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I'm going to have to replace that window, Duke thought as the bullet shattered it and passed through out over the open water. It was a ridiculous thing to think, when Nathan had just shot at—and missed—the intruder by the ladder, but that was what crossed his mind. How much it would cost to fix the damn glass on his boat, not how hard it would have been to fix his shattered head.
The thought passed quickly, replaced by anger and fear and more anger and something else creeping up behind all of it that he was too pissed off to figure out just yet. Audrey was missing and Nathan had just shot out a porthole and there was a trespasser on his boat—another trespasser, in addition to Nathan—and odds were that all these things had something to do with one another.
At least Nathan had found someone else to point his gun at, so Duke could let go of his own.
"I sure hope that shot was meant for her," he said, but stayed ducked behind the nearest piece of furniture and didn't chance that it wasn't. A pissed off Nathan was always a danger to Duke's well-being, even when he wasn't the one at fault.
Guilt over the fact that the shot could easily have been meant for him, the fact that maybe he deserved Nathan's wrath, coiled like a snake in his stomach, heavy and restless and poisonous. He'd never cared this much before but right now, less than a minute from the other end of a gun, he cared. He cared about what he'd done, he cared about all the times he and Nathan had butted heads, and he cared about things that had happened between him and Nathan years before that, memories that usually lay dormant but were waking up and making their presence known.
"Come out and find out for yourself," said Nathan.
"Yes, come out," said his trespasser, her voice coming from somewhere Duke couldn't see. If she was smart, it was the hell off his boat. It was more likely she was just out of sight. "It's you I want, Duke. I didn't know you had guests."
"Then you've come to the right boat," he said, "but I think I'll pass, if it's all the same to you." In fact, he wasn't sure he wanted to come out ever again, if he was going to have to look Nathan Wuornos in the eye.
"You know it has to be you," she said. Duke felt sick with understanding. "Come with me. Leave this behind."
He didn't pretend he didn't know what she was talking about. Kyle's death—no, his murder—was still a too-recent memory, and his guilt over it heavier than ever. It didn't matter that Kyle wanted it. It didn't matter that Duke's recently-discovered ability made his death an arguably meaningful one. Duke did a lot of questionable things, but killing people wasn't one of them. Until now. And more and more people were going to come out of the woodwork wanting just that.
"I'm not going to kill you."
"You know you want to. She's not here to help you stop yourself this time, and she's not coming."
There could hardly have been a clearer confession than that without naming her by name, but the lady with the death wish probably wasn't all that worried about people knowing her penchant for kidnapping former FBI agents.
"God damn you," said Nathan, raising his gun again, a flash at the corner of Duke's vision as he moved around the corner and out of the room. "God fucking damn the both of you. Maybe Audrey can't stop it this time, but I will."
"No, you don't get to kill me," she said, her voice echoing faintly. Further away.
"You're the one with the death wish," he said. Duke braced himself for another gunshot, by Nathan's hand but on Duke's conscience. Sometimes it seemed like there was nothing he'd done in his life he shouldn't feel ashamed of. "You think you get to choose how it's carried out?"
"You know you want to do this, Duke," she said, as if Nathan wasn't there at all, let alone pointing a gun at her. "My people will let her go when it's done. They'll know."
If she had people, she probably wouldn't have shown up here alone like this, and had no reason to believe she would keep her word even if she did. With Audrey out of the way, they could keep using him like this. With Audrey out of the way, he might just let them. Nothing but a tool. A murderer. This woman believed he wanted that and maybe something in his blood actually did draw him to it. But when he actually thought about it all he felt was shame and revulsion.
Nathan finally fired again. Duke was fairly sure it wasn't in his direction. There was the sound of footsteps out on deck—hers, not his—then just the sounds of the water and two people breathing.
Duke was surprised he was breathing. For a little while there he thought he was going to stop.
* * *
It was long after the footsteps faded that Nathan finally lowered the gun. He wasn't entirely sure how he'd even managed to fire it in the first place, managed to so much as lift his arms when so many other things that should have been irrelevant were weighing on his mind.
"She's gone," he said when Duke slunk out on deck with him, still feeling a hot sting up the back of his neck that refused to go away.
All this time working with Duke since Audrey arrived in town and the memories had never hit him so hard before, he'd been able to repress and forget and move on. Just like Duke had seemed to before today. It had been such a long time ago, when they were still all hormones and no common sense. There was no reason to obsess about it now. Of course, the shame he was feeling was that the actions might have been ancient history, but actions weren't everything. And somehow, in this moment, Nathan wasn't able to forget or deny that.
"I noticed," said Duke, tilting his head down so that Nathan couldn't see most of his face. Couldn't see his eyes. "So do you believe I didn't do it now or should we take our positions downstairs again?"
That wasn't the mental image that Nathan needed.
"Maybe you're one of her 'people'," he said, a little too loudly and a beat too slow, finally holstering the gun. "You could've been in on it."
"I wasn't in on it," said Duke, "and I don't know where she is."
"Would you do anything about it if you did?"
"Fuck you," said Duke. "It's Audrey."
A couple of weeks ago that would've been enough, it would've said everything, but given the events of the past couple of days...Duke could resent the hell out of Nathan mistrusting him, but he couldn't blame him.
"Why does she want you to kill her?" The first time Duke actually looked at him since the moment their standoff had been interrupted by the intruder was to glare at Nathan like he was too stupid to live. "I mean specifically, her Trouble."
"You heard as much as I did," said Duke. "You were here when she showed up. You know I didn't know her. I don't know her. This one's not on me."
"I don't know what you know," said Nathan. "She must have one, to want you to take it away."
"How am I supposed to have figured it out?" said Duke. "Am I covered in polka dots? Are the boards of my boat rotting under my feet? Unless something obvious happened in the last five minutes, I don't know."
Nathan was feeling angry again instead of paralyzed with shame, the reason for his visit in the first place reasserting itself. Maybe Duke hadn't taken Audrey, and Nathan had to admit it was certainly looking that way, but this was still all about him and it was hard to believe he wasn't involved at all. Nathan might have some long-buried shit that needed dealing with when it came to Duke Crocker, but that had nothing to do with this.
"This is still your fault."
Duke just glared at him like it was all Nathan's fault he was so screwed up. There were some things Nathan was responsible for, but that was not, and never had been, one of them. Duke was a screw-up entirely on his own, with just a little help from dear old dad. The fact they had that in common was something Nathan chose to dismiss.
"Whatever," said Duke finally. "Obviously it doesn't matter what I say."
"Save it," snapped Nathan, squaring his shoulders and finally shaking off the last of the oppressive guilt and paralysis that had taken over him. "I'm going after her. I'm going to find Audrey."
* * *
Audrey wasn't sure where she was being held, but the safe money was on it not being in Haven proper. To many birds, not enough traffic. But with all the woods around town, that didn't narrow it down as much as she would have liked. The narrow window in her tiny room was east-facing, that much she'd figured out, but it was too smeared with years of grime to make out anything other than the direction of the light.
"I hope you're not thinking about breaking that window."
"What, recreationally?" said Audrey. "I'd have to drop about fifty pounds I don't have to get through that window, and shave a couple inches off my ribcage and hipbones on top of that. Thanks but no thanks."
"I brought you something to eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"It's not poisoned."
"Never said it was," said Audrey. "I had a big breakfast, and no offense but that smells like something I used to feed my dog."
* * *
Nathan wasn't surprised that Duke was still on his boat later that night. After all, what was finding Audrey in the face of fixing his precious boat or fulfilling his precious destiny?
