Always (41 page)

I jiggled the key in the lock impatiently. It was strange that Rueben hadn’t been there today. Where could he have been? The phone began to ring while I was still trying to get the lock to unlatch. “Damn it,” I muttered to no one.

The lock finally gave and I bullied the door open. It was closed and locked again before I darted to the ringing phone. It stopped ringing before I could pick it up.

“
Ugh,” I groaned.

It had to have been Rueben trying to call; no one else even had my number. He was probably calling to tell me why he wasn’t there today. I wondered just how long he had been calling.
He could have just come up there to cancel our plans
, I thought with a frown.

Unless he was out of the city. Was that why he had been getting so strange? But if he was planning a trip somewhere, why didn’t he just tell me? It wasn’t like he’d never left me alone before. It just didn’t make any sense.

The phone began its shrill ring again, but this time I picked up on the first ring. “Where are you?” I demanded instead of saying hello.

“
Claudia?”

My heart slammed inside my chest. I already knew who it was, of course, but that didn’t stop me from asking the obvious.

“
Who is this?”

“
It’s Marcus.” The silence in the room roared in my ears. “Why are you answering this phone?” His voice broke with the crappy connection. “What has happened to Rueben?”

Without even thinking about it, I slammed the receiver back down. My heart hammered fast in my chest until it stopped completely. It took several attempts for me to get it going again.

Marcus!

How had he even gotten my phone number? How did he know where I lived? What did he mean about Rueben? A million thoughts swirled all around in my head.

Marcus called me. I hadn’t heard his voice in six years. This was the closest we had been since that awful day in London. He could have been anywhere in the world, but we had made a connection. Finally!

What had I done? Why did I hang up on him? I should have asked him where he was, why he had left me all alone, if we were finally going to be together again.

I tapped my foot impatiently on the hard linoleum floor. He had to call back. He would sit back and be shocked for a few minutes, but then he would call back. This time I would be ready for it and I wouldn’t just hang up on him.

Minutes dragged by and still the phone didn’t ring. I picked the receiver up and pressed it to my ear to be sure there was a dial tone. I put it back down impatiently. It was working fine.

What if he had tried to call when I picked it up? I replayed the short one-sided conversation in my head. Rueben. Marcus had asked where Rueben was. Did that mean he knew where he was? Was Rueben in some kind of trouble? He would have been in the trees if he was able to.

My desire to hear Marcus again and my need to know if Rueben was okay were at war with each other. If I stayed here, Rueben may be hurt somewhere and need me; if I left to find Rueben, then I may miss Marcus’s call.

With a heavy sigh, I shoved my key in my pocket along with some money and hurried out the door. There was only a handful of places that Rueben was likely to be. I would search them quickly, then return home. He would never leave me to fend for myself if he thought I was in danger.

I jogged quickly to a restaurant that was nearby. Rueben and I sometimes stopped there to eat after one of our races. I didn’t like human food as much as Rueben, but I could stomach it and had even learned to enjoy a few dishes.

The restaurant was already closed for the night when I got there, though, and I couldn’t smell Rueben’s scent anywhere nearby. His favorite feeding spot was close, so I chose to stay on foot and trot down the darkened streets.

I didn’t expect him to be there, but I still felt a twinge of disappointment when I didn’t find him there. Something inside told me that if Rueben was anywhere in the city, he would have already found me, but I stubbornly refused to give up.

I was still going to at least check at his apartment. It was clear across town, so I figured it would be faster to get a cab. I hated riding in a cab, but I needed to get there as quickly as possible.

I pounded several times on Rueben’s locked door. No one was inside, but I still felt the need to knock. Maybe he was in trouble and had stopped his heart.

“
Rueben,” I called through the closed door. “Rueben, it’s me!”

If he was in there, he would already know it was me, I told myself. I didn’t know how to pick the lock, but I was sure I would be able to break it. Should I? There was a brief moment of indecision standing outside his doorway.

If the roles had been reversed and he couldn’t find me, he wouldn’t even hesitate to break down my door. But I would have never disappeared on him–unless something was wrong. Could someone have hurt Rueben? And if they had, what could I possibly do to help?

I took a deep breath and twisted the handle hard. The lock broke easily. If Rueben got mad, I would just have to explain to him how worried I had been for him. I needed to know where he was.

He better not be in here sleeping.

I pushed the door open and slipped inside quickly. Just as fast, I had the door closed behind me. I leaned against the door and stood there listening for any unfamiliar sounds.

I didn’t hear anything, not one thing. After a thorough search of his entire place, which was enormous, I had to face the reality that Rueben wasn’t at home. There were no clues there to point to where he may have gone, either.

Now I wasn’t sure where to look. I had already checked his normal places. I was just going to have to go home and hope he called.

I trudged slowly up the stairs to the door marked 2B-Home. It unlocked easily, but no one was in there. Even before the door swung open, I could feel how empty the apartment was.

My heart kept its steady beat inside my chest, but it felt hollow and foreign to me. Rueben hadn’t been here and now I was really beginning to worry.

