Carry Me Home (Paradise, Idaho)

by Rosalind James

  Greg stopped on the landing, looked warily at Junior. The dog was poised on the steps beneath him, body stiff with tension, that hair still up, that low growl still sounding.

  Cal walked on up, and Junior walked with him, every muscular bit of him alerted on Greg.

  “Get that dog out of here,” Greg said, “or I’m writing you a ticket right here. Hell with the ticket, I’m calling the pound. He’s not allowed in the building, he’s not even on a leash, and he’s a menace.”

  “He’s not a menace,” Cal said. “He just doesn’t like you. You want to write me a ticket, go right ahead, but I’m not sticking around for you to do it. You know where I live.”

  Greg’s hand was on the butt of his gun, and Cal stared at him with astonishment. “What? You going to shoot me?”

  “I might shoot your dog,” Greg said. “Call him off.”

  “Junior. Sit,” Cal said, and Junior sat.

  Cal went to move past Greg, but Greg shot an arm out to block him, and Cal couldn’t hit a cop.

  “What?” he asked. “I need to go.”

  “You go when I say you can go,” Greg said.

  “No,” Cal said. “I’m going now. I’m going up to see Zoe. Write me up. Write Junior up.”

  “Zoe, huh?” Greg started to laugh, but it wasn’t funny. It was ugly. “I don’t think she’s going to be receiving.”

  “What?” The word barely came out, and Junior was up again.

  “I had a chat with Zoe,” Greg said. “Shared a few unsavory items from your past, that minor in consumption, the drunk and disorderly. And that wasn’t all. There may have been some . . . other things. She might be a little under the weather right now.”

  Cal’s blood froze. Could he have been wrong after all? Oh, shit. Zoe. He started to move past Greg, but his cousin shoved that arm out again, blocked him.

  Cal didn’t think. He hauled back and connected with his cousin’s jaw, and when Greg staggered, he elbowed him hard in the kidneys, watched him go down, gave him a push with his boot for good measure, then left him there and took off running up the stairs.

  He’d just hit a cop. Or he’d just beaten up a rapist. Or he’d just thrown a punch at his asshole cousin. He needed to find out how many of those it was, and he needed to find it out now.

  He took the steps two at a time to the third floor, Junior keeping up, until they pushed through the double doors that led into the foyer, the final short flight to the tower. Zoe’s tower.

  Junior stopped and raised his ugly head, and the rumble began again, deep and menacing as thunder. He wasn’t looking behind them where they’d left Greg. He was looking ahead.

  Zoe.

  Now the dog was running again, sprinting, taking the stairs so fast that Cal couldn’t keep up. He saw Junior’s muscular hindquarters disappearing around the corner, his back feet sliding out from under him with the force of his turn, and the dog was gone.

  By the time Cal made it around the corner, Junior was out of sight. He could hear him barking as he went, though, and it was a sound that struck terror all the way to his bones.

  Fear. Aggression. Rage.

  THREE TO TANGO

  Zoe needed to find Cal and tell him what had happened. Most of all, she needed to tell him how she felt, everything she felt. She needed to tell him all of it, and the phone wasn’t going to work, not for this. She gathered her papers for the third time that evening, knocked them against the desk a couple times to straighten them, and turned to grab her laptop case from where it sat on the floor next to the wall.

  “Going so soon?”

  Her hand stopped in midair, but the rest of her didn’t freeze. She was up, whirling, the second she heard him.

  No ski mask. An ordinary face, an ordinary man. Except he wasn’t. His posture. The way he moved. It all fell into place.

  “You,” she breathed. “It’s you.”

  Something changed in his eyes, and the next moment, he was coming for her. From arrogant poise to full-out aggression, like somebody had thrown a switch.

  Richard Winston. The director of housing. Who didn’t have any braces on his wrists. Whose hands were glistening in the fluorescent light. Surgical gloves. Monkey paws.

  She was up, and she was diving, shoving the chair out hard against him as she went, putting the chair and table between them. Obstacles. She needed obstacles.

