Chapter 14
“When we tookyour cell phone, I also took this,” he said, holding up my room key. Oh, shit. “Wasn”t nice of you to run from us, Spooner. I reckon it”s time you come back with me.”
“I didn”t run. He let me go.” I kept the tremor from my voice. “Does he know you”re here?” I didn’t have to say who. He knew I meant Lee.
“None of your fucking business,” he barked, with an antsy look back to the door. “Now get up off your ass and come on. Best do it without a fight, unless you want things to get ugly. I”ve had enough of you and your zombie boyfriend fucking shit up.”
“I”m not going anywhere.” I couldn”t stand up if I wanted to. I felt more nauseated than ever, and my head was killing me. Adrenaline was coursing through my body, and I would run if I had to, but just the thought of getting off the bed made me feel sick.
He was at my bedside in two swift steps. He grabbed me by my arm and wrenched me up and I yelped in pain. “Shut up,” he whispered hotly in my ear. “Now march.” He gave me a shove. I felt something cold and hard at my back; I hadn’t seen a gun, but I couldn’t rule it out. He was clearly trying to march me out before Phillip returned, which wasn”t the worst idea. What Phillip would do to him would have given me a shudder if I didn”t hate and fear Shank so much.
I stumbled, almost face planting on the floor, and went down on one knee, feeling the rug scrape my skin through my pants. I stumbled toward the door, tears starting in my eyes. I was so sick of this, so damn sick of it. When would they leave me in peace? I opened my mouth to tell Shank that we were planning to leave, to go back home to Jekyll like we’d been told, if he’d just let me go, but the cold sharpness against my back and the rough, ragged breath behind me told me that it’d do no good.
“You shit,” I seethed through my pain, too angry to keep my mouth shut. “Mark my words, I will make you pay for this. And when I’m done, you’ll be taking meals through a straw in a face that’s even uglier than it already is.”
“Shut up, bitch.” He pushed me to the door none too gently and I stumbled again. I fiddled with the door handle, trying to wrench it open with shaking hands. My head felt fuzzy and I had tunnel vision. The gun pressed harder into my back and I began to whimper, finally managing to get the heavy old door open. Shank gave me another shove and I lurched forward, bracing myself for the inevitable fall when my knees would hit the concrete hallway.
Instead, I fell into a pair of strong arms, and almost wept with joy when I looked up to see Phillip”s face. He caught me, instantly appraised the situation, and propped me up against the door frame.
“Stay here,” he advised.
Shank had already started backing into the room, holding out the gun, aiming it at Phillip. He was cornered, but he wasn”t going to surrender easily. I clung to the door frame, fighting the waves of nausea and the aching in my head.
“Phillip, be careful!”
He took no notice of my warning and advanced on Shank. “I”d say you were the stupidest fucking person alive for daring to come here,” he said, his voice full of acid. “But you”re actually doing me a favor. Going to the police is probably the right thing to do, but where”s the satisfaction in that? I”m going to enjoy beating you to a fucking pulp.”
“Stay the fuck away from me, you dead piece of shit.” Shank was waving the gun around erratically. I was paralyzed with fear. “My orders come from Guthrie and it ain’t a good idea to fuck with him-”
“I don”t give a fuck, man.” Phillip reached Shank in a few short steps, and before the words were fully out of his mouth, he reared back and punched him right in the face. Blood spurted from Shank”s nose and he went down like a lead balloon.
It was the second time in a couple of days that I”d seen Phillip break somebody”s nose. He did it with ease, like popping a piece of bubble wrap. My mouth filled with saliva, and my gorge rose at the vivid visual before me. I swallowed hard, and slow-blinked, surveying the blood all over Shank and the floor, and exhaled slowly.
The gun was on the floor and Shank was reaching for it, but he couldn”t really see because his eyes were swelling up. Blood poured on the carpeted floor. “I”m going to kill you, you dead fucking bastard.”
