Page 14 of Enter if you Dare: Part Two

By the time I leave, grab coffee, and get back to the shed, it’s around five. Walking in it feels wrong. How can one tiny, pocket-sized woman change the entire vibe of a place? Cipher is at his workbench, exactly where I left him this morning.

“Coffee,” I say, setting the cup down.

He nods without looking up. He’s holding himself stiff, one arm tucked close to his chest like he’s guarding the wound without realizing it.

“Did you get any sleep?”

“Some.”

I know that’s a lie; his eyes are hollow, and he has bags under them. A man with a healing bullet graze doesn’t hunch over a workbench all night without paying for it.

I don’t push it; instead, I clean the shed. Within an hour I am twitching with energy, but by seven, Cave still hasn’t come back.

“Do you know where Cave is?” I ask Cipher.

“He must still be in the cornfield.”

That’s what I’m afraid of, since he is normally back for dinner or to check on Cipher.

I eat dinner alone, as the food I put next to Cipher sits uneaten. I’m a ball of anxiety when I decide to break my rule and text Valli to ask how the rest of her day was. She responds straight away, saying it was productive, that she has a job interview tomorrow, and she spoke to Leni. She also tells me she misses us. My chest feels tight. I want to text back seventeen more times, but there’s a difference between breaking a rule once and burning it to the ground. I miss her.

My phone lights up, but the excitement dies when I see it’s Khodi.

“What’s up?”

“You need to get down here now. And bring Cipher,” he says. I can hear screaming, and my blood runs cold.

“Fuck,” I say. “We’re on our way.”

Cipher stands before I even tell him what’s going on, grabbing his jacket and the keys to his bike. He waves them in the air, and I nod. I almost argue that I should drive, but the look on his face says we don’t have time for that conversation.

We race outside and jump on his bike, and he drives to the edge of the cornfield.

There is a man splayed out on the ground, his face a mess, and his arm is bent at an angle arms shouldn’t bend. More blood is coming from somewhere I cannot see. Cave is standing over him, and for a second, I can’t move.

“Cave.”

He turns to look at us, and his eyes are wild. It’s not him. This is a total loss of control. There’s blood on his hands and splattered on his jacket. He points to the man, and Cipher moves forward.

“I know,” Cipher says calmly, and I want to scream. Khodi is standing off to the side and Banks is beside him, but neither shifts closer. “He needs medical attention, Cave. You need to move back so Banks can check on him.”

Whoever the man is, he is conscious, but barely. His arm is definitely broken, and his face has multiple lacerations that are going to need stitches. It looks like he has a wound to his ribs if the blood on his shirt is any indication.

Cave takes a few steps back, and Banks and Khodi move in. Ares shows up with the medic van, and they load the man inside. They will get him patched up, and someone will take him to the emergency room. Thankfully, our contracts are ironclad for this reason. Everyone is warned not to enter the cornfield. I even made multiple “enter if you dare” signs after Valli left, since we know Cave isn’t right in the head at the moment. Nixie has gone so far as to cut access during the day for families, putting up caution tape to stop people going in. But apparently it didn’t stop this man, though I bet he regrets it now.

Cipher manages to convince Cave to walk back to the shed, so I take the bike and beat them back. As soon as they arrive, Cave walks into the bathroom. The shower runs for at least an hour before I lose track of time. Cipher tinkers at his workbench, but it doesn’t look like he does much. I pace as my brain screams at me to do something, anything. This is my worst nightmare. The two people I care about most are breaking down simultaneously, while I just exist, all of us unable to fix each other. I do push-ups, which I’m terrible at, and scan the perimeter. As if any threat would get past Cave. Basically I now have my own personal attack scarecrow.

Cave finally emerges from the shower, and I’m almost disappointed he’s dressed; a naked Cave is a magnificent sight. Cipher looks up from his workbench and watches Cave, almost as if he’s afraid that he will vanish if he looks away.

I can’t do this anymore; I’m driving myself crazy. So before I talk myself out of it, I call Valli.

She picks up on the third ring. “Hey, is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I lie. “I just wanted to hear your voice before bed.”

“You’re so sweet,” she says, and the sound of her voice almost makes me want to cry.

“Something happened tonight.”