by Brinda Berry
“Thanks, Tiny. We need to go,” I said. “Em’s mom is probably ready to leave and wants Em to check out with her.”
“Watch your back,” Tiny said. “I’ll be in touch.”
* * *
Austin and I drove home in silence. Talking was difficult with the Jeep top off. I was glad. Leaves were beginning to turn red and gold and the weather was mild. It would have been a beautiful time for a drive if I didn’t have so much on my mind. Mrs. Peggy Sue had insisted that we continue to drive together for safety purposes. I could see her Suburban in the rear view mirror. She was attempting to keep up with Austin who was not thrilled at being tethered to Em’s mom on the trip home.
Near Whispering Woods, the Suburban finally turned off to go its separate route and we continued toward my house. When Austin drove onto my gravel drive, he glanced at me several times, as though he had something to say and didn’t know how to say it.
“Spit it out, Austin.” I leaned my head back against the seat and took a deep breath.
“Is your dad home tonight?”
“He said he will be home. Quit worrying. I will turn on the alarm system until he gets home if he’s not already in there. You just be careful going home. If they know about Tiny helping me, then they are watching you for sure.”
“I’ll wait if your dad isn’t home.”
“No, you aren’t my bodyguard.”
“No, I’m not. A bodyguard watches out for somebody as a job. I’m your friend, and I care about you. I need to know that you’re safe.”
We had reached the house, and Austin shut the motor off. I was going to jump out and get my bag but Austin set his hand on my shoulder. “I know you think this is all about finding Pete, but it’s not. There is more going on here than we know. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want you to disappear.”
I laid my hand on top of his. “I know that. I feel better knowing that you and Em are helping me figure this out. I also feel guilty about that.”
“Safety in numbers. Two heads are better than one. Three heads will figure this out. Four, counting Tiny.”
As it turned out, my dad hadn’t made it in yet. Austin insisted on checking every closet and cranny in the house before waiting while I set the alarm system. I pulled the curtain back and saw Austin hesitate on my front porch with his back to me. He was looking into the woods. Finally, he jumped into his Jeep and drove away.
I hauled my bag up the stairs and sorted through the clothes on my bedroom floor to start on laundry and homework. With all the drama lately, I was getting behind in my classes. My phone rang with the standard ring tone, meaning that it wasn’t my dad or friends. I looked at the display and didn’t recognize the number. I didn’t answer it, so it went to voicemail. I waited for the beep signaling that I had a message and checked.
“Mia, I need your help. Now. I know you’re home. Call back, please.” I recognized Arizona’s voice. He sounded funny. Shaken.
Maybe I needed Arizona and Regulus for information about Pete. Or maybe not. Now that I was sure that Pete had contacted me, I should stay as far away from them as possible. Pete had warned me about them, hadn’t he? Trust no one… And then Dr. Bleeker had told me about the IIA taking his wife. The kicker, of course, was that the IIA had followed me to Dallas. Did they think that because the IIA agents weren’t Arizona and Regulus that I wouldn’t notice?
I heard a noise from downstairs. I rushed out of my bedroom and stood on the landing so I could see the entire entry way into my house. I could tell that the noise was on the front porch.
Biscuit started to bark at the front door. Who needed an alarm system when you had Biscuit?
The banging on the front door was immediate and insistent. I ran downstairs and was glad that the person outside couldn’t see me. I peeked out of the peephole.
Arizona stood too close to the peephole, trying to look through it from his side. He backed away from the door. I could see the distorted peephole glass image of Arizona’s large head and smaller body. Behind him and off the porch, I could also make out something on the ground.
On a blanket, Regulus lay still. That is, I assumed the body was Regulus. I couldn’t tell due to the dark red substance that marred his features.
He was covered in blood.
Chapter 13
Trap
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who watch out for themselves, and those who feel the need to help others. I guess I fall into that second category, whether I like it or not. I stared for exactly five more seconds before my instincts took over and I opened the door.
