by Gail Bridges
I thought I might throw up.
Josh ran a cool hand over my forehead, brushing back my hair. “Babe, are you okay?”
I wiped my runny nose with my sleeve, leaving a shining trail of thin snot behind. I stared at it, thinking, Screw it. Who cares if my sleeve is gross when our lives are in danger? I took a shaky breath. “No. I’m not okay. Not really. Are you?”
He hugged me to him, holding me, rocking me, petting me. “Not at all. No.”
It was raining, out in the real world. I could hear it battering the windows.
“You know what?” he said quietly, after the longest moments I’d ever lived through, “his mind control of us—his conditioning of us—it must wear off after a while. That’s why he has to do it over and over again.”
“You think?” I breathed.
“I do.”
Josh sneezed several times, his eyes screwed tightly shut. “We’re going to catch pneumonia in here,” he said, a touch of a smile flickering at the edges of his lips. He put his arms around me, rubbed his hands up and down my arms, trying to warm me up. He was so gallant, trying to make me feel better when he was just as screwed as I was. But his smile faded almost as quickly as it had appeared. “You know, I think Mr. Abiba works very hard at this. I think this private little orgy he’s running requires constant maintenance from him. Maybe it’s not all that easy to keep this whole thing going.”
I bit my lip. “I can totally see that. But what should we do?”
“I don’t know,” he said, sighing.
We stared at each other.
I sneezed again.
Josh shivered in the chill air. He tightened his arms around me, not that it helped. “Do you know what the scariest part is? Sometimes I like the guy.”
I thought about that.
“Me too,” I admitted reluctantly. “It’s creepy.”
“Have you noticed that we’re all artists in one way or another? Well, we are. Logan’s a filmmaker. Rhonda-Lynne is a fiber artist. Jonathan’s a jeweler. Geoffrey’s a writer—did you know that? And then there’s you and me, of course. A musician and a painter.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“I think Mr. Abiba really does appreciate and love our artwork.”
I remembered Mr. Abiba’s glowing face as he’d spoken with Rhonda-Lynne about embroidery. “Yes,” I said again.
“And he tries to keep us happy. My guitar concert, for example.”
“And me painting the Fine Arts Room!”
“Exactly. He can be very nice when he wants to be.”
“But he can also be cruel—so cruel. I’ve seen it, Josh.”
We stared at each other.
“What should we do?” he whispered.
We had no idea.
And that was where things stood when we heard a rapping at the door.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was Zenith, and she was crying. We could hear her through the door.
Startled, apprehensive, Josh and I left the dead zone and rushed to let her in. I pulled her into the North Tower as Josh stuck his head outside the door. “There’s no one else around,” he whispered, closing it behind him.
Zenith, leaning on me, her face swollen and shiny with tears, let me lead her to the bed, cradling a bandaged hand against her belly. Her hand was hurt. Badly. Her left hand—the same hand with which she’d made love to me. Her special hand. Her perfect, slender, beautifully talented, magical hand. I didn’t want to look but I couldn’t take my eyes off the bandage. There was blood on it. Lots of it. Blood on her shirt too. And a smear on her cheek.
She was howling—great heaving, shuddering sobs.
My stomach lurched. “What happened?”
“Look,” she yelped, her voice breaking. “Look what he did to me.”
We looked. Damn it, but we looked.
Slowly, her face white with pain, she held out her trembling arm. Even bandaged, the pinky was all wrong. Josh and I gazed at it, numb with horror, not believing what we could see with our own eyes. But there was no way around it. Her pinky finger, her sweet little finger with the round nail shaped like a petal, was too short.
It can’t be…
But the blood, the blood, the blood!
By an inch at least…
All wrong all wrong all wrong!
“My god,” said Josh, turning away, swallowing hard, “the brute!”
Zenith dissolved into heaving hysterics.
I lurched over the far side of the bed, grabbing my stomach, and vomited violently onto the floor. Zenith! Her hand! How could this be? Fingers didn’t get chopped off in real life. How could everything have gone so wrong? I retched again and again as Zenith sobbed in the background. Josh sat down next to her and pulled her head onto his shoulder. Carefully, he put his arm around her, rocking her just as he’d rocked me not five minutes before. Brilliant drops seeped onto his pants leg. “When?” he asked, his voice deadly quiet.