"Audrey's still missing," he said, to pre-empt anything else Duke might've been thinking about saying when he opened his mouth. "And I don't care what's been going on between the two of you or who is supposed to kill who, you're going to help me get her back."
"You want to try starting that over again?" said Duke. "With a little more please in your voice?"
"Not really," said Nathan. "You claim she's your friend? Prove it. Help her."
"Give me a minute," he said finally, and ducked back into the boat. Nathan just waited, because it wasn't like Duke was going anywhere without him. He might've had a bunch of hidey-holes on the boat, but he wasn't getting off it without going past Nathan.
Truth be told, Nathan wasn't sorry for the momentary relief. Sure, the gut-wrenching effect of the memories had faded, but every tiny mistake he'd ever made, everything that might have contributed to where they'd both ended up, was floating on the surface now. And he couldn't help thinking about what people would think if they knew, what Audrey would think if she knew.
Duke, true to his word, was back a few moments later, coat on and hat low enough that Nathan had trouble meeting his eyes. It suited him just fine. The coat probably also hid a few other things, but Nathan couldn't blame him, and he wasn't going to search. Not unless Duke forced the subject.
"She's not out on the water."
"What?"
"I said she's not out on the water," said Duke. "I know every boat that went out today, both legally and illegally. Nothing went out that would be a good front for smuggling her out by sea."
"You did that in five minutes?"
"Of course not," said Duke. "What the hell do you think I've been doing since you left? I know Audrey's still missing, you ass."
Nathan wanted to double check Duke's information anyway, just because it came from Duke, but his gut had already been telling him that they weren't holding her out there; despite the convenience and isolation, unless they went pretty far from shore it was too conspicuous. And he hadn't exactly been wasting the last few hours himself.
"Your trespasser was Hollie Bright," he said, after a long enough silence to clearly convey his doubts. "I thought I recognized her. Haven't seen her since she was about twelve years old, her family moved out to Bangor the summer before seventh grade."
"Hollie?" said Duke. "I remember her with pigtails and acid-wash jean skirts."
"People grow up," said Nathan, and looked Duke up and down without meaning to. "They change."
Duke cleared his throat. "So you know where we can find her?"
"I've got a few leads," he said. "She hasn't moved back here, but her family still owns some land that they rent out to a local dairy farmer. It's somewhere to start."
"I'm going to put a GPS tracker on that girl one of these days," muttered Duke under his breath, and Nathan hated to agree with him about anything but in this case he really did. "How long do you think she's been gone?"
Nathan looked at his watch. "About four hours now. There were signs of a struggle in her apartment."
"There were signs of a struggle with me," said Duke, "so I don't know how much faith I would put in that. She could have gone missing earlier."
"Everything was already set out for our dinner so it can't have been that much earlier."
Duke certainly didn't miss "our dinner", probably because Nathan went out of his way to stress it.
"And you thought I crashed your little date," he said, "so I bet you came tearing for my throat before you bothered to even look around."
"I went back," he said tightly. He looked over every inch of the scene. "It still looked like you did it."
"Yeah, well, I didn't," said Duke. "So if we can get past that not-actually-insignificant point, maybe you can tell me about this land we're supposed to be searching."
Nathan pulled out a many-times-refolded map he'd clearly lifted from the office, markings from previous investigations still all over it. "It's over here," he said, circling a section of land on the other side of town with a ballpoint pen. "Part of it's being used as farmland and part's just getting overgrown, as far as I can tell. We'll know more when we get there. You ready?"
Duke looked out one of his unbusted windows, then back at Nathan. "When we get there in the morning, you mean."
"If we leave now we can be there by—"
"What, one o'clock in the morning?" said Duke. "You want to conduct a manhunt on unfamiliar property in the middle of the night? I want to find Audrey as much as you do—"
"I doubt it."
"—but running around in the woods in the middle of the night? Been there, done that, and not interested in the sequel. I thought we were going to check on a few leads in town. Out in the woods is a whole other story."
Nathan had no intention of admitting that Duke was right, even though he probably was, but he was struggling to find an argument.
"If you need something to do right now, you can make a plan," said Duke. "Or here's a thought, how about you sleep before you collapse on my deck. It's been a shitty day."
"I'm not going to be able to sleep. I'm certainly not going to be able to sleep here."
"What, am I going to molest you in your sleep or something?"
From the look on his face, Duke's brain caught up with his mouth right about the time the words were out of his mouth. Nathan flinched and Duke looked away and if the feeling wasn't an intense as it had been earlier, he still remembered what it had been like. Mostly what it had been like after.
"I'll go."
"No, don't be stupid," said Duke. "We'll leave at dawn, all right? There's nothing you can do right now and going home just to come right back is a waste of your time."
Nathan didn't answer, but he sat down and started marking up the map and Duke wasn't dumb, he'd know what Nathan was saying. He wanted to be anywhere but here, but shit from the past had no business messing up the present when it came to Audrey.
On that, at least, they were on the same page.
* * *
"I'm going to get what I want," said Hollie, the dawn light making her hair look a mottled, fiery red, "and you're not going to get in the way."
"Are you giving me an evil villain speech?" said Audrey. "Seriously?"
"No, I'm stating the facts," said Hollie. "I'm going to get what I want, and you're tied up."
"You and I have a very different idea of the facts," said Audrey. "Okay, I am tied up. I'll give you that."
"You don't know what it's like," she said. "You don't know what it's like to live like this. To live alone like this. I have a family."
"You won't if you go through with this."
"I have a family who can't come anywhere near me without feeling ill."
"And you think it would be better for them if you weren't around at all anymore? Or better for you?"
* * *
"You know it's not going to suddenly happen again, right?" said Duke as Nathan zipped his jacket to the collar, fortifying himself against the damp winds.
Nathan didn't look like he'd slept at all, which was his own fault since Duke'd left him alone all night and the couch was more comfortable than it looked. He knew first hand that Nathan had no trouble sleeping on a boat at sea, let alone a docked boat that barely even swayed no matter how rowdy you got on board.
"What?"
"You know what I'm talking about," said Duke, plucking at his sweater then looking out at the wooded land in front of them.
"We're not talking about that," said Nathan. "We're especially not talking about that right now."
"Believe me, I wish didn't have to," said Duke. But it had the feeling of inevitability about it now. "Are we doing the woods first, or the farmland?"
Nathan jerked his head to the side, towards the barn. "Woods are more isolated. Not likely she's in the milking barn, but it'll be faster to eliminate it first."
Duke snickered. He couldn't help himself.
"You think this is funny?"
"I think Audrey dressed up as a milkmaid is funny," he said. "The rest, not so much."
"I'm ashamed I thought it would be helpful to have you here with me."
"No, you're ashamed that you ever slept with me," said Duke, "and believe me, the feeling is mutual."
It wasn't going anywhere, so might as well get it out there. They could talk about their fights. They could talk about the mistakes that they'd made. They could shout about everything else. But this one point never got said out loud, and maybe that was the problem.
"Well look at you," said Nathan. "Look at what you've done with your life."
"And look at who you became," said Duke dryly. "Can't admit you might like the bad boys just a little bit."
"No more than you want to admit that what you really want is some order and stability in your life."
"Stability?" said Duke. "Have you met me? Besides, your life is the least stable thing I can think of, Nathan, and I'm me."
His voice got quieter as they walked instead of louder, and they both dropped off entirely when they got closer to the barn. No matter how much Nathan looked like he wished he'd got the last word. Duke really wished he was armed with more than a pocket knife, but asking Nathan for a gun right now probably wouldn't have gone over very well and the rest of his things, his lethal things...he didn't want much to do with those today. Or ever.
