He reached up to stop her, his hand missing her arm once and then jutting out quickly to grab it.
Her eyes rose up again to meet his and they let the gaze linger on for a minute.
“That tickles,” he said finally, tossing the cloth down on his night table. He heard it land with a loud plop, glancing at it just long enough to see just how much blood there was on it. More than enough to cause alarm, at least until he figured out what was wrong with his powers. He looked at her and couldn’t help the smile from beginning to twitch at the corners of his mouth, even though the motion hurt his bruised face. “What happened to me?” he asked, trying to talk above the pounding coming from both his temples.
“You were an idiot,” she said simply. She reached out and forced him to lie down completely. He was surprised when her pressure felt like a ton of bricks on his chest, as if everything was more sensitive. He felt weaker than he ever had been before. “Mike got you out of there before anything else could’ve --”
He jumped up again, sending the covers flying. “Mike!” he said, startled. “I’ve got to --”
“Lie back down,” she finished for him as she wrapped the lost sheets around him again, her arms around his body for a moment, sending an odd sensation up through his body. “Excellent idea. I agree completely.”
“No!” Xander shook his head defiantly, making his brain slosh around inside his skull. “You don’t understand! I have to--”
“Re-lax,” she finished again, putting a little more punch into the words as she shoved him down, just to let him know that she was serious. He tried to get up again, so she lay down on him. She wrapped her arms around his upper torso and cuddled in until she was on his entire right side, resting her head comfortably into the nape of his neck.
He tried to protest again, but found that he couldn’t bring himself to. Like his limbs had temporarily stopped listening to his brain and were instead concentrating on what his heart was telling him to do. “Where is Mike?” he asked, clearing his throat.
“He went home late last night. Somebody had to do the round robin thing.”
“Round robin?”
“Yeah,” she said matter-of-factly, adjusting her head a little to get comfortable. She wrapped one of her arms up around his head without looking, playfully stroking the hairs behind his ears. “You know, that’s when he calls my parents to tell them that I’m over there, so that they don’t worry, then he calls your parents to tell them the same thing, so they don’t come in here and find the two of us...” she paused, looking over at the trashed computer. “...or anything else, for that matter.”
“Yeah. I really need to clean that up,” he admitted.
“Yeah, you really do,” she agreed, in a tone of voice that let him know this was one of those things that should have gone without saying.
He leaned in slightly, until his lips were right next to her ear. Her cheek was infinitely tweak-able, so he tweaked it as he whispered, “I really have to get up, you know.”
She rubbed her cheek softly, shifting her head so that she could see him. “The only way you’re getting out of this bed is with your claws inside my body.”
He paused and leaned in a little. “Be careful. That sentence could be taken the wrong way...”
She reached out and pinched his cheek with her nails and he winced, proving he was still in need of being bedridden. “Don’t be a jerk,” she whispered without realizing it.
“Very funny,” he shot back, but it wasn’t a whisper now. As they both had drawn closer, it had become more hushed. Like lovers taking in slight gasps for fear of being caught.
“Look very... very... closely,” she instructed him, and he took it as encouragement to get even closer. “You’ll see that I’m not joking.”
They both stopped, opening their eyes to their fullest. They both realized at once just how close they’d allowed their two faces to become. They shuffled apart, slowly at first and then with increasing speed, as he looked around for his shirt. He coughed away his discomfort, clearing his throat, then turned to her. “So, time to get up now?”
“Definitely,” she responded happily, without actually turning to look at him.
He watched her get up, watched how her white blouse stuck to her slim body like glue. Not super-model slim, the kind that you’d be afraid to hug in case you’d break a rib, but just the right size. The way her hips swiveled when she walked over to the window facing Sara’s house, just standing there and looking out at it. “My parents are gone then?” he asked, the typically casual conversation losing all of its calm atmospheric qualities.
“Yep,” she said, a perky word. But her voice wasn’t perky, it was distant now. Her hand played with a few strands of her hair that had gotten tangled between her teeth. She turned then, as if finally acknowledging that they had spoken. “Why?” she asked, and there was a mischief in her voice that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
He smiled.
Tim gave the door to The Factory one final shove, steadying himself as it finally jerked open. He hadn’t been to the teenage arcade/club/pool hall very often while he lived in Coral Beach, but he had never had that much trouble opening the door before. He suspected it had something to do with the heat from the sun beating down almost directly onto the rust-splotched door, the same heat that had small circles of sweat gathering at the nape of his neck and the armpits of his blue striped shirt. He closed the door behind him quickly, trapping the heat outside and breathing in the cool air-conditioned atmosphere inside. He smirked at himself, his hand still on the door, as he turned to enter the main part of the club.
The place was all but empty except for a couple of kids skipping school, one waitress, and the back of house cook (who was just barely visible through a window behind the cash register). The building used to be used for storage and you could still see the concrete walls behind the posters of The Who and Jefferson Airplane that were pinned up on the walls with sticky tack and tape, most of them skewed sideways or flapping in the breeze from the air conditioner. What had started out as two arcade games and a few vending machines had grown in the last few years to become an establishment featuring a full eat-in and take-out menu, five pool tables, a wide assortment of arcade games and a lounge. There was even a small stage where local bands played every Friday night until recently.
