Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
When Last We Met: DG was utterly successful in her quest; her mother will live - as long as she never returns. Unwilling to allow her daughter to live in exile, Lavender gives Cain what she hopes to be her last order: retrieve the princess and bring her home. A task easier given than done...
Chapter Thirty Six: In the Light of Day
He landed on his back, and he landed hard, the air knocked clean out of him. Dazed, he struggled to get to his knees, but he had no strength and he collapsed with his face in the dirt. His fingernails dug deep into the earth, gods be good, it was solid and it smelled of sunlight and dusty decay. The grass was scorched and brittle and broke against his hands. He kept his head down, his eyes closed, as sense slowly forced its way through the fog in his mind, the relentless wind and roiling sky.
Azkadellia's storm was fierce, though the power paled in comparison to the only other storm Cain had ever known, the day DG had disappeared from the southern edge of the Outer Zone. Even now, crouched on his knees in a hardscrabble field, he knew the difference. To command the forces of sky and wind, thunder and rain – he had never felt so insignificant, so mortal, as when these elements pounded him down into the ground.
One thing could be said in favour of exile, he discovered then. Never, ever having to endure another storm such as this again.
He didn't know how long he'd been kneeling in dirt when the rain began, light and steady. It seemed an eternity before the wind finally began to die down, and the rumbles overhead faded into the distance, moving on as quickly as the summer storms the spells were meant to emulate. The darkness, however, didn't clear – it had been just after second sunrise when Azkadellia's storm had began to swirl in the sky over his head, the pink clouds closing in and turning grey. Now, the paling of a horizon so very, very far away spoke of east and dawn.
He pushed himself up out of the dirt, dusting his hands off on his trousers. It didn't do much good. His clothes were heavy with damp, and brushing the mud and dead grass from his clothes became an exercise in futility. He dared a glance up at the forbidding, overcast sky. Already, the clouds were beginning to drift, leaving open patches of inky night, glimpses of stars. The rain soon began to let up, and the moon came out, sinking lower into the northwest even as he watched. The light of it was bright, unbroken, illuminating the empty field he'd been dropped in until he felt he was afloat in a waving, foaming sea of prairie grass.
He looked around. A thicket of tall, crooked trees was closest, looming sentinels that swayed in the wind, leaves billowing in a deafening rush. Black shapes etched against the night in the distance to the north seemed to be buildings, their lights small and square and steady. Tiny pinpricks of red light could be seen beyond that, moving farther and farther until disappearing all together, signifying a road, and beyond that, somewhere, civilisation.
Cain found himself at a loss. He'd been counting on daylight. He'd hoped the weather would clear faster. With nowhere to direct his frustration, he looked up at the wispy, black clouds that were curling across the moon. An hour or more until the sun was fully risen, and a few hours beyond that before the world put itself to the daily grind of working order.
He shifted his knapsack on his shoulder, gave his sleeve a distracted brush, but the spiny bits of grass only stuck to his skin. What a mess he was, another thing to thank Azkadellia for. These Gales had a strange way of repaying those who did them service. Next time, it might be wiser to sneak out the back before the queen started doling out the compliments and gratitude.
If he made it back. If there was a next time.
Wading through the tall grass left him soaked to his knees, and fighting his way into the tangled little copse took care of the rest of him. The tree at the heart of the thicket was tall and scraggly, and Cain had to duck to get beneath the lowest of its branches. Still, it was dry and he set himself down with his back against the rough, fissured bark. The air was heavy with the smells of soil and rain and summer.
He closed his eyes, meaning it to be just for a minute or two, but when he blinked them open again, it was to sunlight streaming into his little hiding place, bright as holy wrath.
He rubbed a hand over his face, tried his best to shake the clinging cobwebs of sleep from his limbs as he stood and stretched. He was stiff, sore, but there was nothing to be done for it. The storm had battered him, but he'd walked away whole and that was good enough for him. His clothes had dried on him as he slept, though he chose to change into a clean shirt. Before shrugging into his sleeves, he took a moment to look at the light dappling his bare arm. Really, this sun was no different. Brighter and meaner, but lonely looking, at least to him. An odd sight, and one he was glad he didn't have to stare into. Still, enough wary glances had his vision dancing with spots as he repacked his knapsack and wove his way out of the brush into the open air.
