My phone rang again, and I didn’t even bother picking it up. I let it sit and vibrate its way into the crevice of the couch cushion until it stopped and my voicemail took over. Then I let is sit there longer. I didn’t recognize the number, and of the people who would be calling me right now, the odds were good I wouldn’t like the news, or the person calling to deliver it.
Once the voicemail notification flashed across the device, I snapped it up, pressed the buttons to access my voicemail and waited for the message to play. After a few minutes, I hung up the phone and placed it gently on the table.
A hospital in California, a state I’d never been to, wanted me to come interview for a job there. A prestigious hospital in a very well-paying location would be good for my career. So why did my investigation get cancelled and then I was offered a job almost immediately afterward?
Either Donny was better at delivering than I ever expected, or someone else was behind these new developments. But who? Kory couldn’t do much from her prison cell. Zeus wouldn’t put me out if I caught fire right in front of him. Demeter wanted me crucified and castrated. And I made it clear to Donny all I wanted from our deal was Kory’s freedom. No one could do this, and no one got the benefits from it except me, at least that I could tell.
None of it mattered, because the only person I wanted to talk to through all this was Kory. I wanted to hear her smart ass mouth tell me in ten different ways it would be ok. She had a way of doing that, saying one thing but making me feel another. Sarcasm was her weapon when it came to hiding her own emotions, but by the time I left the hospital, it was almost as if I could hear her say she loved me under the words. She pushed me away more than once, but I could still hear her saying it in my head. A longing and a hope.
I hit a few buttons on the phone and waited for the directory on the end of the line to send me to the right floor. A nurse answered, but I didn’t recognize her name. Had they replaced all the nurses after I left too?
“I’m calling to speak to Kory Sito please.”
A long pause and I caught typing in the background. “And your name, sir?”
“Ash.”
Another pause. “I’m sorry, sir. You aren’t on her approved contact list. Can I take a message?”
I tried to keep the frustration out of my tone as I scrubbed my hands into my hair. “Is Nurse Styx around by chance?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but she’s not.”
I didn’t want to go there, but… “What about Minthe?”
“I’m the only one shift at the moment, sir. Did you want me to take a message?”
I sighed. “No, thank you. I’ll try again later.”
“Please be sure you get on her approved list, sir, and I’ll be able to put her on the phone for you.”
“Thank you.” I hung up and frowned at the phone.
Just when I thought maybe another new grenade wouldn’t be tossed at my head, my doorbell rang.
If I sat very still, maybe they would go away.
A harsh voice shouted through the door. “Doc, I know you’re in there. If you don’t answer, I’ll keep knocking until you do.”
Sunlight trickled in thought the slat in the curtains, and I lurched off the couch. Finally, someone I actually wanted to speak to. I opened the door to find Styx standing on the other side, her gray hair bound tight and her scrubs a soft lilac. “Styx, nice to see you.”
She brushed past me into my apartment and looked around the mostly empty and sparse space. “Do you even live here, Doc? Where is all your stuff?”
I waved at my desk and toward my bedroom. She was right I didn’t own much of anything. “It’s here and there. Plus, I work a lot. It doesn’t leave much time for homemaking and shopping.”
“I’ve seen people institutionalized with more possessions then you have.”
I sighed, closed the door, and faced her. “Did you come here to insult me, or did you just really miss my face around the office?”
She narrowed her steel eyes, but a dimple peaked on her weathered cheek. “Actually, I came to talk to you.” She sat in an arm chair and wiggled until she was comfortable.
I didn’t sit. Even though I was happy to see her, I didn’t want to get comfortable and for her to tell me something devastating. “What can I do for you?”
She stared at me for a long moment until I started to feel my skin tingle from her gaze. Then she looked away. “Are you having a good day, Doctor? I suspect you should be.”
“What does that mean?”
She met my eyes again. “It means I know why you’re having a good day. That girl finally grew some balls and stood up to her mother. For you.”
I didn’t pretend I had no idea what she was talking about. I crossed the room and sank on the couch, barely making it to a solid surface. “She what?”
My brain refused to process what she’d said with what I knew about Demeter and Kory’s relationship.
“Explain to me what happened.”
She twisted to face me better from her angle on the chair. “Demeter came to the hospital and threatened to expose what’s been happening to the media. But she did a better job of it than you did, my friend.”
If this was all because of Demeter, I didn’t trust it one bit. At any moment, things could tumble back down to reality, and I would be the casualty in which they fell upon.
“I tried to call and speak to her today but the nurse stonewalled me.”
She nodded. “New girl doesn’t know who you or Kory are.”
“Can you get me in to see her?”
Her gaze felt like a physical weight as if she were measuring me from head to toe. “Possibly, but I’m not making any promises. I won’t risk my job to save your skin. And I’ll protect her above all else.”
“Why?”
She shrugged, but I didn’t buy it. “You feel just as responsible for her as I do.”
