9. Jax

Jax

I pull up at the park and sit in the car, listening to the engine tick. In the distance, I can see Rafael leaning against the high fence that surrounds Cinders Park. In the low light, he appears nervous, scowling at the road. The street lights are few and far between down here. I get out of the car and start walking towards him when another guy appears. One that looks familiar. He has his hands in his pockets, a large black jacket covers his body, but that beautiful face, even dimmed by the lack of illumination, is impossible to mistake.

I stop on the footpath, caught between horror and anger. It's the guy from my apartment building. Dane Galbraith. They both seem to sense my presence and turn. Rafael moves towards me, his expression hopeful, a wondrous smile born and dying in a moment, but I spin on my feet and start walking away. Stupid. Totally and completely stupid. How na?ve of me to think it would be so damn straightforward.

Someone grips my forearm and yanks me around.

"Jackie Blackwell, we need your help, and we aren't going anywhere until you agree to help us."

"Fuck you," I spit. "I don't know Jackie."

Dane glares down at me. "Six years ago, my brother disappeared."

I try to hold on to my anger, but ice rolls down my spine, freezing it out, and in its place, I'm just tired. So tired. Guilt and shame, my familiar companions, steal up instead, wrapping themselves around my heart and mind.

"Who was your brother?" I try for nonchalance, but it comes out strangled.

"Terrance Kyte."

I don't need to search for the memory of him. His image explodes into my closed eyelids, summoned from the depths of my mind. Deep green eyes like emeralds, always watching, a magnetism that drew me. A kind, gruff voice. I remember him. How many times have I prayed to bump into him? How many nights have I laid awake deep into the night mourning him, never realising it wasn't my life keeping us apart but his? I could have loved you. I could have loved him so easily. Oh, god, what the fuck did I do? Pain seeps into every part of me, and a voice inside howls at the agony that is my life.

My moment of complete ruin isn't missed by Rafael, who has moved closer. "You remember him?"

"Everyone would remember him," I whisper. I remember where I am and glance around. "Come with me." I tug my arm free of Dane's grip and walk over to the fence and pull myself up and over.

Dane and Rafael drop beside me moments later. I lead them through the knee-high grass, ignoring the way my jeans soak up as much water as they can. The path is hidden, but in moments, I have us neatly hidden from the city of Hurricane. My own private oasis in the bowels of hell.

I smile bitterly and see a curious look on Rafael's face while Dane scowls and swears at the branches that snatch at his clothing.

The clearing appears suddenly and without fanfare. A nice, perfectly oval shape of longer grass, with none of the thick trees that ring it. In the middle is a playground, rusted and broken. Falling past disrepair and into history.

"What is this place?"

"When they closed the mine, people ran out of work. There were too many people, not enough jobs, not enough food. Crime skyrocketed. It's whispered that a man named John Durst was caught by his wife sleeping with his mistress. The wife had lost her father earlier that week, a stillborn a few weeks prior, and she just snapped. She set fire to the house." I pause and my throat thickens. "She didn't know her kids were home. She didn't know the babysitter hadn't shown up."

I have their complete attention now.

"The children somehow escaped the fire, but in their fear, didn't seek help, they just ran. No one knows why. At dawn, the searchers found their burn-covered bodies curled up together on the slide."

I wave a hand towards the rusted metal.

"I don't believe you," Dane grits out.

"I don't really care," I say back simply and coldly.

"Tell me about my brother," Dane grinds out furiously.

"I don't know anything about him, not really. We didn't speak much." It's not a lie, we didn't have much to do with each other, it was just a connection.

"Were you cheating with him?" Dane snarls at me.

"No!" I spit out, horrified. "It wasn't like that." I shrug helplessly. "He came to my shows, my gallery. Talked to me about a painting. We just spoke to each other like friends." I look around helplessly. "It was nothing." My hands clench, and I blink back tears before I sag. "It was everything. We didn't know each other, but it felt like we did," I whisper. "It was wrong, so wrong, but we stopped. Nothing happened."

Dane opens his mouth, but Rafael steps forward and slides in between us.

"Can you help us?"

"In what way?" I ask when my ability to talk returns.

"Help us understand what happened in those last few weeks, where he might have gone. You were the last person to see him alive."

I turn away from Rafael and move through the grass to stand in front of the swing. The sun has set, and my hallucinations have appeared. I feel a whisper of Gideon's touch on the back of my neck, and then he's gone, too bright still for him. But rainbow shimmers out of the corner of my eye dance crazily through the world. They almost remind me of a swarm of butterflies or birds. There is something joyous and playful about the way they move.

Terrance…

No, I can't.

"I can't help you," I say at last.

"Why not?" Dane shouts.

I whirl back towards him and put my hands on my hips. Dane is all energy, all emotion, his hair lifts in the breeze, cut in a stylishly jagged way that speaks of movement. His blue eyes cut through me, and I see how he feels reflected there. His face is sharp angles that have so much personality.

