by Dima Zales
He stepped close to me, trying to take it out of my hands. “You don’t need it.”
“The hell I don’t,” I growled, tightening my fingers around the neck of the bottle. When he couldn’t pry it away, he grabbed my shoulders and held me still.
“Jordan, look at me.”
Finally, I stopped trying to wriggle out of his grasp and met his eyes. There wasn’t irritation or impatience in them—just concern. He spoke again, his voice quiet and measured.
“You don’t need it.”
Something painful welled up in my chest, but I ignored the sensation as best as I could. Seeing me cry once was enough. Instead, I threw up my hands.
“What do you want me to do? I can’t deal with this shit every night.”
Michael watched me before touching the side of my cheek, brushing the hair out of my eyes. “Then let me do my job.”
Gently, he took the bottle and set it on the table behind me, tugging me forward enough to wrap his arms around me. Part of me wanted to resist and argue with him more, but the other part wanted to sink into him and forget the horrible dream as quickly as possible. In the end, I just stood there—neither hurting nor helping the situation. After a few deep breaths, my heart rate slowed and the adrenaline drained out of my tired body until I was back to my normal, cantankerous self.
“I don’t think hugging me is part of your job description.”
He was tall enough that I couldn’t see his face with my own pressed to his shoulder, but I could tell he was smiling by his tone. “Last time I checked, hugging wasn’t a sin.”
A tiny smile found my lips. “Obviously you’re doing it wrong.”
Feeling admittedly better, I pushed away from him and sank back onto the bed, tugging out the loose knot I’d tied my hair up into so I could run my fingers through it. Nervous habit.
Michael sat next to me, but didn’t touch me this time. I appreciated it.
“What did you see?”
I couldn’t help but wince. “Belial.”
“It’s not the first time, is it?”
I shook my head. “Ever since the fight at the psychiatric hospital, I’ve had nightmares about him. Still, this one was much more…vivid.”
A cold shudder rolled up my spine as I thought about him kissing me, how he had manipulated me into thinking he was someone else. Bastard.
Michael let out a long breath, leaning his arms on his long legs. “I know it sounds corny but…you know I’d never let him hurt you again.”
I nodded, fingers combing through my hair until it was untangled enough to fit back in a ponytail. “I know.”
“Is there anything you want me to do?”
A thought popped into mind—something I’d forgotten about for a while—that time he and I had fallen asleep in bed together and I didn’t have nightmares that night. Somehow, his close proximity seemed to cancel my bad dreams. Why, though? Maybe I’d ask Gabriel about it.
“No,” I said out loud. “I’ll be alright.”
A tiny voice in my head whispered that I was an idiot, but I told it to go die in a fire. Our relationship had crossed so many lines at this point, and there would be no reason to keep at it. He was an archangel, for Christ’s sake, not a teddy bear.
I climbed into bed and flopped down on the pillow face up. Michael took the hint and went back to his own, hesitating before getting in.
“Good night, Jordan.”
I sighed. “Let’s hope so.”
I expected to wake up in a cold sweat, buried underneath the fluffy white comforter, but something was different. There wasn’t a damp imprint of my body on the mattress. Quite the opposite, actually. I felt warm. Inexplicably so.
There was a firm weight down my back and along my waist that seemed to keep the cold of the hotel room at bay. Even with my mind barely conscious, blind pleasure filled me. I felt…safe. Not really a familiar sensation with my lifestyle.
A contented sigh slipped past my lips. I snuggled deeper into my comfortable spot, reaching over my waist to pull the covers in tighter so I could make myself a cocoon. I touched something smooth. Not the blanket. Firmer. Confused and still mostly asleep, I tried to stretch but my heels brushed against a pair of rather large bare feet. A muscular chest met my spine, melting into it perfectly. Definitely male.
Wait, what?
My eyes flew open. I sat up in my bed to find Michael lying asleep next to me with one large arm draped across my hips.
I scrambled backwards in a flustered panic, remembering it was only a Queen-sized bed seconds too late. I tumbled off the edge and hit the floor, which knocked the wind out of me. However, the enormous thud woke up the intruding archangel.
“Jor?” he croaked in his ultra-deep morning voice, peeking over the edge of the mattress.
I stood up in a flash and shrieked, “What the hell are you doing?”
He frowned. “Making sure you didn’t crack your skull?”
I ground my back teeth. “Not that, jackass. Why are you in bed with me?”
Michael raked the hair out of his face so he could see me better. “Oh. Jordan, you were tossing and turning the entire night. I couldn’t keep waking you up or you’d never get any rest—”
“—so you just thought there’s no harm in crawling in bed with me? Have you lost your mind?”
He continued looking confused. “We’ve shared a bed before. What’s the big deal?”
“What’s the big deal? You had my permission when that happened.”
“I was just trying to help.”
I pressed my fingertips against my temple. A headache was forthcoming. The hot blood rushing through me felt liable to pop out of my neck at any second. “I’m not a child. I can handle a few bad dreams by myself.”
Finally, he got irritated. “So what? We’re just going to pretend like you weren’t about to start drinking last night because the nightmare freaked you out so badly?”
“Sounds good to me.”
