Free Silas by V. J. Chambers

“What aren’t you telling me? What else did you
do?”
    I studied the wood grain on
the table. “I might have… broken into Griffin’s place to check on
Christa. In my dream, Rolf was killing her, and I couldn’t shake
the image, and I just needed—”
    “ Silas!”
    My shoulders slumped.
    “ Did you bring a gun with
you?”
    “ Well, yeah, if Rolf had
been there—”
    “ Why would you think he was
there? Because your dream tipped you off?” Her voice was steadily
rising.
    When she put it like that,
it sounded completely stupid. “No one saw me. They were all
asleep.”
    She sighed. “This is bad,
Silas.”
    “ It’s not.” I finished the
banana. I got out of my chair and went to the trash can, where I
deposited the peel. “It’s fine. I promise I’m okay.”
    “ Why Christa?”
    “ I don’t know.”
    “ You have feelings for
her. You like her.”
    I rubbed my forehead. I
didn’t say anything.
    “ Jesus, Silas.” Sloane went
back to her cereal. “Well, she’s not going to be your girlfriend if
you’re all paranoid and freaky, so you’ve got to get over it,
okay?”
    “ I don’t want her to be my
girlfriend,” I said. “I don’t want a girlfriend at all. Girlfriends
are just things that make you vulnerable.” But I was already
screwed on that point, wasn’t I? Christa pushed me away, telling me
she wasn’t into kissing me, and I was still so freaking worried
about her safety that I had to drive across town in the middle of
the night to make sure she was okay. God damn it. I was screwed.
How the hell had this happened to me?
    “ I make you vulnerable,”
said Sloane. “Don’t I?”
    “ You can handle
yourself.”
    “ Right, that’s why you make
sure that I’m always the sniper. Because you’re sure I could handle
myself if I fought hand to hand.”
    I sighed. “Look, this is all
because of Rolf. If I would have killed him, I wouldn’t be feeling
this way. I need to find him. If I find him and I take him out,
then all of this will stop. I’ll know that we’re okay.”
    “ We are going to do that,”
she said. “After the wedding.”
    “ What if I can’t
wait?”
    “ The wedding is tomorrow . You can
wait.”
    “ Is it?” I was disoriented.
I hadn’t been keeping track of the days. That wasn’t a good
sign.
    She nodded.
    “ Oh,” I said. “Well, then,
Christa will be leaving soon, won’t she?”
    “ Yeah, I guess
so.”
    “ Good. That’ll be better.” I
started out of the kitchen.
    “ Silas, some serious shit is
going down with you, and you need to stop shutting me
out.”
    I kept going.
    Sloane caught up with me on
the steps. She got in front of me. She was yelling. “Look at
me.”
    I wouldn’t.
    “ You can’t just act like you
don’t care about anything, you know.”
    “ Maybe I don’t care.”
    “ You’ve been like this ever
since we did it,” she said. “That’s what broke you.”
    I knew what she meant by
“it.” She never talked about it. Hell, I didn’t like to talk about
it either. When I thought about it, it was all red spatters and
screams and the metallic smell of blood.
    “ If I could have helped
you,” she said. “If I hadn’t wimped out—”
    I grabbed her by the
shoulders, cutting off her voice. “It doesn’t matter. It’s done
now.”
    “ It does matter,” her voice
was a whisper. “You’ve never been the same.”
    I grimaced. “Well, neither
have you.” I let go of her and started up the steps.
    “ Silas—”
    I looked down at her. “You
know that it’s always bothered you more than it bothered me. That’s
why it made more sense for me to do it. I don’t blame you for not
helping. I never have, and I never will. Please don’t think that…”
I shook my head.
    “ You changed
afterward.”
    “ We both did,” I said. “But
the dreams and stuff. The paranoia? That’s all Rolf. It’s got
nothing to do with you. Please believe me.”
    She crossed her arms over her
chest.
    I turned away and kept going up