by Lucian Bane
Chaos kept her eyes closed when the bathroom door opened again. Waiting for him to come to the bed turned into a very long wait. She finally peeked and found him making a bed on the floor. Before she could think, she blurted, “What are you doing?”
He gave her a quick glance. “Giving you room to rest. I’ll get dinner for you.”
A dense hollow feeling spread in her chest. “I’m not hungry. And there is plenty of room for you, this is your home you shouldn’t sleep on the floor.”
“You should eat anyway. And I shouldn’t be sleeping with you.”
She stared at him, confused and disheartened as he dug in the fridge.
“I gave the dog the food. He was hungry.”
Solomon straightened and dropped his head back with a sigh.
“I’m sorry, he was very hungry and that’s all I found. My stomach can’t handle food right now anyway.”
“Well you will not be skipping breakfast,” he said, pointing at her as he made his way back to his bed on the floor. She nodded as he lay down and wiggled his body around before placing his arms behind his head with a sigh.
“We can both fit.”
His blue eyes landed right on her where she perched on her elbows. “It’s not appropriate.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re a woman.”
The way he said it extra slowly annoyed Chaos. “So?”
“So I’m a man and… men don’t sleep in the same beds with women unless…”
She waited for the rest, prompting when he took too long, “Unless what?”
“Unless they’re married,” he said.
She couldn’t stop her giggle. He was so very peculiar.
“Call me old fashioned, laugh even, but that’s me.”
“So… when men and women lie in the same bed they must always do things married people do?” It was her turn to be condescending.
“It’s not appropriate.”
“Why? I don’t want to be married to you. Do you want to be married to me?”
“No! It’s just… human nature has a way of finding a way… you just don’t do it, just to be safe.”
“Because you may want to do things with me that married people do?” This had Chaos happy and then reminded herself of the picture of the woman on the fireplace mantle.
“Absolutely not. I will never do that with a woman.”
She lay down and looked at the ceiling, his answer upsetting her. “Why not?” She held her breath, waiting to hear what that even meant. To him.
“Because there was only one woman for me.”
Her insides froze at hearing it. The confirmation. But how could that be? He was supposed to be a virgin. And why did he say he was? “You’re married?”
He was quiet and Chaos waited, hoping he answered her. “Yes.”
Why was his yes so odd and sad sounding? Her heart hammered now at this news. “Where is she?”
“In Heaven. Where she belongs. And before you ask any more questions, don’t.”
Chaos was quiet for a long time, very relieved. But she found herself happy and sad at the same time. She surely didn’t want him married but she didn’t like the terrible sadness buried in his voice. It seemed like she should say something but instead she did that thing she sometimes did.
“Why are you laughing?”
“I’m not,” she hurried then giggled again.
“That definitely sounds like laughing to me,” he said, but not really sounding offended.
“I’m sorry,” she stifled another. “I do it sometimes.”
“Laugh at people’s tragedy? Nice,” he said dryly, but still, it wasn’t angry.
Chaos felt terrible even as she did it again and hurried to explain, “No, laugh at the wrong times, at the wrong things, I don’t mean to, it happens when… I want something too much.”
“And what do you want too much?”
“To say something that will take the sadness.”
“No, no. There’s no sadness, here,” he muttered, “I’m beyond done mourning.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“I am,” he said again.
“I heard you.”
“Good, I’m glad you did. Make sure you hear me.”
“I hear you.”
“Did I say I was happy?” he went on like she was arguing with him. “No. But is being not happy and mourning the same? No. I can be unhappy and not be mourning.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I understand.”
“Do you?” he muttered.
“I do. I’m not happy, never have been. But I’m not mourning either. I guess I’m in the middle somewhere. Not one or the other.”
He didn’t answer her and she suddenly realized she liked talking to him. “What if… I have dreams?”
“Then I’ll wake you up.”
She thought about his singing. “I like when you hum to me.”
“Is that a fact,” he said, sounding sleepy.
“What’s the song you hum to me?”
He took in a big breath then let it out. “She Talks To Angels.”
Chaos smiled to herself at that. “Where did you learn it?”
She waited for many seconds, thinking he’d fallen asleep. “She taught it to me.”
A dozen feelings hit Chaos at hearing the things in his voice for the she. She wasn’t sure if they were all good or bad, they were just new to her. She thought. Then it hit her what he’d just said. “So… she talked to angels?” she asked, amazed.
“Yes,” he said softly. “All the time.”
Awe slowly washed over her. “Wow,” Chaos whispered. “She must’ve been amazing.”
“She was.”
The power in those two, soft words compelled those feelings in Chaos until it made her heart hammer. She had to shove them away, not knowing where they fit. “I’ve never talked to angels,” she confessed, sadly. “I’ve talked to the dead and demons. I was not permitted to try and talk to angels. I did want to, though,” she added, feeling like that might count. “Very much. My mother was an angel.”
