The Pale: Volume One by Jacob Long (red novels TXT) 📖

money blowing around. They ran into the street to gather it. Adam only hoped they didn’t use it to buy drugs.

9

Away from the pandemonium of the club, the world felt dark and empty, but at least it was peaceful. As Adam rode toward the suburban part of the city, it became only more so. Finally, Adam’s body, heart, and mind could rest for the first time since before his death. Of course, the person whose boots hit the sand for the last time that day was a different person.

Adam kept the radio off, but the screen on the dashboard gave him the time of day. It was after midnight, and Adam was wired beyond belief. He didn’t think he could sleep if he tried. No matter. Téa needed looking after, and Adam couldn’t rest until she recovered fully and her eyes opened again. She looked so tranquil in the passenger seat. The light from passing streetlights illuminated her face only in short gasps and made each glimpse even more special. Adam didn’t realize how much he’d missed her until right then. He missed everything familiar. He’d visited Farol Verde here and there while he was in the Army but never realized just how far removed he was from his life. Staring at the side of Téa’s face, Adam felt like he’d finally come home.

Adam looked back at the road and immediately swerved back into his lane.

Time passed quickly while Adam brooded. He absentmindedly rubbed at the bruise on the back of his head where the owner of the club had struck him with a blackjack. It already felt a lot better. Maybe he wasn’t hit as hard as he thought. His hand, too, had significantly improved. It seemed as though everything was going to be okay as Adam pulled into the empty driveway at the address on Téa’s license. It was a pleasant-looking, modern one-story home. The neighborhood was decorated with tastefully placed leafy trees, and the grass on every lawn was healthy. It was far-flung from her parent’s stately home in the richer part of town, though. Adam wondered if they were financing it, or if Téa was paying for it herself. Maybe she had a roommate or a boyfriend living with her. That could be a problem.

Adam took the keys out of the vehicle ignition and bounded up to the front door. There he thought a moment. He considered the evidence. There was no other vehicle in the driveway when he pulled up. The size of the house said “one bedroom,” but that didn’t rule out Téa having someone sharing her bed. The thought was actually kind of pleasant. Téa deserved love. Adam thought that would be nice, if someone was waiting in there for her.

Adam shook his head and got back on task. Could someone be in there? Téa could afford a house all on her own with help from the trust fund that her parents set up for her long ago. No lights were on in the house. If someone was waiting, it was so they could flick on a lamplight to reveal themselves conniving in an adjacent old chair made for steepling your fingers in relative comfort. There, Téa would find out that the mysterious figure knew what she had been up to. Adam exhaled through his nose. After all his silly consternation, there just wasn’t any way for him to know by looking. He had to take a risk, so he reached his hand up and found the doorbell in the meager light provided by the moon. Adam resolutely pressed the button . . . and quickly bounded around the side of the house.

Around the corner, Adam turned and fell into a crouch, hiding under the nearby window. His heart was pounding in adolescent glee. He hadn’t ding-dong-ditched in years.

Seconds passed, and Adam tentatively inched his face around the corner to spy the front stoop of the house. No lights were turned on to betray life inside. More time passed as Adam held his breath, trying to hear the faintest shuffle of feet on carpet or perhaps creaking wood. It would simplify Adam’s life so much if someone would check the front door and discover Téa in need of help. If they did, Adam could disappear again. He wouldn’t have to care for her and make sure she opened her eyes. She wouldn’t have to awaken and find her friend whom she thought was dead standing over her.

Adam turned his head and looked over at the car in which Téa slept. He knew she was already basically stabilized. Her breathing was normal, and there was no reason to believe she wouldn’t wake up, but Adam couldn’t bear the thought of abandoning her, leaving her to be cared for by paramedics in a hospital. Téa hated hospitals. Maybe Adam was just resisting all the reasons he had to leave. Maybe he was digging through the mud for just one good excuse to stay. Maybe fate had something else in mind.

Adam stood and took a deep breath at his full height. He didn’t have an out, none that he was willing to accept, anyway. It was time for him to take responsibility.

He opened the passenger side door, unbuckled Téa, and lifted her out of the seat. Adam struggled to open the front door of the house while still holding her in his arms. She was light but still made it difficult to slide the key in. It may have been a little warped. Adam was getting frustrated. His body grew hot while he fiddled with the lock. He finally forced the key through the tumblers, but the force caused his body to lurch, and he knocked Téa’s head into the doorframe. Her head bobbled from side to side.

Adam hissed. “Ooh! Sorry. Sorry.”

Téa stirred and uttered a slight groan. It looked as if she could wake up at any moment. Adam quickly and tenderly turned the key in the lock. He turned the knob and kicked the door open, then hurried through the dark to what looked to be a couch. He placed her as gently as he could and held his breath.

