Strange and Unusual (Goth Drow Unleashed Book 1)

by Martha Carr

  She was gone.

  “Ma’am, please…” spoke the male nurse, gesturing at an open room.

  “Hey, only one of us got shot, okay? And it wasn’t me.” Cheyenne balled her hands into fists and tried to calm her breathing, but the rage still smoldered. The last thing I need right now is a repeat of the skatepark. Keep it under control.

  Both nurses blinked at her and offered sympathetic smiles. The woman asked, “What’s your name?”

  Cheyenne stared at them both, swallowed, then turned and walked out of the ER without speaking another word.

  Chapter Six

  She nearly barreled right into a woman being pushed through the doors in a wheelchair. The woman moaned and rolled her head from side to side. When both the chair and Cheyenne stopped to avoid crashing into each other, the agonized woman took one look at the Goth girl covered in white makeup and someone else’s blood and fell quiet.

  Avoiding everyone else’s gazes and all the staring, Cheyenne swerved around the wheelchair and stalked outside. I need air. I need to think. I need…

  A short, vengeful growl escaped her as she moved down the sidewalk outside the hospital. A man with a cane hobbling toward the ER jumped at the sound, glanced at her, and double-timed it toward the doors.

  Smoothing the hair away from her face, Cheyenne ignored the old-timer and took a deep breath. “How did I let that happen? I should’ve just gone with her. Some fucking friends…”

  She paced the sidewalk until her rage lessened, then she turned toward the ER again. She approached the intake desk, and the same nurse, whose nametag she read for the first time, looked a little less terrified of the bloodied Goth chick reentering the emergency room.

  “Sharon. Can you at least please find out how she’s doing?”

  “With a gunshot wound and that much blood loss, they took her straight to the OR. We won’t know anything for a bit.”

  “She’s in surgery now? Can’t you get an update?”

  The nurse spread her arms and bowed her head, her gaze darting from Cheyenne’s. “I’m sorry.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Are you family?”

  Cheyenne bit the inside of her bottom lip and glared at the woman. “No.”

  “I can only speak to family. I’m sorry. Do you know anyone we can call?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Any information helps us help her.”

  Cheyenne closed her eyes. “I might as well be family, okay? Ember’s from…I don’t know. Chicago, I think. Her family’s all there.”

  “Do you have any phone numbers?”

  “No, I don’t have their numbers.” The half-drow rolled her eyes. “But I’m telling you, there’s no one else here—”

  “I’m sorry.” Nurse Sharon shook her head. “If you’re not related to the patient, I can’t give you any more information.”

  “Ember.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Her name’s Ember. Not ‘the patient.’” Cheyenne softened her tone.

  “Of course.” Nurse Sharon gestured toward the full waiting room, her brows flickering together in concern. “I am sorry there’s nothing more I can do for you, ma’am. Ember’s being taken care of as we speak, and I have to get to all these other people waiting to be seen next. If you’ll just—”

  Cheyenne pressed her palms on the edge of the desk, then changed her mind and slammed her fists on it instead. Sharon squeaked in surprise, the ER quieted in a split second, and someone’s baby started crying.

  The male nurse from earlier poked his head around a partition, then sauntered out. “What’s happening, Sharon? Are we good?” He maintained that same disarming smile.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at his nametag, “Andre. Sharon.” She peeped around the waiting room, then stared at the back of the old computer monitor and blinked. “But I’m not leaving until somebody tells me she’s okay.”

  “I get it, you know. Your friend is lucky to have you.” Andre looked at Cheyenne’s appearance and leaned forward to whisper, “The police are going to want to talk to you. It’s protocol with all gunshot victims. Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll grab you a coffee.”

  Cheyenne weighed her answer and nodded at him, then glanced at Sharon, who looked down at the intake forms on her desk and then called, “Mikey?”

  Cheyenne removed her hands and stepped back.

