Hold Me Like a Breath

by Tiffany Schmidt

  “Can I get you something? Water?”

  “Orange juice.” It was my favorite, reminded me of home and Mother, but more than that, the errand would buy me a few seconds to get myself together. To escape before he returned, before we attracted the notice of concerned passersby.

  “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” He touched my shoulder. A tentative squeeze so reassuring I didn’t care about the bruising consequences. At that point, what did one more matter?

  I laughed. Or maybe sobbed. It was a sound that made a businesswoman turn and frown.

  I couldn’t stay there, not vulnerable and exposed, drawing attention to myself with blood and uncoordinated movements. And just a few yards from where my family picture had been featured on the news. Brown hair dye and a bright outfit were hardly a disguise.

  I waited until his broad shoulders had been swallowed by the blur of people, then tried to straighten for a third time. Orienting myself was hard; the buildings seemed to sway more than I did. If I leaned a hand against the wall for support, I could stay upright, drag myself a few steps, then pause to rest.

  I was tougher than this. Stronger. I wouldn’t let myself collapse on the street. I couldn’t let myself be caught. I pictured the headline: LIVING DEAD GIRL FOUND BLEEDING IN MANHATTAN. Took another step. Two.

  A few more and brick wall gave way to the smooth glass surface of a store window. I was striping it red with the tips of my fingers. Were they bleeding too? Or was it runoff from the scrapes on my arm, which were refusing to clot, refusing to stop spilling blood I needed to keep inside my arteries and veins.

  “Wait. Hey, wait!”

  There was so much noise around me, but this cut through it. And then there was the softest brush of a hand around my back. Under my arm. Holding me up. There was a bottle of orange juice being held in front of my lips, tilted to the perfect angle so I could sip it.

  “Where do you live? If you won’t let me take you to the hospital, at least let me get you home.”

  My answer was supposed to be no. It should have been automatic, as easy as an exhale. But exhaling hurt and nothing was easy anymore. I nodded and gave him an address on the street next to mine.

  “You’re really bleeding—are you sure I can’t take you to a doctor?”

  “It’ll stop.” I hoped.

  He didn’t disagree, but he did peel off his outer T-shirt. He wrapped it carefully around my arm and secured it by crossing the long sleeves in an X on each side, then knotting them together. I let him touch me, let him do this. Then let him hail me a cab, help me in, and climb in beside me.

  I was dimly aware of the cab driver asking if I was “on something,” slightly more aware that this guy was asking what else he could do, offering me an assortment of candy: Starburst, a crushed chocolate bar, a roll of Lifesavers that he pulled from pockets—asking for my cell phone the same way the Pomeranian’s owner had asked for the dachshund’s, pulling it out of my purse, turning it on, punching buttons, putting it back. Holding the orange juice to my lips, encouraging me with, “Take another sip. Good. One more.”

  “Please call me if you need anything,” he said. “Please call me and let me know you’re okay.”

  I think I nodded. Mostly I focused on keeping my eyes open, keeping my chin from lolling onto my chest, and keeping Father’s voice from echoing in my head.

  Be on your guard. Stay alert. Focus, Penelope, focus like your life depends on this.

  The cab stopped and I stumbled out, pressed a useless hand on the outside of the door when the guy tried to follow me.

  “Here?” I was too tired to lift my head and read his expression, but I didn’t need to, his surprise, concern, and dismay all bled into his voice. “You’re sure this is the right address?”

  He was already so much closer to the apartment than I liked. No way I was letting him compromise my location any further.

  “I’m sure. Thank you for seeing me home.” Mother’s tone of dismissal poured from my throat. “That was kind of you.”

  And I turned. Cut down an alley, swayed around a corner, in a side door and out the front of a bodega—the bodega I promised Garrett I’d never enter. They may have reacted to my stumble steps, but I wasn’t looking up, wasn’t caring. I was making deals with myself: a hundred more steps. Then a hundred after that. Then just one more set of a hundred and I was at the apartment building.

