Jake couldn’t wait any longer. He grabbed Jaina by the arm and dragged her down the hallway. She tried to stop as they stepped around the guard, but he pulled harder, almost taking her off her feet.
“Remind me to vomit later,” Jaina said. “Jesus, my head is spinning. Do you hear that?”
“No,” Jake said. “Come on, the smart money has Dani and Aza in the burn ward.”
“The burn— Oh, Peter,” Jaina said.
Jake nodded and picked up his pace. Something Aza had said through the nurse, Pam, had struck him. He’d nearly forgotten about Peter. Not truly forgotten, but with tracking down Aza and Dani, Jake had taken for granted his son’s vulnerable state. Jake had left him in good care, but if he’d learned anything, it was that no one was safe.
Jake and Jaina rounded the corner at breakneck speed and tripped over another body. Jake hit the tile floor and popped right up in a crouch, ready to fight.
“Jesus Christ,” Jaina said, rolling aside and struggling to her feet. She was more blood than not. It was impossible to tell what of it was hers. “She…looks like she was shot. Jake…?”
The body belonged to the nurse he’d known as Pam, though that was only half the story. She was clearly dead, a neat hole punched in the middle of her forehead, a slick of blood pooled underneath her head.
Jaina’s eyes went to Jake’s pistol as he held it readied at his side. He hastily stuffed it into his waistband. “Of course not,” he said. “Now, let’s go. Whatever is keeping the response teams at bay won’t hold forever, and God only knows what Aza is up to.”
“Shit, you’re right. Which way?”
“Upstairs,” Jake said.
A little further on, they passed an elevator. Jake knew it wouldn’t be functional during the lockdown, so he shouldered into the stairwell. Luckily, the door opened. The air was stale and musty. The concrete stairs felt slick beneath his feet as he started climbing.
Jaina said nothing as she followed after him, but Jake couldn’t get what she’d said out of his head. Looks like she was shot. Jake hadn’t shot the nurse, Pam. He remembered wanting to, just to shut off Aza’s voice coming from her lips, but he hadn’t done it. He’d heard Jaina scream and left Pam standing in the place they’d later found her, dead. You’re down three rounds, he said to himself. He couldn’t ignore that, either. Three bullets missing. One went into the dark thing, creating another mindfuck all on its own. The others… Jake shook his head and rounded the fourth-floor landing. Aza could make a man see things that didn’t exist. Hear things that weren’t real. She seemed capable of controlling damn near anyone, but she hadn’t gotten to him. Not in that way. He was stronger.
Drip, drip, drip.
Jake tripped and fell, sprawling face-first onto another landing. There was a metallic tang in the air now, mingling with the astringent scent of cleaning chemicals. It felt like he had a mouthful of nickels.
“I got you,” Jaina said, struggling to pull him off the floor.
Jake stood and rubbed his wrists.
Jaina put her hands on her knees. “You…all right?” she asked between deep breaths.
Jake was panting, too, and bathed in sweat. It mixed with the blood on his torso and together it all ran to soak into his pants. He checked the placard for the floor they’d stopped on. Thirteen.
He couldn’t remember climbing from the fourth to the thirteenth, but it didn’t matter. Somewhere in the mire, he’d found clarity. “Here,” he said, slowly nudging open the door.
“How can you be sure? It’s a huge hospital.”
“Aza’s a predictable and superstitious little bitch. Trust me.”
“The motel room…” Jaina said.
“Exactly.”
Jake looked through the narrow gap in the door he’d opened. Jaina crouched down and did the same. Jake could still smell blood and cleaner and piss and sweat, but couldn’t see anyone or anything.
“Everyone left behind is hiding, yeah?” Jaina asked. “Because of the lockdown.”
“That’s the idea, but we need to go about this smartly. I’m not exactly in my Sunday best.”
Jaina laughed, but quickly covered her mouth.
“Yeah, hilarious,” Jake said. “This is your blood I’m covered in, by the way.” One more thing that doesn’t make a bit of sense, he thought.
Jaina pulled away and stood up. “Well, let’s get on with it then.”
Jake took a deep breath and pulled the door open. He stood in the doorway, scanning the empty hallway.
