He laughed for a long time, and by the end it sounded more like a bark. “Oh no, the problem is that no two of you are scared of the same thing. This knife,” he flicked it back and forth in front of me a few times. “it scares you but not enough, not enough for that smell.”
He leaned forward, sniffing my face. I cringed backward, but there was nowhere to go, the steel cuffs held me. I saw the knife flash in front of me and closed my eyes. There was a sharp pain on my head, I feared for the worst but when I opened my eyes he was holding a chunk of my hair.
“I think I’ll leave you alone, give you time to think about what scares you. You do promise to tell me what that is, don’t cha?” The barking laughter started again. I closed my eyes against the scene. But there was nothing I could do to block out the sound.
****
A minute later, ten minutes, fifteen, I don’t know when, I opened my eyes. I was still chained in darkness. I didn’t need to think about my greatest fear, I knew it. My fear was the death I’d already felt, the death of the spirit witch by the college, raped to death while he tore pieces of her face off. The memories came back as if they were my own. Her screams, her pain, and worst of all, the way he’d enjoyed it.
I stood there trying to focus on something else but I couldn’t. My breath turned into a wheeze as I remembered all of her panic. I leaned back and closed my eyes. Once when I was very young and very scared my Dad tried to teach me to meditate. It wasn’t really a memory, more the idea of a memory of his voice. I focused on my breathing the way he had said. It didn’t work any better now than it had in the back of funeral parlor when I was seven. Remi was coming back. I had to get out of there. I tugged at the cuffs then tried to slip out of them. They were solid, the pipe moved though. Just a little, just a wiggle, but that meant something didn’t it?
I worked with frantic desperation. I worked while the light outside must have got dimmer, worked while everyone else got up from dinner, worked while hope faded from me. I worked sweating, hot in that cramped little room, covered in grime from the wall.
“Can’t any one hear me?” I screamed. I screamed a thousand other things, but no one came. Alone, in that casket of a room, I screamed and no one came.
****
Until he came. The door opened a crack and I struggled to pull myself up from the floor. I’d collapsed in an awkward half sitting crouch, my hands dangling above my head. They’d tingled, gone to sleep, and then gone numb. At the time I’d been too worried about dying to notice it. Now as I shuffled to my feet the sensation came back, and it hurt.
“Fuck.” I swore at the pain, useless to do anything else.
“An interesting suggestion, pretty.” Remi stalked into the room. “I’ve been wondering if that might be it for you, but right now, you smell damn good already.” He leaned in to sniff me again. I let my distaste show on my face, and he repaid me for it with a long lick. “You taste good too.”
“Go to Hell.” I gave my voice all the venom I had.
“I’m sure I will, someday, but you’ll get there first.” There was nothing else to say, so I spit on his face. Not the brightest plan in the world, but a girl’s been tortured for a few hours and hung up to die; you can forgive her for that, right? Remi didn’t look like he would. His eyes glowed with hate as he wiped the salvia from his cheek. “I bet you taste good other places.”
He grabbed each of my thighs with his giant hands. I struggled to keep my legs together, but his strength was too much for me. He knelt in front of me, and hot anger flooded my body. Anger but not fear, and Remi noticed.
“Guess you’re not scared of that, huh? Sick little bitch.” He increased the pressure of his hands. I felt the bones in my legs snap with a frightening clarity. I screamed in agony but it didn’t drown out the sound. Snap and suddenly I couldn’t support myself, couldn’t stand on those ruined legs. His hands slide up to my hips and the pressure kept coming. I kept screaming, even when he let go and walked out of the room.
Alone again, I wondered how long it had been. How long could you be in great pain before someone would help you? How long could the people you love go about their life oblivious to your distress? What was Jakob doing now, while tears ran down my face and my legs swelled? What was Anna doing? Was she waiting at a restaurant while I watched the unnatural lumps in my thighs rise into knots? How could they not know something was wrong?
The questions wouldn’t stop coming. It was too dark in the room, and there was nothing to think about except how he would come back soon. He might not have caught on to my fear of rape, but now that he knew how well I handled pain, he’d be back for more of that. Sick sadistic fuck.
****
I lost track of time. The cuffs around my wrists kept me from checking my watch. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t stand up for long with the pain in my hips and legs. I had no idea how long it had been when Remi entered the room. He didn’t turn on the light. Neither did Lisa when she slid in behind him. I wondered if he knew she was there.
“Hey, pretty,” he drawled. If I never heard another French Acadian accent it would be too soon. “Having fun?”
He walked up to me and sniffed me. He started at my face, and then crouched down to keep sniffing at my crotch. It was a doglike sniff, but that didn’t stop it from intimidating me. I tried to push through the pain in my body to concentrate on him. I was almost there when he pulled me up by the hands. I screamed as the weight hit my legs. It was the wrong thing to do. He liked my screams.
“What do you say we have fun together?” His hand reached for the waistband of my pants.
“Is your girlfriend going to watch?” I nodded my head toward Lisa. It was a desperate ploy to distract him. It worked, but just barely.
“Get out, Lisa. You don’t want to see this,” he shouted without turning from me.
