by Davis, Lia;
“I don’t have anything!” she shrieked. He heard the anger and fear in her voice and he was proud of her. She was so strong. He tightened his grip on the chair leg. Zinnia yelped. Fabric ripped. Hugh began to sob.
“Sit down, Dad!” one of the sisters said. “Oh my God, you two are making this way harder than it should be. Zinnia, just give us the money. I saw you bring it in here.”
“I put it in the bank! I don’t keep cash here for exactly this reason! You and your cholo friends have all but robbed Dad blind!”
Flesh struck flesh, and she yelped again. Val couldn’t bear it anymore.
Fucking coward, Val thought as he bore into the room like a hurricane, smashing the chair leg into the first skull he reached. Three other men looked up, struck dumb by fear for a moment. Val knew he was an imposing figure, something out of a nightmare for most normal people. Black with dirt and filth, swathed in a bearskin nearly as tall as he was, and wielding a solid piece of oak, he used it to his advantage and went after the second guy with a guttural roar. The third man had Zinnia by the hair. Her shirt was ripped, revealing her bra. He had a split second to make out the bruises on her ribs and the shallow cuts on her face before the fourth man lunged at him with a knife.
The blade sank into his side, instantly stealing his breath and filling his chest with a liquid heaviness. Punctured lung. He’d felt that before, when a bullet from an insurgent’s rifle punched through a weak spot in the armored vehicle in Afghanistan.
It slowed him down a little. The man tried to yank his knife out, but it caught on Val’s ribs. Val roared again and smashed him in the face with his elbow. He went down in a gush of blood from his nose and mouth.
Even injured, spitting the blood that bubbled up into his throat with every breath, he made short work of the four men. Two lay unconscious on the floor, while the other two scrambled for the front door. Jasmine and Sonia stared at him, mouths agape.
Hugh huddled on the floor between them. He looked up at Val. “I didn’t mean to tell them,” he stammered. “I’m so sorry. So sorry. You should have just let me die.”
“Shut up, Dad,” Sonia said. A wave of weakness washed over Val, making his knees buckle and his insides cold. Blood soaked the side of his shirt. He couldn’t draw in a breath. Zinnia hurried to his side and pushed the jacket away from the knife.
“Val…I have to call an ambulance,” she said, looking up at him.
God above, he wanted to hug her. Just pull her into his arms and hang on tight until the pain faded and he disappeared. Chills so fierce he could barely withstand them wracked his body.
“Zin,” he whispered. “Zinnia.”
“Shh. Sit down, okay?” She turned away from him. “Could one of you idiots please call an ambulance?”
Sonia took a step forward. “Zinnia…”
Val forced himself to look up. The other woman had a gun pointed right at him. Zinnia gasped and put her body in front of his. “Sonia, don’t. Please.”
“I’ve hated you since the day we met you. All we want is the money.”
“I told you, I don’t have any here! It’s in the bank!” She pointed to her purse, where the contents were scattered across the bed. “One of your asshole cronies took my debit card and my checkbook. It’s all in that account!”
“I don’t care about your money. I want his money.” Sonia’s gaze moved to Val. “Dad said he pulled eighty thousand fucking dollars out of some kind of magic pocket in his jacket. I want the damn jacket.”
Val laughed.
“What are you laughing at? Give me your jacket. Give it to me, or I’m going to shoot you. No, I’m going to shoot Zinnia. You’re already about dead. You want her to die?”
Zinnia shook her head. “Just stop it, Sonia! You really want money so badly you’d kill for it? What’s wrong with you? We’ll give you money. Just put the gun down and call an ambulance!”
“I want all the money. All of it. Everything in that little magic jacket of his.”
Val fumbled for Zinnia’s arm. “Take it off me.”
“Val—”
“It’s doesn’t matter. She can have it. I told you, it doesn’t matter to me. You do. You mean everything. I’m dying anyway.” Back against the wall, it was sheer physics that kept him upright. “Just hold me until I go? Please?”