“What happened to him?” I ran out and closed the door behind me.
Biscuit had managed to squeeze out before I could stop him and ran over to what I could now see was a tarp. He started to lick Regulus’s face and ears. “No!” I scolded.
Regulus didn’t move. I squatted down on my haunches and grabbed his wrist, checking for a pulse. I found it hard to breathe as I got a closer look. His beautiful face had become a bloodied pulp.
Arizona stood framed by the sunset, watching me with relief on his face. “I knew you would come through on this,” he whispered. “I need to get back through the portal. Someone set a trap near it, and Regulus will die if I don’t bring back something to counteract the poison. The portal has moved.” He grabbed my hand unsteadily. “You can find it. It’s still here somewhere close.”
I wrenched my hand away, scared. “You can find another one, right?” I avoided his eyes. “You’re wrong! I don’t know how to do it. You think I’m like some kind of dousing rod, but I’m just me.”
“I don’t have time to argue with you.” His eyes accused me. “I won’t allow Regulus to die just because you’re too scared to admit you can do it.”
“You’re wrong.” My eyes watered with guilt and shame.
“Take care of my brother while I’m gone.”
“Hey, wait a minute. You can’t just leave him with me.” My voice had reached a high-pitched squeal. “I mean, I have a first aid kit. Maybe we can fix him up with that. Or you can take him with you. If he was poisoned, where did all this blood come from?” I shuddered as I examined Regulus’s face and arms and could see tiny puncture wounds. The cuts formed a crisscross pattern across his cheek.
“I’m wasting time. You can make sure he lives. I have to go. I’ll explain later.”
“Wait! What am I supposed to do with him? My dad will be home any minute. I can’t take him in the house. I couldn’t get him up the stairs if I wanted to.” My pleas fell on deaf ears as Arizona detached the tarp held by ropes to the back of his motorcycle and left.
I looked at his retreating back with dismay. Biscuit whined at my feet, clearly distressed as he paced back and forth at the edge of the tarp. Now that Arizona was out of sight, what was I supposed to do? I glanced down at the ropes that Arizona had removed from his bike. I tugged one with each hand. Leaning back with my full weight, I tried to use some physics to pull the tarp across the grass. It shifted a centimeter.
Regulus twitched and his eyes fluttered. Until that movement, I had assumed that he was unconscious. I knelt down to him, nudging Biscuit away from Regulus’s head. “Listen, I don’t know if you can hear me. But I’m going to have to move you. And then… I don’t know what. Hang on. Arizona went to get help for you.”
Regulus’s eyes opened into thin slits, and I could see that he was trying to focus. His lips opened but nothing came out. I remembered the golf cart and realized I could use it to move him. I rose and almost jumped out of my skin when a hand reached out to grab my wrist.
I looked at his hand. Blood had formed outlines around his nails.
He attempted to speak and it came out as a weak croak. “Don’t leave me. Please.”
“I’m coming right back. I’m getting the golf cart to pull you.”
“I can’t have you.”
I looked at him, startled as I tried to decode what that meant. I yanked my wrist free. “I don’t have time to
listen to you talking out of your head. Let me move you and figure out what first aid stuff I might remember from health class.”
I ran to the garage and drove the golf cart over as close to him as possible. The rope ends needed to be secure if I were going to drag some weight on the tarp, so I thought about the knots I could do. Who would ever guess that tagging along with an older brother to Boy Scouts might actually come in handy one day? I’d learned the knots quicker than Pete had.
I visually pictured one of the knots called a clove hitch. I wound both ropes’ ends in a figure eight around the bumper and then back up through itself again. After I tied both ropes, I looked down at Regulus. He looked strangely like a puffer fish. His face and hands were swollen and red underneath the coating of dried blood.
The golf cart pulled the tarp and passenger, sliding on the grass and I wheeled slowly around to the back of the house. A large deck framed the back of our log house with a view of the valley to the west. Underneath the decking supported by large timber posts, a person would have to search the darkness to see the door that led to a basement room. I never came down here. I preferred the light airy atmosphere of my room with the view of the world outside.
