by Su Williams
“I’m Officer Molly Elliot, Miss Sweet,” she said and kneeled in front of me. “This is Mike Walker. He’s a paramedic,” she continued with a flick of her thumb behind her. “I’m sorry we don’t have a female medic available, but I’ll stay with you. We just need Mike to examine you and get you ready for transport to the hospital. Okay?”
Okay? Did it really matter if it was okay with me? I nodded and as Officer Elliot stood and backed away Mike glided forward with silent steps. He set his gear down and knelt in front of me.
“Hello, Miss Sweet. Can you tell me your first name?”
“Emari.” Like the nail file.
“Emari.” Like most people, Mike had to roll my name around in his head a couple of times. “Well, Emari, I just need to do a basic exam, to make sure you’re ready to go to the hospital, okay?” Calm, quiet reassurance filled his voice. I nodded my agreement and Jesse reluctantly moved away to give Mike room to take my vitals.
Mike’s pen light jabbed like ice picks into my eyes and when he leaned closer to me to check my ears, a rogue whimper escaped my throat. He backed away, showed me his hands. “I apologize, Miss Sweet. I’ll explain everything I’m doing, and touch you as little as possible.”
I nodded and he smiled apologetically.
“Did you hit your head?” he asked nodding at the stained t-shirt.
“No. He hit my head.” I didn’t know why I felt the undeniable need to be specific.
“Can I take a look?”
Another silent nod.
He gently moved the wadded up t-shirt from the gash at the back of my head to get a quick look at the wound. “Ouch,” he hissed quietly through his teeth. “Did you lose consciousness?”
“I think so. I don’t—remember—a lot.”
“Well, you’ve lost a lot of blood, but head wounds bleed a lot.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard. First Aid 101.”
Mike gave a small laugh. “Pretty much. But let me know right away if your head starts to hurt worse or you start to feel faint or anything, all right?”
I nodded and allowed the corner of my mouth to twitch up, but it took too much effort to pretend to be tough. I fell back into silence.
Officer Elliot continued questioning Jesse and scribbled notes in her note pad. She paused, her left arm rested on her radio with her note pad in her hand, and her right hand, pen protruding, rested on her holster. Such a cop kind of pose, I mused in a lame attempt to distract myself. She glanced over at me and asked Jesse another question that froze his restless fidgeting. He threw an anguished glance at me. Deep lines corrugated his brow, he closed his eyes and turned away, nodded helplessly.
My heart raced, air ripped from my lungs as my eyes drifted over Jesse from head to toe for the first time. I choked on a strangled yelp, utterly horrified by what I saw. Blood, my blood, smeared on his face, hands and shirt. “Jess!” I wailed. He flew to my side.
“What? What?” he begged, and clasped my hands.
“I bled all over you.”
Jesse looked down at himself, noticed the blood and grimaced, but quickly rearranged his features. “No sweat, Sweets. It’ll wash. Okay?”
I nodded. “How’s Baby? She hasn’t seen you, has she? She’s gonna freak if she sees you.”
“Not yet, but I think she’s already freakin’ out out there.”
“I need her. Will you tell her to come to the hospital after work?”
“I’ll make sure she knows. I doubt she’ll wait ‘til after work, though. She’ll tell Collin where to ram it first.”
Jesse squeezed my hand and retreated again with Officer Elliot. My eyes remained locked on his face. For the moment, he was the only familiar anchor I had, despite the unfamiliar expressions that darkened his eyes.
The gurney bumped and rumbled up to the stockroom door, too big to fit into the compact room. Two fireman screened the doorway from rest of the store with a large, yellow sheet for my privacy. Mike helped me to stand and shamble to the gurney, painstakingly guarded of the location of his hands on my body. He lifted me up and helped me to recline, then draped the yellow sheet over me before fastening a belt over my thighs.
Dozens of voices whispered and rumbled around me as the medics wheeled my battered body past, and cops escorted Jesse out like a suspect. Yes, I had definitely drawn a crowd of people who gathered to gawk at the spectacle.
