With carefully controlled movements, he lowered the duffel bag of supplies from Alicia to the floor and kept his voice even as he asked, “What happened to your clothes?”
Still holding his hand, she turned away from the cabinet and blinked at him. The gown that was gray in the land of the dead was suddenly vibrant in the world of the living. The rich green fabric stood out in the sterile steel and muted tones of the storage room.
“Bullets. Blood.” She put her free hand against her side. “Just a graze. Charles kept me safe. It doesn’t even hurt now.”
Byron paused at the familiarity in her tone. His opinion of Charlie was far from a positive one, but Rebekkah seemed to think differently. Their entire experiences of the land of the dead were dissimilar. It added to Byron’s dislike of the place. All he said, however, was, “I don’t trust him, but I’m glad he protected you.”
“Me, too.” She took her hand away from her side. “I feel fine, but if he hadn’t ...”
“He kept the bullets from you. That’s what matters. If he hadn’t trapped me in the tunnel—” He stopped himself. “I can look at the injury if you want.”
“Really, I’m okay.” Her eyes widened briefly. “It should still hurt. It did when I was over there, but now”—she put a hand on her side—“it’s ... fine.” She looked into his eyes. “It’s gone.”
He wasn’t sure whether he was alarmed that the injury seemed to be tied to her time in the land of the dead or grateful that her pain was gone. Would it return when she went back there? Or had it truly healed by passing through the tunnel? As with so much else, there were more questions than answers. Obviously, things could cross between the two worlds. If not, Alicia wouldn’t be making requests of him.
Byron tried to keep the worry from his voice as he said, “It’s probably a good idea to look at the wound.”
“Right ... but I’m not wearing underwear under this, so that means it’ll wait till elsewhere or I’m going to need to get naked.” Rebekkah plucked at the skirt. “ All of my clothes were ruined.”
“Oh.” The thought of Rebekkah injured was briefly replaced by the idea of Rebekkah vulnerable in Charlie’s bed.
He was just trying to provoke me when he said that. She wouldn’t . Would she?
Byron wasn’t sure what had actually happened, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to ask just then, wasn’t sure he could handle knowing. Instead, he said, “You’re not in danger from me, Bek. I can be professional. If you’d prefer, I can ask Elaine to look—”
“No.” Rebekkah shuddered. “She’d probably make me lie on the prep table.”
Byron smiled a little at Rebekkah’s attempt to lighten the mood. “Be nice.”
“Anyone that efficient isn’t going to be gentle.”
Byron pulled open the utility closet where he’d stored extra clothes since he’d moved back. He reached inside and grabbed a few things, shoving most of them into the bag Alicia had given him. “ I can be efficient and gentle.”
“And professional?” Rebekkah prompted.
“Do you want me to be professional?” He pulled his shirt off. There wasn’t a lot of blood on it, but there was enough that he wanted a clean one. “Is that the lie you still want to hear?”
“You’re heading into dangerous territory, B,” Rebekkah cautioned, but she’d made no pretense of looking away as he stripped off his shirt and put it into the biohazard bin.
He grabbed a clean shirt from the closet, but didn’t put it on. “And?”
She pulled her gaze away from his chest and studiously looked at the floor in front of her. “I don’t need you to look at my side. It’s fine.”
He walked across the room and stopped in front of her. “That’s not what I asked.”
She lifted her gaze. “You do know that I wasn’t ... when Charles said those things ... I mean, I slept there, and—”
“It’s fine,” he interrupted. The last thing he wanted to hear just then was Rebekkah talking about Charlie. “You don’t owe me an explanation; you’ve made that abundantly clear.”
“Sure.” She put her hands on his bare chest. “And I’ve known you too long to believe for a minute that you’d be fine with me being with Charles ... or anyone else.”
“Maybe I’ve changed.” Byron ran his hand over her hip. “Maybe—”
She stretched up and kissed him, carefully and slowly, and all of her repeated protestations that she didn’t do relationships felt empty. She didn’t touch him as if this was casual. He’d had friends with benefits; this felt like more. It always had.
