by Su Williams
I nodded silently, still gazing into his eyes, nearly overwhelmed by the urge to memorize every detail of his face, every line, every muscle, every freckle. Everything; as though I might never see him again.
He smiled and squeezed my hand. “I’ll be back.”
“Sure, sure. That’s what the Terminator always said,” I whispered.
“And he always came back.”
“One way or another.” I grimaced at the thought of him coming back to me any other way.
The swish of his coat sleeves sliding onto his arms whispered of the silence and loneliness that I knew would crash down upon me as soon as he left. His gloves creaked softly as he balled his fists inside them, stretched the leather tight across his knuckles like a second skin. He reached and traced his gloved fingers tenderly down my cheek. I closed my eyes, enamored by the passion in his touch, the softness of the hide, the heady scent of the leather.
My arms ached for him as soon as he walked out the front door. He stopped and looked wistfully through the front window, then pointed at the security alarm. I nodded and keyed in the code. I pressed my fingertips on the cold glass, as though I could extend my contact with him beyond the glass. Then watched him as he traversed the halo of light that surrounded the house, and disappeared in a shimmer into the outer fringes of darkness.
My hand dropped to my side with a quiet slap, and tiny rings of mist lingered on the cold glass in memory of the warmth of my fingertips. The house had never felt so empty, so quiet.
I returned to the dishes with Eddyson curled up on the kitchen rug at my feet. The busy-ness was distracting; mundane, repetitious and time consuming. Just what I needed. When I was done, I made myself an Eggnog Fireball and sipped on it while I tidied the rest of the house. By the time I was finished with my chores, my drink was gone, so I poured a straight shot of the cinnamon whisky into my empty cup. I preferred straight shots to mixers anyway. I savored the hot sweetness as it sear across my tongue, and burned its way down my throat. I smiled in appreciation. I would have to thank Jesse for leaving this for me. My tongue found the sweetness that clung to the corners of my mouth and I sucked in my lower lip enjoying the remnants of the drink that lingered. After turning out the lights, I scooped up Eddyson and curled up on the couch to stare up at the Christmas tree, and the abstract reflections and shadows cast by the lights through the branches onto the ceiling and walls.
I hadn’t wanted the reminder that this was my first Christmas without Mom and Dad. I hadn’t wanted to put another tree up, not ever again. It was such a painful symbol of my loss; of the times when I was a child and we drove to the country, our property on Jackknife Mountain, and cut down our own tree. One year, we slid off the winding mountain road into a ditch and got stuck in the deep snow. Hours later, or maybe it just felt like hours to my child’s mind, another driver happened by and towed us out. I reminisced how every year Dad got sick around Christmas, until we discovered he was allergic to the trees in such close quarters. So, we bought a nice artificial one instead. One that looked almost real. It reminded me of our annual traditions that would never happen again. Silly things, like how we use to turn off all the house lights and all the tree lights on and “ooo” and “ahh” over the ever-changing, dancing lights until the “ooo’s” and “ahh’s” morphed into howling and then to laughter. I missed our tradition of howling at the Christmas tree.
It was really nice of my friends to bring me a tree and help me decorate it. Though I still resisted the urge to take it down and stuff it all away out of sight. No, maybe I would have to start some new traditions.
My head bobbled with each breath and I blinked, slow and more than mildly intoxicated. I smiled; glad my Fireball buzz was depressurizing my tired mind and body. Those grainy images still blurred through my head. Something about me. About the rape. I couldn’t focus on anything solid, couldn’t pull a clear image out of the mix. It was all so confused and—things I couldn’t explain…emotion and passion embodied, a corporeal entity, hot and hostile; fire and rage; savagery, violence and truth.
Chapter 16 The Telling Truth
The sound of Nick’s voice awakened me some time later. His fingers, chilled by the night air, brushed my hair from my face. “Morning, sunshine,” he whispered.
“Morning?” I groaned. “What time is it?”
“Three thirty.” He lifted my glass from the floor and sniffed it. “Had a little party of your own, huh?”
“Mmmmm, just a little one.” I stretched languorously. “Damn! What a lightweight.”
