by Somer Canon
“Leaving here is not going to cause me even the slightest bit of pain, Terry, I promise. Also? I work online. I understand the reach of the internet. If I wanted to keep something going with you, I do understand how totally doable that is thanks to technology,” I said.
“Who hurt you?” he asked me suddenly.
In the movies, this is the scene where the hard woman’s frozen heart melts and she opens the door, her eyes welling with tears of true love and she leaps into the arms of the man who is there to save her from her hurtful past. Thank fucking God that I don’t live in a movie because my reaction was so much better than that.
I punched the door. That hurt, and I doubled over keeping myself quiet. I didn’t want Terry to hear my groaning and squealing because my stupid self punched a really hard door. Then I kicked the door. I looked out through the peephole and saw Terry looking startled. I kicked the door again and smiled when I saw him jump.
“Go away Terry,” I said softly. “We’re done here. Thanks for your help.”
I stayed at the peephole and watched him stare at the door for a minute, then look down the hallway before finally stepping away from the door and walking away. I breathed out a long sigh of relief and slumped against the door. With that tie severed, I was one step closer to finishing up and going home.
Flowers were sent to my room the next day. They were pretty peach lilies in a glass vase. The card read, “Please feel free to call or text. Yours always, Terry. XOXO”
I threw them in the dumpster behind the hotel.
My tensions were getting to an all-time high even as Anais assured me that my updates were pulling in millions upon millions of views. Grenadine’s absence had me extremely worried. I still wasn’t sure if I could leave town without her knowing and I was concerned that I was going to have to stay in that damned Holiday Inn until Anais dragged me out. I really wished for it all to be over. I wanted her to give me that stupid gift or whatever so that I could go home and start enjoying the fruits of my labor.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Things were slowing down on the investigation. Every lead the police checked out took them to a dead end. I interviewed Mildred Fleming, the lady who discovered Stephanie’s hands in a box and got close to nothing from her. She was an older lady and all she could say in regards to Stephanie was “bless her heart,” which is not exactly quotable. Anais had brought up my coming home again and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to put her off much longer. Things either needed to start picking up or I was going to have to chance mine and Anais’ safety by going home.
I was sitting at the bar of the steak house next to my hotel drinking a beer and eating jalapeño poppers when Terry sat down next to me. I lowered my beer and gave him a sidelong glance before I resumed my brooding. I was trying to enjoy my first truly satisfying meal of junk in days. I’d been eating salads and brown rice and grilled chicken, and I was sick to death of not having the awesome slickness of grease on my lips. I wasn’t happy about having my self-destructive eating disturbed by the twerp.
“You haven’t been answering my texts,” he said quietly.
“That’s because I blocked you,” I replied.
“Why would you do that?” he asked, taken back.
“Because I told you to leave me alone and you’re not listening,” I said.
“Look, I need to talk to you about other stuff,” he said, his voice low and conspiratorial.
“Okay, get on with it so I can enjoy my junk food in peace, please,” I said.
“As a matter of procedure, I was questioned about Stephanie’s disappearance. You know, like the last time I talked to her and all that. It appears that I was the last person that she texted, and I had to name you as my alibi. I’m really sorry, but I had to be honest. I work with those people,” he blurted.
I looked over at him, frowning in surprise at his outburst.
“Look, I said I was sorry,” he said. “If it helps, I let them know that we have feelings for each other and that you are NOT a loose woman.”
I burst out laughing.
“Now don’t start being cruel again, honey,” Terry said to me.
“I’m not being cruel,” I said, wiping tears from my eyes. “I understand that I’m your alibi and I’ll back you up, no problem. I have no issue with any of these people knowing that we’ve been having sex, Terry. I mean really, in this day and age it should not be so shocking to people that consenting adults carry on perfectly lovely casual sexual relationships while also being morally upstanding citizens. Stop with that puritanical stuff, for Pete’s sake.”
“I wasn’t being puritanical,” he said sourly. “I was just making sure that you knew that I had your reputation and best interests in the front of my mind.”
“Yeah, well you can go ahead and let those worries sink to the back, Terry, because I’m a big girl and I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,” I said.
“Won’t you unblock me, Christina? Won’t you stop being stubborn and think about my offer, honey?” he said, leaning closer to me. I leaned away from him and slammed my bottle of Yuengling on the bar.
“You can stop with the pet names. You can just stop altogether, damn it,” I said in a low quiet voice. “My answer was given to you in a very clear and concise way and I’ve said all I want to say on the matter. Now go away, Terry, before I make a big scene making it look like you’re doing something untoward. You’re local. They know you and you’d forever be labeled a woman-harassing creep.”
Terry huffed at me and loudly got up from the bar and left me on my own. I smiled at the bartender, who was an older fellow that night, and continued my contemplative noshing.
About an hour later, I was walking back to the hotel. It was dark out, but there were a lot of lights keeping everything from being too creepy. I’d done this walk in the dark a few times and felt mostly secure. I still tried to stay aware of my surroundings and any people out and about, but mostly this was a mundane stroll through a parking lot.
“I think I’m getting an idea,” a voice said beside me.
