by Kate Morris
Somewhere, the sound of a car crash broke through even the chaos and panic of the loud crowd. The grinding and splitting of metal on metal grated her nerves. Soon, a car alarm was going off, followed by others. The scene just elevated into chaos.
“Gimme’ your keys,” he said.
“What? Why?”
He took them the second she had them free of her jeans pocket. “I’m driving.”
She didn’t argue further but pointed to her car.
“I know which one’s yours.”
“Oh,” she said as they separated, he going to his side, and she walking toward the passenger side. Wren didn’t make it all the way there, though. She let out a scream of terror as someone ran at her from the dark shadows of a brick building.
She was knocked into her car, which hurt terribly. Then she fell over with the person to the ground, hitting it hard, too. It was a man. He was on top of her now. He was mumbling incoherently. It made her skin crawl. This was no robbery.
“Hey! Get off her, man!” Brannon yelled as he was already there and trying to pull the man off of her. “You son-of-a-bitch, get off her!”
Wren was aware of the man’s hands on her throat trying to squeeze, but she was too busy trying to get into her jacket. The next thing she knew, the hobo or whatever he was, went flying off of her.
She pushed to her elbows and then sat up. Brannon was wrestling the man a few yards away on the sidewalk. Wren got up to help him.
Once she walked over, though, she wasn’t sure what to do.
“Wren, get back!” Brannon yelled. “Call the cops.”
The man raged and screamed. No words were coming from him. It was just letters, sounds, nothing clear or definable. Her hands were shaking with fear as she took out her cell phone. Her finger pressed the 9 but stopped from going further. She couldn’t call the police. That was a bigger no than making friends.
Instead, she ran into the bar across the alleyway and screamed for help. Within a few seconds, three men were following her back into the alleyway and helped Brannon suppress the man. It took a long time, too. The man who’d assaulted her was big and crazed with anger and hatred for some reason.
Finally, someone else joined the melee and clubbed him over the head with a small black thing that looked like a rubber baseball bat. He instantly slumped and didn’t move again. She rushed over to Brannon’s side, and he took her arm by the bicep and pulled her back. When she glanced down at the man knocked out, his eyes were open.
“Is he dead?” she asked.
One of the men in the crowd said, “No, he’s just stunned simple. He’ll come to in a minute or so.”
“Hogtie him,” another suggested.
“You kids will have to tell the police what happened,” the man with the club said. “What did happen?”
She ducked her head while Brannon explained the situation at the festival and then this. They were stunned. Someone produced zip ties and secured the man’s hands behind his back. Then they all went to the end of the alley to watch for the police as festival-goers ran past.
“I gotta get outta here,” she remarked and looked up at Brannon. “Now.”
“What? Why? We need to wait for the police…”
“Where’s my keys?”
“Here,” he said and produced them from his pocket. “But…”
“Give ‘em,” she said and reached for them, only to have him pull his hand back. “Now. I gotta go. You don’t understand.”
“Um, okay,” he said hesitantly and looked toward the men clustered with others at the end of the alley.
She could still hear the chaos from the festival. Sirens were going off in full, blaring decibel now.
“Now!” she ordered more loudly and looked at him with an intense expression so that he’d understand.
He hit the remote button to unlock the car and went around to the driver’s side.
“Go! Go!” she shouted once they were in it.
Brannon picked up on her urgency and fired it up. As they were speeding away from the scene of the crime, Wren looked at the man who was tied up. He’d broken the zip ties, was awake, and getting back to his feet.
“Go faster!” she demanded.
It wasn’t that she wanted to flee the scene and a possible run-in with the local police as much now as she wanted to get away from that man. His eyes were bloodshot like the woman in the pharmacy. Like the other man at the festival. They all looked the same. Crazy. Irrational. Psychopathic.
Chapter Nine
Elijah parked in his driveway because she’d told him not to take her home just yet. He didn’t really know where else to go. He’d even considered taking her to that party tonight just to prolong having to say goodbye. He’d been about to ask her to leave the festival with him to go to it or anywhere else really when that man had started attacking people. Instead, he brought her to his house because they had to get out of there and his house was closest.
“Come on in,” he said and stepped to the side so she could go past him through the rear entrance, which spilled into a mudroom off the pantry. She took a few steps and stopped. “Are you okay?”
He locked the door behind him. It felt strange to do it. Normally, they’d lock up at night when they went to bed, but Elijah felt the urge to lock the door and check every window, too.
Wren nodded and replied, “Yes.”
He knew she was lying. She was shaking. “I still think I should take you to the hospital, to the Emergency Room to get you checked out…”
“No!” she said too loudly in the small confines of the mudroom. Then she lowered her voice and said, “No. I’m fine.”
“That guy really knocked into you, though.”
“Can I have something to drink?”
He stepped past her, expecting her to follow and said, “Yes, of course. Sorry. I should’ve asked.”
Elijah handed her a bottle of water from the wine fridge. He and Alex didn’t drink, but the kitchen was equipped, thanks to their father’s remodel, with a small wine cooler. It was supposed to keep wine at the perfectly chilled temperature. They just kept sports drinks, bottled water, and soda in it. There were still a few bottles of wine from his parents’ collection in there, but neither of them touched it. The fact that neither had removed or disposed of the bottles was also unspoken and also not discussed. He figured his brother also didn’t want to deal with it.
