by John Everson
He loved her more than himself.
Scott swallowed hard, watching as she pushed the hair from her face and delicately ran a finger across the wound on her head, which now was beginning to weep crimson tears.
And then she reached her hand out to him, and together they helped each other up. They both had some scratches from the short fall, but were otherwise okay. Scott found himself staring at her chest and stomach, thinking of the tiny life that was growing there. The warmth that burned in his heart startled him. He pulled her close and hugged her to him. Tightly.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“I don’t want to die,” he said. “But I really don’t want to lose you.”
Her face beamed, and she pressed a kiss to his lips.
“We’ll work on both of those,” she said. “But we won’t get very far stark naked. People notice stuff like that.”
He grinned. “Come on,” he said. Together they staggered back up the steps to get Caroline’s clothes. Scott could barely walk without her help…his legs didn’t want to work. They felt like wet noodles, barely able to hold his weight. He looked at the tree where he’d been manacled and gulped. The bark was covered in pale and bloody threads, some as large and obvious as plant roots, and some faint and small like fuzz. As if cotton candy had been anchored and then ripped from there.
Caroline dressed and took his hand. “We should be able to get down the back corridor to your room without anyone seeing us. I don’t think anyone’s been in there since Mama brought you here. So you can get some clothes.”
“I don’t have my key,” he said.
She grinned, and held up a familiar iron staff. “I have the key to everything!”
Even my heart, Scott thought to himself.
Caroline poked her head out of the doorway at the top of the stairs, and then motioned him to follow. He held on to the wall and used it to help support and propel him forward as she walked quickly ahead, pausing at the point where the corridor crossed the hallway up to the reception area. She looked back at him and put one thumb up, giving him the “all clear”. She waved him forward. He hurried to follow, nearly falling when he had to cross the open area. But then a couple treacherous steps later, they were back in a hallway he remembered. Just a few more yards to his room and safety.
Caroline didn’t wait, but instead hurried ahead, plugging her skeleton key into the door. Scott heard voices behind him. Oh shit.
He pushed himself off against the wall, trying to increase his pace without falling on his face. His legs remained rubber, numb and heavy, unresponsive. But he forced them to move.
“Hurry,” Caroline hissed, and when he got close to the doorframe he all but dove for the opening. She took his hand to steady him, then pulled the door shut behind him.
“Did they see us?” he breathed, clutching at the wall and breathing heavy. The flesh on his back stung like hell. He could almost hear the pain in his head, like a hive of bees.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I didn’t see who it was that was coming.”
Scott looked around the small room. It was just as he’d left it. “I need to take a quick shower to rinse all this off me,” he said.
“It’s going to hurt,” she warned.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad. You look like someone peeled you.” She held her hands up. They were stained dark red from cutting him free. “I need to wash these off too.”
“It’s after dark,” he said. “We should have a little time. Nobody’s been checking on me down there in the middle of the night.”
She nodded, and turned on the light to the small bathroom. “We still need to hurry,” she cautioned, as she walked inside. “Who knows when Rocky or Sherrilyn might decide to visit you. If they find you gone…”
He heard the shower start, and a moment later, Caroline stepped out of the bathroom naked, and extended her hand. She was like a beautiful nymph. “Let me help you,” she said.
He smiled and accepted her grip. “I could use a little.”
She led him to the shower, and stepped in ahead of him. “This is really going to hurt, you know,” she warned. “Hold on to me; I don’t want you to slip and fall if it’s too much.”
He nodded, but nothing could have prepared him for the scalding burn that ripped down his back, ass and legs when the water touched him. He almost fell, just as she’d feared, but Caroline anticipated that and grabbed him tightly, supporting him as he went into spasms, shaking uncontrollably as the water turned from clear to red and sluiced down the drain.
Scott cried.
Caroline held him up, and his whole body shook as the blood and sap and skin and whatever other foreign things the tree had attached to him slowly dissolved and washed away. They stood there in the warm spray for several minutes, until his shivering subsided.
When she helped him out of the shower and pressed a towel around him, his legs finally gave way and he collapsed to his knees, leaning against her.
“I’m so cold,” he whispered, as his face lay against her belly. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“I could take you back downstairs?” she suggested. “I’m sure the tree would take you back really fast at this point. Mama never has to know we did this.”
He shook his head, and found his eye right in line with her belly button. He imagined the uterus that hung inside, just a few inches away. And the tiny life that grew there. “Baby Belvedere,” he whispered.
“What?” she said.
“My baby is inside you,” he said. “Our baby. I want to see it. I want to hold it in my arms.”
“Then we need to get dressed,” she said. “Sherrilyn will be down right now in the Night Room, where you saw the Thornes. Mama should be in bed. I don’t know where Agnes will be…sometimes she wanders around in the middle of the night. She doesn’t sleep much. She says that’s what happens when you’re an old lady.” Caroline smiled at that. “But we should be safe. We can be miles away before anyone realizes you’re gone.”
Scott rustled through his clothes and pulled out an old T-shirt that he didn’t mind ruining. He knew the blood on his back was going to seep into whatever he wore. His legs and arm were raw and angry, but it was his back that screamed. It was hard to focus on anything besides that pain.