Sudden panic hit Chaos at realizing all the things she’d just let out. She waited in the silence, terrified of what he’d think of her now. And to say it was all a joke seemed blasphemous.
The bad fears descended so quickly that her breath froze—froze her body to the bed. She felt its icy fingers slipping inside her mind, coming to take her places she may never come back from.
“Can’t you sleep with me,” she gasped. “Please.” She dared not voice the fear.
He was there then, beautiful face and bright blue eyes at the bedside. “What’s wrong?”
At hearing the firm commanding in his tone, she latched her arms around his neck. “Please,” she whispered, pressing her cheek into the warm column of muscle. “Don’t leave me. Don’t let me go.”
“Okay, okay,” he shushed, lying next to her.
Chaos moved lower so that she could curl her body into his with her head in his chest and shivered when he wrapped his arms around her, even put one of his legs over hers as though to keep her from being taken.
The pain in her body stood little chance in the face of this kind of bad fear. She shook in the face of it, not remembering the last time it had come on so strong. Years ago. Very early training.
He began to hum then and Chaos whimpered in relief, pressing her ear to his chest to feel the power in his voice. This time when he sang the words Chaos became ensnared in them, able to make them out. The bad fears slowly receded farther and farther from her mind.
Then came the questions. They sprouted in her brain at hearing the words and Chaos clung to each, using them as anchors to keep her from being yanked into that bottomless darkness. She filed the puzzles away as they came. Why did she smile when the pain came? Did she learn comfort in pain as Chaos had? Was she really an orphan? Chaos sometimes felt like one even though Master said she was his flesh and blood.
Who was the boy in the song? And the man on the
cross she’d not met yet? What was the name the angels called her? Did she have more than one name, like Chaos?
Then there was the one question that burned inside Chaos that she really wanted to know, needed to know for many reasons. How could his wife not know a lover, if she knew him? And why did that mean everything to him?
In the absence of fear, Chaos gradually became aware of the feel of him. The hot press of his arm along her back and the firmness of his fingers at the bottom of her back. She thought about the heat of his thigh over her leg and became breathless. Light soap tickled her nose where her cheek smashed into his chest. It felt… so good. So very good. Chaos wasn’t accustomed to experiencing this feeling and her body seemed to crave it. She realized she especially liked the soft, careful stroke of his other hand, gliding over her hair then arm, and back up to repeat the step over and over.
With the sound of his voice as he sang softly, Chaos snuggled into him, trying to remember ever experiencing such feelings before. She couldn’t. Ever.
What exactly was this feeling?
She froze when the answer came to her. This was the feeling of Heaven. When his wife left him, he got a piece of the Heaven inside her. That’s how it worked. When you died, you left loved ones what you had in your heart. That’s what this feeling was, it was Heaven.
Chaos dared not disturb the wonderful impossibility of finding herself in such a place, with these feeling. She knew she shouldn’t be in such a sacred place.
And yet, very carefully she submitted to the warmth enveloping her. She was glad she had no family to leave things with. Glad she couldn’t love even. But even if she did have family and could love, she didn’t want to leave any person a piece of what she carried in her soul.
Chapter Ten
“Okay, it’s been four days,” Solomon said, coming to sit next to the bed where Chaos ate her breakfast on her own. He hated to do it but it was time. Past time. “I’ve given you an entire two extra days, I’m sure you’re aware.”
She nodded, chewing her food slower. Damn, he should have waited for her to finish eating. “Thank you,” she whispered, making it even harder for him to pursue. “What do you have to know?”
He stared at her, feeling like a bastard with every passing second. But after hearing her say those things about talking to demons and dead people and them not letting her talk to angels meant only one thing. Ritualistic abuse. And that was a whole lot different than a one man show. Solomon needed to somehow find out more. Hanging in a tree upside down, in a red dress, beat to kingdom come and probably raped, screamed mock crucifixion of some kind.
She angled her still discolored face at him, making him lower his head in guilt. But he needed answers, dammit. And she was the only one who could give them unless he went asking around town. And if it was ritualistic, it could be anybody so that was out of the question. And with the paranoia he’d garnered from all those great crime mysteries he’d watched when searching for his wife, trusting anybody was a no go. Especially local authorities.
“Let’s start with something simple.” He looked at her full on, trying not to notice how angelic she looked in the white cotton gown. The close proximity felt like weeks. She seemed to constantly need his touch and his body was a little too happy to oblige her. “What’s your favorite color?”
She regarded him in surprise before giving a small smile. “Purple,” she said.
Purple. “Kind of sick of seeing that color on you, actually.” She smiled full out, and he allowed himself a moment to study it. Her lips were practically normal looking now, her entire face was, really. It confirmed his initial assessment when he’d found her. She was beautiful. Incredibly so, in a rare kind of way.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Twenty four,” she answered, seeming proud and happy to tell him before getting slowly serious. “Why… did she smile when the pain would come? Your wife?”