For both of us.
She pulled away. “No.”
“No what?” he prompted.
“No, I don’t want you to be professional, and no, you haven’t changed, but right now I’d probably ignore that ... again. Then tomorrow we’d regret it.” She stepped back.
The temper he’d been trying to keep in check slipped a little then. “Bullshit. I never regret it the next morning. You’re the only one with that issue.”
And as she had done for the past nine years when he tried to talk about things she didn’t want to discuss, Rebekkah changed the subject. “I need to find Maylene’s journal. She left me a letter that said there were answers in it. I started to look for it, but I didn’t realize how important it was. Now I need ... I’m not even sure what I need, but there’s a dead girl out there and I have no idea how to stop her.”
“Right,” he bit off.
He pulled on his shirt, lifted the bag, and walked toward the doorway that led into the hall. He felt like he was walking a thin line between pushing her to face facts and going along with her habitual avoidance. The problem was that he knew they were past the point where ignoring their relationship was an option.
She can accept murderers and hidden worlds, but us ... that she can’t accept.
Frustration barely in check, Byron stepped aside for her to pass him.
She caught up the hem of her skirt and stepped into the hall. Once he pulled the door shut, she asked, “Will you come with me? To look through the house, I mean.”
“I was planning on it. First, though, I need to grab something.” He locked the storage room behind them. “Last night, before Dad ... before I came back from there without him, Dad said he left some things up in his room.”
“And you didn’t get them yet?” She gave him an incredulous look. “Why?”
He stared back at her for a moment. “Because I thought finding you was a bit more important, all things considered. Dad said that nothing else could be done until you met Charlie, and the whole thing was a bit surreal. I just wanted ... I needed to find you before anything else.” Byron took her hand in his. “Whatever else happens, however infuriating I find your refusal to admit what’s between us, you are my first priority for the rest of my life. That’s what it means to be the Undertaker. You, my Graveminder, are my first, last, and most important priority. Before my life, before anyone else’s life, you .”
Rebekkah stared at him silently. “What?”
“My job , Rebekkah, is to put your life before mine.”
“I don’t want ...” She shook her head.
“Don’t let go of my hand in the tunnel again. You can die there.” He gave her a tight smile and then added, “I, however, can get shot repeatedly and live, apparently.”
She opened and closed her mouth, and tears filled her eyes.
And, as had happened so many times when she wept, his temper vanished. He sighed. “I love you, and I would rather be the one trying to keep you safe than let anyone else in this world ... or that one ... do it, but I need you to work with me. I don’t trust Charlie, and I don’t know what game he’s playing, but I do know that it didn’t even occur to me to hesitate when I had to shoot two men to reach you.”
“B, I didn’t—”
“No. I don’t want to hear all the reasons you can’t this or that. Just tell me that whether or not you can give us a chance, you will work with me on this Graveminder th
ing.” Byron stared at her. “I’m the only one that can open the gate, Bek, and I’ll let the whole town die before I let you go over there and get killed because you’re being stubborn.”
“I promise,” she whispered.
He hated the way she was staring at him, as if he was somehow a stranger to her, but he hated the thought of failing her even more. Rebekkah’s safety was the most important thing in both worlds. I won’t fail you. Byron thought about the bullets that had been fired toward Rebekkah, about the certainty he’d had earlier that she was in danger. I can’t be sure she is safe ever again. The dead walked, and her job was to find them. The man who controlled the land of the dead was not to be trusted. The only thing Byron knew for sure was that he would die rather than fail Rebekkah—and that if he did die, he was failing her.
