Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
L orelai…
I lay under a heavy mantle of sleep. One so deep, it was akin to death. Kissing cousins or some such. All I know, is that it felt like I was down, down, down, in some deep dark pool, floating, suspended, the waters still around me and that waking was like slowly floating to the surface of that still pool.
I rose to wakefulness in stages, lying warm and comfortable, limbs and body feeling heavy, in an unfamiliar bed. Thankfully, as I surfaced this time, it was with acute memory of what had happened the night before. I knew where I was. I was in Hangman’s room, in his bed, which was quite comfortable even if it was new and unfamiliar to me.
I sucked in a shuddering breath and stretched, my limbs matching the shudder as I chased back the cobwebs and opened my eyes to light streaming in between the wooden slats of the blinds.
My voice almost caught me by surprise as much as the strange man standing in the doorway, hands buried in his jeans pockets as he looked over me. I pushed myself up off the bed and turned, scooting back defensively.
“Relax,” he said. “I was just checking out what all the fuss was about.”
His muddy brown eyes traveled over me in a lingering look that felt… kind of gross. Oily. I didn’t know how else to describe it. I felt wholly judged and objectified with that one look and it made me curl in on myself, my knees automatically rising to my chest, arms going around them as though to protect myself from his unkind gaze.
He had light brown hair and a longer beard like Hangman, but where Hangman’s hair was long and pulled into a short tail, this man’s hair was shorn pretty close to his scalp. He ran a hand back and forth over the top of his head and heaved a sigh.
“I can see why Reaper got handsy,” he said and once again he raked me with that gaze that was unsettling, almost… I don’t know. Unhinged somehow.
I swallowed hard.
“That’s really inappropriate,” I said lamely and he scoffed.
“Depends.” He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I guess everyone has their own way to unwind at the end of a long day. Guess his version of cracking a cold one is just different from the average guy’s.”
I felt my stomach twist as he laughed at his own foul joke.
“Who are you?” I asked. “Where’s Hangman?”
“Some of us have day jobs, sweetheart. He’s working his. I was just called in to make sure you weren’t going nowhere. You’ve slept most of the day away, so thanks for that. Definitely made babysitting a hell of a lot easier.”
I swallowed hard and didn’t really know what to say. I mean, this guy wasn’t even pretending the situation was anything other than what it was. That I was some kind of captive.
At least Hangman made me feel, I don’t know, more like a guest… or something.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said softly, and the man in the bedroom doorway snorted and pushed off the doorframe.
“You know where it’s at,” he said, and he wandered away.
I breathed a sigh of relief now that I was outside his presence and threw back a triangle of mussed blankets.
I crept to the end of the hall and peeked out into the living space to see the guy tapping on the screen of his phone with both thumbs. I retreated quickly to the bathroom, shutting myself inside and locking the door.
I breathed out the breath I hadn’t known that I was holding, slow and steady, and went about using the facilities.
I took an inordinate amount of time to wash my hands and face and availed myself the use of the brush sitting on the edge of the sink, wincing as the bristles snagged and caught in all these miscellaneous knots and snarls in my long locks.
I leaned in and inspected my reflection, trying to think back, rifling through the miasma inside my skull for anything that could tell me a little bit more about myself. But alas, all I did was come up frustratingly empty.
“Lorelai, Lorelai, Lorelai,” I whispered at my reflection, and distantly in the far reaches of my memory I heard a stern woman’s voice cry, “ Lorelai Mary Ellen !”
I swallowed hard.
“Lorelai Mary Ellen,” I tried at my reflection and it felt… natural.
“Lorelai Mary Ellen, what , though?” I wondered aloud.
A sharp knock fell at the bathroom door and I jumped.
“You aren’t trying to do anything stupid like crawl out the window are you? Because you got about thirty seconds to open up or I’m kicking this bitch in. You been in there long enough.”
I opened the door and froze as he was right in the frame and thus, right in my space. I swallowed hard and felt trapped in the small bathroom, but then he moved aside and got out of my way.
