Blood and Guts - Left for Dead: A Romantic Suspense

by Gabi Moore

  She grimaced, and shook off an onset of bad memories.

  “I guess they don’t mix,” she finished with a smile.

  I leaned in and gave her a hug. Everything that needed to be exchanged between the two of us was done so then and there. After a few minutes, the nurse who was moving Lorin into the room gave up. Charlie took her outside and left the two of us to share a moment.

  “So you ever take that outfit home?” I heard him say…”I’ve been known to do a bit of roleplaying in my time…”

  I laughed, and squeezed her even harder.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

  Epilogue – Lorin

  The trouble that came our way one year ago is not something that we think about much any longer. These days, I live a simpler life. My focus is mostly on taking care of a hand full of goats. I have also taken up painting in my spare time.

  The paintings were nothing special. Landscapes really, but they helped me to focus on being present, and allowed for a constructive way to pass the time. Painting had also opened up my eyes toward a new way of seeing the world around me. Light was infinitely more fascinating than I ever could have imagined. I enjoyed the fact that I was able to derive true joy out of something besides business and sex — that was always a plus.

  The company was dissolved after Ryan’s death. I couldn’t bear to be a part of that organization any longer. Anything that reminded me of that life only brought me pain. Not so much ‘pain’, in the sense of being hurt by anyone. The pain that I felt was more along the lines of an internally directed disappointment at my own participation within that suffering.

  The fact that I had let someone treat me that way; that I had, in effect, treated myself that way by association was unacceptable.

  I could have stuck around for a time afterward, and taken care of the company. We would have reverted toward the previous standing I had within the company, and then continued forward, business as usual. Ideally, our new status quo would include a more selective practice for which contracts to choose, and which contracts to avoid.

  You know what they say, though: if you’re in a dime, you’re in a dollar.

  I had to sell out completely and restart my life. With the money I got from ditching my shares in CONTEK, I was able to hire a crew of people to hike out and rebuild the cabin. There were a few other expenses, naturally.

  Aden finally introduced me to his daughter.

  They aren’t on a regular visitation schedule, because she’s in her early twenties, and has her own life. He stops in to see how she’s doing every now and then, and she always seems to appreciate the company. We made sure she had a house, and that little cafe she loves so much is doing just fine.

  She is every bit as rowdy and independent as her dad, but she does so in her own way. She’s her own woman, and was hesitant to accept any help from me at all. I had to go around her back to make a few of the gifts line up in place, but they got to their intended target well enough. She has enough to where she still feels the need to go out and do something with her life, which means that she can still live on her terms. I respect that in a woman.

  As for Aden and myself, we have a quiet life.

  We spend a fair amount of time apart from one another. One thing I’ve learned from my relationships so far is that much of the value of a relationship comes from respecting one another’s solitude. I think we both initially imagined, that it would be a drain to live with one another. It’s just not the case though.

  I’m quite content to let him do whatever he pleases with his time, and he respects my time in the same fashion. As a result, we have plenty of time to invest in our own activities. At the end of the night, when I want someone to hold onto, the two of us find time for that as well. The sense of obligation just isn’t present. The sense of hoping for acceptance is no longer there as well. If I’m fortunate, our relationship might just be the end of a long history of co-dependent living.

  As for Aden, this would be the first time he has lived with another person in fifteen years. You’d think that he’d be a lot worse at it than he is — but I think his candor and insight make him an easy partner to share a space with.

  Though, I’m sure it’s not all roses; it’s a brave new world for the both of us.

  It’s winter here again, and I’m sitting around the same hearth that I woke up in front of last winter. This time, things are less frightening, because I’m more confident within myself. With awareness of how I’m choosing to manage my relationships, I don’t have to worry about being victimized any longer.

  I chose Aden because I knew he was a good man, and I knew I could love him; that was enough.

  Speak of the devil, I thought with a smile.

  The door blew open, and a snow flurry of came in across the oak floor. Aden came in, red faced and grinning, with two steaks of venison on a knife. I smiled, and set up the grill on the fire.

  “You know,” he said. “I’m so happy that we found our way back here after all of that. The deer, and the snow storm reminded me of when we first met.”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve been thinking about that too. Thanks for being here with me.”

  He leaned in to kiss me, and the steaks got set down on the grill. As the smell of the venison rose up into the air, I look around at our cozy little place.

  “You shared all of this with me,” I said, letting my body lean into his shoulder.

  He nodded, and smiled.

  “And you paid me for it, but I think you owed it to me anyways…”

  I punched him in the arm, but we both knew the accounts were even.

  “I’m glad you’re around. We had a bit of a rocky start, but I’d say it’s helped us out overall.”

  I didn’t respond, but I could feel in my heart that the words he spoke had a ring of truth to them. I knew we could look forward to a long night in.