Chapter 36
R EBEKKAH WAS SPEECHLESS AS THEY WALKED UPSTAIRS AND INTO THE private part of the house. She followed Byron and tried not to notice the tense way he held himself. It wasn’t like they hadn’t had their share of arguments, but there were topics he’d always allowed her to avoid. After the immediate shock of Ella’s death had passed, Byron would look at Rebekkah sometimes with an expectant expression—and she would pretend that she didn’t know the conversation they should have. Years later, when they ended up in bed the first time, she ignored the “what-does-this-mean” conversation. He’d pushed a few times, but every time, she’d walked out or silenced the conversation with sex. I don’t deserve him. That was the truth of it, and she knew it.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly as they went up the second set of stairs.
At the top of the steps, Byron glanced at her and sighed. “I know.”
“Truce?” She held out a hand.
“We’re still going to talk,” he warned her.
She kept her hand extended. “And I’m going to hold your hand when we cross the tunnel to the land of the dead, and”—her voice cracked—“do my best not to get either of us shot.”
Byron took her hand, but instead of shaking it, he pulled her to him in a quick hug. “That wasn’t your fault. Not you getting shot or my killing those men.” His voice was rough as he added, “It would destroy me if I lost you, Bek.”
The truth was that she would feel the same way if she lost him, but before she could admit that, he pulled away. Brusquely he walked down the hall and opened a door. “Come on. Dad said we’d find some answers here.”
Byron tossed his jacket on the bed and looked around the room briefly. At the foot of the bed was a dark wooden chest. It looked like something that had been passed down from generation to generation. The brass latch was dented and scratched, and several spots looked like they’d seen water damage over the years. He knelt in front of the chest, lifted the latch, and opened the lid.
Inside was an old black leather physician’s satchel. Alongside it was a small wooden box that, when opened, revealed two old derringers. Several wicked-looking knives rested in sheaths.
“Well ...” Byron opened a strongbox filled with ID tags from various hospitals. As he sifted through them, there was a note that read: “Ask Chris when you need new ones.”
Tentatively, Rebekkah sat next to him on the floor. “I don’t understand.”
“In case I need to retrieve a body that has to be brought home and don’t have time for paperwork,” Byron told her. “There are other ways, too.”
Then he told her about the woman he’d met in the land of the dead, Alicia, and the vials she had given him that caused temporary death. As he spoke, Rebekkah started shivering.
If they failed to find Daisha, people would die; if residents of Claysville died elsewhere and were left unminded, they would wake—and more people would die. The staggering list of things that could go wrong made her shoulders feel heavy. She had to keep the dead in their graves, and she had to stop them if they awoke. People who had no idea of the contract, people who had no idea Claysville existed, people who had no idea that the dead could wake: all of them were depending on her not to fail them.
And I am depending on Byron.
Byron was the one person in all the world whom she could trust; he was the only man she’d ever loved. That was the truth she shouldn’t say: she did love him. In a few short—albeit intense—days, years of running from him had been negated. She wasn’t sure if laughing or crying would be more fitting at this moment: she’d finally faced the fact that she’d been in love with Byron Montgomery her whole life.
Because of what we are.
She realized then that Byron was staring at her, waiting for something, waiting for her. He’d been waiting for her for nearly a decade. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “How did they do it?”
“The same way we will.” Rebekkah squeezed his hand.
They both looked at the physician’s bag and then at each other again. With obvious trepidation, Byron opened it and looked inside. An old box of syringes, bandages, various antibiotics, sterile gauze, a small scalpel, antibiotic ointment, peroxide, and myriad other emergency aid equipment filled the bag. It wasn’t all modern, but most of it was.
Also inside the satchel was an envelope. She held it out.
“Open it,” Byron said.
She did so, pulled out a small sheet of paper, unfolded it, and read the words aloud: “ ‘You can also pay Alicia with medicinal supplies.’ Does that make sense?”
“It does,” he said.
Rebekkah flipped the paper over. “On the back it says, ‘The syringes will stop them . Save for emergencies.’ ”
He snorted. “Which means what? When aren’t dead people who are trying to kill us an emergency?”
She shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea.”
Byron took the paper and stared at it. He lifted it up to the light and peered at it closely. As he did so, Rebekkah could make out a faint watermark.