I was laying on my back with Eddyson sprawled on my chest. “Let’s get you two to bed.” I could hear a smile in Nick’s voice. He picked both of us up like small children and carried us to the bedroom.
“You abominations are strong, too, huh?” I teased, then wrapped my arms around his neck and snuggled into his warm leather-jacket smell.
He quirked an eyebrow in surprise at my terminology, but he laughed. “We have better than human strength. But you are lighter than a feather. What? About a buck and a dime?”
“Huh,” I feigned indignation. “Closer to a nickel.”
After Nick tucked us in, he stripped off his jacket and stretched out beside me. His cool fingers stroked my hair then he rested his hand on my arm, absently rubbing his thumb across my one mole in the crook of my arm.
“What else?” I asked groggily.
Nick froze briefly then continued rubbing my mole. “What do you mean?”
I squashed my booze-numb cheek against his chest. “What else can you do? Super strength and…”
He chuckled. “Oh that. Most of our senses and strengths extend beyond ‘normal’ human parameters. We heal more rapidly, nothing really superhuman.”
“You’re Superman to me.” I giggled quietly and fell back into a warm and comfortable silence.
The grainy images returned; brief, dizzying flashes and scattered blurs. I allowed what was left of my buzz to chase them away and lull me back to sleep. I submerged in the warm darkness and felt myself being sucked into a gale of turmoil, swallowed into a strange and lucid dream…
Again, I saw Sabre go off on Jesse, but this time they weren’t here at the house. They were somewhere else. Somewhere familiar. Some place I was sure I had been before, once, maybe. Jesse’s apartment? It was a tiny studio apartment in the basement of an older home just a few blocks from the mall. Nick grabbed the back of Sabre’s jacket and hauled him off Jesse and I sighed in relief—until Nick rounded on Jesse himself. He grabbed Jesse by the shirt with both hands, pounding his fists into Jesse’s chest. I flinched at the disturbingly familiar violence. I could almost feel the fists crushing into my own ribs.
Nick’s beautiful face wore an expression I had never seen before. A twisted mask of stark, cold fury darkened his eyes. “Look,” Nick seethed in Jesse’s face, “you know who this guy is and you can tell us or we can find out for ourselves.”
Jesse looked sick, not just “had too much to drink” sick, but guilty sick, like he’d done something stupendously evil and vile. His eyes overcast with an unforgivable sin for which he was exceedingly repentant but no exoneration existed.
“Let’s just take what we need and go.” Sabre growled, and rammed his shoulder against Nick’s. His eyes blazed with an inferno as he glared into Jesse’s face.
Nick shrugged off Sabre’s grasp and shoved him back with one hand. “My way,” he growled back. “He’s not the one.” Turning back, he balled Jesse’s shirt in his fists and continued, “But he knows who is.” Nick rammed him against the wall again, driving his knuckles into Jesse’s chest. “So, who is he?”
Jesse slowly shook his head. “Why should I tell you?” He was trying for bravado but the quiver in his voice betrayed him. Despite being shorter and slighter than Jesse, Nick was intimidating. Perhaps because he also had his attack dog, Sabre, on duty. Besides, generally, Jesse was a pacifist.
Nick slammed his fist through the wall next to Jesse’s head, busting through the
plaster without a flinch. “Because I’ll make you wish you had, if you don’t.”
Poor Jesse, I thought, I will have to tell Nick to play nice.
I groaned in my sleep and woke up. “Nick?”
“Right here, sweetie.” Nick’s body stretched out beside me on the bed, propped up on the pillows, his ankles crossed.
Fully awake, I scanned the dimness for his face. The moonlight reflecting off the snow outside on the deck illuminated the room in a wash of pale blue light. “Will you tell me where you went tonight?” I asked before I could lose myself in the depths of his eyes.
“We had some business to deal with.” That was an obvious evasion. He didn’t say, ‘we just had some business’ or add any form of endearment at the end to soften the statement. It was just a hard statement of fact, as though he’d rehearsed his answer before he arrived, prepared for me to ask it.
I reached out and stroked his arm with my fingertips, running my nails from his wrist to his elbow. “Are you left-handed or right-handed?” I asked casually as I pulled frantically on the images in my dream to recall the details. His fingers gave an involuntary twitch in response to my touch, as if I’d triggered an electrical shock under his skin.