“Like to see you try.” Phillip”s voice was eerily calm as he reared back with one massive leg and kicked Shank hard in the chest. He kicked him again, leveling him out on the floor. Then he was on him, pummeling him with his fists. Shank was trying to put up a fight, but he was no match for someone of Philip”s size and strength. I had no doubt that Phillip was going to kill him. Because of me, Phillip was going to have a death on his hands. I wanted to yell, to scream at Phillip to stop, but I couldn’t find my voice. A small part of me wanted him to keep going, to rip the scourge away from us. One less specter looming over our lives. I felt faint. Before I knew what was happening, I was going down, my vision tunneling and blackness rising to meet me.
A pair of arms caught me just before my head hit the concrete. Phillip. God, how did he move so fast? Just moments before he”d been pinning Shank down, beating his face to a pulp. He cradled my head in his arms, which were streaked with blood. “We can”t let you get another head injury, sweetheart,” he said, his voice full of tenderness. He paused just long enough to place a kiss on my forehead, prop me up against the door, then he straightened up and turned, ready to finish off his work.
Neither of us were aware that Shank had stood. How, I didn’t know, since Phillip had beaten him senseless. He was covered in so much blood he looked like something from a Rob Zombie movie. House of a Thousand Pricks, I thought with a ludicrous, swimmy-headed giggle. Except in this one the corpse has a heart of gold.
Shank had found the gun, aimed it at Phillip and fired. Phillip recoiled, his left hand raising up to clutch at his right shoulder, and then he staggered and went down on one knee, onto the floor, blood seeping from his arm. I screamed.
Shank lowered the gun, took a look at us through his swollen, blood crusted eyes, and made a beeline for the door.
I couldn”t let him get away. He had fucked with us enough; they all had. Through my pain and dizziness, I managed to get myself up off the floor and I hobbled in front of the door, blocking it. He made no move to slow down, like he planned to barrel right through me. I rallied my strength and tackled him as hard as I could, using my body weight to propel him forward, both of us falling into a heap on the concrete floor. My head split into shards of pain that seemed to come from all directions. The gun flew out of Shank”s hand. I rolled him over, pinning him, and managed to grab the gun before he could reach for it. He struggled against me, but most of the fight had left him.
“You stupid bitch,” he spat, his hateful eyes fixed on my face. “I should have broken your arms when I had the chance.”
“You should have,” I agreed. “I’ve had enough of your limp-dick bullshit.” I cradled his head in my hands, picked it up, and cracked it as hard as I could against the floor. His skull made a wet, thick sound as it hit the concrete beneath the thin layer of carpet. He screamed out in pain, but I wouldn”t let go. Thud. I did it again, and he was still.
“Jesus,” said Phillip in a weak voice from the corner of the room. I looked up in surprise. He was lying against the wall, clutching his arm, his face pale. “Remind me never to piss you off. You just cracked his head like a fucking egg.”
I managed to stumble over to the bed and eased down on it, my head an odd mixture of horror, nausea, elation, and pounding-hot migraine. I turned to Phillip, dazed. “I told you I”d protect you,” I said stupidly, then passed out cold.
The nurse attendingme had an unsmiling mouth and squeaky white shoes. She was professional, but I could tell she wanted to roll her eyes when I asked for the fifth time to see Phillip.
“He”s in with the doctor right now,” she said to me, which was more information than she”d given before. “You can’t see him right now. Neither of you have been cleared for visitors.” She tucked the sheets in around my legs. “Now please, try to get some rest.”
As it turned out, I did have a concussion, and I was also dangerously dehydrated as a result of whatever drug I”d been given. We were still waiting for the results to come back to find out exactly what it was.
After I”d dealt the blow to Shank and then passed out on the bed, Phillip had managed to crawl over to the phone and call 911. I had come to shortly afterward and seen him struggling at the mirror with a useless, bloody arm, trying to put his hair up in what appeared to be a man-bun. I tried to sit up, recoiling with horror when I saw Shank still lying on the floor. “Is he...dead?” I asked slowly, the memory of cracking his head on the floor rushing back. “Oh no, Phillip, did I kill him?”
“No,” he told me hastily, turning around with a grimace. “He”s breathing. You just cleaned his clock, that’s all. Just lie down, Stormy. I called 911. They”re on the way.”
