Retribution

by Shana Figueroa

  He knotted his brow, again considering how he should answer. “I don’t think they’re together anymore.”

  At this news Val’s tears leaked out. She cupped her head in her hands and quietly cried. She had ruined his life. She wouldn’t leave him alone, but wouldn’t be with him, either, and those decisions ended with him in the psych ward. After a minute she took a deep breath, lifted her head, and wiped her tears away. “You want me to apologize?”

  “No,” he said as if she’d suggested something ridiculous. “I want you to get him to talk.”

  “Talk to who?”

  “Anybody.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Listen, I don’t know if what he did was an accident or not. But now he’s stuck here, and the doctors won’t let him out until they’re sure he’s not a threat to himself or others. Problem is, he won’t talk to anyone—not me, or the doctors, or Abby. The only reason I’m here is because I’m still listed as his emergency contact. In that capacity, I called you. I know you two have…something. Something he doesn’t have with anybody else, not even Abby. Normally it wouldn’t be any of my business, but”—he lifted his hands—“here we are.”

  Val pulled at her hair. She wanted to talk to Max, but she didn’t know what to say. She feared she’d make things worse, though she wasn’t sure how that was possible.

  “Please,” Michael added, sensing her hesitation. “He’ll rot in here. You’re my last chance to convince him to save himself.”

  After a long pause in which Val considered what she or Max had left to lose, she nodded. She had to try. Michael gave her a weary smile, then exchanged words with the front desk clerk. A couple of minutes later, a nurse emerged from a Staff Only door and led Val into the main section of the ward.

  The part of the psychiatric hospital that actually housed all the patients looked similar to the lobby—soft light, pale wood with rounded edges, yellow walls. The only significant difference was the sea of blue hospital gowns and slumped shoulders that marked the patients. Most seemed lethargic, probably on sedatives. TVs dotted the periphery of the room. Val flinched when she spotted a photo of Margaret on one of the flat screens, a segment of a local news program in progress. She forced herself to look away, but the wound had already been salted.

  The nurse stopped and pointed to a spot along the far wall, next to a window. Max’s head poked up from a chair paired with an empty table, his black hair a sharp contrast with the pale blue gown that sagged off his body. He slouched in his seat, his back to her, unmoving. The nurse retreated to give them privacy.

  Taking slow, measured steps, Val circled around him until she could see his face. She gasped at the man in front of her. It was Max, but in the most broken state she’d ever seen him. The normal tan of his healthy skin had turned a sickly shade of white. His sharp cheekbones hollowed out his face, and dark rings circled his hazel eyes. He stared dully out the window, totally lost in his own thoughts.

  “Max?” Val said quietly.

  His gaze cut to hers and sharpened as his mind snapped back to the present. He sat up in his chair and hugged his chest. He didn’t seem sedated, thankfully. Just lost.

  “Hey,” he said. His voice sounded hoarse, she guessed from the tube they’d shoved down his throat to pump his stomach.

  “Hey,” she replied.

  Last time they’d exchanged greetings in a hospital, it’d been euphoric. After barely surviving a standoff with Norman, and then Sten, they’d been happy to be alive. Now, not so much. He squirmed under her gaze and looked away, as if he was embarrassed. Hell, Stacey had told Val she was a mess only a few hours ago, and she hadn’t bothered to clean up since. Max wasn’t alone in looking like shit warmed over.

  Val took a chair adjacent to Max at the table. “Michael called me.”

  “Oh.”

  “He’s really worried.”

  Max didn’t respond. He glanced at her bandaged elbow but didn’t ask about it. She searched for the right words while he ran his fingers along a scratch on the table’s surface. Both his hands had bandages wrapped around his palms.

  “What happened to your hands?” she asked.

  “Cuts,” he said flatly.

  “How did that happen?”

  “Glass.”

  On purpose, or accident? Were the cuts deep? Were they serious? So many questions she wanted to ask, things she wanted to say that clawed at her throat to get out. But he was the one who needed to talk, not her. “Will you have scars?”