Her face swept clean of emotion, and she gave me a brisk nod. “I’ll let myself out. See you around, Doc.”
She exited as quickly as she entered, and I stared at the door waiting for another surprise. This time, I wasn’t going to wait for it to come to me.
I found the number I’d kept in my notes and dialed. She answered immediately. “Doctor. I didn’t expect you to be stupid enough to call me.”
“Senator. I want to know what’s going on. What did Kory promise you to protect me?”
“That’s none of your business. It’s between myself and Persephone.”
I wanted to shout into the phone and shake it so she would fucking listen. “She doesn’t get to make that choice. I chose to come after you. She can’t sacrifice herself to save me when I’m the one who put myself in danger.”
A rustling sound cut through the line. “What my daughter does is not your concern. And what you do is not my concern, but if my name every leaves your lips again, I’ll ensure you never speak again.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise, Doctor. I don’t know what she sees in you. You are a weak man who is doing nothing but drag her down. Why she decided to save you, I don’t know, but if you speak to the media again, our deal is null and void.”
I seized that little tidbit. “Great. I’ll go out and find something right now who will report on your fucked up family.”
“And hurt Persephone in the process? You would do that after everything she’d done for you. If you do, then I will be proven right after all. And then she will see it for herself. I invite you to try.”
Fucking hell, I hated this woman. I gripped the phone tighter. “You don’t know anything about Kory or me, so don’t pretend like what you do is in her best interest.”
She chuckled softly, a menacing sound. “Where you are concerned, what I do is in her best interest. And if you ever so much as look at my daughter again, I’ll have you thrown in jail for rape. Do you understand, Doctor? I will have you prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law with the most severe punishments. And then maybe you will understa
nd that what I do for my daughter is a mercy.”
She hung up before I could release the stream of curses chocking me. I threw the phone into the couch and let out a loud yell.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kory
I hadn’t yet figured out how I would survive a year-round incarceration. Especially with some of my favorite books destroyed. I hadn’t been able to bear reading the others after I destroyed their brethren, like they knew and they blamed me for what happened. As they should.
I dropped my head into my hands. Look at me, not even a day, and I was already talking about my books like they were living breathing creatures. Flesh and blood like myself.
A knock caused me to straighten on my bed and glance at the door. Styx entered with her hands behind her back.
“Are you here to play doctor?”
She scowled and whipped her hands from behind her back to offer me a brown paper package. I took it gently and stared at her over it. “What’s this?”
“Nothing. Just open it.”
I ripped the paper off the package and let it fall softly against my food and slide onto the linoleum. A bright shiny new unabridged copy of The Count of Monte Cristo stared up at me. Words backed up in my mind and wouldn’t escape from my mouth despite wanting to say something, willing myself to say something.
I swallowed heavily and stared up at her. No doubt she could see the tears at the corners of my eyes, but she couldn’t see the way my heart stretched tight in my chest at her kindness.
She nodded once and spun to leave.
“Thank you,” I whispered, and she paused in closing my door to let me know she heard me.
“Wait,” I said, this time louder.
She turned back to face me.
“Have you read this?”
“Once, a long, long time ago. But the abridged version, not that beast of paper and pulp.”
It was a hefty book, and I only ever read the unabridged version. So many things were missed in the condensed version. It never made sense why someone would take the time to read a book but read a summary instead of the words the artist actually wrote.
I flipped through the pages. “Do you think Edmond would have had the will to free himself without the Priest’s help?”
Styx entered my room again and sat down in my desk chair. “I think he would have eventually, but he needed a reason to cling to that hope.”
I snorted. “What hope?”
“The hope that not everyone in the world is as terrible as the ones who wronged you.”
So far, mostly I’ve stayed away from anyone else, expecting them to betray me further. I only had so much optimism in me. The rest of it had been stomped out during childhood. Hope had always been in short supply in my life.
“Are you telling me to stay hopeful?”
She got up and walked to the door. “Yes, I’m telling you to stay hopeful. There are some of us who are trying to correct the wrongs of others. As your book says: wait and hope.”
Her footsteps were quiet as she left, my door still ajar so I could see down the long hallway to blank doors while the echo of the day room’s TV blared for the nurses.
A phone rang at the nurse’s station, and I settled back into my pillow with my new book. It had been a long time since I owned a new book.
The familiar words comforted me until Styx poked her head back into my room. “Her highness called for you. I took the liberty of telling her you weren’t up for a conversation just now.”
I laughed. “Thanks. Forever is not even long enough for me not to hear her voice again.”
She left, and I resumed my reading. At some point, the light in my room started to dim, and my eyes began to ache. I sat up and stretched, placing my open book face down on my bed. It would crease the spine, but I liked them worn that way. It was a sign of love for me.
I was about to go ask for a dinner tray when someone knocked on my door. Then opened it before I could say anything. I froze as my mother’s shadow fell across my feet. “Um…can I help you?”