“Come sit with me.”
He did. His arm was bloody and hanging at a strange angle. I could tell he was in pain but trying to pretend he wasn”t. He”d done a half-assed job of tying a towel around it to stop the bleeding. “Let me,” I said, ignoring the woozy feeling in my head.
“It”s okay, Stormy,” he said, shaking me off. “Just rest.”
“Shut up, you stubborn ass.” I took off the towel, folded it into a strip, and wrapped it around Phillip”s arm, trying not to look too closely at the wound, which was still gushing blood. “We need to stop the bleeding.” I pulled it taut, which wasn”t easy among the slick blood and the fact that his arms were so huge, and the motel towels so tiny. I pulled it tighter, pretending not to see him wince. “There,” I said finally, looking over my work, hoping the EMTs would get here quickly. It was still bleeding; the towel was already turning pink from the blood seeping through.
“I”ll be okay,” he reassured me, his good arm reaching out toward me. “It”s you I”m worried about. Your head, the drugs...”
“I”ll be okay, too.” I looked in his wild green eyes and tried for a queasy smile. “I’m a fucking witch, remember?”
He tried to cradle me in his good arm, but his clothes were damp with blood and I was nauseated when I tried to close my eyes, so we both sat back up, laughing nervously, both in pain and freaked out and trying to look strong for the other. I wondered if my own eyes looked half as wild as Phillip”s bright green ones did.
My eyes went to his hair and I laughed harder. It was definitely a man bun. “Your hair,” I croaked. “What”s going on there?”
“I thought it”d be a better disguise, maybe. I saw it in that magazine you had. I guess this is how we’re wearing it now?” He licked his lips. “Do they call this a half-Leia?”
“That was a really shitty attempt at a joke, Deville,” I said. “God, you”re white as a ghost. Do you think you could bear to change your shirt before they get here? I could help you. That towel really isn”t doing anything.” He was still losing so much blood.
“No,” he said, wincing in pain. “They”ll just rip it off me anyway.”
“At least let me fix your hair. I can’t stand it, Phillip. You look like Jared Leto on a meth-bender.”
“I don’t know who that is,” he said, but he pulled the band from his hair and let it fall free. It rained down on his shoulders in a long, sweaty cascade.
“I just hope your doctors aren”t Bloomer Demon fans,” I said, feeling another woozy spell coming on. I slumped back down on the bed and waited for the ambulance.
Somewhere,in another part of the hospital, Shank was being treated for his injuries. He”d woken up while the paramedics were loading him onto the stretcher, and we had heard him screaming and hollering all the way to the ambulance. Knowing he was alive was a relief, because I didn’t fancy being a murderer, or turning a guy into a vegetable – but I wondered what type of revenge he might try to unleash on me when he recovered. It was no use asking the nurse how he was doing; she wouldn”t tell me.
“Will you let me know,” I asked her as she retreated from the room, “when Frank is able to see people?”
I was glad Phillip had had the foresight to come up with a fake name before the paramedics had shown up. He’d suggested Frank Stein, but I’d pointed out how glaringly, ridiculously obvious that was. For a goth rockstar, he sure had the dad jokes. Frank Sloan was the name he”d given them in the end. Sloan would cackle with delight when she heard that later, though for some reason, I wasn’t sure I quite liked it.
The police had already come and gone twice, peppering me with questions about Shank and Phillip, needing my official story. I’d recounted it the best I could, careful to give them the same story I’d quickly rehearsed with Phillip. It was a vague, general story full of holes and discrepancies, if the police bothered to take the time to look into it, but to my relief, neither of the deputies I’d spoken with seemed particularly interested. They were just glad to sign off on the report for what I’d told them it was: a simple robbery. I’d let my eyes fill with the appropriate amount of tears while telling them all about how Shank had demanded money, and when I’d told him I didn’t have any, he had told me to give him all my jewelry and valuables. Phillip had burst in on the scene at just the right time, and he and I had defended ourselves against Shank the best we could.