  She thought of the fire escape, rejected the idea instantly, because she’d have to open the door. Instead, while he was following her around the table, she’d have gained a precious half second, and the door to the corridor was open. She was fast, she could scream, and there were people out there. People who would come.

  It was a good plan, except that he’d anticipated her and was already pivoting, headed around the table to cut her off, and she wasn’t going to make it to the corridor. So she turned again, dodged, kept the table between them. It was going to be the fire escape, and she was dancing, feinting, trying to get him off guard.

  She didn’t make it. He reached out, grabbed her left arm, and began yanking her straight across the table toward him.

  She fought him, her right arm flailing, connecting with his face, his arm as her feet scrabbled for purchase.

  He hissed as her fingernails raked his cheek, but she was too short to mount an effective resistance, and he had hold of both arms now, was dragging her bodily across the wooden surface, her laptop and papers sliding along with her, crashing to the hard linoleum.

  He backed up as he continued to pull her, and she tried to hook her foot under the table, but he was too strong, and she lost her purchase. It wasn’t going to work.

  Curl up. The long-ago self-defense class came back to her. He won’t expect you to drop. She drew her knees in close as he dragged her, then launched both legs out with all her might to kick him, to throw him off balance.

  He anticipated, twisted, and she missed, but he was forced to shift his grip as he pulled her the final inches. She sagged at the knees when she came off the table, and he had to adjust again to combat the force of gravity carrying her toward the floor.

  She kicked from her low position, tried to punch at him, but he was lifting her despite her efforts, turning her, pulling her back against his chest, his arms wrapping around her torso, going for a bear hug that would leave her helpless. She lunged forward with her upper body before he could do it, reared back with all her might, felt the back of her head hit soft flesh, heard his gasp of pain. She thought she’d gotten his nose, and it had worked, so she did it again. Hard.

  His grip loosened, the air leaving his lungs in a hiss, and she was twisting out of his arms, running blindly, but he grabbed her arm again, yanked, was running with her.

  “Bitch,” he panted. “You bitch.”

  He pulled her hard to the left as she aimed to the right, swinging her around, and her hip slammed into the side table with its long row of rock samples. A juddering impact, the rattle of stone on melamine, and he was on top of her, pressing her down onto the table, into the jagged edges of rock, and she was gasping with the pain even as he used all his weight to subdue her. She kicked out blindly, her boot raking down the inside of his shin, then reared back and kicked again, as hard as she could, in the center of his shin.

  “Fuck,” he gasped. “Fucking bitch.” His lower body twisted away from her, and finally, she had a hand free. She reached out blindly for something, anything, and her hand hit a sharp edge.

  Obsidian, her mind automatically recognized even as her hand closed around it. She barely registered the pain of the knifelike edge scoring the tender undersides of her fingers and palm as she brought the chunk of rock around with a scything blow, slammed it with all her strength into the knuckles of the hand that grasped her other arm. He let out a yelp and jumped away, shaking his hand.

  A second later, he was lunging for her again, and she was swiping
with the rock, bashing at his arm, his shoulder, his head. She hit him as hard as she could in the side of the head and, when he staggered, levered herself off the table and ran for it. Ran for the fire escape, because it was the closest, got her hand on the door.

  He was there again, twisting her around by the arm, making her lose her grip on the door, and she swung her rock, connected with his side, forced him back.

  “You’ve got nowhere to run this time,” he taunted, even as he dodged. “Nowhere to hide. No shotgun, and nobody to hear you scream. You are going to die.”

  Her groping left hand found the door again, and she swung her rock as she shoved down on the handle, yanked the heavy door toward her, and was through it even as she pulled it closed behind her.

  It wouldn’t close, though, and she yanked hard at it again, irrationally, because how could she hold him back? How?

  She heard the scream, looked down and saw the fingers protruding, and then he was pulling the door from his side, snatching his hand out of the opening. She let go fast so he would fall back, and turned to run.

  She barely made it two steps. He pulled the door with such force that it slammed against the opposite wall and stayed open. Which gave her two ways to escape him.

