The Hollow Page 0,84

as he looked out the window to the neighboring houses and lawns beyond. "Things were insane in town, and in the middle of it, my mother called. She woke up when a car started outside, and she'd gone running. Carly was gone. She'd driven off in the car she'd borrowed from a friend to drive down from New York. I was frantic, more frantic when Mom told me she'd been gone twenty minutes, maybe a little more. She hadn't been able to reach me, just got static when she tried."

When he broke off, when he came back to sit, Layla simply reached across the table to take his hand.

"There was a house on fire over on Mill. Cal got burned pretty bad when we got the kids out. Three kids. Jack Proctor, he ran the hardware store, had a shotgun. He was just walking along, shooting at anything that moved. One barrel, second barrel, reload. A couple of teenagers were raping a woman right on Main Street, right in front of the Methodist Church. There was more. No point going into it. I couldn't find her. I tried to find her thoughts, but there was so much interference. Like the static on the line. Then I heard her calling for me."

He didn't see the houses and lawns now. He saw the fire and the blood. "I ran, and Napper was there, blocking the sidewalk. He had his car pulled across it. Had a ball bat, and came at me with it, swinging. I wouldn't have gotten past him if Gage hadn't taken him down, and Cal right behind with his burns still healing. I climbed over the car and kept running, because I heard her calling me. The door to the library, the old library, was open. I could feel her now, how afraid she was. I went up the steps, yelling for her, so she'd know I was coming. Carts hurtling at me, books flying."

Because it was as real as yesterday, he squeezed his eyes shut, scrubbed his hands over his face. "I went down a couple of times, maybe more. I don't know, it's a blur. I got out on the roof. It was like a hurricane out there. Carly was on the ledge above, standing on that spit of stone. Her hands were bleeding; the stone was stained with it. I told her not to move. Don't move. Oh God, don't move. I'm coming up to get you. She looked at me, and she was in there, for an instant it let her come all the way out so she could look at me with all that fear. She said, 'Help me. Please, God, help me.' Then she went off."

Layla moved her chair beside his, and as she had the night before, drew his head down to her breast.

"I didn't get there in time."

"Not your fault."

"Every choice I made with her was the wrong one. All those wrong choices killed her."

"No. It killed her."

"She wasn't part of this. She'd never have been part of this except for me." He drew back, drew away so he could finish. "Last night, I dreamed," he began, and told her.

"I don't know what to say to you," Layla told him. "I don't know what I should say to you. But..." She took his hand, pressed it between her breasts. "My heart aches. I can't imagine what you feel if my heart aches. Others who know what happened, who know you, have told you it wasn't your fault. You'll accept that or you won't. If Carly loved you, she'd want you to accept it. I don't know if you were wrong to lie to her. And I don't know if I could accept as truth everything I know if I hadn't seen and experienced it myself. You wanted to keep her separate from this, to keep what you had, who you were, who she was apart from what you have, who you are here. I know what that's like, the wanting to keep everything in its proper place. But your worlds collided, Fox, and it was out of your control."

"If I'd made different choices."

"You might have changed it," she agreed. "Or it all would have taken a different route to the same end. How can you know? I'm not Carly, Fox. And like it or not, we share what's happening in the Hollow. They aren't all your choices now."

"I've seen too much death, Layla. Too much blood and pain. I know more's