“Hangman’s on his way home. Told me to fix you something to eat. You hungry?” he asked. I stood trembling and shook my head.
“Good,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to eat whatever I managed to throw together anyway. I’m a shit cook.”
“Sorry to hear that,” I said lamely for lack of anything better to say.
“What about you?” he asked, eyeing me, an almost calculating look. “Know if you’re good at anything?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t, really,” I said.
“You really got nothing going on up there, huh?” he asked.
I gave a bit of a self-deprecating laugh.
“I have plenty of thoughts,” I said. “It’s just like this blank slate when it comes to any memories. Like whatever system of retrieval is in place just stopped working.”
“Lights are on but nobody’s home doesn’t exactly apply, huh?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Lights are on. I’m here,” I said. “I’m just… not at the same time. I really don’t know how to put it into words.”
“Hm.” He looked thoughtful. “I know a lot of people who would give their left nut to forget about their past,” he said.
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” I told him. “It’s really not.”
“One man’s high is another man’s poison,” he said with a shrug. “Have a seat.” He thrust his chin at the couch, and I crept carefully past him and took a seat in the same cozy little corner as I had last night.
He dropped into the recliner without another word, took up the game controller there and, with a sniff, started to play. With nothing better to do, I just sat and watched.
I was still curled and stiff in the same position when a heavy footfall and a shadow fell outside the window behind me. I jumped, startled as he blocked out the sun and came around to the door leading out onto the porch. He stopped outside it and leaned down a couple of times, bracing his hand against the doorjamb on the outside, and I realized he was taking off his boots.
When the door swung open, he was wearing the same kind of heavy leather jacket and vest with colorful patches sewn onto it that Specter was sporting.
“About fuckin’ time you got here,” Specter said.
“Hey,” Hangman greeted softly, but he wasn’t looking at Specter. He was looking at me.
“Hi,” I said back, hugging my knees.
He looked to Specter and said, “Let me grab a shower and you can go.”
Specter gave a nod, paying neither of us really any mind, and continued playing the game on the screen.
“Long day. I’m a mess. Just gimme ten minutes,” he said to me and I nodded dumbly, at a loss for anything else to say.
I sat on pins and needles for what felt like forever as the explosions and whatnot emanated from the television, backed by the distant hum of the running shower through the wall in the other room. I swallowed hard, and tried to stay calm, unsure why I suddenly wanted to panic.
With a thud, the old pipes gave it up as he turned off the water, a noise I was familiar with from the night before and my own shower. It felt like the seconds ticked by like minutes, the minutes like hours, as I waited for the sound of the door.
I just wanted this Specter guy to go away . He made me uncomfortable in a way that I couldn’t really describe. From his uncomfortable glances and lingering looks when he didn’t think I noticed, and the way he’d been watching me sleep. It was a stressful feeling. I wholly felt like I was being held hostage in Specter’s presence and none of that pressure seemed to exist around Hangman. In fact, just by his presence in the other room, some of the tension had diffused within the small apartment.
I felt safer somehow, which I know should have been ridiculous. Hangman wasn’t exactly my friend . He was one of them, loyal to them, but he wasn’t indifferent to my feelings or my suffering and that was… I don’t know. That was something.
I held my breath when he emerged from the hallway in nothing but a pair of faded jeans and a brown leather belt. He had a towel slung over his shoulders and was running one side over half of his hair which was still dripping from his shower.
“You can fuck off to whatever you got that’s more important to be doing,” he said to Specter, who paused the game and let out a gusty sigh.
“Right, passing the torch,” Specter said, getting to his feet and setting the controller aside on the side table by the chair.
He collected his leather jacket with its colorfully patched vest off of the back of the chair where he’d slung it and shrugged into it.
“Don’t do anything I would do,” he said, giving me a long, lingering look that made me feel kind of nasty and like I needed a shower.