Maybe he was pushing the Nathan thing so much because the alternative was thinking about everything else.
The barn and sheds were a bust, though, and the pasture wasn't hiding anything except a few surprises that clung to Duke's boots. The woods took longer, but were equally fruitless. The only words they said to one another were "this way" and "did you see that" and "careful." And even those were infrequent.
"Maybe we're on the wrong track," said Duke.
"No, we're not," said Nathan. "Hollie's not part of the Rev's crew, and she's not local anymore, which means she's got limited options. She needs someplace private, someplace she feels safe. There's another spot we can check, and a couple of old acquaintances after that. Unless you're trying to say you'd rather stop for lunch."
Duke didn't even dignify that with a response, slamming the truck door as they got back in and leaning his elbow out the window, looking in the side-view mirror at the dirt on Nathan's tires.
"It's a little more out of the way," Nathan added as he got in.
"Yeah, well, odds are Audrey's a little out of the way right now," said Duke. "I think that's the point."
"Less convenient for us means less convenient for her too," said Nathan, "and out of the way doesn't mean as private as this place. Cows are terrible witnesses. Neighbors talk."
"If she's not there, then we're back to square one, so you don't need to convince me," said Duke. "Let's go."
* * *
"Get up, we're leaving," said Hollie, opening the door with such force that it chipped a piece of the wall where the knob impacted.
"Why?" said Audrey, looking at the grimy window and then at her captor. "I was just starting to make myself at home."
"Someone's coming," she said, even as Audrey heard the distant sound of an engine. She was untied quickly, her hands and feet coming painfully back to life. "No one ever comes out here."
"You mean someone's come looking for a missing police officer?" said Audrey. "Who could have predicted that happening?"
The closet-sized room she'd been in turned out to be in the back of an abandoned garage—oil stains on the concrete slab and dilapidated shelves on one side on the building and not much else, not even doors.
"If you didn't want to be caught," she said, "you should have parked inside the garage."
"I hiked in," she said, which meant they were hiking back out, which explained why there was no sign of the taser this time and no ropes on Audrey's ankles, even though Hollie was still holding rope bound for her wrists. Unless she wanted to deal Audrey's dead weight slung over her shoulder, she needed to risk Audrey's reluctant feet getting them where they needed to go. "Open your mouth."
Audrey opened her mouth obediently, and the moment Hollie went to stuff a rag in it, that was when Audrey overpowered her. Sure, Hollie had a gun in her belt and a knife in her boot, but they weren't in her hands at the moment which meant they weren't going to do her any good. And without them, she wasn't much of a match.
"Next time, tie my hands first," said Audrey, and headed straight out into the overgrown yard site without looking back.
* * *
Nathan and Duke left the truck where the road ended—less a question of not wanting to risk the terrain than of trying to make a more subtle entrance. It wasn't hard to see where they were going from there, and hiking up a hill was hardly the hardest thing they were going to do all day.
"There," said Nathan, "through those trees."
"You're not the only one who can see through foliage," said Duke, kicking a stone out of his way, hidden by the overgrown grasses, and hoping there wasn't any abandoned barbed wire lurking down there anywhere. The place had been a farm site once; who knew what was still kicking around. "Would it have been so hard to leave a path?"
"Shut up and keep walking," said Nathan.
A moment later, Duke caught movement out of the corner of his eye and automatically called out, "Audrey?" as if she'd just be wandering around in the woods waiting for them.
"What took you so long?" she called back.
Duke looked at Nathan to find Nathan looking right back at him, then rolled his eyes because of course.
"You know how it is, we had more important things to do," said Duke dryly, giving Nathan a sidelong glance. Nathan was still looking back.
"Okay, what's going on?" said Audrey, pushing through the foliage and looking back over her shoulder as she reached them.
"What do you mean, what's going on?" said Nathan. "You were kidnapped. Are you okay?"
"No, I mean between the two of you," she said. "I already know what happened to me. I was there."
"Well we don't," said Duke, "though we have a pretty good idea why it happened. I think that's a little bit more important than us..."
"Than you what?" said Audrey. "See? There is something."
"Audrey...."
"She's back in the shed," said Audrey, dropping it. For now, anyway. If there was one thing Duke knew about it, it was that Audrey never really dropped anything until she got what she was looking for, even if she didn't like what she found when she got there. "Garage. Whatever. I knocked her out when I escaped. Well, I'm pretty sure I knocked her out. I didn't stick around to find out."
Nathan was already charging up the hill without even giving Audrey a kiss hello or anything else he was probably dying to do now that she was safe again.
And Duke, Duke was getting a sick feeling again, thinking about Hollie being up in that shed, waiting for Duke to drive a knife into her and knowing that he would do it. That he had done it. That he was the kind of person now who did that. And a sick feeling that now that Audrey was back, his history with Nathan was even worse, that it might not just have been a mistake in his past but something that could mess up the present, too.
"Duke, are you all right?" said Audrey, right about the same time that Nathan called back, "She's not here!"
"What do you mean, she's not there?" said Audrey. "I left her right there, in the back."
"She's not here," said Nathan again, still calling down the hill. "She must have gone out the other way."
"Trying to find me," said Duke. "Trying to get me to kill her."
"Well, that's not going to happen," said Audrey. "Come on, we need to find her. Together, I mean. And not for killing."
"I probably shouldn't be the one to find her," said Duke. "You know what might happen. I shouldn't be here."
"I know what might happen is Nathan will shoot her for kidnapping me before we even catch up," said Audrey, "so you might be off the hook."
"Don't joke about this."
"I just spent a night in a closet having to pee in a bucket," said Audrey. "I get to joke about whatever I want."
"I can't go," said Duke, and that was when Audrey narrowed her eyes at him. It was hard to miss that look. But apparently there was a limit to how much Duke could do in his life before the crushing guilt of it overwhelmed him, and he'd reached it. "I can't help you."
"Are you guys coming or not?"
"Apparently not," said Audrey, looking at Duke for another long moment then looking around them as though something might pop out of the grass. "What's going on?"
"Are you all right?" said Duke. "What did she do to you?"
"Nothing," said Audrey. "I'm fine. She just wanted to keep me away from you. She'd probably have been better off stashing me in a random basement somewhere, but I don't think she feels safe anywhere but here."
"Do you know what her affliction is?"
"Her Trouble, you mean? I'm starting to," said Audrey, as Nathan rejoined them and did everything he could not to meet Duke's eyes. Or Audrey's, for that matter.
"I should have shown up at your place earlier," he said after a moment. "You didn't care if I dressed up, I didn't need to put on a tie. I should have seen through the bait. I wasted so much time—"
"She's nearby," Audrey interrupted him, walking a few steps away to peer into the trees to one side of them. "She has to be nearby."
If she was nearby then Audrey was still in danger, which meant that they hadn't helped her by coming out here, that they might have made it even worse. Duke had a habit of doing that in his life.
"She's probably long gone," said Nathan. "We should have been faster."
"No, she's not," said Audrey, looking to the other side. "She said she hiked up. That means she had to hike back down again. Did you see her car?"
"Nothing since the Hainstock place about a mile back up the road."
"No, she won't be leaving," said Audrey after a moment. "She doesn't want to escape. She came here for Duke, and she hasn't got that yet. She didn't want him here, but I think she'll take what she can get."
"Audrey, she's gone," said Nathan.
"If she was gone, then she wouldn't still be affecting the two of you," said Audrey, "so she has to be close enough to do that. I mean, do you even hear yourselves?"
"We don't know what her Trouble is, so how do you—"
"It's this," said Audrey, pointing from Nathan to Duke and back again. "This is what she does. This is what she was talking about."