Téa groaned again and shifted on the couch to better embrace its comfort. Her face looked distressed, either from her experiences or perhaps the fresh and reddening welt on her forehead. Maybe she was having a bad dream. Adam couldn’t be sure. He knelt on one knee beside her and stroked her crown, hoping to ease her transition back to consciousness. It was more than he’d gotten.

To his terrible delight, Adam witnessed Téa’s eyes flutter and open, only a little. She squinted into the meager light, not ready to open her eyes. Near as Adam could tell, she was looking right at him. She didn’t appear too distraught.

“Adam?” she managed to squeak.

Adam didn’t know how she could properly see him, but he was glad the sight of him wasn’t troubling her terribly. He smiled a genuine smile of relief and glee and nodded.

Téa didn’t seem quite as relieved. She didn’t seem ready to react to Adam’s presence one way or the other. She simply asked him, “Did you come here to get me?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“What?” Adam asked.

Téa rephrased, “Did you come to take me to the other side?”

Adam sighed. Téa was delirious. She thought he was the angel of death.

“I’m not Azrael, Téa.”

Téa closed her eyes and shook her head. “No . . .”

Adam was relieved that she accepted that kernel of truth so easily. He didn’t want her giving in to death.

“No one calls you that,” Téa finished.

Adam gave Téa an exasperated, withering look. He didn’t know if she was struggling to maintain coherent thought or just messing with him. It could be hard to tell with her sometimes, even on her best days. To Adam’s great annoyance, while he tried to formulate the appropriate response, Téa’s face relaxed, and her breathing became even and calm.

Adam rolled his eyes and stood. That was Téa making sure his life was nice and confounding.

He hoped she would never change.

But of course, she had. Adam had never known Téa to be a risk-taker, quite the opposite, so why did she accept that pill from that sleazy kid? Why was she hanging out in that place? Why did she have all that cash on her? None of it made sense to him. It couldn’t be true. That wasn’t the Téa he knew.

Adam turned on an unobtrusive lamp sitting on a table near the door. Also on the table was a key plate, a half-read gaming magazine, and an unopened letter soliciting for insurance. Adam wanted more. He wanted a look into Téa’s life. He wondered if this was a recent change in her behavior or if she was hiding something from him all those times they talked on the phone before his deployment overseas.

He breezed into the kitchen. There were no pictures on the door of the refrigerator, not of Adam’s mom, Christina, or even Adam. Téa used to have those kinds of keepsakes. Had something changed? Was Téa not even hanging out with them anymore? Had she become estranged from Adam’s family? If it was true, why did no one tell him about it? Why didn’t Christina or his mom mention it? Adam tore open the refrigerator and was surprised to find two bottles of half-drunk rum. There were mixers, too, like orange juice, coconut, and grenadine. Adam knew it to be difficult to get Téa to even accept a drink at a party, much less for her to have party mixers in her house. Téa was uptight, a neurotic, and a borderline overplanner. She built a portfolio and campaigned hard to secure a graphic design job by age twenty because she worried about having to rely on her controlling parents. She got the job too. Hopefully she still had it.

None of what Adam had discovered in her refrigerator was damning by any means—growing to enjoy a drink was nothing pioneering—but her idiotic behavior at the dance club was downright disturbing. Why did she take that pill? Téa is a smart girl, even by smart girl standards. Why take a pill from some rando? Did she . . . trust that guy? They didn’t look cozy or anything.

Adam sighed and closed the refrigerator. Maybe if he’d stopped to ask those kinds of questions instead of just throwing his weight around . . . he didn’t know what had gotten into him. He was just so insane with rage. He’d never felt that way before, even in combat. Then again, he’d never seen Téa in so much trouble.

Adam trudged over to Téa’s bedroom. The door was open. He flicked the light on and started rummaging shamelessly. A few articles of clothing were strewn on the floor. She had a stained wood wardrobe and a downright cozy-looking bed. Most of her decor was burgundy, her favorite color. However, she didn’t have any of her other typical decorations. Téa used to have posters of anime and video games on her walls, the types of things that sparked her love of design. Her weird anime body pillow and other more classical Japanese memorabilia were nowhere to be seen either. The place should have been exploding with her personality. Where was it? Where was his friend?

A dresser stood near the door with a facial mirror on top surrounded by oft-used cosmetics. Tucked next to the mirror, finally, was an old picture of Adam. It was the last one she took of him before he deployed and the last time they saw each other before his death. At least she would never have to know it was the last time if he stuck around.

Adam lingered on the picture and his thoughts for a time but then pulled open Téa’s top drawer. It was an assortment of T-shirts and panties, probably all she would wear alone in the house arranged for easy access. Upon pushing the loose pile of clothes aside, the first thing Adam noticed was the smooth veneer of a vibrator. Not shocking. Then he noticed the assortment of pills arranged concentrically in a plastic case. It was labeled with dates. Adam knew a birth control regimen when he saw one. It looked like she hadn’t been taking them for a long time. A part of Adam actually