  He responded with a slight shrug. A minute of silence passed where she picked at her own bandage around her elbow. Her heartbeat steadily increased as a howl tried to work its way up from her chest. Maybe she could hug him, or hold his hand. Just touch him. God, she wanted to fold him into her arms with every fiber of her being. But she couldn’t. He clearly didn’t want her there, no matter what Michael thought.

  Without lifting his eyes from the table’s marred surface, he said, “I’m sorry about Margaret. I saw it on the news.”

  Val gave her head a tiny shake. “We…tried.” She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming.

  “And I’m sorry about what happened at the Mountain Lodge. I”—he swallowed; it looked painful—“overreacted.”

  He still wouldn’t look at her. His hands shook and his shoulders stiffened as if he nursed a secret ball of pain. She realized he must be going through serious withdrawal, feeling terrible nausea and aching. But he didn’t mention it. She wanted to cry for him, to wail and gnash and scream at the world in his place, if it would lessen his own agony. She’d even make a scene in the middle of the ward if he asked her to, or if she thought it would do any good. But instead he sat there, saying nothing. Maybe the direct approach would work better.

  “Why are you here?” Val asked, her light tone a contrast to the weight of her words.

  “I like the chocolate pudding they serve.”

  She spat out a laugh, delighted for a fleeting moment by his small attempt at levity even if he’d only said it to dodge her question. He didn’t return her smile. His mouth stayed locked in a frown.

  Val rested her hand next to his on the table, the familiar desire to touch him nearly overwhelming, as always. She drummed her fingers instead. So far, she was doing a shit job of convincing him to save himself. “How long are you going to stay here?”

  He looked at her hand, still avoiding her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  He wasn’t talking. Val had to talk. What was she going to say? Whatever it was inside her trying to get out, she couldn’t delay it any longer.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about what happened to me.” She took a labored breath, her heart thumping hard. “It wasn’t fair of me to ask for your help and then keep you in the dark about all the…details.”

  Max finally met her eyes, though his face remained impassive.

  “I didn’t tell you because—”

  Because it wasn’t any of your business. Because I didn’t want you to pity me. Because I didn’t want you to freak out. Because I didn’t want to ruin your perfect life.

  “Because I love you.” The words tumbled out, and the dam broke. “I love you and I can’t stop loving you. I tried to move on like you had, but I couldn’t. It’s divine irony, I guess, since I’m the one who pushed you away. But I was weak and I couldn’t deal with the knowledge that there would always be people watching us, waiting for us to have children that would be ripped from us.” Val wiped away tears that had escaped down her cheeks. “And you seemed happy with your new life. I meant it when I said you deserve to be happy. I didn’t want you to lose that, because of me. But I guess I’d misjudged how happy you actually were.” She glanced around the mental ward, full of fake comfort. “So…so I can’t help but think that if I hadn’t pushed you away in the first place, none of the stuff with Lucien and the Blue Serpent and…this place would’ve happened. We might’ve saved Margaret together.” She took a trembling breath. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m tired of flailing thr
ough life. I feel lost, like I want to go home.”

  Val looked at him then. She’d told him everything, even the things she hadn’t been able to admit to herself until that moment. His passive frown was gone, and though he wasn’t smiling, his eyes had come alive with a dozen different emotions. He didn’t just look at her; he looked into her as she bared her soul to him.

  “Come home, Max.” She touched the top of his hand with her fingertips. Goose bumps popped up around his hospital bracelet. “With me.”

  A savory warmth spread through her body at allowing herself this simple, honest contact. Finally, she offered him everything she had to give. She should’ve done it months ago, in his hospital room after Sten had shot him, when she’d laid her head down on his chest and realized she truly loved him.

  Max looked into her for a long time, the new flood of emotions making his face unreadable. Desperation crept into her heart. She’d experienced a lot of terrible things in her life and come out the other side battered but still standing, even if just barely. But if he decided to stay in the psych ward, it would truly break her.

