55. Shane
55
Shane
L ana shoves me into my room, closing the door behind us.
“What the fuck, Lana?!”
“Croix, I need to talk to you. I can’t…breathe. I can’t think.” She paces inside my room, her oversized shirt slipping down one of her shoulders and her cheeks looking pale as ever against her wet hair—the hair that’s dripping all over my floors.
“Why are you wet?”
“I had to wash him off me,” she mutters, her hands clawing down her face in disgust. “I had to clean myself.”
“Lana, I’m not here to pick up your broken pieces. Whatever your new dude did to you is not my problem.”
I grab her by the arm and lead her toward the door, getting her the fuck out of my space.
“Croix, please!” she cries. “I never thought I’d be here. I hate being here, but I needed someone to talk to.”
I peer out my window toward the side street, seeing the city bus carrying away my girl. She was quick to grab her stuff and get out the door after the conversation we had. Something eerie stirred discomfort in my chest at her words.
“Please, Croix!” she begs again, regaining my attention.
“Thirty seconds,” I say. “You’ve got thirty seconds to spill your sob story, then I want you out of this house.”
She tries catching her breath, “Okay.” She swallows, then nods. “Okay, so you remember how I’d been talking to this guy from the city, right?”
I roll my eyes, allowing her to continue.
“We’d been talking online for a while. Met through some tattoo lovers’ dating site. Anyway, he said he’s a rapper and mentioned he was coming through town on a tour,” she says, rushing her words as she meticulously rubs her arms. Her behavior is strange, almost twitchy.
“A tour through Montgomery?” I comment dryly. “His career is really thriving.”
“Croix, this is serious!”
I sit down on the edge of my bed, running my hand down my face and groaning. “Of course, Lana. Of course it is.”
“He came over to the tattoo shop. Said he thought getting a tattoo by me would be the dopest first date.”
“Can’t you call Cora and have these conversations with her? If this is some lame attempt to make me feel jealous by flaunting some sob story of other men’s interest in you, stop while you’re ahead. The ship has long sailed and reached the other side of the ocean already. Docked and done. I don’t give a fuck.”
“And when I opened the door,” she continues talking despite my pleas to stop, “a man I’d never seen met me at the door. He didn’t look anything like his pictures.”
I turn to face her, entertaining her for a moment so she’ll get on with it and leave. She pulls at the hem of her shirt, her eyes wide and shadowed with lingering fear. It’s then I notice the marks on her wrists. I sit up straight, reassessing the situation as it unfolds before me.
“He wouldn’t take no for an answer. Said dirty whores like me deserve death. He was—he didn’t…” She gasps for air, and I stand, immediately rushing to her. She collapses in my arms, her legs turning to liquid as she loses herself to tears, hands cupping her face in horror.
“He tied you up? What happened, Lana? Talk to me.”
“I thought I was going to die, Croix,” she wails, sinking to the floor with me. “He held a knife to my neck, tied my hands together, my legs…used cable cords, like from a car.”
Her wrists and ankles have red ligature marks on them; the ones on her wrists cut into her skin more abrasively.
“I think he would’ve killed me, I do,” she cries. “He did horrific things. Called me names. Used…objects. It hurt so bad. He was gonna kill me.” She falls apart again, curling into herself. I grab a spare blanket, wrap it around her body, and secure my arms around her, holding her together.
My mind starts working, processing everything she’s saying.
“He didn’t though. You’re right here, and you’re going to be alright. I promise you, okay? Sigh!” I yell for him as I rock her. “No one can hurt you now. You’re safe here. Get in here, Sigh!”
I may not like Lana most days, and our history is a messy fucking story, but she needs help. She’s clearly vulnerable and came here in need of protection. What lies between us is irrelevant.
“Someone thought the shop was open because of the lights. They tried to get in the door. Rattled the lock. It was enough to scare him off,” she hiccups, her hair covering her face. I brush it away. “Enough to not be seen.”
“You showered,” I state, combing her wet hair back a little.
“I know you’re not supposed to. I just…it’s just that I could smell him on me. His cologne was so pungent, like oranges or something. It wouldn't leave me.”
My neck stiffens, and I sit upright. “What did you say?”
“He wore some cologne that smelled so pungent. Citrus or something sweet you wouldn’t expect a man to wear.” Her nose wrinkles and her lips curl, looking as if she might actually vomit.
Citrus, car cables, the dirty blanket in the back of the vehicle…
My mind tries to work out this strange feeling I have.
Montana, her reasons for learning the cello, dating Wesley Hopkins, Gabriella’s murder, the ghosting, CyprusX, the ligature marks, the word disillusion, my mother marrying Phil, the hand scar, the need for a new life, hope and heartbreaks…
Josiah storms into the room, startled at the sight of Lana in a blanket on the floor as I stare vacantly at the wall behind her. My thoughts run wild as a summer storm, collecting more thunderous clouds as they roll in, piece by piece.
“What happened?”
“Stay here with her,” I say, grabbing the phone box from beneath my bed. Wheeter pops his head in the room, looking entirely confused as I take what I need, scrambling with shaking hands.
“Both of you stay here with her! Please!”
She was wrong. She said she got it all wrong, and she did.
“What’s going on?” Josiah asks.
I turn to face him, seeing so many answers, so much I could break him with. I want to tell him that I know who stripped him of his livelihood and destroyed his family, but there’s no time.
She got it all wrong, and she hasn’t the slightest clue what’s coming.