“They’re the only family I have. I lied about Florida out of habit honestly. If it helps, I hated lying to you.” I swore I heard him mutter next that he hated himself for lying to me. I might have imagined it though.
Our eyes caught for a moment before he continued. “My family and I are very secretive. It’s rare we tell anyone anything about ourselves including everything from where we live to what we do and all the how’s and why’s involved. You’re different though. I give you my word I will not lie to you again. There’s no point in that. Not with you.” He sighed, “Don’t move. Don’t talk.”
Lidocaine numbed it but if it hadn’t been for the Vicodin I would not have been a very pleasant patient. While he worked, I focused on the lyrics to Devil’s Gift and then Broken Dreams. Another favorite for obvious reasons.
Once he was done, he cleaned it with iodine and added more of the numbing gel to my lip. It made it a lot harder to speak for sure. “What about Riads? Why work there?” It didn’t sound very clear but he understood me at least. This part was more like “wha bou riahs wha wok da”
“To be closer to you. The job was no thrill but it had its perks. You wouldn’t talk to me with my just coming in as a customer. Remember, I tried that.” He continued to tend to me. Taking Medi pads and alcohol to clean every speck of blood from my chest up. He was appropriate. My thoughts weren’t but I kept them silent thank god. I blamed them on the Vicodin.
“How could I forget? Did you know about me before you started coming in as a customer?” We’re done translating now, you get the picture. It was dumbfounding that he understood me at all.
Even after he had cleaned the blood away from my lip it still drizzled slightly from my mouth as I spoke. I believed I’d bitten my tongue and cheek quite badly. No stitching that. I’d succeeded in swallowing before the Lidocaine. He handed my some sort of thick gauzy pad. I held it to my mouth between speaking.
Damien’s chest was heaving even harder than mine was. Every time he looked at me he almost cringed. It made me want to die all the more. It was amazing how despite all this I was feeling self-conscious. Pathetic really, isn’t it?
Maybe the sight of blood just grossed him out like Paul. Well if that was the case, then we were doomed from ever having any relationship. Too bad my gut told me that wasn’t quite the case. Unexpectedly he turned his head away from me. It was hard to tell if he was coughing or laughing.
“Did I stalk you, you mean? No, not hardly. You watch too many bad movies.” Damien’s laugh was halfhearted and bitter as he carefully wiped away any missed blood off my face.
It never registered at the time as to why but every cloth stained by my blood Damien quickly tossed into the fire.
Damien laughed slightly again. His shoulders slumped sadly as he did. “Well, one day I was just driving through on my way to New York and I saw you walking up the side walk to Riads. It was like something switched on inside of me. I wanted to meet you.” Explaining this wasn’t easy. His eyes tightened and refused to meet mine.
“That night you waited on me and then meeting you wasn’t enough. I had to know you. From then on every time I saw you it felt like you were just a big magnet pulling me in closer. Before long the only answer to me seemed to be to get a job there.” His shoulders came up in a heavy though seemingly casual shrug. Sure, that was totally normal non-stalker behavior. He smirked. “It worked.”
Brow lifting, my lips twisted into an unconvinced pucker. “That sounds an awful lot like stalking. Wait, you were passing through on your way to New York? What about the house? And where are my clothes?”
His lips twisted into a smirk as he snickered slightly. Pulling from the couch, he sat up on his knees and unrolled his sleeves. His fingers started at the second button from the top and pulled each one loose.
It was hard not to stare at his chest in the light of the fire. His shirt as usual was some expensive button up. He never tucked them in, nor buttoned them all the way and usually his cuffs were rolled to his elbows. Somehow he made it look so sexy, that to see someone in a tie looked wrong even if he too was wearing something as nice as the high dollar brands Damien wore.
His broad sculpted shoulders rolled back shrugging out of the shirt fluidly before he turned back to me. “Your clothes were wet and muddy. I didn’t want you to catch a cold. Figured you had enough to deal with.” His skin was as pale as mine, something that I hadn’t really noticed before. Each muscle was even more sculpted than I had imagined from his bare chest right on down to his low abs. Every muscle was a tightly woven cord winding through his body.
