by Carrie Hogle
There’s so much blood. There’s too much blood.
There was minimal blood at her hands, but her heart seemed to be dripping. Blood was pooling from beneath James’ body and coating her legs. She sobbed as tears streamed down the sides of his face and a look of acceptance entered his eyes that she couldn’t begin to fathom.
“I love you,” he said quietly, but it ended with more coughing and Reina could feel her control slipping. She had no recourse, no logical plan of action, only fear and panic.
“Please,” she begged. She pleaded with James, the powers that be, and anyone that could make the nightmare end. She watched as his light faded, as her sun lost its fire, and she begged him to stay. A thousand memories of her saying please were tainted by her begging in vain. Please and tears didn’t make it stop and as she felt his heart stop beating beneath her hands her mind began trying to protect her. Sounds came to her in echoes and her vision came in flashes, darkened around the edges.
Her instincts warned her that someone had knelt beside her, touching James, and she struck out. She fought to protect him until someone grabbed her from behind and pinned her arms to her sides. She continued to struggle until they squeezed hard enough for her ribs to touch her lungs. She had to concentrate all of her energy on breathing before she could hear Charles quietly, but sternly, saying her name close to her ear. She had a muddled comprehension that she’d attacked a paramedic. Her skewed vision flashed images of them using a defibrillator, each shock making her heart bleed and killing a part of her soul.
She became aware of other people filling the room. It came to her in snippets the broken movie was still playing, but she was only seeing random frames. She didn’t know when the Judge had arrived, but he made his presence known.
“Get her out of here. She needs to be moved to a secure location.”
Even with her restricted airflow she struggled.
“I’m not leaving him,” she replied vehemently.
Charles tightened his hold further; she could hear her ribs threatening to crack. Paired with crying, and lack of air, she had to concentrate on not passing out. Charles spoke to her in the same tone he used for training.
“Reina, other than your security, every person in this room is connected to the syndicate.”
“I am not leaving him,” she answered defiantly.
“You are in danger here Reina,” he replied patiently.
“It doesn’t matter…”
Her gaze landed on the Carnifex as he entered. He would have been dead in a moment if Charles hadn’t been squeezing her ribs. Grief and rage blended, her body trembled with it. Her soul was burning and she was choking on smoke and ash.
“You did this,” she seethed through clenched teeth.
He had the good grace to look shocked. Charles said her name in warning, but it didn’t register through her haze.
“I had nothing to do with this…”
“You did this,” she yelled as loud as she could with restricted air flow.
Charles shook her, “Reina, you have to pull it back.”
She shook her head, her breaths coming in pants, her brain trying to catch up with the situation and protect her at the same time.
“You have to rein it in.”
“I can’t,” she replied, tears streaming down her face as she kept eye contact with the Carnifex.
“Reina, every security member on the premises would fight and die to protect you,” he shook her again. “Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”
Somewhere in her psyche she did hear him. With the images of James flashing through her mind came the imaginings of the men she’d joked with, the men that had protected them, laying in their own puddles of blood.
“Charles…”
“Turn it off Reina.”
Her mind already wanted to shut down, so she simply quit fighting.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
She let it go, blanked it out, and embraced the empty numbness filling everything she used to be. She withdrew into herself with the very real possibility that she may never come back. She crawled into the dark, with the spiders and the cobwebs, only this time death, agony, and revenge was hiding in the shadowy corners, waiting to keep her company. They welcomed her, embraced her, and became her new lover.
She looked at the Carnifex as the liquid nitrogen spread, burning and freezing its way through her, and killing her nerve endings. He stared at her transfixed, as if before his eyes she had magically transformed into a long-extinct, rabid, mystical creature. Meanwhile, even in her shocked state, she wanted to bare her teeth and rip his throat out. As her body relaxed, Charles loosened his grip marginally.
“Reina, I am going to release you and we are going to walk out of here. Do you understand?”
Reina looked back at James. Workers were processing the scene, handling what had been stolen from her like an object. While they were respectful, they seemed to have no regard for the fact that they were scattering the pieces of her crumbling, burning world. She would be walking out of the room and leaving her heart behind, spread out and laid bare in congealing pools of blood on the floor. She withdrew into her mind further; there was nothing lighting her way, no sun to gravitate to, so she accepted the concealment of oblivion.
She gave the smallest of nods. Charles released her slowly, but kept a hand on her shoulder, his body tense and ready to stop the feral being from escaping. She didn’t fight. She let him lead her away with a final look at the Carnifex; the look of promised savagery and death. Her men surrounded her, moving as a unit, and ushered her to a caravan of windowless white vans.
She sat flanked by Mark and Charles, with a handful of men filling the van. The drive was quiet, the only sounds were the shuffling of feet and the slight jostle of bodies as they all stole glances at her with reverent silence. Reina counted to fill the darkness and keep her mind busy. With empty eyes she counted shoe laces, pant seams, the number of screws in the seats, how many times the men shuffled, and anything that was in her limited field of vision. No one spoke and no one touched her until they reached her new prison.
