I jog in, and Dalton's scrambling up, eyes open but unseeing.
"I'm right here," I say, but he still doesn't seem to notice. He's on his feet now, looking from side to side.
"Casey?" Louder now. I hurry beside him and put my hand on his arm. "I'm right here."
He turns, exhales hard. His arms go around me, and he's only half awake, as I lower us back to the floor. His head hits the rug, and he pulls me in, clutched like a security blanket, his heart rate slowing as he drops back into sleep.
An hour passes.
I'm still entwined with him, my head on his chest as I listen to the beat of his heart. That usually lulls me back to sleep after my nightmares. Tonight it doesn't. It can't.
I would get up and read a book, but if I leave, he'll wake, and he needs his sleep. So I lie there, listening to the dog's snores. Then Dalton's breathing hitches. His heart thumps, and he bolts up, gasping again.
"I've made a mistake," he says.
I don't answer. I just wait.
He says it again. Not "I fucked up," but "I made a mistake." His voice is soft, a little boyish, a little breathless. He's awake but with one toe in that twilight place.
I adjust so I'm sitting with him as he squeezes his eyes shut.
"With Brady," he says. "We need to do something else."
"Like what?"
He runs his hands through his hair. "I don't know. That's the problem."
Which is exactly what I've been lying here thinking. He says, "This isn't the way to handle it, but I don't know what is," and that articulates my thoughts as perfectly as if he's pried them from my brain.
"Fuck," he says, and I have to smile, hearing him come back to himself. He looks at me. "We're screwed, aren't we?"
"Pretty much."
Silence. When he speaks again, his voice is low. "I keep wanting to ask what we could do differently, but if you had an idea, you'd give it."
"I would."
Dalton's eyes shut. A sliver of moonlight bisects his face, half light, half dark. It's a lie. There's no darkness there.
Light doesn't mean carefree or easy or saintly, though. It's not even light so much as . . .
If the absence of light is dark, what is the absence of dark? To say "light" isn't quite correct. Even "good" doesn't work.
"If I knew for certain he was guilty . . ." He lets the rest trail off.
If I knew for certain he was guilty, I could kill him. To protect the town. To protect you. To eliminate any chance that he hurts someone here.
That's what he means, and maybe it should prove that he does have darkness. But this is sacrifice. It's a man saying he would take another life and suffer the guilt of that rather than let anyone else be hurt.
Dalton's lack of darkness, though, means he can never take that step as long as there's a chance that Brady is innocent.
We both know innocence is a possibility, but I wasn't lying when I told Jen it didn't matter. We cannot prove Brady's innocence or guilt. We cannot even investigate his crimes. He didn't kill here. We can't go there. Which reduces our options for dealing with Oliver Brady to two.
Keep him.
Kill him.
We can devise the most secure prison, staffed with our most reliable and loyal guards, while knowing we cannot truly guarantee safety.