by K. Dicke
He pulled back his shoulders. “He wants us gone. All of us. Except for maybe the few who have extraordinary skill or power. He’ll convert them.”
“Why on earth would he do that?”
“So he and the darks can live outside their grounds with no fear of us or them. Think about what that could mean. No one would be safe. They could prey on any human at any time—a little kid walking to school, grandma going to church, your friends, my friends … those who might become aware someday could all be made into rats.”
She frowned. “Rats. I hate that term.”
“Well, when a soul’s taken and the human is reduced to almost nothing, scratching and clawing for life, that’s the result—a rat. There’s no other way to put it. And it’s what the darks are doing and what they’ve been doing.”
“That’s crazy talk.”
“It’s not. You know I think the world of you, but this time you’re wrong.” He walked to the kitchen and then down the hall. “You’re wrong!”
“Wait!” She heard a door slam shut.
_______
At three-thirty in the morning, I couldn’t lay in bed anymore. The bed sheet was knotted around my legs and no position was comfortable. I was suffering from BDS (Boring Dream Syndrome), had been falling in and out of a dream about making vegetable soup. In the interims, when I was awake and my subconscious didn’t have me chopping onions, carrots, or potatoes, I thought about Derek and about relationships in general as well as one could in the middle of the night. Most of the couples I knew didn’t work out or work well, like my parents, my friend’s parents, and my friends themselves. Derek and I could work. I was kicking myself for having been too chicken to make a move the times I’d had the chance. But if I had and he wasn’t down, our friendship would never be the same and I really valued our friendship. Life was a lot simpler when I didn’t think about boys or soup.
Screw this. I got up. I’d be at work early but it was better than lying awake hoping for a half-hour of sleep that may or may not come.
I parked, eyes watering. The toxic fog was there again. I’m having a flashback? What the hell is it? With the key in the deadbolt and a yawn stuck in my throat, I waved the glittering mist away. Damn, it’s cold. I went directly to the coffee machine and started its cycle. On the way to turn on the lights, I froze. The sound of papers being shuffled and casters grinding against carpet hit my ears. No one would have been there that early except the boss, and Deborah’s car wasn’t outside. Was it? The coffeemaker started to sputter, the wall clock above the front door ticking loudly.
I took another step and stopped. The thud of boots came from the office and I snuck behind the bakery case, anxiety shooting through my veins. The light coming from the parking lot was too dim to show the person, who was four feet away from me on the other side of the glass. Average height and build, dark pants, dark shirt was all I could make out. Icy sweat started to drip down my forehead and I bit my tongue to keep my teeth from chattering.
He went to the coffee machine and fiddled with its dials before pacing by the front windows for a full minute. He suddenly turned in a circle and started toward the office but then changed his mind and wandered past me (and the cash register) to the storeroom. I heard him milling around some more for another two or three minutes. What’s he doing? He passed me again and went back the way he’d come.
My brain screamed, “Get out!” but I didn’t move because my breathing had stalled, my muscles were rigid, and my heart was thrashing my chest. How do I get to the back door? Just follow the squares on the floor and go around the corner. Follow the white squares. I was almost standing when I heard his boots again. Run. The panic that had held me in place spurred me and I tore through the hall to the back door, sliding at the corner on the tile. I’d taken hold of the knob when my scalp stung, my ponytail yanked like a bridle. I went down, my head cracking against the floor. His boot came down on my ribs and then again into my side, driving my body left. Hard leather, a pointed toe, and a thick heel smashed my back and stomach, each blow calculated, awaiting my recovery before inflicting more damage. I was pulp, holding my head with one arm and my stomach with the other, curled up like a child.
Footsteps retreated down the hall. Try. You gotta try. I forced myself onto my knees, agony splintering through fractured bones, and crawled three feet to my backpack. As my hand closed around my phone, an impact seared the side of my skull. No sound escaped my lips, my broken chest unable to expand and give me the breath to cry out. Through unfocused eyes, I saw diamonds on the floor all around me, refracting the light coming from under the door and onto silver-tipped boots. He bent over me and put his face next to mine. I couldn’t see well but there was something wrong with his eyes. I blinked. He stood and raised his left foot over my head.