“Remi, let me stay,” she whined. “I never get to have any fun. Everybody treats me like a sick kid sister. Let me stay and—” She moved across the floor too fast for me to see it. She was whispering in his ear, but they were both close enough for me to hear her. “I’ll help you do it.”
She licked his ear and then began to stroke his hips. Her hands reached around the front of him. I closed my eyes against the sight, but I couldn’t stop myself from hearing his zipper open.
I felt him press his body against me. Vomit rose in my throat, and terror folded around me. His hand grabbed my breast with agonizing power. He pulled, starting to tear the tissue under my skin.
“Maybe I’ll leave them there? For the first little bit, eh?” It wasn’t much, just a few words, but it brought me back to that crime scene. The pain in my legs had made me forget, but I remembered now. Remembered her body ripped in two, her legs split open, her lips chewed off her face. I was going to end up that way. I felt my heart pound in my chest, adrenaline replacing the fear and pain that pumped through my veins. My power came to me, but there was nothing to do with it. I needed someone to help me. All I could think of was Jakob. I put everything inside me, every drop of energy, into screaming his name. Then, mercifully, I passed out.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I drifted on a cloud of darkness. I couldn’t feel my body. The door exploded off its hinges, and I saw a woman standing in the narrow stone hallway. Behind her fire filled the hall with bright red light and poured into the room like water. The woman walked in fire, draped in flames. She came to me, and I was on fire too. The handcuffs melted from my wrists. When she picked me up, I recognized Anna. I tried to say her name, but the darkness came crashing down on me.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I found the world again in a tiny white a hospital room. My skin touched the metal bars of my bed as I reached out. Jakob saw me and caught my hand. I tried to talk but no sound came out of my throat. He offered me some water in one of those silly hospital cups with a bendable straw. I took it and tried again, managing to croak out, “How long?”
“Four days. We found you Friday night. It’s Tuesday.”
“You heard?” I remembered the effort I put into that scream, the raw power I spilled into it. I hadn’t even imagined he could hear me. I felt tears prick at my eyes.
“I heard, Mark heard, every vampire in the city heard. So did the werewolves. I’m afraid by the time the police arrived it, resembled a bit of a war.”
I struggled to sit up. My friends could be in jail for trying to protect me. I was ready to leap out of my hospital bed to save them. Jakob gently pushed me back down.
“Everyone is fine. The city no longer has a wolf problem. Danny is handling the paperwork.”
“Anna? Mark?” My voice started coming back to normal.
“Both fine. Although I suspect Anna is a bit surprised at her own strength. She channeled the fire goddess for the first time looking for you. I gather that’s a monumental thing.”
I could only nod. There was no death god for me to channel. I’d never know what it was like to have a god step inside my skin and start running things. I’d never know what it was like to command the power of a god. I wondered what that would do to someone. Would you get addicted? Could you recover? Maybe it would drive you insane in the end. I hoped Anna was able to wrap her head around it all.
A nurse came in and interrupted us. She insisted Jakob leave the room. I was reluctant to let him go, but saw the wisdom of it when she began some very personal examinations. Jakob came back in the room after I had suffered the indignities of the nurse’s work.
“I don’t like any of this,” I pronounced.
He laughed, but it didn’t take the tension out of his eyes. “I didn’t think you would, but it beats the alternative.”
“No flowers?” I made a feeble attempt to tease him.
“You’re in the Intensive Care Unit, my love.” He kissed my fingertips. “They don’t allow flowers or more than one visitor at a time.”
“Damn,” I croaked.
“When you can have them I will buy you a garden’s worth of flowers.” His eyes still looked sad.
“I don’t need them. You rescued me, that’s enough.”
“It wasn’t me. Anna found you.” The idea pained him.
“I’m sure you had something to do with it.” He didn’t say anything, and I could tell that working through what had happened wouldn’t be easy for either of us. “You said it was Tuesday, why have I been asleep so long?”
“You haven’t been asleep.” His voice strangled on the words. “You were unconscious, like a light coma.”
“Is the diagnosis bad?” I had been awake less than an hour, and already I was starting to feel tired again.
“Not bad, the healers took care of most of your injuries.” He kissed me softly. “Let’s not talk about it.”
“If I wasn’t so damn sleepy, I’d force you to talk about it.” I tried to put some weight behind my words but failed.
“We’ll talk about whatever you want once you get out of here. I promise.” He looked down at me, and my heart nearly broke with love for him.
“I love you, Jakob,” I whispered, wishing there was some way to make my words convey the way I felt.
“I love you too, my sweet Mallory,” he said, and I drifted back to sleep.
****
I wanted to dream of him, but I didn’t. I didn’t dream of anything, I just opened my eyes again to find Mark sitting next to me, reading through some paperwork in a file folder. He closed it and looked up at me.
“Where’s—” I started, but he cut me off.
“Jakob had to eat and sleep, not to mention stop by work. You’d think the world was falling down over there without him.” He shook his head and offered me some water.
I felt good enough to sit up and take the cup myself. It was a small thing but it made me happy.
“Phoebe and Isaura have been taking the day shift, but I thought I’d make an all right night nurse.” He offered me a faint smile.