“A few minutes ago,” she managed to croak.
He peered at her hand, then searched her face. “You’re still bleeding. Does it need a tourniquet or something?”
“Got one.”
“Why, Zenith? Why?”
She wailed then, a keening both thin and sharp, a sound so heartbreaking that I knew it would be with me for the rest of my life.
“Take your time,” said Josh. “We’re here for you.”
I gagged again, then wiped my lips with my sleeve—the poor sleeve was getting a lot of abuse. Then I lowered myself gently onto the bed to sit on Zenith’s other side. I ran my hand down her back. Pulled her snarled hair from her face. Straightened the bedraggled yellow flower pinned to her blouse—a pathetic representation of the broken woman who wore it. “Zenith,” I whispered, “we love you. You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”
“I have to,” she said, through sobs of pain. “I have to!”
Josh and I looked at each other over her bowed head. She had to?
“It’s a message from him.”
I closed my eyes. I was going to throw up again. Or faint. Or both.
“He says…”
We waited, holding our breath.
“He says that I told secrets that weren’t mine to tell.”
I gasped.
“And he wants you to know that…people who hide from him go…over the edge.”
Josh threw a hand over his mouth.
“And that’s not all,” she cried, her chest heaving in, heaving out. “He wants you to know that…hiding from him…hurts the people you love the most.”
“He did this to you because of us?” I said, leaping up from the bed and lunging for the door, not even noticing her sharp, pained intake of breath. “I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!”
“Angie!”
It was Josh. Somehow he’d managed to get to the door at the same time I did. “Do not leave this room. I mean it. Stay here.”
I stood shaking at the door, livid with rage.
“Don’t do it,” cried Zenith, “Please!”
I turned around. She stared at me in alarm, her face pale. “Okay. I won’t kill him. Yet.” I bit my lip, forcing myself to calm down. I didn’t need to make things worse than they already were. “I’ll stay. But we have to get you medical attention.”
“She’s right,” said Josh, frowning.
“He promised to fix me up,” Zenith spat, “as soon as I delivered my message. He’s a fucking doctor, remember?” She heaved herself up to a standing position, gasping, wavering on her feet. Her shoulder hung low. Her bandage was seeping. A scarlet drip fell onto the carpet. “Have to go. Can’t take much more.”
We rushed to her side. Josh took her elbow and helped her to the door. “We’ll come with you. We’ll help you down the stairs. You look like you might faint any second.”
She shook her head. “No. You can’t. He said—” She gasped and fell against the doorjamb, then gasped a second time from the jolt. “He said it’ll go worse for me if I don
’t come back alone…or if you or Angie leave the room tonight.”
“Fuck!” Josh said, smashing the door with his fist.
But Zenith didn’t leave. She wavered on her feet, her lips forming silent words.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“Follow my eyes,” she said so quietly that I could hardly hear her. She blinked, looked at Josh and me, nodded slowly, then lowered her eyes to gaze with laser-like intensity at her own pants. At the left front pocket. She looked up again, her expression desperate with need.
I frowned. Was there something in the pocket?
She nodded. Her eyes pleaded.
I held out a tentative hand. Avoiding her bandaged arm, I ran my index finger along the opening of her pocket. She nodded again, groaning. Zenith was in pain—she was weaving on her feet. Quick! Quick! I wriggled my fingers into the tight pocket, following the contours of her hips and stomach, my hand glancing over places on her body that I’d last touched in the throes of passion. How dare Mr. Abiba hurt my lover? How dare he? I felt her fierce trembling and nearly collapsed at her feet. No, I must not let myself be lost to this horror. I must be strong for her. I must retrieve whatever was in her pocket, then let her go, no matter how hard it was. After too much time had passed, even though it had only been a matter of seconds, I pulled out a tiny slip of crumpled paper.
Drops of blood splattered the floor between us.
