by Lissa Kasey
“I threw up,” I told him. “Don’t kiss me. I need a toothbrush. BBQ doesn’t taste so good the second time around.”
“That’s why I kissed your cheek,” Alex said. “The nurse will be back in a little bit with release instructions.”
“What about the car? And you can’t drive,” I said. I closed my eyes a moment and startled awake when the nurse came back in, not realizing I’d fallen asleep that fast. The adrenaline was finally wearing off.
“I should be mad at you,” I told Alex.
“Yeah?” He asked.
The nurse removed the IV and blood pressure cuff. I had to work to focus on her. I would not be driving. Alex helped me out of the bed, steadying me with his arm around my waist. He had a handful of papers in his grasp, and led me to an offered wheelchair. I didn’t think I needed it, but the nurse insisted and wheeled us out to the curb where our SUV idled. Was Alex going to drive? He wasn’t supposed to. I frowned as I got out of the seat, but Freya appeared, opened the side passenger door for me, and Alex helped me in. I had a thousand questions, but waited until we were all strapped in and on the road.
“The detective said you told him stuff.” What was it Alex had told him? Oh right, my issues with letting anyone close to me. Was that really a secret? “Never mind. It’s stupid.”
Alex tugged on my seatbelt to make sure it was buckled, then reached for my hand. “It’s not stupid if you want to talk about it. It’s not stupid if it upsets you.”
I didn’t. At least not right now. I had questions. “I’m lost,” I told Alex who was sitting beside me in the seat behind Freya, who was driving. “Catch me up? What happened? Everything is sort of a blur.”
“You have a concussion,” Alex said. “The whole left side of your face is a big bruise. You must have turned your head at the last second else you’d have a busted nose. The concussion is a mild one, and you cut your forehead on the side of the car you found. They updated your tetanus shot, since they couldn’t find one on record for you. If your arm hurts the next few days, it’s because of the shot. Chad dropped Freya off at the hospital. The police drove the SUV to the hospital, and gave me the keys. I gave Freya the keys so she could drive us.”
“Oh,” I said, finally dropping pieces into place. “What time is it?” Only now did I recall dozing a few times in and out while being moved around the hospital, to the room, and to be scanned and back.
“After midnight,” Alex said.
I groaned. “Sorry, Freya.”
“It’s fine. I’m glad you’re okay. It sounds like you had a rough night.” She said. She took the highway, instead of the back roads I’d followed. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” I said.
“We’ll be back soon,” Freya told us. “So you can rest.”
“Did they find Byrony?” I asked. “Is Joe okay?”
Freya seemed to tense at the question, but Alex patted my hand. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, after you’ve gotten some rest. The police didn’t give me much information, and I was more worried about you than anything they found,” Alex said. “You hit that car pretty hard. I was right behind you, but my fucking hip locked up, slowing me down, else I’d have caught you before you ran into it.”
I let out a sigh and locked my fingers into Alex’s, squeezing for a moment. I needed to talk to him anyway. Just him. Tell him what I saw. Had he seen it too? The last thing I wanted was to spill all of it in front of Freya and have her think I was as crazy as I felt.
Crazy. Fuck. That was what Alex was afraid of. Had been for a while. And now I was teetering on the edge of the same thing. Did I want to see things? No. I, too, wanted to be normal. Was there a choice? Alex indicated he couldn’t turn it off. Had never really determined until recently that the things he saw weren’t what everyone else saw. Perhaps he didn’t witness the horror like I had. Maybe he only saw them as people. Had it been Byrony in the road? A collage of all her emotions and lifetime of memories squashed into one form? It hadn’t looked like Byrony, but it wasn’t like I stood there and examined it either.
I let out a long breath of air and clung to Alex’s hand, eyes closed, trying not to see the world around us. More memories I didn’t need. Almost like a nightmare. Was that why Alex didn’t want me to go into the woods? Had he seen this thing before the night he’d seen Byrony? Perhaps he’d known somehow that I would find the car. I didn’t realize I dozed until Alex roused me again, and I found us stopped in the little lot outside the B&B.