The back entrance burst open, knocking me sideways and then onto my stomach. Light blinded my eyes and I heard the sound of breaking glass. I couldn’t roll over and couldn’t breathe. I felt around for my cell. Diamonds turned into amethysts. I faded.
Something wedged under my legs and back, the pain reviving me to take sips of humid air. My eyes opened and closed, the intervals of sight stained red. My head was inclined and I barely made out a voice repeating my name over the screams of my head and body. I felt my shirt being inched up my torso.
Four hands pushed down on my ribcage, my skin prickling before a burning blanket covered my middle and set a fire within me that surpassed the misery I had endured minutes before. Flames raged deep and fierce, devouring my insides. My eyes flew open. I saw a dwarf kneeling at my right, his hands on my stomach. The torches extinguished and air flowed in and out of my lungs, waves of relief spreading across my skeleton. My eyes closed. But then I felt a palm press above my ear. Don’t! Severe heat pummeled my brain, keeping my eyes and mouth shut tight, my body straining to make it stop. The smoldering cinders abated and became fingers brushing over my hair. I drifted off again.
The wail of sirens was too loud, red and pink lights too frantic, and the ground beneath my head too hard.
“Miss? Miss?” A man in blue held my wrist.
“I’m outside?”
“Yes.”
“You brought me outside.”
“No.”
I swept the air with my hand. “In there. He’s in there.”
Two other blue uniforms ran inside.
He asked me too many questions. What was my name? Did I feel nauseous or dazed? What color was the ambulance? What day of the week was it? Did I know what had happened to me? He asked me my name again. I answered the questions, slowly but clearly, lying about the headache and nausea while he probed my neck, chest, and abs. After exploring my head, his antiseptic biting with jagged teeth at the area above my ear, he remarked that the cuts didn’t need stitches. He called to one of the others to help move me.
Woozy, I sat up and saw my phone by my knee. It had a brand new battery but was about to die. Why? Because I skipped charging it for one stupid night.
The medic touched my back.
“I decline treatment. I’m okay,” I said.
He argued that I had head trauma, that I had to go to the hospital, and something about brain bleeding. I respected him, his profession, but I wouldn’t go.
“I decline treatment. I’m of age and that’s it.” I rose and steadied myself so there could be no more discussion.
“But—”
I didn’t hear what he said. They were bringing out the man who had assaulted me. He’s unconscious? And I’m on my feet? I had started stepping my way to the building to get my backpack when a car barreled into the parking lot at high speed. Derek? He jumped out, leaving the engine running.
The closer he came to me the more his mouth gaped. “Oh. My. God. What happened to you? What the f—”
“They want me to go the hospital.” Tears began to form in my eyes.
“I’ll get you through it. I’ll—”
“No! Look at me. I am standing. I can hear, see, and speak. You go do your Mr
. Persuasive thing on him.” I pointed out the paramedic and lowered my voice. “Please, Derek—you of all people should understand.”
I turned to go inside but a policewoman’s hand was heavy on my shoulder, stopping me from navigating the spray of wine-colored shards at the back entrance. I looked past her and stared at the front windows. They were trashed. The EMT walked over and told her I was disoriented. He was probably right, but I didn’t let on. Derek took him aside. For the next ten minutes, I answered the officer’s questions but my memory was spotty. I clearly remembered every single sound I’d heard, but didn’t know why my attacker had blacked out or how the windows had gotten shattered or how I’d ended up outside. They finally allowed me to go home.
Derek put his arm around my waist and walked me to his car. “Edwards, you’d better be being straight with me about how you feel ’cause you look like hell and I’m freakin’ out!”
“Dude—see, stand, hear, speak. I’m tired and my head’s pounding like a mother. Swear to God, I’m not gonna die on you. I just need to rest.”
