Chapter Thirty-Three
The Fire Inside
I quickly swing the door around, trying to shut it in his face. His foot wedges between the door and the frame, stopping me. “Oh my God,” he says as I release the door and back up into the house. “What the heck happened to your arm?”
My mouth moves, but nothing comes out. I rotate my head to the fireplace, the flames licking into the room as they grow higher. “You have to leave, right now.” I push him out of the open doorway.
Once we reach the porch, he stops moving, refusing to take another step.
“No. Not until you tell me how you hurt your arm?” He takes my arm in his hands and applies a gentle pressure, examining it.
I can’t stop the tears that come next, not only from the pain but from the fear of what’s to come.
Heat floats through the opening in the door, striking me in the face.
Dr. Z feels it too. He lets my arm go, grabs the door handle and slams the partition closed. He gazes at the glowing light beneath the door and takes a step back as my legs give way, collapsing at his feet.
“Please, I’m begging you. You have to leave.” My bottom lip quivers as I stare up at him with tear-filled eyes. “Please.”
He kneels to the floor, gazes deep into my eyes with a bright, penetrating stare and says, “I can’t do that; you need medical attention.”
I fall forward, the palm of my uninjured hand biting into the hard surface, a violent tremor racking my body.
His hand touches my spine gently. “Come with me to the hospital.”
“He’s going to kill me,” I whisper after several seconds of silence.
“Who?” He takes my shoulders gently in his grasp.
Mastyx may kill the doctor, too, if I don’t get rid of him. I have to stop this. I launch to a stand, nearly knocking him over. “I said leave!” I yell down at him.
He nods, his eyes fixed on my shaking hands before saying, “Okay.”
Slowly, he rises, his eyes never leaving mine, before backing down the steps and turning to walk away. As he takes a step toward his car, he glances down at his hand and stops. His head whips in my direction at the sight of blood on his palm. “You’re coming with me.”
He’s not asking anymore, he’s telling. I back up against the door as he charges up the steps two at a time and sweeps me off my feet, carrying me swiftly down the steps. I thrash in his arms, but he holds me firm. “You’re going to the hospital, Contessa,” he orders. “You’re bleeding.”
I stop fighting him, my eyes widening at the anger I hear in his voice when he calls me by my first name.
And with that outburst came something else—a presence and a feeling of something wrapping around me like a warm blanket or an embrace.
It was like the feeling you have after a refreshing shower or crawling under the covers after an exhausting day.
There’s a familiarity to it that makes me feel safe—safer than I have in a long time.
He sets me in the passenger seat of his vehicle and wraps the seatbelt around me before closing the door softly.
The driver’s side door opens after a brief hesitation, and he sinks into his seat. He sits there, his thumb grazing his bottom lip.
A quiet has come over him. It’s as though he has said or done something he shouldn’t have and now regrets it.
He glances at me briefly with a half-hearted smile before turning the key.
I peer out my window and see a small puff of smoke escape the underside of my front door as if someone huffed out a cigarette beneath it.
I shrink into my seat, hugging my body with one arm and resting my injured one on my leg. The air turns cold, and goosebumps cast across my flesh.
Dr. Z presses the heated-seat button on my side and turns the heat to low.
“Tell me about your arm,” he says quietly as he turns the low-playing radio off.
I keep my eyes forward and say, “I fell out of bed.”
It’s not a lie. I did, in fact, fall out of my bed. Why I fell is another story.
“And your back? Did you hurt it when you landed?”
Telling him the truth will just make me look crazy, and I’ll end up on an emergency psych hold. He wouldn’t believe me anyway.
No one will.
We roll to a stop at a traffic light, and I lean my head against the window. A car pulls up beside us and sparks draw my attention to their window. The color drains from my face as the flame from their lighter flashes across the driver’s face onto the glass and scorches a one-word message in fire.
Mine
I grab my chest, my heart pounding, and the air becomes too thick to breathe. Dr. Z reaches for me as I choke on the invisible smoke that’s filling my lungs.
“Breathe,” Dr. Z says. “In and out, nice and slow.”
The car shakes violently, chattering my teeth as we bounce over multiple potholes, the doctor speeding up, the hospital sign in the distance. “We’re almost there,” he says reassuringly.
Mastyx is too. He’s following us, jumping from one flame to the next.
My head bobbles on my shoulders, dizziness overwhelming me as the doctor cranks the wheel into the hospital parking lot.
Sweat trickles down my spine, burning as it enters the holes in my flesh.
Spots dance before my eyes, and my body suddenly feels weighted and numb.
The door beside me flies open, and the sun, exiting from behind a cloud, blinds me.
A flashback of Mastyx entering my burning car years ago sends me over the edge.
I scream, pushing the doctor out of my path before falling to the ground and crawling across the pavement, trying to flee.
He wraps his arms around me, and I cry out, “Let me go!”
His fingers thread through my hair, and his palm cups my scalp, sending prickles through me from head to toe. An overwhelming calm I can’t explain follows as he folds me in his arms, lifts me from the cold ground, and carries me inside.
As we pass the lobby fireplace, the flames rise, and I know Mastyx is here. My eyes roll in their sockets, and my body goes limp, my energy draining, losing the battle with my anxiety attack.
? ? ?
I wake up in a dimly lit room, the television high up on the wall in the corner, playing a Lifetime movie. A blue cast covers my right forearm, and an IV bag hangs beside me.