He opened the plastic bottle before handing it to her. When she took it from him, her hands were shaking so badly that she spilled some on the tile floor.
“Sorry. I’ll…”
“I’ve got it. No worries,” he said and retrieved a paper towel and dried the few drops.
She guzzled about half the bottle and handed it back to him for some reason. He took a swig without thinking. If she found it odd that he was drinking out of her bottle, she didn’t say anything. When he paused a second to think about it, Elijah really didn’t feel all that weird about it.
“Can I at least check you out, make sure you don’t have any cracked ribs or anything?”
“What? No,” she said, rearing back from him and pulled down the hem of her shirt.
“I’m not gonna do it to get a free grope,” he tried to reassure her. “I’ve seen my fair share of cracked ribs. I can usually tell when someone needs a doctor.”
She shook her head. “No, I just need somewhere that I can check for visible bruising and stuff.”
“Gee, like an Emergency Room?” he chided.
“No!” she stated in a panic again.
He couldn’t figure out why she was so freaked out about going to the hospital. Didn’t she have health insurance? Maybe that was it. His insurance came from the school’s football program. It had a lot of perks like chiropractic, physical therapy, and massage.
“Right, no hospital. Okay?” he asked, getting a nod. He felt like shit for not anticipating that happening to her. Elijah hadn’t even seen that man in the alley until it was too late. All he could do wa
s run as fast as he could around the front of the car toward her as she was being hit and taken to the ground. It made him sick. It was one of those moments he knew he’d replay over and over again tonight in his mind when he was in his bed and the house was still and quiet and dark. Just thinking about it now was turning his stomach.
“How ‘bout my parents’ bedroom? They’ve got a full-length mirror in there. We could go up there so you can see better.”
She nodded unsurely, and Elijah had to fight the urge to pull her into his arms and try to offer her some sort of comfort, hold her close, hug her. Naturally, he didn’t want to take a knee to the crotch, though, so he refrained. As they left the kitchen, he had to stop himself from checking the mudroom door they just came through to make sure it was really locked.
He led her upstairs and down the hall to the left. “Actually, it’s in their bathroom. Come this way.”
He locked the bedroom door behind them. He couldn’t shake that feeling of needing to have every door they went through locked after them. If she thought that was odd, too, she didn’t mention it.
Flipping the light switch, the white marble bathroom lit up with soft lighting. His mother had seen to the design of it. She wanted crystal chandeliers, a soaking tub, marble everything, a two-person walk-in shower with glass enclosure, and dimmer switches on all of the recessed lighting above the cupboards. His father had obliged.
“Are your parents not here?”
“Are you serious?” he asked, offended.
She shrugged and tipped her head slightly to the side. “Yes? I don’t know. They weren’t here before, either. You said they were gone. Do they work out of town a lot?”
“They’re dead.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed softly and gasped. “Sorry. That… uh…sorry.”
Elijah took a deep breath. “It’s okay. I thought I told you already, or I guess I assumed you found out from someone at school.”
She shook her head. Wren’s hair was kind of a mess. She had a smear of black makeup under her left eye, and her clothes were in disarray. “You’re the only person in school I talk to.”
“Oh, well, that could change, ya’ know. You don’t exactly put off a friendly, talk-to-me kind of vibe.”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
He didn’t know what that meant but let it drop.
“Hey, let’s just get you cleaned up, okay?” he suggested and went to the tall, rustic white cupboard, a piece his mother found in an antique store in Columbus. He took down a few towels and washcloths and set them on the double vanity. It felt strange being in their bathroom. He and Alex never went in their master suite if they could avoid it. It just seemed wrong. Tonight, however, he felt the presence of his mother as he worried about Wren’s injuries and wanted to treat them. His mom was like that with him, always worrying, overly concerned about football injuries and such. He missed her greatly.
“Take off your jacket,” he instructed and turned on the hot water in one of the sinks. When he glanced over his shoulder at her, Wren’s eyes were darting to the right and left as if she weren’t sure if she should do what he said. “I’m not gonna try anything. You’ve just got some scratches, dirt, and bruises on your neck. I can only imagine what the rest of you looks like.”
She looked up at him and nodded. There was something sad in her aqua eyes. He’d never seen that before. She usually avoided eye contact and kept her hood up or her head down. Or she was giving him a nasty look like she thought he was a total asshole. Even worse were the dagger glares. This wasn’t anger; it was sadness. He was sure of it.
When he turned back to her, she was only wearing a tank top and jeans. She’d neatly folded her jacket and what looked like a hoodie and was holding them. He also ditched his jacket and flannel shirt. The house felt hot, which he knew was from adrenaline and not the actual temperature. If she weren’t here, he’d remove his white t-shirt, too.
“Here, sit,” he indicated the vanity stool where his mother used to do her hair and makeup. Her items were all still sitting on the lowered countertop, too. Hair products, makeup stuff, brushes, her perfumes. Neither he nor his brother had had the heart to clean it all out. Their clothes still hung in the closets, too. “Let me take a look at you.”