Don’t look at them, I told myself.
“Is this it?” I whispered.
She nodded. “I’ve got to go.” She sucked in a sharp breath, then laughed bitterly. “He said he’s going to fix it. I bet he’ll cauterize it, the bastard! He’s probably heating the tool as we speak.” She seethed with fear and loathing, a different Zenith from the one we thought we knew. “And when he’s finished,” she hissed, “he’ll use his damn magic on me and love me back to complacency—I know he will! Do you suppose I’ll even remember any of this? Will you?”
And then she was gone.
We stood at the open door watching her hunched form wobbling its way down the stairs. We stared at the empty landing, then at each other.
“We should have gone with her,” I said, moving out of the room. “I’m going.”
“No!” He grabbed my arm—too hard, hurting me—and pulled me roughly back inside, slamming the door and blocking the way. He shoved me to the side, then swung back his arm and punched the door once, twice, three times, making me jerk each time. Seeing him like that, watching him ruin his beautifully manicured and maintained musician’s hand, was almost as ghastly as seeing Zenith’s blood splatters on his pants leg. Almost but not quite. “You can’t go—I won’t let you! You heard what she said.”
I twisted away. “But she needs me!”
He leaned against the door where we’d once made love, his burst of anger spent for now. “Don’t you think I know that? Zenith needs me too.” He turned his head away but I saw the tears. I saw them. “I love her too!”
“I know,” I said, taking his hand.
He winced. “How is it possible to love someone this much in only four days?”
“I don’t know how.” My throat felt as if it were stuffed with cotton. Cotton soaked in vinegar. I swallowed, trying not to throw up again. “But apparently it is. I love her too.”
He stared at his knuckles, which were already changing color. He’d broken the skin in three places. “We’re a fine set of lovers, aren’t we, you and I?” he said bitterly. “Letting the woman we love go off to who knows what?”
I couldn’t answer.
“I’m such a coward.”
“You’re not a coward.”
His eyes flickered to mine, then settled on the window beside the bed. “He’s got her, Angie. He’s got her.”
I wiped tears from my cheeks. “Yes. He has.”
He seemed to fold in on himself. “I couldn’t bear it if he got you too. We have to be careful—so very careful. Promise me you’ll be careful. Promise!”
“I will be. At least I’ll try. You too. You promise me too.”
“I’ll be careful.” He took a deep breath. “Because we can’t help her if he gets to us.”
I looked across the room, at the dead zone. I took a step toward it. “Should we—”
“No,” he said, cutting me off. “Absolutely not.”
“But how can we talk?”
He laughed, a cold, lifeless thing. “We can’t. That’s the point.” He turned even whiter. “I’ve gotto sit down or I’m going to faint.” Avoiding the splattered blood on the floor, Josh stumbled back to the bed. I sat beside him, holding the crumpled bit of paper, not saying anything. Then he put his head in his hands. “What have we got ourselves into, Angie?”
I didn’t answer.
“And it gets worse. He thinks he loves you. Fucking hell.”
What could I say? I looked down at my lap, holding my breath, hoping Mr. Abiba wasn’t listening in. Fucking hell indeed. In more ways than one.
After a moment Josh gestured at the paper. “Let’s take a look.”
I spread out the postage stamp-sized bit of wrinkled paper as best I could over my knee, smoothing it gently with my fingertips. It looked as if Zenith had torn the corner off a tea napkin. We bent over, squinting.
He’s losing it.
Written in miniscule block letters in blue ink.
We sat frozen on the bed, staring at her message. She had to have written the note before he hurt her. Had she known what was coming? How terrified she must have been. Poor, sweet, vivacious, nurturing Zenith. Not a mean bone in her body. How could anyone hurt her? I wiped tears from my face.
He’s losing it.
What did it mean? My knee jiggled uncontrollably—my entire body was beginning to shake, just like Josh’s. Shock? Were we in shock? If this was shock, then what must Zenith be feeling? I hugged myself. Words repeated over and over in my head. Zenith. Zenith. Zenith. And then other words. He’s losing it. He’s losing it. He’s losing it. She must mean Mr. Abiba. It had to be Mr. Abiba. Who else could it be? I fought down another rush of nausea. What was Mr. Abiba losing? His sanity? His control? Was he losing control of the inn? Control of his Guides? Control of his guests?
