by Mary Ting
I chuckled.
Me: Shut up. I’m leaving Dani’s right now.
Jonah: Hurry your ass up. You’re missing the game.
I didn’t mention Dani and I had broken up. We hadn’t dated long, and when she’d said she wanted to be exclusive, I bailed. I wasn’t the type to have only one relationship or do the happy ever after thing. I was only twenty-two and not ready to settle down. In fact, I would be happy to be free and do whatever I wanted for the rest of my life.
“Enoch!”
Fast running footsteps approached me.
Shit!
What did she want now? She had already given me an earful before I’d walked out of her apartment.
I prepared different ways to tell Dani it was me and not her. Though I had said from day one I wasn’t the long relationship type of guy. She’d said she didn’t care and just wanted to have fun.
Bull crap.
That was how girls trapped you.
To Dani, I was the hot fish in the sea. She’d thought she caught me and reeled me in for keeps. Wrong. I would not be hooked.
“Enoch.”
Just as she yapped my name, a dark shadow flew over me into the parking lot lamp, and the collision caused the light to burst like tiny fireworks. Icy chills pricked through my bones and slithered through me as I ducked the sparks. It was the same figure that haunted my nightmares.
Am I dreaming?
Did Dani not see it? Why hadn’t she covered her head like I had? I must be out of my mind.
Then I heard her heart beating as if I pressed my ear to her chest, getting louder the closer she came. Baffled, I stared at her boobs. Not the right thing to do, even though she had nice ones. Then I blinked and blinked again. My vision zoomed into the fabric of her shirt, through her rib cage, and her actual freakin’ heart came into focus, pumping. Spellbound by the impossible sight, I froze.
The loud thumping stopped when my cheek stung like I had shoved my face onto a hot stove. Dani had slapped me. What the hell? She slapped me and I let her. I hadn’t even seen her hand coming.
“Too bad you won’t be touching those anymore.” She folded her arms, and her glare could have scorched me to a crisp.
Her voice sounded muffled and my vision became hazy, like a dream. Dani’s movements seemed to slow, and her eyes glowed red like the blazing sun.
I lifted my hand before she slapped me again and pushed her away. Stumbling back, she cursed and ran away. My lips moved to apologize, but I wasn’t sure if words actually escaped out of my mouth.
When Dani was out of my sight, the ringing in my ear dissipated and everything came into focus. What the hell had just happened? I wasn’t drunk. I didn’t do drugs. Had the slap affected some part of my nerves?
Get a hold of yourself.
I shook it off and tugged my helmet on. Stuff like that didn’t happen in real life. Lack of sleep could cause hallucinations. Yes, that was it. I needed more sleep.
Dani would never speak to me again. She’d probably spread rumors about me. And she wouldn’t be the first. Yup, I had a stellar reputation. I didn’t care. I always laid it out flat. No long-term relationship for me. Somehow, women seemed to miss the point every time.
I cranked my motorcycle. In ten minutes I would be home. As I sped faster, I inhaled the cool night breeze and let my worries fade.
A buzz let me know I had missed a call.
Every time my parents got into an argument, Mom called and cried over the phone. I hated seeing her like that, but what could I do?
Mom should just divorce Dad. They were loaded. If they were to split everything they had in savings, mutual funds, stock and assets, Mom would be fine for the rest of her life. It didn’t matter what I said. But they were grownups. They could figure it out.
I pressed my wireless headphone and dictated a text. “Five minutes. Get a cold beer ready for me.”
A text came fast: It’s been waiting. Get your ass here in one minute or it’s mine.
I clicked it off and chuckled.
Jonah and I had been friends since high school. I’d met him at church. When we’d gotten accepted to the same university, we’d decided to rent an apartment off campus.
Turning the signal to change lanes, I looked at my rearview mirror. The same sensation of stinging ice struck my back, hard and intense.
