by Krane, Kasey
She finally sat up and gave me a lopsided grin, pleasure mixed with too much to drink. “Wowsers,” she said, and I laughed at her understatement. My cock was throbbing hard against the pants of my tux but I ignored it, for the moment. I knew I’d better get her to her bedroom before she passed out completely and was fair game to any bastard who walked by.
I picked her up in my arms, cradling her against my chest. I was only 17, sure, but years of sports and working hard for James had meant muscles that other 17-year-old boys could only dream about.
I carried her along the edge of the property, outside of the lights, working to keep her inebriated state a secret from any adult who might care. We got through the back door but then I stopped, perplexed about where to go. I leaned over and whispered, “Carmen…wake up…” She opened her eyes lazily, only focusing her eyes on mine with great effort.
“Oh hi, Judge,” she said, as if greeting me for the first time. As if we hadn’t just fucked around in her father’s garden 15 minutes earlier.
“Hi to you, too,” I said, grinning. I realized that this seemed to be a perpetual state of being for me around her. Her eyes began to drift closed again. “Hold on, Carmen, before you go back to sleep,” her eyes popped back open and she struggled to focus on me again, “you have to tell me where your bedroom is.”
“Oh! Right!” She craned her head around as if realizing for the first time where we were. “Up the back stairs over there,” she said, pointing to my right, “and then I’m the first door on the left.”
I focused on keeping my breath even as I mounted the stairs because it wasn’t sexy if I struggled to carry her, right? But she missed it all, falling back to sleep long before I reached her bedroom. Goddammit, it was hard to impress a girl who was asleep!
I gently laid her down onto the bed, a small snore passing her lips as I maneuvered her into position - her head on the pillow, her feet going in generally the right direction. I pulled her flats off, placing them on the floor next to the bed, and then stepped back to admire her. She was gorgeous, her dark brown curls spilling over the pillow, framing her face in the moonlight.
I would be back tomorrow, and the day after that, and God willing, the day after that. Carmen Williams was the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on, and I didn’t plan on taking my eyes off her any time soon.
2
Carmen
“Ms. Williams, what can you tell us about the hijacking of the bus?”
I fought to keep my eyes open, the nice man in blue swimming in and out of focus. I saw the gold glint on his shoulder. Right, the nice policeman in blue. There’s a policeman here. Why are they talking to me? Oh, he asked me a question. Did he ask me something?
“Ms. Williams, I need you to stay with me. I need you to tell me everything you can remember about the hijacking. Any small detail will help.”
I licked my dry lips, wishing for a sip of cold water. As if the nurse could hear my silent plea, she was holding a straw to my lips and I sucked the water down gratefully.
“There were motorcycles,” I said hesitantly, my voice cracking. “Big, shiny ones. The girls were so excited to see them. They’d been so bored for so long, and then, there were these bikes and they were loud and the girls waved at them.”
I fought down the panic I’d felt when I’d realized that the gang was surrounding the bus. The bus driver, had flicked his eyes to the rearview mirror and back to the men on bikes, on edge, anxious. Mrs. Martinez had whispered, “This doesn’t feel right,” and I could only agree.
“And then the bus was slowing down, and I knew it wasn’t good. I knew we were in trouble.” I’d tried to hide Maggie, had tried to protect her. Protect all of my students. I’d stood up, wanting to draw attention to myself, away from the girls. Maybe if I’d gotten them to look at me, I could’ve saved the girls. Mrs. Martinez stood up too and for a brief moment, I had been surprised. Mrs. Martinez had never been especially demonstrative towards the students, but in that moment, there was an unspoken agreement between us. We had to save the girls.
“Then he was waving his rifle around and yelling at us and the girls…everyone was crying. He’d shot the bus driver in the chest and he was on the floor and I knew I wasn’t going to live.
“And then he shot Mrs. Martinez, and he shot me. Did Mrs. Martinez live?” My voice was shaky, broken, and I knew before I asked the question that she hadn’t. I didn’t know why I’d asked, only that I had to ask. Had to know for sure.
“No, I’m sorry,” the kindly blue man said. No, not blue man, blue uniform. He swam in and out of focus and I wet my lips again with my tongue. So thirsty…
“You have to leave,” my father said, the darkness covering over me, swallowing me down. “We can’t…”
And then I was gone again.
3
Judge
As I pulled into the parking lot, I looked in disgust at the zoo surrounding the hospital. There were TV station vans parked haphazardly throughout the parking lot, and reporters milling around everywhere. A dark blue car was inching its way through the crowd, trying to get out onto the street, and the reporters were chasing the car down, beating on the windows, asking for a comment. I was fairly sure that someone related to Carmen had to be in that car. Her father? Grandparents?
Boyfriend?
A spark of doubt shot through me. What if Carmen didn’t want me? What if Carmen didn’t need me?
But whoever was in that car right now was leaving. Leaving her here, unprotected. Whether she had them in her life or not, she still needed me. And where were the goddamn police? I didn’t see any police vehicles in the parking lot or out on the street. They should be guarding her. A Sangre could come waltzing through here and no one would blink an eyelash.