“I can clean up the room Byrony was staying in if you two want to stay in the main house,” Freya offered.
“Thank you, but we are fine in the cabin,” Alex answered for us. He helped me out of the car, and held his hand out for the keys. Freya got out and handed them to him.
“Let me know if you need anything,” she said.
“Thanks again. Sorry for the late night,” Alex said. He hit the button on the fob to lock the car. “See you in the morning.” He directed me around the house and toward the cabin.
“I’m okay,” I promised him. “Just tired.” Though I admit to clinging to him as we walked the lighted stone walkway to the cabin. Every sound, every shadow, every dark corner made my heart pound, and by the time we got to the door of the cabin, I was trembling.
Alex opened the door, reached inside to turn on the light and tugged me in behind him. He locked the door then wrapped me up in his arms. I couldn’t stop trembling. Was that still the shock? Maybe the concussion. I’d never had one before. Alex was breathing hard, not crying, but focusing on deep inhales and exhales, like I often did when I needed a minute.
“Alex?” I whispered. What had he seen? His sight was always so much more intense than mine. If I’d seen some hideous monster in the dark, what must it have looked like to him?
“Better to talk about it in the morning, I think,” Alex said after a minute. “Things are less scary in the daytime.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he pulled back enough so I could see his face and how tired he looked. He shook his head. “Not tonight. For my sanity, too. Let’s get you cleaned up and in bed.”
“I feel gross,” I said. Hospitals always did that to me. The scents of disinfectants, and other people, drugs, and latex, among other things, always seemed to cling to my clothes. Plus I’d thrown up, and felt like I could still smell that too, though I didn’t think I’d gotten any on myself.
Alex led me toward the tiny shower area. There wouldn’t be enough room for the both of us. Rubbing off together required no space between us, actual washing did. And I was too tired and strung out for the rubbing off.
“What’s that look for?” Alex asked as he turned on the water and began to tug off my clothes.
“Wishing I wasn’t too… everything to sex you up.”
He grinned. “Tomorrow.”
“I hope my head doesn’t hurt still.” I let him strip away my clothes and watched him gather it up into a pile, then I stepped into the small shower. The water was hot and I let it cascade over my back, avoiding my stitches and my aching face.
“Be right back,” Alex said. He vanished from the bathroom, leaving me in the small glass enclosed shower area for only a minute or two before returning with a fresh pile of clothes. Undies for both of us, and a T-shirt for him. Alex did not like sleeping naked. Part of his time serving, he said. Always be prepared in case they had to jump up in the middle of the night and fight or something. I only slept in undies because it made him less embarrassed by the way his body responded to me. Another reminder that we were new together, adjusting and learning. Was I worth the effort, I wondered again?
He opened the little toiletries bag I’d brought with and pulled out a bandage. “I knew I’d thrown some waterproof ones in here. Let me put this over your stitches so I can I wash your hair.”
I stepped closer to him, away from the spray and let him brush my hair back to apply the bandage. “Is there blood in my hair?” I asked.
Alex nodded. “And lea
ves and dirt.”
“Gross.” I turned back toward the water, avoiding putting the injured side of my face near the downpour. Alex stripped out of his clothes and squeezed in behind me, bringing in my shampoo and a small washcloth. I leaned against the wall, resting my chin on my elbows as Alex washed my hair, then carefully used the washcloth to rinse away the rest of the dirt all over my body. I was half asleep when the water was turned off, but mind still racing, not quite letting me succumb again.
“Were the police already there?” I wondered out loud. They had been there too soon to have responded to the 911 call.
“They were following Joe’s phone. Got a hit off a cell tower nearby. Sounds like they were searching the area.”
“So they knew he was close…” I sighed, relaxing into Alex’s touch even though I felt sort of numb. Had they given me something at the hospital? I thought I vaguely recalled some sort of painkiller. “Was he alive? Is he alive?”