Gently his hands slid around my shoulders and lifted me to sit up. As if I forgot to breathe, I had to catch my breath when he touched my bare skin. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck pricked and tingled as his hands brushed down my arms guiding my hands in through the sleeves slowly. It hurt my left arm quite a bit. Nevertheless, I kept the pain silently to myself.
As the blanket fell to my lap, he slid the shirt slowly up my arms, the cuffs left to hang past my fingers. The fabric tickled the goose bumps on my arms. It almost felt like silk it was so soft. “Give me your hand, I can roll them up.” The smell was just as overwhelming, it was him but wrapped around me in a druggy euphoria. Of course, that could also have been partially due to the narcotics.
“I like it this way.” With my cheeks blazing crimson my fingers re-buttoned the more important buttons but didn’t bother with the rest.
Twisting myself so I could relax into the back of the couch, he kept facing sideways leaning closer to me. We did act like magnets. It was a strange thing to realize and almost made me feel self-conscious. Slowly but surely we’d maneuvered to where we were leaning closer and closer to one another.
“The house? I bought the day I decided to start at Riads. Before then, I was staying at the Residence Inn.” Damien’s arm lay over the high backside behind me.
“Thank you.” I mumbled out faintly while my fingers wound spirals through the long locks of my damp and tangled hair.
Damien gave a light nod. “I know you’re tired, Anna. You should try to get some rest.” He was right of course. My body was more spent than I was willing to admit. I couldn’t keep up with the thoughts anymore, my mind was spinning so fast.
A blur of emotions and questions sent me into a complete dizzy. I did not want to sleep. Not now. If I slept now I would dream for one thing which was never a good option in my opinion. For another, my mind surely could not slow enough to even allow me to close my eyes even for a second at this point.
Damien brought me back to attention with another sigh. His hand came up to brush the stray hairs from my face and pull my hand out of a tangled braid my fingers were absently weaving. Damien’s other hand came up taking the fidgeting fingers into his as his arm replaced around my shoulders gently pulling me to lie down against him.
Mumbling with a halfhearted laugh, “Sleep is for the dead.” I could not resist him even if I had wanted to. My head found his thigh and just as my cheek lay onto him my eyes were already closed.
“Trust me, the dead don’t sleep, Anna.” Damien ran his hand through my hair.
Mumbling already near unconsciousness I argued futilely, “Sleep is for the weak then.”
XI
“SERVING OF SANITY”
Running as fast as I could, I flew through a thicket of bush and shrub tangled with briar and angry thorn vines. The sounds of the crackling twigs crunched and snapped beneath my bare feet as I moved. They shredded my skin as I fought past them. Feeling each individual slice rip into my flesh with the burn of acid. Panting out each gust of smoke like vapor in my rush, my breath was thick in the air. Coming to a sudden halt in the middle of the field I turned to see behind me. Turn to see what it was that I was running from. I heard nothing. No one chasing me. I saw no beast following. I stood motionless squinting to see through the fog for the danger. Through the night I saw what looked to be a tiny black house with a dull orange glow from the inside. I stood
there panting. Staring for what felt like forever, like I was trying to see more. Or maybe I was frozen in fear. It was then I realized the orange glow was getting bigger. The glow was no normal light. The house was burning. The fog was smoke. I felt pricks begin to scrape against my skin again, dragging around my ankles. Instinctively I started trying to pull my feet away and run but it was too late. Looking down I saw the wicked black thorn vines had wrapped and tangled my legs entirely and were pierced deep into my flesh. They drug me down against my will and proceeded to enwrap my entire body. Screaming as I was being pulled, the vines were pulling me in the direction of the burning house. I was going to burn. No matter how much I fought, it just made it worse. They fought harder. Wrapping me tighter. Digging in deeper.
The strangest part was I could hear the song from the Jeep playing all the while.
