by C. L. Stone
“Gabriel,” I said, my voice almost nonexistent.
His arm flew over my side. I was pulled close. Gabriel shoved his face against my forehead. He sniffed heavily. “You smell like shit,” he said.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Shut up. You smell like the damn bed. I hate this bed. Don’t say sorry like you did it on purpose.” Another arm weaseled its way under me, until he could pull me close. He buried his face against my neck. “Apparently I have to put myself in the hospital to get to hang out with you.”
“Gabriel,” I said, in a much smaller voice than before, only breathing his name.
He grunted. “Don’t listen to me,” he said. “I’m all fucked up. I don’t know what I’m saying.”
I sighed, ducking my head down into the crook against his shoulder and chest. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you.”
He pressed his cheek against the top of my head. “I said don’t listen to me. I was being an asshole before. That wasn’t your fault.”
“I wasn’t thinking. I was seeing you everywhere and I ...”
“Yeah,” he said, his head popped up. “What do you mean? You were saying that earlier.”
I swallowed back the thickness of heavy sleep to find more of my voice. “I mean, I saw Victor’s closet, all the work you put in to organize it.”
His palm slid against my back, warming my skin. “Oh?”
“And the mural in Dr. Green’s office. And then Adam and Lei were talking about you a lot at the spa. You were everywhere the last few days. It’s happened a lot the past few weeks. You were on my mind a lot, but it wasn’t really you.”
He was quiet for such a long moment, I almost thought he’d gone back asleep. He shifted, his arms wrapping around me tighter. “How can you be so beautiful? Now I feel like more of an asshole.”
“Gabriel?”
“And on top of it, I wake up and you’re right here next to me.” He lifted his head. The light from the window caught in his face. “You came back for me. You pulled a fucking knife out of my leg. What the hell did I do to get you to like me so much?”
“You painted my toenails.”
A hand lifted from my back, and landed with a smack against my thigh. “Shush, smart ass.” His hand smoothed over the spot where he popped me, as if feeling the material of the jeans. He sucked in another breath, pulling me into him. “How long are we supposed to stay here?”
“I don’t know. Until someone comes to get us. If you were awake, we were supposed to go home.”
“Shit.” He snuggled close. “Let me pass out for a while longer, keep you to myself for a bit.”
I wanted to tell him I could take him home to my house, but my face was mashed up against him and I didn’t really want to move.
He didn’t say any more. At first his hands massaged at my back and side. Soon they slowed. His breath fell heavily against my shoulder.
Only, now I was wide awake. I wanted to know where Kota was. I wanted to know where the others were. Were they safe? Could they reach us if they weren’t?
I spent at least an hour staring off at the lights outside. The parking lot lights dimmed at a certain point, as did those from the shopping center. The rain had eased to a delicate drizzle, sometimes smattering the window on a breeze. It promised to be a cold rain. I imagined it was after eleven, or maybe past midnight.
Happy birthday to me. It’d been the strangest one I’d ever had.
I was partially dozing, almost on the brink of sleeping again, when I heard a click and the sound of metal rubbing against wood. The air shifted.
I turned my head. Maybe it was Dr. Green returning. Or Kota. I wanted to tell whoever it was that I wanted Gabriel to stay with me at my house. I needed to take a little more time with each of them, and not let any of them feel like Gabriel felt.
A figure closed the door, cast into shadow. He stayed back, as if unsure how to move forward, or maybe was waiting for his eyes to adjust.
“Kota?” I called softly, not wanting to wake Gabriel.
I could make out a hand signaling me to get up and follow.
Dr. Green probably told him to make me eat. Or he wanted to talk without waking Gabriel up. I eased myself out from Gabriel’s arms. He drooped over, a half bar of some unknown tune played on his lips but it faded.
My bare feet touched the cold tile of the hospital floor. It was too dark to see where my shoes were. I wasn’t sure I should walk around like that, but didn’t think we’d go too far.
The shadow turned, opening the door, but staying behind it. I stepped out into the hallway.
The hospital floor was dimly lit. I had seen this before in other hospitals. At a certain point in the night, they turned off the overhead lights and worked with low level illumination. I didn’t see any on-call nurses walking the hallway, but we were a distance away from the center monitoring station for this floor.
I caught a scent. Different. If I had to describe it, it was peppery plum and jasmine.
And the only one who smelled differently all the time was Gabriel, and he was in the room, asleep.
I bolted, not knowing where I was going, but determined to lead whoever was behind me away from Gabriel.
“Wait,” called a voice. Altered, mechanical.
I wouldn’t wait. I wouldn’t stop.
I wouldn’t stand still and let someone lure me somewhere again. Mr. Blackbourne had once told me if I felt threatened, I had to run. Run to somewhere safe. Run to somewhere public. Don’t stop.
Not when someone took my picture without me knowing.
Not when I’d been fooled more than once by a guy who wore all black and changed his voice. And maybe I was afraid of him most of all. If he was there to warn me about the boys being bad, I didn’t want to hear it. What he did to me, the doubt that filled my head with every hug, every touch I’d once sought out, he’d ruined it. I didn’t want any more.