“I want to get a couple of my own things, but I don’t want to risk walking you halfway across the inn with me and being seen,” Caroline said. “If you can go right down this hall and slip out the side entrance by reception, I can meet you there in about fifteen minutes?”
Scott nodded. “Hurry?”
She kissed him. “I’ll just fill my backpack.”
Caroline slipped out of his door and into the hall. Scott walked back and forth across the room to grab a couple of his own things. He pushed underwear and two T-shirts into the laptop bag, and decided that was all he was carrying. When push came to shove, you really could just walk away from all your possessions, he thought. Because what good were they if you were dead? Or chained to a tree?
He took a last look around, and then stepped out of the room, gently pulling the door shut behind him. Scott began walking slowly, painfully, down the dark hallways of The Family Tree Inn. His feet tread softly on the heavy carpet as he passed closed doors. He hoped that this would be the last time he would ever see the inside of these halls.
As he stepped through the shadowed main reception room—just one curio cabinet light gave a bit of illumination—a voice called out from just beyond the front desk.
“Checking out, Mr. Belvedere?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was Ellen! Shit.
The innkeeper stood up from where she’d been sitting behind the desk. He couldn’t run; he could barely walk.
“Yes,” he finally answered, stalling as he tried to decide what to do. “I’m checking out.” He was
struggling just to remain upright, but now, he really tried not only to stand, but to look strong, confident. “I think I’ve had just about enough of The Family Tree Inn’s hospitality.”
“Perhaps,” Ellen said. “But I don’t think we’ve enjoyed quite enough of you…”
She held his eye while her hand rustled in a drawer of the desk. “It’s a good thing I don’t sleep much these days,” she said as she rooted around. Scott looked at the heavy wooden door just a few yards away, but he wasn’t sure he would get there before she could reach him without falling down. Then Ellen raised her hand and he abandoned his brief thought of making a break for it. She held a gun, and aimed it at his legs.
“This won’t kill ya, but it’ll hurt like hell,” she warned. “I have no problem using it, because the tree will heal you up just fine. It’ll hurt like a devil dog though in the meantime. Would you like to test that?”
He shook his head.
She pointed at one of the antique red-upholstered chairs against the wall. “Then sit down in that chair right there while I call the boys. It’s time you were getting back ta bed.”
Ellen picked up the phone and said a few terse words to someone as he staggered to the chair and fell into it.
“I just want to go home,” he moaned as the pain shot across his shoulders and butt as his flesh made contact with the cushion.
Ellen smiled. “This is your home, Mr. Belvedere. You’re the head of the household now. Our provider. So you need ta stay here and provide for us.”
She walked over to him without breaking eye contact for a second. Holding the gun aimed at his right foot, she grinned. But it wasn’t a happy grin. “Who let you out?” she asked.
“Nobody,” he began, but she cut him off.
“Don’t lie to me or I’ll shoot your toes off one by one. Who helped you?”
“She didn’t help me,” he said. “I stole a knife the other day from my dinner tray, and when Caroline came to me tonight I held it to her throat until she unlocked the chains. She’s probably looking for you right now.”
“Hmmm,” Ellen said. She didn’t look convinced. But before he could say anything else, Owen and Sutter appeared.
“Take him back to the tree,” Ellen directed, and they grabbed him, one on each arm, and hoisted him to his feet. Ellen put away the gun and slammed the drawer shut behind the desk. Her usually downhome friendly grin was nowhere in evidence as she said, “And from now on, Mr. Belvedere, I think the only visits you’ll be getting will be from me.”
Owen and Sutter dragged him down the hall beyond the desk, and Scott’s entire body went limp. They didn’t care. The two brothers held him up and dragged him along the way.
So that was it.
The crush of despair turned his vision to a blur. He had been steps from the door. And now? He was never going to leave here. He could barely move under his own power now…once they chained him back to the tree, he knew that he would quickly be reclaimed by it. Bound to it. And the rest of his life would consist of staring at the dark walls of a windowless basement room. He might never even see his baby. He doubted if Ellen would ever let Caroline near him again.
Tears streaked his cheeks, and Scott didn’t even try to stop them. He was overcome with despair.
When they opened the door and lifted him down the steps to his prison, he didn’t fight them. What was the point?
Then Owen stiffened and yelped. “Ouch!” He took his hand from Scott’s arm for a moment and slapped his own shoulder as if he were swatting a mosquito. “Something bit me,” he said, and then his voice changed. “What the hell are you…”
Owen suddenly teetered and then slipped to his knees. Sutter and Scott both looked at him, wondering what was up, and at the same moment saw Caroline standing there behind Owen. She was holding a needle.
“Are you crazy?” Sutter said. He pushed Scott to the ground and stepped forward, slapping her arm just below the wrist. The syringe flew out of her hand and bounced away into the shadows. “Caroline, what the hell are you doing? If he leaves here, we’re all dead meat. He’s the last one. At least until you and Sherrilyn pop out those kids. What’s the matter with you?”