He's taller than Rafe, who is very boy next door. But his gold eyes are kinder and wiser. He's hesitant and cautious. They are stunning men.

"Because I've tried, and it's all gone. Every clue I can remember that might lead back to Louis," I spit the word, "is gone. Erased."

Rafael touches Dane's back. The gesture is small, almost unnoticed, but the intimacy of it speaks volumes.

"Work with us, try, and if it fails, we will walk away and not bother you anymore."

I heave a sigh and turn away. A black shape moves slowly in front of us and stops at the swing. I watch as it hops on, and the swing starts to move. Rafael and Dane's heads snap towards the swing. I watch as Rafael stiffens and rubs his arms.

I owe it to him, to Terrance. I remember the butterflies and the smile that seeped into my dreams. Still, I remember the guilt and the secret thrill. The helpless need, the draw to be near him. How his hand felt on mine, just a passing touch, but sometimes I can still feel it. I'd wondered what happened. Of course, I had. He disappeared. But I never thought…I'd hoped…

I close my eyes tight, trying to suppress the guilt. Of fucking course. It would've been stupid to assume otherwise, but everything had been such a damn mess. Lots of people disappeared from my life at the same time.

But Terrance…he was something special. I owe him this. One last attempt.

"All right," I croak.

"You'll help?" Rafael asks quietly, but I can hear the contained excitement.

"Yes. I'll help, but I'm not kidding when I said I've tried everything I can think of to find information. I can't guarantee we will find anything out."

Dane narrows his eyes. I can tell he doesn't trust me. That's okay. It will make it easier.

"What's so special about Hurricane?"

I glance at Dane and shrug. "Well, this is where Louis was born, and let's face it, all the answers begin and end with him. Louis would have been the last person to see your brother."

Rafael inhales quickly. "We haven't been able to find any of that out."

"It's not common knowledge." I scrape my hair over my shoulder and watch as the merry-go-round starts to turn. The rusted metal creaks, a sinister song that makes the hairs on my arms lift.

Dane glares at the creaking metal and pauses when the powerful smell of smoke wafts past us.

"This is not amusing. You shouldn't use children as scare tactics," Dane growls.

"I'm not laughing." I shoot back, but I frown. Dane can smell it, too? Is it real? I want to ask more, but I clamp down and scowl at the creaking metal slowly doing rotations.

"So, he was born here?" Rafael frowns.

"Yes, for all the good it's doing me, I can't find anything else. He doesn't exist."

"How do you know, then?"

"Because I was going to marry the son of a bitch," I snap. "Just trust me!"

I walk and stop beside the slide, bending down to pick up my backpack from underneath, where I'd hidden it. I put my arms through the straps and heft the weight.

Dane walks towards me and stops. He bends over and clears some grass away from two concrete tombstones.

"They died here." He sounds so surprised.

"I try to make it a habit not to lie about death."

Dane grabs my wrist and squeezes. A flutter of something, rage, anxiety, intense awareness, presses in on me. I look up into his eyes. They are almost black in the darkening sky. And still I can't find it in me to fear him.

"Tell us who you really are."

I smile, letting him see the cold, dead person I am inside. "You know who I am, Dane Galbraith. I'm just another dead person walking around waiting to die."

I pull my wrist free and head for the fence line.

"Where are we going?" Rafael asks.

"Gotta give you two a tour of Hurricane, don't I? Show you where he grew up."

We walk silently until the fence comes into view. Rafael sidles up beside me. He opens his mouth several times, and I brace myself, but when the question comes, it surprises me.

"What was he like?"

I take a moment to think about how to answer him, and then decide to give him the raw truth.

"He was…fun. Louis laughed, and it was contagious. He was attentive, driven, soft-spoken, and far too smart. Oh, yes, Louis Falcon was a man who turned your world upside down without you even realising it." My mind turns inwards, but I fight to stop it.

"He was, on paper, unremarkable," Rafael points out.

I laugh softly. "He was anything but, I've read what it says, too. It sounds boring until you're with him, and then he's like magic."

Dane grunts and climbs over the fence. I stay where I am for a minute.

"He was smart," I whisper, and I can still feel the pain in my voice. "I was a fool."

Rafael watches me carefully. "I need to find my brother. I need to know what happened between them before Terrance disappeared."

I shake my head and jerk myself back to reality. The agony on Rafael's face is howling deep inside me.

"The chances…"

"We know. We just need to be sure we tried everything," Dane snarls, and I finally recognise the anger for what it is. Pain. "It's been six years. No one's even looking for him."

I close my eyes. "If Louis," I stop and clear my throat, "knew anything. We might find something here. Maybe." God, I don't want to give them hope. They don't deserve to have it ripped away.

Dane straightens. "I'll take anything at the moment."

Rafael reaches over and closes his hand over mine on the chain-link fence. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. Louis was smarter than I ever imagined. I'm still trying to unravel his lies." I sigh. "Right, come on, let me give you the tour of where we grew up."

Both of them turn to look at me in surprise.