Don't Whistle Past the Graveyard

Ch. Seventy-Eight

I could hear the ticking from Shane's watch. 

Our room was silent aside from that along with the slight rasp in his breathing, and one of those things was driving me absolutely bonkers. I had to resist the urge to wrap my hand around the clock's face to stifle the sound.

I didn't want to risk waking him up though, so I dealt with my insanity quietly and by myself. I was sitting cross-legged on my side of the bed, letting my knee rest lightly on Shane's leg.

Over the years, we've both found we sleep better with some sort of contact from the other, whether it's being wrapped up together or just barely touching. It doesn't matter, just as long as we somehow know the other is there and safe.

We'd actually taken to just having back to back shifts at night since, inevitably, we begin to wake up as soon as the other leaves. Barring anything like sickness, injury or anything else that causes that absolute, deadly exhaustion we've all become so familiar with, of course.

A book on the Freemasons rested in the cradle formed by my crossed legs. I had been trying to read in the pale morning light for half an hour now. That was easier than laying in bed simply waiting for Kyle, Cassidy, Danielle and Aaron to get back.

My eyes had scanned over the same passage three times without anything sinking in. My grandfather had been a Freemason... that's why I'd picked it. But honestly, I'm not sure anything could have held my attention in that moment.

Not with the way my heart was thrumming uncomfortably in my throat, or the way my hands had turned cold where they rested on the wide pages. I flipped the page to be confronted by a glossy, full-page picture of a Templar knight.

It was a striking painting: the knight was kneeling before his sword, which he had planted into the sandy earth. His helmet was tucked under his arm, his face streaked with dirt and blood and somehow sad. His white tabard, bearing the red Templar cross on his chest was torn and stained with black soot. 

The chainmail covering his arm—the one that could be seen—had been rended in three different places. His gauntlets shone with some clever trick of the paint.

I stared down at it, not really sure why it had so thoroughly captured my attention. After a moment, I decided it probably didn't matter.

Later I decided it was two things. One, the knight had been alone when he shouldn't have been. Two, he looked completely and utterly exhausted, like he was just taking a moment to try and rally himself again.

Like he was preparing for the next battle... or perhaps slaughter.

I realized that I was intimately familiar with the expression the knight wore. I'd been exactly where he had, sans the sword and shield.

Warm fingers grazed my arm, making me tear my eyes away from the picture. Shane was watching me, and I suddenly wondered how long he'd been awake. If he'd seen the way I'd been staring at the picture.

Something grim in his eyes told me he had, but that he didn't know what to do about it.

The ticking of the watch grabbed my attention again. My hand turned into a fist where it rested on the smooth pages of the book. I swallowed and opened my mouth to confess what I'd done, but he already knew.

"You let them go see what it was," he said, "didn't you?"

Silently, I nodded, my eyes burning again. "I—" I coughed, clearing my throat "—I shouldn't have. I should have..."

"Stopped them? Made them wait?" Shane asked with a sigh, rubbing at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "How, Raleigh?"

I shrugged. "Or gone with them."