That night I burned. It wasn’t the first time but it lasted longer than most. This one had been a fighter. It wasn’t the girl who died but a young boy. We all suffered his pain of death.
* * * * *
I couldn’t be sure what woke me. The sensation of a dreamed death, or my own violently pounding heart. With a jolt, I woke. My breath was raspy, heavy and accelerated and my body ached terribly.
The darkness of night from the large window told me as usual I had not slept long. Before now, I had not registered a single feature of the house. The window its self was barren with not a curtain or gossamer shall but nearly as large as the wall itself.
Every muscle in my body throbbed and ached alerting me to the vastness of my injuries. My lips felt as if they had been glued shut. As I pried them a part, I could feel the skin crack and tear around the stitches on my bottom lip.
Unlike last time, I awoke knowing exactly where I was, just what all had happened to me and that I hadn’t even began to hope it had all been just a dream.
With a quick mental examination of my current state of body, I felt a snug wrap around my ankle and another around my knee. My left hand was wrapped from my palm and down my wrist. Immediately I remembered I had no pants and all I was wearing was Damien’s shirt a bra and underwear.
I gave a brief thought for being grateful they were one of my nicer sets. It would have been a million times worse to have been found in old pink panties with faded hearts on them. Hell yeah I had some. Faded superwoman boy cuts too. Don’t lie. Every woman has something in the drawer that is for her eyes only.
The fire was going strong and it gave a nice cast of light over my immediate surroundings. The room was large but scarce and from the look of things, it must have come furnished. It was so impersonal. Unnatural in its perfect order.
There were no boxes thrown about. No pictures or knickknack items. Just an expensive brown leather chair that matched the couch and one end table on barren hardwood floors. Nothing more to tell me who Damien D’Tera was.
Just as I started to sit up Damien came back into the room and turned the stereo down a few notches. “I’m sorry if it was too loud. Music is sort of a vice of mine.” Shinedown. Can’t argue that.
Damien winced as he looked at me before quickly averting his eyes to the floor. So not only did I feel like hell I looked it too. How lovely. My right hand quickly combed through my hair to try and sort out the mess of tangles. Oh, what I would have gave for a fully stocked bathroom and some privacy right then.
“Did you sleep well?” Damien let out a tired sigh as he came around to perch on the arm of the couch furthest from me.
“Mine too. Don’t worry it wasn’t the music. Shinedown is one of my favorites anyways.” Though it was very slight, I smirked. “And I never sleep well.” It hurt like hell to talk but I was more understandable despite how swollen my face was.
My legs stung horribly with hundreds of cuts covering them from my knees down. Fortunately, his couch was brown leather and I was on a blanket as well as wrapped in one so most likely I didn’t get blood everywhere. At least I hoped not.
“I know. I’m sorry for the ignorant question. I just hoped since you slept for so long-” His eyes narrowed quizzically as he looked at me with a twisted frown. “You’re bleeding.”
My gaze quickly fell from his. “My legs are cut up.” I hadn’t looked. I could feel it though. “I don’t think it was enough to stain the couch or anything. How long did I sleep?” The leg I could still move freely I pulled under me. My whole body from the neck down hid under the blanket.
“You slept for over a day. It’s about two in the morning, Saturday.” I’d been at the docks Thursday night. He slid down off the arm and onto the cushion beside me gracefully. “And I could care less about the couch. Let me see your legs.” Carefully Damien lift my bad leg into his lap while tugging the other out from the blanket and into his lap as well.
“I never sleep more than a few hours are you sure?” He nodded at my question as his jaw clinched tightly. The thought be wildered me. I hadn’t slept more than five hours at max in a night in over five years. Hell, no wonder I felt like crap and needed a bathroom. My breath had to have been like a dead cat.
Each thin leg was reddened and hot to the touch. Both marred with scratches each oozing tiny droplets of blood. “How?” That was all he seemed able to say as his fingers hovered over individual cuts while too afraid to touch them. Some were obviously deep where the thorns had dug in. Others were shallow and long from where the deathly vines had drug over my flesh.
