Then I settled in the driver’s seat and leaned forward to fiddle around with the CB radio.
I was accustomed to taking life minute by minute. I’d take Beau, and his questions, wherever he and they led.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“She drives nice,” Beau pronounced about an hour into our drive. “Someone took good care of her.”
He meant the Brave. He filled every inch of the passenger seat beside me, even with it slid as far back as possible. I kept my hands firmly at ten and two on the wheel — not because I was that conscientious of a driver, but because I wanted to reach across and hold his hand or arm … just touch him.
“Yes,” I answered. “I’m pretty lucky.”
He turned to look at me. His gaze actually warmed the skin of my right cheek and neck. “You’re not the only one.”
He didn’t mean the Brave.
I didn’t answer, but I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.
We stopped for groceries in Tacoma, just outside Seattle, where Beau helped some random guy get his car started in the Walmart parking lot. I tried to not just stand there and stare like an idiot while his agile hands dug into the failing engine. Thankfully, the owner was happy chatting to Beau about cars rather than attempting to engage me with boring conversation about the weather. Or maybe talking about the weather with strangers was a Canadian thing?
Though even I could tell that the owner knew nothing about cars or engines, Beau was completely pleasant. He got the car running with a few tweaks.
Walmart was cool about motorhomes using their parking lots, even overnight. It was supposed to be a place to socialize with fellow RVers — trading tips, routes, recipes — but for me it was just an easy grocery store to get in and out of.
Totally unasked, the random guy pressed a fifty into Beau’s hand. Not bad for fifteen minutes of his time.
“Nice,” I said as we wandered into the store. “You are handy.”
Beau snorted a laugh and then promptly blew the entire fifty on Oreo’s, Coke, and beef jerky in a multitude of flavors. “Every good road trip needs beef jerky,” he informed me, utterly serious.
“I’m not big on meat,” I said.
Beau wagged his eyebrows at me suggestively, and I couldn’t help but giggle for the second time in my life.
Beau drew attention in a way that would have terrified me. Except that the looks coming his way were admiring. Before I’d dyed my hair and opted for the tinted glasses, I’d gotten stared at in a completely different way. Beau seemed oblivious to the attention, though, and no one even glanced at me as I walked beside him. I could get used to that.
Not that Beau needed any additional items in the ‘pro’ side of the list in my head. The pros were already stacked.
We didn’t hold hands, but we walked close enough to brush arms numerous times.
I grabbed whole wheat bread, mayo, cheese, and a head of lettuce. When we got back to the Brave, I made us sandwiches on the handy cutting board that covered the stainless steel sink. I cut the crusts off mine but not Beau’s. He’d already eaten the ones I rejected. I quartered his sandwiches, though, which he found terribly amusing.
He shared his Oreos and didn’t ask to drive as we turned west off I-5 to cut out to the coast. I’d already figured out where I wanted to stay the night — Andersen’s RV Park in Long Beach, Washington — and Beau seemed happy to go along with my plan. I opted for the standard site, which was thirty-two dollars during the fall/winter season, rather than the ocean site for forty. I figured that Beau and I wouldn’t be spending a ton of time gazing at the ocean from the Brave. The free WiFi was definitely a bonus, though.
I spent the entire morning and afternoon — even through checking into the campsite, hooking up the RV, and walking the beach before heading into town on foot — in a pocket of bliss I didn’t think was possible. I had no idea that this kind of euphoria was even real.
Other people — more ex-roommates — might have gushed about true love and soul mates, but I didn’t even entertain those sorts of beliefs, not even now. I also didn’t believe in fate, or love at first sight, or serendipity. I believed that hard work, not luck, paid off. Anything else required me giving up too much control.
I would walk each step as far as it would take me, and not worry — not for one moment — about the unknown beyond.
∞
Hoyt was standing in front of the kiddie carousel, which was closed for the evening, or maybe the whole day. That picture was still as creepy as it sounded, though. Not to mention completely out of context, because he was supposed to be in Vancouver, British Columbia, not Long Beach, Washington. Not standing like a creep in front of a carousel.
A creep who was waiting for me?
The sun had held out all the way to the coast. We’d bought ice cream at Scoopers, walked the boardwalk, and watched the sun set … well, until Beau’s stomach started grumbling. Then, we cut up to Pacific, downtown Long Beach’s main street. We passed the city hall and the pharmacy on one of only two major intersections while we debated eating out, either at Long Beach Tavern or Hungry Harbor Grill, or grabbing groceries and cooking. By the sound of Beau’s stomach, I wasn’t sure he could survive if we opted for the second option. Eating out was definitely a luxury, though. I’d already filled the Brave’s gas tank once and it was practically empty again.
So, Hoyt.
Long Beach — all two blocks of it — was definitely a tourist destination. And why not? The beach was beautiful. The carousel and other rides and games were set up right in the middle of downtown.
None of this explained what Hoyt was doing here.
I stopped in my tracks so suddenly that Beau, who was holding my hand, almost wrenched my shoulder out of its socket when he continued forward. I spun around, putting my back to Hoyt and staring into a dress shop window. I could see his reflection. He was texting or playing a game on his phone. In the other hand, he was rolling the silver balls, or coins, or whatever they were, just as he had been in Vancouver. Maybe they were ball bearings. What did people use ball bearings for? Fishing? Mechanics?