He shook his head. “Denial isn’t going to help you get better. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable and invaded your privacy, but I didn’t know what else to do. You were in pain.”
“Fine. Let me enlighten you. Life is pain. I’ll get over it.”
He glared at me. “So if the same thing were happening to me and I told you to just back off and forget about it, what would you say?”
That shut me up for a couple of seconds. He had a point. Sort of. Not that it mattered because he was clearly missing the big picture. “Michael, you’ve been on earth long enough to know that there are some lines you just shouldn’t cross. Last night was one of them. If you don’t see that, then we have nothing else to talk about.”
I stalked off to the bathroom, not answering when he called after me. The door slammed shut between us—louder than a gunshot. I stood in the middle of the room and wrapped my arms around myself.
I still felt warm.
Damn him.
Thirty minutes later, we were both dressed and out the door to head to the psychiatric hospital where my mother’s records would be. I didn’t expect to find much—after all, it had been eighteen years. I was lucky the hospital was small enough that they hadn’t deleted the files. The backups were our only shot.
“Can I ask you something?”
“No.”
Michael ignored me and continued anyway. I was still a bit mad at him but at least he hadn’t tried to bring the argument up again. “How come you didn’t do this sooner?”
I thought about blowing him off, but telling him the truth at least kept my mind off our spat. “I wasn’t able to leave my aunt’s place until I was sixteen. I’d gotten a job at fourteen and hid money around the apartment. When I had enough, I ran for it and hitched a ride to the first thing smoking out of Jersey. An old woman drove me to Albany and that’s where I decided to set up shop. Her name was Selina Lebeau. She let me rent the room above her candy store while I got another job. Took me forever just to be able to afford basic household stuff
. Got lucky one night at the restaurant when I met Lauren and she helped get me a full time job there. I just couldn’t save up enough to get back to Jersey, no matter how hard I tried. Why do you ask?”
He shrugged one shoulder, concentrating on the road ahead rather than looking at me. “She’s important to you. I knew there had to be a reason why you hadn’t done it before now.”
Further talk was hindered by the fact that we’d pulled into the parking lot of the psychiatric hospital. Like last time, I felt the creeping sensation of a panic attack coming on: muscles tightening, pupils dilating, cold sweat, and rapid breathing. I gripped the side of my car door and closed my eyes, breathing in and out slowly until the symptoms faded. This time, there would be no faceless men dragging me away from my mother, nor would Belial or Mulciber be waiting for me. I had to believe that with all my heart, or I’d never get out of this car.
Finally, I opened the door and stepped out, squaring my shoulders and doing my best not to wince as I looked up at the sparkling white hospital, stark against the bright green grass and the vibrant blue-sky overhead. Cheerful place. I wasn’t buying it.
The automatic doors whooshed open, sending a blast of frigid air against my skin. I shivered and glanced about the lobby. Pristine baby blue walls, linoleum floors, and framed pictures of smiling people. It felt oddly like walking into an eye doctor’s office.
I brushed the thought aside and walked up to the front desk where a black guy sat with a phone tucked against his shoulder. He smiled when we walked over, lowering the receiver.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes. We have an appointment with a Dr. Reginald,” I said.
He faced the computer in front of him, typing in a few things. “I see. I’ll send a call for her. Make sure you have your paperwork ready. Please have a seat over there.”
He pointed to the plush navy chairs in the carpeted waiting room to my right. I withdrew the paperwork that had been folded up in one of my inner pockets and sat down. Michael took the seat to my left. Silence fell over us as the minutes crept by, punctuated only by a clock ticking on the wall and the typing of the male secretary. Anxious energy began to build in my nerves. It wasn’t until Michael touched my left leg that I realized I had been bouncing it up and down.
He flashed me a reassuring smile and leaned over a bit to murmur something to me. “If you don’t stop doing that, I’m going to staple your foot to the floor.”
A challenging smirk touched my lips. “Try it and die.”
The angel adopted a haughty expression. “Is that a threat, mortal?”
“I most certainly hope it is.”
“I could take you blindfolded with one arm tied behind my back.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Is that how they did it back in your time, Grandpa?”
“Ouch. That’s a low blow.”
I would have replied but then a short Asian woman in her forties walked over, offering her hand.
“Hi, I’m Dr. Reginald. Are you Jordan Amador?”
I stood, accepting her firm handshake. “Yes, ma’am. This is my friend Michael O’Brien. He’s here for moral support.”
She paused, pointing at him and then me. “Michael…Jordan?”
I couldn’t help but smile a bit. I’d gotten used to people making that reference over the past couple months. “Yeah, I know. It’s weird.”
She grinned at my admittance. “Nice to meet you. If you’ll follow me, we’ll get started.”
Dr. Reginald led us past the front desk and down the hallway of the employees’ offices, meaning that all the patients were on the upper three floors. She opened the door to the stairwell and we followed her to the basement, which was even colder than the sub-zero first floor.
“Pardon me if I have a little trouble with the files,” the doctor said, taking a set of keys out of her pocket. “It’s very rare that we have past relatives coming in to find information about loved ones.”
“It’s fine,” I assured her.