“No idea. It just happens. Don’t worry these are small they’ll be gone soon. They don’t hurt that much. You won’t hurt me.” My hand waived dismissively. I didn’t want him to see this. Didn’t want him to know this part of me. It felt wrong. Not even Neesa or Paul knew about this part.
Damien’s fist balled and he put his hand over his mouth clearing his throat. As we sat there they were already healing, enough so all the blood had stopped. The marks would be gone in no time now.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before.” His hands trembled while reaching toward a small cut on my pale thin leg but still never touching. Slowly my flesh was fading back to white. “Why are you so warm? Your skin is even red.”
Shaking my head, I looked down away from him. How could I say these things aloud? “Please, Anna. Tell me.”
Just get it over with. He’ll believe you or he won’t it’s too late to hide the truth now. “In the dream I burned.” Neither of us spoke for a minute. He looked down at my bare legs, tracing his finger carefully to avoid the blood.
“My parents thought I was doing this to myself for attention. They almost put me in some kiddie psych ward because of those dreams.” The look on his face said it all. There was no appropriate response to such a detail of my life. For some unknown reason, maybe the drugs, I continued.
“My father is a doctor. When therapy and the psychoanalyst weren’t helping he admitted me into the hospital and ran every test on me that existed. I spent years going in for MRIs and CT scans and blood tests. They couldn’t find anything wrong with me other than they said my joints were weak. This is the third time that ankle has been broken. Speaking of which, thank you.” I
held up my left hand. He’d done a pretty good job.
“Don’t thank me. This is my fault.” His fingers traced light circles over the white bandage wrapped tightly around my ankle. As if on cue he reached over to the side table and picked up an open bottle of water and the bottle of Vicodin handing them both to me.
“It’s not your fault. I don’t think you asked him to kill me.” I drank down most the water with two of the pills. He took the bottle and set it down for me. “Though if you did, well I guess then you’re allowed to feel guilty.” My fingers reached for his slowly. I was not afraid of Damien. Not at all. Embarrassed by the freak that I was perhaps but even still, a part of me wanted to tell him. Sometimes it was hard to stop actually. I could tell him anything.
“Don’t you remember last night? I knew of the people who did this to you. I shouldn’t have left at all. At least then you would still be sa
fe.” His fingers linked in with mine loosely. “Not broken.” After taking in a deep breath and letting it out heavily he finally turned to look at me.
“Why did you want to take off anyways? I mean you said you weren’t really going to Florida.”
He seemed thoughtful for a moment. “No, I was going up to New York. I was going home to see my family. I hadn’t called to tell them I was coming, I usually don’t. About half way there my sister called me and I turned around and came back.”
“Okay you may not be lying but you’re nowhere near the truth yet.” My hands pulled from his as I lay back into the couch, my legs stayed strewn across his.
“You don’t miss anything, do you?” As Damien chuckled, it seemed to shake his shoulders but the laughter was dark and begrudging of him.
My eyes narrowed as my lips twisted into a smirk. “You have no clue how much I don’t miss. You wanna know some of the things you think you’re hiding but you’re not? I’ll tell you if you like.” Sometimes I have no filter. This was one of those times.
“You have my full attention.” He leaned closer. Not jostling my legs in the slightest he laid over on his side, propping himself up on his elbow as he lay close to me.
My synapses were firing like crazy. Had been since I’d woken. Things were clicking into place. My eyes were narrowed in on his, nearly lost in the gleaming green depths and hypnotized by the reflection of the dancing fire. Nevertheless, I went on like any other rambling lunatic.
“You never ordered food at the restaurant. When you ordered drinks, you never finished even half. You never ate on shift or even drank a glass of water for that matter. When you want something, you look at someone and they don’t even argue. Mike never even interviewed you... You pick me up with no more effort than picking up a small cat. Plus you are better at resetting broken bones than a doctor. Now here’s the kicker. You ready?”
Damien’s body was taut, as his eyes remained focused on mine so forcefully I thought if he looked any harder he would be able to read my mind. “Go on,” Damien’s voice grew tense.
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