A dark shadow, like the one I had seen at the parking lot, soared behind me. I rubbed my forehead. I really needed to get some sleep or get my vision checked. But when I looked again, it was closer, more defined with claws and fiery, molten-crimson eyes.
What the freakin’ hell? I’m losing my mind. Or I’m dreaming.
I rode faster. Wind pushed my leather jacket open. I had forgotten to zip it up. Exiting the freeway, I found comfort knowing I was close to home, but it changed when a deafening shriek pierced my ears.
My muscles went rigid. I covered one ear with my hand and kept the other hand on the bike, but the sound never dissipated.
I swerved left to pass a car in front of me. Something sharp ripped through my leather jacket and into my flesh. I bit my lip as hot pain seared through my muscles. I had to be dreaming. I prayed it was a dream, for monsters didn’t exist. Or I was truly going out of my mind.
Almost home. Just one more block. I turned a sharp right and almost flipped my bike. Adrenaline pumping, scared out of my mind, I kept moving. Five hundred yards...four hundred...three hundred...two hundred...then something hit my head. As if in slow motion, it unfolded right before my eyes.
My stomach and heart collided, my head thrashed sideways, and the bike and my body went flying in opposite directions. Clanking metal smashed around me as I was about to slam into the ground. Only I didn’t hit the ground. Instead, a white light engulfed me and I thought I saw Jonah.
“Enoch,” a man’s voice said. “I’ve got ya. Not now. She will come.”
Who will come? Who is she, I tried to ask, but I couldn’t form the words. And who was talking to me? It could only be Jonah. Impossible though.
I thumped on the ground on all fours, my head spinning and vision blurred.
The light burst apart, each shard flying every direction and covering the dark shadow. Light and dark tangled, shifting, expanding, and then finally the light began to dim, and the dark faded to nothing.
I flipped over on my back, panting and thanking the heavens I was alive. My world flickered in and out.
“Enoch!”
Jonah’s voice rang from a distance, or at least it sounded like it came from far away. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move.
“Enoch. Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Jonah drew closer. His desperate tone made me worry. He checked for my pulse on my wrist and put a finger near my nose. Raking his hair back, he grimaced like he was in pain. How bad did I look?
I imagined one of my arms or legs ripped out of its socket, and my body a bloody mess. I could hear and see what Jonah was doing, but I couldn’t see what my body looked like.
Jonah pulled out his cell from his back pocket and dialed. “Hello. I’m reporting an accident.” He paused. “Yes, he’s still breathing. Barely. But he’s unconscious. Hurry.”
After Jonah gave them our address, he slid the phone in his pocket. “Hang in there buddy. Don’t you die on me or I’ll never forgive you.”
I’ll try not to, I tried to say, still wondering how I could see him with my eyes closed. Then he stood and put up his hands to stop the oncoming traffic.
As I thanked Jonah silently, he faded out.
Chapter 4
The Hospital
Enoch
Nothing but a dim white light surrounded me. The voices repeated like a mantra. She will come. She will come. She will come.
Who will come, I tried to ask, but my lips were bricks, cemented together. My eyelids were glued together as well. Voices murmured from a distance, soft at first, and then louder as if plugs had been taken out of my ears. Monitors beeped and machines softly hummed. I c
ould safely guess I was inside a hospital.
“He’s going to be fine, Mrs. Winston,” a male voice said. “All the x-rays came out clear. He’s very lucky to have survived the crash with not a scratch on him.”
“Thank you,” my mother whimpered, sounding relieved.
“I’ll come back soon. In the meantime, please have a seat and rest.”
I imagined my mother wiping her tears.
Feet shuffled, and then my mother’s warm hands held mine to her soft cheek. I opened my eyes to see a nurse walking out.
“Mom?” My throat felt like I’d swallowed sand. I wasn’t sure if she heard me until her blue eyes met mine, wide and round.
“Enoch. You’re awake. How are you feeling?”
