Sweet Desire, Wicked Fate

by Wray Ardan

  Briz asked for Brooke Lisette’s room.

  The admissions nurse replied, “Second room on the left. Her daughter’s with her.” If aggravation were a color, it would have been the muddy shade the admissions nurse turned when she said daughter.

  He nodded. He knew Ava had a knack for sticking her foot—with her perfectly polished toenails—into her mouth. Taking a deep breath, he imagined a protective shield of light surrounding him. Enhanced with spiked armor.

  Briz paused at the open door. Ava was sitting in a chair by her mom’s bed. Raising her head, she flopped a fashion magazine onto the small table next to her and looked right past him.

  “Where’s Jade?”

  “Good to see you too, Ava.” He walked over to the bed.

  “Funny, pretty boy.” Ava narrowed her eyes. “So, where is she?”

  “She asked me to see how the two of you are doing.”

  “Oh, isn’t that just dandy.” Ava jabbed her finger at the empty seat next to her. “I want to see her scrawny butt sitting right here.”

  Briz shifted his attention to Brooke. Surprisingly, her pale face exuded serenity. He wasn’t sure if she was unconscious or asleep. Memories of Jaden's praise for her mother came to mind—how when devastated by the death of her husband, she’d picked up the pieces of their shattered lives and worked to make them feel like a family again.

  No one who had been pulled into this wretched ordeal, from Jaden to Hubs to the victims in the hospital, deserved to be hurt.

  Especially not Brooke.

  Briz knew that karma, good or bad, doesn’t always appear to make sense.

  “How’s your mom?” he asked Ava, hoping for the best.

  “They had to put eight stitches in the back of her head. She’s not going to be happy. They shaved some of her hair off.” Ava crossed her legs and jiggled her foot, making her sandal flap against her heel. “Why did Jade think Mom was bitten by a bug or had plant poisoning? They thought I was nuts when I told them that. I had to hound them for hours to test for it.”

  “So, did they find any?”

  “Yeah.” Ava smiled. Evidently, making the hospital staff appear inept filled her with great joy. “There was oleander poison in her leg and traces of thornapple sap on her gums. They gave her a tetanus shot, and put a compress on the bite but never figured out what bit her. Whatever it was, it caused some kind of temporary paralysis and coma. Early this morning she came to. But she’s been sleeping since then.”

  In spite of Ava’s superior attitude, she looked tired. Her eyes were puffy and red. Briz noticed a pile of crumpled tissues in the small wastebasket near the bed. “Have you been here all night?” he asked. “Or did you go back to your place to get some sleep?”

  “Do I look like I’ve had any sleep?”

  Briz folded his arms over his chest, remembering that Ava was incapable of having a normal discussion. Verbally clobbering people was her preferred form of communication. If he sent her to fight the Mal Rous, they’d probably run away screaming.

  “I went to the rental house last night.” Ava shivered. “The front window was broken and the door was slightly open. There was no way I was going inside. I got out of there as fast as I could.” Tugging on the hem of her top, which looked two sizes too small, she said, “I had to buy this at the drugstore.”

  What are the chances burglars robbed their place? It must’ve been the Mal Rous. Briz actually felt sorry for Ava. Maybe she was more vulnerable under her high-and-mighty exterior than she seemed.

  “Did you call the police?” He went over to Ava and placed his hand on her shoulder. Her tight muscles relaxed at his touch.

  “No. The landlady can deal with it when she gets back from New Orleans. I had to sleep in the god-awful lobby. The nurses won’t even let me stay in this room. It wasn’t like they didn’t have space for me.” Ava gestured dismissively at the occupants of the three other beds. “I mean, I was here before any of them.”

  Briz surveyed the ailing patients, trying to figure out which of the Mal Rous had attacked them. After a moment he realized that Ava’s fingers were gliding over his hand. He jerked it away. Why did I think I should comfort her?

  “What’s wrong, Briz? Having second thoughts about Jade?”

  “No.” He was pretty certain he actually shouted it at her.

  “So, where is she?” Ava asked, arching her back like an indignant countess.

