by Nikki Chase
I walk down the concrete pathway leading to Bertha's front door. After I changed her locks, Bertha told me to place one set under her welcome doormat.
I crouch down to lift it up and see nothing but concrete. Of course. If Jessica used the spare key to get in, then she’d have it with her inside.
If I can't get in on my own, maybe I should ask Jessica to let me in. Sure, it sounds ridiculous to suggest that she’d let me in when the reason why she's here in the first place is to avoid me. But there’s no harm in trying.
I press the raised round button by the door and hear the speaker inside play some electronic tune.
The door doesn't open, but I hear voices inside. Female voices.
That's strange. If Jessica needed to talk to anybody, the person she'd approach would probably be Tony. I'm not aware of her having any close female friends. At least that's what her phone records indicate.
Maybe I’m wrong and she has a girl friend after all, or maybe she's just watching TV.
Whatever it is she's doing, it obviously doesn't involve opening the door for me.
Maybe I should leave her alone after all, give her some time to cool down. The police said they were going to come see the backyard in the morning, which means she's coming home in a few hours. I can wait a few hours.
I turn around to leave. Just as I’m about to reach the sidewalk, I hear a soft crash inside.
I ring the doorbell again, but there's still no response.
I round the house to get to the backdoor. Bertha doesn’t keep any spare key in the backyard as far as I know, but Jessica could've left it open. I turn the doorknob and push.
It doesn't budge. I should've known. It's just not my night.
There's nothing else I can do, unless I want to break something to get in, and I feel like that would be overkill. I don't care about Bertha hating my guts, but I know it would only make Jessica angrier. I don’t want her to report me for trespassing when the cops arrive in a few hours.
Just as I pass a window on the side of the house, I hear another crash.
Okay, once could've been an accident, but twice is suspicious.
Sure, Jessica's in a sour mood, but she wouldn't destroy things that belong to other people.
Maybe something's wrong after all. Maybe she's not doing well. She could be sick, or she could be held prisoner in there by someone.
“Jessica!” I yell by the window.
I'm not leaving until I see her and make sure she's fine, at the very least. Maybe that’ll make her angrier, but who cares? What's she going to do, give me two silent treatments instead of one?
“Jessica!”
I know I’m being way too loud. There's no sound in the neighborhood other than the occasional calls of nocturnal animals. I have a feeling the neighbors aren’t going to be as forgiving to me as they are to the owls and the coyotes.
On the bright side, if I’m bothering the neighbors, I’m probably bothering Jessica too. After all her hard work trying to be nice to everybody, she wouldn't want it to be undone by me.
“Jessica! I know you're in there, and I’m not leaving until you see me!”
When she still doesn't reply, I know for sure something's not right.
I may have changed the door locks, but the windows are still old. I know the lock on one window in particular is broken. I told Bertha about it when I changed her locks, but I'm pretty sure she hasn't had a chance to fix it.
I find the window and, sure enough, it slides open easily. I climb inside and find myself in a bedroom.
From here, I can vaguely hear some talking. It's definitely not coming from a TV. It's a woman's voice, but not Jessica's. Who is this woman?
I open the bedroom door quietly and follow the voice. It gets louder and louder until I can finally make out what she's saying.
“Now that he's gone, we can get on with the program,” she says cheerfully. “We're going to peel off that mask of yours so everyone can see the real you.”
What’s going on? Is this some kind of a makeover thing? I know girls do weird shit during PMS or after breakups, but is it really an appropriate reaction to your dog being poisoned? I wonder if Jessica thinks we have broken up, because she’d be wrong. She's still mine and always will be.
“No. Please don’t.” Jessica’s voice. She sounds weird, though, like she’s not fully awake, like she’s drunk.
This is starting to seem more and more like a post-breakup scene. It’s beginning to piss me off. As I get closer to the women, lurking in the shadows, I wonder what Jessica’s thinking.
