Where Silence Gathers (Some Quiet Place #2)(83)
Guilt crouches next to Foster, and she touches the birthmark on his cheek with familiarity, like she’s done it thousands of times before. He looks up. Tears fall out of those eyes now, leaving streaks down his crusty cheeks. “Many times,” he answers hoarsely. “When you were in your car, when you stood outside the window. Each time, I hoped you would finally come inside and end it. But you never did.” He pauses, and Guilt is joined by Sorrow and Resentment. Strangely, it feels like a betrayal that they’re going to him. Then I realize that despite my new doubts, Nate Foster doesn’t have any. He believes it was his fault. He wants to be punished. Doesn’t that mean something?
“It means he’s a good man, in spite of what happened the night of the accident,” Forgiveness murmurs.
“I thought I told you not to come.” I keep my attention trained on Foster, even when the Choice steps so close that his minty scent blocks the ones of blood and sweat. My insides quiver and the gun handle becomes slick.
Forgiveness disregards this, of course. “I know that you made a promise to your family, to honor them,” he says. “And I know that every day is a struggle for you. Even though the people in your life don’t know it, you’re constantly fighting the urge to give up. But do you know how you can really honor them, Alex? Keep fighting. Lead the lives they should have had, would have wanted for you to have. Do you really believe they wanted this for you?” He gestures to Foster, who’s staring at me in utter confusion. He can’t hear Forgiveness; he only hears what seems like nonsensical babbling pouring out of me.
“I’m just so tired,” I sob, uncaring. The gun begins to slip and I adjust my hold again. “I-I don’t want to die … but I don’t know how to live, either.”
“No one does, Alex. That’s what makes it so beautiful.” Forgiveness says it tenderly, and the intensity of his gaze makes me feel like something beautiful, too.
“It’s ugly,” I say through my teeth, shuddering. “Just like him.” Nate Foster becomes the center of my universe again, fading in and out of focus. Forgiveness responds, but the words are overpowered by the ringing in my head, piercing and painful.
“You can do it, honey.”
This voice brings me back, and the sight of my father is the motivation I needed. He stands next to Foster’s chair, smiling sadly. “Dad?” I say, searching his face for some sort of affirmation that he’s real and this is what he wants.
His eyes are warm. They don’t waver. “Go ahead,” he urges. As if there’s any doubt to his meaning, he raises his hand and points at Nate Foster. “Come on, honey. I know you can. Pull the trigger. Do it.”
“Do it,” Nate cries.
But now I’m staring at something else. When my father lifted his arm, his shirt rode up, exposing a strip of pale skin. Even after the shirt covers it again, I keep looking, knowing that something isn’t right. Like a missing piece in a large puzzle.
Then it comes to me in a quiet burst. The piece falls into place, and I begin to see the patterns and the meaning. “Dad … where’s your scar?”
My father frowns. “What scar, baby?”
“It’s supposed to be on your stomach, from your appendix surgery.”
He steps into the shadows and his tone is unexpectedly terse. “I’m dead, Alex. I don’t have scars anymore.”
Wrong, my instincts whisper. Everything about him is so detailed, down to the injuries that caused his death. The crow’s feet around his eyes, his unshaven cheeks, the way his smile always pulls to one side. Why should his scar be any different?
“You’re not my father,” I realize, slowly, devastatingly. There’s another pause, and I wait for him to deny it.
In the silence that follows, we all hear a commotion, people shouting and calling my name. Frederick must be here. He’ll find us any moment. But I don’t react.
Forgiveness shifts, like he’s about to touch me. Instead he steps close to the thing wearing my dad’s face and snaps, “She knows now. You can stop.”
The imposter continues to hesitate. No one speaks or moves or breathes. The search party gets closer. Then, as I watch, every feature that created my dad melts away. His floppy ears, his brown eyes, his big hands … until Revenge is all that’s left. He looks at me with those green eyes, completely detached, as though none of this touches him.
A myriad of emotions tear through me, making me bleed and die and darken. Shock, disbelief, confusion, fury, denial. A hundred screaming words ricochet up my throat and fill my mouth, and yet all that emerges is, “You did rip that book up, didn’t you?” I’m not sure why it matters. It just does.
Revenge doesn’t answer. And in that instant, I know I’m right. He lied to me. Just like he lied about everything else. “You bastard,” I breathe. It feels like he’s carving out my insides with a dull hunting knife. “You psychotic bastard.”
How did I not see it? Everything falls into place, and it makes perfect sense. It wasn’t until the night Nate Foster was released that I heard the voice in my head, calling my name. And again the next day, when I was torn between hiding in my safe little bubble and going back to face him. Essentially, whenever I was unguarded or vulnerable, I heard my father. No, not my father. Him. Revenge. The creature I fooled myself into thinking was my friend, was idiot enough to wish for something more with. And every time I got close to Forgiveness, Revenge was there, whispering in my father’s voice and toying with my sanity as if it were one of the dolls I used to love.