"What are you talking about?"
"She's making you feel this."
"Feel what?"
"Guilty," said Audrey promptly. "Ashamed. And apparently useless, but that's probably just a side effect. Tell me I'm wrong."
"You're wrong."
"I'm not," said Audrey. "When have you ever moped around like this after recovering the victim because you weren't, what, Superman?"
"He has, he's a moper," said Duke.
"And you," she said, jabbing a finger in his direction. "You can't go? Up a hill with me? Really?"
"I killed someone the other day," he said sharply, straightening up to look at her square on. "Forgive me if I wasn't up for a repeat performance."
Audrey paused. "Do you feel like you could go up there now?"
"I..." he said, and actually he did, he really did. He had no problem charging up the hill after the woman who'd kidnapped Audrey, tried to frame him for it to get him on the run, and wanted him to kill her. "Shit."
"We're losing her," said Nathan, catching on. "She's getting further away."
"Yeah, that's what I'm talking about," said Audrey. "Chase now, talk later."
But it didn't matter how far they went in any direction, they didn't manage to catch up with her. The problem was, or one of them anyway, it was hard to figure out when they were getting close to her—Audrey didn't feel it, and Duke and Nathan both slowed down and didn't notice they were being affected until Audrey pointed out the changes in them. Tactfully at first, and then with increasing impatience.
"She could have been back down to her car by now and out of here," said Nathan. "She obviously doesn't want to go without getting what she's looking for."
"She has nowhere else to go," said Audrey. "She doesn't want to affect her family anymore. She's trying to protect them."
"You're not going to get me to feel sorry for her."
"Not trying to," said Audrey.
"She doesn't have any family in Haven anymore," said Nathan, "so she must know someone among Driscoll's followers. Not closely, just enough to have heard about Duke in the first place."
"We are never going to get that man out of our lives," said Audrey. "Well, she's obviously not in range now, and we're not getting anywhere with the current plan. I had a really crappy night's sleep. I could use a break. She's not leaving town."
"Now that she's lost you, she might."
"No," said Audrey. "She didn't come for me, she came for Duke. She's just going to find another way now. She's going to come to us."
Duke didn't find that a comforting thought.
* * *
"Someone shot your window," said Audrey.
"Blame your boyfriend," said Duke. "He's the one who got a little trigger happy when you went missing."
"He's not my boyfriend," said Audrey, which from the look on Nathan's face wasn't the right thing to say, but now really wasn't the time to get into all of that. It was too complicated to sum up, especially with Duke. "He shot at you?"
"I shot at a suspect," said Nathan. "If it happened to be next to Duke's head, that was pure coincidence."
"So spill," said Audrey, sitting down at his table like she owned the place. She'd earned it. "What's going on? Other than the two of you turning into sobbing little schoolgirls whenever you got too close to Hollie."
"There was no sobbing involved," said Duke, "and schoolgirls is probably the exact wrong way to put it, under the circumstances."
"This isn't about Kyle Hopkins," she said after a moment, "because that's...something else."
"It's a little about Kyle Hopkins," said Duke, looking at Nathan out of the corner of his eye. Nathan was trying very hard not to look back, in a very conspicuous way.
It was so obvious.
"Oh my God, you slept with him."
"What?" said Nathan. "Not recently. I would never—"
"That's what she was doing to you. That's what she was making you feel."
"She didn't make anything happen," said Duke. "Sadly we did that all on our own. Part of Haven's sordid and shameful past. Now that that's out in the open for the whole class, maybe we can move on to dealing with the crazy chick who wants me to kill her."
Which under the circumstances, wasn't as crazy as it might have been.
"No."
"Audrey," said Nathan, almost gently. Almost pleading.
"Seriously, no," she said. "And not because I have some sordid interest, although wow, I'll be thinking about that one for a while. Don't you get it?"
"Clearly we don't," said Duke.
"She made you feel that.."
"What, ashamed of it? Believe me, I already was," said Nathan. "It was a long time ago."
"She doesn't make you feel ashamed, or guilty," said Audrey. "She amps up what's already there. Your thing, whatever it was, have you done more than just let it cross your mind in ages?" Neither one of them quite looked at her. "And then suddenly, whammo, it's like it was the biggest mistake you ever made and you're feeling like it was yesterday and about ten times as bad as you ever thought it was before."
Between what Hollie'd said to her while she was boxed up in the garage, and the way Nathan and Duke had been acting, it hadn't been that hard to piece it all together.
"I'm not sure it wasn't the biggest mistake I ever made."
"Can you just not?" said Duke, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. "I killed someone. Believe me, sleeping with you is not the worst thing I've done. It's not even in the top ten."
"You need to work this out," said Audrey, "because it's driving you two apart, which I bet is exactly what Hollie is counting on it to do, now that she knows. She might not know what you're thinking, but she sure as hell knows how you're acting. If she wants to get Duke alone, she's not going to have much of a hard time of it this way."
"Well, that's what we've got you for."
"What, to babysit you?" said Audrey. "I'm pretty sure that's not in my job description. She wants you, Duke, and unless you think I'm never sleeping again, she's going to use your guilt and shame to make it happen. She wants to fall on your sword."
"Literally," said Nathan, "because she knows you're not going to thrust it."
"Can we not talk about thrusting swords right now?" said Duke. Audrey was totally thinking about thrusting swords. "She's not a siren. She's not going to lure me away in the night."
"No, she's going to do the opposite," said Nathan. "She's going to make you run from me, and from Audrey, and she's going to be there waiting when you do. She almost got away with it once already. If I hadn't been there...."
"And that's why you shouldn't kidnap people even when it seems like a good idea at the time," said Audrey. "So what are we going to do to keep that from happening? If I wake up and the two of you are gone, I'm going to hunt you down."
"We can't change what happened," said Nathan. "What's done is done."
"No, we can't change what happened," said Audrey, stretching her already limited patience as much as she could. "That's why we need to change the way you feel about it. About me. About each other."
"Good luck with that," said Nathan. "I think that ship has sailed."
"It obviously hasn't," said Audrey. "And God knows we're not going to talk about our feelings, but—"
"But what?" said Duke. "You're going to skip feelings and go right to actions? If you and Nathan get it on right now, I'm telling you right now that it's not going to help."
"You're idiots," said Audrey. "Do you really think you'd both be feeling guilty and ashamed like that if you didn't still want to do each other?"
Nathan coughed and looked away, but he didn't deny it. Duke hadn't been denying it all along, technically.
"It's never going to happen," said Nathan, "so there's no point in even talking about it."
"You know, I'm not that awful," said Duke. "Plenty of people like me just fine. I don't care if you don't want it anymore, but you did then. We both did. Just admit it already."
"I can't touch you," said Nathan, "so it doesn't matter."
"Yeah, but you can touch me," said Audrey and even if he didn't do it right then, she could tell he was thinking about it.
"Great," said Duke. "Glad I could offer up a place for you to continue your interrupted date."
"Thanks, we really appreciate it," said Audrey, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at him. Actually, no, she didn't quite resist. "You can touch me too."
"What?"
"You heard me," said Audrey, and if she hadn't been expecting this day to end up here, well, there it was. "It's cards on the table time, boys."
"Audrey," said Nathan, lowering his voice and taking her elbow. "Can we talk about this?"
"We are talking about this," said Audrey. "We're all taking about this." Maybe he had every reason to want to talk to her about it in private, but that was a pretty counterproductive move, under the present circumstances. "One way or another, we're going to get the two of you feeling good and definitely not guilty about whatever it was that you did in the past, and maybe a few things you've done in the past few years too. First way is to talk about it, and believe me, you're not skimping on the details if we do. Other way is to do something about it, and figure out that maybe it wasn't exactly shameful in the first place."
