I stormed the women’s restroom focused on finding Desiree. But as I should have expected, my intrusion was not well received. The women exiting and standing in line began yelling at me and trying to barricade me from getting in.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
“This is the women’s room!”
“I need to find my girlfriend!” I yelled back. “She’s in trouble!”
“I’ll check on her,” one woman said.
“I’ve already asked several women to check on her. I need to see her.” I pulled free from the women holding my arms and tried to carefully push the delicately balanced woman standing in front of me. She wobbled on her heels, but held her ground.
Other club-goers who were passing by stopped to see the commotion I was causing.
I was pulled off balance when my right arm was pulled by a strong grip from someone behind me.
“Stop hassling the women,” a deep voice said, belonging to the man who’d grabbed my arm.
“Back off, buddy!” I yelled. I tried to yank my arm away, but the guy’s grip was too tight. I knew I was in trouble.
But as the guy continued to pull my arm, my sleeve was pulled up just enough in the struggle to reveal my wolf-head tattoo. He dropped my arm in a flash and took a step back.
“I don’t want any trouble,” the man said, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry; I didn’t know. I was just looking out for the ladies.”
I was furious and snapped.
“Everyone just back away!” I yelled. There was now a full semi-circle of spectators. I was standing alone in the middle, between the spectators and the women still barricading the bathroom. “I need to find my girlfriend!”
“He’s not a real Lorne,” I heard a strangely familiar voice whisper in my ear. “He’s a fake.”
My pulse raced as I scanned the gathered spectators. The voice in my head was loud and pointing out what should be obvious to everyone else. It had to be obvious I was a fraud. I wasn’t holding myself together like a true Lorne. My judgment was impaired. The voice in my head spouting truths was mine. I was so afraid of drowning, and I was now barely treading water. I was ranting like a lunatic. It would only take one person to be a hero.
“They’re coming for you,” the voice said, spewing venom—loud and clear in one ear, then the other.
“Desiree!” I yelled, not knowing what else to do. Any minute I would be pinned to the ground by one of the guys standing near me. I was certain security had already been called. What if a Lorne family member or someone close to the family was actually here? All the attention on me could become the moment Darius had predicted.
The moment I disappear and am never heard from again. Locked away in the asylum. Forever.
I could enter the fade to get home and drop thousands of feet to my death, leaving Desiree to fend for herself, but I was more afraid of dying than abandoning Desiree. I was afraid to admit that and never would aloud.
“Desiree!” I yelled again, my voice cracking this time from sheer panic.
“They will see you for who you really are,” the voice of my mirror continued. “Just a scared kid.”
I finally saw the sparkle of Desiree’s red dress stumble out of the bathroom. She stopped at seeing me standing in the center of a gathered crowd of people staring at me—and her.
“Oliver, are you okay? What’s going on?” she asked.
I ran up to her and grabbed her hand. “We need to go!”
I punched through the wall of people and headed for the stairway that led to the entrance of the club. The sound of people talking about all the commotion I had caused still rang in my ears. Club-goers continued to turn and watch us as we made our way through the crowds.
“Oliver, what happened? Where are we going? I can’t walk this fast!” Desiree pulled my hand to get me to stop. “How long was I in there?”
“I screwed up, Desiree. We need to leave.”
“But, my coat—” she said and balanced a second on my shoulder to adjust the strap of one of her high heels. “It’s my favorite coat.”
“I’ll buy you a new one,” I insisted.
“And I want to sit down. My feet hurt. My throat hurts. My stomach hurts. I didn’t want to mention it, but I threw up in the bathroom. Can’t we just order some water with our dessert and rest for a little while?”
“Desiree, you don’t understand—”
“Oliver, I’m sure you’re overreacting,” Desiree said in a soothing voice that strangely reminded me of my mother. “Look around—there is no one coming after us. We’re okay.”
I looked at her, knowing it was pointless to continue to pull her out of the club. Nodding that she was right, we turned and headed back to our private elevator. We could hang out up there for a while and all of the commotion I had caused would be forgotten. Everyone here would go on with their lives, and we would slip out at the end of the night on top of the world.
“How’re you feeling?” I asked as we entered the elevator.
“A little better now. It just crept up on me all of a sudden. That’s why I don’t usually drink,” she said as we lifted past the platforms. “Sorry I worried you.”
“Perhaps I did overreact,” I said as we reached our private suite.
We stepped out of the elevator to the unexpected greeting of a large black shadow positioned by the tables. Someone—several people were standing there. All of the flames were extinguished in our suite, so the only nearby light came from the surrounding suites, strobe lights over the dance floor, and the sporadic streaks of lightning. And it was the lightning that really lit up the suite for a split second.
While we stood frozen by the elevator, a bolt flashed over the dance floor and transformed the shadow into four intimidating men in long black coats, behind our tables, staring back at us.
“Who the hell are you?” I demanded with all the courage I had left.
“I’m here to ask you the same question,” one of the men answered, his face shrouded in shadows.
And then the flames in the glass bowls burst to life with a sudden fury.
