Hyde, an Urban Fantasy

by Lauren Stewart

  “I’m busy.”

  “All night? What if we meet at your place? I can show you what I have and then. . . I could tuck you into bed before I go.” The other carrot she’d dangled in front of him—herself.

  “Eden will be there. Mitchell said she might change.”

  “I’ll help you babysit. After she goes to sleep, I can show you the other girl’s file and the email from The Clinic that releases you from your obligations. Then I can take over watching Eden. You’ll be free to do whatever, or whoever, you want to do for the rest of the night.”

  The pause was long enough so that Jolie started to wrack her brain for another way to get him to meet her. She had business to take care of. Sad, but undeniable. He could get her into a mountain of trouble.

  “I want to see that file,” he said. “In fact, I want to hear everything you know about the clinic before I allow Eden to go there. I’ve been researching them, Jolie. But keep running into dead ends. Do they have as many secrets as you do, Jolie?”

  She sighed. Poor boy. He’d just guaranteed his fate. “I’ll tell you what I know.” Yeah, right.

  “Bring the file, and we’ll talk. But I’m not going to fuck you, Jolie.”

  “That’s too bad, Carter.” Cuz I’m going to fuck you.

  § § §

  Eden wasn’t cured. She knew it without opening her eyes. She felt it in every muscle in her body, every aching brain cell. Her shoulder felt like it had been hit with a club. God, it hurt. She’d gotten no rest last night, which meant that Chastity had shown up after all. What did she do to me locked up in my apartment? The P90X workout for 9 hours?

  Thankfully, Eden had locked herself in, cautious but hopeful she was worried for nothing. All she had to do was call the apartment’s superintendent who she’d given a just-in-case-I-get-locked-inside-my-apartment key. Not something most people did, obvious by the look on the man’s face when she’d asked him to lock her inside and told him to let her out in the morning. And, if he forgot, she had her cell phone. In the event he was a total creep, she’d checked the interior deadbolt ten times before falling asleep.

  She stretched her usable arm to touch her bruised one. Then stopped. What the heck? There was something on her hand, on her shoulder. Something slightly sticky, slightly wet. Her eyes popped open to see her ceiling above where she laid. On the floor, her front door ajar. Oh, man.

  She heard a sickly groan from a few feet away, turned her head and then screamed. Carter was splayed out on the floor, covered in blood. His blood. On his chest, his neck, his head, spilling onto the floor. He looked as though he’d been beaten with a baseball bat or a sledgehammer.

  “No-no-no-no-no.” She scrambled toward him, her knees sliding on his essence. She wanted to touch him, wanted to stop the blood from further escape, but didn’t know where to begin. Her hands shook like the wings of a hummingbird, adrenaline causing her physical pain to disappear.

  He was breathing, the blood snapping in his throat each time he in-or-exhaled, as if it was filling his lungs.

  “Carter, no. No.” She put her hands on his wounds, but there were too many. “Carter, please. Don’t die.” Her voice came out in gasps, mixing with her sobs.

  His eyes fluttered open. Recognition. He saw her.

  “Carter, don’t die. Don’t die. I’m getting help. I’m going to get help.” She tried to stand, tried to get a foothold on something other than blood. She felt his hand grip her ankle. “I’m so sorry, Carter. I’m so sorry. Oh my God, what have I done?”

  He pulled at her, wincing, his face distorting even more from the pain. “It. Wasn’t. You.” He coughed, droplets of blood spotting his cheek and chin.

  She tugged from his grip, not wanting to hurt him anymore, but needing to be free of him. “Let go, Carter. Let go! I’ll get—” His cell phone was a few feet away from his head. Next to an empty syringe. She leaned over him, his hand still on her ankle, and grabbed the phone, dialing 9-1-1.

  Before the operator had finished his greeting, Eden started talking. “Please, send an ambulance. Please! There’s been an—” An accident? Really, Eden, was it an accident? “A man needs help. He’s been beaten, I think. Badly. He’s covered in blood and can’t breathe. Please!”

  Carter’s hand tightened around her ankle and he was shaking his head, though she knew it was causing him pain. “No, Eden. Go.”

  She ignored his protest and tried to focus on what the emergency operator was saying.

  “. . . you located?”

  She yelled the address into the phone with more pleas for them to hurry. “He’s dying. Please help him! I don’t know what to do.”

  The operator told her help was on the way and then guided her through the description of Carter’s injuries, asking her what happened—“I don’t know”—and telling her to apply pressure to any gushing wounds. When she pushed against the side of Carter’s chest to stop the bleeding, the phone slipped out from under her chin, the battery shooting underneath the couch.

  She was on her own until the paramedics got there. “Carter?” Her voice was shaking. “Carter, look at me. It’s going to be alright. You’re going to be fine.”

  He ducked his head slightly in a nod.

  “I’m so sorry, Carter. I didn’t—” What? Mean for my evil side to try to beat you to death? Why had she done it? “I’m so sorry.”