"We can't—"
"You can," said Audrey. "With me."
"We're not going to use you!"
"Use me?" said Audrey. "Give me a little credit. I'm not that self-sacrificing. It wouldn't be on offer if I didn't think it was something we'd all be pretty agreeable to. Heck, I might've done it sooner if I'd known that option was on the table."
"We haven't all agreed yet,'' said Duke.
"Are you not agreeing?"
"I didn't say that," said Duke. "I just said that we hadn't all agreed."
"Well, think fast, then," said Audrey, but she didn't give either of them time to think about it for very long. She took Nathan's hand in one of hers and Duke's hand in the other and brought the two of them together. They did nothing for a long time, then they laced their fingers together and held on.
"This could work," said Nathan finally, because someone had to. No, because he had to. At this point it had to be him. "But this doesn't mean I trust you. There are some things that can't be forgiven."
"Yeah, well, the feeling's mutual," said Duke, but they were looking at each other and not pulling away and Audrey kind of wished they weren't busy worrying about someone hunting Duke—or her—down, because she'd be into this anyway and then they wouldn't be quite as tense and quite as worried about the clock.
But sometimes these things needed a catalyst, and in Haven it figured that it was The Troubles that did it.
Everyone paused then, uncertain of what the first move should be or who should make it or when, as if Audrey hadn't already made the first move.
"Come on, you should remember how to do this," she said, "considering how many times you've apparently done it in the past."
"One time!"
"Well, technically not one time," said Duke. "One..."
"Relationship?" offered Audrey. "It's not a dirty word. Though I know lots of dirty words, and I'm going to start using them if the two of you don't get with the program a little quicker than this."
"Audrey, we can't—"
"You can," she said. "You want to. We want to. And I'm not going to let either one of you be a fraidy-cat about it now that we all know. No more of this. All the cards are on the table and it's time to pay up."
"I'm not sure that's the metaphor you were looking for," said Duke, "but your point is made."
"Clearly not," said Audrey, but then Duke's hand was pushing her dirty shirt up faster than hers was and okay, yes, the point was starting to get across. Her boys were whip-smart, but even that didn't stop them from being stubbornly slow sometimes. "Nathan."
"I'm here," he said, voice in her ear from behind. But she already knew they knew how to touch her. This was a triangle with three sides. "I'm—"
She let Duke take her hand and move it onto Nathan's bared stomach and there was a collective intake of breath. Everything was still for a moment, then Duke's hand moved hers and Nathan exhaled against her neck and Audrey wondered what it had been like when it was just the two of them, when it still could be just the two of them. Her nerves fired a little harder just imagining it, pulse of pleasure almost blinding her momentarily with their intensity.
When Duke used her hand to brush his fingertips over Nathan's fresh tattoo, she couldn't even begin to imagine what either of them was thinking, but whatever it was, it didn't make them stop.
"Do it," she said, only it came out in a whisper, a breathless whisper, and that seemed to be the point when they both, at once, suddenly realized that she definitely wasn't kidding about this.
"It's never going to be the same," said Nathan, quietly but firmly, and Audrey opened her mouth to argue, but then Duke pressed his fingers into it and her lips closed around them instead. "It's different, with you."
Then he leaned in over her shoulder and Duke leaned in too and they were kissing, so close she could almost bat her eyes and touch them with her eyelashes. They kissed and closed their eyes and everything was okay, everything was good. Maybe Nathan wasn't feeling it the same way, physically, but that wasn't all there was to a kiss.
Nobody was talking about how this was wrong or how they shouldn't do it, and if Audrey's primary motivation here was to get something that she wanted, that she was sure they all wanted, her timing had everything to do with changing the way they felt about their past, with things they could fix in its future.
Nobody was saying no, or maybe, or let's try something else. Everyone was, in every way, saying yes.
She stretched her arms over her head and someone's hands, she couldn't have said whose hands, were pushing her shirt off over her head, undoing her bra and sliding that off too, and if the night air sweeping into the boat was a little chilly, she was more than compensating with the flush on her skin and the body heat surrounding her.
"Let me show you where the bedroom is," said Duke, and that was definitely his hand taking Audrey's now, pulling her in one direction while Nathan kissed her throat and followed. "And I know the bed's big enough for three."
"I don't want to know how you know that," said Nathan, but Audrey wouldn't care if he said. They were all adults, with adult histories, and it didn't matter. It wasn't something anyone needed to feel bad about, to feel guilty or ashamed about. Not now or ever.
"I have pictures," said Duke. "I'll show them to you some time."
Audrey laughed and hit his side and then she was tumbling onto his bed with Nathan on one side and Duke on the other, touching her and touching each other through her.
And for a little while, there was nothing to feel bad about at all.
* * *
Nathan was already half awake when he heard the noises, exhausted but sleeping lightly for exactly this reason: sooner or later, they knew she was going to be coming for them. If he'd been fully awake, the effect probably would have hit him first; it was only now that he knew she was there and had to be affecting him that he recognized it for what it was.
But it wasn't about his past with Duke this time, and the subsequent, often insidious effect it had had on his life. This time he was feeling every one of the people he'd failed in his time as a cop, every case he'd failed to solve, everyone who'd died or been hurt on his watch. In a town like Haven, it was a long list.
As much as it weighed on him, it didn't keep him from getting out of bed, finding his gun, and being thankful that he'd put his underwear back on. Instead of paralyzed, this time he was defensive. As bad as he was feeling about his failures, he wouldn't add one more to the list, not today. Not even when it was Duke.
"Audrey," he said, giving her a nudge. It would be better if Duke didn't wake up, but the odds of that weren't good. This was his boat, and they were all sleeping lightly as it was. If Duke didn't wake up, they could have her arrested and off the boat before he even knew she was there at all.
"I've got this," she said, taking point ahead of Nathan as soon as she pulled her shirt back on. It was a sign of how focused Nathan was on other things that he hadn't even really noticed she wasn't wearing one until then. "Let me handle her."
"I can't do that," said Nathan. Not because he was trying to be noble and protective but because he couldn't do that.
"Yes you can," said Audrey reaching back to lay a hand on his arm, which didn't help at all but was nice all the same. "At least follow. Can you follow, for once?"
"For once?" said Nathan, and because she offered he used her to focus on Hollie and not on his internal struggle, as much as he could.
She was way out ahead of him before could manage to get going, after that, and he heard voices even before he popped his head out on deck.
"You don't have to do this," said Audrey. "You don't want to do this. I've spent a lot of time with you. I know you want to live."
"The only way I'd ever get a normal life is if I spend all of it with you personally," said Hollie. "And what about my children? And my children's children?"
"The Troubles will end again," said Audrey.
"And then start again after that," she said, "and who will it be next time? Me again? Or maybe it'll be my youngest Danny who has to live with everyone cringing away when he's nearby, avoiding him, unable to bear themselves when they're around him. I won't do that to him."
"You don't know they'll come back," said Audrey. "Okay, so they have before, but you don't know And even if they do, that's years in between."
"They always come back," she said. "I need to be brave. I need to do this, for my family."
"This isn't brave, this is cowardly," said Audrey. "What you need to do is talk to your family and make sure they don't feel guilty or ashamed for the things they do in the first place. Yeah, it's harder, and it won't work on everyone, but it means you won't be dead."
"It'll always be something," she said. "You can't fix everyone."