  “Last night after we left you in the car, she got, uh … bit. So a friend had me take her to some healers that live on the bayou. She’s doing better today.”

  “Are you serious?” Ava raised one eyebrow, intimidating him even more. “Are you some kind of head case that gets off on abusing people? You show up at the estate and my mom gets hurt, you follow Jaden into a frickin’ cane field and she gets injured, and then you leave her out on the bayou.”

  Ava stood up, inches from Briz, her hands on her hips. “What is it with you? Are you just all good looks, and no brains? The bayou. Even I wouldn’t have done that to her. You took my sister to some kind of witch doctor instead of the hospital? Why?”

  “You’re just going to have to trust me. Jade’s a lot better off there than she’d be here. They know what they’re doing. They’ve dealt with this stuff before.” A lot better off? Doubt chipped away at Briz as he looked around the hospital room.

  “What do you mean, this stuff?” Ava sat back down, scrutinizing Briz’s bandaged leg and filthy shorts. “Exactly what happened after you flakes ran off and left me to deal with all this?” Her voice rose as she gestured at her mother.

  Briz shook his head with a huff of frustration. Why did I mention the bayou? I need to use Hubs’s form of communicating when I talk to her—the less said the better.

  He stared at Ava with narrowed eyes. Being around her is just plain painful on so many levels.

  “I don’t appreciate that look, Brisbane!” Ava enunciated his name like a joke.

  He inched back ready to sprint out the door. Her rollercoaster temperament seemed to subside when she looked at her mother.

  “Her vital signs are stronger. They said there’s nothing else they can do for her. They need the bed, so they’re sending her home tomorrow.” Ava’s voice soured. “I can’t take care of her. What do they expect me to do? Take her to a house that got broken into? And where am I supposed to sleep tonight? In the lobby again?”

  Briz shrugged his shoulders.

  “Real funny, isn’t it!”

  “Hey, you don’t see me smiling.” He could care less if Ava had to sleep in the lobby. His main concern was that Jaden and Brooke were getting care.

  “So are you going back for Jade? Or are you going to leave that up to me, too?”

  “Yes. No.” Briz was appreciating Jaden more than ever. “I’m going to get her tomorrow.”

  Enthroned in her seat, Ava glowered. Briz felt his life force shriveling into a raisin. The combination of the Mal Rous and Ava was just too much for him. That’s not fair. The Mal Rous might not be as unstable as she is.

  Briz took a deep breath. Come on. Don’t get caught up in her attitude.

  “Ava, you have to call your crew. Tell them to take the week off. There’s some kind of feral animal on your property. They can’t come back until it’s caught.”

  “Should I have Carl set some traps, like for raccoons?”

  “No, no … I’ll take care of the traps. Just don’t forget to call them, tell them to stay away. After what happened, Carl will probably be glad to get his workers out of there. And don’t go to the estate. Stay away from that place.”

  “Brisbane, you’re kind of weirding me out. So what about me? I mean, tonight? I’m not sleeping here again.”

  “Well, uh, you can get a motel room for the night.”

  “Uh,” Ava said, mimicking him—reminding Briz that he said “uh” way too often. “I doubt I could even rent a motel room. Anyway, there isn’t one in this town.”

  “It’s forty minutes north right of
f the highway. They’d probably give you a room—especially you—no questions asked. Do you need some money?”

  She angled her body toward him. “No, I have some.” Her voice turned velvet-soft. “If I can get a room, would you stay with me?”

  Briz’s eyes widened. He felt like a dim-witted clown.

  “I didn’t mean in the same bed.” Ava’s tone changed to scratchy burlap. “I can’t sleep sitting up in the lobby again.” She stomped her foot on the floor. “I don’t want to be alone. If you won’t go to a motel with me, can I stay at your house?”

  Briz’s brain felt like it was about to hemorrhage from the pressure of holding back a high-pitched scream. He wanted to yell, “No way!” He knew she couldn’t go back to her house. The Mal Rous could be there waiting. He had to do the right thing. After all, she was Jaden's sister.

