The Devil Inside

24: Fallout

"Oh, God—"

"He fell?"

"He was pushed, I'm telling you."

"Come on, we're leaving—"

Calla, Cooper and Vincent ran to the edge of the deck, where a set of narrow, rickety stairs trailed down to the lowest level of the house. A floodlight illuminated the path to the garage—and the broken body lying prone on the cobblestones far, far below.

"Shit," Calla whispered.

Cooper felt as though the air had been punched out of him. Before he could process what the hell he was doing, he was already halfway down the stairs. "Cooper," Calla hissed at his back.

He descended the final steps and fell to his knees beside the body, unsure of what to do next. Blood had already started to pool across the path, snaking through the cracks and crevices of the dull grey stones. Further off, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses gleamed in the grass; one of the lenses was cracked beyond repair.

And next to the body were the shattered remains of a camera.

"Tom," Cooper whispered, hands hovering over the body. "Oh, God. Tom?"

"Cooper." Suddenly, Calla was there—warm and real and reassuring as she knelt beside him, scraping her jeans across the stones.

"Calla," he croaked. "Help me."

She slipped two fingers beneath Tom's throat, her fierce expression at odds with the low, terrified whispers drifting down from the deck. Cooper pressed a hand over his mouth. He would not throw up. He would not throw up—

"He's alive."

His eyes snapped to her face. "He's what?"

Calla let out a startled breath. "He's alive." She met his horrified gaze. "Call 911. Now."

It all felt so familiar. The frantic digging for his phone. The desperate call for help. Even the conversation with the operator on the other end of the line brought back a host of unpleasant memories.

Tracy. Rachel. Cory. Eighteen years old, and already he'd seen his fair share of death. He wasn't sure he could bear another.

He ended the call and swallowed back bile. Calla stared at him expectantly. "They're on the way," he said quietly.

After that, there was nothing left to do but wait. Wait and wonder.

Because Cooper didn't think that this fall had been an accident. Not after Venus. Not after everything. 

Tom's agonized breaths tore through the air. He didn't deserve this. Cooper ran his hands through his hair until his scalp ached. None of them deserved this.

"Enough." Cold fingers pried his hands out of his hair. Calla's expression remained indifferent, and there was something oddly comforting in that—in the iron strength in her hands and the terrible quiet in her eyes.

"Sorry," he whispered. His mouth still tasted like vomit, but there wasn't anything he could do about that.

She released his hands. "You've got to calm down."

"I know." He tried not to look at the body. No. Not the body, he scolded himself. That's Tom. Tom Sahein. "Do you think he's gonna make it?"

Tom's blood continued its slow march across the stones. Calla watched its progress; something flickered to life in her eyes. A burning sort of hunger. "No."

Why do you ask questions you don't want the answers to?

Cooper swallowed the rest of his questions. Calla had been right from the start.