"Even if you stink," he adds.

I elbow him in the stomach and he slowly draws out of me, then rolls onto his back. He stands, yanks the blanket out from under me and pulls it over my body, tucking it under my chin, and dresses. I watch him tug on his clothes, lace up his boots again, and stoop to the floor. He rises with my underwear with his hand, buries his face in it, and takes a deep breath.

Then he sticks them in his pocket.

"Hey," I whisper, sharply. "Give those back."

He crawls over the bed and pulls the window up again, and swings his legs out.

"You'll have to take them from me," he says, and drags himself up the side of the house.

I sit up, clutching my blanket to my chest, and pull the sash down.

With a sigh, I collapse back into the pillow and stare through the gla.s.s into the dark. "I love you too," I whisper.

Hawk Now I can't stand much more of this.

It's been three days and I'm losing my mind. I stand in the kitchen, ready to head out on a morning run, and Alexis comes down the stairs, stockings on her long pale legs, a tight pencil skirt and a sleeveless blouse, her hair done up, full makeup. She looks like somebody's s.e.xy secretary fantasy. I wouldn't mind, except it's not my fantasy, it's my f.u.c.king father's.

I know what she means now by him making her dress up to his tastes like a G.o.dd.a.m.n doll. She gives me a mournful look before her face goes still like a porcelain mask and she knocks on the office door. My father opens it and stands over her, smiling a wolfish smile and appraising her openly, focusing especially on her legs. She doesn't show much else; Alex never dressed provocatively, but the neckline of her top is conservative, even for her.

Like a perfect gentleman, he sweeps her inside, which gives him a nice view of the back. I slip out of view before he turns to look at me and walk out onto the back porch, into the heat. Sweat beads on my back as soon as the sunlight hits me. It'll top one hundred today and the humidity is off the scale; it goes any higher and I'll be pushing fish out of the way to walk down the sidewalk.

I have to do something physical, burn some energy, because if I don't, I'm going to walk back in there, rip my father's face off, throw Alex over my shoulder and carry her out like a G.o.dd.a.m.n caveman. If somebody wants to stop me they better bring six more guys and a bag lunch, because I'm ready to go all day. If he touches her, I swear I'll skin him alive. Alexis tells me he never puts a hand on her- maybe a pat on the shoulder now and then, but he's never gone beyond that.

I made her tell me ten times, and still a little voice whispers this will be the day he takes it a step further.

She's mine. Her silky skin, her soft hair that always smells like lavender, her rich lips and the lush curves of her body, the heat of her as she pulls me close. I should be making up for lost time and here I am standing out in the summer heat raging and h.o.r.n.y, fighting the urge to barge back in there and put this s.h.i.t right.

My hands curl into fists. My forearms bulge, the veins standing out, cutting lines through the tattoos. What good is all this power if I can't use it?

Need air, need to move.

I walk out of the yard, jog down the street, and break into a run. I should be watching over Alex, but if I hang around her neck every second, my father will get suspicious. I'm sure he already knows I'm here for her, why else would I come back? It's not to see him or my brother. As I run faster, the shock of the pavement jolts up my legs, drives me to surge ahead and put on even more speed until my legs are on fire and every breath is like hot coals. It's so f.u.c.king hot.

I thought Afghanistan was hot, but it wasn't close to this, the air pressing on your skin, sweat running in a waterfall down your back. I should have remembered, but it never seemed so hot when I was a kid. Hiking with Alex, it was always hot out and sweat would soak through our clothes, but neither of us ever seemed to care. I used to b.u.mp into her and her skin would be sticky, cling to mine for a moment just from the touch.

Out in the game lands there's a swimming hole- a broad clear pond, if it's big enough to be called a pond, no more than maybe ten feet deep in the middle. Everyone went there, and half the time jumped in with their clothes on. Alexis never bothered with a bathing suit, she'd just leap in wearing a t-shirt and shorts, leave her shoes on the back and get her feet all muddy. Then when the sun dipped and the mosquitoes came out, she'd come striding out of the water, mud up to her knees, water streaming from her hair and hands and clothes, her t-shirt glued to her skin.

I can see it as clearly as I see the road in front of me now, hear the peeper frogs in the distance crying out in unison as the day grew long. By the time we walked back to town, we'd just be damp and snapping and swatting at mosquitoes, enough mosquitoes to carry you off. Then the next week I'd be itching at a dozen bites. Alex never got one, like she was too pure to by sullied by the proboscis of an insect.

Proboscis. Alexis made me memorize that one for a tenth grade biology test and for some reason it's stuck in my head all these years later. She was sitting on her bed with the giant textbook propped open in her lap, quizzing me on the vocabulary terms for the test. I learned plenty of math and anatomy and s.h.i.t later, in corps school, but back then I only cared so much because she was insistent I learn it.

My father could yell at me for hours because I pulled a C in this or that cla.s.s and I didn't care, but one look of stern disappointment from Alexis and I was yearning to learn. She was the same way, dismissive of anything soft- science and math she loved, English or social studies not so much. When she was working the math stuff, she'd go quiet as a mouse, sit there with this look of furious concentration on her face, her pencil scratching across the notebook page so fast I couldn't understand how she was keeping all of those numbers and symbols straight.

In our last couple of years, she advanced so far past me that helping me with my homework was trivial. She was doing advanced calculus stuff, equations so complex I couldn't even figure out what they were for, stuff that's still beyond me even now.

Funny. If it weren't for Alexis, I'd never have placed so highly on my tests and been chosen for corps school.

Running through Paradise Falls is so strange. I feel like I've never been here before. Commerce Street is just depressing- it was mostly empty when I left, but now it seems like only every third store front is filled.

As I draw nearer to the river I hear a voice call, "On your left!"

