by Hadena James
“There is no bear,” Gabriel told me.
“Yes, there is,” I pointed behind him.
“Spread your legs.”
“I’m going to have to taser all of you, aren’t I?” I asked him.
“Ace, remember I said my brother poisoned you? Do you remember?” The bear was nodding as if he remembered Gabriel telling me that.
“No, but okay. So, I’m going to die of poison? Can you cut the wound and suck it out?”
“It’s not a snake bite,” Gabriel said. “I need to find the patch he put on you.”
“Oh, this patch?” I rolled over and pulled my underwear down far enough to show him the square thing on my butt that was itchy and made my skin burn a bit.
“There’s a rash around it. Hold on, let me call Xavier.”
“He is not allowed to look at my butt.”
“Okay,” Gabriel responded. “What about a picture of your butt?”
“If he uses it for revenge porn, I will kill him, Gabe, make sure he knows that.”
“Gabe?” Xavier’s voice came over the phone.
“Gabe,” I said. “There’s a bear in here.” I told Xavier.
“Like a brown bear, black bear, grizzly bear? What should I be looking to treat?” Xavier asked.
“I think it’s a red panda bear, but it’s really big, it’s taller than Gabe.”
“There’s no bear,” Gabriel said.
“Is too. It’s standing behind you nodding.”
“She’s hallucinating.”
“Whose hallucinating? Did Fiona or Rachael get hit in the head?” I asked trying to cover up my butt and find my clothes. Why was I mostly nude?
“You, Ace, he’s talking about you hallucinating and I need you to stop because I need to pull that patch off, remember?”
“This patch? I pointed to my butt cheek again.
“That patch, Ace, it needs to come off.” Xavier said.
“Okie dokie, Gabe just yank fast,” I told him.
“Gabriel, if you can find some gloves, some alcohol wipes, and some Benadryl cream it would be better to pull it off after you had that stuff.”
“Xavier, you realize you have the same name as the Professor in X-Men?” I asked.
“I know,” Xavier said.
“Okie dokie. Except you have different name orders and different middle names obviously because your middle name is Charles and your first name is Xavier. Are your parents huge into comic books?”
“No,” Xavier told me.
“Someone needs a hug,” I told him. “You sound grumpy.”
“Gabe, what are you doing?” I asked wondering if Xavier could see my butt still. I reached behind me and yanked the patch off and stuck it to the arm of the couch. Then I wiped my hands on my torn pants. The skin where the patch had been felt sticky. I put my pants under me as I repositioned myself on the couch. “I need a nap.” I told everyone in the room.
“That is the best idea you’ve had in a while,” Xavier said.
“Mr. Grumpy pants thinks I need a nap, bah. Pot, Kettle,” I answered.
“How long before she starts getting better?” Gabriel asked.
“Before who starts getting better?”
“You,” Gabriel said.
“Oh, I don’t know. Will I ever get better? I’m pretty sure Raphael is trying to kill me.”
“If she sleeps and then eats, probably in that order and you can tell me what kind of patch was on her, any markings on it?” Xavier asked.
“Gabriel listed off some letters.”
“Gabe, can I take a nap now?” I asked. “I know I’m on duty, but I just want a power nap before I have to deal with Raphael again. He’s bigger than me.”
“Take a nap,” Xavier said.
“Bye, Mr. Grumpy.” I laid down on the couch.
“If you can’t find alcohol or something like it, whiskey would probably work, use water and scrub the residue off her behind.” Xavier said.
“What are we scrubbing behind?” I asked.
“Just go to sleep, Ace, I got you,” Gabriel said.
“Thanks, Gabe.” I replied.
“Why did it suddenly kick in like that, worse than it had been?” Gabriel asked.
“Because it mixed with the pain killers she took by mouth and her adrenaline stopped pumping as hard as it normally does as a result, which slowed her metabolism of the drugs.”
“Why’d she suddenly start bleeding?” Gabriel asked.
