There was a telephone in the room, and Visola softly cursed. Everyone was underwater and away from access to any phones. She figured that it was worth a shot to call Trevain’s landline, in case his butler might be monitoring the line. She struggled to sit up in bed, and dialed the numbers frantically. She heard it ringing, and bit her lip.
“Hello, you’ve reached Captain Trevain Murphy. I’m not in at the moment…”
She sighed, and waited for the tone. “Hi, grandson. It’s me Visola. I got into Zimovia, but Vachlan wouldn’t free my sister like he originally said he would. The bum. Anyway, I tried to kill myself and I just woke up in this hospital in…” Visola looked out the window of the hospital, realizing that she had no idea where she was. Gorgeous snow-covered mountains were visible just beyond a small city. She looked down at the phone, and saw the name of the hospital. “Ketchikan. I’m in a hospital in Ketchikan. I must have been air-lifted here. Please tell Queen Amabie that I’m disappointed with the efficacy of her hara-kiri technique. Regarding launching the attack…” Visola was startled when a nurse entered the room.
“Oh, my! You’re awake. I’ll run and get your husband.”
“No!” Visola shouted after the nurse, but it was too late. She groaned and quickly replaced the receiver. Visola threw her legs off the side of the bed, and began to stand up. The blood rushed to her head, but she battled her dizziness. She discovered that although she had freed herself from the respiratory tubes, there were still needles feeding into her arms and wires connected to her finger. She ripped everything out of her body. Once she did this, an annoying noise began sounding from the machines, and she knew that she would have to move quickly.
Visola went to the window, looked down at the street below. It was only a three story drop. She was not sure if the fall would kill her or not, but whether she landed dead or alive it would be better than facing her husband. She forced the window to slide open. She was disappointed to see what a tiny opening there was, covered by a screen—but she believed it was just barely large enough for her body to fit through. She tried to remove the screen by looking for latches, but to her vexation, it was impossible. She heard footsteps in the hallway, and she began punching the screen until there was a hole. She desperately ripped at the hole. Visola grabbed the ledge above the window and tried to lower herself through the hole, feet first. She had a bit of difficulty getting her hips through, but once they slid through, she was confident that her shoulders would fit. In a few seconds, she had squeezed herself through the window, and she hung from the ledge. All she needed to do was let go.
She exhaled to relax herself, preparing for the impact. She expected that the head trauma would be much more serious than when her head had collided with Aazuria’s hand. It might be difficult to walk away from this one so easily. She took another deep breath, feeling her pulse racing. It was mostly suicide, she told herself. If she did happen to live, then that would be the unlucky outcome. She might still fall into Vachlan’s hands. She heard noise in the room above, and she knew she needed to let go. So, she did.
Visola’s hands opened, releasing the window she had been gripping so tightly that her fingers ached. She felt the sensation of falling, and waited for the impact. She shut her eyes so that she would not see the ground coming, or see the sky leaving. All that she saw was her daughter—not her daughter’s face at seventy, or her daughter at seven, but the soul that had remained underneath those faces throughout all of her ages, and would continue to remain. She smiled.
Where was the impact? The fall could not be this long. It was not a hospital in a major city, and the height of the building was rather unimpressive. Visola impatiently squinted one eye open. She saw that nothing was moving. She opened both eyes and looked up to see that a hand was around her wrist. Vachlan had caught her from falling. Why had she not felt his hand around her wrist? She must be on a considerably high dose of morphine. She frowned, and used her other hand to try to sink her fingernails into Vachlan’s hand to make him let go. Instead of producing this effect, he grabbed her other forearm, and began to reel her back into the window.
“No,” she whispered, beginning to struggle. She kicked the wall with her bare feet, trying to build enough momentum to push away from the wall.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.