I squealed and jumped, grabbing my chest to keep my heart from making a hasty retreat to one of the cars parked nearby. Grenadine was walking next to me companionably. I heard her before I saw her. She was walking around as Nummy Nellie again.
“Long time no see,” I muttered, resuming my walk and taking a calming breath. My evening just kept getting shittier and shittier.
“That wet blanket is complicating your life,” Grenadine said to me, looking straight ahead as we walked. “I knew that I was going to have to do something about him.”
“No!” I said, turning quickly and holding my hands out in a STOP motion. “Please don’t. He’s a mild problem at most and I think I’ve driven my point home to him. Please don’t do anything to that man. He’s a good person and he’s too handsome to go into that stew pot.”
“If you call that handsome,” she said, sneering.
“I do, actually. He’s pretty much perfect looking,” I said.
“And look what good it has gotten you,” she said.
“He’s not a bad man,” I said. “He’s annoying and he’s a bit of a gossip, but none of that paints him as bad. He doesn’t deserve to die.”
“I get to decide what he deserves. You’re not a good person, Christina. As much as you try to make people think you are, you are not an empathetic or concerned person at all. You care about a select few and the rest of the world can go straight to hell as far as you’re concerned. Look how cold you’re being to this idiot, Terry. He sincerely cares about you, and your reaction to that is to push him away from you so that you don’t have to be tied down by another man’s waning libido. Admit it, that’s what it is. They stay lively in the beginning, but then football season starts, beer guts start to pop out, and they start to go down to once a week, once a month, and then you find yourself locked in the bathroom watching porn on your phone and taking care of yourself in secret so that his fragile ego doesn’t take a hit. Isn’t t
hat right?”
“You’re picking out the worst of my thoughts,” I argued. I was in an arguing mood with the fairy and I should have known better. Was it her long absence? Was it her threat to Terry? It wasn’t smart, no matter the reason.
“I think things like that in my worst moments. Everybody has those, damn it. But I try to keep my chin up, especially where other people are concerned. I don’t really think those horrible things about all men. Isaac was one guy. I know that, I get it. I don’t want to be one of those people who have one bad experience and blame an entire demographic. Not all men are like Isaac. Not all men are cheating pigs. Not all men are sweet but bland like Terry. And I’m not a bad person walking around in a nice person disguise either! Maybe I disconnect myself a little too much sometimes, but for my own sanity, I don’t want to think too hard about what I’m writing about,” I said.
“Thou doth protest too much, Christina,” Grenadine said. “Deep down you know you’re not the nicest person. You do. I can see it in that head of yours. You know it.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, thinking. I was walking to the elevators in the hotel trailed by Nummy Nellie from hell, trying to look into my own soul to see if it was as dirty as the fairy was trying to say. I couldn’t see how caring for only a few people in my life made me bad. There simply wasn’t enough of me to care for every damned person I encountered. And the people I did care for? I’d die or kill for them.
“You’d kill for them, maybe. But I don’t think you’d die for them,” Grenadine said, listening in on my racing thoughts.
“Fear of death makes me bad?” I asked.
“There’s no nobility to you. I like you, but you’re a weak thing,” Grenadine answered.
“What does that even mean?” I said, punching the “3” in the elevator.
“Never mind, Christina,” Grenadine said patiently.
“Grenadine,” I said, using her name for the first time in conversation with her. She looked at me seriously.
“Please. Please don’t hurt Terry,” I pleaded.
“You care for him more than you let on?” she asked, mocking me.
“You know the answer to that,” I said, unlocking my room and letting her in before me.
“Yes, I do. So why all the fuss? How can you be bothered about his fate one way or another?” she asked.
“Because I don’t want to think about another person going into the awful pot of yours!” I yelled. “I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life about that fucking pot and what you did to Stephanie. And why Stephanie? I’ve done the research and Martin Hamrick and Matthew Hart were sort of horrible people. It’s not that I condone it, but they were bad. Why did Stephanie deserve that? Being manipulative and ambitious are not worthy of a death sentence.”
“You don’t get to question my motives, human,” Grenadine replied tartly. “And I’m being very indulgent with you in letting you give me your opinion on my favor to you. That’s what it would be, Christina. Getting Terry out of your hair would be me gracing you with good fortune. You don’t like him, he won’t go away on his own, so I’d make him.”
“That is not at all helpful to me in the long run,” I said, sinking into the arm chair by the bed. Grenadine paced nearby.
“Your long run should be my concern?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow at me.
“I didn’t say that! You’re the one so concerned with making sure this favor is perfect. Killing the guy I’ve been sleeping with isn’t going to help me. It’s going to complicate my life with having to answer questions and the most I would get is a small piece on the site where I could lament having known and worked with him. There’s no real help there. The real help that I need is being able to finish my work here and going home and I have no idea how that’s supposed to happen. Unless the police are huge dunderheads and pin these murders on some poor guy and arrest him and I can make it out like the killer has been arrested, this file will be open forever and listed as a mystery and that’s just not good for us,” I said, ranting.
