6
TEN MINUTES EARLIER.
WANDA
T he madness of the morning recedes as I watch Doctor Lenworth press the plunger of the syringe, the strong sedative entering my vein and almost immediately making my head buzz. I blink and swallow, wondering how strong of a dose I just got injected with.
“Relax,” Doctor Lenworth says as he pulls the needle out of my arm, tosses the syringe into the hazardous-waste box, then wipes the dot of blood on my skin with an alcohol-soaked cotton swab. “Close your eyes, sweetie. Don’t fight it.”
Don’t fight what? Strange thing for a doctor to say, and for a moment I panic, try to raise my head and see if Mama and Papa are still in the room. Noticing that the door is closed and the deadbolt has been slid shut, I move my lips and discover that they taste like rubber. “Where . . . where are my parents?”
“Sent them down to the cafeteria,” says Lenworth. He’s standing close to the side of my bed now, smiling down at me. He’s taking off his gloves, his creepy gray eyes bearing down on me, that tight-lipped smile fixed on his long face like it’s a plastic mask. “It’s just us now. Like it was just you and Doctor Drake before. Don’t think I didn’t notice the way you looked at him, you chubby little slut.”
“Um . . . what?” My eyelids flutter, my vision going blurry, my head feeing incredibly heavy, almost like I’ve been given anesthetic instead of a sedative. “What . . . what did you just say?”
Lenworth’s smile tightens. “You know what I said, you dirty girl. I smell the wetness from your pussy. Saw the way Drake was hard and erect. I know you spread those legs for Doctor Drake. And now you’re going to spread for Doctor Lenworth. It’s only fair, honey.” His tongue darts out as he licks his lips. “Consider it a second opinion, sweetie. Standard medical practice. Relax. You won’t feel a thing.” He grins. “I will, though. I’ll feel everything, baby. Oh, fuck, it’s been so long since I got to do this. So many years I’ve behaved myself. Thought I was cured, but you reawakened that dirty need in me. See, it’s your fault, not mine. Hush, sweetie. Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle. I never leave any marks.”
My mouth hangs open in disbelief. The drug he gave me must be causing auditory hallucinations, I decide. I don’t even understand what he’s saying.
I try to raise my head again but find that I can’t move. My vison is going in and out, mostly out, it seems. Lips are totally rubber now, two wriggling gummy worms without the sugar. My head feels heavy with the sedative, but it doesn’t compare to the weight of the dread suffocating me when I realize what’s happening, understand in a woozy moment of desperate clarity that I’m powerless right now, totally vulnerable, completely at this predator’s mercy.
I can’t even whisper, let alone scream for help. My legs are totally useless, my arms like dead tree-branches by my sides. Somehow I’m able to flick my gaze towards the camera, but my heart sinks again when Lenworth chuckles darkly and shakes his head.
“Cameras are being rebooted. Remind me to thank your boyfriend Drake for giving me an excuse to have the video feeds turned off for an hour.” Lenworth smiles, then hisses, his eyes flashing an ominous silver-gray. “That’s why I had to stop after that trouble a decade ago. They put cameras in all the rooms, and it got too risky for me. But today I get to indulge myself, just like the old days. Funny how fate plays out, isn’t it, sweetie?”
Again I try to fight, but I can’t even raise my head. That sedative is taking over, and I’m so close to passing out, just giving up, surrendering. Maybe I’ll pretend it’s a bad dream. Maybe when I wake up it’ll turn out to really be a dream, just a figment of my anxious imagination, perhaps a manifestation of repressed guilt for enjoying what Drake and I shared.
Now I’m thinking of Drake, about how he’d jealously guarded me from Lenworth, had snarled and growled at this snake. It had seemed crazy at the time, borderline unhinged, obsessive at best, psychotic at worst.
But now . . .
Oh, God, now it seems like I was the crazy one for sending Drake away!
The walls seem to be closing in as Lenworth slides the sheets off my trembling, paralyzed body. The room is dark, the curtains drawn shut, the warmth and safety of the sun far, far away. I feel the cold dry air swirl around my bare legs, sense Lenworth slowly raising my robe up past my knees. I can hear him groan softly above me as my thighs are exposed, that robe about to reveal my naked sex. I’m totally paralyzed by whatever Lenworth injected me with, but I’m still conscious, my thoughts still under my control—the only thing under my control right now.
So I try to direct those thoughts to a safe place.
And suddenly find that my safe place is Drake.
I want him here.
I need him here.
Drake said I was his, didn’t he?
So why isn’t Drake here to protect what’s his?
Blinking away tears, I close my eyes tight, shutting out the sickening sight of Lenworth leering down at me, his fingers drawing the hospital gown up past my hips, his other hand moving to his own crotch and undoing the drawstring on his scrubs.
But just as I feel the gown settle around my tummy, sense Lenworth’s gaze settle on my sex, I hear the loud crash of thunder, feel the hot rush of wind, smell the suddenly familiar musk of man, my man, my mate, my protector, my possessor.