  A man with an angry gash in his forearm from a splinter larger than splinters had any right to be—which still protruded from the red, swollen skin around it—stood from his chair and walked toward the desk. He’d forgotten his discomfort as he smiled at Cheyenne’s piercings. He scanned her lip and nose, then his eyes traveled to the silver ring in her eyebrow. “Cool,” he said.

  She brushed past him and went to sit in an empty chair. The people waiting in the ER watched her as she slumped. The woman on her right, who’d been hacking up a lung for the last ten minutes, leaned away, then stood and took her cough to the other side of the room.

  Cheyenne folded her arms and closed her eyes. Bits of rubble and dirt and Ember’s blood were encrusted on her clothes, and her skinned knees stung like a bitch.

  I’m not leaving. I’ll figure out the police when I have to.

  Cheyenne jerked awake when the screaming child was carried through the emergency room doors by a sobbing mother. The nurses at the intake desk managed to quiet them before leading them both into one of the triage rooms, and Cheyenne cleared her throat.

  The waiting room now only held about a dozen people, and it still felt way too full. Once the crying mother and her kid were ushered into a private room, Nurse Sharon came out from behind the desk. She stopped in front of Cheyenne and offered her a paper cup of water. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like someone to take a look at your knees?”

  Her arms still folded, Cheyenne pulled her outstretched legs back toward her and held the nurse in her gaze. “Are you going to tell me anything? If the surgery’s done or if she…if she’s okay?”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry, Miss…” When Cheyenne didn’t offer her name, the nurse sighed and offered the cup again. “Some water will help.”

  “Your friend over there,” she glanced at Andre, who was speaking to an ill elderly woman and her grandson, “offered me coffee already. Must be how you guys try to…” She shook her head. “I’m good.”

  The nurse lowered the cup and glanced at the water, holding it now with both hands. “Legally, I can’t tell you what kind of treatment your friend is receiving or has received since you’re not related—”

  “We covered that part already.” Cheyenne sniffed and glanced around the waiting room. “I can’t leave without knowing if she’s okay.”

  “I understand, but no one’s going to be able to tell you anything.” The nurse tried to smile, then looked at the blood all over Cheyenne’s clothing and injured knees. The smile wavered. “I can tell you to come back tomorrow during visiting hours. If your friend’s recovered enough to put you on the approved visitors' list, you’ll have more luck.” She paused like she was weighing something, then she whispered, “The police are on their way. You have about five minutes.”

  The words made Cheyenne perk up. “Right.”

  “My suggestion would be to go home, get cleaned up, get some sleep, and come back tomorrow.”

  Blowing out a sigh through tight lips, Cheyenne pushed out of the chair. “I have to go to the front lobby for visiting hours?”

  “Yes.” Sharon’s voice was surprisingly level and calm.

  “Thank you.” Cheyenne eyed the cup in the woman’s hand. “Some water might help.” Then she turned and headed out the automatic doors.

  If I can’t get anyone to talk to me here, gonna have to go to Plan B.

  Cheyenne Summerlin had been doing that since she was ten.

  Chapter Seven

  At the front door of her apartment on St. John, Cheyenne fumbled in her pocket for her keys. It wasn’t out of exhaustion or fear for Ember,
although those things were swimming through her in equal parts, but because she just couldn’t move as quickly as she wanted to. She was exhausted.

  Once inside, a glance at the clock over the stove told her it was 3:07 a.m. She kicked her sneakers off and left them in a heap beside the entryway closet, then headed for the bathroom sink. The blood swirled in the water around the drain, and she had to work to get it all out from between her fingers. She peeled off her shirt, still damp with blood, and picked up a tank top from the floor, giving it a brief sniff.

  She headed for the fridge. Tonight’s options were mustard on the last slice of deli turkey and half a quart of milk. Cheyenne sniffed the carton’s contents, shrugged, and guzzled it.

  “Time to get to work.”