If she’s that broken up about it, then why would she decide to leave me? And if she’s not leaving me, then what is she doing drinking and having a makeover instead of coming home?
Who is this woman anyway? Jessica has never mentioned having a close girl friend.
Maybe there are still parts of Jessica’s life that she’s hiding from me. After all my effort in earning her trust and getting her to open up to me, maybe she still doesn’t take me seriously.
“Where should we start? I wonder…” The woman crouches in front of Jessica, who’s lying down on the floor. Only Jessica’s hips and legs are visible from where I stand, but she seems unharmed.
The unknown woman has long, blonde hair so light in color that it’s almost white. She’s wearing black yoga pants and a black shirt. From her voice and her skin, I’d guess she’s in her forties.
Again, I wonder if I should wait until the morning, when Jessica comes home to see the cops. If she’s intoxicated, it’s probably not a good idea to talk right now anyway.
“Please don’t,” Jessica repeats. She starts to sob. “Please, Christine. I’ll do anything. I’ll move. I’ll go away like you want me to. I won’t tell anyone.”
Okay, that doesn’t sound like girl talk anymore. It’s fucking weird. Jessica’s begging and crying, but her voice sounds like she’s barely awake.
Fuck. I should’ve fucking known.
She’s being drugged. That’s the only possible explanation.
“It’s a little too late for that,” the woman called Christine says. She pulls out a kitchen knife and drags it over Jessica’s cheek. The light from the kitchen glints off the blade.
Christine must be the “guy” who’s been terrorizing Jessica. I’d been so focused on Steve and Caine—even Tony, for fuck’s sake—that I’d overlooked other possible suspects.
I should’ve brought my fucking gun. It’s too late now to go back home and get it. I don’t have any weapon on me, not even a knife.
I calculate the probability of me getting a knife from the kitchen without being heard by Christine, but it’s too risky. The kitchen opens to the living room, where the women are.
Ah, fuck it. I’ll just wing it.
Christine is just a civilian woman. I went through the toughest military training that exists and joined the country’s most elite special ops force.
I’m a little rusty now, but I’m still a tough motherfucker compared to most guys, much less some housewife who wears all black to commit a crime, just like every single bad guy in every action movie ever.
I step lightly, crouching a little as I approach the women.
My plan is to get as close as I can to Christine without being detected and incapacitate her. It sounds simple when I put it like that, but it’s far from easy.
For starters, most of the lights are off, except for the ones in the kitchen. This means that they’ll cast my shadow in front of me. If Christine sees my shadow on the floor, that would be the end of stealth mode, and the start of open confrontation.
Even though I’m stronger and more skilled in close combat, Christine has a weapon and I don’t. I need to move fast before she stabs me—or worse, Jessica.
Christine is also crouching really close to Jessica. Way too fucking close. If I make the slightest mistake, Christine could quickly grab Jessica and use her as a human shield, make me do whatever she wants. At that point, it’s game over. My superior strength and skil
ls don’t matter if that were to happen.
I’m about three feet behind Christine now. Pretty close, but not close enough. I hunch a little lower.
“You have such pretty skin. Too bad it’s just a mask, although it’s a really good one. It’s almost a waste,” Christine says, still using the blade to stroke Jessica’s face. “What kind of face cream do you use?”
“You’re fucking crazy,” Jessica says.
Those three little words sound so hot. I love how badass she can be, how she doesn’t take any shit from anybody. Jessica must’ve noticed me approaching, but she’s not giving away any clues, as far as I can tell.
Christine laughs, her head thrown back and her shoulders shaking. In her mind, she’s the one in control and Jessica’s insult means nothing.
But Christine is fucking wrong. When she throws her head back to laugh, she stops paying any attention to the floor. She would’ve noticed my shadow if she did.
I take one big step and crouch down, low on the floor. In one smooth, sweeping move, I grab Christine’s arms.