It’s a dream, of course. A druggy delusion. An insane illusion. A holy hallucination. A mad manifestation.
But then why do I see splinters of wood flying through the air as a red-faced, blue-eyed, barrel-chested Doctor Drake smashes through the room door like a dragon in a jealous rage, lab-coat flying through the electric air like white wings of an avenging angel?!
“You motherfucking piece of shit!” roars Drake as he launches himself across the room like he really is a dragon, really can fly, really did hear my desperate call, really did sense my urgent need. “Get away from her! Get away from my Wanda!”
Still paralyzed, I stare aghast as Drake grabs Lenworth by the throat, yanks him away from the bed, then kicks him hard in the balls. Lenworth buckles forward screaming in agony, and Drake drives his knee upwards, smashing Lenworth’s nose, which seems to explode in the center of Lenworth’s face in an orgy of blood and snot.
Lenworth staggers upright, his face a bloody mess. With a roar Drake lowers his head and barrels into Lenworth’s midsection like a football player, pushing Lenworth back into the curtained window with incredible force.
Lenworth’s skull smashes through the curtains, cracking the window pane as Drake keeps going, ramming Lenworth against the shattered window glass again and again until suddenly there’s no Lenworth, just the empty curtains billowing in the breeze!
Now suddenly the room is dead quiet for a long moment. Then in the distance far below the smashed window I hear a thud and a crash, immediately followed by a car-alarm going crazy.
Somehow I turn my head just enough to see Drake leaning out through a jagged hole in what was once the window and is now an open space vaguely in the shape of Lenworth’s body. It’s almost cartoon-like, I think as my mind swirls wildly with a mix of relief, confusion, panic, and . . . love?
“I love you, Wanda.” Drake is suddenly by my side, covering my vulnerable, exposed body with my gown and now the bedsheet, wrapping me like a Twinkie in the blanket, now gently lifting me off the bed and into his arms. “And I’m never leaving your side again, baby. Because you’re mine, Wanda. You’re mine and I love you. I fucking love you, Wanda. You hear me? You understand me?”
Dumbly, I nod, then shake my head. Yes, I hear him. No, I don’t understand him.
And I sure as hell don’t understand myself.
Don’t understand why there’s a smile plastered on my paralyzed face.
Don’t understand why there’s a warm glow in my excited heart.
Don’t understand why I’m burrowing against his body as he carries me out the door, carries me away like a possessive dragon, white lab-coat wings flying like battle-flags behind him as my consciousness goes in and out, mostly out as that sedative finally overwhelms me, dragging me down into what started as a woman’s worst nightmare and is now a damsel’s most delightful daydream.
The dream of being swept off her feet, carried across the threshold, ferried across the oceans, protected like a princess, fortified by her savior’s love.
“I love you too, Drake,” comes the mumbling murmur through my gummy-worm lips, followed by a drunken grin that’s wet with drool. Licking my lips, I cackle once, cough twice, then sigh as I feel Drake carry me across the room. Obviously this is a drug-induced hallucination, just a waking dream. So it’s fine to say ridiculously unrealistic things like I love him and I’m his. Because he’s saying those things too. So it’s that kind of dream where everyone says things that make no sense in the real world but are totally obvious in this silly dream world. “I love you too, Doctor Drake. Now will you heal me, please? Heal me!”
“What the hell?” comes someone’s bewildered voice from near the smashed room door. “What the fuck just happened here, Doctor Drake?”
“Get out of my way,” comes Drake’s reply through my dream, which is rapidly becoming irritatingly real.
Why aren’t we flying through the air on Drake’s dragon-wings? Very annoying dream. I thought I was in control of this dream. Now I’m sulky and pouty, and I roll my eyeballs towards the intrusive ogre blocking the exit to our happily-ever-after.
It’s one of those burly security guys, and he’s staring at the missing window, now gaping at my gummy-worm grin, finally shaking his head and rubbing his beard and shaking his head again as Drake orders him once more to get out of the way.
“Can’t do that, Doctor Drake,” says Security-Ogre. “What the hell happened to Doctor Lenworth?”
Drake shrugs with me in his arms. “He jumped.”
Security-Beast’s eyebrows rise like two wriggly worms. His gaze darts to the broken window. He takes a deep breath, lets it out slow, like maybe he’s realizing we’re all in the same dream-world where crazy things are normal and logic doesn’t apply. “Lenworth . . . jumped? Through a closed window? You know these windows don’t open, right?”
Drake glances casually at the window, then shrugs back at Security-Minion. “Well, the window’s obviously open now, isn’t it? Get out of my way, man. You know who I am, right? You know who my father is, yeah?”
Now fear streaks across Security-Stooge’s bearded face. He rubs his beard feverishly, then reaches for his walkie-talkie with fumbling fingers. Raising it to his lips, he hesitates and looks at me.
At first I don’t understand why he’s frowning quizzically in my direction.
Then I realize it’s because I’m speaking.
Or at least doing my best impression of a human trying to make sounds that resemble words in the English language.