“Man, get the fuck out of here with that shit before we throw down,” Hangman said, and I think it was the first time I heard a thread of real anger in his voice. I swallowed hard but didn’t say anything.
“Whatever,” Specter said. “I’m just playin’.”
Hangman shook his head, a thick tendril of his touch-longer-than-shoulder-length hair sticking to the side of his thick neck.
“Get out,” Hangman said, and Specter ducked out the door Hangman had come through, with a little salute in his direction and a bit of a tempestuous glance in mine, like his behavior was somehow my fault.
“Sorry. He can be a dick,” Hangman said.
I nodded.
“He try anything?” he demanded and all but looked feral. I shook my head quickly.
“No,” I said. “He just makes me uncomfortable. Made a few remarks, that’s all.”
Hangman snorted. “Figures. He doesn’t like babysitting duty. Surprised he didn’t pull something more just to make sure he never got it again.”
“You guys, um, hold women like this often?” I asked.
He sighed and stared in my direction.
“I know it feels like it,” he said. “But you’re not a prisoner here, at least I don’t want you to feel like you are.”
“I’m not a prisoner, but I’m not free to go. If I try, you’ll lock me in some crypt out there where no one can hear me scream, supposedly,” I said with a sniff.
“Tou-fucking-che,” he said with a heavy sigh.
“Please, by all means, explain to me how I’m not some sort of prisoner. Explain it to me like I’m five, because I’m kind of going through a lot right now and I’m not exactly sure how to handle all of it, okay?”
His shoulders dropped, and he looked tired, almost defeated.
“You’re right, about all of it. I promise, none of them will touch you, but just like you, we don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on and we don’t like being used as pawns. Whoever put you on Reaper’s slab for disposal fucked up big time and needs to pay for that. We don’t know who that someone was, but I have a pretty good idea why they wanted you gone. Not sure if there’s more to the story there or what lengths they’re willing to go to in order to make sure that job is finished. Right now, the safest option is to stay here and work on resting and healing while we try to figure that part out. Meanwhile, the only thing you’ve got to do is try and figure out your end – namely who you are and what you’re about.”
I swallowed hard and his golden gaze rimmed in green took stock of me, the slight crease between his eyebrows giving away his worry.
“Anything come to you while I was gone?” he asked gently.
“More of my name, I think, maybe,” I said honestly. I mean, he hadn’t lied to me yet and right now, we were sort of on the same team. I mean, the enemy of my enemy was supposed to be my friend or something, according to the old saying.
“Okay, well, that’s good.” He came over and sat on the other end of the couch.
“Lorelai Mary Ellen,” I said.
“Ellen? Or Allen?” he asked.
I frowned.
“I mean, it could be, maybe? I think it’s more two middle names, though. I don’t think it’s my last name. Doesn’t feel right, which I know sounds stupid…”
“No, that’s good!” he said. “That’s a start. Good job, Sweetpea.”
I felt myself smile at the pet name and tried to squash it, which just made him smile.
“You eat?” he asked softly after we just sort of stared at each other in silence for a time.
I shook my head.
“You hungry?” he asked.
“I wasn’t before, but I sort of am now,” I said honestly.
“Come on and sit with me in the kitchen?” he asked, and I nodded, unfurling myself from the corner of the couch. He stood up and held a hand down to me, but I didn’t take it, just pushed to my feet and shuffled barefoot across the area rug in the living room toward the kitchen. He held that same hand out behind me, as though guiding me, but didn’t touch me. Almost like he was watching out for me falling backward or something.
He walked me over to one of the three high kitchen chairs on the opposite side of the counter and once I was comfortably perched went around to the fridge.
It was sort of a gentlemanly thing to do, like?—
“I like Jane Austen,” I blurted out.
He stood up and turned around.
“All of her books and the movies. I like the Bront? sisters, too. Their poetry…” he stared at me for several heartbeats and I felt myself blush to the roots of my hair.
“It just came to me. I’m sorry,” I muttered and he shook his head.