The buildings he'd spied in the darkness turned out to be a farmstead, half a handful of main buildings, with a few smaller sheds back near a crooked fence of posts and wire. However, even at a distance Cain didn't recognise the house or barn, and dismissed the idea of going that way. Instead, he headed toward the road, taking it slow; he had no intention of turning an ankle stepping into some creature's burrow.
The road was asphalt, bleached and cracked, a two-laned strip of ugliness stretching out endlessly in either direction. It was cut up the middle with a dotted line, and of course it had to be yellow. A long look north, and then south, offered him no clues as to which way to turn. He swore, loudly. With no one to hear, what did it matter?
All roads led somewhere. He had what was needed to find the girl, her name, her address, the soft green notes that passed as currency in this country – dollars, he reminded himself – but until he had a place to start from, trying to get to her was impossible. One world or another, the middle of nowhere was still the middle of nowhere.
And somehow, it came down to this road and a choice. North or south. Had he chosen, or had it been chosen for him; which glass held the poison.
Damn that woman.
He turned south.
The morning was pleasant enough, the air damp and chill, the wind brisk. He was without his hat or duster, and he hadn't worn his holster since his return to Central. The sun kept him warm, the walk kept him warmer. The land was relatively flat, and the road was old, patched with black every few feet, dipping and heaving in places where the land had swelled with frost over the winter. The gravel on the shoulder crunched beneath his boots. The ditch to his left was filled with tall weeds and pale purple wildflowers, the odd bone-dry drainage pipe jutting here and there from the embankment. There were no trees growing close to the road, but farther back in these neglected, overgrown fields, there were thick clusters of taller trees and stunted scrub brush near identical to the one he'd sheltered under.
Close to an hour had passed, if he was any judge of the sun – which, he supposed, in this place he wasn't – when the road began to climb a gentle slope, and once crested, he had a view on into what seemed like forever, the golden grass and summer green trees. The highway stretched on ever south. An ambling gravel track cut west, with no end in sight.
And there, across the road, nestled in amongst its windmills and flowering trees, a whitewashed farmhouse. The barn was a half-collapsed ruin, and most of the roof of the house was covered by a sheet of grey canvas, but there was no mistaking it. Looming over the barn was thick, gnarled old tree with branches like reaching arms. Stout enough to hang a swing from, Cain was certain.
His disappointment grew the closer he got. By the time he'd turned up the drive, it was painfully obvious that the house had been left alone for close to a year after the storm had hit to take its occupants away. The barn was beyond salvation, a shell in need of tearing down. But signs of repair about the place were obvious. Some of the windows were boarded over, but the plywood sheets were fresh cut. The trees that grew out over the road showed raw wounds where thick branches had broken and been sawed away. The edge of the driveway was lined with brush waiting to be hauled away.
The yard was empty, but marked with tire-tracks. More stacks of debris, mostly wood and shingles, while broken pieces of window glass were set off to the side. And there, beside the gaping hole of a barn door, an old motorcycle leaning drunkenly on its kickstand. No seat, no battery, a broken headlamp.
The path leading to the porch steps had been beaten down by repeated passage, and the third step up was brand new, the nails still shiny enough to glint in the morning light. On the porch, he took a moment to look around, back across the dirt yard, the ruined barn. This was the exile she had chosen. Not really all that different from his own. Ghosts in the dust, a broken home, and utter loneliness, righteously deserved.
Grumbling, he let his head hang and rapped hard on the screen door. It didn't jostle in the frame as he'd expected. Even the screen door had been newly hung. While he knew DG to be handy with a wrench, he'd heard quite the opposite of her aptitude with a hammer. He knocked again.