"You could encourage them to go into psychology, give them a head start," suggested Audrey, slowly circling around so that she was between Hollie and Nathan, and so that Hollie couldn't just vanish into the night again. It was a fine line between keeping her from getting away, and keeping her from getting too close.
Nathan heard noises behind him, clear signs that Duke was on his way out. He had his gun in hand and stuck to the shadows, ready and willing to take the shot if that was what it took. If he even for a moment thought that any of them were genuinely threatened.
"Stay inside," he said, as if that had a chance of working. Maybe it was better that Duke was out here with them, where she couldn't trap him as easily. Nathan'd let her get Audrey once. She wasn't getting any of them ever again, no matter how many times she kept coming back and abusing the ability she claimed was a curse to get what she wanted.
Audrey didn't make it far enough to block her exit; when Hollie saw all three of them on deck and none of them at odds with any of the others, she ran from the boat onto the dock again, then disappeared into the darkness. But she didn't go far—he'd know if she was really gone. He'd be able to breathe properly again if she was gone.
Maybe Audrey couldn't track her that way, but Nathan could.
"Stay here," he told her. "Guard Duke."
And despite the heaviness, the sheer weight of the guilt that he carried with him every day without even really realizing it, he took off after her. Some things turned out to be more powerful than that.
Hollie could have gotten aboard another boat, but Nathan had the feeling she wasn't going to do that; if she was sticking around, then she was going to make another run for Duke, and getting aboard anything else was just going to slow her down. Between him and Audrey, they could keep Duke from having to kill again.
The boards creaking under his own feel made it harder to hear hers, and when Nathan was far enough away from Duke's boat he stopped and listened, listened for that one little sound that was out of place, for something to help him pinpoint her. When he finally heard it, it was still further ahead, nearly on shore, and maybe she was going to make a run for it after all, come back another night, or in broad daylight if she mistakenly thought she was going to be able to get Duke alone when this was all over.
"Come on out," he said. "You're not going to get what you came for."
The thing about Hollie was that she didn't care about being identified or caught. She intended to be dead before another night was through, no matter what damage it did to anyone else. She wouldn't do the things and fall for the traps that other criminals would.
The stray noise, when Nathan drew his gun on it, was a harbour cat that scurried off into the night. And the next time he heard a noise that was out of place, it was back in the direction of Duke's boat.
* * *
Maybe Duke had known all along that it would come down to this, Nathan too far away still to stop them, Audrey on the other side of Hollie and ready to move but still trying to talk her down. All Duke could think about was how he'd failed her in the past, all the things he'd done in his life that he had the slightest bit of regret about. And there were so many of those, an overwhelming number. Enough to make him feel like standing there and letting them all weigh on him was the only thing he could do.
Nathan Wuornos was some kind of prophet, because it all went down exactly the way he said. Once again Duke never thrust the knife, he was just holding it in self defense and she threw herself at him with open arms, impaling it deep within her chest. It didn't matter what weapon he was holding. The trouble was in him. She looked as surprised as he felt, and he was too surprised to even pull his hand away. He stared at her as much as she stared at him, then she was slumping forward and it was all he could do to wrench his hand away, doing as much damage on the way out as it had on the way in.
"You did it," she said, blood bubbling from her mouth. He'd gotten a lung, it looked like. It bothered him so much that he knew that, he shouldn't know that, not this easily. He shouldn't be able to tell how someone was dying by looking at them, and what kind of life had he lead that he knew that? "I knew you would."
"I didn't do anything," he said, then she was collapsed the ground and he was so relieved he couldn't see her face. He couldn't see her open eyes and the blood on her lips and her chest. "I didn't— Somebody help her!"
But the blood was on his hands, both literally and figuratively. This was what he did. This was who he was. And nobody could fix that.
It was almost like he was outside of himself, when the Trouble hit him, that Another Duke was inhabiting his body, absorbing the ability of another person and doing whatever it was that neutralized the power, dipping it in a figurative vat of acid or shooting it with a figurative ray gun. But in those moments before the power was neutralized, it was all within him, seething and roiling and making him hungry for more.
He could see how a person could get a taste for this, for the sheer power of it. He could feel how he could get a taste for it, if he let himself. And it wouldn't be so far from there to convincing himself it was the right thing to do.
From that vantage point, body almost shaking with her curse as he processed it, he watched Audrey rush to her side, hold her as she bled out and slowly stopped breathing. Hold her till she died.
And then it was over and Duke was standing there feeling tight and mighty and shaky and terrified and the murder weapon was still in his hand.
He couldn't call it anything but that.
"Is this how it's going to be every time?" he said, not even to anyone in particular. Maybe to the ghosts of his dead family, generations of them, people who'd taken to this job more than Duke very could. "Is this what I am now?"
He needed to get out of here. He needed to get out of Haven. He needed to get away from all of this...all of this craziness. He was supposed to be some saviour according to family tradition and all he'd become was a murder weapon. Even if things went the way they were supposed to, there was a fine line between savior and monster in this scenario and he wasn't sure which side he fell on.
But whichever he was, he hadn't gotten to choose. He was just an instrument of death, violated by her blood on his hands.
And how the hell did he go back to Audrey and Nathan after that? It wasn't her Trouble amplifying his guilt this time. No, this time it was all him. Driscoll's people made a mistake, putting their faith in someone who could never be who they wanted him to be. He wasn't sure he could have even if he were master of his own destiny, which he clearly was not.
By this point Nathan was back on the boat, but Duke didn't do anything but nod in his direction before numbly heading off it. He could barely feel Audrey's hand on his arm when she tried to comfort him, or maybe stop him. He wondered if that was how Nathan felt all of the time.
"I need to take a walk," he said, and neither of them argued with him.
"I'll deal with the body," said Nathan. "I'll call the station. We'll take care of it."
"Are you okay?" said Audrey, but Duke shook off the question and just...left. Just walked off his own boat and away from it all.
* * *
Audrey thought he meant a few minutes, maybe a quick trip out to the Gull and back at most. Two hours after Nathan got back from the station, deep into the night when all sensible people were already in bed, she finally gave up.
"He's didn't come back," said Audrey. "Goddammit, he took off."
"That's what he does," said Nathan, putting his arms around her from behind, but Audrey peeled them off again. "He'll come back. Eventually."
"What if he doesn't?" said Audrey. "It's different this time. He's not okay."
Nathan sighed, but she knew he agreed with her on that one. Maybe, despite everything, he wasn't Duke's biggest fan, but it wasn't okay that Duke was gone this time. He was going to do something stupid—no, had already done something stupid when he left—and they weren't going to be there to stop him this time.
"Have you tried calling him?"
"Of course I've tried calling him," said Audrey. "He's not answering. Probably turned his phone off."
"Yeah, he does that too," said Nathan, "but I don't know what we can do about it right now."
"You know this thing..." said Audrey, trying to figure out the right way to put her words together. She didn't always worry about that as much as she should, but she wasn't sure how many second chances she was going to get with this one. "This thing, you and me, it's you and me and him."
Nathan was quiet for long enough that she thought she screwed it up anyway, then he kissed her shoulder and backed off.
"It wasn't supposed to be."
"Yeah, well, our lives weren't supposed to be a lot of things but we're doing them anyway," said Audrey, "and I don't let fate or karma or other people tell me what to do."
He was quiet again, but she could feel him standing behind her, that prickle on your skin when you know someone's watching. "I know it is," he said finally. "You and me and him. Maybe it was always going to be."
"No. No fate," said Audrey. "No predestination. Just choices, okay? Just choices."
"Yeah, well, try telling Duke that."
"I would, if he hadn't run off in the night," said Audrey. "At least it was his choice to run off. She's dead now. It wasn't her."