Tim glared at the two kids playing pool, laughing on the inside. He recognized the girl as Calla McFadden, a girl he’d caught smoking pot behind the post office twice late last year. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the other was Randy Owchar. Randy looked more relaxed, but the sweat on his forehead despite the cool air proved he had something to hide. Tim gave them one extra huff of his nostrils just for the fun on it, then walked over to the bar.
When he leaned up against the countertop, he felt as though he’d been hit in the face with the smell of pine cleaner. As much of it as there was, there was still a slight scent of mold underlying it that came with the old building. Shaking off the sudden dizziness that the cleanser had given him, he forced a smile at the girl behind the counter.
Roxanne Carpenter was about thirty-six years old according to the file Tim had pulled on her, but she didn’t look a day over twenty-nine. Except her eyes. Long hours had run circles around her eyes that she had tried hard to conceal with just a little too much eyeliner. Other than that her face was clear. Her short, curly red hair had been combed out on either side to points by her ears, bobbing a little each time she moved. She was wearing a jean-jacket over her apron right now, and had probably just come in from a smoke. She looked up from counting out the skim in the cash register, but did not return the smile. Instead she turned her dark green eyes back to counting all of the five dollar bills, leaving only five of them in the register and adding the rest to a pile that she had made on the windowsill between the front and back of house. After a moment, an unseen person reached a hairy hand out and shoveled them forward, then closed the window. She checked the back counter to make sure all the m
oney was accounted for, then sighed with displeasure as she finally turned her attention back to Tim. “What do you want?” she asked, her voice even and devoid of emotion. She spoke as though she didn’t really care about the answer to the question.
Tim smiled, grabbed a toothpick from the small canister on the bar and twiddling it between his fingers. He almost laughed, not knowing quite what to say. “Did you hear about Julie Peterson?”
Roxanne tried hard to keep her eyes as devoid of sentiment as her speech had been a moment ago, but couldn’t keep the slight twinkle of acknowledgment out. She reached down and tied off the top of a garbage bag beneath the cash register, her lips drawing up in a bow. “Only what the kids have been saying.”
“Then you know what’s happened to her?” he prodded, realizing that he was dancing around the issue but unsure of how to stop.
She nodded, not even so much as looking at him when she did, still finding things around the cash to busy herself with.
“Listen, this type of thing doesn’t happen around here very often-” he started, trying to help his words find their footing.
She rolled her eyes and cut him off before he had the chance. “No, it doesn’t get reported very often. There is a difference,” she corrected, pointing a glossy red fingernail at him.
“Fair enough,” he conceded, raising his palms in defeat. “Either way, the only other person I know of that’s filed an official sexual assault report in the last two years is--”
“Me,” she said, cutting him off again. She was smiling now, but it wasn’t a happy one. It was a smug smile as she proved her initial suspicions about Tim’s visit correct.
“Well, yes. I was wondering if you knew anything about this case. I know it’s a long shot, but could it be the same person?” He was trying his best to sound sympathetic and sound authoritative at the same time, to mixed results. At best it made his voice uneven, having to clear his throat often.
“Persons. Plural,” she corrected, even the fake smile fading slowly.
“Yes, there were two or three men working in conjuncture,” he nodded, admitting that Peterson had fallen victim to more than one man.
“Not what I meant,” she snapped, shaking her head. Her eyes were distant for a moment as she pictured Julie in that way, then forced the image from her brain. “I meant with me. Not at once, but a couple of times... a couple of different guys.”
“I’m... sorry,” he stuttered, wishing he had the file he had left back in the car. “I was only aware of the one time, back in May of last year.”
“No, they go back a while,” she informed him, snorting a little unamused laugh. “The first few times I called it in. Carl Dent or one of his rent-a-cop flunkies would come down and take my statement and a description. They’d take pictures of the scene and dust for prints and tell me where to send the doctor’s reports to... and then I’d wait. And wait. About four weeks in each time, it’d finally sink in that they weren’t going to actually do anything.”
“Well, I can’t speak for the other officers, but- “
She sneered at him, no longer attempting to hide her contempt. “And the second it happens some cute little blonde haired, blue eyed thing, a damn federal agent is down here asking me questions. Typical.”
“Actually, Miss Peterson had brown hair and green eyes, I believe,” he corrected, but his voice was nothing more than a whisper. He felt about one inch tall.
“Well, whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes at him again. “I don’t think it’s the same guys, to answer your question. All of mine were out-of-towners, and I don’t suppose you’d be here asking if you thought that was the story with these ones.”
Tim shook his head sheepishly.
“Didn’t think so,” she mumbled, grabbing a cloth and starting to wipe down the back counter. Her elbow pumped fiercely as she did it, as if she were pouring all her anger and frustration into her work.
Tim tapped his knuckle on the counter twice then turned to leave without a word, unsure of what to say.
As he neared the door, she called out to him without looking up from her work. “Hope you catch them.”