  I shook as I inserted my key in the lobby door. I only made it one flight of stairs before my legs refused to cooperate and I had to crawl on my knees. I had no plausible explanations to give if any of my neighbors—the anonymous people behind the other doors—had come into the hall.

  But none of them did. Not one in the hours, days, months, lifetimes it took me to reach my floor.

  I got blood on the door frame when I used it to pull myself up to the lock. I used the stranger’s shirt to swipe at it, but there was more blood seeping through its fabric. I had a moment of guilt about this.

  Just a moment, then I was lurching, stumbling, falling forward—the couch was a few feet away and I didn’t think I’d make it. The ground was coming toward me so much faster than I wanted, but when my face hit, it was on a cushion. The rest of me was more floorward, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was closing my eyes.

  Chapter 23

  I dreamed of him. Over and over.

  They started as my normal Carter nightmares—the blood, all the blood—stirred into a storm of waves and wind and pain that gagged me and flattened my lungs. And then the dreams changed. Carter was gone, and the stranger was there.

  “You’re my reason for breathing,” he said, and I found I could, I was no longer choking. I wasn’t in blood anymore. Wasn’t drowning. I was inhaling the sweetest air and staring at his sweetest of smiles.

  And then I didn’t need to breathe. I only needed to kiss him.

  I stumbled in and out of consciousness. Being awake felt like being shipwrecked, drenched in agony, and cut off from the oblivion of dreams. I needed to do something, save myself, but could never gather up enough strength before I was dragged back into unconsciousness by the undertow of pain and disaster.

  My eyes finally opened. This time being awake was different. I hadn’t drifted there on my own. This time it was an insistent rhythm letting me know something was amiss, demanding I connect the pieces and pay attention. I didn’t want to. I wanted to shut my eyes and float away, but the noise wouldn’t let me. I located its source: the door was throbbing. The wall was throbbing. My head too. And my legs, which were still folded under me on the floor. My arm—the T-shirt bandage felt too tight. I made a feeble attempt to undo the knotted sleeves, then gave up and shut my eyes.

  The throbbing stopped. The throbbing in the room, that is. My head threatened to explode when I turned to see why the throbbing had stopped.

  The door was open. Men. In the apartment. I tried to sit, to push myself into a posture slightly less defenseless. To suck in a breath and scream. They were speaking, but I couldn’t hear them over the drumming in my head.

  They cornered me against the couch. Three of them. One of me. Less than one since the portions that remained didn’t make up a functional whole. A man leaned down, extended his hand, and held something to my face. I tried to turn away, tried to take a deep breath before he covered my nose and mouth. If I could’ve, I would’ve bitten him, but even that was far beyond what I was capable of. It had to be chloroform—that was how it was going to end. And I wasn’t even going to manage a fight or a whimper or a sob.

  Except, it wasn’t a rag. He didn’t cover my nose or mouth; he held something against my ear.

  “Penelope Maeve, are you there?” said the voice from the cell phone. “It’s Bob.”

  They’d gotten to the vice president. It was my fault. I’d made a mistake. Exposed him. “I’ll cooperate,” I rasped at my abductors. “What—whatever you want.”

  “No. Penny. Penny—listen to me.” Bob’s voice was calm in my ear. “You’re safe. No o
ne’s going to hurt you. The man holding the phone is my physician. The other men are part of my security detail. I trust them all implicitly. You are safe.”

  I’m not sure how many times Bob had to repeat this before I believed him. Before I let the doctor cut the stranger’s shirt from my arm and clean and bandage those scrapes. Examine the bruises that covered the front of my body like an apron, and settle me in bed with two IVs—fluids and glorious immunoglobulin.

  Through it all, the vice president’s voice was in my ear. “We tracked you through the GPS in your phone—you can’t have that on, Penny. If I can track you, so can others.”

  The stranger. I’d let him put his number in my phone. He’d left it on. I hadn’t had the energy or awareness to think through the consequences. But maybe that was a blessing.