It wasn’t unusual for him to leave the city for a few days, or even weeks, but he always told me before he went. He wouldn’t have just left me worrying.

I had known for a few weeks now that something was wrong with him. I should have tried harder to find out what it was. Who knew what had happened to him or where he was? Would Marcus have done something to him?

I wanted to discard that idea immediately, but why else would Marcus have called this number? If he hadn’t gotten it from Rueben’s head, how else would he know it? If Marcus had gotten to Rueben, and hurt him, then how far gone was he? Was there any hope left at all?

Chapter
Forty-Two

I didn’t know where else to look, but how could I just stay here while Rueben was lost somewhere? He wouldn’t have stopped looking for me.

I closed my eyes in defeat and sank into the nearest seat to me–the hard kitchen chair. Even the neighbor’s baby seemed to realize that something was wrong tonight and stayed quiet.

Everything was silent; too silent. It had a way of messing with my head and making me more nervous than I already was. The shrill ring of the telephone broke the all-consuming silence, making me jump.

Ring.

I walked slowly to the off-white box that sat on the counter separating the kitchen from the rest of the apartment. I stared hard at it, willing it to ring again.

Ring.

My breath caught in my throat and stayed there. Beads of sweat popped out above my eyebrows. I tried to stop my heartbeats, but they raged on like they had a mind all their own.

Ring.

I cringed away, backing up until I reached the chair again. When I felt it bump against the back of my legs, I sank back down. My legs were shaking too much to hold me up anyways. Never before had a single sound scared me so badly.

Ring.

I covered my mouth with my trembling fingers. It was Marcus. It had to be Marcus. If he was calling now, then that must mean he could see me. He knew right when I had returned to my apartment.

Ring.

I shouldn’t have been so afraid of Marcus; it seemed an unnatural thing to do. I should have been excited to hear from him, running to get the phone. But I was too terrified to move. My feet were like clay on the floor.

Ring.

My lips began to feel numb from clamping them together so tightly. I was afraid that if I allowed myself even the tiniest bit of air, I would start screaming; and if Marcus was close by, he would hear me screaming. Then, he’d come here and I knew that more than anything, I wasn’t ready to come face to face with Marcus yet. I needed to find Rueben first. I needed to kill Silango first. If I saw Marcus first and he killed me, he would never forgive himself. I couldn’t do that to him.

Ring.

Eight rings. He wasn’t going to stop until I answered. He knew I was here. He could probably hear my heart beating a million times a minute. He knew how scared I was and he wouldn’t give up. It didn’t matter if he didn’t want to kill me; Silango’s order had finally gotten to be too much for Marcus. Rueben had said that one day it would and Marcus would come for me. He was right.

Ring.

The ninth ring unfroze me. I quickly crossed the room and picked up the plastic receiver.

“
Hello?” My breathing was almost too heavy for me to hear the voice on the other end of the phone.

“
Claudia.” It wasn’t a question–more just a breathless declaration.

My heart stopped. I had wanted him to call me back, but it terrified me now that he was on the phone. I hated to think anything bad about Marcus, and yet he still wanted to kill me. Silango’s hold on him was still too strong.

“
Marcus.”

“
I didn’t think you were going to answer.”

“
I didn’t, either.”

“
H…how are you?”

My tongue seemed to swell up until it didn’t fit inside my mouth. Even if I knew how to answer him, I was sure my tongue wouldn’t work enough to allow me to talk to him.

“
Are you still there?” he asked after too much time had passed.

“
Yes.”

“
I thought you hung up on me.” I could almost see his tight smile, and it nearly shattered my already cracked heart.

“
I’m here.”

“
Have you been alright?”

“
Alright?” I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of his question. Of course I wasn’t alright. I had found a way to survive–maybe even bettered myself, but I would never be alright without Marcus. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied.

“
You sound good.”

He didn’t sound so good; I heard the stress in his voice. There was so much wrong with him, I could only imagine how terrible he looked. “You, too,” I lied again.

“
I…uh…miss you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and sucked in enough air to make my lungs work. I had to hurry and get off the phone. I couldn’t tell him where I was.

“
Tell me where Rueben is.” I tried to demand. It came out too shaky for anyone to take seriously.

“
How would I know where Rueben is?”

“
You asked what was wrong with him.”

“
So?”

“
So, you must know that something happened to him.”

“
Yeah, but not
what
that something is.”

“
How do you know that something was wrong?”

“
I’m glad that you’re so concerned for my brother’s well-being, but I’m sure he is fine.”

“
No, he’s not! I can’t find him anywhere.”

“
He called me,” Marcus admitted. “He gave me this number.”

“
Why would he do that?”

“
When I tried to call him back, he didn’t answer his phone.”

It didn’t make any sense. Why would Rueben give Marcus my phone number and then disappear? Was he trying to tell me something? Did Marcus have Rueben? It just didn’t make any sense.

“
I don’t know where he is, either.”