“Somewhere without sarcastic flowers.” She twisted her arms, knowing exactly how to twist her arms to evade the grasp of a stronger opponent, but he was too strong. She pulled her torso up so that she could sink her teeth into his hand, and she bit down on him, ripping into his skin. He did not even flinch or cry out when she tore off a chunk of his flesh with her teeth. She immediately spit it out, letting it fall three stories below.
“Gross. You taste nauseating,” she told him as she struggled.
“I believe you used to have a different opinion,” he said. He made a forceful heave and managed to get her head and shoulders through the window.
She could feel how weak she was. She could not fight him in her current state. It would have been tough even at full health. No conceivable number of protein bars would help. Vachlan reached down and grabbed her around the waist, and managed to pull the rest of her body through the window in one mighty haul. The two of them flew to the ground, and Visola found herself landing on top of him. She cursed. She was too dizzy to move and she thought she might pass out where she lay. That would be embarrassing.
Vachlan grabbed her and pushed her off him, knocking her to the ground. He moved on top of her to hold her down. “What the hell were you trying to do?” he asked her angrily.
If she had been feeling up to her usual standard of mental alertness, she might have made a joke about switching positions. Instead, she could only focus on getting free. “Hey, Vachlan,” she said in a lame, and tired attempt at being suggestive. “I’m totally naked under this hospital gown.”
She kicked her knee up into his groin, and followed by shoving both of her elbows into his eyes. She twisted her body and slipped out from under him. She tried to get to her feet, but her legs gave way under her. She cursed and grabbed the hospital bed to pull herself up before running for the door. Not surprisingly, Vachlan beat her to the door and shut it before she could exit.
“You put up a hell of a fight for someone almost-dead,” he said to her as he slammed her into the wall beside the door. When he pinned her firmly to the wall with his body, she sighed in defeat. It was a rare moment that she was not in the mood for the challenge of wrestling with someone who vastly outranked her weight class, but this was that moment.
“Why are you trying to kill yourself, Visola?” he asked.
“Why the hell do you care?” she responded, staring at his chin. Visola was six feet tall. Hardly anyone towered over her like Vachlan did. It was still disconcerting, even after all this time.
“I need you alive,” he said simply, as he studied the flecks of emerald in her eyes.
“I need my sister alive,” she shot back. “I guess we both aren’t getting what we want.”
Vachlan glared at her, and she tried her best to match the intensity of his gaze, but she had to blink to clear her sight once his two heads began separating into four. She tried to make a private internal joke about how her blurred vision was accurate since he was so two-faced, but her thoughts could hardly form coherently. She closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them, she was shocked to find that her head had fallen forward to rest against his shoulder. She jerked her head backward, and it collided with the wall sharply. It felt like she had been asleep for half an hour, but in reality it could not have been more than a moment because there was surprise on his face too. She blinked rapidly to keep her eyes open, and she cleared her throat to brush off her mortification.
It was not acceptable in her personal policy to cuddle with the enemy. Not anymore. Her eyelids felt heavy, and her head began to roll forward again. She fought to straighten it. “I’m going to pass out,” she told him with a yawn, �
�but I promise you this—when I wake up, I will succeed in killing myself. I can be very dogged.”
He raised a hand to her face, holding her chin firmly between his thumb and forefingers. “What do you want from me, Visola?”
“Nothing,” she murmured sleepily. “I just want to get away from you.”
“And if I free Sionna?” he asked. He observed as her drooping eyelids shot open.
Visola’s heart skipped a beat. Sionna was alive and her freedom was still an option. Before she knew what she was doing, she had placed a hand on his chest, and she was whispering, “Please. Vachlan, please…”
“You must be hallucinating to ask so nicely.”
“I always seem to be hallucinating around you,” she answered softly.
Before he realized exactly what he was doing, he had released her chin from his vise-grip and was gently brushing a few strands of red hair away from her eyes. He quickly made it seem as though he was only feeling her forehead for fever—and indeed, there was a temperature.
