but Scott was shaking. His complexion was pasty, misted with sweat, and he plowed his hands through his hair, letting go of a long, wavering breath. Could he make up a story like that? All the details meshed with everything I already knew about Scott. He had a gambling addiction. He’d worked nights in Portland at a convenience store. He’d moved back to Coldwater to escape his past. He had the branding mark on his chest, proof someone had put it there. Could he sit two feet away and lie to me about what he’d gone through?

“What did he look like?” I asked. “The Black Hand.”

He shook his head. “It was dark. He was tall, that’s all I remember.”

I groped for some way to connect Scott and my dad—both of whom were linked to the Black Hand. Scott had been tracked down by the Black Hand after running up debt. In exchange for paying off Scott’s debt, the Black Hand had branded him. Had my dad gone through the same thing? Had his murder not been as random as the police originally guessed? Had the Black Hand paid off a debt my dad owed, then killed him when my dad refused to be branded? No. I wasn’t buying it. My dad didn’t gamble, and he didn’t rack up debt. He was an accountant. He knew the value of money. Nothing about his situation tied him to Scott. There had to be something else.

“Did the Black Hand say anything else?” I asked.

“I try not to remember anything about that night.” He reached under his mattress and pulled out a plastic ashtray and a pack of cigarettes. He lit up, exhaling smoke slowly, and closed his eyes.

My mind kept rebounding to the same three questions. Had the Black Hand really killed my dad? Who was he? Where could I find him?

And then a new question. Was the Black Hand the leader of the Nephilim blood society? If he was the one branding Nephilim, it made sense. Only a leader, or someone with a lot of authority, would be in charge of actively recruiting members to fight back against fallen angels.

“Did he say why he gave you his mark?” I asked. Clearly the branding was to mark members of the blood society, but maybe there was more. Something only its Nephilim members knew.

Scott shook his head, taking another drag.

“He didn’t give you any reason?”

“No,” Scott snapped.

“Has he come looking for you since that night?”

“No.” I could tell by the wild look in his eyes that he was scared he wouldn’t always be able to say as much.

I thought back to the Z. To the red-shirted Nephil. Did he have the same brand as Scott? I was almost certain he did. It only made sense that all members had the same mark. Which meant there were others like Scott and the Nephil at the Z. Members every where, recruited by force, but disjointed from any real strength or purpose because they were kept in the dark. What was the Black Hand waiting for? Why was he holding off uniting his members? To keep fallen angels from finding out what he was up to?

Was this why my dad was murdered? Because of something that had to do with the blood society?

“Have you ever seen the Black Hand’s brand on anyone else?” I knew I was in danger of pushing too hard, but I needed to determine just how much Scott knew.

Scott didn’t answer. He was crumpled on the bed, passed out. His mouth was agape, and his breath smelled strongly of alcohol and smoke.

I shook him gently. “Scott? What can you tell me about the society?” I slapped his cheeks gently. “Scott, wake up. Did the Black Hand tell you that you’re Nephilim? Did he tell you what it means?”

But he had crashed into a deep, inebriated sleep.

I ground out his cigarette, pulled a sheet up to his shoulders, and let myself out.