  He pressed his thumb between his eyes trying to bring up images of Jaden—mellow, easygoing Jaden—as he gave a low, agonized moan.

  “Look at these.” Ava whined, flinging her hands up. “I’ve been biting my nails.” Still glaring at her fingernails she said, “So can I stay at your house or not?”

  “Okay,” Briz squeaked as if he had laryngitis. He’d certainly be safer from her at home with his mom and dad around than alone with her in a motel room. “Only, my parents won’t be cool with this. I don’t want to have to explain why you’re there, or what’s going on with Jade.”

  “Don’t they trust you with a woman in your room?”

  Was she serious? Briz bit the inside of his lower lip to stop from saying you are so not a woman.

  He stood straighter and spoke with authority, “I want you to park your car down the street around the corner from our house. When everyone’s in bed, I’ll sneak you in through the back door.” His attention shifted to Brooke as she quietly sighed. Looking back at Ava, he insisted, “Tomorrow when you pick up your mom, you’ll stay at the motel. And you have to call the crew now. They’ve got to keep away from the manor.”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell Carl to come back when my mom’s better.”

  “And don’t go over there.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m not dense.”

  “Okay. So, uh, come over at ten fifteen tonight. By then my parents and sisters should be in bed.”

  “Excuse me? You expect me to sit here till ten o’clock?”

  Briz nodded and started toward the door. “You remember where my house is?”

  Ava’s exasperated sigh clearly told him he was an idiot. She’d dropped Jaden off there a half dozen times.

  He didn’t give her a chance to reply. “I’ll wait for you by the side of our garage. My folks can’t know you’re there. Agreed?”

  “Give me a break. You’re acting all bent out of shape.” Using both of her hands Ava pointed at herself. “Any one of your friends would be begging for some of this, if I spent the night with them. I’ve seen the way they drool over me.”

  And when they were done, they’d run for their lives.

  “Yeah, well you aren’t spending the night with me,” Briz clarified. “You’re just sleeping in one of our beds. And not the one I’m going to be in.”

  “Wow, I really make you nervous, don’t I?” Ava smiled broadly, as if she felt victorious.

  Briz couldn’t come up with a response. Leaving the room, he didn’t look back. “Ten fifteen. Not before!”

  CHAPTER 27

  What goes around comes around. Eventually a lie will bite you in the butt. Briz knew this. But he wondered What if you lie to help others?

  He asked his parents if they’d mind if he went camping with a couple of friends. He knew they wouldn’t object. His folks didn’t necessarily care for any of the guys he hung out with, but they didn’t have much choice. It had been his parents’ idea to move the family to Belle Fleur to be closer to his grandparents. They chose to send Briz and his sisters to a public school that was below academic standards, a drastic difference from the private school they’d attended in Seattle. Anyway, what could they say? He graduated from high school last month. He wasn’t a kid anymore.

  Guilt pumped through Briz as his dad helped him load camping gear into his car. Tent, sleeping bag, camping stove—Briz knew he wouldn’t be needing any of it. Except the flashlight, and the gut-hook hunting knife his dad had given him “just in case some ferocious critter shows up.” He couldn’t understand why his vegetarian, computer programmer dad would even own a knife like that. At least it might come in handy for fighting the Mal Rous.

  How’d I get roped into this? All because I’m jonesing for some girl.

  “So, may I ask if any girls are joining you on this camping trip?” his mom asked, standing behind him. “Do you have protection?”

  Briz coughed. Covering his mouth, he stopped himself from telling another lie.

  “Carmen, leave the boy alone,” his dad said, patting Briz on the back.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I have no intention of making you a grandma. You’re way too young.”

  “Yeah, well I’ve seen how you look at Jaden, and she’s way too young to have a kid. So be careful.”

  “Mom.”

  “I know. But it’s the same way your dad looked at me when we first met. The two of you aren’t so different.”

  “He’s going camping, Carmen, not starting a family.”

  Briz’s dad took hold of his mother’s hand. “Besides, I’ll be ecstatic if he ever meets someone that makes him feel the way I do about you. I still remember the first moment I saw you.”