“Valdus!” Zinnia tried to fight his hands away as he untied the makeshift tie that held the bearskin on his shoulders. He moved away from the wall enough so it would slide to the floor.
The weight off his shoulders was dizzying.
Her hands got in the way as she tried to hold the jacket closed over his chest. He bumped the knife pushing them away and a wave of agony stole his breath and made him drop into a field of stars. He came to on his knees, leaning against Zinnia, his forehead on her shoulder. She was screaming at Sonia, clutching at him, and doing her best to hold him up.
“Let go,” he whispered.
“Your soul,” she replied. “You’ve been in hell on Earth for so long. You can’t just go there.”
He caught her hand, squeezed it. “Then don’t let me die.”
In a feat of strength he wasn’t aware he could perform, he shoved the jacket off his shoulders, down his arms. Jasmine yanked it up with a triumphant whoop. Sonia dug through the pockets. Her face curled into an expression of rage. “Where is the money? Make this thing work!”
Val chuckled, even though it hurt like hell. “Doesn’t work anymore. You made me take it off. I broke the deal.” His voice caught and his breath hitched in his throat. He grunted around the new pain radiating up through his chest.
“What deal? Oh my God, make this thing work!” She threw the jacket at him. Zinnia flung it away.
From outside, sirens wailed, getting closer. “We gotta go,” Jasmine said. She grabbed Sonia’s arm. “Roy got her debit card. I know her PIN number. Let’s go!”
Before they ran from the room, Sonia kicked Val in the side. “I hope he dies.”
Valdus gripped Zinnia’s hand, his consciousness wavering. She helped him ease back until he was against the wall. She worked fast, tears streaming down her face. After dialing 911 and putting it on speakerphone, she answered the operator’s questions while winding a roll of gauze around the knife handle and then his chest, stabilizing it. He watched her work as if from a distance, smiling.
She was beautiful.
She pushed his hair out of his face and touched her forehead to his. “I’m going to get it back for you, okay?”
“What?” Her voice sounded so far away. He could barely hear her.
“Your soul. I’m going to get it back.”
Despite the dirt and blood, she pressed a kiss to his cold lips. He found just enough strength to nod. He drifted off into nothingness as she wrapped her warm, strong arms around him.
Chapter Seven
Zinnia slipped into Val’s hospital room. They’d moved him out of ICU at last. The surgery to save his life had taken nearly seven hours, with an emergency surgery to stop a sudden internal bleed just a few hours afterwards. Two weeks in ICU stabilized him enough to allow him to be moved into a regular bed.
The floor nurses had done as much as they could to clean him up. He still had traces of dirt here and there. His second day in the ICU, one of the doctors ordered his head and face shaved for fear of contamination. The nurses had gone a step further and trimmed his finger nails and toenails. He looked human once more.
Without his mane and beard, his face was angular, sharp. He was so skinny she could count his ribs. Scars marked his body. His right shoulder and upper arms were corrugated with scar tissue from what she assumed was the bear attack. He had four deep, healed slashes across his upper back. One doctor said they had come dangerously close to his spine. A puckered, newly-healed injury on his abdomen might have been another stab wound.
Every inch of his body told a story of hardship. Zinnia sat down in the chair next to his bed and curled her hand around his. He hadn’t regained consciousn
ess yet.
The Devil hadn’t showed up either. She was waiting for him. She wasn’t going to let him steal Val’s soul after he’d worked so hard to keep it.
The cops arrested the two men who had been knocked out by Val’s chair leg rampage, and easily found the other two, as well as Jasmine and Sonia. They were all locked up in the county jail, awaiting trial. No one lifted a finger to post their bail. Zinnia found it hard to muster up any further affection for spineless Hugh. She planned on moving out, something she should have done ten years earlier, but she’d always been too afraid to leave Hugh at his daughters’ mercy. Despite everything he’d done, she only felt a heavy numbness toward him. It wasn’t in her to hate him. She pitied him more than anything.
She held Val’s hand in both of hers. “You’re all I’ve got now, Val,” she whispered. “I need you to wake up. Come back to me.”