Christine cries out in surprise, then tries to swing her knife-wielding hand. With her arms held down, she can’t make a big arc. I manage to incapacitate her in seconds, but not before she manages to swing her knife at me.
I pry the knife from Christine’s fingers and throw it across floor of the living room. She screams at the top of her lungs as the knife lands with a dull thud on the wooden floor.
I push Christine down on the floor, holding both her wrists behind her. She puts up one hell of a fight, screaming and pulling and kicking. In her new position, though, she can’t hurt anybody.
“She’s using you! I’m just trying to save you!” Christine glowers over her shoulder at me.
“What the fuck is she talking about?” I frown as I give Jessica a quizzical look.
Jessica says nothing. Instead, tears start to flow freely from her eyes, streaming down toward the floor, wetting her brown hair and making it look darker.
“Are you okay, baby? Did she hurt you?” My heart hammers in my chest. I could keep my cool when I was in the midst of the action, but now, seeing Jessica crying her eyes out gets me all worked up.
Still saying nothing, Jessica shakes her head. She’s not hurt. I let out a relieved sigh.
Holding Christine’s wrists with one hand, I use my free hand to fish my phone out of my pocket. I place it on the floor in front of Jessica. As gently as I can, I ask, “Can you call the cops for me, baby?”
Jessica nods. She raises her hands weakly to pick up the phone and dial. Her movements are slow and her speech is slurred as she calls the police, but she’s lucid enough to make it clear this is an emergency. The cops are coming.
“You’re going to pay for this,” I say as I give Christine a shove. I’m not one to hurt women, but this particular woman deserves at least that.
“Jacob.” Jessica’s weak hands drop my phone down on the floor loudly. She raises her eyebrows and starts to cry again.
“What’s wrong, baby?” My chest tightens and my blood runs cold. It’s like there are sharp, frozen shards of ice in my rib cage. Has Jessica just realized how badly she’s hurt? Did she just hear some bad news from the cops?
“You’re hurt,” she says, her gaze on my abs.
I look down to where Jessica’s looking. Sure enough, there’s a patch of red on the front of my white shirt. The blood continues to spread wider and wider, making the red patch larger.
Christine has managed to stab me after all. I guess the adrenaline has been helping me block out the pain.
Jessica
By the time the police arrives, Jacob has tied Christine’s hands behind her back with his belt.
When they knock on the door, he gets up and opens it with both his hands raised so they know he’s not a threat.
The long cut on Jacob’s abdomen has stained his white shirt red. Even though I still can’t fully open my eyes and my vision is blurry, I can see it hurts for Jacob to raise his hands, as the stance forces him to stretch his torso.
He’d feel more comfortable if he kept his hands down, maybe press one hand against the wound. The steady pressure would help slow down the bleeding.
I can’t blame anyone for looking at Jacob and deciding he’s a threat, though. Especially not under these circumstances.
The cops got a phone call from a woman who was obviously not fully conscious. When they get there, they see one big, intimidating man, and two women, both of whom are incapacitated. If they assume Jacob is the guy responsible, it would be a pretty reasonable conclusion, everything considered.
Still, I can’t help but feel bad for Jacob. It’s not fair that, even though he’s my hero, he’s the one being treated like the criminal. They pat him down and, realizing he has a wound, get a paramedic to take a look at him.
My breathing gets slower and more regular. Without realizing it, I’d been holding my breath, hoping Jacob would hold out until the paramedics gets here.
In my condition, it’s hard to judge how bad the cut is. I wanted to see it, but Jacob kept his bloodied shirt on. I was too weak to say or do anything, so I just lay there on the floor, waiting in silence as Jacob stroked my hair.
The cops check to make sure Christine and I are not dangerous, and there’s no one else in the house.
“I was just trying to protect this town,” Christine says over and over again to anyone who would listen. One cop takes her outside, saying things to her that I can’t quite hear.