I scanned the sea of faces for the one I needed, the one I had saved. Ivy. Her pretty blue eyes filled with tears and her sweet, heart-shaped face contorted in horror. Her hand flew to her mouth to suppress the wail of grief when she glimpsed my bloodied face; her hand clamped over her mouth to subdue another, or perhaps to hold back vomit. I stretched my battered hand and crooked my stained fingers at her. “Come,” the single word rasped through my throat. A broken sob escaped her chalky lips, then Ivy whirled around and fled.
I must be a holy mess.
Overall, I liked my face okay. I hoped for less than utter destruction. It sure felt destroyed.
The hospital was only a few blocks away, so close they didn’t even bother with the sirens. With lights flashing, we sped down the street, barely getting to emergency speed before we had to slow down. Everything moved so swiftly it all became a blur around me. No doubt, the conk on the head and loss of blood had something to do with it as well. Jesse remained in the waiting room at the insistence of the investigating officer, but Officer Elliot and Mike continued into the exam room with me. Mike rattled off my stats and injuries to the nurses who fluttered and scurried alongside the gurney.
“Is there someone I can call for you? Your parents?” Officer Elliot inquired once my gurney rolled to a stop in exam 12 and the flurry of activity began.
Sure if you wanna hold a séance. “No,” I stifled a sob. “My parents were killed in a car crash last April.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Her cop composure faltered briefly and she suddenly looked very young and naive. “Um, a brother or sister then?”
“No. It’s just me.” My heart remained tender to this kind of questioning. I would have to work harder at not sounding like such a pathetic Little Orphan Annie. Poor Officer Elliot was stunned into silence.
The nurse flitting around my bed froze at my words, her hand moved as if by instinct to stroke my arm. Her brow corrugated and her eyes darkened with a shadow of grief. “There’s someone named Ivy out in the waiting room, honey. Would you like to have her with you during the exam?” she offered. This short, plump, kind-looking woman, with short, curly graying hair was graced with a gentle, compassionate smile and a tender heart. I imagined many small children had lain their heads on her ample breast for comfort.
“Yes. Please,” I mumbled through my haze.
Ivy skittered into the room a few moments later, pale and frail-looking, streaks of tears dried on her face. “Em. They’re treating Jess like a suspect,” she croaked.
“What?” I nearly launched myself off of the gurney. “No. Officer Elliot. Jesse didn’t do this. Make them stop.” The cop lurched away from the counter she’d been leaning on and scurried out of the room. When she returned her stern scowl melted into an apologetic smile.
“All taken care of,” she said.
“Thank you,” Ivy and I said in unison, and couldn’t help a tiny huff of humor. Jinx. I knew she was thinking it, too.
“Miss Sweet, how old are you?” Officer Elliot asked, her voice small and careful.
Oh boy, here it comes. “Seventeen,” I told her.
“And you have no legal guardians?” Her eyebrows arched like tight-strung crossbows.
“No. I filed for emancipation after my parents were killed. I’ve lived on my own for a few months now.”
“I see.” She continued to scowl. “And there’s no one you would like me to call? At all?” she pressed.
“No. I’m fine. Ivy’s here,” I said, as though that explained everything.
Officer Elliot remained silent but her face twisted in thought.
Then the wor
ld shifted gears again, and lurched into slow motion like the Enterprise dropping out of warp drive. Ivy held my hand through the entire process, except during the CT scan and when Officer Elliot took pictures of my hands; she said to show evidence of defensive wounds. She stood by the head of my gurney in her cop pose, and took notes as she questioned us.
“So, from the beginning, what was this guy’s contact with you?” she began.
“He would call me at work, but only when no one else was around. Like he could see me.” My throat hardened around the words.
“Did you report the calls either at work or through Crime Check?”
Ivy supplied this answer. “Yes ma’am. Collin, our store manager knew and set up LP guys to keep an eye on her. And Jesse escorted her to and from her car every day. Crime Check took the report, but said there was nothing they could do unless the guy actually did something.”
“Do you know how the assailant got into the stockroom?”
Ivy shook her head but I answered. “He had a key.” My voice pitched higher. “One of us probably left it in the door and he took it. He was hiding in the old observation nest the whole time watching me.” Ivy laced her fingers through mine.