I ran over to the unused backyard fire pit. Beneath a cement block, I found the key that Pete had hidden for quick use. He had hated getting a key from my dad and had ferreted away the extra that he proceeded to call “our secret key.” I unlocked and opened the door, glancing back at Regulus. He hadn’t moved since he had grabbed my wrist. With my adrenaline surging, I fell back on the ground when I managed to pull the tarp across the threshold and inside to safety.
* * *
“Don’t move.”
He jerked his head from side to side and tried to sit up.
“I said, don’t move.” I eased his head back to the pillow on the floor.
I’d tried to drag him away from the doorway, but I couldn’t drag him around when furniture and stuff was everywhere. By stuff, I mean miscellaneous remnants of a life I could barely remember. The basement was a carpeted room with harsh manmade lighting throwing jagged shadows against the cinderblock walls. Once, the plan had been to finish it as a room or studio. Pete had imagined that it would be his private jam studio for the garage band he’d hoped to form someday. I’d been told that my mother had dreamed of making pottery here and a potter’s wheel sat in a corner as evidence.
Squished in the middle of all this lay Regulus.
I replaced the ice packs on his face and arms. After careful examination, it looked as though something had touched or cut into his skin and caused it to swell. None of his cuts were deep; they were suspiciously shallow. They formed a pattern that left me curious as to what had inflicted the damage.
“Open your mouth.” I slid my hand under his head to lift it.
A look of panic crossed his face. He stared and met my eyes. He nodded as if he had made a decision.
I held a tablespoon of Benadryl to his mouth and forced him to slowly part his lips to take in the liquid.
Dad’s voice sounded in my memories. Vicks VapoRub and Benadryl, cures for all that ails you.
I knew that a simple antihistamine would help the swelling, but I had no background in emergency medical treatment. If I could get to my laptop, maybe I could search for a remedy. The problem was that he didn’t look that hurt. I knew he wasn’t faking unconsciousness. And he had definitely been out of it.
I realized that he was staring back at me.
“I can’t tell what’s wrong with you, and Arizona went somewhere. I mean, I can see that you have a pattern of cuts and your skin is swelling around that pattern. I’m trying to get the swelling down. You have to help me. Tell me what to do.”
“Where am I?” Regulus whispered, looking around the room and probably not seeing much from his angle.
“You’re in my house.”
His brows furrowed.
“In the basement. We never use it except for more storage.”
His muscles visibly relaxed, but his eye contact was more intense than ever. “What do you think of me?” The question came out urgent and breathless.
I ignored the question. “What happened to you? What made these marks?”
“A biological weapon. A web.”
“What do you mean, a web. Like a spider web?”
“Maybe the trap was an arachnid’s web, or maybe some other creature.”
I tried not to roll my eyes at his substitute of arachnid for spider. I had never seen a spider’s web that left marks or for that matter even hurt.
“This poisonous…arachnid…built a web that you’re allergic to?”
“Someone set this trap near the portal. This creature is not of your world. There is no way that it journeyed here without being transported by a higher level species. Humans brought it and hid it there to deliver its poison.”
“The Slips did this?”
He gave me a funny look. He closed his eyes and seemed to be exhausted after talking so much. “We are not sure who put it there.” His skin was taking on an odd shade of purple. The planes of his face were beginning to bruise in addition to the swelling.
I tried not to panic.
He grabbed my hand, “Did you arrange the trap?”
“I’ve been gone, so no, and I wouldn’t try to hurt you anyways. And didn’t you send those two thugs to follow me?”
I sensed relief as he sighed. “I would follow you. I would not send others.” He began to cough.
The bags of ice were melting, so fresh ice packs were the next order of business. I looked at my watch. How long had Arizona been gone? An hour? Less? “I’m going upstairs to fill an ice chest and bring it down here.”