Despite what she has done to me, I feel bad for Christine. She’s obviously a disturbed person with a sad life. That said, I don’t know if I’d feel the same had she succeeded in slashing my face.
“Ma’am, are you hurt anywhere?” A paramedic squats down in front of me and starts poking at various parts of my body.
I shake my head from side to side, still too weak to speak.
Maybe the effects of the drug get more intense after some time has passed. I’m so sluggish now that I find it hard to believe I actually held a conversation with Christine.
I wonder if it was due to the urgency of the situation. I once read that people often develop super strength or super stamina when they’re in danger. Maybe I knew that my life—and Jacob’s—depended on how I communicated with Christine, and that gave me the power to break through the fog and do whatever I had to do to survive.
“Can you walk, Ma’am?”
I put all my effort into focusing my eyes on the paramedic and shake my head again for him. There’s nothing I want more than to fall asleep right now, but I’m worried they’d suspect Jacob if I didn’t give my statement before passing out. If I had any emergency superpower, I’d like it to kick in now and keep me awake.
“We’ll get a stretcher for you. You’ll be okay. You’ve been given a new kind of date-rape drug. I’m guessing you were given some powder to sniff?”
I nod.
“Yep. That’s some strong stuff. The effects last for about six hours. It makes you drowsy, dizzy, and confused. You’re probably also experiencing loss of motor control,” the paramedic says as another guy in a paramedic uniform pulls an empty bed inside.
The bed stands on a metal frame and a few small wheels. It sounds weird rolling on the wooden floor, probably because my ear is pressed against the wooden planks, which magnify and distort the sound.
The men lift me onto the stretcher. I can tell they’re good at their job from how efficient they are. Still, I can’t help but worry about Jacob.
As they roll me out of Bertha’s house, I turn my head to the left and to the right, scanning the place for Jacob. But all I see is a crowd of sleepy, curious neighbors in their pajamas, robes, sweatpants, and old college shirts.
Everything looks so surreal with the red and blue lights flashing, casting unnatural primary colors onto everybody’s skin. The cops have marked off Bertha’s house with a yellow police line to keep the audience away from the crime scene.
Good, they won’t trample
on Bertha’s lawn, I think to myself.
What an inane thought. Why would I be thinking about Bertha’s grass and flowers at a time like this? I wonder if it’s the drug or if it’s just a quirk of the human brain, to never have full separation between normal thoughts and in-emergency thoughts.
I finally see Jacob when they ‘re about to roll me into the ambulance. Jacob, who has been sitting on the back of the car, stands up and gives way for my stretcher to be pushed inside.
They have removed his shirt. It’s probably so they can treat his wound or so they can keep the shirt as evidence. But I can’t help thinking it’s also because the female paramedics want to see the hard, sculpted body underneath.
I must be delirious, I realize. There are way more important things to worry about right now than other women ogling Jacob.
A rectangular piece of white gauze covers a small area on Jacob’s lower abs. I want to touch it, feel the texture of the gauze with my fingers. I want to compare the size of the wound with my hand, so I can tell if it’s a small wound or if Jacob’s just such a big guy that a big gash looks small on his body.
“You okay?” That’s about all I can say.
“Yeah. Don’t worry about me, baby. They patched me up. I’m good as new.” Jacob smiles, making the skin around his eyes crinkle.
He looks so kind. I vaguely remember us having an argument before all this craziness started, but I can’t remember why I’d ever fight with this guy, who’s standing right in front of me now. This guy literally got stabbed in the gut to save my life.
“It’s you I’m worried about,” he says as he picks up my limp hand and kisses it.
My heart is melting inside and, more than anything, I want to kiss this magnificent man all over, but all I can muster is a smile. An honest, genuinely happy smile.
Despite how crazy the past twenty-four hours have been—hell, the past month has been insane—I’m happy at this moment.
We lay in the dark together. In my bed, at home, finally. Just the two of us. Without the cops, the paramedics, or the onlookers.
Just us.