“No, that’s good. Anything else?” he asked.
“I like tea, and tea shops – like formal tea,” I said, swallowing hard.
“Okay.” He nodded slowly. “What made you think of all that?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing,” I lied and hoped it was smoothly. “It just sort of came to me.”
He considered me for a moment then nodded. “Good, that’s good,” he said.
“Feels kind of dumb and kind of slow,” I murmured and he chuckled.
“It’s neither of those things,” he said.
“Not sure what a fascination with the regency era and manner of dress really does for me,” I said with a bit of a sardonic chuckle.
“You love those things for a reason. Think about that.”
I blinked.
“My mom,” I said. “She was really into those things, and gardening, and my grandmother before her. My dad’s American but my mom is British,” I said and swallowed hard, tears springing to my eyes.
“There you go!” he crowed. “Proud of you, Sweetpea. You’re getting it.”
I laughed a little uneasily.
“That was Grandpa Gantz that called me that. He’s my—” I blinked.
“Dad’s father? Your American grandpa?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Lorelai Mary Ellen Gantz,” I whispered. “That’s my name.”
“Fuck yeah!” He immediately set the things he’d been pulling out of the fridge down and picked up his phone from where he’d pulled it from his back pocket and had set it inconsequentially on the kitchen counter.
He tapped out a text furiously, and his eyebrows went up as he gave a low whistle.
“That’s you, for sure,” he said, turning the phone to face me.
He hadn’t been texting. He’d been doing a search for my name.
I took the phone from him and swallowed hard.
“Lorelai Gantz of Charleston, South Carolina, missing since Saturday night after visiting a popular bar down in Savannah with friends on a weekend trip,” I read aloud. I looked up at Hangman and frowned in confusion.
“I don’t remember,” I said and he nodded slowly.
“It’s okay. Don’t push it,” he cautioned. “You’re doing good. You’ve got people who love you that are looking for you,” he said.
“I don’t feel like I know any of them,” I said, rubbing my lips together.
“Give it some time,” he said gently. “You’re safe here, and there’s no rush.”
“What happens now?” I asked carefully, almost afraid of what the answer might be.
He braced his hands against the kitchen counter across from me and leaned heavily on them. I tried valiantly to ignore the fluid way his muscles moved beneath the golden tan of his skin. His shoulders and across his back were tinged red, which told me he’d been working shirtless in the sun today, and I tried doubly as hard to banish that thought from my mind. Instead, I searched his face, which the more I looked at it, the more handsome it became.
“Legitimate question, Lorelai,” he said gently, and I nodded mutely, patiently willing to hear him out. “What do you want to have happen right now? In this moment?” he asked.
I swallowed hard.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I’m overwhelmed, afraid. I mean, I know it’s probably a dick move to make my parents worry for any longer but I’m still trying to, you know, process what may or may not have happened to me. I’m trying to figure out who I am . This seems to be all over the news and then some. My dad is some kind of important. I don’t remember what for, but I know that. I know we come from money. I remember that now.” I frowned. “There’s just still so many missing pieces.”
“All fair points,” he said quietly. “But that doesn’t answer the question.”
“I-I don’t know,” I stammered. “I guess I just want a little time to try and, I don’t know, get it together, before a whole bunch of questions and crazy are thrown at me. I just… I just need some quiet before all the noise.”
He nodded slowly and said, “You got it.”
“What?” I asked.
“It’s quiet here,” he said. “Doesn’t get much quieter than this,” he said, pointing out in the direction of the cemetery beyond the little dining nook’s window at what was presumably the back of the house. I was kind of fuzzy on the orientation of things, having come in in the dark, in such a state of confusion.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Take a deep breath,” he said. “Sit still. I’m going to cook us up something to eat for dinner. You don’t have to make any decisions today. Maybe not even tomorrow or the day after, okay? Just take your time, just breathe, and soak in the quiet. When you’re ready, you can take on the next problem. The next big thing. There’s no rush and we can figure it all out if we just relax and take our time.”