“I’m guessing she did something to it, hit it on something or something like that and knocked the scab off in one area, and as a result, she began to bleed a bit. Nothing major just enough for it to be noticed. The morphine patch was the biggest problem. She should be fine after she sleeps for a little while.”
“You have to remember Aislinn’s body doesn’t work like ours. She probably knocked it off doing something and didn’t notice it because between the pain medications and being a psychopath, she just isn’t as tuned into her pain as we are. However, once her metabolism slowed down and she started to really feel the drugs in her system, her leg probably started to burn a little bit, which brought it to her attention finally.”
“Like holding herself on a ladder with her legs wrapped around the rungs,” Gabriel said.
“Shush, trying to sleep,” I scolded him.
“That would do it.”
“Raphael had gauze and tape for the wound, but I’m not finding any alcohol.”
“Do you know how sterile the knife was he used to remove her scar?”
“It was hers, so no, but probably pretty clean, she cleans them just about every day.”
“Still trying to sleep,” I told Gabriel and Xavier. “Go in the other room.”
I heard them whispering, but the noise got further away. Which was good because my head was pounding. I used the shirt I had been using to cover my face. Whatever dangers lurked nearby, I’d just have to trust Gabriel would take care of them for me.
Raphael
RAPHAEL’S HEAD WAS pounding. He wasn’t sure why he was lying on the floor either. His brother had done something to him, of that he was sure, but he couldn’t quite remember what Gabriel had done.
Whatever it was, it had left him on a cold, hard floor with a pounding headache. His brother wasn’t really a fighter, not when it came to Raphael. No matter how much he had pushed his brother over the years, Gabriel had never pushed back. He had never even taken a swing at Raphael.
Slowly it dawned on Raphael that Gabriel hadn’t been fighting for himself, it had been Aislinn Cain. His brother had always had a bit of a hero complex. Always wanted to be the man with the plan, a real take charge and save the day type, that was Gabriel. That was why he had joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation and then the US Marshals. He wanted to save the world and god forbid a pretty girl be involved. When a pretty girl was involved, Gabriel was always there to try and show Raphael up. It had been that way since the first grade when they had both liked a girl named Jessica. She’d been a pretty blond girl with big hazel eyes that changed color depending on the lighting.
Gabriel had never grasped how important that girl was to Raphael. She made his heart race in his chest just by simply looking at him. It had been a bad time in Raphael’s life. Jessica had been learning sign language, so she could communicate with him. They went to different schools, but she lived a block away and there was a community park where all the kids got together to hang out, including Raphael and Gabriel.
Jessica had kissed him on the cheek once. Raphael had thought he was going to pass out his heart was beating so hard. She told him he was cuter than Gabriel because he was taller. That had made Raphael feel amazing. Gabriel could talk, and he couldn’t and there was nothing he could do about it, but as a result, he had always felt inadequate to Gabriel.
That was the year after his dad’s brother had started abusing him whenever he came to stay at their house for a week or two at a time, while he was between jobs or girlfriends or whatever the exc
use was.
Looking back, that was when he and Gabriel grew apart. Not because of Jessica, not entirely, but because, in some way, Raphael had felt special that their uncle had chosen him over Gabriel, the one with the voice who could sing and sing well. Even Raphael enjoyed listening to his brother sing.
Then came the dreadful accident. He hadn’t meant to emasculate himself. He hadn’t even understood the word at the time. He had meant to just scratch it a little and see if that helped the itch and burn. However, something had startled him. He didn’t remember what now, maybe one of the girls getting up to use the bathroom? It had been so long ago, he just couldn’t remember exactly what had happened. He wasn’t sure it mattered.
After that came the move. He was foisted off onto his grandparents in Canada. No real friends, just a couple of dogs and his grandparents. During the winter, they lived in a small town just to the west of Snell Grove Lake. A house that didn’t feel like a home, not really. It wasn’t lived in like the lake cabin was. The furniture was sparse. There was nothing of value in it, so that if it was broken into during the months his grandparents were at the lake, it wasn’t a big deal, because they wouldn’t get much. Some ratty old furniture and dishes. Even Raphael’s stuff was packed for return to the cabin.