  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  - THE END -

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  FANTASY/SCI-FI

  Manipulator Of Elements

  - Earth

  Chapter 1

  The Fromatius Mall stood at the edge of the parking lot and dominated the countryside around it.

  No one seemed to know where the mall had come from; it just showed up one day in the field and sat there empty until the stores began to open. After six months, the mall’s owners held a “Grand Opening” celebration and employed the local marching band and trade guilds to help in the celebration.

  Since the trades anticipated a profitable relationship with the mall, they were glad to help out. The schools were thrilled to have a place where the high-schoolers could work during the evenings and weekends. It would be a much better place for them to hang out in than the local Drive-In or bowling alley.

  A few people down at the township hall talked among themselves about how quickly the mall had appeared and were stunned it showed up so fast. Although the building plans were submitted and the proper forms filled out, it seemed strange everything went as smoothly as it did when the mall was constructed.

  Some of the local firms were hired to do the finishing work and pour the concrete for the sidewalks around the structure, but no one could recall ever seeing the construction firms who were hired to build the mall in town before. And before any of the trade guilds could complain about a lack of their involvement, it was there. As soon as it was constructed, the other trades were contracted and given lucrative contracts to maintain it.

  Granted, some of the stores in place seemed a little odd for a suburban shopping mall, but there were enough major retailers in it to defer any bad thoughts from the local suburban moms. Besides, it was spring and people were getting ready for the summer. The big auto plant in the nearby town of Scipio was planning to shut down for t
wo weeks of inventory. This would allow them the chance to make certain they had everything they needed for next year’s models and allow the employees to take vacations. Some employees had additional time in based on years of service and could take as much as two more weeks of vacation. Therefore, if your father or mother were one of the lucky ones to have started working there right after the Korean War, you could spend an entire month at some pleasure dome in Florida.

  Lilly Arrad wasn’t one of the lucky ones. Her father ran an insurance company in Fromatius out of their house. Her mother stayed home and took care of her and her older sister when they were coming of age, but now she was looking into a job at the mall. Lilly didn’t want a job at the mall when it opened. She didn’t care for most of the kids she was stuck around all day at her high school and found a job with a catering company. However, most of the jobs her company pulled were at the mall for the various out of town dignitaries who came in to see how their store branches looked and what the sales represented. So, she might as well work at the mall. Perhaps next week’s job would take her somewhere else.

  She sat on the hood of her Pinto and looked at the mall again. These things sprang up everywhere. Was the entire country turning into one big shopping mall? The 70’s surely brought with it a lot of novelties. Right now, she could look forward to attending college in the fall at Cincinnati. She had her future mapped out: international studies, find a diplomat, get married and spend the rest of her life throwing parties for foreign dignitaries.

  She looked down and sighed.

  Her shoes were still in the mall. She’d forgotten them and walked barefoot all the way to the car. She really needed to get beyond that, it was so childish. Now she would have to walk back in that place and get them.

  Maybe she wouldn’t. She could drive home barefoot and find her spare sandals in the bedroom closet. She had the dance class tonight her sister taught.

  Her sister, Rachel, had learned belly dancing in college and used it to supplement her spending money. Although Rachel married last month and left the house, it still felt as if she was around. With her older sister moved out, Lilly started to feel lonely. She still had a few good friends from the neighborhood, but everyone was headed to different places for college in the fall.

  She wanted to stay close enough to come home on the weekend, but far enough to enjoy the life on campus and socialize with the right kind of people. She would be forced to stay in a dorm the first few years, but afterwards, she would find a better place to live. Somehow, the sorority life didn’t appeal to her, and Lilly doubted she would pledge one. She could see herself sharing an apartment after a year or two. Her friend Cindy started college a year early and wrote her letters about how crazy the college dorm life was in Indiana. It was one of her reasons for attending a school in Cincinnati.

  The hood of her Pinto started to burn into her butt, so Lilly decided to hop off it and go home. It was early enough in the year to walk barefoot across a parking lot, but she had no desire to go back and retrieve the shoes. They were an older pair and she had more at home. She’d look for them tomorrow. The jeans, on the other hand, were precious. She’d spent the weekend fading them to just the right hue in her mother’s washing machine. They matched the light sweater she wore.

  Lilly was small and, at five foot in height, didn’t expect to get much taller. She wasn’t a big eater and kept her weight at a comfortable hundred pounds. She even dieted down to ninety at one point, but didn’t like the way it made her feel. She stayed away from the pot smokers and druggies at her school, although she did enjoy her time on the literary magazine and French Club.

  Lilly decided to forget the shoes and turned to open her car door when she saw something.

  It was the new guy who transferred into school this year. He was sitting on the edge of the fountain at the entrance. He was staring at it and moving his hand over the water in the pool. The fountain was huge and filled up with coins every day from well-wishers who wanted to bring good luck by tossing three coins in it. But he wasn’t dropping coins in the fountain; he was busy with his eyes fixed on the pattern his hand traced through the air.