Control of me?
Which was worse—a crazy man holding us captive, or a man driven by fear?
I shuddered.
If only I could talk to Josh. If only we could go back into our dead zone and discuss this horrid turn of events. But our little dead zone wasn’t safe after all. Not for us. Not for Zenith. Not for anyone.
Josh made a flip-it-over motion with his hand.
I flipped the note over.
Eat a petal every hour.
Written in even tinier block letters, with a pencil.
Our heads shot up. We spun around on the bed, both of us staring at the bouquets on our bedside tables. Those flowers? Those petals? Was that what she meant? She wanted us to eat them? Then I remembered—she’d been wearing one. And hadn’t it been missing a few petals? There’d been a bloom pinned to her shirt earlier in the afternoon as well. I frowned, trying to remember whether she’d worn one at breakfast. Were any of the other Guides wearing them? Had Vane been wearing one when he’d come to us for our Lesson?
I thought so but I couldn’t be sure.
Josh scooted off the bed and drew a stem from the vase. I joined him at the head of the bed, standing near the dead zone but not in it—no, I wasn’t that stupid—watching as he twirled the bloom in his fingers. He looked at me. I nodded. First he plucked a petal from the bloom, then I did. Moving in synchrony, our eyes never leaving each other, we placed the narrow yellow morsels on our tongues. My petal wilted in my mouth, shrinking down to almost nothing. It tasted like Josh’s shampoo smelled. I swallowed the tiny slip of a thing. Why were we supposed to eat them? What would they do? Would it help us in some way? There was nothing to do but wait.
It was 3:52 in the morning.
Josh dug his wristwatch out of his suitcase wher
e he’d tossed it on Saturday evening, on our first day at the inn, as per Mr. Abiba’s request. Following the rules, always following the rules…we were such good little guests. He strapped it on.
“Now what?” I asked.
He shrugged and looked at the door. “I have no idea.”
We lay on the bed, on top of the covers. He reached for my hand.
And then we heard it.
A scream.
Zenith. Having her finger cauterized. Or something. Just one scream, her voice breaking in the middle, and long—oh god, how long that scream went on.
Josh cried out.
Maybe I did too. I don’t know. But my heart…it was breaking. That I do know.
I scooted closer to Josh, pressed his head into my neck and put my arm around his shoulder. We lay there in my stupid North Tower, clinging to each other, frightened for Zenith. Was Mr. Abiba really a doctor or was that a lie too? Had he taken proper care of her finger? Surely there was a better way than putting a hot iron on it. Oh please let her torture be finished. Please! And I admit it—yes, I admit it—I hoped with all my heart that my poor Zenith had indeed been “handled”by Mr. Abiba after he was finished with her, that she was no longer terrified or in pain or a writhing mass of blind hatred.
Because I loved her. And that made me hate him all the more.
It was the worst night I’ve ever spent.
We lay like that, wide awake, not moving, not talking, trying not to think too hard for fear of attracting unwanted attention. Maybe Mr. Abiba could read our minds. Who knew what that man was capable of? But not thinking was impossible. My thoughts spun out of control no matter how hard I tried to distract myself, no matter how frantically I recited Hamlet’s famous speech—to be or not to be, to be or not to be… No matter how desperately I counted to one hundred in Spanish or made lists of the guests who’d come to my wedding or named every single goddamn color at my favorite goddamn art supply store.
Goddamn it, how could my thoughts not spin out of control?
The hours passed. One by one, Josh and I dutifully ate the yellow petals as instructed, wondering if our life together was over when it had just begun, wondering if we’d ever get out of this wicked place. Wondering what the hell we were going to do when morning came, wondering if and when Mr. Abiba would claim me as his own true love. Wondering what I would do when the time came…and what Josh would do. Until finally, horribly, it occurred to me to wonder what Mr. Abiba did to people he was really mad with.