He waited almost ten minutes before admitting to himself that she wasn't there. With a sigh, he dropped his knapsack down on the porch, rolled up his shirtsleeves, then leaned against the railing. He knew she'd returned to the house she'd grown up in. If Raw had been certain of one thing, it was that she was holing up here, and Cain trusted the Viewer's heartsight. Inconsistent and conditional as it was.
Still, he couldn't deny that it was a peaceful place. An outright boring place as well, there was no getting around that fact. The breeze kept up, bringing him the perfume of the heavy-headed purple blossoms that hung from the bushes that choked the side of the house. He could almost have slept, but he knew it was pointless. He was prepared to wait for the girl, and he would do it with his eyes open.
The sun had arced high in the sky when a truck turned down the drive, kicking up a thin cloud of dust as it bounced hard over the washboard ruts. It was clear right away that the driver was not a dark-haired young woman, but a man. Cain moved to stand at the top of the steps as the old, dented pick-up came to a halt in the dirt yard. The tailgate was down, the bed stacked with cut lumber cordoned off and flagged with trailing bits of red tape.
The man that got out of the truck was old enough to be his father, white-haired, bespectacled, but still strong, and ill-tempered to boot, if the force with which he slammed the door was any judge.
"Something I can help you with?" he asked, as he came around the front of the truck.
"Hoping so," Cain said. "I'm looking for DG."
Suspicion was clear on the old man's face, though he attempted a guarded look. A loyal old dog, it seemed. "Girl ain't here right now. What are you wanting DG for?"
Cain gave him a crooked half-smile. "Just though I'd drop in and see how she was doing at getting set up."
"Fine enough," the old man said. He stuck his fists to his hips, a stubborn stance. "She'll be back 'round this way this evening, you can come back then."
"She gone into town?" Cain ventured, a bit of a bluff.
The old man didn't respond, regarding him warily. A look that Cain was used to, and it didn't faze him in the slightest. He only stood still, waiting for the old man to be done with his sizing. He didn't seem to come to a happy conclusion.
"You that Wyatt fellow?" he finally asked. Cain merely nodded, trying not to show his surprise at hearing his own name from this stranger's mouth. The old man sighed. "Girl's been through enough. Might be you should consider turning around and going back the way you came."
"Just here to talk to her." There was nothing more than that he could offer up. He wasn't about to go tangling himself in the lies the girl would have had to concoct to explain away her sudden reappearance. Once he talked to her, he could learn her tale and abide to it.
"Hank and Em send you?"
Cain shook his head, no.
"Lord above," the old man said. "I knew that girl wasn't telling us everything. Well, nothing new there. Gales are queer folk, always have been." He stopped and sighed, took a look around as if wanting to be anywhere else just then. "Listen, I wish you weren't here, but you are. And I am not about to make you my problem. DG's in town, working the lunch shift over at the Hilltop. First thing you'll see when you head in."
"Much obliged," Cain said, and because the old man was at least an acquaintance of DG's, he extended his hand. "Wyatt Cain."
"Wayne Kelley," the old man replied, slow to take Cain's hand.
"Town" turned out to be a scattering of buildings that hugged either side of the highway along a half-mile stretch. What streets Cain could see were paved, the houses were squat and square with yards boxed off by faded picket fences. Farther down the main road he could see a market building, a line of gas-pumps. More houses. A field that looked to be for sports. Yet more houses. A tall, brick building surrounded by towering oaks. And beyond that, a whole lot of nothing.
It was so grey, and quiet. The grass here was not the gold of the fields he'd walked through, but pale, parched of colour. Even the sky seemed to have lost some of its brilliance. Gods, no wonder she hated the place.
As promised, the Hilltop was at the very edge of town, a small diner set next to a fenced in car lot and across from a complex that looked to hold apartments. It was an ugly, grey building with red awnings. White window blinds blocked all view of the inside from the street, but the sign said 'open'. A handful of vehicles were pulled up in front, but it looked to be a slow afternoon. Just as well.