Zinnia rarely left the hospital. She worked her shifts in the ER and spent her time off with Val, talking to him, touching his hands, his face, even curling up on the bed next to him. “I’m not letting you go,” she promised. “He’ll show up, and I’ll—”
She sensed him before she saw him. She turned and saw Val’s used-furniture salesman Devil lounging against the open door. Something deep inside her recognized him and warned her to get away. She stood up, still holding Val’s hand.
“You’ll what?” the Devil asked. “I’ll be honest with you, there’s not much you can do. You’re not really all that interesting to me. You’re pretty boring, hon.”
“He tried,” Zin said. “He wasn’t going to take the jacket off.”
“The main part of the deal was he had to survive the seven years.” The Devil pointed at Val and shrugged. “Technically, he died in the ambulance on the way here. So that means…” The Devil shrugged and made an, ‘oops, sorry’ face. “He’s mine.”
“How do I get him back?”
“You didn’t learn something about his little adventure? You’re a smart lady. I’m the last person you want to play games with.”
“I’ll do anything for him.”
The Devil rolled his eyes. “Oh, it’s one of those love things, then?”
“Something like that.”
“He’s broken, babe. I mean, he seems like he’s figured things out. But think about it. You work in healthcare. You understand PTSD and how traumatic events can fuck with people’s heads. This guy here…he’s never going to be the perfectly stable, normal type. He’s been through some shit. You don’t want this one.”
Zin crossed her arms over her chest. “I want this one.”
“You really fell in love with a man who spent almost seven years steeping in his filth? It took the nurses a solid two days to clean him up. How do you fall in love with somebody like that? You couldn’t kiss him or touch him and fuck him.”
“There’s more than that. He’s a good man. He might have some issues, but he’s still a good man, and I love him.”
The Devil heaved a sigh. “You’re not going to give this up, are you? You walk away from him right now, and I promise you’ll meet the perfect guy in the next week. Or more perfect guys than you know what to do with. Guys with long you-know-whats,” he made a swirly gesture towards his crotch, “and wallets even bigger.”
“I don’t want any of that,” Zinnia said. “I want Valdus.”
“Love don’t pay bills, sweetheart. It don’t put a house over your head or meals on your table.”
“We’ll find a way.”
The Devil shrugged. “Sorry, hon. You’re no fun. This guy, though, he’s been a blast. I’m only here to let you know he’s not coming back from this. You’re wasting your time. Machines are breathing for him. Lights are on, but he’s not home.”
“There’s got to be a way,” Zinnia insisted. The half a ham sandwich she’d eaten after her shift threatened to make a second appearance. She took a slow deep breath. Her breath stuck in her throat. She swallowed hard.
“Sorry, toots. Get on with your life. You know he’d want you to do that.”
She found her voice as he left the too small, too hot room. She ran after him. The hallway was empty. Gail, the floor nurse looked when she ran past. “Where’d he go, Gail?”
“Who?”
“The guy that just came out of Val’s room.”
“Nobody’s been in there but you, Zee.”
Zinnia stopped and turned to the older woman. “I was just talking to him.”
“Nobody but you came out of there. Are you all right? You look pale. Did you fall asleep? Maybe you were dreaming.”
“No. I—I was talking to him and then—” Zin rubbed her grainy eyes and shrugged. “I’m going crazy.”
Gail pulled her into a hug. “You’re just stressed out. Go home and get some sleep. I’ll call you if anything changes.”
Zin nodded. She needed sleep. Her shift started in six hours. She hated leaving his side, but at least if she was at work she was in the same building, just two floors down. “Okay.”
“Good girl. I wish half our patients had somebody that cared as much as you.”
***
Slightly refreshed and half an hour late for her shift, Zin raced into the nurses’ station, looping her stethoscope around her neck. Out of breath, she plopped down at the nearest terminal and clocked in. The patient load was already three hours behind, with a trauma on its way in. It would be a long time before she had a chance to run upstairs and check on Val. Gail stopped by the desk on her way out.
“Good news, Zee.”