Drip, drip, drip.
Jake looked down to watch his own blood once more flowing from the wound on his forearm. It smacked off the tile floor with a cacophonous echo. Each drop sent a spike of pain from temple to temple.
“Jake?” Jaina’s voice asked from a darkness Jake hadn’t noticed.
He grabbed for her hand and shook the darkness away. His vision resettled. “Yeah. Fine,” he said with a grimace. “Just lack of…well, everything at this point. Come on, this way.”
“How do you know?” Jaina asked.
Jake pointed at the trail of burning footprints that ran down the center of the hallway and followed after them. Aza had been barefoot when he’d found her at the Regency Motel. He remembered that, having offered to carry the girl to his squad car. Her response echoed in his head as he chased after footprints that the rational part of his mind knew shouldn’t exist. Pain is the only thing that reminds me I’m alive, even though I know that’s just another lie.
Part of him still wanted to save her. Part of him knew he needed to kill her.
Jake rounded the first corner, eyes glued to the footprints lest they vanish if he were to look away.
Don’t worry, Jake had told Aza on that rainy night. We’ll get through this. Together.
Aza, still staring at the wreckage that had been room 13 of the Regency Motel, said plainly, Your promise is your curse. For now we are bound like smoke to the flame. Where you are, I shall be also.
Jake hadn’t known what to make of it at the time, or anything else she’d said. The ramblings of a traumatized child. But she’d been right. Joined they were, he and Aza, through means that defied explanation. Even now, following impossible footprints of flickering flame, Jake knew he was headed for disaster. No, not disaster. Tragedy. In name and in practice, that was what Aza was. Whether driven by psychosis or supernatural means, the end was always the same. He was doomed. And though it was disguised by his delirium, he knew Dani was doomed as well. He could change the story, but the ending would remain unchanged.
“We should be close,” Jaina said. “We just passed room nineteen, and they’ve been going down in this hallway. Maybe at the—”
The lights went off.
Jake stumbled to a stop. He blinked, wondering if he had fallen asleep. The longer he forced himself to stay awake, the longer everything felt like a dream.
“Shit,” Jaina said as she bumped into Jake. “Do you think she knows we’re close?”
“Yes,” Jake said.
“Hey, do you hear that?”
Jake’s eyes adjusted, but it was still difficult to see more than a few feet in front of him. Why weren’t the emergency lights turning on?
“Sounds like…singing,” Jaina said. She walked past Jake. “This way.”
Jake followed, but he couldn’t hear anything beyond the incessant dripping of his own blood. Leaving a trail. Mixing with the burning footprints. Joining them in their journey.
Jaina stopped and pointed at a closed door. Jake didn’t need to look at the plastic marker on the wall beside it to know it was the 13th room on the 13th floor. Aza wasn’t going after Peter in the burn ward. That had been a smoke screen. Aza was in room 13. Predictable bitch.
“I don’t hear the singing anymore,” Jaina whispered.
Drip, drip, drip.
The sound echoed with a maddening volume, disorienting Jake. But through all of it, one thing remained clear. He grabbed the door handle and charged into the room.
“Daddy!” a voice shouted from the far corner, obscured by shadows.
Her voice centered Jake and abolished the sound of his mortality. “Dani!” Jake shouted.
Dani burst from the corner and met Jake near the foot of the lone bed in the room. She wrapped her arms around him and Jake nearly collapsed with relief. He hugged her back tight enough to illicit a squeak and then he squeezed harder.
It was brighter in room 13 than it had been in the hallway. The blinds were open, letting in a mix of white moonlight and a strobe of reflected blue and red. He pulled back to look at his daughter. She smiled back at him.
“Are you all right? Where’s Aza?” he asked.
“Who’s Aza?” Dani asked.
Jake was about to correct himself when he saw the small shape resting on the hospital bed. He’d been so consumed by reuniting with Dani, that he hadn’t seen her at first.
“Aza,” he said, pulling away from Dani to loom over the still girl.
“She’s sick, Daddy,” Dani said, moving to his side and grabbing Aza’s hand.