They didn’t live there year around because supplies couldn’t be brought in during the winter if the lake froze over. The sea planes that did most of the cargo carrying couldn’t land and the boats, which is how most of the residents around the lake traveled, didn’t have ice breaker hulls. Only one or two people ever stayed at the lake year around and if something happened to them during the winter, they could easily die from whatever injury they had sustained. That was no life for a rambunctious ten-year-old boy. So, they lived in this house that felt haunted by the memories of life that didn’t fill the walls anymore until they could return to the cabin.
Raphael hadn’t understood at first why his parents had forced him to move to Canada and live with his grandparents. He had believed he was being punished. It wasn’t until puberty that Raphael realized they were trying to help him.
It hadn’t been easy to survive puberty, even in Canada where he saw very few people, even during the winter. He had been emasculated, literally, on that night. Most of his penis had detached and it had nerve damage in it as well as vessel damage. Trying to satisfy his first girlfriend had been awful. Not just because they were both virgins and didn’t really know what they were doing but because, for the most part, Raphael didn’t function very well.
It was only after this encounter that he finally made peace with his parent’s decision. In the US, this encounter probably would have happened earlier and probably would have come with more embarrassing consequences. All teen girls are gossips, but since Raphael spent half the year on Snell Grove Lake, it didn’t matter if they gossiped, he wasn’t around to hear about it or be teased about it.
In some ways, he blamed Gabriel for this. At times he placed the blame on himself and got angry at being the mute in the family. His anger had seethed and burned for a long time, almost becoming the only emotion Raphael had left.
Now, his brother had knocked him out and locked him in a room in this stupid bunker, a room he couldn’t get out of because he was mute, and they had taken his cellphone. All because of a girl. Again, the fairer sex had come between them, symbolizing everything that Raphael had hated about Gabriel for so long.
And when Gabriel had married Jessica and had two kids with her, that had angered Raphael even more. If he had been in the US, she would have ended up with him. The two had snuck around behind Gabriel’s back a few times. Jessica still preferred the taller twin. She had learned sign language to speak to him and they had long conversations about what life would have been like if he had stayed stateside.
Jessica and Gabriel had stayed married for ten years. Ten very long years to Raphael, until she had suddenly had a change of personality. She began drinking heavily. To console herself when she had neither Gabriel or Raphael by her side, because Raphael was in Canada nod Gabriel was gone for weeks at a time sometimes for work. He didn’t ride a desk like she had hoped. He was a field agent, working for a special unit, the precursor to the Violent Crimes Unit. Then the VCU had been formed and Gabriel had been left off the short list to run it. Instead, Malachi Blake had gotten it. Raphael remembered that phone call very well. His sister-in-law in tears because Gabriel was continuing to work in the field, he’d been moved to the organized crime division. He still traveled a great deal, tracking down shipments of guns, drugs, and money that the Italian and Russian mobs were funneling through the US.
Raphael had tried to convince her to move to Snell Gove Lake with him. By this time, his grandfather was dead, and it was just him and his grandmother. Raphael was taking care of both properties. She kept hold of the one in town, but she even wintered at Snell Grove Lake. She liked the snow in the forest and on the lake when it got cold enough for it. Satellite phones and cell phones were more common, and his grandmother had offered to rent a cellphone company part of the land surrounding the cabin in order to have cell service out there, just in case something had happened to her. The next town had a helicopter that had been equipped with medical gear and life saving devices, mostly for those that chose to live around Snell Grove lake. A large patch of land had been cleared about half way around the lake on either side for the helicopter to land in. It wasn’t just boats and sea planes anymore.
They could also get supplies from the helicopter in the winter. His grandmother was old, but still capable of teaching Gabriel’s kids if Jessica wanted to move up there with him or they would winter in town, so the kids could go to a school, if she wanted. She had turned him down.