“I’ll bring Sionna here so you can have evidence of her safety,” he told her before she could slip away. “Then, like I promised, I will let her go home. You will return with me to the camp in Zimovia, and you will stop trying to kill yourself.”
She smiled. She knew that he would be fair. Now that she was assured that her sister was going to live, the dark spots were fading. The violets were suddenly sincere. Her head pitched forward again, and when it hit his shoulder this time, she did not have the energy to pull it off. “Thank you,” she whispered against his shirt. “Thank you.”
She did not even realize that her whole body had begun falling, and that his hands were holding her up. All her strength was gone, and her voice slurred as she spoke. “I don’t care about anything as long as Sio’s safe.”
“You should lie back down, V. You need to get your rest.”
Even as he said this, she was already half-asleep on her feet. “So when I’m better you won’t feel guilty about torturing me, V?” she mumbled.
“Yes,” he answered truthfully.
“Okay.”
Chapter 19: The Suicide Sisters
“Mrs. Ramirez? Mrs. Violet Ramirez, can you hear me?”
A bright light was shining into Visola’s eye, causing her to blink angrily, and twist her head away from her attacker.
“Mrs. Ramirez, we have…”
“Ramaris,” Visola said hoarsely.
“Yes, yes, sorry. My Spanish is horrible. I’m Dr. Chen. I have some questions about your insurance. Also, forgive me for asking, but is your husband your next of kin?”
Visola groaned.
“He’s a very nice man. Very concerned about you. There seems to be a small problem with the papers he gave us. The dates are kind of…”
Visola opened one eye to look at the doctor with disdain.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll sort everything out if you recover. I mean, when you recover. Oh, I also need to ask; are you aware that you have four lungs?”
“Fuck off,” Visola mumbled as she returned to sleep.
When Visola woke again, she felt like she had been dead to the world for several days. The first thing she noticed was that her flowers were gone. The second was that there was a head of thick dark hair resting on a pair of folded muscular arms on the bed near to her thighs. The contrast of the tanned skin and black hair against the white sheets was striking. This confused her. He was sitting on a chair by her bedside, keeping watch over her. Did he still care in some weird and twisted way?
The third thing she noticed was his outfit. He wore modern clothes; a dark grey t-shirt and simple jeans. If it were not for the overdeveloped muscles, he might have passed for a normal Alaskan man, and not an infamous undersea vanquisher. The only reminders of the truth were the plentiful tan lines on his wrists and neck from the strings of shark-tooth-armor that the Clan of Zalcan wore.
She sighed, and wished that he was a simple American man. If only he were as sweet and nonviolent as her grandsons… who were, coincidentally, his grandsons too. That was rather mind boggling—not the fact that the men were related, for it was easy to see the physical resemblance, but the fact that she and Vachlan were grandparents. It seemed like just yesterday they had been kids making love in lagoons. Now they were all grown-up and he was trying to extinguish her family and everyone she held dear. Life moved along so quickly.
Then again, it was the fact that he was so dangerous and capable that had attracted her to him in the first place. If he had been harmless, she never would have taken notice. She never would have been intrigued. She knew that she should be hating him, and feeling regret for making the wrong decisions, but she could not manage to do this when he was sleeping on folded arms at her bedside. All she could do was feebly wonder if he still loved the theatre.
She reached out to touch the tan lines on his wrist, and just barely grazed his skin with her pinky and ring finger before her eyes closed. It occurred to her, as she drifted off, that neither of them wore the rings they had exchanged.
“I don’t understand you. Why you would say that to her, knowing how she overreacts? What the hell is wrong with you, Vachlan?”
“Shut your mouth, woman, or I will gag you again.”
“Sure, right here in the hospital, in front of the nurses. Go ahead.”
“I can kill all of these insignificant fools without much effort.”
“Then do it. No one’s stopping you. I’m not stopping you.”
“You couldn’t stop me, Sionna.”