  Bob continued. “My men have a new phone for you. It’s secure. You can call me anytime. You are not alone. If I have a say, you will never be alone. But you need to be careful.”

  It was a paternal lecture, full of affection and sternness and requiring nothing from me but agreement at intervals.

  “Yes. Okay. I understand. Thank you.”

  He sighed. “Are you sure you won’t come stay at my Connecticut house?”

  Agreeing meant surrendering all hope Garrett was coming. All hope of regaining any of my old life and all promise of autonomy. It would be another estate-prison without the comfort of family or the familiar.

  “I’m sure, but thank you.”

  “You should know, I talked to Darius Castillo—”

  “Can I see him?”

  “Not yet. He doesn’t want to know where you are. Doesn’t think it’s safe if he knows.”

  “But—”

  “Penny, we need to trust him on this. If they could get through the security on your father’s estate—if they had no qualms about their actions there—they’re not going to hesitate to torture the doctor to get to you. The less people who know about you, the better. I’m debating moving you myself. If not to Connecticut, at least somewhere more secure.”

  But Garrett. But the freedoms I’d just gained. But the fact that this place was Carter’s—all I had left of him—and he’d told me it was safe.

  “I’ll be more careful, I promise.”

  “I won’t force you … yet. Call if you change your mind. Just call me, period. I want to know how you’re doing.”

  After good-byes I turned what remained of my attention to the men in the room. Maybe it wasn’t just fluids in the first IV because my exhaustion had a medicinal tint—I hated that no one ever consulted me before plying my body with drugs. I needed to be awake. Alert. Ask questions.

  “How did you know … my apartment? Not the building—GPS—but which … was … mine …” My words were slowing into breathy things, the letters dragging and distorting.

  “Door wasn’t closed all the way,” said one of the men. I had an impression of graying buzz cut and square jaw, but I couldn’t stop blinking long enough to make eye contact or form clear memories. “And there was a smear of blood on the frame.”

  “And it’s steel. Reinforced. Has a full seal. It’s not the same door as the other apartments in this building.” This was the other nondoctor. A smudge of black clothing, dark hair, dark skin. A voice like music. I bet he laughed a lot. I liked his explanation, what it said about Carter’s foresight, I wanted to tell him …

  “Sleep now, Miss Landlow. You need rest.”

  Chapter 24

  It was eerily quiet when I opened my eyes. My muscles were stiff, joints tense and achy—weighted with the hours (days?) I’d spent in a drugged, motionless sleep. My temples were tight with my usual post-infusion headache. I walked gingerly from room to room, testing my body, measuring the differences in the apartment with addition and subtraction.

  Gone: The men. The IVs. My cell phone. The stranger’s shirt. The pain that had consumed me.

  Added: A constant ache from head to navel that demanded careful movement and limited rotation. A new cell phone with a single contact: Bob. A new key on my table and new dead bolt on the door—how could I have slept through the drilling? A pill bottle with a note: “Take one every four hours as needed for pain.” A loaf of bread. A neat row of apples and bananas. A fridge full of milk, juice, butter, yogurt, hummus, and all sorts of healthiness that had never before rested on those shelves. A sense of calm, security—a memory of the vice president’s voice in my head: You aren’t alone.

  It was enough to make me smile as I took a careful shower, dressed in a bright yellow sundress printed with clocks, and blow-dried my bangs to cover a fading chin-shaped bruise on my forehead. With the dress’s Peter Pan collar and a light cardigan, I could hide most of the damage. The scrapes on my arm were healing behind bandages and the petechiae on my ankles were disappearing. I could pass for healthy, and thanks to all the new antibodies infused into my body, I was.

  For now.

  “Garrett, where are you?” My question made the silence feel louder, made typing his number into this new phone and pressing send so dangerously tempting. I hit send on a different call instead.