“That’s not Dad’s handwriting,” Byron said. “Which one was it? His grandfather? Someone else?”
He held out the paper, and Rebekkah took it. She refolded it and tucked it back in the envelope.
Byron reached in the trunk for one last item: an accordion file labeled MISTER D . He opened it. Inside were two plain brown journals, letters, news clippings, and some papers.
“We may have just found some answers.” He held up a carefully clipped article with the headline MOUNTAIN LION ATTACK CLAIMS THREE . Setting it aside, he opened an envelope. He looked at each item it contained and then handed them one by one to Rebekkah. There were receipts for handguns, ammunition, and one pair of women’s size-seven boots.
Byron continued passing items to her, and Rebekkah read the mishmash of notes. One slip of paper read: “for Alicia.” Another piece of paper listed questions and answers: “Human? No. Age? Not what is visible or what era his clothes are from.” After it was a scrawled note that read “Alicia has ulterior motives.” Some would take longer to read. Letters and news clippings mixed with nearly illegible notes; going through all of it would take time.
Time we don’t have.
When she yawned, Byron stopped passing her the papers. Silently, he collected those he had given her, slipped them all back into the file, and placed it and various other items from the trunk into the duffel he’d brought from the land of the dead.
“I’m good,” she protested.
“You’re exhausted,” he corrected gently. He stared at her for a moment until she nodded.
Rebekkah stood and stretched. “Let’s go home.”
His look of surprise was masked almost immediately, and she was grateful that he didn’t comment. Even when they’d been lovers over the years, she didn’t use “we-speak,” and she certainly didn’t refer to the space where she was residing as “home.”
She drifted off during the short drive from the funeral home to her house and woke as Byron turned off the engine. Instead of getting out of the hearse, she stayed with her head resting against the passenger-side window for a moment.
“You all right?” he asked.
She looked at him. “I am. Overwhelmed. Confused. Exhausted ... but I’m not going to run screaming into the night. You?”
He opened his door. “I’ve never been much for screaming.”
“I don’t know. I remember a few movie nights—”
“I never screamed.” Byron went around back and grabbed the duffel bag.
“Yelled, screamed, whatever.” She got out, gathered her skirt in her hand, and climbed the steps to her front porch. She unlocked the front door and went inside. “I’m glad you’re here with me. Maybe it’s fear or partnership or grief or—”
“Or friendship. Let’s not skip that one, Bek.” He closed the door behind him. “This other stuff is going on, but we were friends before all of it. If you won’t admit that you love me, at least admit that we’re friends.”
“We are, but we’re friends who hadn’t spoken in several years,” she corrected.
His jaw clenched, but he didn’t say whatever he’d thought. Instead, he carefully lowered the duffel bag to the coffee table. “Did you ask me to stay the night before last because of any of this?”
“Maybe,” she admitted. That was the thing she hadn’t spoken, the other fear that had lingered at the edges of her mind. “What makes you think that our ... friendship is real?”
“A couple years of putting up with you, listening to you and Ella talk boys and hair and music and books, watching movies you two outvoted me on.” Looking more frustrated by the moment, he ticked each item off on his fingers. “A lot more years of hoping you’d come home, watching in every crowd for you, years of hoping every brunette that could possibly bear even the slightest resemblance to you would turn and say my name.”
“But how much of that was out of your control?” She flopped on the sofa. “Was any of it real or was it just instinct? You are meant to protect the Graveminder— me —so maybe you were responding to that.”
He stood in the middle of the room and stared at her. “Does it matter?”
She paused. Does it matter? The question wasn’t one she was considering. The hows, the whens, the whys, the what-nexts, those she had been trying to ignore, but unfortunately those were things she couldn’t overlook. Does it matter? If all of the things they’d shared were merely happenstance, if the fact that he was in the room right now trying to help her—if everything was a result of Maylene choosing her to be Ella’s replacement, then yes, it mattered.