“He did jump,” I finally manage to say, the words coming out garbled but comprehensible. “Doctor Lenworth jumped right through that window, head-first like one of those divers at the Olympics. Did you watch the Olympics this year? Oh wait, that was last year, I think. What year is it? Your beard looks itchy. My lips taste like gummy-worms. Without the sugar. Sugar is bad for you. But it tastes so good. So sweet. Cho chweeet!”
Security-Grump stares like I’m a talking unicorn. He scratches that itchy-looking beard, rubs the back of his thick neck, then takes a long, hard look at Drake. “Look, I know who your dad is, Drake. And I sure as hell don’t want to get in the middle of his business. But what the fuck am I supposed to do here, man? I can’t just let you walk out of here. Especially not carrying a patient who is obviously not in her senses.”
“Not in her sensibles? Excuse me, sir, how dare you! I am very sense and sensibilities. I mean pride and prejudices. I mean—” My indignant retort is cut short by Drake’s big palm clamping over my lips. I try to chew my way out, but it appears hopeless, so I simply mumble to myself.
“Here’s what you’re going to do,” Drake says with calm authority to the security guy. “You get on that walkie, tell the rest of the security team that there’s been an accident out in the rear parking lot, that it appears Doctor Lenworth has jumped and needs immediate medical attention.”
Security-Dude gulps, then glances at the shattered room-door, wood splinters all over the floor, streaks of blood from Lenworth’s smashed nose crisscrossing the tiles like sticky-red paint. “And the door? What do I tell the cops about how the damn door got broken?”
Drake shrugs. “You didn’t see how the door got broken. You didn’t see a damn thing.” Now I feel Drake’s voice take on a threatening growl, a low rumble that makes me shiver with a strange comfort, like it makes me feel safe to know that my protector can scare other men, dominate other men. “You didn’t see a damn thing. All you know is that when you got to the room, it was empty and Lenworth had jumped. That’s all you know. That’s all you saw.”
Security-Man swallows hard, takes a deep breath, exhales nervously. He glances at the camera, then shakes his head. “What about the cameras? And the nurse at the reception desk saw you heading towards this room, Drake. That’s why he called me up here in the first place.”
“That nurse only saw me walking down the hallway and turning the corner. He didn’t actually see me enter this room because you can’t see this room door from the reception desk.” Drake takes a breath. “As for the cameras, well, they’re dead. And you will be too if you don’t do what I say.” Drake’s voice oozes with deadly authority. “You know about my Family Business, right? You want to be on our list of friends or enemies? Because you get to choose right now, buddy. You want us to owe you a favor? Or you want us to come knocking on your door in the middle of the night?”
Security-Guy swallows thickly, nods once, then glances at me with raised eyebrows, a questioning look like he’s scared of Drake but is also decent enough that he’s concerned for my safety. After all, I’m clearly under the influence of some drug—even though I’m pretty sure the buzzing in my body isn’t just from the sedative.
Now it hits me that I need to speak up, to make it clear that I want to go with Drake, that I’m checking myself out, thank you very much. But I’m obviously drugged, my speech slurry, my eyes glazed and gooey, my lips glued and gummy.
Then suddenly I know what to do.
Moving my head so Drake takes his palm off my mouth, I do my best to speak clearly to the security guard.
“My parents are in the cafeteria,” I say with slurry breathlessness. “They’ll sign the discharge papers. They’re my next-of-kin and so they’re authorized to sign hospital discharge papers if I’m incapacitated.” Hiccupping loudly, I flash a toothy smile. “Which I’m not, of course. Perfectly capacitated. Absolutely articulate. But Mama and Papa will sign the papers just to set your mind at ease, Mister Security Gentleman. So you are legally required to let me leave. Come on now. Let us cross the bridge, Troll. We have answered your questions three, which means by the law of Bridge-Trolls, you must let us go free. See, it rhymes. And that proves we’re in the same dream.”
Security-Goon raises an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth twitching like he’s either terrified or amused. He takes a breath, sighs it out, then shakes his head in resignation and steps away from the laughably shattered door. “Get the hell out of here, you two. I’ll tell the cops the room was empty when I arrived.” He nods at Drake as we glide past him, heading for the emergency stairwell at the end of this side of the hall, far from the reception desk and the elevators.
“We . . . we need to find Mama and Papa,” I mumble as we bounce down the stairs, Drake holding me tight like a snuggle-bug against his body as he navigates the steps like a ballet dancer. “Get them to sign the permission slips. I mean certify the discharge papers. I mean . . . what do I mean?”
Now my vision swirls around and suddenly disappears, and the last thing that hits me is the realization that it was just the adrenaline keeping me conscious, and now that I’m safe in Doctor Dragon’s invincible talons and we’re flying high above the burning wasteland that was once Earth, the adrenaline is draining from my system and we’re all going bye-bye, gone-gone, snuggly-wuggly, off to dreamy-steamy-land where the sheep roam free and the worms speak in tongues and we all fall down, we all fall down, we all fall down !