“No one else?” How could the air going into my nose make my throat so dry? I wondered if there was a way to get rid of the green tubes.
“Two officers outside the door and the SIU popping in whenever they’re in the area. If you see any red chalk around your bed, it’s from Officer White. You’re covered in warding spells. But no one is supposed to know about that.”
“Not Anna?”
“I’m sorry, Mallory, I think she needs a little more time.”
“What hurts so much?” I asked settling back down into the bed.
“Well, you’ve had the best healers money can buy, but I suspect recovering from two broken legs and a broken pelvis takes a bit even with their help,” he said.
“What else?” Jakob hadn’t been willing to talk about my injuries, but I knew Mark would.
“Severe dehydration, ketoacidosis from burning through all the sugar in your blood, bruising and cuts on your wrists from the handcuffs, and more bruises on your breast, legs, and thighs. Oh and a nasty puncture wound on your arm.” He recited the list without any feeling. “All in all I’d say you got off pretty easy, but then they left me to bleed to death in the snow, so I’m biased. Anyway, welcome to the club.”
“Club?”
“The club nobody wants to join. You’re officially the survivor of a werewolf attack.” He positively grinned. I managed to roll my eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you the secret handshake later.”
“You look different.”
His collar was unbuttoned, the way every other man in the world wore it but I’d never seen on Mark. With his shirt open I could see some of the scars but they weren’t obvious. I hoped he realized that.
“Your hair?” There was something about his hair, the way it laid against his face. I reached out and took a strand of the thick black hair between my fingers. I’d never imagined it was soft. It always looked coarse and greasy.
“I washed it?” He pulled back so the hair trailed through my fingertips.
“Something else.” I looked at him for a second, trying to make the connection. “You’re not hiding behind it. I like it. It makes you look less…” I felt incredibly languid, probably because of whatever dripped into my veins through the IV. Finishing the sentence was too much work. Instead, I tried to gesture to the files. “What’s that?”
“Case reports. I’m trying to decide where to go next. No one’s requested me, so I get to pick my next assignment.”
“You should stay.”
“I thought you didn’t like me?”
“You’re growing on me.” I licked my lips and swallowed. “Like fungus.”
“I know I’m not the easiest person to get along with. I’m not a good person.”
“You are. You just need practice acting like it.” I fought to keep my eyelids open. “Besides, there’s Phoebe.”
“I didn’t think that was permanent.” I could see he was warming up to the idea. “I haven’t had a home in centuries. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“Put away the case files and read a book,” I told him, then drifted off to sleep.
The next morning I found a novel about Queen Elizabeth I’s court beside my bed. His bookmark was already half way through. I smiled at the post it note stuck to the front. It read “I was there. They got everything wrong.—Mark.” I was in the middle of breakfast when Phoebe arrived.
“Everything wrong?” she asked fiddling with the note.
“Are you surprised he’s ready to correct someone?” They’d finally removed the cannula. The air I breathed on my own wasn’t nearly as dry. It made a world of difference. Not to mention that it fostered the hope I’d be going home soon.
“Nope. But you know, he’s not like that when he relaxes, but the minute anythin
g about work comes up, he needs to be right ,” she agreed.
“How are you two?”
“That’s not what you want to know, chica. You’re stuck in that bed with absolutely nothing to do. I know what you’re really wondering about.”
“Damn spirit witch,” I said with mock fury. “How was he?”
“Oh girl, let me tell you.” She began a lengthy discussion that would have made Jakob blush and Mark howl. Men never realize how graphic women get with each other. In the end I knew how endowed Mark was (very), how skilled (also very), and how much she had enjoyed it (a great deal). I didn’t think she was in love, but I was fairly sure Mark wouldn’t be lonely for a while.
The doctor arrived and gave us both the good news. I was being transferred from ICU to a regular room, as the first step toward going home. I was delighted. After that, I was bored to tears, waiting for hours before I was transferred to the new room. Phoebe eventually brought a deck of cards and taught me gin rummy. At noon, the patient transport team finally arrived. Phoebe got me settled into my new room, then had to go.
I was alone in the nicest looking hospital suite I had seen. With my mom’s illness I had plenty of experience. This was a palace, private with a full bath, and a large TV tucked away into a cabinet. The only thing that surprised me was the lack of a window. There were curtains, and lights mounted behind them to look like sunlight, but when I asked the nurse to open them, she revealed a solid concrete wall.
“For some reason you’re in a vampire safe room.” She checked the chart. “Oh, well, maybe it was the only private room available. I’ll be back every hour to check up on you. Get some rest. Later we’re going to try walking.”
I didn’t tell her about Jakob, the real reason for my very nice vampire safe room. I was sure he was sleeping somewhere safe nearby, hating that he couldn’t be with me. I thought about the nurse’s quip that later ‘we’ would try walking. I wondered how many broken bones she’d recovered from lately. Isaura arrived in the middle of my bad mood, holding a small light blue box.
“Indigo is wracked with guilt.” She took the top off the box so I could see the dark chocolate truffles. “He got carried away with things and didn’t realize you hadn’t come back. He’s positive that if he had said something sooner you wouldn’t be this bad off.”
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