“May I see your information?”
I handed her the file containing my birth certificate. She scanned it briefly and handed it back to me, turning to unlock the door. Inside, the room was filled with row after row of file cabinets, all with elaborate letters and codes for organization. Must have been hell to have to catalogue things this way.
“Our recent patients’ information is in our computers upstairs, but everyone who was at this facility from ten years ago or longer has hard copies. We keep them in case the state or federal government needs them.” Dr. Reginald ‘s dark eyes scanned the rows until she recognized the one we needed to be on. We approached a worn out black file cabinet and she opened it, mumbling to herself as she looked through the folders’ tabs. I chewed my bottom lip, but at last she found the right manila and pulled it out.
“Here we are. There’s not much on there—just your basic profile and how long she stayed at this hospital,” she said, handing it to me.
My hands shook the tiniest bit as I opened the folder, coming upon a grey document with my mother’s name, former address, marital status, and so on. A picture was paper-clipped in the top right corner and it made my breath catch to see her face again. Morena, just like me. Staring into the photograph was like looking into a mirror of an older, much stronger reflection of myself. After a moment, I tore my gaze away from my mother’s brazen brown eyes and instead read through the information.
“Wait, this says that she was never legally released from the hospital because she ran away. I thought my mother’s body was found here?” I asked, frowning.
Dr. Reginald’s brow furrowed as well as she stepped on my left side, since Michael towered over my right, and scanned the profile. “That’s odd. If you want more clarification, you’d have to see if there’s a police report attached.”
She turned the page and I read it out loud: “Found three blocks away from psychiatric hospital with a deep laceration in her rib cage that suggest it was self-inflicted. No signs of struggle. The weapon was found in her chest cavity with her fingerprints and the prints of another unidentified dead man on it. Her male accomplice fled the scene. Male accomplice?”
Behind that page, I found a rough sketch of a dark-haired man in his late thirties with a thin scar over his right eyebrow and another peeking up from the collar of his shirt on the left side of his neck. I couldn’t breathe.
It was Mr. N.
Beneath his picture, in an untidy scrawl, was a name.
Andrew Bethsaida.
Andrew Bethsaida was the name of the man I killed.
My throat tightened upon seeing his face again. I swallowed hard a couple of times before speaking to the doctor.
“Do you have a profile on this man?”
“He was brought in as a consultant later on during your mother’s stay at the hospital. He specialized in schizophrenia, paranoia, and other psychological problems in people with multicultural backgrounds. However, if you aren’t his next of kin then I’m afraid I can’t divulge his personal information.” She sounded regretful, as if she noticed the distraught look on my face.
“It’s…okay. I just wanted to know. Would I be able to get a copy of this file?”
“Sure, I’ll get that for you upstairs.”
“Thank you. One more thing—is there a chance that she had any personal items put in storage here?”
Dr. Reginald paused, thinking about it. “Most likely, no. The policy is to keep a patient’s things for about a year and then either donate them or throw them away. However, I did see something on the other page.”
She flipped back to the first sheet and pointed down at the bottom.
“It says here that her personal belongings were forwarded to this address.”
“God,” I whispered.
Michael touched my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s the address to my Aunt Carmen’s apartment.”
19
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?”
/> I heard what Michael said, but my eyes were fixed on the dilapidated apartment building, stretched tall and dank against the cloudy sky. Brick and mortar never seemed more daunting than on this place. Not even children scurrying back and forth on skateboards and scooters made it appear any less awful. The air here wasn’t like that of the quaint part of Jersey that we’d left. This place smelled of cigarette smoke, filth from the nearby open manholes, and exhaust from old, overworked cars. A defeated atmosphere hung about, unwilling to dissipate as if it were some sort of permanent fog. There was no panic attack this time because I wasn’t afraid of my aunt’s home. I hated it.
After a while, I realized I hadn’t answered him so I took a deep breath and unlocked my car door. “Yeah. I won’t be long.”
I didn’t spare him a glance as I got out. Seeing his face would make me chicken out and want to stay there, or maybe beg him to drive me the hell out of here. I couldn’t do that. My mom deserved better.
I walked across the cracked sidewalk and into the courtyard that split the building into two sections. The building itself had four floors and last time I checked, hers was on the second. Part of me prayed that she wouldn’t still be living here but I knew my luck wasn’t that good.
I ascended the stairs and walked to Room 234, raising my fist to knock on the door. My hand hung in the air above the faded forest green paint for a long moment until I worked up the nerve. Two knocks. Nothing. Three, this time. Nada. Four knocks.
The ancient doorknob turned. I stepped back and stared into the face of Carmensita Durante.
Her eyes were grey, but not the same kind of grey as a cloudy sky. They were dark and dirty like cigarette ash. Smoke curled up from the lit coffin nail clutched in her bony hand. She hadn’t aged well. Her skin was yellowed from years of chain smoking and hung from her skull like a turkey’s jowls. Her hair was all grey and pulled into a tight bun. Her clothes were simple as always: pink blouse with a scoop neck, black skirt, and faded blue slippers. The only thing that had changed about Aunt Carmen’s demeanor was that she was shocked to see me.