She didn’t bother entering, only hovering at the doorframe. “Trust me, I didn’t relish coming back here, but I thought you should know your doctor wasn’t happy to hear about the deal you proposed.”
I jumped up. “You told him? Why would you do that?”
She shrugged like she didn’t have a care in the world. “It wasn’t my plan to tell him, but somehow he knew, and he called me to try and change the terms you requested.”
“To what?”
“Why would I tell you when it’s so much more amusing to watch him flail around trying to reach you.”
I knew my mouth hung open. “You are one sadistic bitch. How did you ever care enough about someone else to create me? I don’t understand how we’re related.”
She waved her hand. “That’s biology my dear, nothing more. I came here to tell you I’ve agreed to your conditions and even went so far as to have lined up a new job for your little boy toy. But I’m afraid he won’t stick to your end of the deal since he threatened to go to the news again. He’s a slow one for a man who graduated top of his class in medical school.”
“Is this about me, or about your revenge on him for deigning to think he can beat you?”
She made a face, and I took it as both. “What do you want me to do about it? I agreed not to go to the news, our deal had nothing to do with him.”
“And what if I added some stipulations to our negotiations. First of which are you never see him again?”
I waved around my room in a circle. “How am I going to see him when I’ll be locked away in here, and like you said, you got him a job across the country?”
God, I hated this woman. Heaven help the country when they elect her president. And no doubt she would be when she bribed, lied, and bullied her way to the top. A skill she’d always excelled at. “What do you want from me?” I whispered.
She shifted on her Chinese Laundry heels. Must be a slow day if she took off her red soles for even a minute. “I want you to get your doctor off my back and then keep to your word. Simple.”
“How do you expect me to do that if I can’t see him again?”
She held out her cell phone.
“Do you think that will work? Obviously, you had little luck with him over the phone. Because I doubt you stooped so low as to see him in person. No, I will have to see him to get him to let it go. I can convince him.”
It hurt to admit how easy it might be to keep pushing him away. We were both safer with him out of my life. Even if it would kill me not to touch him ever again.
“I don’t trust you, or him, to keep your word. Nor do I want you two in each other’s presence again, especially alone. In fact, I want nothing more than to put his ass in jail, but I figured you wouldn’t like that course of action very much. I thought maybe an image of him photoshopped behind bars for my office might make me feel better about it.”
How could this woman be so damn crazy and so far up the political food chain? “Is that all you do every day, make elaborate plans to lock those who oppose you away? Seems like a strange and fruitless hobby. Have you tried needlepoint. It’s supposed to be relaxing.”
She shoved her phone closer to me. I shook my head. “We are at impasse then, because I won’t be able to convince him over the phone and you won’t let him come here so I can see him. You decide what you want. Until then…” I picked up my book and turned it to face me like I would settle in for a nice long read.
“You don’t have a choice. It’s the phone or the entire thing is off and he goes to jail. Then you will both out of my hair for good.”
I placed the book back on my bed and took the phone.
“I predialed for you. Just hit send.”
I punched the button harder than necessary and raised the phone to my ear. “A little privacy please.”
She raised an eyebrow but backed up into the hallway a few feet. I got up and slammed the door in her face and turned back to cross my room and put s
ome distance between us.
His voice punched me in the chin. While I’d dialed, I hadn’t braced for the impact of hearing him. “You’re really calling me again after you threatened me the last time?”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is Kory, not my crazy ass mother.”
“Kory?” he breathed. “How are you talking to me right now? And did you steal your mother’s cell phone?”
I shook my head and remembered he couldn’t see me. “No, she came here to tell me to talk you into leaving her alone and dropping all threats of media exposure. I made a deal to fix the damage I’d done to your life. Can you respect my wishes enough to let this go?”
He breathed harshly into the phone. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re taking her side. You are giving up yet again?”
Anger lanced through me. “I’m not giving up. I’m the one who made the hard choice to keep your career intact and to make sure you don’t go to jail for the rest of your life.”
“No. You don’t get to make that choice. I love you, Kory. I fucking love you, and you don’t get to make that choice for me.” He hung up before I could say anything. I was left staring at the phone, attempting to process his words.
My mother’s voice broke through. “Did it work? Will he stop his tribunal?”
I gave her the phone. “Yes. Now get out.”
My tone must have registered, because she didn’t say anything, only took her phone and walked out. When the click of her high heels faded away, I sank onto my bed and let the hot tears slide down my cheeks. Somehow, hearing him say he loved me was worse than having to say goodbye to him in the first place.
I curled up on the bed and faced the wall, my book and feet getting tangled in the covers. I didn’t care all I could think about was his words echoing over and over in my head.
At the edge of sleep, warmth started to seep into my back, and I caught his scent before I saw him. His breath heavy against my neck, his arm slid around my waist to draw me back into him. I froze but feared speaking, since this was probably a dream. And I didn’t want it to end.
Deranged: Twisted Myths Book One Page 13
