The Dead and the Dark(88)

“I’m going,” Ashley said.

“Hold on,” Alejo snapped. He closed his eyes and slipped a hand over Brandon’s clenched fist. “You’re the only one who knows the Dark. You can stop it. You can do this.”

Brandon stared.

“It’s stronger than it ever was with me. I don’t know what it’ll do.” He cleared his throat. Black clouds rolled past the moon above them, scattering silver light over the road. In the dark, Ashley heard Brandon breathing, slow and methodical and weary. “If it’s too strong … I don’t know who will come back.”

“You will.” Alejo shakily laughed. He wore an easy expression for Brandon’s sake, but Ashley saw the way his grip shook against the passenger door. “Because I’m not doing taxes with that thing again.”

“A fate worse than death.”

This wasn’t a normal send-off. Ashley understood, suddenly, that they’d expected this day. They’d known it would eventually come down to this moment. They’d known Brandon would have to face the Dark alone. After everything, they were always going to have this goodbye. The kind that might be forever.

“I love you,” Alejo said.

Brandon nodded. “We’ll be okay, right?”

“One day,” Alejo breathed.

Brandon smiled. “See you when it’s all over.”

Alejo reached into the minivan and took Brandon’s face in his hands. He kissed him, soft and lingering and mournful. When he drew away, he held Brandon’s face and looked into his eyes.

With that, Brandon closed the door, threw the van into drive, and tore down the highway toward the woods. Down the road, Tristan lingered. He waited, hovering along the pavement, both there and gone at once. In the night, he looked more smoke than human, but she knew the shape of him, no matter how gone he was. Wind howled through the valley, whistling off the water like a scream. There was death in the air. The night was swollen with it.

Alejo lingered, eyes fixed on Brandon’s headlights until they disappeared around the bend of the highway. “Well then, let’s follow your ghost.”

They climbed into the Land Rover and drove into Snakebite proper. Tristan’s ghost was hard to make out in the dark, but between the two of them, they tracked him from street to street. He paused in front of a squat, green house behind the Chokecherry, spinning like he had in Pioneer Cemetery.

Ashley recognized this house.

Alejo shook his head. “This is Frank Paris’s house, right? Why would he take us here?”

“I don’t know.”

Ashley unbuckled and took off. She and Alejo followed Tristan to the front door, hesitating on the porch. Inside, Ashley heard the muffled sound of the TV and murmured voices talking alongside it. Ashley met Alejo’s eyes, then tentatively knocked.

The door opened and Ashley found herself face-to-face with John Paris. The same John Paris who had tried to drown Logan. Anger boiled up in her, but she suppressed it. Tristan shifted behind John, making his way deeper into the house.

“Ashley,” John said. “And…?”

Alejo donned a surprisingly easy smile and gave John a curt wave. “Alejo Ortiz. We haven’t met. You’re Frank’s son?”

John narrowed his eyes. “What’re you doing here?”

“Can I come in?” Ashley asked.

John looked over his shoulder, then opened the door and motioned her inside. She nodded at Alejo, promising him that she’d be okay on her own, then stepped into the Parises’ living room. An action movie crashed on the TV. On the couch, Fran was curled up under a blanket, scrolling idly through her phone. She looked up and caught sight of Ashley, and her expression soured.

“Ash?” Fran asked. “What’re you…?”

“I just need a second,” Ashley said. Tristan lingered at a door off the living room. “Uh, what’s through there?”

“What’s this about?” John asked.

Panic bubbled up in Ashley’s chest. Tristan continued to spin near the door. “I just need to go in there. I promise I’ll leave after that.”

“No.”

“John, please,” Ashley tried.

“No. Shouldn’t you be with your girlfriend?” John asked. He donned an overconfident sneer. “I’m gonna need you to get out of my house.”

Ashley turned toward Fran, because it wasn’t John Paris she was appealing to. Fran looked back down at her phone, but she was listening. “I would be with her if you hadn’t just tried to kill her.”

At the word kill, Fran looked at John.

“What’s she talking about?”

“She’s fine,” John scoffed. “Ash is just overreacting.”

“I’m not overreacting,” Ashley snapped. “You held her head underwater for fifteen minutes. You’re lucky she’s alive.”

“Is that true?” Fran asked again. Her eyes were wide, expression something like a scared animal’s. John looked at Fran, but said nothing, and she knew. Her mouth quivered, but she didn’t speak. She looked at Ashley and her unspoken words were clear.

I’m sorry.

John clicked off the TV. “Get out of my house, Ash.”

Tristan looked at Ashley, then at John, then at the door. Something was on the other side, and whatever it was, he needed her to see it. It was the thing he’d wanted all along. She was only steps from understanding why he’d been haunting her for months, and John Paris was not going to snatch it away.