They’d bought it, I knew they had. So far nobody had thought to ask why I had drugs in my system; I hoped they would continue to overlook that detail, just assume I was a user. They were tired, and overworked, and why would they doubt us? I knew Phillip had recounted the very same story. The cops had told me as much.
“Don’t worry, little lady,” the older of the two, a grizzled, red-faced guy with silvery hair and a big broom mustache, had said kindly, patting my wrist. It was all I could do not to snort; did grown-ass men still actually call women things like “little lady”? “Your boyfriend is going to be just fine. The gunshot wound wasn’t deep, and he didn’t hit an artery.”
I wanted to see Phillip for myself, though. I needed to see with my own eyes that he was alright. I needed to touch him, to smell him. To know that he was still here with me. Lydia had said he couldn”t die, at least not easily, but why should I believe her?
Who was she, anyway?
I’d had time, sitting in my uncomfortable, narrow hospital bed, to think about all the people I’d encountered since the spell, and what part they played in all of this. Lydia was married to Guthrie, and even though she claimed she hadn’t seen him in a decade, she was tied into this somehow. It was no coincidence that Phillip and I had been magically bound and then me abducted right out of her front yard. I thought back to her cryptic answers to our questions, her weird, fragile demeanor and how seemingly at odds she’d been with herself – defiant and belligerent one moment, empathetic and concerned the next – and realized that she reminded me of someone. Someone else who seemed at turns empathetic and apathetic, willing to harm one moment and help the next. Lee Courtenay.
The nurse left, dimming the lights as she went, and I was alone in the room with my thoughts. It was only a matter of hours before I”d be allowed to check out, she”d said. It was just a minor concussion. Once the results from the blood test were back, I would be free to go. I didn”t want to go back to the motel without Phillip – all those police and their questions to answer – and I was scared. What if Lee was there, waiting for me? Surely, he”d heard what happened to his right-hand man by now.
But as it turned out, he didn”t go to the motel. He came to the hospital.
I was drifting off with Judge Judy on mute playing on the TV in the corner, when he let himself into the room. He came in so quietly I almost didn”t notice him, just thought he was one of the nurses or doctors, until he cleared his throat and I came to.
My blood rose in alarm, but then I realized I wasn”t scared anymore. Not after what had happened. I levelled my gaze on him, as much as I could, since my head was still making me woozy.
“You”ve got a lot of nerve, showing your face here,” I said finally.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said. He did look slightly guilty.
“Oh yes, I”m sure. I”m sure you also stopped in to check on Phillip, too.”
“I didn”t,” he said. “It”s you I worry about, not him.”
“He”s a person, you know,” I spat. “A human being.”
“I think I know all too well who is human and alive and who isn”t, Stormy,” he said, his voice edging close to bitterness. I had no idea what he meant by such a weird statement, or why his face twisted the way it did, and I didn’t care. “And who is in need of my help.”
“How absolutely philanthropic of you. Do you say that to all your kidnapping victims?”
“I told you before,” he said. “You’re in danger. I did what I did to try and save you, as fucked up as it sounds.”
“Tell that to Phillip’s shot-up arm.”
He looked at me in surprise. “He’s...wounded?”
“That tends to happen when you get shot,” I said nastily. “And speaking of, did you happen to check in on your henchman?”
“He”s not my henchman,” he said. “But yeah. The two of you fucked him up pretty good, but I guess he probably deserved it.” He sighed and ran a hand through his light hair. “I’m sorry about all this, Stormy. It’s been handled badly.”
“All this,” I repeated, the words tasting sour on my tongue. “I don”t even know what ”all this” is. I thought for a while that Phillip did, and he was just protecting me, but now I don”t think even he knows. So why don”t you enlighten me, Lee? Tell me why you keep following us around, and why you care so much about my well-being but don”t give a fuck if Phillip lives or dies? Why won”t you just leave us alone?”
“I can”t,” he said. “I wish I could, but I can”t.”
“Are you going to tell me why?”
“I”m not supposed to,” he said.
“Let me guess,” I said, holding a hand to my pounding head. “Mommy Dearest told you not to.”
