Black Bird of the Gallows(30)

He looks down and there it is again—profound sadness. Deep hurt, hiding just beneath the veneer. I know it’s there. It answers an ache within me like a haunting echo.

The illuminated blue-on-white sign for the ice rink comes into view. I pull into the parking lot and find a spot. Practice doesn’t start for a few more minutes, and a handful of guys are waiting in the covered vestibule. I don’t turn off the engine, expecting him to grab his stuff and go. But he doesn’t. He just sits there, looking at his hands.

My own hands drop away from the steering wheel. “Hey, Reece—”

He glances up suddenly, with alarming intensity. He wants to say something. Badly.

“What is it?” I ask.

His mouth opens but closes with a sigh. He rubs his thumb over the opposite palm.

That’s when I see them—three deep, ragged scars running the length of his palm. They start at the web of his fingers, trace between the bones of his hands, and converge at the wrist.

I reach for him without thinking, pulling his hand into the dim light of the parking lot lamp. “What happened to your hand?”

His fingers curl into a fist, but he doesn’t pull away. “Nothing. Just an old scar.”

“It’s not nothing. These look deliberate.” My eyes snap to his. “What happened to you?”

He lets out a laugh with a sharp twist in it. “What hasn’t happened to me?” He tips his head back and closes his eyes. Long, dark lashes on golden cheeks. “Oh Angie, I can never tell you it all. And this isn’t the time or the place to tell even a little of it.”

“Then why did you want to talk to me?”

“To apologize. To—” He rolls his head toward me, gives me a vague smile that doesn’t match the hunger in his eyes. “Angie, I will answer your questions. There isn’t enough time right now, but soon. I have one request.”

“What is it?”

“That you’ll hear me out.” He draws in a breath through his teeth. “That after you hear what I have to say, you’ll try not to be afraid of me.”

I wrap my arms around myself on a chill. “I already am a little afraid of you, Reece. In more ways than one.” The words tumble out, more breath than voice.

He swallows hard. “A harbinger of death isn’t the same thing as a Beekeeper, but not altogether different, either.”

Reassuring words stick in my throat. “I want to know.”

He lowers his head in a resigned nod. Wavy chestnut hair falls over his furrowed brow.

I squeeze his fist, still clasped between my hands. There’s a hum, almost a vibration, between us that gets stronger the longer this goes on. It may be my freak-out meter busting out of the red zone. Slowly, I release his hand, and just as slowly, he retracts it. I drag my gaze up to his.

“Hey, maybe you can come inside, hang out until practice is over?” His voice is rough-edged. “It’s not long. We have only forty minutes of ice time.”

I feel like I just swallowed a rock. Sitting in the stands during a guy’s sports practice is a galaxy away from my comfort zone. And not something I think I’m ready for. Plus, watching any sports practice sounds awfully boring, even with Reece playing the sport. “Oh, I don’t think—”

“Damn it,” he hisses through his teeth. His gaze narrows on something outside, in the darkness.

I scan the parking lot but see nothing. “What is it?”

Slowly, he raises a finger and I see him—Rafette, the Beekeeper who grabbed me outside The Strip Mall—standing at the edge of the parking lot, nearly in the trees. I was just looking there. It’s as if he materialized.

Fear unrolls through me like a ribbon of ice. “What do we do?”

“Nothing. I go play hockey and you go home.” Reece unbuckles his seat belt and pulls his baseball cap back on. “Pop the trunk, okay?”

“I’m not leaving you here with…him.”

He smiles faintly. “Oh, Rafette can’t hurt me.” He nods to the boys hanging out in front of the rink. “But he can hurt them.”

My stomach dips. “You’re staying?”

“If Rafette releases bees on those boys, they’re dead. I won’t let that happen.” He leans close. So close, I should be able to see the line where his iris ends and his pupil begins. But it’s solid black. “I want you to go straight home, okay? I will make sure he doesn’t follow you, although I don’t believe that’s his intention tonight.”

“What is his intention?”

Reece sighs. “I have to go, Angie.” He reaches over and hits the trunk button on my key fob. “I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”

He gets out of the car, hauls his hockey equipment out of the trunk, and strides straight into the pack of boys. I watch him meld into their sea of mismatched gear and backward caps. Their teeth flash, but not in warning. He’s welcomed into their tribe with backslaps and fist bumps. He doesn’t glance back. Not once.

I look back to the edge of the parking lot.

The Beekeeper is gone.





13-the dead beat


There is no groove tonight. Nothing that works. No matter how high I push the volume, how deep I drive the beat, I’m separate from the music. It’s not in me, but around, over. I can’t flow with it, and that is the mark of an unsuccessful DJ.