It took him a few moments to realize she was referring to the lyrics of the song he’d sang. So she thought it was about his wife? The unexpected and forbidden topic prompted him to shut her down, then he realized that maybe she’d go for a “fair share” of intimate information. He thought about where that might lead with him and wasn’t sure he could stomach it. But then he thought about where it could lead with her. “It was just metaphorical.”
“So she didn’t like pain?”
He shrugged. “I doubt it.” He eyed her. “Why would she?”
She shrugged back, not lifting her gaze. “Sometimes pain can feel good.”
His stomach churned at what that might mean to her. “I guess I agree.”
“You do?”
“When I work out hard, it hurts but it feels good in my mind.”
“Because you know it’ll make you stronger?” she sounded hopeful.
“Yep. Do you have a middle name?”
She shook her head easily. “You?”
“Gorge is my middle name.” He wouldn’t ask for a last. Yet. Two more days, then he’d hit her with the bigger questions. “Your favorite food?”
She smiled down at her plate. “Your soup.” He waited for her to ask her question, his stomach tensing at what it might be. “Was your wife really an orphan?”
He shook his lowered head. “No.”
“Then…”
He hated pretending the lyrics pertained to her or him but he was so limited with angles. “To make me feel better, I think. I was the adopted one.” That second part was true at least.
“Me too,” she said, sounding happy.
He bit back his surprise and on the many questions her answer produced. “Your favorite flower?”
A smile tugged at the edge of her mouth. “I don’t have one. I don’t really like flowers.”
Her odd answer raised his brows. “You don’t like flowers,” he said, not about to believe that. But she didn’t seem to be lying which indicated a clue to a dirty secret. He shrugged. “Fair enough.”
“What was the name?”
“What name?” he asked.
“That the angels called her. Your wife.”
His heart hammered and he suddenly couldn’t tear his eyes from hers. They were full of genuine sincerity and some kind of longing. “Chantilly.”
He watched her mouth slowly spread into one of the sweetest smiles he’d ever seen. “Chantilly,” she repeated. “Such a beautiful name.”
Her breathless sincerity brought a painful ache and longing in his chest.
He cleared his throat and mind before a to be continued topic shut him down. “Your favorite animal?” The animal question would be his last. The idea to get her a pet came while checking the traps. If anybody could stand having something to love and be loved by, it was her.
“I don’t like animals so much,” she said, looking down at her plate and toying with her food.
Jesus. Solomon couldn’t take even the idea of what might make her not like animals. “Well… surely there’s one you halfway like.”
She shook her head. “Not really. I don’t like animals. They’re a distraction.”
“A distraction,” he repeated, struggling to maintain his cool. “Animals distract you how?”
She began picking at the hairs on her arm and rocking ever so slightly. “They don’t,” she said. “Because I don’t like them. So they don’t distract me.”
Solomon was officially back in the question game with that one. The sign of her irrational distress demanded it. “But if you liked them, they would distract you?”
He tried to sound amused but she picked along her arm faster now and nodded.
“I’m very easily distracted, so I get that. But I mean, what would they distract you from?” he asked, tiptoeing up to the junction of Fucked up and Insane for a peek around the bend.
She leveled her bloodshot eyes at him, her perfect mouth hard. “They distract.”
Her tone said she was done talking civilly about it. “Who told you that?” he dared anyway.
She sta
red at him, her spine slowly straightening as if in preparation of something. “What happened to your wife?”
The hard edge of her voice said she was aware of what he was doing and had been aware all along. And now, if he wanted answers she didn’t want to give, he’d have to pay the toll likewise.
Solomon stared at her, weighing the price, checking his pockets. Wonder if she’d accept a check? “I told you she died.”
“How?”
He took his lower lip into his mouth then slowly scraped his teeth over it. “She was kidnapped and murdered,” he said evenly.
She stared at him, her jaw still set on stubborn but her eyes were burning with something. “Master told me that pets would distract my training. When was she murdered?”
Solomon’s heart sped up at the exchange of sick info. “Six years ago. And who is Master?” he hurried, before he lost his shit for her and him.
“Master is my stepfather. I was adopted. How was she murdered?”
“I don’t know, we never found her. Why do you call him Master?”
“Master likes to be called that. So I obey. How do you know she was murdered?”
“Because they never found her remains.” Solomon knew how that sounded, and finished with, “I know it in my gut.” He decided to use his gut right then. “What is the name of the organization you belong to?”
She stared at him for several seconds that heat in her gaze cooling a little. “The United Church of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Do you think I’m pretty?”
If their conversation had brakes, it would’ve screeched to a halt with that answer and question. His gut said she’d just told her first lie. But he’d check it out in case. As for her question, he considered it an easy one to answer and one he didn’t mind answering. For her. “I don’t think you’re pretty, no.” At seeing the pain that caused her, he quickly clarified. “I think you’re beautiful.”