“Emari, I went in there during—the time you were missing. I couldn’t find you.”
I fought down a whine. “I know, Baby. We heard you.”
“What?! Why didn’t you call out for help? I could have…I could have…” she stammered.
“Because. He said he would kill me and you would be next. I couldn’t let him touch you, Baby. I couldn’t let him hurt you and I knew he would.” Ivy pulled my hand to her chest, clung possessively to the one part of me she could get to. She closed her eyes and sobbed, her hot tears cascaded down my skin.
“Oh no!” I gasped. “My bracelet!”
Ivy clutched my bare arm against her chest, stroked my forearm. “It probably came off during…in the stockroom. We’ll look for it, ‘kay?” she consoled.
I nodded, and sent a tumble of tears down my cheeks. It had ceased to sting long ago.
“Miss Sweet, can you describe your bracelet for me?” the lady cop asked.
“Um, yeah. It’s white-gold, big links. It has a heart pendant with the engraving ‘Emari…FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS…Mom & Dad’. They gave it to me as a sweet sixteen gift.” My wrist felt weak and naked without the bracelet hanging around it where my parents placed it over a year ago. The memory of its tiny chimes shivered down my spine.
“Some of these guys like to take things. Like souvenirs,” Officer Elliot explained, but her face screwed up with frustration and her shoulders dropped forward. “I’m sorry. That sounded crass.”
Could this day get any worse? I sobbed into Ivy’s shoulder. What more could this man take from me?
Officer Elliot heaved a reluctant sigh. “Miss Sweet, is it possible you were raped?”
I squeezed my full eyes closed and forced the lump out of my throat. “I don’t know—for sure.” Ivy rubbed my shoulder, shushed me gently as the tremors rocked my body.
Officer Elliot continued. “If it is possible, we need to have certain tests done, and evidence collected.”
I mentally scanned my own body, tried to forget how I’d found my clothes when I finally came to, my bare skin singed by the cold concrete.
Officer Elliot and the mother-nurse reiterated the importance of the exam, it was necessary to catch the ‘assailant.’ Despite that, I couldn’t help but feel violated all over again. But this time I was conscious. My clothes were cut from my body because it was too excruciating to take them off. I stood naked and freezing on bright white paper while I was combed, scraped, examined and photographed. The room swam around me when the Wood’s lamp showed the proof—glowing smudges across my thighs.
A millennium later, the room finally settled to a hospital hush. A thorough investigation was completed; the doctor’s exam, police photos, and CT scan, the sutures—a dozen or so for the back of my head, half a dozen more for my left brow and four more across my cheek. I was just another piece of evidence in the ongoing investigation, not the victim. Perhaps they could tag and bag me in a little brown bag like the rest of the evidence.
Ivy stayed glued to my side. Her voice remained calm and soothing as she drew my attention to more pleasant surroundings and happier times. Her words transported me to memories of a Halloween party she had thrown one year, our summer trips up to my parent’s cabin on the Pend Oreille River, and going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show with all the props.
Finally, after the bright white day evolved into a cold crisp night, they released me to go home. The scan showed no concussion, despite the pounding I received. The doctors determined my loss of consciousness was most likely from a psychological mechanism—my brain blocking out the trauma.
Jesse warmed up my car and drove it to the covered entrance while the mother-nurse wheeled me out.
“You take care now,” she said and patted my shoulder fondly.
The doctor prohibited me from driving for a day or two, so Ivy drove me home while Jesse followed in his car. We stopped briefly at a pharmacy to fill my prescription for pain medication and continued on the handful of miles north to Mead.
My little house in the woods felt abnormally secluded and tenebrous on this dark December night. My nearest neighbors lived over a half mile away. The 1903 craftsman was planted on twenty-five acres of towering Ponderosa pines and scrubby saplings. Winter-stark aspens quaked ominously as they absorbed the highway noise on the west end of the compound. The silhouette of a giant blue spruce merged into the dark sky. A snowbound metal shed and an old wooden outbuilding that resembled a very small barn blended with the snowy ground, seeming natural outcroppings in the landscape.