She placed her stack of clothing on the counter and sat. Then she looked in the small, round mirror on the lower vanity counter and groaned.
“Oh, man,” she remarked. “This is great. This is just great.”
She shook her head, picked something out of her hair with trembling fingers.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get you straightened around. I’m a pro.”
He wiped at the dirt on her cheek, handed her another washcloth to take off her makeup, and picked a few pieces of dead leaves and a stick out of her hair. She had fallen in a dirty alleyway in the city. She probably needed a shower.
“You can grab a shower if you want,” he offered. “I’ll wait outside for you.”
“No, I need to get home. My uncle will be worried,” she said. “Especially when he hears the news of what went down tonight at that festival. He’s gonna freak out.”
“It’s only nine-thirty,” he said. “The news isn’t even on yet. We don’t have a local news station, so it’d be the Cleveland news, and I doubt they’ll report it on there.”
“I didn’t mean on the television,” she said. Then Wren snapped her mouth closed as if she’d told him something she wasn’t supposed to.
After her makeup was removed, Elijah found himself staring at her. She really didn’t need that black gunk on her eyes. She was naturally pretty. Her eyes were framed by thick, dark brows that brought out that odd color of her eyes. Her lips were a soft pink that accented nicely against the color of her eyes. Although her lips were full and plump, her mouth was small and narrow, which made her look a little pouty at all times. Her freckles were cute, too. She had a sort of exotic look about her, different from the other girls he knew.
“What? Is it that bad?”
“No, not bad,” he mumbled stupidly.
She stood and stepped closer to the full-length antique mirror standing closer to the shower. It was nearly as tall as the wall and was ornate, silver, and had a carved frame. His father found it for their mother at a job site in downtown Cleveland. They were just going to throw it out, so that they could modernize the building, so he had it polished up, repaired, and brought it home for her bathroom. She’d been so excited.
Wren lifted the hem of her tank top and stood sideways. She winced when she touched her fingertips against her skin. Without bulky overclothes on, she was very slight to the point of being frail.
“Let me see,” he said and placed his hands on her hips to spin her toward him. Then he dropped to one knee to get a better look. “Oh, yeah. You’ve got some bruising. Does it hurt when you take a deep breath?”
She did so and shook her head.
“Good. Probably not broken. Just got banged around pretty good. That guy was big, and you probably took most of the hit when he took you down…”
“It was like a truck ran me over,” she corrected.
Elijah turned her again and lifted the back of her shirt, which she didn’t protest. “You have another bruise here.”
He touched her bare skin against the lower right quadrant of her back where her jeans hung loosely on her slim hips.
“Is that tender?” he asked, pressing lightly.
“Yes,” she said softly.
He raised her shirt slightly higher and turned her a bit more. “Hm, this is actually lacerated. Hurt?” he asked, finding another welt that was cut open. She nodded. “I should clean this. Come back over here, Wren.”
She followed to the vanity stool again where he sat and had her stand in front of him. He used a little peroxide on a cotton ball and dabbed.
“Ouch,” she hissed and slapped his hand away.
“Sorry, hang in there. Almost done,” he said and dabbed it again. “Here, hold your shirt up a litt
le higher. I want to put a bandage on it. I hope this isn’t your favorite shirt. There’s a little blood on it from this scratch.”
“It’s okay,” she said and tugged her shirt a bit higher.
“Thanks,” he told her and pressed a Band-Aid from the drawer gently over the wound. That’s when a spot at her lower back caught his eye.
Elijah pulled the edge of her waistband down just a tad and touched his index finger against the tattoo there. It was a small blue wave, only about two inches in diameter and inside a black outlined circle. The tip of it curled over like a real wave and was white. He traced it, and she sucked in a sharp breath and pulled down her shirt.
“Like you drew in your journal. Another wave? You like surfing?” he questioned.
She spun and stared at him with nervous eyes.
“What don’t you want anyone to know about you, Wren?”
“Wh-what?” she whispered, and her eyebrows floated gently up.
He tilted his head to the side and contemplated her. She was nervous. He could tell. Her breathing had accelerated. “You can tell me the truth.”
She just barely shook her head.
“I’d never tell anyone anything you didn’t want me to tell. I won’t even tell anyone about the tattoo. I didn’t show anyone your journal, either. I’m not like that. I’d never do something like that.”
She lifted her chin slightly, “There’s nothing to tell.”
That was a lie. Not even a convincing one.
“Okay. Maybe someday.” He frowned and stood up again. “I don’t think anything’s broken.”
Reaching out, he pressed his fingers against her collar bone, which he could see was also bruised. It felt intact. She moved his hand away with her own.
“Can I use some of that makeup over there to cover some of the bruises you can see?”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “It’s kind of old, though. I don’t know if it goes bad or…well, anything about makeup actually.”
“It’ll be fine.”
She pulled out a little plastic pot of something that looked like beige dust from his mother’s vanity drawer and pressed a puffy thing into the container. Then she patted it gently against the bruising on her neck and collar bone.