  Briz started rearranging things in his car, thinking his parents would go back into the house. No such luck.

  His dad’s voice was almost giddy as he leaned against the car watching Briz. “I’d just finished my first year at UCSD and signed up for a couple of summer classes. Your mom was walking in front of me, and I was thinking, wow, what a great … anyway, right then she turned around and smiled at me like I’d said it out loud. I followed her and sat in on her class.”

  “Max, you were like a stalker, following me to all my classes.”

  “Yep. Threw my course schedule right out.” He pulled his wife closer and kissed her forehead. “I’d stumbled into my future and I knew it.”

  His mom had transferred from the University of Sydney to UC San Diego just for the summer session. When she returned to Australia, his dad wrote her love letters every other day for eight months, then showed up on her parents’ doorstep in Brisbane to ask for her hand in marriage.

  Who does that any more?

  Briz closed the car door and turned toward his mom and dad. They looked like lovesick teenagers. Prior to that moment the danger he was in had felt distant, otherworldly. Now the possibility that the Mal Rous could alter his life—as well as his family’s—seemed real. With a strained smile he walked over and hugged his parents, wondering if this would be the last evening he’d ever spend with them and his sisters.

  “Just try to be mindful when you’re with your friends,” his mom said. She gave him a squeeze and repeated one of the principles she’d worked so hard to instill in him. “Always be mindful of what you do.”

  Obviously, I haven’t quite learned that one yet.

  At ten o’clock Briz’s mom tapped on his bedroom door and said good night. When he heard the television shut off, he walked quietly down the hall past the pools of light that shone from under the doors of his sisters’ bedrooms. He slipped into the kitchen and out the back door. As he stood by the garage, he felt the uncertainty of the next few days pressing on him like the hot muggy air.

  “Hey, Torus.” Briz looked down as his cat rubbed against his legs. “How you doing, buddy?” Squatting, he scratched Torus behind the ears. “You’d better stay inside. No telling what kind of deadly pests might be wandering around town.”

  When the cat had gotten enough attention, Briz pulled his phone from his pocket and called his friend Grover. Asking Grover for a favor was on par with licking the sidewalk in the seedy part of town.

&nb
sp; “No problem,” Grover said, clearing his throat. “I’ll cover for you. So where’d you say we were going?”

  “Kisatchie State Park. For a week. I told them I’m picking you up early tomorrow morning. So, don’t drive down my street … and if they do see you in town, tell them—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know the rules. I’m the one that made them up. You taking that sweet thing from out of town you’ve been hanging with lately?”

  Briz didn’t answer.

  “You dog. You just look at some bebelle and she’ll do whatever you ask.”

  Bebelle. Jade isn’t some plaything. Why did his friends and family think he was such a player?

  “Hey bro, take one sleeping bag, to better your chances of gogo.”

  Gogo. Bedding Jaden was the last thing Briz wanted. Well almost the last. But mostly, he wanted her to be normal again.

  Briz hung up and looked at his phone. Ten fifteen. Right on time. Ava appeared, lit by the yellow tinge of streetlights as she slunk down the sidewalk like a tigress.

  “I’m in big trouble, Torus.”

  The cat hissed as if it understood Briz’s words.

  Alone in his room with Ava, Briz had a rather unsettling realization—being around her didn’t make him doubt his feelings for Jaden, but it did challenge his moral nature. He’d always thought he had more of a conscience than any of his male friends. But with Ava sprawled across one of his twin beds, he realized how much of a guy he really was. He’d spent the last few years denying it. Well, “denying” wasn’t exactly the right way to put it. Not being stupid was more like it. Ava might act like a princess from the dark side, but she was gorgeous. And willing. How often does that combination leap into a teenage boy’s bed?

  No. If he was going to be hot and heavy with anyone, it was going to be Jaden.

  Ava asked, “I don’t get it. Why don’t you like me? Guys usually respond really well to me.”

  “I don’t dislike you, Ava,” he said flatly.

  “So, do you ever … think about me … want me?” She said the words as if she was lapping whipped cream from his body.