8
A New Wolf
The men all looked cold and intimidating, staring like statues with their silent intensity. Their black overcoats all matched and their clothes underneath were also black, like they were special-ops or something. The second from the left with the thick neck and crew-cut spoke up.
“I expected to find Malakye or Tomarah here. They’re typically the ones to frequent these types of establishments. Instead we find two lost lambs.” His voice was low and hoarse. “But we’re not here for pleasantries. Identify yourselves or I will throw you over this balcony.”
I didn’t know what to do. Should I keep up the charade or give them my real name? What was my real name? Just because the tattoo was a fake didn’t mean that I was. Kafka assured me that I was a Lorne, even though he wanted to kill me for being that Zachariah person.
“Oliver Lorne,” I said.
Desiree nudged me as if to say, what are you doing?
I didn’t show off my wolf-head tattoo, but I was sticking by the name.
“Either that’s an interesting coincidence or extremely stupid.”
“Can’t it be a little bit of both?” I said with a nervous laugh.
“If you’re a true Lorne, then prove it,” the guy said and walked around to the front of the table.
The man approached Desiree and me. The others remained like gargoyles around the table. When the man with the thick neck and crew-cut was merely a few steps away, he said, “Here’s a little game I like to play called ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’”
He lifted the right sleeve of his coat. In the same spot as the other Lorne tattoos was a wolf-head, but not like one I’d seen before. It looked raised and scar-like, the same as the others, but the head itself was different. The wolf’s jaws were closed with barred teeth.
Were there a bunch of variations that all si
gnified being a Lorne family member, or did the unique designs mean different things?
“You’re not playing the game, son,” the man said.
I gave Desiree a quick sidelong glance and slowly raised my right sleeve.
The man, now close enough to breathe in my face, grabbed my wrist with a circulation-stopping grip to take a closer look at my fake tattoo.
“That’s nice work. No doubt you fooled a few people with it.” The man turned my wrist back and forth and pulled my sleeve up higher on my forearm. “Did you do this artwork yourself or did your cute girlfriend here put it on you?”
“Don’t answer that,” Desiree said.
“Okay, so you did it,” the man said to Desiree. “I also find it interesting that neither of you have perms or temps. So one—neither of you are eighteen, yet. Two—you’re not from around here, or even close. Tell me, where are you from? Acanombia? Doria? Los Angeles?”
I gulped hard trying to push my heart out of my throat.
“You don’t have to talk to me, but you will talk to Alexandria.” Still holding my arm, the guy turned to the others in his group. “Come on guys, we have new specimens for Dr. Lorne.”
Just as the other three guys began to come around the tables, I used my liquid strength and kneed the guy holding my arm in the groin. But the guy was fast—so I actually hit him in the upper thigh causing no damage whatsoever.
He reflexively head-butted me in the nose and I instantly dropped to my knees, a river of blood flowing over my lips. I coughed and spit blood all over the guy’s legs and coat.
Desiree screamed and leaned down to comfort me. She had nothing to wipe with to stop the flow of blood, so she just used her hand. And I continued to bleed all over her.
I gagged and coughed as blood poured backwards from my nose and down my throat. But I pushed through the pain, pushed through my gag reflex and blurred vision. My arm was still hanging in the air from the guy’s clamp-like grip.
I got back up on my feet and pulled for my freedom, pulled like my life depended on it—which it probably did. And when he didn’t budge, I clawed at his hand like a rabid animal and surprisingly drew blood, mixed with the mist of my own.
He finally let go as I continued to claw and pull, causing me to tumble over Desiree and into the elevator.
Desiree quickly dove in after me and we descended to the entrance floor.
“Are you all right?” Desiree asked, climbing to her feet.
I just grunted and shrugged as I continued to mop up the blood in my hands. I spat on the floor when too much blood pooled in my mouth, getting some on the glass walls of the elevator. It tasted retched. The elevator was beginning to look like a murder scene.
When we reached our floor, we dashed into the crowd. I wouldn’t be too hard to track since I was leaving a trail of blood in my wake. I used the sleeve of my shirt to soak up the blood better than my hands, but it was just everywhere. My head felt light and dizzy, spinning and groggy. Desiree led the getaway, holding her heels in her hands, and I stumbled along behind her.
Commotion was building behind us. The guys from our suite were already on our trail and gaining.
“This way!” Desiree yelled and we ducked into a small hallway.
I was hoping she’d found the way out, but it didn’t look like the way we came in. Hopefully, there was more than one way to exit the club. We looked in doors as we passed. A kitchen. An office. A food staging area. A small locker room. An employee single stall bathroom. The hallway turned and there were more rooms lining the way.
And then the hallway abruptly ended with a pair of storage closets on either side. The back wall was bare.
“No, no, no!” Desiree cried. “There’s no way out!” She turned to go back, but we could already hear the echoes of the men coming this way.
“We can hide in a closet,” I said, ready to step through one of the doors.
“Not anymore we can’t,” Desiree said. “Look.” She pointed at the wall beside the door, which now had my bloody handprint on it.
“Then what?”
That’s when Desiree grabbed my free hand, disregarding the fact that she was getting more blood on her skin and dress.
“We can do this,” she said and ran straight at the wall at the end of the hallway, pulling me along.