  “Go. Now.” His voice sputtered, sending a fine mist of red into the air. “Tell. Mit— Jol— Not. You. Go.” He pushed weakly against her leg to get her moving.

  She wasn’t going anywhere. She needed to stay—to make sure someone came to help him and because she deserved to be punished. They could do all the tests they wanted on her once they found out about Chastity. She’d be their guinea pig, as long as they promised to keep other people safely away from her.

  Because she was a monster.

  § § §

  The paramedics arrived a few minutes later. Then the police came. Eden wept, one arm lying limp in her lap, the other wrapped tightly around her, as they took Carter away on a gurney and investigators studied the apartment. The only time she stopped crying was when she saw Detective Landon walk in, meeting his wide eyes before beginning to sob again.

  “I know you, don’t I?” he asked.

  Eden let her shoulders shrug as part of the full-body shaking it was currently doing. Hopelessness was drowning her. Nothing mattered anymore. The possibility of her being capable of murder had been part of her unhealthy denial up to this point. Now, it was a certainty.

  Landon walked the perimeter of the room, his eyes darting from where Carter’s body had been to the door, to her, to areas that hadn’t been spattered with blood. He went through the kitchen with gloved hands, speaking softly to the other officers.

  He came back into the room and sat down next to her on the couch. “They said you don’t remember anything prior to waking up, is that true?”

  She nodded.

  “We need to bring you down to the station for questioning.” His voice was reasonable, like he’d just asked her about the weather or what was on TV.

  She started to stand, pushing herself up from the couch. Her shoulder gave out, shooting pain through the arm and into her chest. She fell backwards.

  His eyebrows peaked. “Are you hurt?” He turned to the other cops while helping her ease farther back onto the couch. “Why didn’t she get medical treatment?”

  A few of them shrugged, looking bored. She guessed that dying men, massive amounts of blood, and hysterical women were commonplace in their world.

  “Where does it hurt?” Landon asked softly.

  She looked at her shoulder and brought the other hand to touch it gently.

  Landon carefully lifted the sleeve of her blouse and grimaced at the bruised and bloody skin. Then he motioned to the forensic tech to take a picture of her shoulder. “How did you miss this?” he said to the room in general. He took her by her good arm and helped her stand, his hand gentle against her skin.

&
nbsp; She heard whispers as they showed Landon the syringe and a broken cane dripping with Carter’s blood—maybe hers too—and sent it all off for testing.

  “Can you speak?” Landon asked.

  No, she couldn’t. Speaking, along with feeling and breathing at a regular rhythm were all things she just couldn’t do.

  CHAPTER XLI

  Inside the frigid interrogation room, Detective Landon was far kinder to Eden than any of the cops she’d seen on television. His questions were concise, direct, and thorough.

  Unfortunately for him, she didn’t have a lot to say. Or anything, actually. Her voice was still out of her control. Her mind too. Images, feelings, sensations jumbled together, forming a whirlpool inside her head, swirling too quickly for her to catch one. When she ran out of tears, her cries were muffled, waterless, but never-ending. She’d wait until they read her the Miranda Warning, and then find a way to ask for a lawyer. Maybe she could write them a note.

  When he started asking her questions about another man, Eden was dumbfounded. More dumbfounded. What other man?

  “Did you go to Static last night?” he asked.

  Eden looked at him. Static. Chastity’s favorite club. Maybe Mitch’s too. Where he’d met Chastity. Taken her home from and—“No.” She shook her head violently.

  “When is the last time you were there?”

  “I don’t know.” Even without law school, she knew better than to talk. Listening was better—find out as much as they knew so she could tell her lawyer when the time came. Which it would. Soon. She was shocked it hadn’t already happened. Had she missed it during a stress-induced momentary blackout? No, sadly, she was now totally her.

  “Ms. Colfax . . . Eden. The body of a man was found in the alley behind Static, the same alley where we met each other.” He didn’t need to remind her of how they met. They both knew. Their first meeting had been twenty feet away from another murder victim. “This victim was a known drug dealer and suffered similar wounds to Carter Poole. Do you know anything about how the man died?”

  “No. Nothing.” Once the flashbacks started, maybe Chastity would show Eden more. How much of that would she tell the detective? How much would he believe?

  He sighed and stood. “I’ll be back with someone else. Do you want some water?”

  She didn’t respond, vocally or physically.

  He sighed again and left the interrogation room.

  Next they sent in a woman who had her black hair tied in a low ponytail and wore the sort of clothes meant to be casual and inspire trust—khaki pants, a button-down shirt, no jewelry. She introduced herself with a name Eden forgot ten seconds later.

  Sure, she’s just like me.

  The woman kept her head tilted to the side, mirroring the small sips of water Eden took from a FLPD coffee mug, posture open and inviting. Classic shrink. Eden had seen a lot of them. This one seemed to be focused on rape and leading Eden into a perfect self-defense plea. Was this the woman’s first day on the job? “How did you know the man?” “Did he attack you?” “You had to defend yourself, didn’t you?”