"It was her," said Nathan, "just in a different way." And this one wasn't going to wear off nearly as quickly.
* * *
He'd think it was some kind of Trouble making the night seem darker and darker until his headlights couldn't penetrate it, but Duke knew it was all in his head, and that just made him feel worse because who thought up such ridiculously cliché shit like that, anyway? He was in a truck and he was heading out of Haven and there weren't any supernatural forces pursuing him or preventing him. If anything, the supernatural forces inside his head were cheering him on.
Duke didn't get to have things like Audrey and Nathan. It was written in the stars. Duke got to have pain and death and betrayal, or he got to be pain and death and betrayal. One pretty much invited the other over to play anyway.
He wasn't sure how far he meant to drive but it had to be further than this, a diner halfway to the next town over that he used to go to now and then but hadn't even thought much about since he got the Gull. If he hadn't stopped, maybe he wouldn't have stopped driving till he hit the other ocean and couldn't get any further away than that.
"What'll it be?"
"Just a beer," he said, and slumped against the dining counter, ignoring the stare he felt at his back. Not far enough. Any place Haven natives came was not far enough away. "Whatever you've got."
"Coming up," said Tom, comforting in his familiarity. "Sure you don't want something with that? I could make you up a sandwich."
"Maybe later," said Duke just because it was easier. All he wanted was the beer. All he wanted was something to drown a little bit of the fresh memory in.
He was alone at the counter when Tom served him his beer, but not for much longer than that.
He knew the girl who sat down next to him. Well, woman really, but she couldn't have been more than a couple of years out of high school. She used to work at the corner store when Duke had first moved back to Haven, Alyssa something. Alyssa Yang.
"Hey," he said after a little while, once he caught her looking at him.
"Hey," she said back, and sipped her soda before glancing back up at the menu posted on the wall. "Your shirt's on inside out."
Duke looked. It was. "I've had a rough night," he said, and she just nodded knowingly without looking back right away.
"I've done the walk of shame myself," she said.
Duke didn't correct her, even though...well, that was part of it too. But the killer part, that was worse. Once was bad enough. Twice was a pattern, and one beer wasn't going to do much to make it better. Who was it going to be next? He wouldn't kid himself that this would be the end of it. This was only the beginning, and his own personal battle against it was going to get harder, not easier.
"Worst part was, I walked right out of my own place like this," he admitted.
"Wow, that bad?" she said. "Hope she doesn't rob you blind before you get back."
"Nah, it's not like that," said Duke, and decided not to throw the 'he' into the mix because that was a complicated conversation he didn't want to have with someone who probably still thought doggie style was edgy. "Probably still be there."
If he went back. Leaving town wasn't a permanent solution, but it would help. Troubles didn't disappear when you left Haven, but he got a lot harder to track down. He wondered how long it would take, for them to be over again, for it to be safe for him to return. Even if he wouldn't be welcome.
"And wouldn't that be horrible," she said, in a way that Duke couldn't tell was sarcastic or sincere. "Looks like we're both getting out of town."
"College?" he said, even though it wasn't the right time for that. She was the right age at least.
"Just, somewhere else," she said. "This thing happened and...well, you don't want to know."
"You never know," he said. "I might."
"You really don't," she said, and there was something about the way she said it, something that was completely non-sexual and a little bit afraid and a little bit guilty, that made him pay a little more attention.
Maybe they were both running for the same reasons.
Duke was too old for her but he thought about it anyway, how easy it would be, how much not like being with Nathan and Audrey it would be. How uncomplicated. He wouldn't have to be afraid of her or of what she thought and she wouldn't have to be afraid of—
That shut him down right there. Maybe he did need to go and get laid with someone he'd never laid eyes on before, but not with one of the Troubled.
"Wow, it really was bad, huh?" said Alyssa, and though she was tentative with her prodding, she smiled at him all the same. "Was it bad breath? A disfiguring birthmark? Come on, you can tell me..."
Duke laughed and wished it was something like that. Weird birthmarks he could handle. Weird birthrights were something else.
"The sex was the best part of my night," he said, sipping his beer. It was almost gone already. "Everything else was what went to hell. You...you can do things, right?"
Her smile was very much gone now. "I'm not one of—"
"It's okay," said Duke, keeping their voices low. They weren't so far out of Haven that they wouldn't be overheard and understood. "Some people are just born that way."
She sighed and sipped her soda and Duke felt very, very dirty about what he'd been thinking about just a couple of minutes ago.
"So let me ask you something," he said, "as someone who seems fairly level-headed and who'll understand the question."
"I...guess?"
"Theoretically, what would you say if I told you that your Trouble, no matter what it is, could go away forever, from you and your future children and everyone in your family from now on," said Duke, "but in order for that to happen, you'd have to let someone kill you."
"I'd say you sound really creepy," said Alyssa. "Also, no."
Duke wasn't just an island of dissent. Other people, regular Troubled people, were on his side. "You'd think that would be everyone's answer," said Duke. "People who aren't nuts."
"Is that really a theoretical question?" He shrugged and scraped his blunt fingernails against the Formica countertop. She took that as an answer. "And I thought mine was bad."
"This fucking town," said Duke. "This god damn fucking town." But it was his home, and he wanted to do right by it. Maybe he didn't always have the best way of showing that, but Haven meant something to him. He couldn't leave, not for good. He couldn't leave it.
"That's why I'm heading out," she said. "It won't make it go away, but..."
"You don't have to deal with everyone else's?"
"Guess that's why you're going, too."
"Guess so," said Duke, and looked out the window and knew that he would be turning around and going back, in spite of it all. Maybe not right this second, but some time. "It's complicated."
"When is it not?" said Alyssa, eyeing his inside-out shirt again. "You ever wish we all just grew up normal?"
"Every place is weird in its own way," said Duke. "Okay, not Haven-level weird, but still. Every town's got its dark side. Everyone's got their secrets. Maybe we were the lucky ones, we grew up knowing what the big secret was."
"I don't think anyone would ever call this lucky."
Duke wanted to ask her what hers was, a 'you show me yours and I'll show you mine' kind of exchange, but he wasn't sure whether the impulse was coming from curiosity or from something deeper, from a part of him that, once it knew, might want to do something about it. So he didn't ask.
"There are probably worse things," he said, and left it at that. After a moment, she nodded, so Duke figured that at least hers didn't leave anyone dead. That was more than he could say about a lot of people. A lot of people could flatten the town.
He had such conflicting feelings about his role in that now that he stuffed them deep inside and didn't acknowledge them at all.
"I should get going," she said after a few moments of silence, not awkward, not even tense. It was almost comfortable, the silence of two people who knew and understood one another. "I want to get as far as I can before anyone notices I'm gone."
"Yeah, me too," said Duke, and pulled a few bills out of his pocket to pay for his drink, and hers. "For listening to me," he said when she looked like she was going to protest. It was the least he could do.
Duke twirled his key ring around his index finger as he watched Alyssa drive away and thought about which direction to go in when he got back on the road. Haven would be waiting for him when he was ready. The rest of the world was out there if he just went the other way.
* * *
Nathan didn't know why he was still there. He told the guys at the station that he was staking it out to get Duke's statement when he got back. He told himself that was why he was there on the boat. But he knew better than that, and so did Audrey.
"You could fix his window," said Audrey, "if you're looking for something to do."
"Do I look like I'm looking for something to do?"
"Yes," said Audrey. "You look like you want to be anywhere but here."
If Nathan wanted to be anywhere but there, he would be. He would be at his place or at Audrey's place or at the station dealing with the mountain of paperwork that he was going to have to address sooner or later before someone else decided to get creative with it for him.