I stared at him, stony faced and with no little wonder.
“I don’t understand,” I repeated and he shrugged.
“What don’t you understand?” he asked with a shrug, pushing off the counter and standing up straight.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked. “Why are you giving me this space, and the time, and – and – and?—”
“Protecting you?” he asked.
I blinked.
“Yeah.”
He pursed his lips, rolled them, looking thoughtful.
“Truthfully,” he said, eyebrows going up. “I don’t even know.”
He swallowed hard.
“Maybe I’ve been through some shit, too. But I’m a guy, and they just kind of expect you to keep right on rolling with the punches when you’re a man. I didn’t really get the time to process through the awful shit that I’ve seen and been through and it fucked me up. It fucked me up but good. Maybe I don’t want to see that happen to you. You seem like a good girl, with a good head on your shoulders. I don’t want to see one awful moment ruin you for your entire life. If that means giving you the space and the time to heal on your own schedule, in your own way, it seems like such a small thing, you know? There really shouldn’t be any rushing this for you.”
I stared at him for a long time, the silence stretching between us.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said finally.
He shook his head.
“Don’t say anything,” he said. “Just enjoy the quiet with me.”
I nodded slowly, both understanding and not understanding what he was saying. Like I wondered what horrible thing had happened that he hadn’t been allowed to heal from. Whatever it was, it was serious in order for him to treat me like this. I mean, so well.
I sat in a weighted silence as he went back to moving around the kitchen, turning his back to me to get a pan heating on the stove.
He had some scars on his body – along his ribs, around to his back. I didn’t know what caused that welt of ridged scar tissue, but whatever it was, it looked like it’d been painful.
He cooked in silence except to ask me if I knew if I liked this or that that he was putting on the chicken breast in the pan.
I would either nod or shake my head, and it was nice. Nothing about the interaction was uncomfortable at all.
His hair dried naturally into these soft waves, almost curls, and his hair looked as good down as it had up, and I caught myself wondering to myself if this is what Belle from Beauty & the Beast had… that whatever syndrome. Where you started sympathizing or empathizing with your captor or whatever.
Except Hangman was too gentle to be a beast, and it hadn’t even been a full twenty-four hours yet, had it?
I didn’t know.
By the time I’d finished thinking about it, we’d moved to the little dining table to eat what he’d cooked.
Hangman sat back in his chair with a sigh, chewing thoughtfully, and looking me over.
“Can I trust you?” he asked me.
I blinked at him and nodded mutely, wondering what this was about.
“Finish your dinner, Sweetpea. I’ve got to go down and make sure the gates are shut and locked. Promise me you’ll be up here when I get back.”
I smiled faintly then and asked a little sadly, “Where would I go?”
He searched my face and nodded, pushing his seat back from the table and standing up.
He stepped away and went to the door leading out onto the porch, pausing near where he’d left his boots, and shoving his bare feet into them, or some other pair of shoes outside the door. I couldn’t see.
He went past the bank of living room windows and I heard the clatter of his footsteps going down the steps. I sighed and did what he’d told me to do. I carried on with the meal he’d fixed. It was good. Really good.
Chicken breast cooked in some sort of white wine reduction with mushrooms and, I think, shallots with a side of steamed broccoli and some mashed potatoes. Instant, sure, but I didn’t care about that. Tasted just the same to me and it was, as I said, delicious.
I worked on savoring my meal, and after several minutes, he returned, stepping into the apartment, leaving his shoes out on the porch, pausing in the doorway to look at me as though he had half expected me to abscond.
My assessment was proven correct when he said, “You’re still here.”
I smiled a little wanly and gave a weak shrug and said once again, “Where else would I go?”
He nodded and shut the door behind him, returning to the table to sit across from me. He picked up his fork and knife and we continued to eat in silence for a while.
It was comfortable. I think I was beginning to like the quiet. Maybe he was right about it.