The Hall

Chapter 8:

I wake up in the dark.

The room's blue-gray. The lamp's off. The hallway light's still on, spilling through the open door and across the floor in a long yellow rectangle.

And the doorway's empty.

I sit up.

My heart's slamming. It takes me a second to remember where I am. The bar. The stairs. The small room with the dresser and the green toothbrush.

Then my feet touch the floor and the bandages remind me, and it all comes back.

The doorway's still empty.

I get up.

My feet hurt when I stand on them — a good hurt, the wrapped kind — and I go to the door and look down the hall.

Nobody.

The floor's got two dents in the rug where his boots were. That's all.

I go down the stairs.

---

The bar's dark.

Not empty. Dark. One lamp on behind the counter with a green glass shade, throwing a circle of light across the wood. The chairs are up on the tables. The neon's off. The whole room smells like coffee and bleach and the ghost of all that food.

And Kael's sitting on the bar.

Not at it. On it. Facing away from me with his boots hanging and his back curved and a bottle beside him and a glass in his hand.

The glass is full. He hasn't touched it.

There's a phone in front of him. The bar's phone. The rotary one. He's got one hand resting flat on it like he's holding it down.

I get to the bottom of the stairs and stop.

"Kael."

He doesn't turn around.

"Go back to bed."

"What time is it?"

"Four."

"Have you slept?"

"No."

I walk over.

He doesn't look at me. He's looking at the window. It's black out. The glass reflects the lamp and the room and the two of us in it.

"Kael."

"I'm going to say something and you're not going to like it."

"Say it."

He picks up the phone.

"I'm calling the sheriff."

---

I put my hand on the bar.

"Kael."

"I know his number by memory. I've had it memorized since I was nineteen." He dials. The rotary clicks around. "I've only used it three times. Once when my father died. Once when the barn burned. Once when a man tried to run a prospect off the ridge road with a truck."

"Kael, it's four in the morning."

"Sheriff's an insomniac." The dial spins back. "He'll answer."

"Kael—"

He holds up one hand.

"Sheriff. It's me. I know what time it is." A pause. "I need you to pull a name for me."

The voice on the other end is thin and sleepy and irritable. I can't make out the words.

"Sterling. Marcus Sterling. Of the Heights." Kael's jaw works. "No, I know it's not your jurisdiction. It's a favor."

More tinny noise.

"He's got a wife in my town," Kael says. "She's got four fingerprints on her throat and a cracked rib and she hasn't eaten a full meal in a week. She ran out of that house barefoot at midnight in a rainstorm because he was dragging her up the stairs by the hair."

The line's quiet for a long time.

"Pull him," Kael says. "Everything. Prior complaints. Restraining orders. Anything that got filed and dropped. Anything that got paid to go away." A pause. "And Sheriff—"

Silence.

"Call me back tonight. Not tomorrow. Tonight."

He hangs up.

---

The receiver settles on the hook.

Kael doesn't move.

The glass is still full. The bottle's still there. And his shoulders are doing something I haven't seen before — not shaking. Tight. Every muscle in his back pulled tight under his shirt like he's holding something in with both hands.

"Kael."

"Don't."

"Kael."

"Don't." He turns around. "I've been sitting down here for three hours trying not to call him. Because I know what happens when I call him. Because a man like that, with money and a lawyer and a family name, doesn't get pulled. He gets protected. And then he comes here with a piece of paper and a state trooper and takes you back to that house."

"He's not going to take me back."

"Everybody in this county said the same thing about the Sterlings for forty years. And then the fires happened." He picks up the glass. "I've been sitting down here thinking about my brother."

I don't say anything.

"Jamie. He was seventeen. He came to me the night before he died and he was crying and he had blood on his hands and he told me he was in trouble." Kael's voice is flat. "And I told him to handle it himself. Because I was twenty-three and I thought I knew everything and I thought if I did it for him, he'd never learn."

The bar's very quiet.

"He was dead three days later," Kael says. "And I've spent sixteen years wondering what would have happened if I'd gotten off my stool and gone with him."

I walk around the bar.

"Kael."

"Don't."

"Kael." I put my hand on his knee. "Look at me."

He looks at me.

"I'm not Jamie."

His jaw works.

"I know you're not."

"Then don't do it."

"Do what?"

"Don't decide for me. Don't decide what's safest for me and make the choice and then hand it to me already finished." I look at him. "Marcus did that. For two years. Every single day. He decided what I wore and who I talked to and whether I was allowed to have a phone."

Kael's quiet.

"I know," he says.

"So don't." I take the glass out of his hand and set it on the bar. "Ask me."

He looks at the glass.

"Alright," he says. "I'm asking."

"Then here's my answer. Call the sheriff. Pull the file. Do whatever it takes. But when it comes back, tell me what's in it." I look at him. "Don't protect me from the truth. Protect me from him."

Kael's quiet for a long moment.

"Okay," he says.

"Okay?"

"Okay."

He picks up the glass and this time he drinks it.

Then he sets it down and turns on the bar and puts his hands on my face.

Not hard. Careful. The way a man handles something he's afraid of breaking.

"You're the most dangerous thing that's ever walked into this bar," he says.

"That's not a compliment."

"It's the best one I've got."

---

The glass is empty and the bottle's still half full and we've been sitting on the bar for a while now, not talking, just sitting.

The sky's starting to change. Not light yet. Just less black.

"I should go back up," I say.

"In a minute."

"Kael."

"I know." He tips his head. "There's something I need to tell you and I've been putting it off all night."

"What?"

He gets off the bar and stands in front of me.

"Three days," he says.

"Three days."

"It's been one."

I look at him.

"I know."

"I said three days and I meant three days. And at the end of it, you get on a bus and I buy the ticket." His jaw works. "But I'm going to tell you something now, because it's four in the morning and nobody's watching and I'm not going to say it when the sun's up."

"What?"

He puts his hand on the back of my neck.

"I don't want you to leave."

The bar's very quiet.

"Kael—"

"Don't say anything." His voice is flat. "I'm not asking you to stay. I said three days and I meant three days. I'm just telling you. I don't want you to get on that bus."

I look up at him.

"Why are you telling me?"

"Because in three days I'm going to stand at that bus station and put you on a bus and I'm going to keep my word. And I didn't want you to get on that bus thinking I was glad to see you go."

---

I don't answer.

I can't.

He lets go of my neck and picks up his bottle and puts it back on the shelf.

"Go to bed," he says. "Sun'll be up in an hour."

I go up the stairs.

The hallway's still got the two dents in the rug. The door's still open. The bed's still got the pillow I slept on.

I lie down.

I don't sleep.

I lie there with the hallway light on the floor and his voice in my head — I don't want you to leave — and I don't sleep at all.

---

An hour later, the sun comes up.

I know because the hallway light changes. I know because the street outside goes from black to gray to a thin wet daylight.

And then I hear an engine.

Not a bike. A car. A low steady one, idling out past the window.

I get up.

I go to the window.

The street's wet. The bar sign's still lit. And down at the end of the block, parked at the town line with its headlights off, there's a black car.

Not moving.

Not leaving.

Just sitting there.

Chapter 8 Ends.