  Eden found her voice once the idea that Carter might be accused of wrong-doing, unable to stop herself. But she only gave the briefest of answers: Carter was her best friend. She didn’t remember what happened. He never would have attacked her. At least she knew nothing she said could be used against her. The cup of water had evidently refilled her tear ducts, because her eyes started overfilling again.

  Detective Landon came in a short while later and whispered something in the shrink’s ear. He shot Eden a quick, tight grin and walked out, the shrink following him.

  Eden craned her neck to look at the gauze and tape the EMTs had wrapped around her shoulder. The sling they’d given her helped keep the muscles relaxed, but there wasn’t much else they could do. She’d refused the pain killers they’d offered. She could deal with her shoulder. It could be a lot worse. All she had to do was think about Carter and she knew it could be a lot worse.

  Landon had told her they hadn’t heard any news from the hospital. Since the other police officers mostly ignored her, she hoped that meant Carter was still alive. If he wasn’t, surely it would have shown on the cops’ faces or in their demeanor. As it was now, they were tense, waiting for something. To find out if they were dealing with a murder instead of just an attempted one?

  A long while later, Landon stepped into the room and motioned for her to follow him with a flick of his head. She did. No questions, no hesitation. Maybe this is when they read me my rights. She walked a few strides behind the big cop through the station, passing meth addicts, prostitutes and drunks. A well-put-together looking woman, with eyes as big as the tires on the SUV she probably drove, was scared out of her mind, keeping her body as tightly wrapped as possible so as not to touch the undesirables.

  Eden wasn’t sure which one she most resembled—a terrified suburbanite or someone the suburbanite was terrified of.

  The detective led her to a desk, stacked high with paper and files, a few coffee cups, and a computer that might have been held together by all the post-its surrounding the monitor.

  Landon pulled out a dirty-looking fabric chair and sat down, and then held out his hand, indicating the seat she should take. He picked up his phone—not a cell phone, the old-fashioned, bulky landline ones.

  “You wanna call someone?” he asked.

  This isn’t his first day. Why is he doing this out of order? She didn’t ask, not wanting to remind him if he’d simply forgotten. Yeah, right. He forgot. Just make the call. Her one phone call before they officially arrested her and put her in the slammer. There was only one person to call. But she needed to stop crying before she dialed.

  “Tell whoever it is to pick you up in about twenty minutes. We just need to get your signature on the statement but Processing is still getting the other paperwork together.”

  “I get to go home?” It wasn’t a whine, but sounded like one.

  He shook his head. “No, not home. Your apartment is a crime scene for now. You’ll need to stay elsewhere.”

  “Why are you letting me go?”

  “I was told to,” he said with a humorless smile. “I was told to look into the drug dealing angle. I was told that the murder of the junkie and then last night’s murder of the dealer in the alley, plus the attempted murder of your friend the rookie, were so similar, it was probably a fight over territory.”

  Landon put down the phone and leaned toward her, lowering his voice. “I’m not sure how much you are wrapped up with Mitch Turner, but his friends must be watching out for you, too. I’ve checked you out, Eden. You’re not like him or whoever is protecting him. You need to stay away from them. Because whatever is going on with him and his friends is not something you should be around. When I take them down—and I will, regardless of my orders—I don’t want to have to take you with them.”

  She shook her head. “Mitch didn’t know who called you. Neither of us know anyone in the police department who’d want to help us, other than Carter, and he’s only a tech trainee.”

  “Carter? The kid who . . .” He shook his head. “No, Carter’s not a tech. He’s a new-hire. Just took the rescue diver course, I think.”

  “You must be thinking of the wrong person. Carter, my Carter, just finished a forensics course at the Tech Academy in the Keys.”

  He grabbed a pen and scribbled something on a small pad of paper. “There is no Tech Academy in the Keys. It’d be way too expensive to have one there. The only thing that’s down there is the dive school we send officers to once they pass the exam.”

  “No, that’s impossible,” she said, her voice gaining strength while her heart lost some. “He couldn’t get into the Police Academy.”

  “I don’t know what he told you, but there is no Tech Academy in the Keys. I could be wrong about him though. I’ll need to recheck his file.”

  She rubbed her forehead, thinking back on what exactly Carter had told her about the course. No, he�
�d— No. The detective must have gotten Carter mixed up with someone else.

  He yanked on the telephone’s cord and pulled the phone closer to her, ruffling the chaos on his desk. “Do you have someone who can pick you up?”

  “I think so. Have you heard anything from the hospital? Any news about Carter?”

  “No, not recently. But you can check up on him when you leave here.”

  “I will.” If she could walk to North Broward Hospital, she would. Right now. She needed to know Carter was going to be alright. And then if— when he was better, he could tell the police what she’d done to him. Then they’d bring her back here and lock her up for good.