Experiment in Terror Book 9 - Page 61

Grief is this thing, a hand of water that reaches into your lungs, and drowns you.

I drowned in my grief, as did everyone around me. If it wasn’t for Dex, lifting me out of it, and in time, lifting everyone else out, I don’t know what I would have done.

He may have not given his life again, but he saved me all the same.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dex

“Stay with me.”

I must have said those words a million times. Just holding onto Perry, trying to bring her to me, into this world we shared but was so brutally shattered.

Some days she couldn’t even get out of her bed. So I let her be. Most of the time, I joined her, just holding on, feeling her skin, her warmth, her a.s.surance that she was still alive even though her mind was a million miles away.

Other times, I had to get up. I had to be part of the world. There were more people hurting than just her, people she cared about. I had to make sure Ada was keeping up on her studies. She didn’t have to go back to school – it was June and her grade was graduating anyway. She was allowed to pa.s.s but her teachers thought it was best that she still learn what she missed, to prepare for the next year.

So I became the despondent schoolteacher, trying to distract her if nothing else. It didn’t always work, but sometimes it did. Poor little girl. While Perry was struggling, I knew her heart, knew her strength. Perry would pull out, in time. At least, I had faith she would.

But Ada, I didn’t know about her. She was feisty and bull-headed as s.h.i.+t but in this sorrow, she wasn’t herself. She was just this walking blonde numb thing that roamed the house, silent. She was a ghost.

And then there was Daniel. He was the trickiest of all, mainly because he wasn’t my father. Not that my own father would have been any easier, but it felt like I had no authority over him. It wasn’t my right to tell him to eat or to shower, and so I didn’t. But I had some pull with the neighbors. One down the street, Debbie, whom insisted we call her DeeBee, became the Palomino’s guardian angel. She had no problems bossing her way into their life and making sure their s.h.i.+p was being run.

But most of all, I focused just on Perry. Just on bringing her back to life. Everything else was just put on hold. I talked to Rebecca every other day, make sure Fat Rabbit was being taken care of, that she was all right. I talked to Dead and to Seb. I talked to Jimmy and finally got the chance to tell him Experiment in Terror was over for good. There was a lot of yelling but I think he understood. He had no choice.

I even talked to my real father. He contacted me, finding me the same I found him. We talked twice and both times it was awkward. He asked about the wedding again and I wasn’t sure if he was hinting for an invitation. I was truthful with him – I wasn’t sure there was even going to be a wedding.

It was everything I wanted, a chance to start a new family. But it had to have come from Perry. She had to be the one to tell me. She had to want to move on. There’s nothing harder than trying to celebrate something – no matter how happy it makes you – when there is just so much f**king sorrow around you. Sorrow clouds everything grey, even the suns.h.i.+ne.

Her mother did have a lovely funeral, if you could use such a word to describe such an event. I guess you can’t. I’ve never done very well at funerals – having to say goodbye to an old friend a week before was hard enough. But somehow we all got through it. We all said goodbye. There was closure.

At least for Ada and Perry there was some sort of closure. They knew what had happened, they knew what their mother had done for them. But their father was another story. In his eyes – and what matched the reports of the other witnesses – was that she went crazy with grief over Ada and had leapt in front of the train. It didn’t matter that the doctor who was trying to help them had made a note of the way that Ada and her mother were acting, their eyes turning black, the things they said, their inhuman strength. None of that mattered. It was so easy to sweep it away. I was used to it, the way people can turn a blind eye to the unexplained. I had done the same once. It was easier that way.

The truth hurts.

But the truth also saves.

It saved me. And, in time, it saved Perry.

One day, about a month after New York, she woke up in the morning and gazed at me with these beautifully clear eyes.

“I had a dream,” she said and though her round eyes began to water, she didn’t cry. “Pippa and my mother were in it.”

I smiled and brushed her hair off her face. “Tell me about it.”

“Well,” she said, sitting up. I made sure the pillow was fluffed behind her. “We were by a waterfall. It looked like the Pacific Northwest and also like the Veil. Like, it had that one color. But it wasn’t grey, it was gold. Everything was gold, like autumn leaves. And the three of us were just watching the water go over the edge. I guess I knew they were about to jump.” She sighed, blinking, composing herself. “And they both hugged me and kissed me and told me to take care of myself, to take care of Ada, to take care of my dad to take care of you. They said they loved me and I would see them again one day. Then they let go of me and together they jumped over the edge. I remembered looking over and seeing the whole waterfall turn to sparkles, like fairy dust. And that was it.”

I had no idea my own eyes filling with tears as she said this, I had to quickly wipe them before they fell.

“Baby,” I whispered. “That’s beautiful.”

She managed a smile. “It was. And you know what, I think it was real. I think it was more than a dream. I just…I feel like they’re okay, both of them. They have each other. They’re happy.” She put her hand to her heart. “I feel it here. Right in here.”

And somehow, I felt it too.

After that, Perry seemed to pull herself out of her depression. The grief was still there, it still smothered her from time to time, but she was putting one foot in front of the other and managing to go on. For a few weeks, we both took reins of the household, and with the help of bossy DeeBee, made sure everyone was going to be okay.

Finally it was time for us to go home. To our home.

“Well, here’s to the groom to be,” Dean said, raising his beer in the air.

“Here’s to my best man,” I said, knocking my bottle against the bottom of his, ensuring that a rush of foam would be surging to the top.

“You’re such a d.i.c.k, Dex,” he whined after he tried to slurp up the beer that spilled over.