chapter forty-three.

Val

Noah tells me everything. He starts with the reason he's got a black eye and a bunch of other bruises all over his body, details the magnitude of the grudge these two former spies were holding against his cousin Larry, tells me how Simon refused to turn his back on the issue until Noah made him. And then he tells me that the two men who beat him up are dead. That Larry took care of them like he should have a long time ago, and now—now we can "rest easy."

After he's done talking (and it only took him four and a half minutes, actually), he just kind of sits and stares at me. Every once in a while he glances up at Jo, who's leaned back against the breakfast bar, her arms folded and her face unreadable. Then he looks to me again, pleading.

Silence fills the room for a moment, until Noah exhales loudly and rakes a worried hand through his hair and says, "Oh my God, please say something, Val. You're killing me. You are absolutely killing me."

By the look on his face, I don't doubt that. "What do you want me to say?"

"Say you'll forgive me. More importantly, say you'll forgive Simon. Even more important than that, say you'll talk to him because he won't pick up his phone and I get the feeling he would if you were the one calling."

I roll my eyes. "Noah, it—"

My words falter when I hear the tap tap tap of tiny footsteps; a moment later, Charlie, still in her nightgown, toddles into the kitchen. She looks at Noah with a lingering gaze, then looks at her mother, then looks at me.

I swallow. "Hey, Charlie. Aren't you supposed to be asleep?"

"This is the one, isn't it!" Charlie exclaims, suddenly shaking all her sleep deprivation from her shoulders. She jumps forward, and because she's seven and has little use for physical boundaries, immediately starts prodding at Noah's face. She pokes too close to the bruise underneath his eye and he audibly squeals. "The shapeshifter, the one you told me about! Is this his usual face? Hey, mister mister, do the thing! I wanna see it. I wanna see it."

Noah is trying in vain to keep Charlie's fingers off of him. I shoot him an apologetic look, just as Jo steps in and scoops Charlie up. Charlie giggles as Jo tickles her tummy, hoisting her up and carrying her up the stairs. "It's back to bed with you, little one, or the tickle monster will attack! Rahhh!"

Charlie's carried all the way back upstairs in a cacophony of giggles and snorts. Jo gives me a quiet glance, frowning, before she disappears around the corner. Almost as if she's telling me, Be careful.

"Sorry about that," I say to Noah once they're gone. The night grows ever darker outside, a shiver going down my spine. Though I've met Simon's older brother before, I've never been alone with him. Frankly, I'm not sure I trust him. "That's my niece, Charlie. She's seven and her imagination is insane."

"Your seven-year-old niece knows you're dating a shapeshifter?"

I shrug. "At the time, no one else would believe me."

"Fair," Noah agrees. Another moment of silence passes where neither one of us know what to say, and Noah's just watching me, so much hope held in his golden brown eyes that I have to look away. "So? Are you gonna call him?"

In the hotel room, such a blind, unfathomable rage had come over me. Some directed at Simon—for lying once, for lying again, for breaking my trust and mending it just to break it again—and some at myself, for being stupid enough to walk into his trap. Now, hours later, my heart and my mind have begun to cool off; my heart doesn't race, my eyes no longer sting. I may not be all that mad anymore, but I am still careful. I have to be careful for my own good. No one else can do that for me.

"Noah," I say. "You and Simon both lied to me. You left Jo and little Charlie in harm's way, whether you acknowledged that or not. Not to mention, Larry just committed murder—"

"It was technically self defense."

I glare at him.

"What! It so was. My dad—Hank St. John, you know, big guy, see him on billboards and the news sometimes, Hank'll Get You Bank!, that one—he's a lawyer. So I would know."

I continue glaring.

Noah sputters, his shoulders slumping. "Okay, okay, fine. I'll shut up."

I exhale, scooting my empty dinner plate away from me, the porcelain dragging against the wood. "I'm just saying that none of what you just told me changes anything, you know? I don't like being lied to. You want to keep me safe? Sure. Tell me that's what you're doing. Let me play a role in my own protection. Don't treat it like it's something it's not. If Simon—if Simon will lie about that, something I very well would have understood, I just can't help wondering what else he'll lie to me about."

Noah is wordless for a time, and during that time he just looks at me. The pleading expression has evaporated from his face, and instead I just see fear. I see it in the way he clenches his jaw, in the slight lift to his eyebrows, in the gleam of his eyes. He's overwhelmingly afraid. Not for himself, but for Simon.