“Good morning,” a voice says, startling me.
A man in a black uniform sits in the corner across the room, a magazine on his lap. “I’ll go grab Dr. Z for you.”
He sets the magazine aside, rises and leaves the room quietly, closing the door behind him.
I peer around the room. It’s decorated like an old person’s bedroom with gold-framed paintings of nature and a small table lamp beside the armchair the man was sitting in.
The door opens partway, and I catch a glimpse of Dr. Z speaking to someone on the other side before he enters the room fully, followed by a nurse’s aide.
He pushes the door shut behind her and carries a large manila envelope to a white box on the wall at the foot of my bed.
The aide leans against the wall by the door.
He flicks on a light, pulls an X-ray from the envelope, and slides it under a clip, illuminating the image of my arm.
“You have a simple ulnar fracture.” He points to the split between the bones with his pinkie.
“Luckily, your radius is intact.” The light flicks off, and he returns the X-ray to its envelope.
“You’ll be in a cast for about five weeks.
” He passes the envelope to the aide, who sets it on the counter beside her.
“You also have two stitches in your spine to close the hole that kept bleeding, but it’s going to scar along with the other nine puncture marks.
” He turns to me. “How did this happen, Miss Salavatori?”
We are back to being formal. It must be because we are at his workplace and the nurse is here.
I look away from him, the lie passing flawlessly through my lips. “Body suspension failure.”
A chuckle escapes the aid, and I glance at her.
Dr. Z’s eyes darken, and he flashes her a dirty look, wiping the smirk off her face at once.
I pick at the end of my cast with my fingertips, growing nervous as his intense stare pierces through me, not believing my explanation.
“Where am I?” I ask, waving my hand around the room, changing the subject.
“And why is it decorated like an old folks’ home? ”
This softens Dr. Z’s demeanor. He relaxes his shoulders and says, “It’s the Palliative Care Unit.”
My eyes blow wide open, and I sit up quickly, making my head spin. “Am I dying?” I ask, my eyes darting from his to the aid and back again.
Dr. Z shakes his head. “Of course not. We didn’t have any other available beds.”
“So, someone died, and you gave me their room?” I ask, dropping back against the pillow.
He steps around the end of the bed and stands beside me. “Don’t worry, we cleaned the room and changed the sheets.”
His attempt at humor makes me smile briefly, but doesn’t ease the nervousness lingering in the pit of my stomach.
A soft knock on the door directs our attention to it.
A young man, probably in high school, carries in a tray and places it on the table beside my bed.
He nods to the doctor, waves at the aide and leaves.
My eyes drift from the tray to my casted arm, and a long-winded sigh escapes me.
I’m right-handed, so feeding myself is going to be a bitch.
As if he read my mind, Dr. Z nods to the aide.
She rolls the tray table to the left side of my bed and removes the lid.
Mashed potatoes, pudding, cut-up carrots, and ham—everything that can easily be spooned or forked without landing on me if I’m careful.
The nurse grabs a cup of ice, opens the apple juice and pours it inside.
She presses on a lid and jams a straw in the top before rolling the table across my lap.
“Cream and sugar for your coffee?” she asks in a squeaky voice.
I shake my head, and she asks, “Do you want me to stay and help you eat, or do you think you can manage?”
Stay and help me eat? I keep forgetting what floor we are on. She’s used to feeding those who can’t. “That won’t be necessary,” I say politely.
She turns on her heels, grabs my X-ray off the counter, and exits the room, leaving the door open.
My hand trembles as I pick up my fork, stab a piece of ham and push it between my lips.
It’s dry, salty and flavorless. I hate it.
I set the fork back on my tray and stare at the television, ignoring the doctor’s inquiring eyes.
After several heartbeats of silence, he finally says, “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth. ”
Without looking at him, I say, “The truth doesn’t matter if it sounds like another lie.”
He takes a step closer to me and says, “Try me.”
“I’m tired.” I close my eyes. “Can you please leave?”
Telling him my injuries are from my incubus lover isn’t something I’m ready to share with the good doctor at this very moment.
His posture shifts, and I open my eyes as he leans over me, his face blocking my view of the television. “Contessa,” he whispers. “Look at me.”
I blink multiple times before saying, “I am looking at you.”
He shakes his head and brings his face even closer. “No, really look at me—my face, my eyes, don’t you remember me at all?” I furrow my brow at him and shake my head slowly, utterly confused. His palm rests softly on my face, and he whispers, “You’re going to be okay.”
I draw in a deep breath, holding it as the night of the accident races through my mind.
He was there. Dr. Z was there. His younger face becomes clear as he hovers over me, calling to me to keep my eyes open, telling me I’m going to be alright.
Then came the pain, my scar burning as the memory of him saying I’m sorry over and over again as he applied pressure to the hole in my leg, slowing the bleeding.
Then he was gone; the paramedics arrived and took over.
I never knew who he was or where he came from, and he never came forward.
Until now, his face was always a blur, a silhouette in the dark that arrived on the scene and forced Mastyx back into the flames.
That’s why he makes me feel safe. That’s why I’m not afraid when he holds me. My mind has associated the doctor’s presence with Mastyx’s retreat into the fire the night of the accident.
His fingers glide across my cheek as he stands and says, “Get some rest.”
I sit there, my mouth hanging open, tears spilling over my lids as the door closes behind him, leaving me alone.