I stalked into the hospital and right up to the front counter, where a harried admitting nurse sat, answering the phone while she shoved papers at three reporters standing in front of her. I opened up my mouth to chew her out - take on the world for daring to leave Carmen unprotected - when I stopped short. Goddammit! As good as it would feel to take my anger out on this nurse, it wasn’t likely to do much good, but would probably do a hell of a lot of harm instead.
Instead, I veered towards the gift shop. Daisies were Carmen’s favorite flowers. If I came bearing a bouquet of them, the nurses were more likely to believe that I wasn’t some undercover reporter - I snorted in disgust at the thought - and Carmen was more likely to let me in to see her. It’d been 13 years since we’d last seen each other, and I knew, in some distant part of my mind, that barging in like this could lead to a what the hell are you doing here? sort of moment, but on the other hand…
I couldn’t make myself care about that. I couldn’t make myself walk away. Not yet. Not until I was sure she was okay.
Walking out of the gift shop bearing a ridiculously expensive bouquet of daisies, I saw an older nurse standing off to the side, flipping through charts. She seemed more…approachable than the admitting nurse, who looked like she’d been fighting off more than her fair share of reporters that day.
I walked over to the older nurse, carrying the flowers prominently in front of me - Look! I have flowers! You should totally trust me and let me in to see Carmen! - and asked her, “Could you tell me what room Carmen Williams is in?”
Without looking up, she said, “Visiting hours are over, sir,” and pointed to the sign on the wall, hung conveniently beneath a clock.
Visiting Hours are Between 8 am and 8 pm. No Exceptions.
The clock read 8:04.
Fuck.
“Listen, I just heard about this and rode here as fast as I could. I didn’t even take time to change!” I gestured down at my cut, t-shirt, hoping she’d think I’d been on some long-distance motorcycle ride and thus had just heard the news. Although Deming to El Paso was only an hour, I wouldn’t exactly call that long-distance.
The nurse looked up for the first time since they started talking, took in my clothing choices, and said d
ismissively, “Family only.” She began to gather up the charts to walk away when I blurted out the only thing that I could think to say, “I’m her fiancé!”
Ho.
Ly.
Fuck.
Where did that come from?
Even back in high school, even when we were in love and inseparable and I thought I would marry her someday, I just hadn’t actually proposed. Carmen and I had never been engaged, not even secretly.
It’d just…come out.
Fucking too late now!
She looked back at me, surprise written on her face. The Williams family was one of the prominent families in Deming and was worth millions. No doubt she took one look at my leather cut and thought I was just some biker trash. I didn’t have a way of proving that my family, the Michaelsons, were worth just as much - they didn’t exactly hand out membership cards to “All of the Rich and Prominent Families in Deming” like a fucking Rotary Club membership, so I decided to switch tactics.
I took a gamble because…I had no other choice, really.
“Is Adam Williams here? He could vouch for me.”
Or call me a liar and call security on me. You know, one or the other.
She hesitated.
“Is he staying in a hotel here in El Paso? Or is he driving back and forth each night to Deming? That’s a long drive to make,” I said, sounding sympathetic.
“Weellllll…” the nurse said, drawing the word out, looking around furtively. “I’m not supposed to let anyone in this late and especially not to Carmen’s room…”
Thank fucking God someone is thinking and put a restriction in place!
“How is she doing? Physically, I mean,” I said, wanting to interrupt the train of thought that seemed to be leading to No Station. “I saw her on TV and she hadn’t woken up yet.”
“She woke a couple of hours ago for a little bit but has been drifting in and out of consciousness ever since. The trauma isn’t as bad as we’d expected - the brain scans we’ve been running have been showing functional brain waves throughout. The bullet actually only grazed the left side of her temple. We’ll continue to monitor her to see if any problem surfaces, but so far, the prognosis is good.”
“Oh, thank God!” And that response, at least, wasn’t faked at all. “So is Adam here?” I asked casually - probably too casually, if the nurse actually knew me, but the older woman naïvely took my question at face value.
“No, he went home at eight o’ clock - you just missed him. Well, to the hotel. He’s staying here in El Paso while Carmen is recuperating.”
I tried to control the relief that washed over me at her words. Getting hauled off in handcuffs wasn’t really how I wanted to end the evening. Then I remembered the dark blue sedan leaving when I’d come in. That must’ve been her dad after all. Hallelujah…
“When will Carmen be released?”
“Tomorrow afternoon at the earliest; probably the day after though. We just want to keep her under observation and run tests periodically to make sure that nothing surfaces that we weren’t aware of before.”
I felt the band of panic that had tightened around my chest hours before loosen - just a little. If they were already talking about letting her go, she had to be okay. More okay than she’d looked like on TV, anyway.
The nurse looked around again, biting her lip indecisively.
“C’mon, let’s go to her room,” she said in a near whisper, and turned and hurried down the hallway. Like a goddamned miracle, she believed me. Never mind that Adam wouldn’t spit on me if I were on fire; the nurse believed me, and that’s all that mattered.
I had to see Carmen for myself. Had to make sure she was okay.
Had to, so I could breathe normally again.
We stopped in front of Carmen’s room, and the nurse put a finger up to her lips. “She may be sleeping,” she whispered, and then pushed the door open.