He looked at me in surprise. “What are you-”
“I’m not stupid. I figured it out,” I said. “I can see the resemblance. You have the same whiff of self-loathing.”
He winced.
“My head hurts,” I said, closing my eyes, wanting him far away from me. “Can you leave?”
“I’ll go. I just hope that…that one day I can explain. And that you’ll remember that I tried my best to keep you out of this.”
“I”d prefer not to remember you at all,” I said. “Now fuck you very much, bye.”
“I”m sorry, Stormy,” he said in a low voice, his expression stricken. He came toward the bed and held out something to me - my cell phone. Then he turned on his heel and walked out the door, without a look back, shutting it behind him with a gentle but firm click.
I lay there for a long time, staring at Judge Judy and drinking the orange-tinted dregs of ice from the bottom of my long-gone cup of juice, moping. There was something about Lee that did not make sense. He didn”t seem to have a vengeful, manipulative bone in his body. Everything he”d done seemed to be thrust upon him, and his bitterness at having to carry it all out was pretty clear. And he had feelings for me, too – what kind of feelings I didn”t know. It could be anything from a crush to pity, but whatever it was, it wasn”t hate. He didn”t want to hurt me. I could feel it – his intention – coming off him in waves, and he did nothing to try and hide it from me. He didn”t want to involve me at all, but he seemed to have to. I wondered why.
Was it his mother, Lydia? I wondered if she’d orchestrated my kidnapping that day, entertaining Philip and me in her living room as a ruse, a distraction to keep us occupied until Lee and Shank could get there? But that didn’t seem right, either. Oh, she was shifty and creepy and definitely a few cards short of a full deck, but I didn’t detect outright malice in her. And her warning to Phillip, when she’d poked her feathery head out of her front door, had felt genuine. I’d felt her, then, the same way I felt Lee – her intentions had been good. What was it about these intentions – it was as though we could feel them, bouncing around in the air, threads that just needed to be picked up and followed.
Lydia had been fascinated by Phillip. I’d felt her sparked interest, her longing to examine him, pepper him with questions, take him under her wing. She felt protective toward him too. Whoever she was, she didn’t want to cause either of us harm. And as angry as I was at him, I knew now that neither did Lee.
But I knew one thing: as soon as we were released from this festering shithole of a hospital, Phillip and I were high-tailing it back to Jekyll, even if I had to hog-tie him and throw him in the back of my truck in a burlap bag. We were leaving.
Judge Joe Brown was on now and I drifted off to sleep, still tasting oranges on my tongue, grateful that, for once, there was nobody lurking in the doorway to disturb me.
I awoke some time later,the sky pitch dark outside the heavy-curtained window, with the sense that somebody was in my room.
I reached for the “Call” button on the side of my bed, having had my fill of unwelcome visitors; I didn’t care who the hell it was this time, I would go down fighting. But as the figure emerged from the darkness, my heart leapt. It was Phillip.
His face was ghostly pale in the darkness, his black hair a shroud around his head. His arm was bandaged up in a sling, stark white against the black of his shirt. He put a finger to his lips. “Are you alright?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I”ve got to go, Stormy,” he said, taking my hand. His skin was a little cold. “If you don”t feel up to leaving yet, I”ll come back for you. But I have to get out of here, now.”
“What”s wrong?”
“I”ll explain later,” he said. “No time.”
“I”ll go with you.” I sat up. The pain in my head was minimal, for which I was thankful. The scratchy hospital gown caught on the bedside table as I sat up, and I cursed. I rubbed a hand over my head, which was throbbing less than it had been. “Would you hand me my clothes? They”re over there.”
“Are you sure you”re okay to get up?” he asked.
“Phillip, you got shot and you”re asking me if I”m okay?” I smiled and gingerly started to put on my shirt.
“I didn”t get a nasty bump on the head.”
“Something tells me that if you did, you”d still be fine,” I teased. He offered me an arm and I stood, pulling on my jeans. He leaned down, one-armed, to help me with my socks and shoes, and my heart filled with tenderness.