I was just letting off steam. I was tired and I was cranky and I wanted more than anything to be done with the fairy and to go home to Anais. If I’d known that Grenadine was seriously listening to my words and not just dismissing me as a grump, I would have kept my damned mouth shut. Her eyes were twinkling, and a wide smile was breaking the sweetness of her Nummy Nellie face. I felt my skin go clammy at the sight and goose bumps prickled my entire body.
“Bingo,” she said, and I knew that I had fucked up in a very major way with my big fat mouth.
In an instant, I was no longer sitting in the semi-comfortable armchair in my hotel room, but rather I was sitting on a carpeted floor in someone’s living room. I was facing a small, flat screen television and I heard a man’s voice squawk in surprise behind me. I recognized the squawk. I closed my eyes and buried my face in my hands. This was not good. So not good.
I turned and saw Terry, who had been sitting in a big cozy looking recliner in his underwear before we popped in on him. Now he was crouched on the seat of the chair, looking at us with wide, panicked eyes. I couldn’t blame him. Grenadine’s popping in and out act scared the shit out of me too.
Grenadine wasn’t playing. Her adorable Nummy Nellie skin was gone, and Terry got an eyeful of the fairy in her true, oddly colored glory. He opened a drawer in the small table next to his chair and pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Grenadine. His eyes looked to me in panic. I’m certain that I looked as scared as I felt. I felt my chest heaving with my own panicked breathing as I watched Grenadine staring Terry down, advancing on him slowly.
“Christina,” Terry said to me, keeping his gun pointed steadily at Grenadine. “Honey, what is going on?”
“You just be silent now, little dog,” Grenadine said.
“Stay back,” Terry said. I marveled at how level he was being considering that it was obvious that we had startled him almost to the point of soggy shorts.
“And what exactly are you going to do if I don’t?” Grenadine asked. “Hmm?”
“I said stay back!” Terry screamed.
Grenadine kept advancing and Terry pulled the trigger, making me jump and cover my ears. Nothing happened. Grenadine wasn’t affected. Nothing behind her exploded into splinters or shards. There was a deafening bang, and then nothing. Terry looked at his gun in confusion and then fired another shot at the still-advancing fairy. Again, nothing.
He raised the gun to fire again, but Grenadine sped to him and knocked him into a sitting position on the chair, her crouching on his lap. He screamed as she lifted the hand holding the gun to her mouth and she neatly bit off his index finger. The gun fell away, and she pulled the finger from her mouth and examined it. Terry held his bleeding hand, panting heavily and staring into Grenadine’s black-eyed face.
“Give me that hand, little dog,” Grenadine soothed. “I need you unscathed so that you can be a proper favor to my sweet Christina.”
“Guns are so indelicate,” Grenadine continued. “I’d have respected you more had you come at me with a spoon. A gun is a baby blanket for insecure little boys who like to parade around as men. A man would know better.”
Guns are indelicate huh? I thought. And biting someone’s finger off isn’t?
“Be quiet!” Grenadine screamed at me. “Just keep your spineless opinions to yourself!”
Terry’s eyes shot to me, a look of horror on his face. I hadn’t said anything out loud and to him, Grenadine looked more unhinged than she actually was. I could see that he was about to speak, but before he could, Grenadine smashed his bitten finger back onto the stub on his hand and he screamed out in pain.
“Hush,” Grenadine soothed. “Healing is painful, human.”
Terry gritted his teeth and made pained noises for a few more seconds before Grenadine released his hand. He held it up in amazement, wiggling his index finger.
“What in God’s name…” he began.
“Look at me, dog,” Grenadine soot
hed.
I was still sitting on the floor watching this from about ten feet away. My point of view was of Grenadine’s back and Terry’s pale stricken face. When his eyes locked on Grenadine’s, I watched them lose all of their luster and shine, which was really very dramatic because his eyes had teared up a lot when his finger was bitten off. It was like watching a time-lapse video of a pond draining and drying out.
Terry convulsed, his back arching into Grenadine and he made a choking sound. Grenadine’s hand shot out and landed on his broad, bare chest. His eyes were still locked on hers, bulging and dimming at the same time. His face was turning purple. I got up from my seated position, keeping my distance but feeling panicked that Grenadine was killing him.
“Stop it!” I screamed. “Stop hurting him!”
Grenadine turned her head slightly so that I could see her face in profile. She was smiling.
Terry continued to struggle against her small hand on his chest for a moment more before he relaxed back into his cushy looking chair, panting. Grenadine reached out and lightly brushed a piece of hair off of his forehead. He didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were closed, and he had started sweating. Grenadine nimbly hopped off of his lap and took a seat on his equally cushy sofa, watching him intently. When he started whimpering, I went to him.
I knelt by his chair and reached out, touching his face. He was extremely hot, alarmingly so.
“What did you do to him?” I asked Grenadine. “He’s fevered. His brain will cook if he stays this hot!”
“Be quiet,” Grenadine said. “He’s not going to die. I’m not going to kill him.”
I looked over at her, startled. Confused. Relieved.
“I am sorry, though,” she continued. “For what’s about to happen to you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I was about to ask Grenadine what in the hell she was talking about when Terry’s hand shot out from his lap and grabbed a handful of my hair, yanking to the side so that my head wrenched down, my neck popping in a scary way.