  “Penny, I have to ask you something.” The vice president had barely taken the time for social niceties. Only inquiring how I was feeling and if I needed anything, accepting my answers and gratitude without seeking more details or pressing me to come stay with him. These, combined with the tone of his voice, made my arms break into goose bumps and soured the last sips of my orange juice.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Your father—how did he … The past couple weeks, did he seem …” Bob cleared his throat. “Since Carter, had your father seemed depressed?”

  “What?”

  “I mean, more than what would be expected. Or violent?”

  “Is there a normal amount of grieving?” I asked. “He was busy with work and sad—but not violent. Why?”

  “There’s some evidence that suggests this might have been a murder-suicide. We need to consider all possibilities.”

  “What evidence? My father would never—”

  “But he did send away his security that morning, right? Which was atypical. And he even told your personal guard to leave you alone, even though you’d had constant surveillance since—”

  “No!” I wanted to throw the phone out the window, bleach his words from my head. “That makes no sense.”

  “And he was training a successor, planning for someone to replace him.”

  “It’s not possible. And I can prove it! Father would’ve known in an instant that Caroline wasn’t me. Besides, she was shot last. She was alive when I left my room. And the shots started on the patio where Mother and Father were sitting. There were voices yelling—male, plural. I could hear them from the clinic.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive!”

  “I need to figure out how we can use your information to influence the investigation without revealing you’re alive.”

  “How hasn’t that been revealed?”

  “At this point it’s safer if you’re secret. If it wasn’t your father—”

  “It wasn’t!”

  “I don’t want to believe it either—but I wanted you to be prepared. You’re going to see it in the news. We’re trying to suppress the story until more is known, but it’ll leak. Tomorrow, day after at the latest.”

  I was tearing a paper towel into pieces with edges as ragged as my breathing. “They need new theories now because while they waste time on this, the real murderers are still out there.”

  “Penny, calm down.”

  “Calm down? You just asked if Father—” I paused to swallow against the tightening of my throat, gulp air that burned into my lungs with all the fury of my emotions. “Have you looked at Nolan? He could have orchestrated the murders to win support for the Organ Act—he was the one who stirred up the fight at breakfast, the reason Father sent the Wards away. Or the Zhus—they’re suspects for Carter—”

  “Nolan was on an airplan
e at the time. We’re following all leads. I probably shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but maybe you can help. Mick Ward suggested the Zhus too—he’s having a rough recovery from his head injury, but he thinks he recalls—”

  It was probably illegal to interrupt the vice president, but I did it again. “He thinks he recalls? Where are the cameras? We have security!”

  “The hard drives were erased and smashed, the online backup server wiped clean.”

  “How?”

  “We don’t know. The ID logged into the system for the wipe was your father’s.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear these images. I needed a hug or someone to hold my hand. I needed my parents, Carter. I needed everything impossible or I’d lie down sobbing and never get up. “Have you talked to Garrett Ward?”

  “He’s the youngest? He was away from the site of the shooting. He said he was waiting to meet you.”

  “He was.”

  “When he heard the sounds, he ran toward the gunfire. He’s the one who called 911.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Physically, yes.” Bob cleared his throat. “That’s enough questions, Penny. I’ve already told you too much. They’re following up on everything, I promise.”

  “What about Tom Tanaka? He’s the VIP who was on the estate that day—if Mick thinks … If he’s having trouble remembering …” Bob’s new wife was Korean, I didn’t want to offend him or imply I thought all Asians looked the same, just that it was entirely possible an idiot-Ward might assume Tanaka was a Zhu.

  “But Tom was with Castillo in the clinic when the shooting began, and then with you in the ambulance. Surely you don’t think Darius is in on it?”

  “No, of course not. Can I talk to him yet? Or Garrett?” Please. Please please please please.

  Bob sighed. It was the type of sigh Mother used to make whenever I asked to go off-estate. It expressed, Why do you ask these questions and force me to give you disappointing answers?

  “I know it’s hard, but it’s safer for everyone if you don’t. You’re going to have to trust the professionals to do their job—sometimes these things take time.”