Later that week, when Gabriel returned from a trip, Jessica shot him at nearly point-blank range, blaming him for ruining her life, the life she could have had with his brother. Gabriel had called Raphael from his hospital bed confused. He had gone ten years without realizing that Jessica and Raphael had been having an affair. Even after she shot him, he still hadn’t figured it out. She’d been drunk, very drunk, according to Gabriel. So, he hadn’t been able to fully understand what she was screaming at him that night.
Raphael had listened to Gabriel until he felt sick. Not because Gabriel had been shot, Raphael no longer cared about his twin’s well-being. He had felt sick because Jessica had shot Gabriel instead of him. He could have done it on one of their trips to Snell Grove lake and pretended it was a hunting accident. Jessica went to rehab and then a mental institution. Her brother-in-law and sister had taken custody of the children because Gabriel’s job hadn’t permitted him to have a stable home life according to the judge.
Once again, Raphael had been isolated because of Gabriel. There was no Jessica to fill some of his time. Even when they weren’t together, they could talk without going through a system. The advent of cellphones and video calls had been perfect for them. They could video chat and talk using sign language because they could see each other.
He got up off the ground. His head hurt with each step. He looked around the room. His successor had made the bunker impenetrable for many different reasons. These rooms had been meant to hold people, not just offer them somewhere to sleep. He had intended to use it to trap people and always have food available to feed his demon. Now that was still it’s purpose. You had to know the secrets of the bunker to get anywhere. Raphael realized maybe he shouldn’t have let his brother have any freedom. He hadn’t expected Gabriel to strike out at him because of Aislinn Cain. It was his understanding the two weren’t romantically involved and didn’t have a relationship other than work and friendship because it was hard to be in their line of work without developing friendship. They were together almost 48 weeks out of the year. They didn’t take vacations, not like people who had regular jobs.
Raphael climbed up on the bed, glad he hadn’t let his physique go like Gabriel had. He would still be skinny enough to fit into the air ducts. He was also tall enoug
h to reach them standing on the bed, something the shorter twin wouldn’t have been able to do without help.
Raphael pulled the cover off the vent and hoisted himself into it. Even though he was skinny, Raphael found the duct to be almost claustrophobic. It wasn’t meant for this. It was meant to push air out and into the rooms, not as escape tunnels.
Chapter Ten
“ACE, WAKE UP,” GABRIEL was shaking me. I wanted to punch him, but I didn’t. I felt better, but not great and I wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. I would have asked, but he was annoyingly waking me up.
“What?” I asked, opening my eyes. “This had better be a matter of life and death.”
“It might be.” Gabriel said.
“Might be?” I stared at him. I was nude, and I wasn’t entirely sure why.
“Why do I not have on clothes?” I asked him.
“Morphine patch,” he answered.
“Oh, I got hot.” I frowned, but morphine did make me feel warm from the inside out. I wasn’t sure why people liked it, unless they lived in places that were cold, like Alaska. Of course, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t still freeze to death. It also made me feel sick to my stomach and occasionally caused hives, meaning I wouldn’t make a very good drug addict.
“Okay, are you feeling better?”
“I need about six more hours of sleep I think.” I told my boss. “And maybe some clothing.”
“I brought clothes.” Gabriel handed me a small stack of the scrub like clothing that I was beginning to despise. I would be throwing out all my scrub like pajama bottoms when I got home.
“Good.” I reached out for them and he stood up, placing them in my hands and walking out of the living room where I had passed out on the couch. Knowing a morphine patch had happened to me made me feel better about being nude and on the couch without much memory of the situation that got me there.
It helped that Gabriel was my only companion besides the psychopath below us locked in a room. I would have been less comfortable with the situation if it had been Malachi instead. Even if I had known Malachi longer, although that may have been a contributing factor in my comfort as far as Malachi versus Gabriel with me nude and mostly passed out, I trusted Gabriel more to not take advantage of me.