Zinnia glanced up from the antibiotic she was reconstituting. “What? What happened?”
“Your friend woke up a couple of hours ago. They took him off the vent!”
“Why didn’t you call me!”
“I tried, Zinnia. It went straight to voicemail. I even texted you.”
Zinnia pulled her phone out of her scrub pocket. “Oh my God. It got turned off! No, it’s dead. Holy crap.”
She dug around in the drawers until she found a charger left by a patient and plugged the phone in beneath the desk. The screen lit up with an animated battery icon. “Crap!”
“It’s all good, Zee.” Gail smiled. “Run up and see him. I’ll cover you here for a few minutes. Hurry, though. Got to go let the dogs out.”
Zinnia hugged her friend and ran up the two flights of stairs. Val was sleeping when she skidded into his room. She hung out by the door, trying to catch her breath. When she could breathe without huffing and puffing, she tiptoed over to his bed.
He looked different without the ventilator. She could finally see his face. A shadow of a beard had begun to glow, shining reddish blond in the wan light. He stirred when she touched his hand, but didn’t open his eyes.
“Val,” she whispered. “It’s me. I only have a second. I just wanted to see you.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips. She laughed softly and kissed the corner of his mouth. His lips looked chapped. “I’m bring you some lip balm when I come up after my shift, okay?” She kissed his forehead and stroked her fingers over his shorn head. The tiny smile appeared again, and the hand beneath hers twitched. “I have to go back downstairs. I’ll be back as soon as my shift ends.”
Four hours later, Zinnia hadn’t even gotten a bathroom break, much less a lunch break. The influx of patients overwhelmed the small ER. Even for a Friday afternoon, the crowds seemed unusual. There were the usual cuts and broken bones, concussions and car accidents.
Carl cocked his eyebrow when another patient popped up on the computer screen. “That’s the thirtieth food poisoning today. Where the hell are these people eating?”
“Church picnic,” Selma supplied as she helped a green-tinted old lady hobble by on her way to the bathroom. She didn’t make it. Two more steps and she hurled all over the floor, narrowly missing Selma’s shoes. Zin bit back a laugh when Selma flashed the patient what looked like a smile but what Zin really knew was her ‘if you weren’t a patient, I’d kill you,’ look.
At midnight, Zi
n’s shift ended. She grabbed her stuff and ran upstairs. She hurried through the silent ward and ducked into Val’s room.
The empty bed didn’t register. She stared at it, not really comprehending. It was neatly made, no medical equipment clustered around it. She checked the bathroom and found it spotless, empty. Had they moved him? She should have checked before coming up.
At the nurses’ station, she pulled up his chart and skimmed through.
Pt signed out AMA. Was advised of possible complications and risks. Pt assumed all responsibility.
He…checked out? How? Hours after waking up for the first time in three weeks, after being in a bed for three weeks, after a massive open abdominal surgery to repair a nicked aorta, herniated diaphragm, ruptured spleen, and had entire lobe of his lung removed he’d gotten up and sighed himself out.
Without saying a word to me.
He’d been so weak when she visited him earlier he couldn’t even open his eyes. Unless he was faking. No, no, he wouldn’t do that. Would he? How well did she really know him? She thought back to when she’d had the idea that once his seven-year deadline got close, he’d find a reason to keep from changing.
“No, he saved my life. He cares about me.”
The student nurse at the other station looked at her, eyebrows raised. “What?”
“Nothing. Talking to myself.”
She stared at the computer, at the words, for so long until they ceased to mean anything. Tears blurred her vision. She shook her head and slipped out of the hospital. At her car, she looked for a note, anything.
Did he know what her car looked like?
Come to think of it, did he even know she worked at the hospital? And that she’d been by his side the entire time?
She sat in the driver’s seat for an hour, numb, staring out at the river across the road.
What did she expect from a man so broken he’d almost killed himself, and then spent nearly seven years living by a bizarre set of rules, on the streets? A man who swore he’d made a deal with the devil and had a magic jacket that provided an endless supply of cash on demand?