Alex sort of hesitated, but finally said, “Physically, yes.”
That was an odd answer. Alex reached for the towel, and carefully dried me off.
“What about you?” I asked waving at his body, though he looked clean.
“I showered while you were dozing. Want to brush your teeth?”
“Yes, please.”
“Will you fall asleep over the sink if I don’t hold you up?”
“Maybe. No promises.”
He helped me into my undies, then I leaned against the sink and watched him dress. Boxer briefs for him, and a T-shirt. Then we both brushed our teeth. The minty freshness helped ease some of my anxiety as the last of that acid was washed away. The stairs up to the loft felt like climbing Mount Everest. Alex helped me into bed, then vanished back downstairs, where the lights went out. He left the one near the door on, for which I was grateful, and returned to curl up next to me.
“Alex?” I had so much emotion floating in my gut, it began to well up, like a rising tide of anxiety. I was about to jump out of bed and start pacing when he rolled over, trapping me beneath his weight, and weaving his hand through my hair. It was a sudden stop to the anxiety, like he hit pressure points or something to turn me to jelly.
“In the morning,” he said. I reached up and wove my hand through his hair, delighting in his curls and the weight of it on my palm. Having him close helped. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on having him in my arms instead of the craziness of the past few hours.
Chapter 18
The morning arrived far too quickly. Alex rousing me with a huge cup of coffee and a handful of aspirin helped. I thought for a minute I’d have preferred a blow job to wake up, until my first sip of coffee, and realized Alex knew me better than I knew myself.
“How are you feeling?” He asked quietly. “Dizziness? Pain? Lightheaded? Nausea?”
“Tired,” I grumbled at him, sipping my coffee and relaxing.
I watched him move around the cabin, taking out clothes for us, putting away the things we had gotten from the store yesterday, cleaning and packing, keeping us organized. Alex did organized well when he focused. Him in skinny jeans and a Simply Crafty T-shirt hugging his shoulders did not help me focus. Had his ass always been so cute or was it the jeans accentuating the curves that helped?
“I feel like one of those anime characters drooling over a lover,” I muttered into my coffee.
Alex looked up and rewarded me with a sexy smile. He stalked the few feet to where I sat in a chair beside the door and leaned over to kiss me. Since I was already dressed and cleaned up for the morning, leaving coffee as my only flavoring, he lingered over my lips. I sighed into his mouth, wishing I could take him back to bed.
“You still want to go to the convention right away this morning?” Alex asked.
“Yes.” I was actually tempted to go today and then say screw it to the rest of the week and head home. If I could talk to a few people today, get contact information, and make a few connections, we wouldn’t need to attend with the bigger crowds and could leave behind the madness of the last few days. I was tired of being a suspect. Tired of having people stare at me like I knew stuff or was hiding things. Just tired of having to be the put together guy people remembered from a time long past.
“Drugs must be helping,” he said after a minute. “You’re not flinching when I kiss you.”
Had I reacted before? I could recall something prior to the coffee, but figured it wasn’t important enough to matter. “Does it look awful?”
“I hope people won’t think I’m beating you when we’re out and about,” Alex said. “You’re pretty colorful on that side.” He waved a hand to change the topic. “I have an Uber coming for us.”
“Huh?”
“Taking you to breakfast first, then the convention. Not a good idea for you to drive. So rideshare it is. What do we need with us?”
“We’re not going to the main house for breakfast?”
“No,” Alex said firmly. “I already sent a message to Freya. We’ll eat, then spend some time wandering around fabric. We could both use the distraction.”
“Okay,” I agreed, wondering what he had seen last night. “Are we going to talk about last night?” We actually had a lot to talk about. I had an endless cycle of questions on my mind.
He threw himself into the seat next to me, a frown defining the lines on his face. It was rare for him to look as old as he did in that moment. More the age of his soul seeping through than the physical age. The strain of life on his skin had always appealed to me about him. Small imperfections that drew my attention. Maybe I did have a daddy kink.
