Where Silence Gathers (Some Quiet Place #2)(9)

Missy and Saul wait in the kitchen, talking in low voices. Once again Saul is at the table, his silver hair shining in the dusk. Missy is leaning against the edge of the counter with a bowl in one hand and spoon in the other.

“Hi,” I say, going to sit beside my uncle.

In unison, they focus on me and put on their smiles. “Hi, honey,” Missy says. She’s mashing potatoes.

“About time you showed up.” Saul wraps his arm around my shoulders. Guess he’s not mad at me anymore, or at least he’s doing a better job of hiding it. He smells like cigars and … garbage. I wrinkle my nose. Saul notices and pulls away, sighing. “Damn animal got in the trash cans again,” he says. “Had to clean it up.”

My aunt pours a glass of water and slides it in front of me. She picks her spoon back up and starts mashing again. “How was your day?”

“Fine. Yours?” I take a drink so I don’t have to come up with anything else to say.

Missy and Saul exchange a glance, probably without meaning to. I see it and clench my fist under the counter. If Saul feels the tension in me, he doesn’t comment.

“So are we going to do this or what?” I ask, trying to sound flippant.

Silence. I attempt to interpret their wordless conversation. Do you want to take this? No, you do it. Are you sure? I’m sure. Okay. Looks like Missy draws the short stick.

“The school called,” she says, brushing a stray hair out of her eyes. Her black hair has gray streaks it didn’t used to. When did she stop dyeing it? “You missed class today.”

I study the designs in the wooden table, losing myself in the thick and thin lines. They wait patiently for me to respond. But what can I say? What can I tell them? It feels like any words would only cause more damage.

“Do you need help with anything? Dishes? Dinner?” I offer when the silence becomes too long. “Or I could run to Ian’s and pick something up.” He’s the owner of the general store.

As soon as the words leave my mouth, it’s not just the three of us in this small room. Worry, the Emotion I seem to bring out the most in people, appears. He touches both Missy and Saul, and the sound of his foot tapping is something only I can hear. I grit my teeth.

Oblivious, Missy sets her spoon down once more, and it clinks against the side of the bowl. Her dark eyes try to find the secrets in my own. “Alex, we need to talk about this. Where did you go today? Do you need to talk about anything? I know that Nate Foster—”

“Don’t.” I slide off the stool so violently that it scrapes over the floor with an ear-splitting squeal. That name can’t exist outside of my head. He can’t be anything other than the monster. I head for the door.

“Where are you going, Alex?” Missy calls after me. Then there’s the thud-thud-thud of her pursuit. “Honey, you can’t just—”

“Nowhere, Missy. Just out.” Hating myself, hating the pretenses even more, I shut the door on her concern.

She doesn’t try to follow me.

Guilt walks beside me as I make my escape into the trees out back. She towers over my head, her greasy hair shining yellow in the twilight. It takes the last of my self-control not to shake her big hand off. The emotion oozes through my veins.

But Guilt doesn’t linger, and I stop when I reach the trail. I stand there for a minute, concentrating on the push and pull of air in my lungs. The haze ebbs from my vision enough that I can see the ground, so I make my way down to the ditch and search the long grasses for a flash of color, the glint of an object. Over the years, I’ve searched miles of the woods that surround the store.

Nothing.

After a few minutes, I climb back to the trail and squint at the horizon. I hear dirt crunching behind me, and then Uncle Saul’s voice drifts into the stillness: “It hurt your aunt when you talked to her like that.”

At first, I don’t respond. Because they deserve better. The thought calms the storm raging within me. Calms it but doesn’t stop it. My lungs are clouds and my blood is a torrent of rushing rain.

“I know.” I shove my hands in my pockets. “I’m sorry. And I’ll tell her that too. I just … ”

Uncle Saul gives me a chance to finish. When I don’t, he does it for me. “Being young isn’t as easy as everyone makes it out to be, huh? Especially when life has dealt you some rough cards.”

My nostrils flare. It’s been six years, but I can still taste blood in my mouth, hear the screams, feel the heat of breaking glass and twisting metal. “Is that what you call it? Rough cards?”

He chooses not to respond to this, but I see the way his mouth tightens. Remorse grips my stomach; sometimes I forget that when I lost a father, he lost a brother.

Saul puts his back to the sun and faces me. A tuft of hair sticks up on the back of his head, making him look younger. “What are you doing out here?”

I wasn’t expecting that. Part of me was steeling myself for something about Nate Foster, about the unfairness of his release, how it would be best for me—for all of us—to move on. I let out a breath, and the truth comes out along with it. Maybe to make up for last night.

“I’m looking for something,” I tell him. “Dad used to talk about it. He said that one Fourth of July, you guys shot off this giant rocket he built and he always wanted to find it. He didn’t exactly get the chance, so I’m … ” I swallow.