Jake took Dani by the shoulders and practically threw her away from the bed. “Stay away from her,” he said.
“She’s my friend,” Dani said.
“She’s a monster,” Jake said, turning back to Aza. She wasn’t moving. He couldn’t be sure she was even alive. “Dani, I need you to turn around. Cover your ears and shut your eyes.”
“Why? Because you want to kill her?” Dani asked.
Jake was startled by the uncanny accusation. He turned to look at Dani. She had her arms folded across her chest.
“That is what you’re going to do, isn’t it, Daddy?” Dani asked. “I mean, you’ve been talking about it for, like, ever. Putting a bullet in her head.”
Dani cocked her head to the side and a cold shock ran up Jake’s spine. “How could you know that?” he asked, but then quickly shook his head. He couldn’t fall into Aza’s trap. She wanted to confuse him, make him doubt his mission, twist his perception. “Doesn’t matter. This ends now.”
Jake reached for his pistol and found it missing.
“Nothing ends,” Jaina said from behind him as the cold barrel of a pistol pressed into the back of Jake’s head. “Endings are illusions that give the foolish a desire to act. A reason to live. But nothing ends.”
Jake slowly turned in place to face his new adversary. Jaina looked back, staring down the sights of the pistol she must have lifted from his waistband at some point. He’d been a fool to trust her. When even his own thoughts were unstable, how could he trust another person?
“How long?” he asked.
Jaina smirked.
“How long have you been in there, Aza?” Jake asked.
“Aza, Aza, Aza,” Jaina said. “It’s always been about that girl with you. Such a narrow-minded way to see the world. You’re limiting yourself, Jake. And it’s really fucking pathetic.”
“How long have—wait, what’d you just call me?” Jake’s head was spinning so quickly that something broke loose. Now, it rattled around in his subconscious.
“Jake,” Jaina said. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
“Aza calls me DS Anderson,” Jake said.
“Again with Aza!” Jaina shouted. She pressed the barrel of the pistol against Jake’s forehead hard enough to force him to take a step backward.
Jake reached feebly behind him without looking away from Jaina. “Dani?”
A hand took his. “Daddy?”
“You hear that?” Jake asked. “Daddy. She’s not calling me DS Anderson, either.”
“If it’s not one name, it’s another with you,” Jaina said. “Names are meaningless. Would it make you feel better if I called you by your expired title?”
“Well, that’s just it,” Jake said. “Names do mean something. A lot, actually. The names you and Dani are using tell me enough to know that it isn’t Aza that’s controlling you, at least not fully. It tells me that part of you—the real you—is still in there. Dani, too.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re impossible,” Jaina said.
“There! Right there!” Jake shouted. “That’s Jaina talking.”
“Shut the fuck up, Jake. Or DS Anderson. Or Daddy. Or whatever the fuck you want me to call you,” Jaina said. “Just shut up and move.” Jaina backed up and opened the door, gun still trained on Jake’s forehead. She gestured to the hallway.
“No,” Jake said.
“Excuse me?” Jaina asked.
“Jaina, I know you’re in there,” he said. He was putting all his chips on the table. Going all in. Fuck himself for waiting so long. “Aza’s a psychotic little demon-bitch, but I know you’re still in there. You need to fight her. She’s making you feel things that aren’t real. Do things you don’t want to do.”
“How do you know what I want?” Jaina asked.
“I know you want more than I’ve given you,” Jake said. “You’re right about my obsession with Aza. I see that now. It was…I don’t even have a word for it. But it wasn’t what you deserved.”
“You used me,” Jaina said. “From the very beginning.”
“You’re right, I did. And that was really fucking shitty of me. But I do care about you and I think I have since we met, even if I was too consumed to see it. Please, Jaina, whatever hate and anger Aza is making you feel right now, push past it. Listen to what I’m telling you. Wrong place and wrong time, I know, but, Jaina…I love you.”
Jaina recoiled slightly, enough to give Jake hope he’d gotten through to her. The gun lowered from being aimed at his forehead to his chest, then to his gut.
“Jake?” Jaina asked.
His eyes followed the gun as it lowered further. “Yeah?” he asked, looking up, into her eyes, feeling relief begin to blossom.