  Cheyenne went to the long executive desk that was the only real piece of furniture in her tiny living room. The minute she sat at it and gazed at the dark screens of her dual monitors, her nerves calmed. This was where she belonged, not out in some park blasting away at the first magicals she’d ever seen. The only place where Cheyenne knew what she wanted and how to get it was right here behind her computer. In her computer.

  She woke everything up. The fans in the tower she’d built from scratch whirred to life, followed by the blinking lights of her private server hidden behind an updated VPN and the entire world at her fingertips. “Maybe she’ll put me on the visitors' list. Maybe not. I’m not taking any chances.”

  The first thing she did was slip into VCU Medical Center’s patient database, which took about thirty seconds once she found the right network. It gave her a minor twinge of irritation that hospital records took less time to find than anything she’d searched for in her online classes as an undergrad.

  “This is a joke.” Shaking her head, Cheyenne looked up everything they had on Ember Gaderow. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough.

  ‘Caucasian female; early twenties; diagnosed GSWSCI at the thoracic level; entry and exit sites both identified; attempted surgical stabilization; possible paraplegia after recovery and decompression.’

  Cheyenne swallowed. As far as she could tell—and as much as anyone at VCU Medical Center had bothered to put into the system—Ember was okay. For now. But “possible paraplegia” made the half-drow recline in her chair and give a constricted groan. “She might not be able to walk.”

  She closed her eyes and pictured Ember in the recovery ward, unconscious, cut apart and sewn back together, and it was all Cheyenne’s fault.

  Because I keep hiding.

  She opened her eyes and pulled up information on the hospital’s visitation policy, then accessed a form under Ember’s name and added her information. She paused before typing her name. “They’re gonna figure it out sooner or later, and they’re gonna crap themselves when they realize they didn’t let me in to see her when I asked. Can’t say I didn’t try.”

  It was her mom’s name that made people stop and think twice about how they interacted with Cheyenne. That had given her a good smack in the face when she’d enrolled at Virginia Commonwealth University for her undergrad. She tried to keep Bianca Summerlin out of the equation whenever possible, but it got harder every year for Cheyenne to carve her own path.

  Bianca hadn’t been a bad parent. That never crossed Cheyenne’s mind. It didn’t change her mom’s voice in her head, whenever she found herself with a clear head facing a problem she hadn’t already solved.

  “The line between good and bad, fair and unfair, is very thin, Cheyenne. Black and white don’t exist. The trick is knowing when to cross that line. Once you understand that, you’ll understand everything we do comes with a price. Everything.”

  Those words had taken on many different meanings since Bianca drilled them into her daughter’s young mind. Cheyenne had soaked it up like a sponge, just like everything else. Now, for the first time, they made sense.

  “Okay, Mom. I get it.” Cheyenne sighed and dragged her hands down her face. “Ember was the price tonight. I tried to keep things black and white. Me versus the world.”

  Nodding, she dove deeper into her network, using untraceable routes switched out through her VPN with new entry locations every time she dug into the dark web. “Next time somebody asks for my help against magicals, I won’t say no.”

  Saying it felt right, despite no one being there to hear her pledge. She knew other magicals existed; tonight, she’d seen the way the orcs dealt with others. “I’ll figure it out. Gonna find the asshole who started it. This Durg.”

  Over the last three years, Cheyenne had come across mentions of magicals around the city. She’d gathered a few crumbs about underground businesses, about “the other side.” Tonight, Durg had spouted something about portals and Earth-side. About halflings. What was it Trevor had said? “This Border-rider storms in from Ambar’ogúl, thinking he runs the place.”

  That must mean something. Cheyenne was determined to find out what and how it applied to Ember. And to herself. “People like us have to stick together.”

  Ember had been so certain of that when she’d said it at the bar, but as far as Cheyenne knew, the things they had in common—the things connecting them into a friendship that had only strengthened since freshman year—had nothing to do with magicals and underground markets and portals. Until they did.