  The thought formed even as he came at her, backed her against the metal rail, and left her with nowhere to go but fifty feet down. And she had dropped her rock in the struggle for the door.

  He wasn’t talking. He was snarling, his face twisted with rage, and he was trying to lift her, to push her over the edge. She grabbed the railing in desperation with her left hand, twisted her right leg around the metal post beside her, and hung on. She was going to fight, and if he threw her over, she was going to do her best to take him with her.

  His left hand, the one she hadn’t crushed, went back, and she raised her own bloodied right hand reflexively, caught his fist. Her own knuckles slammed into her forehead, his fist following right behind, and she fell back a little more, but didn’t let go. She couldn’t let go.

  He was punching her in the shoulders, the chest, as she protected her face, speaking in time with the blows, and she was gasping, shuddering, trying to protect her head, trying to keep him from knocking her out, because she would have no chance then. No chance.

  “You’re going to hurt.” He came for her again and again as she twisted and ducked and threw her elbow across her face. “I’m going to fuck you up.”

  He reared back for the blow that would surely knock her out, and she held her arm up and waited for it.

  He connected even as she shifted, his fist landing square against the delicate bones of her wrist, her hand and his crashing into her eyes, and she felt something snap. Her arm fell to her side, and the pain bloomed, a red mist in wrist and head. He was wrenching at her other arm, prying it loose, was pushing her higher as her leg clung desperately around her post.

  Don’t let go. Don’t let go don’t let go don’t let go.

  And still, she began to slip. She was going to go, and she reached for him, trying to pull him with her.

  Then he was falling back, because there was a snarling fury launching itself at him, a blur of brown muscle and teeth. Vicious growls, a shout of pain, and Winston had let go of her, because Junior’s teeth were latched into the back of his thigh.

  Zoe dropped to the metal grating, her left hand going out to break her fall, and her wrist buckled, wresting a cry of pain from her as she rolled out of the way of Winston’s kicking, stomping boots. He was kicking at Junior, dropping to a knee, twisting the dog’s head, forcing a yelp of pain from him. Then his fist, landing again and again on Junior’s blocky head, his body, a gleam of black showing in his hand. Beating him with her obsidian, and Junior was falling. Twitching, and finally lying still.

  Winston turned in a flash, was back on Zoe even as she struggled to stand. Only for an instant, because Cal was there, grabbing his upraised arm, spinning him around.

  Winston lashed out with his left fist as he turned, connected, and Cal’s head rocked back. A wild blow to Cal’s left arm with the rock, and Cal was twisting to the left, punching with his right even as Winston sidestepped, grabbed Cal’s right arm, and swung him around. Trying to throw him down the stairs, Zoe realized.

  Cal was too coordinated for that. His feet were dancing, pirouetting, but a harsh cry came from him that didn’t sound like Cal at all. Nothing like Cal, and his arm had dropped from Winston’s grasp, was hanging weirdly by his side.

  Dislocated. His shoulder was dislocated, and he was staggering, bouncing off the railing opposite Zoe.

  She was already moving as it happened. Moving like a crab on her bloodied right palm, her feet, kicking out at Winston’s legs, then shoving herself up to stand, raking at his face with her nails, shoving vicious fingers into his eyes, and Cal was pulling himself up with his left arm on the railing, was grabbing Winston by the arm, swinging him around, putting all his muscle behind it. Slamming into his chest with his left shoulder, sending him backward.

  Winston flailed for a moment at the top of the iron stairway, his arms windmilling for balance, then righted himself, lunged forward again, and Cal reached a boot high, kicked him straight in the gut, and Winston was falling back, sailing through the air, coming down on the metal stairway with a sickening thud, thumping down a few more stairs. And lying still.

  “Inside,” Cal said, his breath hissing out through gritted teeth. He had his good arm around her, was pulling her through the door and slamming it shut. She wanted to lock it, to shut the monster out, but there was no way, because it was a fire escape.

  “Junior,” she said, the word coming on a gasping sob of pain and fear. Somehow, it mattered so much that Junior was out there. Out there with Winston.