She grabbed a glass of water from the side table, her stack of bracelets clinking against each other. When she rested the straw between my lips, I took a sip. I sighed with relief. Mom always knew what I needed without being told. She also dressed like she was going to a tea party, no matter where she went.
“You gave us a scare.” Her tone changed from loving to scolding. After she placed the glass down, she sat on the side of the bed and wrung a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear.
I wanted to ask her where Dad was, but decided to wait.
“Do you remember what happened?” she asked, examining me.
“You have no idea what…” I stopped.
How could I tell her a dark shadow had followed behind me with eyes and claws like a devil’s, and then white light had saved me from becoming a squashed tomato, and a voice had told me some mysterious she was coming?
I shut that thought down. Even thinking about it sounded ridiculous. Maybe I had imagined it?
I glanced down to my hospital gown. Then I examined my arm—not a single scrape on my body, like the nurse had said.
“How did I get here?”
“Jonah found you and called the paramedics. You were very lucky. You might have died.” She choked up. “We’ll buy you a new car. Please, no more motorcycles.”
Shit! It hadn’t hit me until then. If the wreck had been that bad, what was the condition of my leather jacket and my bike?
As if Mom could read my mind, she frowned. “Your motorcycle is destroyed. I don’t understand how you don’t have a scratch on your body. Whatever material your jacket was made from, it saved your life.”
I felt like I’d lost a good friend. That bike and I had traveled many miles and roads together. My parents were filthy rich. My dad owned real estate all over the world, but he wouldn’t buy me a new car.
He believed in working hard and being on my own as soon as I went to college. He’d told me I had to follow his example and get out there. Mom had offered to buy me a new car behind Dad’s back, any car I wanted, but I’d wanted to prove I could make it on my own.
We had two drivers. My driver took me to school and back, and anywhere else I wanted, but my dad had fired my driver when I’d gone to college.
In college, I’d lived in an apartment near campus and could either walk or ask my friends for a ride anywhere. So I’d used the cash I’d received over the years from birthday gifts to purchase my first motorcycle. My grandparents had been overly generous over the years, being that I was their first grandchild.
“Where’s Dad?” I finally got the nerve to ask.
The last time my dad and I had spoken was about two weeks ago. He was always angry about something I had or hadn’t done. He’d laid down his expectations for me, as the only child and son. Expectations I hadn’t fulfilled, or cared about. Like getting into an MBA program.
Mom stroked my hair and smiled, trying to smooth over what she planned to tell me, but I knew what was coming. She probably hadn’t told him I had gotten into an accident. He had been furious when I’d bought that bike.
“Your dad is out of town. He’ll be back next week. I didn’t want to worry him, so I didn’t tell him. I’ll explain when he gets back.”
She meant that as long as he didn’t know, they wouldn’t get into a fight about me. And as long as I didn’t look like I had gotten into an accident, she didn’t plan on telling him.
Mom hooked strands of her hair behind her ear, her hands fluttering like they needed something to do. She cleared her throat. Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled.
“Son, why don’t you come to church with me this Sunday? It would mean the world to me.”
I rolled my eyes and shifted uncomfortably. “Mom. Why do you bother to ask me? You know my answer.” Not going to church was another thing on my dad’s reasons-to-be-grouchy-with-Enoch list.
“Well, since your dad is away, I’d thought you might come over for dinner. You live so close, but you hardly come over.”
I let the walls crumble a little when I saw the hurt in her eyes. “I’ll tell you what. Let me call Jonah to thank him and I’ll spend the rest of the day with you. About church...” I paused with a sigh. “Let me think about it.”
The broad smile on her face, a smile I hadn’t seen in a long time, made my decision.
“I’m surprised your phone wasn’t crushed.” Mom reached inside her purse and handed me my phone. She rolled her eyes, indirectly telling me no motorcycles next time.
Strange. I recalled shoving my phone inside my leather jacket. If I had tumbled in the crash, then the phone should have been crushed or at least damaged. I should have been in a hell of a lot worse shape. Not a scratch on my body. No broken bones. How? Nothing made sense.