  She typed in a few searches and plugged them into her encrypted data sources, coded to ping her with any matches that came up. Not that it was ever as fast as Googling something, but Google couldn’t find what she was looking for. Cheyenne sat at her desk for another ten minutes, hoping her searches would find something quickly but not expecting anything so soon.

  Finally, when she sat back and her tank top cracked and rustled with the dried blood stuck to her chest and stomach, she gave up waiting for real-time results. “You do you, Glen.” She pointed at her center monitor and stood from the desk chair. “I gotta clean up.”

  She walked across her small apartment toward the single bathroom beside her bedroom, stripping off her clothes as she went. Instead of dropping them wherever they fell, she bundled them all up and chucked them in a pile in the bathroom's corner before turning on the shower. Everything felt fine except for the stinging scrapes on her knees, and she gritted her teeth when she peeled off her underwear and flung them onto the pile too. Before she stepped into the shower, she glanced at the clothes.

  Blood is the one drawback to wearing so much black. Only place that crap shows up brick-red.

  Stepping into the scalding water, Cheyenne hissed in pleasure and pain. The steam felt good. She used a washcloth to scrub her knees before bothering with the rest of the stains on her skin.

  Twenty minutes later, her long hair toweled off enough to not soak the giant Slipknot t-shirt she’d pulled over her head, Cheyenne stopped at her desk to check her results. The code for her search scrolled across the black background of the center monitor. She was about to head toward her bedroom when the computer duck-quacked—the tone she’d set for notifications. Cheyenne sat at the desk and reached down to rub her raw, itchy knees. She leaned toward the monitor.

  Durg Br’athol; pure O-class, 207 years; entered via Border 7 Reservation, March 2021

  “That’s it? O-class, huh? What the heck is ‘Border 7 Reservation?’” Cheyenne grabbed her thick black hair in both hands, twisted it to make sure it was dry enough for sleep, then glanced at the time. “Ugh. Class in four hours. Durg Br’athol, you’ll have to wait a bit. I’m sure you don’t mind.”

  Cheyenne left her searches running and retired to her twin bed covered in gray sheets and a black comforter with a cartoon skull. She grabbed her phone from the nightstand, set her alarm for 6:45 a.m., crawled under the covers, and turned off the small desk lamp.

  I’ll get my answers. She turned on her side and pulled the comforter over her shoulders. Whatever Ember meant by “people like us,” I can’t talk myself out of it anymore.

  Cheyenne fell asleep to the vivid memory of the chaos she’d unleashed on an O-class thug named Dur
g.

  Chapter Eight

  Just under four hours later, Cheyenne hurried through the campus’ IT building toward her first class of the day. Her backpack hung loose off her shoulders because only a few folders for her individual classes were in it. The sight of so many undergraduate students on the first floor made her push her memories of the first four years of college aside.

  Ember was the only good thing that came out of four years of pretending to be stupid.

  Some students stared at her as she walked past, the chains draping from her pockets jangling with every step. She’d braided her hair when she woke up after way too little sleep because she didn’t appreciate the wild curls after a shower and hadn’t had time to straighten it. And after years of practice at hiding and covering all her bases, it was second nature now to make sure every hairstyle came with a way to hide the tips of her ears just in case.

  Cheyenne snorted. Like that’s the first thing people look at when they see somebody’s skin turn dark purple. It’s the first thing that changes, anyway.

  But just to be sure, she’d put on a long-sleeve shirt today and pulled the sleeves down past her hands. Three hours of sleep and a friend lying in a hospital bed with a gunshot wound didn’t make it easier to keep her temper under control.

  She found her first class on the third floor—Theory of Programming Languages, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:00 to 10:00. Her schedule tried to pass it off as a lab, but after only having had the class twice so far this semester, Cheyenne had already pegged it as a recap class. She wouldn’t learn anything in this “lab” she hadn’t been taught in her undergrad classes or mastered by the time she’d tested out of online high school at sixteen.

  Just playing the game. It’s the second week, and I’m already bored.