Sutter grabbed her by her wrists and lifted her from the ground. Caroline tried to knee him, but he dodged it, holding her up and away from his body. He flipped her around, pinning her back to his chest with an arm around her neck. Caroline punched backwards, trying to slug him in the face, but he slapped her fist away. Then she hauled back to elbow him in the ribs, but Sutter was too strong. He flung her around like a ragdoll and then slapped her wrist into one of the cuffs hanging from the tree. The metal clicked shut. He quickly cuffed her other wrist as well.
“You can just stay here until your mother decides what to do with ya,” he said, and then turned to come after Scott.
But Scott had moved.
While Sutter fought with Caroline, Scott had crawled to the edge of the room, palming the ground, searching for the hypodermic needle. His fingers found loose pebbles and a couple sticks, but the needle was gone. He knew that for Caroline’s sake…he had to find it. He’d damned her in his futile escape; he couldn’t let them punish her too. He heard the snap of the manacles closing around her wrist behind him, just as he saw the glint of light on silver ahead. Metal. He scrambled forward and reached for it.
Maybe all wasn’t lost!
Just as his hand closed on the syringe, Sutter’s hand closed on his ankle. And then Scott’s chest was dragging across the rough ground. Sutter yanked him backwards out of the shadows and into the center of the room. Scott didn’t struggle. Instead, he flipped the syringe around in his hand, putting his thumb on the plunger. He was ready. When Sutter pulled him off the ground to chain him up, he was poised to sting.
“I don’t think so,” Sutter said. A boot crushed Scott’s arm to the rock. He yelled at the pain and Sutter laughed, low and quiet. “Let go of it.”
Scott opened his fingers, and the syringe rolled away.
“Now then,” Sutter said. “Let’s put you back where you belong.”
The boot left his arm and Sutter reached down to grab Scott by the wrist. But as the fingers brushed his arm, Scott kicked out with one foot, connecting hard with Sutter’s shin. Scott rolled himself away from the larger man’s grasp while Sutter was off-balance.
He slammed against the table, which was still overturned on the ground, and saw something lying nearby. Something red.
And silver.
Scott grinned. Caroline had left the knife on the table after using it to cut him free, and it had fallen with the table. Now it just lay there on the ground, easily in reach. He grabbed for it, just as Sutter kicked him in the back.
The pain on his open wounds was excruciating. Scott screamed.
Sutter laughed. “You oughtta be careful about kicking folks,” he said. “Sometimes they kick back. And me? I got bigger boots.”
Sutter kicked him again, and the pain shot up Scott’s spine and down the back of his legs.
“Stop it,” Caroline screamed from behind them. “Leave him alone, Sutter.”
Stars were exploding behind Scott’s eyes, and he felt paralyzed, his back burning with a scalding fire of acid that just kept eating deeper into his core. He couldn’t breathe. But he couldn’t wait to find his breath. Still choking for air, he forced himself to roll towards Sutter and as his body flopped forward, he reached out with his knife hand and stabbed the other man as hard as he could in the leg, just above the line of his boot.
Sutter cursed and instantly the leg of his jeans was dark with blood. Scott didn’t stop, but instead aimed for the other leg, stabbing the knife down as hard as he could into the top of the man’s foot. This time, the knife didn’t come out when he pulled; it was wedged between the bones of the big man’s foot. Scott lost his grasp on it as Sutter yanked the wounded foot backwards.
; Sutter screamed a rapid-fire stream of foul words and Scott struggled to rise to his feet, using the fallen table to lever himself up. But Sutter came at him with fists raised, ready to take Scott out, even as he staggered and yelled from the pain.
Scott tried to avoid it, but Sutter landed one fist on his cheek, and he saw stars again. He ducked the next blow, but then Sutter socked a fist into his gut, and Scott coughed and choked, slipping back to his knees. He felt himself beginning to puke, but he couldn’t stop, not now. He had only the next few seconds to make his attack count, or everything he and Caroline had done would be lost. Still coughing, he dove at the knife that was stuck in Sutter’s foot, and with both hands, he twisted it as hard as he could.
The other man screamed, a high-pitched horrible sound, and Scott used the moment to shove himself back up from the ground and into Sutter’s belly.
The other man was already off balance, and fell backwards at Scott’s push, tumbling off the ledge and onto the rocks three feet below. The sound of Sutter’s pain was shrill with surprise and anger.
Scott staggered over to Caroline, who had been forced to watch the whole thing chained to the tree. “Where are the keys,” he gasped.
“My front pocket,” she said.
He slipped his hand into her pants, and instantly felt himself grow hard. He wanted to slap himself for the ridiculously inappropriate lust. He knew part of it was the tree’s influence in his blood, but geez. A voice in his head screamed that if he didn’t move his ass, he’d never have the chance to do so again.
“Hurry!” Caroline urged, and his fingers found the metal loop tight against her thigh. It was awkward to pull something out of someone else’s pocket. But he fished it out, and held up a handful of keys.
“The dark one,” she said, and he flipped past a couple silver keys to find a dull bronze key. It looked much older than the others.
He slipped it into the first lock and twisted.
“He’s coming,” she warned. Her voice trembled. Scott jiggled the key again and the clasp snapped open. “Yes,” he breathed.