Where Silence Gathers (Some Quiet Place #2)(81)
“Looks like you have a shadow,” Travis pants, eyes gleaming with triumph as he wrenches someone forward. The light falls over the newcomer’s face, and I want to sob.
Angus.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Dirt sprinkles down on our heads as thunder growls above. Angus stands there, his shirt wrinkled and the laces on one shoe undone. Before this I kept thinking how much he’d grown, how old he seemed, but now all I see is a scared little boy. “He has nothing to do with this,” I manage after a choking silence, clenching my fists. “Let him go.”
Mocking me, Travis taps his chin as if in deep contemplation. His hairline is clotted with blood. “I don’t think so,” he decides. “See, I think this kid will keep you in line.”
Possibilities tear through me. Pretending Angus means nothing to me, throwing myself at Travis, trying to cut another deal. In the end, Travis makes yet another decision for me. He yanks the gun out of his belt and puts it to Angus’s head. “Walk,” he instructs. Helplessly, I start to edge around him.
Quick as a flash of lightning, Angus finds my wrist in the dark and begins to tap, tap, tap in our language. There’s no time to figure out what he’s trying to say.
As I move forward, Travis doesn’t try to hide the fact that he’s inhaling my hair. The same moment his nostrils flare, a pale hand reaches for me from the shadows. I shriek and recoil. Without pausing, Travis swings the gun and the lantern toward it—Disgust’s eyes go wide, and I realize that he must have been answering his summons—and pulls the trigger. Angus screams and the wall explodes. There’s a ringing in my ears.
Before the dust settles I recover and rush toward Angus, pull him after me down the tunnel. We don’t even get ten seconds of freedom before Travis’s hand wraps around my arm and hauls me back with such force that I lose my footing and fall. “You want to make this harder?” he shouts. A glob of spit lands on my cheek as he leans over me. “Fine! I like a challenge.” Agony radiates through my face yet again from the strength of his fist.
Angus’s frightened face swims into view. “Run!” I try to tell him, coughing. Something hot and wet dribbles down my chin. A rusty taste slips into my mouth. Smirking, Travis straightens and gives me a kick in the ribs. I hit the wall and cry out. He says something that I don’t bother listening to. Angus is no longer hovering in the background, and somehow I push myself up, wanting to know if he’s escaped.
Relief squats in front of me when I see that he’s gone. The Emotion’s expression is tight as he touches the cut on my lip. Out of the corner of my eye, I see that Hope is standing behind him.
“What do you have to be relieved about?” Travis demands, looking in the Emotions’ direction. Right. He can see them. They vanish but I still bask in their essences. It’s the strangest thing, reveling in the other plane’s power. With a jolt, I comprehend that I’m smiling. Travis notices this the same time I do, and he scowls. Tightens his fingers on the gun. From this angle his face looks like a skinless skull. “Dr. Stern doesn’t have to know,” he says, almost to himself. “I could tell him something went wrong. I could tell him it’s your fault. Which it is, isn’t it? You just wouldn’t cooperate. All you want to do is play.”
Play? Laughter bubbles up and bursts out of my mouth. Enraged at the sound, Travis flies at me and shoves the barrel against my forehead. Suddenly nothing is funny, and the mines are so quiet I can hear the rain again.
The surface. It must be close.
“I’ve never seen a face explode before,” Travis whispers. His breath reeks of death and decay. “This should be interesting.”
The urge to fight and survive rises up again, but there’s no place for it to go. Travis’s finger is closing in on the trigger, about to pull. Any moment Death will come … this is the end he saw when our eyes met that night. As I wait for the inevitable rupture of light and pain, it occurs to me that I’ll never see Briana’s smile again, never hear Georgie’s rambunctious laugh, never taste my aunt’s burned eggs, never listen to my uncle play those forgotten pianos. And I’ll never have another chance to touch Revenge or argue with Forgiveness. Somehow, I thought it wouldn’t be so hard to leave it all behind.
Not wanting the last thing I see in this world to be the twisted face of Travis Bardeen, I close my eyes. There, in the darkness, is my family. Mom, Dad, and Hunter … along with everyone else. The people I let down and tried to let go. And I know now, more certainly than I’ve known anything, that I wouldn’t have been able to swallow those pills tonight. To say goodbye. Forgiveness was wrong; the most difficult choice wasn’t him. It was living on when my family didn’t.
The sound I’m expecting—a bullet bursting from the chamber—doesn’t come. Instead, the stillness is shattered by Travis’s ear-splitting screech. Something snaps. My eyes pop open, and for a moment they don’t accept the sight before me. The image of Hope standing over Travis, watching coldly while he cradles his limp wrist. Then I notice the gun resting in the dirt. Instinct takes over and I lunge for it. Travis glances up, realizing what’s happening, and dives for it at the same time. He beats me to the gun and lifts it with his good hand. Just as he’s about to put his finger on the trigger again I grab his broken wrist and yank it with all the strength I have left. Travis howls and I try to grapple the gun from him.