“Maybe not. What are you trying to prove, brother-in-law?”
Visola’s eyelids fluttered open and she sighed. “Shush! You two are giving me a headache. I feel like part of an Italian mafia family.”
“Viso,” Sionna said, leaving her argument and rushing to her sister’s side. “You have an infection. You’ve been running a high fever, and you’re on an antibiotic drip. I’m going to need you to…”
“Relax,” Visola said, smiling at her sister. “This is not your hospital. Sio, I am going to need you to go home immediately. I need you to…” Visola could not speak in front of Vachlan. What she really wanted to say was Namaka’s name, but she could not do this—her personal vendetta was not the most important thing she needed to communicate. Vachlan knew English, sign language, and possibly Russian. She chose the obscure Aleut language, and tried to remember the words she needed. “Instruct them to prepare ayxaasix…”
“Not another word. No military talk,” Vachlan warned. “Keep it brief—if you try to send any messages home, or speak another word I do not understand, Sionna will not leave this room alive.”
“That wasn’t military talk, it was strictly family business,” Sionna lied. “Frankly, I feel uncomfortable going home until I know Viso is better.”
“I’ll be fine. He brought me flowers,” Visola told her.
“Good Sedna, she’s delirious,” Sionna murmured, feeling her sister’s forehead.
“No, I really did bring her flowers,” Vachlan said. “I left nasty messages in every single bouquet.”
“How charming,” Sionna remarked, raising an eyebrow.
“Sio,” Visola croaked. “Tell me one thing before you go; did you reveal anything to the Clan?”
“No, of course not.”
“Not a thing?” Visola asked, frowning. “Didn’t they torture you?”
“They intended to, but I was aware that I was a bargaining chip. I told them that if they touched me, I would just swallow my cyanide pill.”
Visola laughed. The movement hurt her insides, but she did not indicate this. “You are just like me! We’re the suicide sisters. Did you really have a cyanide pill?”
“Of course not,” Sionna said. Upon receiving an angry glare from Vachlan, she decided to explain. “My pill contains a much faster-acting chemical weapon called saxitoxin. It’s a thousand times more potent than cyanide. I harvest it myself from butter clams.”
“But what if you accidentally s
wallowed it?” Visola asked with worry.
“I have to crush it between my teeth first,” Sionna explained. “The pill is made of thick rubber. You weren’t the only one who Papa trained, you know. We just had different types of training.”
“You’re so much smarter than I am,” Visola said with a groan. “I sliced myself open and tried to play cat’s cradle with my intestines, and it still didn’t kill me.”
“You are far too impulsive to carry saxitoxin,” Sionna said. “Imagine if you did have one of my capsules? You would have swallowed it, and it would have been final. I’m so overjoyed that you’re only extremely injured.”
“Aww,” Visola crooned, struggling to extend her arms as she made the sentimental sound. “C’mere, Sio.”
Sionna wrapped her arms around the injured woman. When she spoke, her voice was heavy with emotion. “Besides, love. A quiet poison-death would not suit you. You deserve to go out with flamboyant fireworks in the biggest, loudest blaze that ever burned on the earth.”
Visola squeezed her twin with all of her strength—which was no longer very much. She was already feeling tired again. “I love you, big sis,” Visola said softly. “Now, please, get the hell away from here.” Visola usually insisted vehemently that Sionna’s one minute of seniority was negligible, and Sionna knew that her sister must be expecting to die if she was acknowledging this marginal youth. Sionna squeezed the injured woman’s hand, and gave her a knowing look.
“If something happens to you, I will feel it. Be patient.” She leaned forward and pressed a light kiss on her sister’s lips before withdrawing from the bed.
“Well, the years have certainly changed you gals,” Vachlan remarked with a drawl. “I remember you ripping each other apart so much that I never felt comfortable enough to suggest a ménage à trois.”
Fathoms of Forgiveness (Sacred Breath, Book 2) Page 18