  Now she was curious.

  She finally remembered his name. It was Dion Bacchus. She remembered it because he was in her homeroom. One of the strange things she noticed one day was how many of her close friends had similar names to her last name. The school was huge. Her senior class had five hundred in its enrollment. Not only did the local auto industry contribute to its size, but the regional air force base added to it as well. It wasn’t unusual for her to call a friend’s house and have a “Colonel Adams” answer the phone.

  Dion started school that year as a transfer student from some place in California that year, but mostly kept to himself. She had said little more than “hello” to him since he started. It was strange to see someone start school in their senior year and he didn’t seem to interact with anyone. Dion’s locker was two sections down from her, but Lilly seldom saw him speak to anyone. He was in her biology class as well, but she couldn’t ever recall him asking a single question.

  This was too bad for Dion because plenty of the girls at school were obsessed with him.

  He stood almost six foot tall, had dark features and black eyes with hair that cascaded down his back to a school-acceptable length. He wore the standard jeans and t-shirt apparel, which dominated in the school, but had an intense look on his face and a tight set of chest muscles that showed through his shirt.

  A few girls approached him one day and, although he was polite, he didn’t speak very long with any of them. A few of the local tough kids who were into drugs and hard rock tried to corner him in the hall one day. He took the hand of one and gently pulled it off him. The kid who placed it there walked away swearing under his breath with a look of pain in his eyes. Lilly remembered the tough one later coming to school with his hand in a cast.

  Rumors abounded about Dion’s background.

  He lived with his aunt and uncle in one of the nicer houses on a good street, but people seldom saw him leave the house. The rumor most people believed was that his real parents died in some kind of tragic accident and his relatives were the only ones who could take him in. Some said his family were foreign spies, others said they were extraterrestrials who were under the protection of the air base. Among other things, the base was rumored to hold the bodies of aliens who’d crashed on Earth in a flying saucer. Some people believed Dion’s family were all black magicians who sacrificed goats in the back yard, although no one had ever seen it take place. The house where he dwelled was quiet and never gave the neighbors any reason to be concerned about what happened over there.

  There were plenty of other strange things that happened in the neighborhood over the past few years, such as the professor of chemistry who was busted for making illegal pharmaceutics in his basement. The man later turned out to be deeply in debt to mobsters.

  “I wondered why he always was on the pay phone at the grocery store,” Lilly’s mother had said to her when the arrest hit the news.

  Since the fountain stood between her and the entrance to the mall, Dion would be directly in her path if Lilly wanted to go back in it for her shoes. This would allow her to see what he was up to by the fountain and retrieve her shoes at the same time. You weren’t supposed to enter the mall if you didn’t have shoes on, but she didn’t worry about it, as Lilly knew some of the mall security guards. They were constantly flirting with her.

  She checked to make sure her car was locked before she picked up her leather purse and headed back into the mall.

  The day was bright and sunny with birds circling in the sky. She looked up and realized the birds were vultures. It was an unnerving sight; what interest would vultures have in a mall? She decided they were riding the air currents drifting up from the ground. People believed vultures circled in the air to signal each other when there was something dead on the ground. But Lilly learned years ago it had to do with the way they used the updr
aft from warm air on the ground to glide. There might be places on the roof where the vultures nested. They weren’t all that far from Hinckley, Ohio where they returned every year to mate and nest. Perhaps the vultures were thinking about moving their nesting grounds to the mall?

  The mall was dominated by a huge clock, which sat in the middle and towered over everything below it. Although the mall was an indoor shopping center, someone had decided it needed a clock tower rising up from the center of the complex so everyone in the parking lot could see what time it was. Access to the clock tower was almost impossible to find, or so she’d been told by a few friends whose parents worked in the mall. Even the plans approved by the local building committee were vague on this part of the mall construction.

  Lilly walked past the fountain where Dion sat on the ledge. Something compelled her to stop and watch what he did with his hand. She froze when she saw a small column of water rise into the air close to his hand and fall. She stood there in amazement as he brought an entire wave of water up to his level and watched as it fell down into the pool. No one else was around the fountain at this time of the day.

  As she stood there, Dion slowly turned around and aimed his piercing eyes into her own. Lilly felt as if her entire soul was bared to him. It seemed Dion could see into her very mind and knew everything about her. But she wasn’t scared. She didn’t feel any sort of animosity from Dion… just curiosity.

  As he looked at her, two more columns of water rose into the air and slowly fell back down into the fountain. They were followed by a wave, which rose up to his height and sent a shower of coins into the air. The coins splashed back into the water as he continued to watch her. Dion kept one hand in the air over the fountain, but never once did the water come near him. She could see no dampness or watermarks on his clothes.