My Invisible Lover

by Jamie Athelstan

  Something was starting to click together in Jada’s mind. “So, when I saw your arm in my apartment and lashed out…”

  “I was right in front of you, and so was Garrett. Only we could see each other, and you couldn’t see either of us. I was trying to stop him. When he went to push past me I lost concentration for a moment, and my arm went solid again,” Luke explained. He brushed a finger lightly over the cut on his arm – really just a scratch. She hadn’t managed to cut deep. “Then we both climbed out of one of your windows when you had fallen asleep again. Separately, of course. He took the chance to run from the living room while I was trying to move across the kitchen without disturbing anything in the dark.”

  Jada looked out of the coffee shop window, up the front of the building to the general location of her apartment. Her windows were at the back of the building, not visible from here. But she could see the balconies on all of the other apartments and the fire escape, and she could see how they would have been able to climb both up and down again.

  “I don’t know if I can believe this,” she said.

  Luke held out a hand towards her, the thumb and forefinger temporarily vanishing as she looked down. “It’s real,” he said.

  “Still,” Jada replied and sighed. She knew that what she could see was real. It had to be. What other evidence could she trust than the evidence of her own eyes? But then it was all so far-fetched, so ludicrous.

  And yet, it still supplied a very good explanation as to why the police couldn’t catch Garrett.

  She took a deep breath and a long sip of her coffee. “Alright,” she said, at last. “I want to know what your plan is.”

  Luke smiled a genuine smile that reached his eyes. “Alright,” he echoed. “It’s like this. I want to catch Garrett, and I want to stop him. No running from me this time. I want to show him that he won’t get away with this.”

  There was a certain husky quality to his voice; an appealing depth that made her want to lean forward and listen more closely. If Garrett’s voice was poured honey, slipping and sliding into your ears with seductive quality, then Luke’s was a comfortable gravel – sturdy underfoot even when it shifted, safe and familiar.

  “How?” Jada asked, simply. She didn't agree to this yet, but she needed to hear the details at least.

  “We wait, tonight,” he said. “I hide in your apartment and wait for him. You pretend like I’m not there and it’s a normal night. I know he’ll be back for you. When he comes through the window, I tackle him.”

  “So, I’m your bait?” Jada asked, hesitantly.

  Luke bowed his head for a moment. “If it’s too much to ask, you don’t have to,” he said, nodding. “I’ll understand completely. Go to a friend’s house for a few days, and I’ll try to get to him some other way.”

  Jada took a deep breath. She wasn’t about to be forced out of her home by some creep, and she wasn’t a coward, either. She would face him. “I want to do it,” she announced. “The plan. We’ll finish our coffees and go to my apartment. Then we can set everything up.”

  Luke nodded and smiled, giving her an impressed look. It was set.

  Chapter Eight

  Jada was alone, or at least she seemed to be. She had to pretend that Luke wasn’t in her closet the whole time, even though he was. It was a little awkward; she had made him promise to look away while she changed for bed, and even then, she finished off in the bathroom to be sure he couldn’t see anything he wasn’t supposed to.

  Then, she was ready for bed, and what else was there to do? She looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and sighed. She looked good. She worked hard to maintain a slim figure, a little muscle in her arms and legs, though not too much. She had been blessed with a good bone structure by her gorgeous mother, and she worked hard on her skin, too, keeping it fresh and smooth.

  She looked way too good to be a murder victim.

  But what else was there to do? She had to go back out there, open the lock on the bathroom door, and wait for it to happen. She was already feeling like maybe trusting Luke hadn’t been the right idea. She had known him for, what, a few hours? And she trusted him to save her life already?

  Putting the doubts out of her mind, Jada switched off the bathroom light and opened the door and stepped out into the bedroom.

  That’s when he grabbed her.

  The invisible force was on her, suddenly, gripping her arms by the elbows and lifting her up off her feet. She squirmed and thrashed in mid-air, feeling her feet connecting with the hard bones of his legs several times, but he only grunted and forced her down onto the bed in front of him.

  She fought him hard and reached out wildly to slap the area where his face might have been as soon as he let go of her arms. He kneeled above her, the pressure of his thighs keeping her legs tightly in place, and he gradually forced both of her arms into the grip of his one hand. She bucked, twisted, and tried to get him off, but he only shifted and gripped her tighter.

  One by one, he forced her arms down, moving his legs for a split second so that they were also trapped between his thighs. She could feel the hard bones pressing in on both sides, even as she continued to twist and shake. Every move brought her a little more freedom, but then he would shift and trap her again.

  Now that his hands were free, she felt a sudden pull on the top of her nightgown. It was hard to struggle and fight against something that you couldn’t see. She was afraid now, more afraid than she could ever remember being in her life. She had thought she was strong. He made her feel like a weak child.

  Then there was another sensation of pressure, across her chest, and it was relieved by a ripping sound. In front of her eyes, she watched her nightgown ripped open with an unseen force, all the way down. It exposed the lingerie that she wore underneath.

  She screamed, louder than she had ever screamed before.