  His arm moved, and for a frantic second she thought he might yank it away as he’d done at their first meeting in Wicked Brew. Instead he turned his hand over so his bandaged palm faced up and pressed against hers. His fingers slid across the inside of her wrist and gripped her tight; she gripped him back. Then he smiled, an upturn of his lips so slight it might’ve gone unnoticed to anyone else, but she saw it touch his eyes.

  “Okay,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Max told the doctors whatever they wanted to hear. Most of it was a lie: I accidentally overdosed. I’ve never had a drug problem before. I didn’t like my father, but I was sad when he died. No, nothing else in my past is worth mentioning. Some of it was the truth: I became addicted to pain pills after I was shot last year. My fiancée and I had a fight. I was upset. I overreacted, but I’m better now. Val visited him in the hospital every day for as long as they’d let her stay, and though they never talked about anything too serious—they were never really alone, after all—he felt his mood drastically improving, his will to live returning. After three more days of psychotherapy and observations, the doctors told him he could leave. They needed his bed for someone with real problems, not a rich guy piddling away his dad’s inheritance on expensive drugs.

  Michael brought him some regular clothes to change into so he didn’t have to walk out the door wearing the tuxedo he’d been brought in with, now covered in blood, sweat, and vomit. Max tossed the suit in a trash can next to the vending machine, not at all sad he’d never wear it again. The hospital was nice enough to let him leave out a semi-secret exit, one they reserved for celebrities—usually rock stars—who needed to sneak out the back. Paparazzi stalked the front entrance, waiting for him to emerge so they could shove cameras in his face and scream questions at him. They knew about the fight at the museum, his arrest, the split with his fiancée (an anonymous source confirmed, of course), the emergency trip to the hospital, the extended stay at the psych ward. It was a story too salacious not to relentlessly pursue. And if they saw him leave with Val, the PI he’d hired last year when he’d been suspected of murder…The Internet explosion would reverberate for weeks.

  Max waited inside by the window next to the secret exit. He clenched his eyes shut as a wave of nausea came and went. Though withdrawal symptoms still plagued him, they eased with each passing day. The achiness throughout his body subsided, nausea came less often, and the pill cravings ebbed. He’d kicked a serious heroin habit in his early twenties, so he knew he could get through it if he was motivated enough. And now he had a reason to face his demons once more instead of ignoring the problem.

  Through the window, Max saw Michael’s black sedan drive up to the curb. He pulled his baseball cap down over his face and hustled out the door, slipping into Michael’s passenger seat without spotting any reporters.

  Michael clapped Max on the shoulder and smiled. “Free at last.”

  Something like that. Max returned his smile with a weak grin. He was out, but not content, not until he went home. And home was wherever Val was.

  He heard a familiar whining and looked in the backseat. A small suitcase sat on the driver’s side, filled with what Max assumed were clothes and toiletries to tide him over until he bought new ones or went back to his condo on his own. Behind Max, Toby spun in circles inside a dog carrier. Through holes in the side, Toby’s dark eyes met his, and the dog barked. The carrier began to vibrate with the strength of Toby’s wagging tail.

  “He tried to bite me when I picked him up,” Michael said as he pulled away from the hospital. “Mean little bastard.”

  “Abby didn’t want him?”

  “She said he was your dog.” Michael snickered. “I believe it.”

  Max looked at his hands, both palms covered with a large Band-Aid. He hadn’t needed stitches, thankfully. Keeping his head down not so much out of fear of reporters as out of shame, he asked, “How was she?”

  They turned onto the highway. “Not happy, but not terrible. She didn’t lay into you as badly as she could have. She’s strong, she’ll move on. I don’t think she’ll bad-mouth you to the press.”

  Max didn’t care about what she said to the press, but it did assuage his guilt a little to know he hadn’t crushed her. Maybe she finally realized what a terrible boyfriend and fiancé he’d actually been.

  “I’d be worried about her father, though, if I were you. You know how us moneyed types are—vindictive.”