As I dashed down the dim corridor, footsteps followed. I only found empty hallways. The nurse’s station was abandoned. Had he done something to distract them? I thought about an elevator, but I found the stairwell first. Without thinking, I crashed through the door.
I was down the first flight before I heard the echo of the door being pushed open behind me. I stumbled down, following the rail. I nearly jumped the stairs as I got close to every landing.
And when I looked back, I caught the white mask following.
How did he get past security? Didn’t anyone notice him?
“Wait,” Volto called after me. “Hang on. Don’t go.”
I wasn’t going to listen. He followed me down.
I don’t know what I was thinking, and I was out of breath, but I didn’t stop going down the stairs or through a door until I hit the very bottom. I thought for sure I would end up in the emergency room on the first floor with some security guards to hide behind. I’d jump the nurse’s station if I had to.
When I crashed through the door at the bottom, I was met with dim lights.
I blinked wildly. Where was I?
With the echo of footsteps behind me, I ran. I followed the lighting along the floor, dashing around a corner. I rushed down corridors.
The floor changed from tile to bare concrete. There were pipes over my head. I barely caught sight of one, ducking at the last minute before I hit my head on it. I wound my way behind a maze of pipes, hoping I wasn’t headed for a dead end, but feared I was.
“Sang,” called a voice. Because of the vibration of the echo, I wasn’t sure where it was coming from.
I pressed my back against one of the pipes, the cold metal biting into my skin. I tried to control my breathing, afraid he’d hear me. If I was in some basement level, I needed to find my way back to the stairs. Or maybe there was another way out. Maybe there were back stairs somewhere.
Hands covered my mouth, and an arm pulled me to the pipe by my neck, pinning me against it. How did he get so close without me hearing?
I scrambled with my hands, ripping at th
e hand at my mouth, trying to get whoever it was to release me.
“Stop struggling,” Volto said. His voice was strange with the distorter. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
I stilled. He had me, but with the pipe between us, I couldn’t flip him. The best I could do was breathe heavily through my nose and try to figure out what to do next. With the way he held me, wrestling him hurt, because it knocked my ribs and back into the hard metal.
“If I wanted to hurt you, I wouldn’t go through all this trouble,” he said. “Stop running like a little demon.”
I moved my mouth, wanting to respond, but his hand was tight against my lips.
“Stop,” he said. “No talking. Just hang out right here for a minute.”
I didn’t understand. He sought me out to make me stay still? What were we waiting for?
There was a loud clink of sharp metal against metal behind us. It hurt my ears and startled me so bad, the echo rang through me like a harsh shiver.
“Sing Song!” Greg’s voice reverberated against the walls and pipes. “There’s no way out.”
My eyes widened. He led Greg right to me! I panicked, bucking against the arms that held me.
The fingers tightened around my mouth. The arm around my throat squeezed to hold me still, but I ended up releasing the last of my breath. If Greg didn’t get to me first, this guy was going to smother me.
I wedged my jaw open, and found a gloved finger. I bit down.
There was a grunt. The arm around my body relaxed. It was enough that I could peel myself away from the pipe and out of his grip.
“Don’t!” Volto called after me.
Another set of footsteps chased after me. I zoomed across the room, finding a dimly lit corridor, and a length of closed doors and other hallways branching off. I picked a direction, hoping for more hallways or a place to hide.
“Song?” Greg called. There was another loud clang of metal on metal. Something registered in my brain, of the knife stuck in Gabriel’s leg. He must have found another one or maybe he had Eric’s gun. He was banging it against the pipes. “Sing Song Sing? Come on out. You fucked up. No one on this floor. The maids are all gone for the night.”
I slowed my steps. Greg was looking for me, so he didn’t see me. I used quiet steps, as quick as I dared, to move across hallways, away from his voice.
After another couple of turns, I was lost. I couldn’t hear Greg any more. I thought at first that was a good thing, because I was possibly away from him, but I also didn’t have a sense of where he might be.
I paused just at the bend of one dim corridor. I stared off into the dark, trying to choose a direction to go.
An arm snagged me around the waist.
I fell back, dropping to the left along another side hallway. I had enough time to catch myself with my hands. A body crashed on top of me.
A gloved hand shoved itself into my mouth, deep enough that it locked my jaw. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t bite down.
“Stop it,” said the masked voice. “And shut up. Greg’s coming.”
I stilled, my heart thundering. I hoped I wasn’t making a mistake. From his tone, even though it was hard to tell from the digital way it was manipulated, it still seemed like he didn’t want to get mixed in with Greg, either.
I’d rather take on the guy without a knife.
I was still for a long time, unable to hear anything over my heart thundering, Volto’s breathing in my ear above me, and the various hospital noises: AC, water, power.
After a long moment, Volto picked himself up. He grasped at my waist until I was standing beside him. He tugged at me so I’d follow.
He guided me down increasingly darker hallways until I was forced to keep a hand on him. I couldn’t see a thing.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
“Not now.”
Footfalls fell heavy behind us, like someone giving chase.
“Run,” Volto said.
He didn’t have to tell me that part.
Through the dark, he yanked me by the arm, this way and that.