Except this time, the glint coming off the silver was wrong somehow. If I were to draw this reflection, if I were to capture this in charcoal, what light would I use to reflect off whatever was in his palm? The sun was setting behind the building before me, which cast a deep shadow across the street where Hoyt stood. The streetlights hadn’t flicked on yet. The kiddie rides were dark behind him. Yes, it was a super creepy scene. Almost creepy enough to be a hallucination, but without the white mist and the migraine.
“Something you like in here?” Beau asked, perplexed.
I glanced at the clothing displayed in the store window I appeared to be fixated on. If I hadn’t been so freaked, I would have laughed. The colorful and matronly shop wasn’t bent toward nineteen-year-olds who heavily favored black and were working on dual arm-sleeve tattoos.
“Do you see that guy?” I asked, nodding toward Hoyt’s reflection in the window. I was afraid to voice the question, but I had to. With the strange lighting and him apparently following me to Long Beach, I was now scared that Hoyt was a figment of my imagination. That he’d never been real at all.
“Across the street?” Beau asked. His tone was darker than I’d ever heard it. “By the kiddie ride?”
“Yeah. Tall, skinny, unwashed?”
“Yep.” Beau lifted his nose as if sniffing the sea air. “You know him?”
“No,” I answered, as relief unfroze my limbs. I hadn’t realized I’d been frozen at all. “But he wants to know me, and really shouldn’t be here.”
“I can talk to him. I can be very convincing.”
Beau’s suddenly dark protective side — and the possessiveness it hinted at — should have concerned me. Instead, it eased my worry further.
“Let’s just go back to the campsite.”
Beau’s stomach rumbled.
“I can make you another sandwich.�
�
“I have cookies,” Beau said with a casual shrug. “We can go wherever you want, anytime.”
He placed his hand on my back and steered me the way we’d come. But there was nothing casual about his body language. He felt stiff and wary, and he blocked me with his body as much as he could the entire time we were walking out of the village. I could feel tiny static shocks coming off his hand, even through the three layers of my jacket, hoodie, and T-shirt. Though that was obviously just my imagination. I felt badly about bothering Beau with my concerns, but really happy to be within his protective cocoon at this specific moment.
That was, until the hallucination crept up my spine and rolled over my head, to settle in as a pounding headache over and across my eyes.
Then I was just terrified of everything.
I was frightened and freaked about Hoyt’s appearance. Pissed that I’d forgotten to take my pill this morning. And really terrified that Beau would leave me once he knew how broken I really was. If it was going to end between us, I really didn’t want it to end like this. I didn’t want the way he looked at me to change, from what might possibly be the beginnings of adoration to pity … to revulsion.
I stumbled.
Beau caught me without question.
I tried — I really, really tried — to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to ignore the pain sitting like a two-hundred-pound weight on my head. I really tried to hide my infirmary from Beau, to hide the crazy I’d so flippantly mentioned to drive him away the moment we met.
I stumbled again.
Then, contrary to everything I was feeling, I started running.
I let go of Beau, pushing off him as I ran. My sneakered feet slapped on new pavement edging the main road from Long Beach to the campsite.
Before I got more than five steps, before Beau could even react, I went completely blind.
My eyesight was wiped in a wash of brilliant white light. It always happened this way, though never this quickly. But stranded nowhere near my pills or my sketchbook, this was going to be bad. So, so bad. I never went anywhere without my bag or my sketchbook. What had I been thinking? I’d been coasting in Beau’s bubble.
Stupid, stupid.
“Rochelle?” Beau was concerned. His voice was near, right next to me, so he must be jogging behind me. He couldn’t understand what was going on. He had no context with which to understand, because I hadn’t warned him. And I didn’t have the words — or the will through the pain — to help him understand.
I stumbled sideways onto the gravel edge of the road and twisted my ankle. Perhaps the road had turned, or perhaps my besieged, blind brain could no longer navigate a straight line. I cried out, flinging my hands forward as I fell.
I never hit the ground.
Beau scooped me up in his arms and I clung to him.
“My pills,” I cried. “I need …”
Pain lanced through my brain. The outline of a figure formed in the white mist of my minds’ eye.
I screamed, then stifled my cry in the flesh of Beau’s shoulder.
“I’ll get you there,” he said.
The wind lifted the hair that had fallen across my face when he grabbed me. There hadn’t been any wind before.
Beau was running. Could anyone run that fast —
Pain exploded behind my eyes. The hallucination forced its way through the mist, feeling like it was tearing the flesh of my brain as it did so.
The figure resolved itself into the curly-haired golden-blond woman with the jade knife. Again, she was inexplicably dressed in a brightly colored sarong and tank top. She stood among the ruins of the temple, so she’d obviously survived the cave-in I’d witnessed in my last hallucination. The oranges and reds of her skirt blurred as she spun until I could see her face. She was screaming. Her blond curls were matted with blood, but I could see no wound on her. She was screaming at someone I couldn’t see. Then she dropped the knife to thrust her hands out to someone she couldn’t reach, and her scream was far more terrifying than anything I’d ever heard before.