“Right…” His eyes narrowed as he squinted down at me through the moon light. The image of Nick’s fist bashing through the wall replayed in my mind and I felt his body stiffen beside me.
Defiantly, I flipped his right hand over to look at the back of it. His knuckles were puffy and bruised, and on his middle finger knuckle was a healing cut. I exhaled with a quiet groan and winced. “I had a dream that you went to see Jesse tonight.”
Nick reached up to my face and stroked my cheek. “Emi…” Now, he was trying the endearments? Well, it wouldn’t work.
“No, Nick. Tell me.” I sat up, swatted his hand away, and dumped a snoozing Eddy onto the bed. The pup blinked bleary eyes at me and curled up in the warm spot I’d abandoned. I glared at Nick in the snow-reflected light. Undoubtedly, I was not as intimidating in the gloomy light as I would have been if the sun were up. “Did you beat him up?”
“No, we didn’t beat him up. But how did you…”
“Don’t answer a question with a question. It means you’re hiding something. Who?” My heart was racing, equal parts fury and fear. I had never been involved with a guy who beat people up. What if it didn’t stop at other people and he turned to me?
“Em, please. Just forget it, okay? Please? Go back to sleep.” He stroked my hair, and spoke way too calmly, like luring a child to sleep. I wondered if he was contemplating erasing the memory, or whatever it was I just saw, though somehow I didn’t believe he truly would. I knew I was about to find out something he truly and deeply did not want me to know.
I pushed his hand away, again. “Who?”
Nick heaved a resigned, frustrated growl. “All right. I’ll show you. Lay back down.” He patted the pillow.
Reluctantly, I lay back on my pillows. Nick leaned his face close to mine. “Close your eyes,” he crooned, the music of his voice intoxicated me. Even angry it was so hard to resist the mesmerizing tone. I obeyed. His fingertips swept across my forehead and glided down my cheek. I shuddered under his touch. As he raked his fingers through my hair, I fretted that he might pull a fast one and erase the memory. Then again, he was the one who believed every memory was a gift; he was the one who regarded them with such great esteem. Guilt flushed through my veins and I wished I could take that thought back, hoped he didn’t catch that as a memory. “Relax,” he whispered. I shot him a contemptuous glance. “It just makes it easier. I can make you some tea?” Such an obvious ploy to delay the truth.
I arced an eyebrow at him. “No,” I breathed, “Just do it.” Closing my eyes, I took in a deep breath, measured its release, and willed my body to relax.
“Em? I…” his voice twisted like a wrung out rag.
“Just do it,” I whispered, trying to hold my resolve, determined to know the truth he was obviously hiding.
The images picked up where I’d left them, as if Nick knew exactly where to start. Of course, he knew. He could read which memories I already knew and which ones I did not.
“Fine, we’ll do it my way.” Nick placed the palm of his hand on Jesse’s forehead—a Pentecostal preacher laying hands on the sick. “Who is the man in your memory?”
Nick’s vision grew dark and refocused. The perspective altered. I could see the memory through Jesse’s eyes now; he was talking to another man. I couldn’t get a good look at the other man’s face because Jesse hadn’t been paying very close attention to him. In a heavy Puerto Rican accent, he told Jesse about “having a little fun with a hot little mama.” Revulsion twisted in Jesse’s stomach at the lewd terminology and his degrading attitude toward the woman. He grimaced as the man ground one fist into the palm of his other hand, insinuating that he’d been very physical with her. The knuckles on his right hand appeared dark and swollen, and angry red scratches criss-crossed his wrist. I saw Jesse’s recollection of my battered face, sensed his fleeting speculation that the two events interrelated, but contradictory emotions toward the other man warred inside him. “Start another fight at Snoops?” he asked.
The man cackled an ugly laugh. “Yeah, something like that, lil’ bro.”
“My big brother, Rico,” I heard Jesse say, but he wasn’t talking. Jesse’s thoughts, bricks of remorse and denial, tortured and entombed his battered heart.
