Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Tegan
I’m not alone in the room after they wheel Malachi out and the medical personnel move on to the next patient for long.
In fact, I barely had time to sit down before a cleaning crew pops in.
They mop up the blood, which I’m doing everything possible to ignore, and sanitize the room.
Of the two women who have come in to clean, only one looks my way.
“Sorry, normally, these rooms are empty when we come through, but Doctor Charmden instructed us that you’re waiting in here for something?” I hear the question in her comment, but I probably know less about what’s going on than she does.
I already gave the police at the scene my name and contact information. Whoever the lava-hot doctor is, he’s not a cop. So why did he insist I stay put? And moreover, why am I obeying?
Instead of answering the nosy question aloud, I just shrug and reach into my satchel. It’s kind of surprising I managed to keep it with me through everything that’s happened, but I’m thankful for whatever luck was at play. My fingers are restless, something that tends to happen when I get anxious.
The sketchbook and pencil set I pull out will give my brain something to focus on instead of everything around me.
After working a double shift at the art supply store and then finding Malachi, I ought to be exhausted.
Adrenaline are keeping me wired though, and if I don’t settle my brain somehow, I’ll spiral. And nobody needs that mess.
The janitorial duo finishes cleaning the room.
Before they leave, the same woman as before grumbles under her breath about having to come back to finish once the room is actually empty.
As if any of this is in my control. I ignore her or try to anyhow.
I get her frustration over the mundane task.
As the new girl at my job, I’m the one stuck doing the least interesting tasks like stocking shelves and rehanging product on the right pegs.
In the silent again room, my fingers push and drag the soft pencil over paper, the slightly rough surface a perfect toothiness to grab the lead and hold it on the page.
There’s no direction from brain to paper, just stream of consciousness outpouring.
Shapes form, the scene I witnessed when the elevator to the shopping center garage opened, playing out in a series of comic style boxes.
Purging the terrifying memory into my sketchbook releases a tension that clenched my shoulders to my ears for hours.
It’s soothing, even though the subject matter is horrifying.
I thread in speech bubbles to capture the words the men spoke, the comic I’m drawing anything but funny.
Still, I know the exact words used might be helpful when the attack is investigated.
When the boxes chronicling tonight are done, I turn the page and allow myself to remember what the men who beat Malachi looked like.
Their mean eyes, tight with fury. I can’t know if it was directed at me for interrupting them or at Malachi.
Reason says it must have been anger at Malachi, though it seems ludicrous he could have pissed off anyone that badly.
Still, there’s no suppressing the shivers that race down my spine as their faces come to life in the drawing.
One of the men had a deep scar running along the side of his face, into the left side of his mouth.
It had given his upper lip a snarl that showed off a sharp canine tooth on that side.
I’ve never met a person with such a prominent tooth like that, almost a fang.
I don’t discount my recollection, though other people surely will. What I saw is what I draw.
Time slips away as I put memory to paper.
Logically, I know I don’t have anything to fear right now, but with every stroke of the pencil, my dread multiplies.
Both of those men were so casual, so cruel in the way they kicked and hit poor Malachi.
I can’t even guess at what the motive was, but it hardly matters.
I’d managed to get the bear spray out of my bag, which I’d only carried as a promise to my grandmother who worried about me moving here.
The one with the sneering scar on his lip had advanced on me as if he weren’t the least bit concerned he might get sprayed.
I guess it’s a lucky thing he hadn’t counted on the spray being actual bear spray and not hairspray or something.
The way he’d hit the ground only seconds before he got to me thanks to the jet of watery repellent still makes me feel queasy.
His buddy had stopped hitting Malachi when he heard the guy hit the ground, screaming, and for a moment, I thought he’d come after me.
For whatever reason, instead of following his friend’s lead and trying to get to me, the other dude heaved his buddy onto a shoulder and stormed off.
The entire encounter was maybe two minutes, and without some context from Malachi, who probably won’t be in any condition to remember it, the motive for the attack has no explanation.
At least, none that anyone’s sharing with me.
“This the room where they took the dirtbag?” A gruff voice just outside the door of Malachi’s room catches my attention.
“His name’s on the tag in the file bin for the room, so yeah, I’m guessing he’s in there,” another man responds.
Two men push into the room, their eyes scanning immediately to where I’m curled up in the chair near the medical equipment.
Both are wearing suits, but they also have chains around their necks with badges hanging from them.
Detectives, I assume. The police at the scene already took my phone number, so these guys must be here to see what they can get from Malachi.
I’m unsure what comes over me, but an urge to keep the images I’ve drawn takes over.
I discreetly flip the cover of my spiral-bound sketchbook closed and tuck it between my thigh and the arm of the chair.
Neither of the cops seem to care much that I’m here, confirming my guess they’re looking for the victim.
Malachi. A man one of them has already decided must be a dirtbag for some reason.
“Can I help you?” I ask, politeness and respect for authority drilled into me from childhood demanding I acknowledge them.
“Looking for Malachi Cole. This is his room. Right?” Yup, that’s the voice of the guy who called Malachi a dirtbag.
Annoyance pricks at me. I don’t know whether the guy I found being beaten nearly to death is a good person or a bad one, but I do know nobody should act so callously about a victim. Even on the chance that he is a real jerk, which seems a stretch, this cop should be more respectful.
“Did the doctors allow you back here?” I answer with my own question.
“We’re law enforcement, young lady. We go where we need to when there are crimes to investigate.” He’s so smug, and it definitely rubs me wrong.
I’m glad I followed my gut and put my sketches away.
Something tells me these guys won’t do much to find out who did this to Malachi.
Not with the attitudes I see from both of them.
It seems smarter to wait and see what to do once I talk to Malachi and the doctor, who I think must be a family member maybe. Guessing he’ll approve of my decision.