  Max suppressed a laugh at the thought of Patrick trying to ruin him. He imagined Abby’s father shaking his fist and vowing to take every penny Max had in revenge for his daughter, not knowing it wasn’t possible. Max was almost tempted to let him, just so Patrick could feel some kind of satisfaction and move on. Abby would know it was useless, though. Max’s ability provided him with essentially infinite money. It was all he had—that, and Val.

  And Val. Max lifted his head and let the sun warm his face. He closed his eyes and smiled. I have Val. Well, he also had Michael—and Toby, too, for whatever that was worth. At that moment the world didn’t seem so bad, and he felt stupid for trying to leave it too soon.

  Michael spoke again. “Also, remember when I said the job offer from the board was good for as long as you needed to think about it, or until you got arrested? I was joking about that second part, but then you actually got yourself arrested, so…”

  Max’s mouth twitched into a crooked smile. “That’s all right. Walmart’s always hiring.”

  “But here’s the deal—they still want you, but they don’t want you to be a public figure in the company again. On the books, you’d be a regular Joe Schmo financial analyst, but paid about ten times more than normal.” Michael glanced at Max, saw his cocked eyebrow. “They still want your magic, just not the liability.”

  Michael hadn’t asked him why he attacked Lucien, or about his drug addiction, or his time in the psych ward. But he’d helped Max anyway, and hadn’t asked for anything in return. It didn’t seem normal.

  “What do you want me to do?” Max asked.

  “I want you to get better.”

  “I mean about the job.”

  “I mean I don’t give a rat’s ass about the job, Max. You need to focus on fixing whatever is wrong inside of you.”

  For a moment Max wondered if Michael could be part of the cabal of people Val swore conspired to manipulate them. Lester had pulled Max’s strings all his life, using his familial loyalty to trick him into accepting things no sane person would tolerate. He wouldn’t fall for it again. “Why do you care what happens to me?”

  Michael threw up a hand, palm up, exasperated by Max’s stubbornness. “Because you need a father.”

  Max waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t, and then the words sank in. You need a father—one in the classical sense, Leave It to Beaver style. One that cared. The concept was so foreign to Max he wasn’t sure how t
o react. But a key part of loving someone, he was beginning to realize, is that you told them the truth. So he started there.

  “If the board thinks I’m some kind of financial prodigy, they’re wrong,” Max said. “I can see the future—literally.”

  Michael gave him the side-eye. He probably thought he misunderstood.

  “Specifically, I can see pieces of the future, mostly financial information. That’s why Carressa Industries did so well when I worked there.”

  Michael opened his mouth to say something, but his jaw hung instead. His eyes stayed glued to the road. He didn’t know what to say, and Max didn’t blame him. No one ever believed him at first.

  “I know I just came from a mental hospital, ironically, but I’m not insane. I’d prove it to you, but the mechanics of it are, uh, complicated. I’m telling you because it’s an important, if unfortunate, part of who I am.” He choked out a mirthless laugh. “God, it’s pretty much defined my entire fucking life.”

  Michael nodded slowly, his eyes still on the road. “Okay,” he said like a man trying to placate a crazy person.

  “You don’t have to believe me now. Just promise that if something happens to me, you’ll look after Val. She’ll need your help, like you’ve helped me.” He took a breath, and hoped to God he wasn’t wrong to trust Michael. “Because she can do it, too.”

  Now he’d really spilled the beans. Michael looked at him, assessing, measuring, judging. A deep frown pulled his face down. “I promise I’ll help Val if something happens to you.”

  If I get committed to the loony bin again, he meant. At least Michael didn’t immediately turn around and take him back to the psych ward. It was the best reaction he could’ve hoped for under the circumstances. He flicked on the radio. “So…how about them Mariners?”

  Michael’s somber face broke and he laughed.

  After a few more miles they left the highway and cut through a swath of suburbia until they reached a public park. Michael drove toward the back, to the head of a running trail dense with evergreen trees, out of sight of the main road. A jolt of anticipation shot through him when he recognized Val’s blue Honda Civic parked at the end of the lot. This was it, finally.