Winding through the hallways, out of breath, I started to fall behind.
“Just a little further,” he said.
I wanted to ask how big this hospital was, but from the way he was guiding me, it felt like the long way around the way we had come from.
Down another couple of hallways, the concrete at my feet switched back to tile.
Volto slowed. He pulled at my arm to get me to stop, turning me around. “You’re a pain in the ass. You know that?”
“I’m not really your problem,” I seethed out between breaths. “Why are you doing this?”
“I’m too nice for my own good.”
Footsteps, faint for now, echoed down the corridor. I backed up, as if ducking into the wall would help me to blend in and make me invisible.
“He’s coming for you,” Volto said.
I started to walk off.
He snagged my elbow. “Stop.”
“We have to get away.”
He stilled, his white mask tilted toward me. The shadows changed the facial features from almost a blank expression to one that was eerie with long shadows. “I’ll let you escape, but I need something from you.”
My head jerked back. “What?”
The footsteps got closer. Volto ducked with me into the archway of a shadowed metal door. It didn’t hide us completely.
Volto turned back to me and leaned in close. The jasmine scent from earlier filled my nose. He grabbed my shoulders. “Give me the passcode to the dragon desk.”
My hands fell on his hips to try and push him away. Victor’s desk at home? He was crazy! I couldn’t give him that. “I can’t.”
“Give it to me, or I’ll shout and run off and leave you here for Greg.”
Part of me was willing to take that risk. I didn’t know anything about what was in Victor’s computer at home. And how did this guy know that it existed or that I even knew the code? Between the security around the wall he had to get past, and who knows how much other stuff Victor had set up for his house, how did this guy think he’d be able to get in?
“How can I trust you? After everything you’ve done? The pictures you took of me?”
“I didn’t take any pictures.” The guy shook my arm. “Hurry up. We don’t have time.”
His shaking caused me to grip tighter at his hips. My fingers brushed at something flat in his pocket. A cell phone?
Something Victor said had my lips moving. Nothing important, at least he thought, was on the computer. Part of me thought if I got out of this quickly, I could get someone to call Victor, maybe Gabriel upstairs, and warn him in time to change the passcode, just in case.
And, if I was careful, I could probably get back something better. The edge of the square shape in his pants was something I was willing to risk taking.
I started slow, pretending to be sketchy on the first two digits. I needed a distraction so I could bump into him like Karen had shown me.
Footsteps. I shook, stopping. I whimpered, I hoped I sounded frightened. I pushed my body up against his as if he were one of the guys. When my hip bumped into his, my fingers clipped the edge of his phone. Remembering what Karen told me, I lifted quickly.
He grasped me around the shoulders, catching me. His breath fell heavier against his voice distorter. "I promise you'll get out of this," he said. "I wish you'd listen to me and take a bus out of town. But I need that passcode." His hands massaged my shoulders in what I thought was meant to be a soothing gesture. "Tell me."
“Three, five, seven,” I tried.
He shook me hard again. “Stop lying. You should know better.”
I was a terrible liar. I swallowed, nodding solemnly and diverting my eyes in one direction over his shoulder, slipping the phone into my back pocket. I rattled off the numbers of the code to him, a series of eight digits.
The masked head nodded. “No matter what you hear, you should stay put. Stay right here
.” He released me, running in the opposite direction of the oncoming footsteps.
“Volto!” I hissed at him. I didn’t have a name for him, so I didn’t know what to call to him except for that.
He stopped, but didn’t turn around.
“I thought you’d said you’d help,” I seethed.
“I already did.” He turned the corner and disappeared.
The footsteps were coming closer. I sunk myself back into the door. How did he help? Or did he just lie to me to get the code? I didn’t have time to figure it out now. I wasn’t sure if I should run in the direction he’d gone or listen to him. I fingered the phone in my pocket. If he found it was missing, he might come back for it.
I wanted to try running, but before I could get myself to move, a figure appeared at the other end of the hall. It lingered just in the shadows, waiting.
I caught the glint of something metallic in his hands.
I shrunk closer to the door, sucking myself in. I thought maybe he’d pass up this hallway if he couldn’t see me.
The footsteps got louder, coming closer.
I held my breath.
The figure stopped short just where I was hiding. “I thought I saw a little Sing Song down here,” Greg’s voice cracked my slight hope that this might be a security guard or someone else.
I leapt, ready to run when the metal door slid open. A light shone through revealing an elevator. It illuminated Greg’s face just as he was turning, distracted.
A body dashed in front of me. Before Greg could lift his knife, he was struck in the stomach and tackled.
Greg went flying onto his back, landing hard. The body on top of him heaved himself up.
I caught a wisp of blond mixed in with brown.
Gabriel knelt over Greg. His fists swung hard at Greg’s face, over and over. I could hear the thuds falling as his hand made contact. Gabriel dug his knees into Greg’s stomach.
“Fuck you, motherfucking shit. Touch her again.” With every swing of his fists, Gabriel cursed, sometimes slurring them together until I couldn’t understand.
Greg was sprawled under Gabriel, his legs and hands had jerked at first, as if trying to protect himself. As the onslaught continued, they stilled.