The lights in my parents old house just up the hill to the north glowed dimly behind halos of crystalline air. Only a dim reminder through the thick night air of my loss.
Normally, the solitude comforted me. Tonight, once Jesse and Ivy were gone, my gratitude for the seclusion was an epic consolation. Once they left, I could finally give rein to the raging beast that clawed at my chest.
Ivy pulled under the carport on the side of the house and Jesse parked behind her.
“I can carry you.” Jesse stepped effortlessly into chivalrous Prince Charming mode.
“I’m good. Thanks, though.” But when my steps wobbled, he wrapped his arm around my waist for support.
“I got you, Em,” he whisper. I leaned into him and plodded along beside him to the kitchen door under the carport. Ivy unlocked the door and I fumbled with the keypad to disarm the security alarm. In the living room, I delicately lowered myself into my recliner. Jesse skulked through the house, feigning nonchalance, but I could tell he was staking it out, verifying what I already knew; the closets and basement harbored no predators, no shadows lie hiding in wait in the built-in cubbies or attic access.
Ivy brought me a warmed can of instant tomato soup and a couple of pain pills. “Thanks, Baby.” As I gratefully took them, she perched on the arm of my chair, protective and silent, and watched me with doleful eyes. I rested my head on her lap and she contentedly stroked my hair. Ivy was never so happy as when she had someone to fuss over.
Jesse returned in a few minutes, satisfied with the absence of marauders. As I started to nod off, drowsy from the pills, he knelt beside me, a faithful and sorrowful hound dog. “I can take you to your bed, honey.” He brushed my hair away from my face.
“No. You don’t have to do that,” I insisted. “You guys don’t need to stay. I’ll be fine.” And I laid my head back in Ivy’s lap, too numb to hold my head up. Murmured conversation filtered into my sleep. I loved my friends. I knew Ivy was more than reluctant to leave me alone. And Jesse was in full-on protect mode.
Some time later, I vaguely remembered being lifted from my chair, the rhythmic rocking as Jess carried me to my bed.
I drifted in and out of consciousness for hours. At one point, I awoke to the tangle of arms around me. My head
rose and fell in time with Jesse’s deep breathing. Ivy’s chest pressed against my back. Both of them had their arms wrapped around me. I hummed a sigh, laced my fingers through Ivy’s and nuzzled closer to Jesse’s chest. He stirred.
“Hey, you doing okay?” he yawned.
I nodded and snuggled into his warmth, lightly sailed between awake and asleep. “Jess?” I mumbled.
“Mm-hmm?”
“Thank you…for…” How did you tell someone thank you for saving you?
“Sure thing, Sweets. It’s all good.” He pressed a tender kiss to my hair.
More hot tears seeped from my eyes and I drifted away into narcotic dreams.
Chapter 4 My Immortal
The morning found the three of us huddled on my bed. Ivy cried out in the middle of the night and I wrapped her tiny body with mine. Jesse curled around us both, an exhausted sentinel.
“Hey, girls,” he mumbled, and smiled at Ivy’s haystack of hair. That dark crushing pain returned to his face when his eyes fell on me.
“Is it bad?” I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know.
Jesse nearly flunked out of Drama class in school so his feeble attempt to smile told all I needed to know. It was definitely bad.
Jess and Ivy took their showers while I lounged on the couch in a narcotic induced haze. Their voices filtered into my numbed brain—plans for who would baby-sit me that day.
“Listen. Guys. I know you mean well. And I’m really glad you stayed last night. But, I think I just need some time alone.” My protests fell on deaf ears. But a beast ravaged inside my chest, clawed and screamed for release. My powers of persuasion against it were growing weak. My friends had endured enough already. I couldn’t expose them to the danger of those claws.
“Emari, honey,” Jesse said as kneeled in front of me, “I don’t want to scare you. But what if this guy knows where you live?”
“Dude, my house is wired, and it’s not like I’m going to open the door to a stranger,” I protested. “Besides, I’ve got Pinky by my bed.” It was a silly name for a stun gun. But I liked it.