I glance to my side then shift on the sidewalk, and Jacob Kane surges past me, running full-tilt. He barely spares me a glance until he stops at the corner and takes a deep breath. By the time I've caught up, he starts running again. I pace myself to match him.

"Funny meeting you here," I shout, panting.

"Small world, isn't it?"

Lungs burning, I slow. He matches my pace.

"Summers off," he says, grinning. "Best part of the job. Almost."

"I saw your wife last night."

"I know. You've been busy since you came back town, huh?"

"Not busy enough."

He nods.

Ahead, the foot path crosses the bridge, running along either side. The sound of the falls drowns out any hope of conversation until we reach the other side. At that point I'm winded, and slow to walk to let myself catch up before I break into a run an head back.

"How are things with you and the girl?"

"Complicated. I can't read her anymore."

"I know that feeling."

"All that matters is that she's safe. I can't stand..." I trail off.

"What?"

"She's alone with my father right now."

"She volunteered."

I stop completely and stare at him. "I don't f.u.c.king care. That sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d put her in a f.u.c.king mental hospital, threatened to kill her and has been making her play secretary and-"

"And?"

"And it's my fault!" I bellow at him. "Mine. The way I felt about her," I clutch my chest, "Feel about her, and I just let her go."

"You're being too hard on yourself, kid. You didn't have a choice."

"I always had a choice-"

"What did he tell you when he made you leave town?"

I pace the footpath. We're at the base of the hill now, the memorial isn't far. I don't want to go up there today.

"If you could go back, what would you do?"

"Fight."

"You'd lose," he says, flatly. "What were you, eighteen, right? Just graduated high school."

"Yeah but-"

"But you were one person. Against many."

"It was a trick." I lean on the concrete and look down into the river. "He wanted me gone so he could marry her mother and play this sick f.u.c.k game, trying to brainwash her or something."

"You didn't know that."

"I could've lived with it, you know. If she moved away from here, found somebody else, made her own life. I could live with that."

"Could you?"

The river rushes below, the water frothing over rocks as it cascades away from town.

"No. I'd lose my mind over that, too. Every day was a struggle. When I was in the service, every minute I had to stop myself from going absent without leave and running back here. I knew if I came back, he'd make good on this threat. If I checked up on her, somehow he'd know. I thought he was using her against me as leverage to keep my mouth shut about my mother, but that wasn't it at all."

"She insists on helping us," Jacob says. "If it was up to me, we'd already have you in a safehouse and move against your father on our own."

"Dude," I blurt out, "who the h.e.l.l are you?"

"Me? I'm a math teacher."

"My a.s.s."

"Hey, I teach at the school. I'm there 192 days a year with in service time. Check for yourself."

I walk most of the way across the bridge, and take a straighter path home. By the time I get back, I've been gone over three hours, I'm covered in sweat and my legs are like overstretched rubber bands. It's not my legs that make me trudge up the back steps, it's the invisible weight on my back. It feels like a dead elephant now.

This bulls.h.i.t with the computer better work, or we're leaving. I'm taking Alexis and May and we're running and we won't stop. Maybe Canada. There must be someplace my father and his friends won't be able to reach us.

As I step into the kitchen, my father emerges from his office.

Speak of the devil.

"Howard. I was wondering when you'd get back. Come into the office."

He walks inside and I follow. Alexis isn't here.

"I sent her off to run some errands for the rally this weekend. Only two days to go."

"Yeah."

"You're going to be there," he declares, and it is a.s.suredly not a question. "We're going to have to cover up those inane tattoos. I don't know what motivated you to mark yourself up like that."

"Everybody in my unit got tats."

"I suppose if they jumped off a bridge..." He sighs. "Well, far be it for me to question military unit cohesion. In any case, we'll want to be properly attired for this event. I want the townsfolk to see my veteran son, of whom I am very proud," he says with a flat sarcasm, "and not a tattooed up thug."

"Right."

He slips a credit card across the desk, and a slip of paper. "Take this, go to that store and get a proper suit. It's coming off my corporate account."

Leery, I take the card and the slip of paper. There's an address. It's about two hours from Paradise Falls.

"We need to discuss your future plans."

"Do we?"

"They need to involve leaving."

"Oh?"

"Do you think I'm an idiot? I've seen you gawking at your stepsister. I know she isn't interested in you, but the last thing I need is the embarra.s.sment of you pulling some stunt to impress her or some idiotic nonsense like that. You never did learn any self control."

I stare at him.

"Let's drop the pretense," he sighs. "Close the door."

I turn and swing it shut. It locks with a click and when I turn back he has his hand propped on the desk, and in his hand is a sleek automatic pistol, a little pocket model, a .32 or a .380, aimed right at my chest.

"When you left, I'd have had to resort to other methods, make it look like an accident. Today I think I could just shoot you and it'd be a minor inconvenience, but one I'd rather not deal with. I find the idea of killing my own blood distasteful."

"Not killing your own wife, though," I say, very softly. "Not the mother of your children. If you shoot me, you'd better use every bullet in that weapon and hope I drop before I make you eat it."

He stays perfectly still, but a single bead of sweat grows on his forehead and slides down his nose. His jaw works and he adjusts his grip on the gun, his fingers flexing.

"Why? What did she do that you had to kill her?"

"We're not having this conversation. I'm offering you a chance to walk away. On your own terms, on your own time."

"I'm not going to tell anyone about what you did."

His lip twitches. I stare at him.

"I know you'll hurt Alex if I do. If you lay a hand on her, I swear I'll do s.h.i.t to you that'll never heal, and everyone will know what you did."

He shifts his arm, looks at the gun, at me.

"Ever hear of a dead man's switch?"

"I'm familiar with the term."