“Then I’m gonna have to wake you up every hour.” He buckled me in.
My eyelids closed before we’d cleared the intersection.
Beige walls, generic seashell prints, Nick yelling at the TV on the other side of the wall: Derek’s room. The drapes were closed but sunshine broke through the part, drawing a long, thick line across the carpet. Late afternoon.
Pictures flooded my mind, getting crossed: the police, the heat, the beating, my arrival to work, the beating, the panic, the cold, the dwarf, the boots, the medic, the beating, glassy eyes, the mist, the beating.
I slowly sat up and my head throbbed such that it felt like a rubber band was constricting my brain. If that wasn’t enough, I caught my reflection in the wall mirror to my right, and rammed my fist to my mouth to stop the scream. Thick, sticky ribbons of blood enameled my hair on one side, from the top of my head to my neck, where sections were glued to my shirt. I couldn’t believe the image staring back at me, an open mouth, fingers touching gore. I looked at the pillow. Thank God. It was covered with a towel.
“You’re awake. Finally. I’ve been scared stupid.” Derek put down Savvy Investor Quarterly and rose from the sofa across the room. “Head wounds bleed a lot. That’s what the paramedic told me. That’s what I’ve been telling myself.”
“It’s not that bad,” I lied. “Why didn’t you take me home?”
“’Cause I didn’t want Sarah to go into heart failure and your couch sucks. What can I do? How do you feel?”
“I have a headache and I don’t wanna see any more mirrors, but I feel okay.” I struggled to avert my eyes from my reflection. “Who was that guy? Why—”
“While you were talking to the sheriff, I hung out and listened to the other cops. From what I picked up, they have no idea what was goin’ on with him. As far as they could tell nothing had been stolen and there was no forced entry. He doesn’t even have a record.”
“I think he was high.” I covered my face with my hands. “As soon as I heard noises, I knew I had to haul for the door but I didn’t. I could’ve made it out. I should’ve made it out.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“No, I know.” I picked at the collar of my shirt. “This is grim. Can I borrow?”
He took his old tennis jersey from his dresser and handed it to me.
In his bathroom, I pried the blood-coated neckline of my tee from the crime scene that was my hair and peeled off the shirt. There were seven green and purplish-brown bruises across my side, chest, and stomach. One was square like the heel of a boot. Bruises? But he kicked me so hard. It hurt so bad. I couldn’t breathe. This can’t be. It can’t. I pressed the heels of my hands to my forehead so I could better remember the sequence of events and connect the dots, but the dots were all misnumbered.
Baffled, I dropped Derek’s shirt over my head, took a towel from the rack, and exited the bathroom. “I need to rinse out my hair in the kitchen sink.”
“Good idea. Hungry? Want me to get you somethin’?”
“A sandwich, nothing big. There’s a ten in my backpack.” I opened his bedroom door and then abruptly turned back to him. “How’d you know to come? How were you there?”
“Some dude called me from your phone.”
“Huh?” The dots were all over creation.
“He said four or five times that I needed to go to The Bakery immediately.” He picked up his keys from the dresser. “I didn’t know what the hell was goin’ on but heard sirens in the background so I went.”
“It was the paramedic?”
He shrugged. “It was four a.m. I’m amazed I answered the thing. Yeah, might’ve been him.”
Nick appeared at the threshold. “That’s so grisly. You got assaulted at a bakery? That’s like getting mugged at a pet store. What the crap?”
“Please go away.” I looked from him to Derek. “Take him with you.”
“I’m serious. That’s nast. You okay though?” Boy Wonder snapped off two photos with his cell before Derek took it away from him and cajoled him to the door with the promise of an Italian sub. Ten seconds later I heard Derek’s car start.