This woman was confident and strong. She scared me with a laugh. She jested as she traded blows with the dark-suited man. But here … here, she was losing someone.
Someone she loved was dying.
I threw my head back — momentarily breaking free of the hallucination as I did so — and screamed. I screamed for the woman. I freed her pain. It poured through me. I stiffened and then bucked in Beau’s arms. I bit my tongue. My mouth filled with blood. The metallic taste flooded my senses, making me aware of my surroundings.
I opened my eyes.
Gravel crunched under Beau’s feet. We were steps from the Brave. I could feel it more than see it. I could feel my sanctuary was near. Light still flared across the deep blue sky. Beau had gotten us back impossibly quick. Or, more likely, I’d lost a bunch of time.
“Goodness,” a woman said. “Is she all right?” Her voice came from behind us, perhaps from the campsite across the way.
“No, worries, ma’am.” Beau’s voice rumbled in his chest when he spoke, vibrating against my ear. “Just a migraine.”
“Ah, poor girl. You take care of her, then.”
“I will.”
Beau reached for the door, popping the lock rather than using the keys in my pocket.
“No,” I moaned.
“I’ll fix it,” he said. “I’ll fix it all.” Then he practically ripped the door off the Brave to carry me inside.
The hallucination flooded my eyes again, but it didn’t seem to be a repeat of the previous vision.
Usually, they repeated.
This was going to be bad. Maybe the worst it had ever been. God, I didn’t want to go back to the hospital. If Beau checked me into a psych ward in the States, could I ever get out?
“No hospital, Beau,” I managed to say, though I think my words were garbled by the pain in my head. “No hospital.”
“Of course not,” he said. “Never. I know how things work.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but I wasn’t up for questions and answers.
He placed me on the bed.
In my mind, the blond woman, still in her red and orange sarong, reached down and lifted a body in her arms as if it weighed nothing. I’d never seen the woman she carried before. She had the most shockingly emerald-green-dyed hair. It was never, ever a good thing for me — for my hold on sanity — when new people appeared in my hallucinations.
“Oh, God no. Not more …” I moaned it instead of screaming. I twisted my head until my face was buried in the nearest pillow. Beau’s manly scent filled my senses, pushing the hallucination aside.
Beau was trying to press a bottle of pills into my hand.
“How many?” he asked. His voice was stressed and full of fear. His brush off of the woman from the neighboring campsite was apparently just a brilliant act.
I couldn’t see his face. I couldn’t see anything but the blinding whiteness. “Two,” I managed to answer.
He pressed a glass of water into my hand and tried to prop me up.
“No …” I pushed the water away, spilling it across my leg and onto the bed. The cool wetness soaked into my jeans and pulled me further from the clutches of the hallucination.
He pressed two pills into my palm and I popped them into my mouth. Once again, I willed myself to let them dissolve under my tongue rather than chew them in my terror.
Pain lanced through my head again. I fell backward onto the bed, arching up and writhing with the agony. But I refused to scream, refused to open my mouth and lose the pills.
Beau pressed his hands to me, one at my shoulder and one at the opposite hip. He was attempting to hold me down. I probably looked like I was having a seizure, and maybe I was … except multiple MRIs had ruled out any brain tumors that could cause seizures. I’d held out hope for a brain tumor — for any explanation — for a long, long time.
I fought Beau off.
The pills dissolved across my tongue, flooding my mouth with their chalky taste.
“My bag,” I gasped. “My sketchbook.”
Beau turned away, only to return split seconds later to press my bag into my hands. Still blind, I dug inside and found a piece of charcoal.
“Your eyes,” Beau murmured. The fear in his voice lanced through my chest like a blistering brand. “They’re white. Glowing white.”
I shook my head at him. I couldn’t absorb anything but the feel of the charcoal in my fingers and the pages of the sketchbook open on my lap.
I hunched over to draw.
“Wait,” Beau cried. “That’s not a blank page.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Despite my reply, I felt him flip the pages for me.
“I need you to go. Please.”
“You want me to leave?” he asked, his voice heavy with pain.
“Not like that,” I managed to say, though I desperately just wanted to continue screaming. I wanted to scream and scream until the pills took the pain away.
“I understand,” he said as he moved away. “I’ll be outside.”
It was going to get cold outside. The thought worried me even as I applied my charcoal to the paper. Then, still utterly blind, I drew whatever wanted to break loose from the prison of my brain.
“Is it that guy?” Beau asked, his voice so low that I barely heard it. He must have been standing in the doorway.
“Just go, please.” I didn’t bother to look up. I couldn’t see him anyway. “Please. It will pass. It always passes.”
The Brave shifted with his exit and I heard the door click shut. I thought he’d broken the lock. The lock and the latch were separate things, then. I tried to hold on to this piece of reality. But with Beau gone, the hallucination dug deeper into my mind and had its way.
The pills would kick in eventually, and the sketching should appease the hallucination during the in-between time.
I didn’t hear or see anything else of the real world for a long while.
I See Me (Oracle Book 1) Page 9