“Fools beg for mercy, while the strong face their judgment head-on,” Jaina said.
Then she pulled the trigger. The gunshot was deafening in such close confines. Something hit Jake’s legs and he stumbled back, disoriented by the shot. He hit the ground and saw it was Dani that he’d tripped over. Her mouth was open in a silent scream as she clutched her right foot. The moonlight and emergency strobes flickered off blood and tears.
“Dani!” Jake shouted, his own voice sounding muffled after the gunshot.
He shielded her and tried to look at her foot, but she wouldn’t let him and fought off his prodding.
“Next one will be higher,” Jaina said.
Keeping his body between Jaina and Dani, Jake turned. “What is your problem?! Jesus, Jaina, I’m sorry for stringing you along in all this, but…fuck! This is my daughter.”
“I’ll say it one more time,” Jaina said, waving at the open doorway. “Move.”
“It’s okay, Daddy,” Dani said. “You go with your friend. I’ll watch mine.”
“I’d listen to the little whelp if I were you,” Jaina said.
Jake stood up and moved toward the door. He stopped next to Jaina as she retrained the gun on his face. “Maybe you think you’re in control, but that little girl,” Jake said, pointing back at Aza, “is playing you like a fucking fiddle. You’re nothing but a sad, little puppet.”
Jaina said nothing. She stepped behind him and herded him into the hallway at gunpoint. She smacked him on the left side of the head with the gun barrel.
“This way, I suppose,” he said.
She prodded him along with further jabs to the skull.
“So what’s the big plan, huh?” Jake asked near the end of the hallway. “I don’t see the need for such a long walk if you’re just going to kill me. Fact is, I may just sit down right here. Take a nice nap.”
Jaina laughed. “You’re not going to die, that I can promise you. However, it is very likely that everyone else you care for will, so I’d ease up on the wisecracks.”
“Ease up? Is that some sort of joke? You shot my daughter, you fucking marionette. And don’t think for a second this won’t end horribly for you. If I don’t kill you, Aza will make
damn sure you find misery all the same.”
“Quit whining. Your precious daughter is alive. As is your son. And soon, he’ll be even better than just alive.”
“Peter?” Jake asked. “Is that where you’re taking me? Is that what this is about?”
Jaina cuffed his ear with the butt of her pistol. “Jesus, you’re dense, Jake. It’s not about you! It’s not about your daughter. It’s not about your fucking son. Pieces of the puzzle, but not the puzzle itself.”
Jake almost turned to fight his captor head-on, but a figure jumped out from a doorway not five feet from Jake. “Drop the gun, get on the floor, and pray that I don’t shoot you,” the figure behind the barrel of the tactical shotgun said.
“Bekah?” Jake asked, squinting against the gloom.
“Drop the gun or I’ll drop you,” DS Grimly said. “Lord knows I want to.”
If it weren’t for the gun DS Grimly was pointing at him, Jake might have hugged her. Instead, he looked over his shoulder and said, “I’d listen to her if I were you, you psychotic bitch. She can be quite brash if pushed to it.”
Jaina pressed her pistol hard against the back of Jake’s neck and leaned in over his shoulder until her lips brushed against his ear as she said, “When you know only lies, they become your truth, DS Anderson.”
Jake whirled at that and brought up his elbow in an attempt to strike Jaina in the head. His arm hit nothing but air, and the movement, combined with the slick of blood beneath his feet, sent Jake to the floor.
DS Grimly stepped forward and kicked aside Jake’s pistol. He watched it skitter across the tile floor and bounce off a wall.
“It’s over, Jake,” DS Grimly said.
“Nothing ends,” Jake said without thinking.
“Get up,” DS Grimly said.
Jake climbed to his knees and spun back and forth, searching the dark hallway. “I know you have an axe to grind with me, but Jaina’s the one you should be after. Aza, too. She’s in room thirteen with Dani. Shit, Dani!” Jake jumped up, but then was sent sprawling again as DS Grimly hit him in the head with the butt of her shotgun.
Dear Tragedy: A Dark Supernatural Thriller (House of Sand Book 2) Page 23
