Swell (Complete)

Chapter Forty (Part Two)

"Cause every time I ran
I ran to you
I meant it every time I said I loved you
I kiss the thought of you and I."

....

Will sat uncomfortably at the kitchen table with Iain as they waited for Adora and Dodge to get back home. Tom had declined to join him, so he'd ridden his bike.
"Are you going to the dance?" Iain broke the silence and Will looked up from his psych notes.
"I haven't decided yet. You?"
"Probably. I mean, Adora got a dress for it, and Aunt Anne is definitely not letting her go alone, Dodge will be there earlier to help with set up, so that leaves me as the bodyguard."
Will thought about his talk with Marti the evening before she let go of a slow breath. "Do you think she would let me ask Adora to the dance, if we all went as a group?"
Iain leaned back and frowned. Will swallowed a lump and waited for Iain's thoughts.
"I honestly don't know." He shook his head. "Today is not the day to ask Adora though."
"Because of the car, Marti told me last night..." Will picked up his pen and started to scribble on the corner of his exercise page.
"And Gus."
He looked up at Iain in confusion. "I thought he'd gone home..."
"Yea, well, we all did." Iain looked out into the alfresco area through the window.
"He didn't?"
"He was in the car."
Will put the pen down and blinked. Did Iain mean the car that had been in the waterfalls? Suddenly his stomach started churning and he felt ill.
"They think he drove himself in at the moment."
Will felt his lips part. Suicide?
The times he'd seen Gus did not remotely look as though he was the type of guy to kill himself.
Had it been because of Adora's rejections?
Had Gus been the one to attack his own cousin and had an attack of guilt?
Was Adora safe now Gus was dead?
"Sorry guys." Adora's voice made him jump in his seat as she entered the kitchen. "Was at Brett's." She pulled a chair to the end of the table and let go of a shaky breath.
"Are you OK?" Will heard himself ask the question, but couldn't remember even thinking about it.
Adora looked at him solemnly for a few moments. "I will be." She forced a small smile and he felt a strange pull in his arm, keeping his hand closer to him as opposed to letting it slide in the direction of hers.
"Are the Holmes?" Iain's hand landed on hers and relief washed over Will.
"That I don't know." Adora's voice was sad when she spoke and it stabbed Will deeper than he wanted to feel.
"We'll be here for them, let's be here for me right now, because we all know I suck in psych." Iain gave her hand a gentle squeeze before letting a grin take over his face.
Liss' funeral, and soon Gus'?
Why was Adora even trying to prepare for the exams?
Will tried to pay attention as they went over their notes and some of the test questions and practise exams over the next few hours, but he couldn't settle his stomach or stop gazing at Adora as she busied herself.
He thought about things Marti had said about Gus and Adora; they'd had a relationship, that Gus had practically forced himself on her at the falls.
Would someone really attack their own family to get closer to a girl?
Did Gus steal Tom's Lancer and then push it over the cliffs after he'd nearly killed Brett?
The timing felt right, but Will couldn't fathom Gus hurting Brett.

Adora was amazing, and pretty, but was she worth murder? Was anybody?
Will didn't have much to say through the session, he wanted to comfort Adora, but he didn't know what words would help her.
When he'd arrived home he'd gone straight to his bedroom, ignoring Marti's greeting.
He barely spoke a word through dinner, or before bedtime. He could feel his family looking at him worriedly and he forced smiles to try and reassure them.
"Are you alright?" Marti spoke from his bedroom door and he rolled over in his bed with a frown.
"I thought everyone was in bed?" He reached over and turned his lamp on.
"I'm worried, I couldn't settle." She came into his room and sat on the edge of his bed.
"I'm worried too." He confessed. "I thought about asking Adora to the dance today before I left her house, but Iain told me they found Gus in the car they pulled out yesterday."
"So?" Marti frowned in the light of the lamp.
"So they think he drove himself in; suicide." Will explained, taken aback at his sister's callous tone.
Marti scoffed and shook her head. "Good, he was an asshole. I'll never forget what I saw at the waterfalls."
Will sat up on his elbow. "Marti..."
"I told you, he practically raped Adora there." She clenched her fists angrily.
"That doesn't matter..."
"And if it was him who sent her the doll? And attacked Brett? We're all better off without him. Don't waste your worry." Marti's voice went from angry to placid when she looked from her fists to Will's face. "We've all got more important things to worry about than a stranger killing himself."
Before Will could think of a response Marti was standing and leaving his room. The door clicked closed behind her and he tried to brush away the anger he'd seen in Marti and turned his lamp off.

Will looked around the woods and frowned. How did he get here?
"Help!" Adora's voice echoed through the trees and his heart jerked.
"Will!" Marti's voice followed and suddenly he was running along the dirt path.
He reached the fall and saw the car moving into the water.
"Help!" Marti's hands were waving from the driver's side window and he could see Adora's coming out from the passenger side.
"I'm coming!" He ran towards them, but as the car sank he didn't get any closer. "Hold on!"
"Don't let us die, Will, please!" Adora screamed as the car slipped under the water.
He was still so far from the pool, he could hear someone laughing at him, a familiar laugh, but not quite identifying itself as he kept trying to run towards the air bubbles.
"You let us die." Adora floated to the surface of the water and he made it to the shore. "You let us die."
Her face shifted into Liss and Will jerked back from the shore. Marti floated up beside the figure and smiled at him gently. "It's your fault."

He jolted awake, his blankets drowned in sweat.Will sat up and turned his lamp on, shivering as he pushed the wet blanketsoff.
Nightmares.
He should be glad it had taken this long for them to get that violent. Heleaned forward and wiped his face, trying to catch his breath.
He'd barely been asleep a few hours and he could feel the goose bumps rising onhis skin.
It took a few minutes to regain his composure and force himself to get changedinto dry boxer shorts. He stood over his bed, the damp shadow obvious on hissheet.
He grabbed a towel from the bathroom and laid it over the sheets, pulling thecold doona up to his chin.
He hadn't killed anybody, it was just a nightmare. Adora and Marti were bothstill alive, and it was just a chilling nightmare. The thoughts repeated overand over his head until he drifted back into an uneasy sleep.