Mark and Charles gently guided her inside with soft incoherent words. Their footfalls echoed through the hallways to her unknown destination. James had looked at her as if he could stop time in these hallways, but time had marched on. Only now that her world had stopped did time lose its meaning. Charles led her through the master suite, the creams and coffees mocking her in their emptiness, and walked her to the bathroom.
“You should shower...Ok?” He looked at her with a mixture of understanding, compassion, and pity that caused cracks in her armor. She’d never seen him look anything other than stone cold, and she was afraid. He had a knowledge that she hadn’t been allowed to feel yet, and she could only do it alone. He backed away from her with his hands up and closed the door. She didn’t know if he was asking her to stay or warding off an attack. As the door clicked closed, she turned towards the mirror, the sight before her sent splinters racing through protective layers.
She was covered in spots of drying blood, her hair a mass of tangled curls, her eyes wild and haunted, and James’ partial handprint on the side of her face. She looked like a primal hunter fresh from a sacrificial kill. She glanced down at her hands, the palms stained with blood from trying to keep his heart intact. She literally had his life on her hands and it was too much. The emotions rushed over her like a tidal wave; she was drowning in an ocean of anguish.
Her heart and soul had been forcibly torn from her and the remnants were burning. Her love was written in bloody handprints. It was overwhelming, and without memory of how she’d gotten there, she was on the floor. She lay on the cool marble, curled in on herself, and keened like a wounded animal.
Chapter 11
Reina woke disoriented, her body screaming, her lungs burning, and for some reason her eyes only seemed to partially open. She didn’t know where she was, and couldn’t comprehend why her skin felt like she was caked in mud until she sa
t up and looked down. Everything came rushing back to her and she couldn’t breathe, she wanted it to stop. Her breaths returned in small panting gasps as the pain reverberated off the hollowness in her chest. Wanting to escape herself she stood up too fast, and grabbed the counter for support, only to come face to face with herself in mirror. Her hand came up of its own accord to touch James’ dried handprint on her cheek. She choked on her own sobs at the realization that it had been the last time he would touch her, and she couldn’t keep it. Unable to bear the sight of tears falling from her own eyes, she turned away.
She had to force herself to turn on the shower and make the choice to step in. She didn’t have the willpower to hold herself up, so she turned the water as hot as she could handle and sat on the floor. Her body trembled; nothing could warm the ice that had seeped into her soul. Her eyes fixated on the drain, her tears ran in rivulets down her face, and she watched as James’ life force washed off her body and flowed away. Reina sat there feeling the water like rain, mindlessly watching the patterns as it flowed, until her teeth chattered and she was covered in goosebumps.
When she finally found the courage to come out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, she found Mark sitting on the floor inside the door. His arms were rested on his raised knees and his head bowed until he noticed her. He got up quickly with a, “sorry,” and after looking at her for a minute headed out with, “let me know if you need anything.” She had no idea how long she’d cried, slept, or showered, but the slivers of light through the blinds told her it was night. Some of her clothes were already in the closet, as well as a box of James’ clothes. She couldn’t imagine who had thought of it, or how they’d accomplished it, but she gratefully slipped one of James’ t-shirts on and sat at the end of the bed. The size of the room, the large four poster bed, and her own yawning emptiness made her feel small. She was drifting at sea and drowning in loss.
Some say that during an accident everything appears to happen in slow motion, for Reina the opposite was true. Her entire life had ended in fast forward. One moment she was basking in the glow of love, the next instant that love had been streaming between her fingers. Uncontrollable. Gone. It wasn’t until she was alone that it played in a slow loop, every detail magnified. The last smile, the last conversation, the last look, the last touch, until her mind began to rewind it. The final kiss, the final caress, the final embrace, all replayed to the blurry track of tears.
The magnetism between them had always been intense, as if they’d inexplicably been drawn together by an outside force. Yet it had all began so innocently, as most romances do. It was a chance meeting of a celebrity crush on a random night out. Sweet touches and slow seduction had given way to deep conversations and passionately loyal love. Somehow their bond had turned into an unstoppable chain of events, as if their gravity to one another had created a vortex of fate. Reina couldn’t help but imagine all the scenarios that would end with James still being alive, and was racked with guilt because they all seemed to hinge on her. The situations with Eric had been the catalyst. If Eric were alive, James would be alive as well. If they hadn’t returned to one another again and again, if they had never met; if she hadn’t been in his life, he would still be there.
Reina alternated between hours of staring into space feeling empty and breaking down into mournful weeping, smothering on unbearable gut-wrenching pain. In the moments when she could no longer hold herself up she would curl into a ball at the end of the bed, crying and vulnerable. She needed him, her shattered heart called out for him, and she had to keep telling herself that he wasn’t coming back. How much she needed him was irrelevant, he was never coming back. No matter how logical she usually was, it was something her soul didn’t want to accept. It cried, and howled, and clawed her insides trying to get to him.