  Cal wasn’t listening, was fumbling for his phone in his right hip pocket, but he was shaking, his face bloodless, and he couldn’t reach it.

  She didn’t think. She couldn’t think. Her head was swimming, her arm was useless. She reached for the red fire alarm beside the door with her left hand and pulled it.

  The clanging filled the room, echoed from the hallways, filled her throbbing head. Cal had dropped to his knees, was rocking back and forth, and she lunged for her desk, opened the bottom drawer with fumbling fingers, pulled out her purse, and grabbed her phone, all with her clumsy, bloodied hand.

  She hurt, but she didn’t hurt as badly as Cal. Not as badly as Junior. She pressed the “1” button with her thumb, held it down despite the blood, despite the pain, because she had to.

  Hang on, she told herself. Hang on. And she did.

  GOING HOME

  “Damn, bro.” Luke came into the surgery waiting room on a swirl of energy and dropped down to sit in the upholstered chair next to Cal. “You look like shit.”

  Cal stopped staring at the soothing landscape picture, the blue walls that were supposed to be calming. He tried to pretend he was fine, that he wasn’t half out of his mind. “Hi.”

  “What happened?” Luke asked. “I came as soon as Jim called me. Mom and Dad will be headed out, too.”

  “Then I’ll save the story and tell all of you at once,” Cal said, doing his best to maintain.

  “How’s Zoe?”

  “Banged up all to hell. But alive.”

  “I guess you found out who did it,” Luke said cautiously.

  “We did. The hard way. And he’s not alive.”

  “He isn’t?” Luke looked startled.

  “Jim didn’t share that? Yeah. He’s dead. The cops told us. Broke his neck, I guess. I wasn’t listening too close. I was a little preoccupied at the time.”

  In forcing the paramedics to put his shoulder back in, actually. He’d still been on his knees when the cops had come, with the paramedics right behind them. He’d wanted to tell them to check Zoe out first, but he hadn’t been able to. Because he’d barely been able to talk.

/>   “We’ll get you to the hospital, get that fixed that for you,” one of them had said, after he’d touched Cal and Cal had nearly screamed.

  “Hell you will,” Cal gasped. “The muscles will go into spasm. Once they do that, they won’t get it back in there without surgery, and I’m not doing that again. You’ll do it now, or I’ll kill you.” And he wasn’t at all sure he’d been exaggerating.

  “Come on, Frank,” the other guy said. “I know how. And it’s killing him. Let’s do it.”

  “But what about her?” Frank asked.

  “Never mind me,” Zoe said, and Cal wanted to say that that wasn’t right, but he couldn’t. “Take care of Cal first. Please. Please take care of him.”

  “Let’s do this thing,” Frank said. “I think there’s been enough killing for one night.”

  Zoe had watched, had flinched, had shuddered for him despite her own pain, and Cal hadn’t screamed. Some . . . sounds might have come out, but he hadn’t screamed.

  “Is he dead? Winston?” Zoe asked once Cal was able to focus again, once he was sitting in a shuddering heap on a classroom chair, because he’d refused the gurney. Once they’d gotten to work on her, were putting her onto the gurney, which there’d been no way in hell he was letting her refuse. “Is that what you meant about killing?”

  The paramedic hesitated, looked to the cops, who included Greg, a bruise on his jaw and a scowl on his face.

  One of them—not Greg, because Greg hadn’t been talking to Cal, or to anybody else, either—answered.

  “Dead as a doornail,” the cop said. “We’ll go on to the hospital with you, because we’ll need to ask you some questions about that.”

  “What?” Cal managed to say, wiping the sweat and blood from his face with his good arm. “Zoe got him up here so she could throw him down the fire escape? Even you guys couldn’t be that stupid.”

  “Watch it,” one of them warned, and he didn’t, because he was cold, hard mad. Mad that they’d been too slow, that they hadn’t protected her. Mad that he hadn’t. Mad that she’d almost died. So mad, looking at her battered face, her bloody hands, the pain she was trying not to show, that if Winston hadn’t already been dead, he’d have killed him right then and there.