Anyone who thought Nathan Wuornos had no imagination had never seen him file reports.
"I could probably tape it up better."
"Yeah, I already did that," said Audrey. "You could get us something to eat. I'm starving. For a guy who runs a restaurant, Duke sure doesn't keep much on his boat."
"A guy who runs a restaurant doesn't need to keep much on his boat," said Nathan, but it was better than doing this nothing. It was better than just waiting and trusting in Audrey's instincts, right as they usually were. "What do you want?"
"A burger," she said. "A big juicy burger with everything and the kitchen sink."
"And to drink?
"Duke's plenty stocked to take care of that," she said, "and I'm not sure this is the kind of occasion that calls for wine."
Nathan flashed back to the spilled wine on Audrey's floor. It felt so long ago and so far away now. Which he didn't say out loud because it would probably make Audrey feel like watching a movie. He just put a borrowed hat on over some truly awful hair and gave her a wave over his shoulder as he headed out.
Maybe he wasn't feeling guilty over his past thing with Duke now, a thing both of them still refused to name or even talk about. And maybe he didn't feel bad about what they were doing now. But that didn't make it easy or even remotely uncomplicated. It complicated everything, and he was allowed to feel conflicted about that and angry at Duke for a lot of things and very satisfied all at the same time.
And maybe part of the reason he was so mad at Duke for taking off was because on another day, and in another way, he knew damn well he would have done the same thing. Nathan might not physically run away from things but, well, that wasn't the only way to do it. And maybe he was feeling like Audrey was one breath away from pointing that out every time Nathan thought about voicing his frustration.
It was a lot easier to buy her a hamburger than deal with all that.
But none of that meant Nathan didn't want to do this thing. He never did do anything the easy way.
When he got back with a take-out container in one hand and a six-pack in the other, Duke was standing on deck, hands in his pockets and looking like he wasn't sure he was welcome in his own home.
Nathan stared at him for a little while, then said nothing while he got onto the boat and very carefully set his load down safely and out of the way. Duke didn't say anything while he did that either, and Audrey stood in the shadows letting them have this one out before inserting herself in the fray, showing a restraint Nathan wasn't always sure she possessed.
"Are you back?" he said finally.
"That depends," said Duke. "Are you going to arrest me?"
"Is he going to what?" said Audrey, stepping out, and so much for not getting involved but she probably hadn't seen that coming. Nathan had.
"No," said Nathan. "Can you imagine the paperwork?"
"Can you be serious?"
"I am being serious," said Nathan. "What would I even charge you with, and how would I explain it if I did?"
"You're not known for passing up an excuse to arrest me," said Duke, "and I did kill—"
"She killed herself," said Nathan, "just like Kyle killed himself. So I'll ask you again, are you back?"
"I don't know," he said. "And even if I am, I don't know if we're still..."
"I don't care what you did," said Nathan.
"You're a terrible liar, Wuornos."
"Okay, I care what you did," said Nathan. "I think the whole situation is messed up in ways that are huge, even for Haven. Does that make you feel better?"
"Surprisingly, it does," said Duke. "At least I know where I stand."
"Duke, just stop running," said Nathan. "Haven't you run away from things enough in your life already? We can help."
"Audrey's told you what to say, didn't she. She wrote you a script while I was gone."
"She could have. You were gone long enough for her to do it," said Nathan, "but if she wanted to say that, she'd be saying it. She's standing right there." And looking at them both like she was waiting for the moment they called truce.
"Then maybe she should," said Duke, looking in her direction, but Audrey just held her hands up innocently then made a zipping motion over her mouth. Duke shook his head at her, like he wasn't allowing it. "How the hell can we be together if you're always wondering if I'm going to kill you? If I'm wondering if I'm going to kill you?"
"You're not going to kill me," said Audrey. "At least, you're not going to kill me on purpose. That's all I can ask of anyone."
"You don't know that."
"I know that as much as I know anything," she said. "Which, since I don't even know if I'm a real person isn't saying much, but it's all I've got."
"It's not enough."
"Shut up," said Nathan. "Just...shut up. You're right, we can't trust you. But that's that's...that's a lot of things that don't go away overnight. It's not because you killed—"
"I thought we weren't...can we not?"
"I don't know, can we not?" said Nathan. "What happens if we don't?"
"We don't need to get all touchy feely about it," said Audrey, "but if you can't deal with the fact that you're—"
"Seriously?"
"What did you think I was going to finish that with?" said Audrey. "A killer? A murderer?"
"Is there something else to finish that with?"
"Troubled," said Audrey.
"Great, so it's apparently my destiny to kill myself so I don't have to pass this along to my kids," said Duke. "That makes me feel so much better."
"Don't start with that crap," said Audrey. "Stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself and man up. We've all got our crap going on. So stop wondering if you're going to kill us and just don't. Just enjoy what you can because god knows the rest of the town can go to hell at any moment."
"We can't stop this, Audrey. We can't stop what's going to happen here. How many times has this happened before? How many times have you been through it?"
"That doesn't mean it has to go the same way as it did last time," said Audrey. "I'm a different person. You're a different person. Nathan's not his father, either. Ever hear of a thing called free will?"
"I'm not sure free will applies to much around here."
"Well I still think it does," said Audrey, "and as long as I'm still making decisions about my own life, everyone else is too. After all, you actually have your own, I just stole someone else's."
"You know that's not what happened."
"And you know that you're not a killer," said Audrey. "If you weren't sure of that before I'll bet, after all this, you're pretty sure of it now. So just...don't. You can deal with that. We can deal with that. If you let us."
"If we want to."
"Are you really going to tell me we're not better as a team?"
"Maybe," said Duke, "but that doesn't mean we have to be—"
"I'll say it again," said Audrey, this time smiling at him a little. "Are you really going to tell me we're not better as a team?"
Duke looked at her for a moment, but mostly he looked at Nathan, and Nathan wasn't sure what to say. It was hard to reassure Duke when he didn't know what he was feeling himself.
"We've got a long way to go," he said finally, swallowing and feeling his heart beat a little faster, "but it might be worth the trip."
"Might be?"
"We're not going to know unless we take it," he said. "And as for the rest...all things considered, I think the whole town is a lot better off with you and Audrey happy and on the same side, so I'm all for that."
"How altruistic of you," said Duke, but even though his head was down and he was looking more at his boat than his partners, he still tilted his head and gave Nathan a crooked smile. Or half of one, anyway. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm back. But don't expect me to be particularly useful for a couple of days, all right? I'm not...you can't make this better with a smile and a bit of leg."
"Cleavage?" offered Audrey.
"Only if it's Nathan's," he said, and gave them another almost-smile and felt a little bit like maybe between them they really could work this out so that no one had to die.
"It doesn't matter what happened to Sarah or Lucy or anyone who came before them," said Audrey. "These things aren't predetermined. If we want to find a way, we'll find a way, and I'm pretty damn determined to find a way."
"We'll figure it out," said Nathan, and finally went and picked up the food and the beer and handed at least one of them to Audrey. A small gesture of normalcy in a situation that was far from conventional in all kinds of ways. "All of it."
Duke nodded and stole a beer and went inside, and the two of them let him because figuring it out meant figuring out what everyone needed and right now Duke needed to be there without being there. Nathan got that, and maybe if he got that it would be a little easier to get all the other things yet to come too.
Audrey wasn't Lucy and Duke wasn't Simon and Nathan wasn't the Chief. They were going to make a whole new set of rules, because this time it was their choice and no ghosts from the past were going to take that away.