Cain stood on the side of the highway for a long moment, taking it all in. The sign, the cracked plastic window awnings, the wilting flowers in their wooden potting barrels. The wind had given up a bit of its bluster, and he could feel the sun growing hotter on the back of his neck. It took a good while for him to berate himself into moving. He'd come this far, he wasn't about to baulk at this threshold. At least, that's what he was still trying to convince himself of as he forced his feet to walk.
A pleasant blast of cold air hit him as he entered, accompanied by the jingling of a bell set above the door. A long counter with a row of red stools bolted to the floor ran near the length of the inside, while tables and chairs stood along walls covered in framed pictures. Only one table was occupied by a woman with a book who paid him no mind, while a pair of old men at the counter turned to watch him with curiosity curbed with suspicion.
From somewhere in the back, where Cain couldn't see, a man was bellowing at someone. A blonde girl came bustling out, gliding behind the counter to pick up a glass carafe of coffee. She wore a blue gingham apron over a short-cut white dress. A name tag was stuck to her front. She tossed a smile at him as she filled the old men's cups without asking. One nodded appreciatively at her.
"Come on in, darlin'. Lunch menu's on the board. Something I can get for you?" she asked, taking a greater interest in him on her second glance, with a perfect white smile that didn't let up, even as she spoke. If she liked what she saw, he could at least take it as a sign he wasn't looking too worse for wear. Before he could say a word in reply, she pulled a cup and saucer out from under the counter, and set to filling it for him.
The man in the back kept on going, loud even over the hiss of a grill, the clatter of metal against metal.
"Thanks," he said, though he didn't move. "I'm looking for DG, she working today?"
The girl piqued an eyebrow. "Well now –"
There was a bang from the kitchen, and she flinched as a wordless shout of frustration resounded from the kitchen. Just as quickly, a dark-haired girl came rushing out from the back, hair tied in pigtails that curled down over her shoulder.
She hadn't noticed him. Cain's heart near skipped as DG muttered apologetically at her co-worker. The wry smile that she wore was the most welcome sight that he'd seen in far too long. "Carter's decided he doesn't like the job I did in the storeroom."
"Well, that's 'cause it took him a month to put it back the way he liked it after the last time you rearranged it," the blonde said. "Hey, DG, there's –"
She didn't finish. She didn't need to. DG stood, and saw him. Her blue eyes went wide, and her smile went out like a light. He didn't know if he'd ever seen someone go so pale so fast. Whatever words he'd been planning to greet her with, he found he couldn't say them. He could only stand still as she watched him, blinking disbelievingly as if she'd seen a ghost.
The blonde girl had gone from interested to really interested. "What's going on, Deege?"
DG ignored her, but the words seemed to spur her to action all the same. She came around the counter, walking slowly and steadily, her eyes running over him, up and down and back again. The old men along the counter turned their heads to watch her as she passed them.
She stopped barely a foot away from him. He opened his mouth, but she beat him to it.
"Say it," she said, still staring up at him as if he'd go up in a cloud of smoke.
A half-smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Hey there, pr–"
The rest of the words died inside of him as the air was knocked clean from his lungs. She threw herself at him, slender arms winding their way around his neck. There was nothing for him to do but wrap his own arms around her waist, pull her in close. Her fingers were digging tight into his shoulders, not about to let him pull back, even if he'd intended to.
He didn't.
Author's Note: An insanely big thank you to all my readers, reviewers, and subscribers. Seriously, 100 story alert subscriptions? You guys rock my poptart. Second, the chapter title is taken from the song "No Light, No Light" by Florence + the Machine, which has been settled as the main theme of this story. Go onto YouTube and give it a listen, it's amazing. Third, since there's not enough story left to cover a sequel, this piece has about 4-6 chapters left until the end. I know what I said, forget what I said. There's also a possibility that it might, might, might go "M" before the end. This is your just-in-case warning. (Probably a stand-alone chapter with warnings written in Christmas lights that could be skipped for anyone who's followed this far and doesn't want to go THAT far.) Thanks again, guys, leave me one if you're so inclined. Oh, and fourth, look, it wasn't even a whole month!