He didn’t respond, so I ran to accomplish my task as quickly as possible. Upstairs, I discovered that my dad still wasn’t home. I checked my cell phone for messages. Delayed in Atlanta’s airport, Dad wouldn’t be home until tomorrow. And tomorrow would be a college campus visit day for seniors. Sometimes the stars do align after all.
* * *
The silence of the room was maddening. Silence except for the clock. The tick, tick, tick sounded like a voice scolding, “Time, time, time is wasting away.” The low rhythmic sound bled out into my head into a brown blanket of color tinged in warm gold. I was tired. Even Biscuit had curled up next to Regulus’s knee and fallen asleep.
Arizona had been gone for at least two hours.
I searched the canvas bag of snacks I’d packed from a trip to the kitchen. An outsider might guess that I planned to be down here through a nuclear holocaust, judging by the amount of goods I had in front of me. I opened a package of peanut butter crackers as quietly as I could but saw Regulus’s eyes flutter at the sound. I couldn’t tell if he opened his eyes or not. They looked swollen now and firmly closed. Or would the swelling make it more difficult to open them?
“Go ahead and eat,” he said in a croaky, low voice.
“Sorry,” I said tersely. “I was hungry. Are you hungry? Arizona will be back any minute now. I have all kinds of things in this bag. I don’t know what you like. I have crackers, nacho cheese chips, some baby carrots…”
He interrupted my babbling by shaking his head in a negative response. “Talk to me. It helps if I hear you talking.”
“Oh,” I said lamely.
He barely opened his eyes and looked at my face. I turned my head and looked over his shoulder, uncomfortable. Biscuit opened his eyes and set his furry chin on Regulus’s knee. The dog looked so at home with Regulus, as though he knew that Regulus was hurt and needed the comfort of a touch. I, on the other hand, felt useless. Useless because he didn’t ask for much. Just talk. I couldn’t think of a thing to say.
After hearing the ticking of the clock for another minute, Regulus whispered, “Why do you love Pete?”
I wondered at the strangeness of the question. “Because he’s my brother.”
“Do all brothers and sisters love each other?”
I hesitated, thinking ab
out that. “Probably not. It might depend on if they were raised in the same house and if they get along. But I think you have to feel something for your family, even if you don’t like them. But I do love Pete as much as I love my dad.”
He nodded as if satisfied with the answer. He winced.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I asked, hoping to distract him from the pain.
“Only Arizona.”
“But he’s not really your brother, right?” I took a fresh ice pack from the cooler and carefully arranged it on his neck.
“No. No brother, no parents.”
“Everyone has parents. You’re saying that you don’t know them.”
“I have Makers, not parents.”
“What does that mean? Makers?”
I waited for a response as I listened to the steady click of the clock. I looked at his face painted with purple and red swollen flesh and was dismayed at how different he looked. Regulus was quite possibly the most attractive guy I had ever seen in person. This swollen face belonged to a stranger. He never answered, and I felt beyond demanding to satisfy my morbid curiosity.
He startled me by reaching for my hand as he arched his back and moaned. I let him take my hand. “It’ll be OK when Arizona gets back,” I cooed in the voice you would use with a child while stroking his hair with my free hand. He loosened his grip.
What was taking Arizona so long?
My cell phone ring tone, “Wild Thing,” played indicating that Austin was calling. Austin had a habit of sneakily reprogramming my ring tone to suit him. “That’s Austin. I need to answer.”
Regulus tried to sit up, panicking at my words. I could see his familiar blue eyes as he made eye contact and said, “No, please, no.”
“I have to answer. He’ll just come over here if I don’t. Besides, he knows everything now. He and Emily both do.” I breathed out heavily, glad to have made the confession.
Regulus lay back and stared at the ceiling, not saying a word and not looking at me. I felt the horrible guilt of seeing his face at my words. Even in its disfigured state, I could tell how much the confession scared him. I was surprised to think about him being scared.