There was an evolving schedule of security outside her door at all times. Mark or Charles came in to check on her a few times a day. They brought water, coffee, and things they thought she might eat. They’d quietly ask if she needed anything, and while her mind was yelling that they couldn't bring her what she needed, she’d shake her head and whisper, “thank you”. She drank every bit of coffee that they brought because she was afraid to sleep. Reina avoided sleep until her body wouldn’t comply, only to have the torment continue in her dreams. She had nightmares of all the traumatic events that had happened to them. Chains rattling against metal chairs, the beep of hospital machines, and the clink of glass all ended with her hands on James’ chest and pools of blood. She would wake in a panic, heart beating out of her chest, and sweat running down her back; alone and terrified. But, the happy dreams were worse. Caresses, smiles, kisses, laughter, beaches, and guitar music would leave her aching with grief for what had been stolen from her.
She had no concept of how many days it had been, but Charles crouched in front of her and she knew he was going to say something she didn’t want to hear.
“Reina...you have to go to the funeral home and make arrangements.”
She shook her head. No, No, No, No was all she could think.
“Reina...James is waiting for you to take care of this.”
“James isn’t waiting for anything...he’s dead,” she replied, her voice cracking with tears. Saying the words aloud killed another little part of her soul.
“Reina, if you don’t claim him...the syndicate will.”
Rage exploded red hot, flooding her veins with fire. She squeezed her eyes shut, her hands clenched into fists, and her body rocked slightly back and forth as she tried to control it. When she could breathe through it she nodded and gave a soft, “Ok.”
Entering the closet felt like a punishment. Nothing she owned seemed suitable and she only had a couple of items that were black. Seeing James’ side of the closet bare ended with her on the floor having a complete melt down. The memory of the first time he’d cleared space in his closet for her, and the idea that she should have kept running, overwhelmed her.
She’d always made it a point not to ask her bodyguards to do things for her, to not treat them like personal assistants, but as she emerged from her room she heard herself asking if someone could get her more black and gray clothes. It sounded irrational to her own ears, but she couldn’t do it herself. Her outer appearance needed to reflect the smoke and ash she had inside.
Reina made arrangements for James to be cremated. With nothing but time on her hands, she mulled over her options for keeping him with her. They had given her the option to sit with him but as she’d entered the room, and saw him lying so still, she’d divulged into a full-blown panic attack. There was no gravity, no heat, no life, only death. Before she pulled herself together she has almost begged them to let her out, but she breathed through it until she was rational enough to turn the door handle.
After days of thought, she requested a tattoo artist with a list of specifications. The tattoo artist came to her fortress, obviously intimidated by the security lining the office walls as he set up a sterile area. She watched him mix ashes with ink, and it wasn’t until he asked her to remove her bracelets that she had to concentrate on not hyperventilating. With blinding memories, tears, and her heart skipping beats, she unclasped the bracelets and asked Mark to hold them. She stretched her arms across James’ desk and studied the movements as he tattooed tiny wolf prints up the inside of her wrists and arms. He asked a few times if she was Ok; each time she would quietly say, “yes,” without looking up. When he asked a fourth time she stared at him. Whatever he saw in her eyes, he did not ask again. She was silent and still, mesmerized by the sight of the needles in her skin. She embraced the pain, became absorbed in it, and for a length of time the chaos in her mind stopped.
That night was the first night she laid her head on the pillows. She still didn’t want to sleep, but her bracelets were on the side table, and she lay there looking at her fresh ink. She would never touch him again, but she would always be holding him in her arms.
Chapter 12
Reina withdrew to
her room and stayed there, but she knew it wouldn’t last. Although she felt time was meaningless an endless barrage of tears and pain left her drained and fighting sleep. She knew at some point someone would be coming for her. She turned over the various possibilities in her head, but regardless of how it came, realistically she wouldn’t be allowed to stay in her bubble of isolation forever.
Within the week, like fateful clockwork, Charles was entering her room with a look that said her time was up. She looked at him defiantly, prepared to fight it out, but he didn’t say what she expected.
“The Judex is here to see you.”
Those seven words shuffled her brain’s response to suspicion and anger, but turning him away would be pointless. If the syndicate had sent someone, sending them away would only up the stakes upon their return. With an order to send him up, she put on a bra, put her hair in a bun, and resumed her position at the end of the bed. If it had been anyone else she would have met them in a more neutral location, but the Judge could come to her and she could maintain a level of comfort. She didn’t exactly trust him, but she also didn’t feel threatened by him. He had seemed to genuinely respect and even feel sorry for James’ position. She understood that looks could be deceiving, but she was willing to test the theory. Either way, she ultimately had nothing to lose.
Charles kept his position inside the door and Mark stepped to the opposite side as the Judge was escorted in and security filed into the room.
Reina didn’t mince words, “Judex.”
The Judge gave her the hand over heart half-bow.
“Condolences Regina.”