  She felt hands on the cups of her bra, and then, suddenly, nothing. A heartbeat later and the pressure on her legs was gone completely, the mattress sprung up in release. Jada scrambled backwards, finding herself free. She glanced down and saw white marks on her legs and arms, points where she had been held so tightly that the blood had rushed away.

  Noise was filling the room, noise from a source that she could not see. Grunts and snarls, the sound of fists landing on flesh, crashing noises on the floor. Her bedside table fell suddenly, the contents scattered. Some of them seemed to hover in the air for a moment before they were shaken off by an invisible body.

  “I won’t let you -” she heard Luke say, and then more grunts and animalistic growls.

  The sounds moved out of the bedroom and into the hall, accompanied by a heavy crash against the doorframe and a cry of pain. Jada wrapped the tattered remains of her nightdress around herself, unsure of whether to follow them or stay back in safety.

  She could hear their voices moving along the hall, out into the open living room, half-formed words, and shouts. They sounded like they would kill each other.

  Jada heard a strangled cry and covered her mouth with her hands. The power went suddenly and plunged the room into darkness. She realized that the water she could feel on her face had to be her own tears.

  There was an unmistakable noise which she knew to be one of the windows in the living room opening. Then it slammed shut. Jada wrenched her eyes to the bedroom window and saw a shadow pass by, illuminated by the faint glow from the street lights a few levels down.

  The power was only gone for a moment. The lights flickered back on one by one. The bathroom light spilled out into the bedroom. Jada got up hesitantly and wiped her face, trying to hold the shreds of her nightdress as tightly against herself as possible.

  She tiptoed out of her room, out into the corridor. She couldn’t see much, but there was a dim shape on the floor in the living room. A shape that could only be a man. She stopped for a moment. Her heart beat so fast she could barely breathe. Which one of them was it? And why weren’t they moving?

  She took a couple of steps
forward, swallowed, and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she switched on the light before she could change her mind.

  It was Luke.

  Her initial relief soon flooded away when she realized that he was lying across the hardwood floor, still and unmoving, and there was a dark liquid slowly spreading out beneath him.

  Chapter Nine

  Jada rushed over to Luke’s side and was relieved to find his eyes open and moving to her face.

  “Luke!” she gasped. “What happened? Are you alright?”

  The question was a stupid one. She had to admit. There was blood pooling underneath his left side, and though it didn’t seem to be pouring fast, it was still coming.

  “Garrett,” he said, seemingly with effort. “I gave him a reason not to come back.”

  “Forget about him,” Jada interrupted. “Right now, I’m worried about you. Are you in pain?”

  She had phrased the question carefully. Luke might not yet have realized that he was injured. The shock of becoming aware of it might cause him a lot of damage, so she wanted to tread lightly.

  “He stabbed me,” Luke said, showing immediately that her care had been in vain. He reached a hand down and grasped at his side, wincing. “Not too deep. I think I’ll be alright.”

  Jada cautiously reached for the edge of his t-shirt, letting go of her ruined nightdress in the process. She tried to ignore the fact that her lacy bra and taut stomach were now visible. He needed medical help, and this wasn’t the time for her to go and get a change of clothes.

  She lifted the fabric of his shirt gingerly, trying to ease it away from his wound and lift it out of the way. She gasped out loud when she saw it, although she had tried not to. An evil-looking gash was sliced into his side, and even as she watched, it oozed a fresh spurt of blood in time with his heartbeat.

  “Oh, god,” she said, fumbling around in the dark for a tea towel to press against his side. “I need to call an ambulance.”

  “No,” Luke burst out, almost ferociously. He shook his head and almost tried to sit up.

  Jada pushed him back down with a cry of alarm, seeing how even more blood was forced out of his wound with the motion. “Stay down,” she ordered him, panic forced her to take charge. “You need treatment. You’re losing blood.”

  “I can’t go to the hospital,” Luke said, weakly. “Please. You know I’m not like other people. They would know.”

  Jada pushed the towel down hard on his wound, causing him to gasp with pain. She grabbed hold of his hand and placed it on top of the towel, pushing to make sure he got the message. “Stay there,” she said. “We need to do something. You need stitches. Maybe a blood transfusion.”

  Luke shook his head again. “My body would reject any blood that didn’t come from our line,” he said. “There’s no point. Please. I can tell you how to do the stitches. Just let me stay here.”

  Jada looked down at him for a long moment, at the blood on her floorboards, the sweat plastered against his brow, and the pleading look in his eyes. “Fine,” she said, eventually. “What do I need?”

  Luckily, she had a first aid kit – donated by her mother when she had first moved out of the family home – which contained the necessary supplies. She had no idea why anyone had ever considered she might one day need a needle and thread suitable for medical stitches, but there they were.

  Luke insisted that she help him limp and stumble into the bathtub, where his blood would only drain down the plughole instead of staining the floors. There, with the help of the bright lights in the bathroom and a generous swig of vodka from her kitchen, she slowly and hesitantly stitched up the wound in his side.

  It was difficult, and she knew that she was hurting him. He would flinch, and his arms and hands would flicker in and out of sight as if he was losing control of his visibility, or as if he wanted to disappear from the pain. It took sheer determination to blink the tears out of her eyes, and she couldn’t look at his face until she was finished, just in case she lost her control.