“Me too,” he agreed, pushing the door open and letting the heat hit him in the face. He turned and watched her for a moment, her face red with rage but not at him. There was a time that someone could have said she was mad at the men that had wronged her. Then at the police that had ignored her. Now she was just… angry. It became a part of who she was despite her efforts to hide it, but was obvious now as the countertop vibrated and rocked under her constant pressure. “I don’t like thinking about what happens when we don’t,” he finished in a much lower voice, then closed the door behind him.
It was a bright, sunny Coral Beach day.
Actually that statement was misleading, as Greer Donaldson told everyone who informed her of such a thing. Her fresh, fourteen year-old mind had thought it a disgusting paradox why people would call it that. It made a day like today sound ordinary, or run-of-the-mill. Such was not the case, however. Coral Beach, Maine was subject to a vast majority of hurricane-level storms, rain, sleet, mid-summer snow and (at least once a month, it seemed to her) the temperature would drop so freakishly low that it might actually hail. That wasn’t even counting obscene murders and odd disappearances, things that often made days like today considerably less bright, even a little gray. As if the shared mood of this town’s inhabitants affected the forecast, making the poor weatherman consistently wrong.
But that was what made it even more important to appreciate days like today. Her young, republican-raised mind hated to be so cliché, but the sun was bathing her face in warm rays and the birds were filling her ears with a happy, relaxing tune. She didn’t care if she was late, she simply had to walk to school today.
Greer’s long blonde hair flowed behind her, catching rays of sunlight as they passed her. Her lips were full and red, a clear contrast to her pearly white teeth. Her skin was milky white, with the exception of a few freckles across her upper cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Large blue eyes shone brightly with a light that came from inside and threatened to outdo the sun in sheer radiance. She was wearing a loose orange top and a pair of faded blue jeans that were pretty well white at the bottom. She was truly a vision, young and beautiful and innocent.
That was why they picked her.
Allan Bishop and Bram Raine leapt from the shadows as one, each of them grabbing her by either of her small, round shoulders. She tried to scream but one of Allan’s hands was already over her mouth, the other firmly planted in the small of her back for the moment. She made a small noise, but it escaped through his thick fingers as nothing more than a whistle. He jerked her head to one side as Raine picked up her kicking feet, forcing her onto the pile of rotting, rat infested garbage at the back end of the space between two houses. Her neighbors’ houses, to be specific.
She resisted, trying hard to get at least one of her weak limbs free, but they were by far too much for her alone. She could see another man approaching, though she could not see who. He was laughing, she knew that much. It was a sick sound. Allan jerked her head to the side again, the calcium in the bone cracking from the stress, sending a sudden jolt of pain through her cranium. He brought his disgusting, rough tongue down to her skin and tasted it as the three men began to rip the clothes off of her, the threads snapping and cutting against her flesh as they did so, nearly taking it off of the bone.
She started to cry. But, that was all right. As far as they were concerned, it wasn’t worth it unless they cried. The tears were hot and Raine kissed them off of her cheeks, the taste of salt making his mouth dry. He made his way down her neck, hungry for more and grunting like some depraved animal.
They took turns. Two of them holding her down, beating her if she started to struggle, the other climbing on. By the end, she couldn’t even cry anymore. Her sobs came as dry heaves, and she wanted very much to vomit.
Then they urinated on her. It stung at the cuts that laced
her tiny body.
She looked up, barely able to see out of her bruised and swollen eyes, and she saw him. The third man. More than that, she recognized him.
The third man looked down on her. He drew back a hand and slapped her, the sound echoing off of the nearby homes. She fell to the ground, her face splashing into a puddle of coke and ketchup that had spilled from a torn garbage bag. She was unconscious, a fact that made him roar with long-repressed anger. He continued to beat her as Allan and Raine watched, snickering the entire time.
When her face was no longer recognizable as that of a human being, they emptied out a Glad bag full of garbage and stuffed her naked, bloody body inside, leaving it there with all the other trash that they had no more use for.
“Get out of here,” the third man said to Allan and Raine. “Go find that goddamn kid that came to the house last night. Xander Drew.” He nodded, then repeated, “Find him.”
He walked the five feet to his car, casually got in and drove away, whistling that damned song from Alice in Wonderland, without a care in the world.
Raine had a car as well and offered to give Allan a ride, but he chose to walk.
Because it really was such a nice day.
He looked into the mirror that hung lopsided in his bathroom, the tiles on the walls gleaming the fixtureless light into his eyes and making them all red, the veins in them bulging to the point of rupturing. His face was flushed and glossy from sweat. Suddenly his features contorted in anguish and concentration, trying desperately to force something upon itself. He closed his eyes in strain and when he opened them again, Xander Drew was infinitely disappointed by the fact that the exact same face stared back at him. Only now it was breathing much harder, sending foggy streaks across the reflective surface mere inches from his face.
“Maybe you’re just tense?” Cathy offered helpfully, faking a smile as she sat with her hands between her knees on the nearby toilet.
He gave her a look filled with tension. “Now why would you say that?” he said gruffly, a bead of sweat dripping from his chin into the faded yellow sink. “This never happens to me. During the Genblade thing, I transformed all the time.”
Habeas Corpus: Black Womb (Black Womb Collection Book 1) Page 26