And there was Carmen. Even in a drab green hospital gown, and her hair a mess, and no makeup, and a giant bandage wrapped around her head, and 13 years older than the last time I’d laid eyes on her, and IV tubes running everywhere, she was gorgeous.
Fucking stupidly, amazingly gorgeous.
And then she opened up her eyes and looked sleepily towards us.
“Carmen, here is your fiancé!” the nurse happily announced. She dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her smock. I walked, as if in a dream, over to Carmen’s hospital bed, and picked up her hand. Kissed the back of it and stared down at her. Her eyes opened wider as she finally realized who was in the room with her.
“I just love happy endings!” the nurse gushed, and then turned to leave. “I’ll keep my eye out and make sure that you two have privacy,” she said conspiratorially, and then closed the door softly behind her, leaving them alone.
For the first time in too many years, I was finally alone with Carmen. I laid the daisies on the side table and whispered to her in a husky voice, “Hey Carmen, how are you?”
My voice finally pulled Carmen out of her trance.
“Judge?”
4
Carmen
I opened up my eyes when the door opened to reveal my nurse and some tall guy, backlit by the hallway lights. I squinted a little.
And then they got closer and the nurse was prattling on and I was staring. Just staring up at him.
How? How was he here? I had to be dreaming.
The nurse left and then he gave me the greeting he always gave me, “Hey Carmen, how are you?” and I knew that this was the most realistic dream I’d ever had.
“Judge?” I said, bewildered, and then closed my eyes. I opened them up again. He was still there.
I did it again.
He was still there.
Close eyes, count to five, and then open up again.
Still there.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said drily, finally breaking the silence.
I stared at him, trying to decide if this really, truly was real. People with head wounds did have hallucinations, right?
“Judge? What…what are you doing here? How did you know what happened?” The questions spilled out of me as I stared at him. Judge fucking Michaelson, back from the dead. Or, high school. Same difference.
“It’s all over the news! Goddamn fools. The fucking reporters are signing your death warrant but they don’t care. They just want their ratings.”
I jerked up in surprise but then sank back down into my pillows, pain throbbing through my head. “What do you mean, signing…signing my death warrant?” I felt like someone was playing a trick on me. First, I’d been shot, then I’d been flown to the US via Life Flight, then Judge showed up, and then he tells me that my life is in danger.
Well, all over again. Obviously being shot at meant that my life was in danger back then, too.
Arrrgggghhh…
I felt thick, and stupid, and rambling. And Judge was here - in my hospital room. And that just wasn’t happening.
“Was it Sangre who boarded the bus and shot at you?” Judge asked urgently.
“Yeah,” I said, surprised. “Did the police tell you that?”
“No, there’s no police here to tell me that, which is my point! The Sangre want you dead. They’ve wanted you dead for days now. And there’s no one,” he squeezed my hand hard - painfully hard, “here to protect you.” He took a deep breath, “Except for me.”
“You? You're just going to waltz in here and…and watch over me? Like my own guardian angel? Except mine is an old high school flame that comes dressed in a leather vest and jeans??” My voice got higher and more hysterical as the ridiculousness of the situation hit me.
He ignored my rising panic. “With half the journalists in the free world crawling around the front lawn of this hospital, they’ve broadcasted to the world - and the Sangre - that you are most definitely alive. They’re going to come back and finish the job.”
“But the police—”
He cut me off ruthlessly.
�
�Do you see any men in blue in here? They’re too stupid to realize that you could be in trouble, too stupid to spot this problem.”
I blinked at him, my mind starting to go fuzzy around the edges. Men in blue…blue men…blue men with gold shiny badges…blue and gold men…no, Judge isn’t blue…Why is Judge here? Why does my head hurt so much?
“Why are you here?” I asked, my voice coming out funny, even to my own ears.
Wait. Judge already told me why he was here. Why the men in blue are here, too. No. I shook my head, trying to clear it. Men in blue aren’t here. That’s a bad thing.
Judge is a good thing. He was always a good…
And then I was gone again.
5
Judge
I stared down at her as she let out an impossibly adorable snore. Her pink lips were parted slightly and I wanted to reach out and stroke them. Stroke her, her hair and her cheek and her arms. I wanted to pull her into my arms and hold her tight. Never let her go. Never let anyone harm her ever again.
But I knew that Bishop would be waiting ever so impatiently by the phone for an update, and if I didn’t call him soon, Bishop would make the drive to El Paso to find out what the hell was going on. Bishop was not only the president of the Dead Legion, he was my best friend, and if I didn’t call him soon, there was no telling what he’d do. Patience wasn’t Bishop’s middle name - or first or last name, for that matter.
Reluctantly, I stepped out into the hallway and called Bishop.
“What’s going on??” Bishop shouted as soon as the phone call connected.
“It’s worse than I thought,” I said with a growl. “Fucking idiot police are leaving her completely unguarded. There’s reporters everywhere - I’m expecting them to climb up the drain pipe so they can sneak into her room. The nurses are trying to keep Carmen isolated from everyone so she can recuperate, but they’re not trained to fight off Sangre. We have to protect her.”