Chapter 5
Home
Enoch
After I spent the day with my mom, I headed home after dinner. More like I Ubered home. Mom offered to take me, but I’d refused. Soon I’d have to think about replacing my transportation, but not today.
I had called Jonah at the hospital to thank him and suggested we talk after I got home. I had so many questions to ask him, but my gut feeling told me none would get answered. How would I even ask Jonah if he’d seen the light too?
I shut the door behind me and sauntered to the sofa. “Jonah.”
“Enoch.” Jonah rushed out of his bedroom and closed it behind him, his green eyes wide and alert. “Are you okay?”
Closing the door meant his girlfriend must be over. The girlfriend for the day, or week, or in this case, a rare few months.
I plopped on our black leather sofa. He had asked me that question on the phone, but he obviously needed to ask it again. After all, he was the one who had found me. He must be as stunned as I was, both about the accident and the fact that I had walked away without a scratch.
“Want a beer?” Jonah didn’t wait for my answer. He ambled to the kitchen and came back to hand me one and sat beside me. “I had this waiting for you, but nooo...you had to get all fancy on your bike and get into an accident and almost die on me, bitch.”
I let out a snort, clanked my bottle to his, and took a sip. “I have a few questions.”
Jonah looked away from his bottle and met my eyes.
“This might sound crazy but...did you see anything on the night of the accident?” I took another gulp to cool the warmth rushing to my face.
“See anything?” Jonah arched his eyebrows and ruffled his hair. “I heard the most godawful sound first, metal crushing metal. Then a bright light.”
My heart jumped out of my chest. He’d seen the light too. But then he killed my excitement.
“I went to get our mail from the mailbox. Thank God I had or I wouldn’t have seen your bike’s headlight. I was sure you were...you know...I mean it was bad. I still can’t believe you don’t have a scratch on your body.”
“I know.” I rubbed my jaw and released a long sigh. “I saw my jacket and it looked like someone shredded it with a knife.” A crazy part of me thought the demon that chased me had shredded it with its claws. Yup, I was out of my mind.
Jonah swirled his bottle and rooted his eyes on it, as if hypnotized. “You were on the ground, helmet intact. Not even a dent or scratch on your helmet
, either. You were lying there like you were passed out drunk.”
I shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Jonah patted my arm, snapping me out of my thoughts. Either my mind had played tricks on me or I’d seen hazy forms, actual figures of people or something. Why bother even trying to figure it out? What was done was done. I was safe and alive. That was all that mattered.
“So you were at Dani’s?” he asked.
I gulped down my beer and set the bottle on the table where I had my feet propped up. “Yup. I went over to break up with her. She was getting too serious for me.”
“How did that go?”
I snorted, thinking how she’d slapped me. Then my body went cold when I thought about the dark shadow and everything else that had followed. I wanted to believe it was just my imagination, but the more I thought about it, and falling from my bike because of what I saw, I couldn’t deny what I’d seen.
“Not good. She was really pissed. I did tell her I wasn’t looking for something serious when we first hooked up.”
He narrowed his eyes. “She probably didn’t care either at first, but things change the longer you date.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I’m going to date for a while.”
“It’s because she’s not the one.”
“I don’t think I have a one. And I don’t care. Look at my parents. I can picture it now. Failed. Failed. Failed.”
Jonah’s lips curled into a slow grin. “You just wait. When the right girl comes along, you won’t be thinking that.”
“How about you?” I furrowed my brow. “You’ve been with Mayra for what...a few months. Is she the one?”
Jonah shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
I jumped at Mayra’s voice. Damn. She moved like a mouse. Mayra leaned against the door frame wearing only a T-shirt, looking sexy with her dark hair in disarray.
I cocked an eyebrow at Jonah, silently apologizing for interrupting whatever had been happening in his bedroom.
“Hey, babe. You woke from your nap. Next time make a little noise, yeah? You’re going to give Enoch a heart attack.”