He smiled faintly and stood back up, doing a quick sweep of the room. I handed him my cell phone, which he pocketed, and we made our way toward the door. I didn”t feel sluggish anymore, and my head and my legs were no longer shaking. All that was left was the faintest of headaches. I touched a finger to the bump gingerly, wincing when I felt the scabbed flesh.
He craned his head to the door and listened. He nodded to me silently and I nodded back, opening the door as quietly as I could. I peered out into the hallway, formulating a plan to tell the nurses I was just hungry if they apprehended me. It wasn’t a lie; the hospital food they’d offered me – a hockey puck that was apparently Salisbury steak and a glop of icy cold rehydrated mashed potatoes – had sat untouched all night on my plastic tray. Luckily there was nobody in the hall. Phillip and I eased out together, walking carefully to the stairwell just off to the right of my room. It was too risky to take the elevator out in the main lobby, I understood that without him having to tell me. Phillip went in first, then beckoned to me with his long, thin fingers. As soon as we were heading down the stairs, he whisked off his arm sling and stuffed it in his pocket.
“Phillip, what are you doing? You probably need that-”
“My arm”s fine,” he said in a loud whisper, not slowing. “I just left it on in case they saw me.”
“What do you mean, your arm”s fine?” He’d gotten shot, for god’s sake. I knew he was tough, but Jesus Christ.
“They got the bullet out early this morning,” he said. “It was a clean shot, no fragments or anything. Didn”t hit an artery. I”m good.”
I pulled on his shirt, making him stop. “Let me see.” I carefully pulled up his sleeve, bracing myself for the sight of a gunshot wound in his perfect, muscled arm. When I didn”t see a bandage, I looked at him in surprise.
“I took it off,” he said. “I”m fine.”
“But you need to let it heal-”
“It”s healed.”
“But it must hurt-”
“No.” He pulled the sleeve all the way up and I stared in surprise. The skin was smooth and white and soft. There was no bandaging, no bullet hole, no scar - no sign that he”d ever been hurt at all.
“Jesus,” I said. “I”m beginning to get really sick of all these super-powers of yours.”
He made a face and beckoned me to continue. We started down the stairs, me staring at the back of his head in awe. I almost tripped over my own feet and grabbed onto the banister.
“I guess I see now why you had to leave so fast,” I said. “If they”d seen how soon you healed...well, there would be some questions.”
“And I doubt they”d believe, ”my girlfriend raised me from the dead and now I have super human strength, psychic abilities and I heal from gunshot wounds.””
He had called me his girlfriend. My cheesy grin didn”t seem appropriate, considering all that had happened and how much danger we were in, but it was hard to stop. He said nothing, just kept trudging down the steps in front of me, but I felt a vibe come off him, and it felt like laughter. I stayed quiet, though it didn”t matter. Psychic abilities. He was probably reading my every thought right now, the bastard.
“I”m trying not to,” he said with a chuckle. “But you think so loud.”
Navigating the lobby was stressful. We both did our best to blend in and look like visitors rather than patients, but it was difficult, me shuffling along, sleepy and with a headache, and him in his pale, 6”5” glory. We probably looked like two junkies on a drug bender, but thankfully, nobody milling around the elevators or gift shop gave us a second glance. We had to dodge one cop, but he was on his cell phone and didn”t notice us as we dashed behind the map board.
“How are we going to get back to the motel?” I asked him when we were safely outside.
“We aren”t. Too many questions to answer, and all that damage? No. Let Shank be on the hook for that, I”m not going back there.”
“But what about our stuff? Our clothes, your phone, the money...”
“We can buy new clothes. Same with the phone.” He smiled. “And the money is locked up safe and sound in your truck.”
“Which is in the motel parking lot,” I pointed out glumly. “I”m sure they have cameras all over the place.”
“Good thing I snuck out of here two hours ago and went ahead and got it before I came to get you,” Phillip said with a dangerous grin. “Your truck is parked right over there in the parking deck.” He extracted my keys from his pocket and dangled them in my face, looking very pleased with himself.