All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(117)

“Please again.” His smirk widened. “I’ve watched you. Heard about you. God, I have asked everyone I can about you. And most people, they say the same thing. You’re rude. You don’t know how to talk to people.” He jerked Jake’s hair, and Jake let out a cry. “Right? Is he rude?” When Jake only sobbed, River yanked his head harder. “Right?”

“Yes,” Jake moaned.

“Please,” I said.

“That’s three times. Please, please, please. I think maybe you aren’t rude at all. I think maybe you’re just misunderstood.”

The howling had grown louder. It echoed inside me, calling to me. I had to grit my teeth against the sound rising in my throat. This was loneliness, pure loneliness calling out under the moon. I knew this sound. It was there, buried in my DNA, coded over millions of years of listening to the darkness.

“We would have gotten along,” River said, slapping Jake. “No matter what this fucker says, we would have done just fine. We would have fought, I’m not saying that. We would have scrapped. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. But we would have watched each other’s backs. We would have been there for each other.”

The howling had grown louder. It vibrated along my skin. It tickled the insides of my ears, uncomfortable at first, and then painful, and then agonizing. It was coming, his beast, the thing he called to kill. It was coming. I tightened my grip on the knife. But how was I supposed to get to him with Jake between us?

“It’s not even really your fault,” River continued, slapping Jake again with a kind of determined satisfaction, as though he didn’t want to miss the opportunity. “I mean, it was bad luck. That damn key. If I’d known, if I’d even guessed it was still in that pocket, I never would have given the jacket to that old bum.”

The howling stirred the hairs on the back of my neck. Every inch of me had tightened until I could barely draw breath. It had to be soon. “You didn’t mean for me to find that key.”

“Mean for you to find it? Christ, I did everything I could to keep you from it. I mean, no offense, Vie, but you’re pretty easy to predict. Once I realized I’d lost the key, I started looking. Mr. Big Empty helped—he wanted the same thing I wanted—and so we had DeHaven search for it. At first, I thought that drifter, the one who was rummaging through the Dumpster, had found it.”

“Frankie,” I whispered.

“But he didn’t have it. DeHaven shook him down, and when I learned that the old bum had been telling you tales. I didn’t want you to get the wrong impression.”

“The wrong impression?” I shook my head, inching towards the bed and, in doing so, circling around Jake. I needed a clear shot. I was going to use the knife. There wasn’t any time to try my abilities again, even if I could find a way to slow him. “What do you care what I think?”

“And DeHaven,” River muttered, his voice growing heated. “DeHaven became less and less useful. He was obsessive. You know how he was—always going on about vagabonds. He was waiting for me to slip up. He was waiting for his chance. And he was helping Mr. Big Empty, not me, so I had to remove him too.”

“But you and Mr. Big Empty were working together. He showed me your body. You stopped Salerno for him, because you knew he wanted me alive.”

River cocked his head, his eyes searching my face, and then he burst out laughing. The laughter was so loud that, for a moment, it drowned out the howling. “That dream? That dream of my body? That was a test. And you passed, Vie. God, you passed with flying colors. I knew you’d look for me. I knew you’d come for me. I knew you wouldn’t stop.” He sighed, twisting Jake’s head back and delivering another backhand. I inched a bit farther along the bed. I was almost past Jake. Just a little farther—

“That’s far enough,” River said. “If you hadn’t gone to Denver—” He stopped, and his face screwed up in what looked like pain. When he spoke again, his voice was breathy and agitated. “You weren’t supposed to know. Not about any of that shit. I put it behind me, Vie. I’m a different person. I didn’t want you to know, because I knew—I knew you wouldn’t be able to see me. Not the real me. All you’d see was Willa and David.” He delivered their names in a harsh, mocking jeer.

“I don’t care about them. I don’t care about any of it. Just let Jake go. Let Temple Mae go.”

River sighed again, disentangling his fingers from Jake’s hair and shoving Jake towards me. The howling retreated, and the hairs on my neck settled. Something had changed. I had another moment, maybe, to find an opportunity, but Jake tottered on his knees, still in my way, and I cursed silently.

“It was a good plan,” River said. “You were going to find me. And then you’d know how much I cared about you, and I’d know how much you cared about me. That’s why I took that girl, the one Emmett was with. So you could have him back, so he would be yours again. That’s why I killed Salerno. So you’d be safe. That’s why I killed DeHaven. So you’d be safe from Mr. Big Empty. I wanted you to know, because I knew how much you cared.”

The words sounded insane, but when I looked in his eyes, they were clear. “Why did you know how much I cared?”

“Because when you thought I was dead, when there was no possible reason for you to keep looking, you did. You kept looking for me, Vie. And it’s a damn shame about the key. I never wanted you to have to know those things about me. I wish this had gone differently.”