I look at Noah, here, now, and I'm convinced. I can never love Simon like the man in front of me does.

Noah gets up. He walks toward the front door with such purpose that I'm pretty sure he's leaving. A second later, however, I realize he's going for the backpack he left by the coatrack. He comes back to the kitchen table, his face oddly stoic, and flips the backpack upside down.

"Noah," I gasp, "what are you—?"

A cascade of journals thunks onto the lacquered wood. Leather journals. Paper journals. Hand-sewn journals. Journals framed in burlap. Journals framed, makeshift, with cardboard. Yellow, aging pages. Crisp, white pages. Lined and unlined pages, pages with random flowers drawn in the corners. Whatever they look like, they're all journals, and they're all filled with Simon's neat, small handwriting.

I look up at Noah; he's watching my face, carefully.

"What is this?"

"Read them," he says. "Simon would kill me if he knew I did this, but—just read them, Val."

Silent, I reach for the journal nearest me, a dark brown leather-bound one with waterlogged pages. As I open it, the air fills with the scent of ink and papyrus, the words coming to life underneath the yellowish overhead lights.

I know but am never known.

I know the caliber of her laugh

I know the color of her smile

I know the taste of her voice

I know who she is

I know who she was

I know who she wants to be

She is light and I am forever her shadow.

My heartbeat is beginning to speed up. I turn the page, and the page after that. I reach for another journal. They're all like this. All the poems and all the prose and all the random musings of Simon's mind—they're all like this.

Sometimes it all feels like a race I cannot stop running. Keep running, keep running, don't stop, don't catch your breath. If you stop you will fall. If you stop they will catch you. What am I running towards? I don't know. How long have I been running? Too long. Who are you running from? Me, always me.

Is there a goal?

Her, always her.

Can you reach it?

No, always no.

My fingers are shaking as I trace the words with them. "Simon," I say, under my breath. "Simon..."

I want to keep her safe

she doesn't need this

Just please be happy?

Even if it's not with me?

I keep going through them. By the time I slow down, I've given myself a paper cut and the back of my throat is beginning to burn. I've barely made a dent in the pile of Simon's thoughts. I turn another page. This one is addressed, incidentally, to me.

for Valerie

After all, Love is more than your name

You were born with It within you

So much, but never too much

How It bleeds from you

How It emanates from you, as a fine scent from a candle

How It shines from you, like the heavens

Chose you, named you, made you their star

You

Breathe Love

You

Speak Love

You

Are Love...

If only I could give you

As much of It as you have given me.

When I start crying, Noah reaches over and folds the journal gently closed. "Do you see, now?" he says, handing me a Kleenex. I take it gratefully, hating to make a mess of myself in front of him, a practical stranger, but not having enough control of myself to stop it. "He loves you so much, Val. We told him he was crazy for all this and he loved you anyway, without care. All this time. He would never hurt you on purpose. You have to give him time. You have to give him another chance, Val, please."

"I didn't know," I say, swiping at my eyes until my vision stops blurring. "I had no idea. He never lets me see any of this stuff."

"It's his heart," Noah says, simply. "That's not the kind of thing my brother so easily puts on display."

Regret fills me so rapidly I can almost feel its weight. I want to wipe that dejected look off Simon's face. I want to tell him I forgive him and I want everything to be okay again. I've just reached for my cell phone when the table begins to buzz, the journals trembling faintly with the vibrations.

I look up, confused, as Noah grabs his phone from the table. He frowns at it, then picks up. "Larry? What's the deal? I was kind of in the middle of something—"

Noah closes his mouth, abruptly; I can hear someone's raised voice on the other line. As I watch, Noah pales visibly. "Shit. Holy shit," he says, jumping to his feet and fumbling around for his keys. "Yeah, yeah, I said I'm sorry, okay? Just—I'll meet you there. I'll—I'm bringing Val, too. Yes, the Val. We'll meet you there, okay? Oh, shit. Fuck, Simon, fuck—"

Noah hangs up the phone and tosses it at me. I barely catch it. "You busy?"

"Not terribly," I say, grabbing my coat. "Why?"

"Simon just got arrested and he's at the city police station," Noah answers, and my heart skips a beat. "So if you're going to talk to him after all, now would be a great time."