“You’re so hot right now,” I told him.
He gave me a self-deprecating smile. “Don’t distract me with sex if you want to talk about spooky stuff.”
I sighed. “I hate spooky stuff, but can’t bury it under the rug forever. Might as well get it out already.”
He reached out to grasp my hand. “Tell me what you saw? You don’t normally see stuff, but I know you did.”
I sucked in air and closed my eyes as though that could somehow stop the memory. “Something,” I admitted. “A mash of people maybe? Like a wall of writhing flesh with faces melted into it? A nightmare? Hell, I’ve never had nightmares like that, not in all the years of being tormented by the noises at night.” And that had been after I’d seen shadows in the woods. I could recall them for the few seconds before I’d come face to face with that monster. Had those been real too? “Shadows in the woods too, before.”
“And when you stopped the car? Did you see Joe in the road?”
“Not at first. I saw the shadow at first. Rushing across the road. Then I saw Joe. But I had already stopped. You reacted before I did. You saw him first?”
“Coming up off the side of the road, yes, not lying in it.”
“So you saw movement too.”
Alex nodded and seemed to think about that for a minute. He got up and refilled my coffee cup, turning off the pot before he made his way back. His silence was unnerving. Silence was one of those things I’d learned to spend a lot of time analyzing. Ours wasn’t normally a tense silence, more one filled with thought. This one was a gauge of what he wanted to say versus what he thought.
“Don’t temper yourself on my account,” I told him. “I know I sound crazy too. But I lost sound,” I finally said, adding to the stretch of thoughts I knew were running around his head. “It happened the first time when I was on that trail two years ago. Everything vanishes. I can feel my heart pounding, but can’t hear anything. Just the pounding in my ears. That happened this time too. Didn’t come back until I was on the ground.”
Alex looked at me now. “So you didn’t hear me calling you?”
“No. Didn’t know you were behind me at all.”
He gripped my hand, squeezing it hard.
“Alex talk to me. What did you see? Was it like what you saw when you were in the hospital?”
“Yes and no? In the hospital, those things were smaller, less defined, and li
mited to one person. This other thing… Honestly, it’s hard to explain. In the road, that thing that was a mash? What did I see? Death. No other way to describe it. Saw it once before, overseas. Large, solid, defined, yet not. Thought I was seeing things. Too much heat and sand. Saw it wandering an open-air market. There were so many dead that day, on the other side, but I guess it’s all the same. Dead is dead. And the death I’ve seen didn’t wander around in a black cloak with a sickle in his grasp. More liked a bloated monstrosity devouring souls…”
I gasped at him because that was exactly what I’d seen and it still made me sick to think of it. I had to work to breathe, counting careful numbers and staring at my sewing machine because every time I closed my eyes, I saw it again.
“Lots of mythology around Death, with a capital D,” I said after a few minutes of getting control of myself. What did that mean for the afterlife if there was one?
“Omens and stuff, yeah,” Alex agreed. “My brother has a lot of random occult books at his place. Plus you have a ton in the shop. I’ve been reading as much as I can. Trying to find answers to things no one really knows for sure, I guess?”
“What about Joe?” I asked. “That shadow? He’s not dead. You said he was breathing.”
“Physically not dead,” Alex clarified. “I think that thing, Death, or whatever it was, was chasing Joe’s soul. Or spirit. Whatever.” He waved his hand. “I guess the terms don’t matter much. It formed out of the darkness, coming up off the side of the road and lunging toward Joe’s spirit. But yes, Joe is alive. Breathing.” He sat in silence for another minute, then added, “Empty. In the psych ward, I met a couple guys like that. Empty. Like they were just shells of people instead of actual people. I didn’t understand why. Thought maybe it was the meds that made them so lifeless. I know they were guys who attempted suicide and were considered to have failed. But maybe that’s not right? Maybe they didn’t fail, but killed what was inside instead of the physical part?” He shivered.