I went to the kitchen, turned on the faucet, and positioned my head bloody side up. With the sprayer in my hand, I held my breath, the temp too cold. Pink water speckled with bits of brown whirled down the drain for what seemed like twenty minutes before it ran clear. I gently rubbed the towel over my head while groping for my comb in my bag. For the next five minutes I yanked the teeth through snarls and snags. I expected my scalp to be more tender, but it didn’t hurt any more than a usual combing. The headache was subsiding and other than fatigue, I felt decent. I sat in a chair with my book, but the small, black print couldn’t hold my attention. Clips from the assault kept replaying in my mind.
Derek came in and handed me a tuna salad on wheat, a bottle of water, a jar of aspirin, and my ten-dollar bill. “Talked Nick into paying.”
Good boy.
My face blanched as I tried to take small bites of the sandwich. Bruises? How did I get outside? Who called the police? Who called Derek? An image of a dwarf flashed through my mind. I was still trying to connect the dots, dots that were clearly in the stratosphere.
Jericho walked in the back door. He wore board shorts and a T-shirt with a surfing logo, his usual. “Hey, Kris.”
“Hey hey.”
“How’re you doin’?” He looked at me more closely.
“Alright.”
“What hap—?”
The side door opened with a screech. Sarah stepped in, saw me, and made a gurgling noise combined with a tiny shriek. Nick had sent her the photos of me, and she was going into heart failure, her face bright red. When she stopped waving her hands around and took a seat, I gave the room a pared-down version of what had happened; he kicked me a few times, cracked me on the head with a glass measuring cup or something like that, and then at some point passed out. It wasn’t really the truth according to my memory, but considering that I was upright and fully functional, it made more sense.
“I think the guy was on something,” I said. “It was almost like he didn’t know where he was, or rather, it was like he was looking for something but didn’t know what. And his eyes weren’t—”
Jericho suddenly sat up straight, his elbow knocking a plastic tumbler off the end table.
“They weren’t right, too glossy … like way shiny.” I finished. “That and he suddenly blacked out.”
Everyone was quiet. Jericho stared at the plastic cup on the floor. I contemplated the right words to put them at ease. Boy Wonder beat me to it.
“If I ever see this guy, I’ll rip his head off, smack the head around, set it on fire, and bring the burning skull to you.” He enacted his words.
My eyes met Derek’s. “That’s really sweet, Nick. Don’t do that.”
“You could’ve been killed or your nose could’ve been broken and be all lopsided. Thank goodness nothing happened
to your face.” Sarah pulled out her phone. “But your hair is all reddish brown on one side. I’m so sorry!”
After a short discussion that included the words emergency and innocent victim, she hung up.
“Who’d you call?” I asked her.
“Ellen at the salon. She’ll take you tomorrow afternoon and fix your color.”
“Does is look that bad?”
“It’s bad.” Nick crushed a soda can and launched it across the room.
Maybe my two-tone hair explained why Jericho had been studying me since he’d first walked in.
I answered a handful more of Nick’s questions about the police and the guy who’d attacked me. For the next half-hour the conversation, thankfully, went off on tangents. Sarah got up to leave.
“Radio silence, Sarah.” I put a finger to my mouth. “You can’t tell anyone in Austin about this. If my brother gets wind he’ll come down here and beat the crap out of me for not fighting back or getting out.” It was and wasn’t a joke. No one found it even slightly funny but everyone was looking at me funny. “You guys are making a bigger deal out of this than it is. Yeah, it was scary, like gonna-die-now scary, but other than my rusty locks, I’m fine. Really.”
“Did you say ‘fine’?” Derek said quietly.
“Yeah, fine.”
He slowly nodded.
I started to collect my things. “I was gonna get a ride from her …” My voice trailed with Sarah’s car that was pulling onto the street.
“I’m going that way if you need a lift,” Jericho offered.
“I’ll take you to get the dragon,” Derek said, watching every move I made.
“I’m not sure I should drive. It’s been a long day, hero, and you’re tired too.” I kissed Derek’s cheek. “Jericho can drop me and I’ll get my car tomorrow.” I zipped my backpack while holding his stare for three seconds. “I know that look, Derek. What’s your deal?”
He put his hand on my arm. “Promise you’ll call if you need something, wanna talk.”