  It took ten stitches before it was done, and she wasn’t sure she had done a good enough job, but he seemed satisfied. He lay back in the bathtub with a small sigh, closed his eyes for a moment, and managed a weak smile.

  Jada sat back on the lid of the toilet, the most convenient perch she had found to sew him up. Her hands were covered in blood, and her nightdress was still ripped and hanging open. Somehow it seemed like it would be worse to grip it closed now, and bloody it, than to leave herself exposed. She rested her wrists on her legs, and hands turned upwards to keep the blood from touching anything else.

  “I got him,” Luke managed to say, after a moment. He roused a little and pushed himself into a more comfortable position, his head against the rim of the bath as if he were lying in the water. “I got Garret back for this.”

  “What happened?” Jada asked. She was tired, and a little dizzy from all of it, but now that the immediate danger was gone she needed to know.

  “I cut his face,” Luke grinned, though it lacked his usual force. “Right down one side. It will scar. My side will too, but his face – he’s always had pride in his face. It’s his key, you know. The thing that makes people trust him. They won’t trust a man with a scar.”

  Jada struggled to think of something to say. “Well done,” she managed after a moment, though it felt and sounded completely inappropriate immediately after it left her mouth.

  Luke gave a short laugh, then lapsed into a cough and stopped moving for a moment. The pain was written across his face, and Jada felt useless. She wanted to do something, anything, to help him. He had saved her.

  “He won’t be back, anyway,” he said after a moment, causing a flood of relief to wash over her. “I’ll be alright, too. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I just sewed up your gaping wound,” Jada said, with a heavy dose of her usual sass. At least she could try to pretend this was normal. “I’m not worried about you at all.”

  Luke smiled and seemed to deliberately avoid the risk of another laugh with some effort. “That’s my girl,” he said, thinly, his voice sounding like it was coming from far away.

  He was tired, she realized. His eyes fluttered closed after a moment, and Jada’s heart skipped a beat as she realized there could be another explanation. Something deeper than sleep, something she could hardly bear to name even in her thoughts.

  She leaned forward quietly and touched the side of his neck as lightly as she could. She moved her fingers a couple of times until she found it – his pulse, warm and strong against her touch. He was alive; just sleeping.

  Jada sighed with relief and got up as silently as she could. She crept across the tiled floor, cursing every little noise her bare feet made, and into the bedroom. She had spare pillows, and a comforter stashed away in the wardrobe for guests who might want to sleep on the sofa. She brought them through to the bathroom and carefully, trying to disturb him as little as possible, covered him with the comforter. The last step was to gradually and smoothly lift his head in her arms so that she could slide the pillow underneath it.

  She was about to move back when she looked down at his sleeping face; a frown creased his brow, and he didn’t look peaceful at all. She was sorry, deeply sorry, for everything. For the pain he was in, the awful life he had to live because of his powers, the fact that his brother was so destructive.

  Jada moved her head forward just a little and kissed him lightly on the lips. He didn’t move or react, but his brow smoothed slightly, and she drew back.

  She wasn’t sure why she had done it, but some wave of emotion had swept over her, and it had seemed like the only thing to do. The only thing her heart would accept.

  She went to the bedroom one more time and found a fluffy robe to wear, a comforting garment to cover herself and keep her warm. The blood on her hands had dried. She wanted to wash it off, but it might wake him. Since it was no longer rubbing off on everything she touched, she left it.


  Jada sat down on the toilet again, leaning back to try to get comfortable. She wouldn’t leave him now, not after he had risked his life to save her.

  She fell asleep watching over him, her eyelids closing even though she wanted to stay just as they were, him sleeping and her watching. She felt like she needed to guard him. Still, it had been a long night, and sleep would come no matter how hard she fought it.

  In the morning, she woke. The stiffness in her body was a testament to her uncomfortable position. She stirred and looked around, seeing nothing but a clean and empty bathtub.

  The comforter and pillow were folded up on the floor, and there was a note on top of them. A small piece of paper torn out of a notebook, the lines ignored in favor of larger letters scrawled over the top.

  Thank you.

  No need for a signature; she knew it was from Luke, and she knew what it meant. He was gone.

  She wandered through into the hallway. Even from here she could see that every trace of blood had been mopped up from the wooden floors. The only sign that he had been there at all was the last spots of his blood on her hands and the ruined nightdress under her gown.

  Even though it had nearly been returned to normal, the apartment felt strangely empty. She had no way to contact him, she realized. No way to find out if he was alright.

  She had only known him an incredibly short time. She wasn’t supposed to trust him, not yet. Maybe not until the moment that he started bleeding into her bathtub. So, why did the realization that he was gone feel like a heavy weight dropped onto her stomach?

  Chapter Ten

  Jada had been feeling this prickling sensation on the back of her neck for a few days. At first, she thought it was just some kind of latent stress and paranoia after the whole episode with Luke and Garrett. It had been three weeks, and she had neither seen nor heard from either of them. Why would it be bothering her now?