“Whoa!” I yelled and ruined whatever focus she had built up. I extended a hand to brace myself from completely crashing into the wall. Now I was leaving more bloody handprints.
“We have to go through. It’s the only way!” Desiree said.
I looked at her like she was crazy, and then I heard the guys getting closer to rounding the corner of the hallway.
I took a deep breath through my mouth, trying not to swallow more blood and gag. “Okay. I trust you.” I thought of the first time I had gotten into a Provex City elevator with Jeremy. This should be no different.
We backed up, squeezed each other’s hands, and made a second run for the wall. And before I had time to react, we were through. We passed through the wall and made it to the other side unharmed. I looked back at the solid wall behind us and saw a single drop of blood trickling down the wall.
We were in a much larger hallway now, but one that seemed to be outside of the club somewhere. We were probably on a different floor from where we had originally entered the club. There were signs for restrooms—and elevators—down one side! We bolted toward the signs and didn’t look back. Hopefully, the guys chasing us—the guys with the strange wolf-head tattoos—couldn’t get through the wall, but we had to run as if they could. One hundred feet to go. Fifty. Twenty. Ten. And when we reached the sign and turned the corner, there was an elevator waiting for us like it had known we were coming.
The next thing we knew, we were rocketing down the outside of the building, the majestic lights and towers of Provex City all around us, as we stood locked in each other’s arms, panting and crying, all the way down.
We emerged back on the sidewalk with the hover cars and cabs inching by in the weekend night traffic. The sidewalk was just as busy with people out for a night on the town. There were lights blinking and pulsing everywhere, but the night also brought many shadows, concealing some of the mayhem covering me so I wasn’t quite so conspicuous. We were now able to blend into the crowd and disappear.
“It was still my favorite coat,” Desiree said as we followed the flow of people down the street and took a right turn at the intersection.
The crosswalk tube did not catch my interest this time.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I tried to get it for you.”
“I know. I’m not blaming you. I’m just saying.”
The air was brisk without our coats, and with Desiree having a sleeveless and short-skirted dress, I was sure she was freezing. I pulled Desiree into the first clothing store we passed. It was a little more high-end than I was hoping for, but I was going to try pulling something off anyway.
The store only had a few shoppers, and when the sales associate saw me walking toward her, her eyes grew wide.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I need your help,” I said.
The sales lady looked me up and down and then took a peek at Desiree trying to hide behind me.
“What are you doing?” Desiree whispered.
“My girlfriend and I were attacked and robbed—”
“Oh, my—I will call the peacekeepers for you,” she said, dashing back behind the counter.
“I already did. A nice man let us use his phone outside. They should be here any minute. The thing is…” I paused and cleared my throat. The blood flow was slowing, but I could still taste its rusty metallic flavor in my mouth. And my nose was throbbing and felt as big as my head. “See, we live quite a ways out of the city. It is so cold outside and my girlfriend is in desperate need of a coat or sweater or something so she doesn’t freeze to death. I can survive, but look at her, she’s freezing.” I stepped to the side so the sales lady could get a good look at Desiree—tear-stricken,
bloody, and shaking. “Our attackers stole our coats amongst everything else.”
The lady looked at Desiree and then back at me with clear empathy in her eyes. “You poor dears, I’m sure I can find you something.”
“And we can’t pay you right now, but I promise to pay you back when I can,” I said and showed her my left wrist. I wasn’t about to pull out the wolf head again. “See, our bracelets were stolen, too. We were left with nothing but our lives.”
“That is so absolutely terrible. This is such a safe city. I can’t believe what’s happened to you two. But I will find you something right away!” She vanished into the backroom.
I looked down at my wrists, at the blood, at the outline of the fake tattoo on the right one. I couldn’t wait for it to be gone. If only I could wash it away with the blood when I got home. The next few weeks would be a constant reminder of this God-awful night.
The sales lady returned with two dark, cotton sweaters, and handed one to each of us.
“They are very warm, I assure you,” she said.
“I will pay you back, I swear,” I said.
Desiree climbed into her sweater, which was about six sizes too big and almost covered her dress completely. “Thank you,” she said, hugging herself to get warm.
My sweater was about the same size and definitely sagged over my thin frame, too, but I didn’t look like I was drowning in a sea of cotton like Desiree. And it covered most of the blood.
I thanked the lady as well for her generosity and told her we’d wait outside for the peacekeepers to arrive. She insisted we wait inside, but I told her that I didn’t want them to pass us by since I didn’t give them the name of the store. Desiree and I thanked her several more times before we could comfortably leave the store. And we continued down the sidewalk, once again prepared for the winter night air, and anxious to get home.
We decided against taking the Provex City monorail home in favor of the more familiar streets of Los Angeles. Where we crossed over turned out to be the edge of Beverly Hills. We found ourselves on a greenbelt between Santa Monica Boulevard and a chain-linked fence enclosing the wealthy neighborhoods. The towers were gone. The lights were dimmer. The traffic was the same. It was more than a relief to be home, even though home was really about forty miles away. We were close enough to feel safe and took a moment to catch our breath.
SUSY Asylum Page 9