The memory of the dark, fathomless look in his eyes the night of the attack replayed in my mind. Now, I could physically feel that deep, distant place within him—the echo of a woman crying under the barrage of fists.
“Where can I find him?” Nick’s voice was gravelly with rage.
An apartment building on the North Side of town with a big “6” to the right of the door appeared in Jesse’s thoughts.
“The address is 222 E Bismark, Apartment number 6.”
“Were you involved?”
“No! I would never hurt Emari. I…”
Nick shoved Jesse away into the wall, then stepped up to him toe to toe, once more. “You what? You love her? Sit down, close your eyes,” he growled into Jess’s face. Obediently, Jesse slid down the wall and closed his eyes.
The images darkened along with my mood. A deep pang of sympathy for Jesse twisted my heart. He would never hurt me, of that, I was certain. He was as much a victim in all of this as I was. Realization of what all of this meant was beginning to solidify within me, but part of me resisted the reality.
“Please, Em. Let’s leave it there. We took care of it. Okay?” Nick’s voice was pleading, but I needed to know the rest. I needed to know the truth of who lived behind that door at apartment number six.
I shook my head. “Just do it.” My words were barely a breath, coarse and strangled.
“Please…” Nick felt the silent, subtle shake of my head. He heaved a weary breath, so strained and reluctant I nearly gave in, but my need to know prevailed.
The images refocused on a door with a big white number six beside it and a sleepy-eyed man glared back at me. He was familiar in a blurry sort of way, but his expression was different. I heard Nick ask if he was Rico.
The man swaggered forward, menacing and cocky, into the porch light that fully revealed his face—along with its all-too-familiar sneer. “Yeah, what’s it to ya?” I gagged at the fetid mixture of alcohol and cigarettes on his breath.
My body bolted upright in the bed, and I shoved Nick out of the way. Eddyson scurried to the foot of the bed, startled by my sudden, violent movements. “It’s him. That’s him. Oh, god. Oh, my god.” An earthquake seized my body and all the air in world was sucked away. Bile churned in my stomach. Suddenly, the Fireball felt like a really bad idea. I clamped my hand over my mouth.
Nick tenderly stroked my back. “I’m sorry, Em. I’m so sorry,” he quietly whispered. “It’ll be okay now.”
I inhaled deeply through my nose trying to steady my queasy stomach, and p
ulled myself to the edge of the bed, ready to sprint for the bathroom, if necessary. A deranged rock took over my body. “Oh, my god. Oh, my god,” became my self-appeasing chant. I was hot and cold, drenched with sweat that cooled and sent shivers throughout my body.
Nick handed me some tissue and went to the kitchen to get me a glass of water. When he returned, his eyes were glowing that raven’s wing blue, filled with sorrow and compassion. Sparkling tears that threatened to spill onto his cheeks, collected on his thick dark lashes.
I managed to slow my breathing, though I couldn’t claim to be calm, and the cool water soothed my pitching stomach.
Nick sat next to me on the bed and pulled me close. His body took over my manic rocking as he stroked my hair and consoled me. Like a protective shell, he wrapped his body around mine.
“It’s okay, sweetie, we took care of him.”
“We?” I squeaked.
“Sabre and I.”
“What do you mean? ‘Took care of him’?”
“Let’s just say he won’t be bothering you, or anyone else, again.”
Visions of Nick and Sabre beating this man to a pulp flashed through my head, though these sprang from my own imagination rather than something that spilled from Nick. “Did you—kill him?” I remembered Nick’s whispered oath, I will kill him.
“No. I rather think he wishes he were dead at the moment, and he’ll be lucky if the prison population doesn’t cause him some harm.”
“But your hands…”
“Just a little old fashioned justice, hon, that’s all.”
“So, the guy who—attacked—me, he was Jesse’s brother?” I still could not use the word rape.
“Yes.”
“Did Jesse know?”
“Not until last night. He saw your bracelet in the picture, and had a vague recollection of seeing it somewhere else, more recently. As drunk as he was, he was having a hard time remembering where he’d seen it. We just kind of—assisted him.”
“So, when Sabre helped him out to the car, he what? Caught Jesse’s memories?” I asked incredulously.
