Chapter 12 #2
We made our way to Ethan’s apartment on the top floor. The two floors below, equally large and deluxe apartments, were mine, and my sister’s. We all had other residences, but this place had always been a favorite. A retreat where we all felt safe.
I should be feeling safe right now, but I realized suddenly that feeling safe was an internal thing. An inside job. If your brain didn’t consent to it, you were screwed.
There was no refuge. Danger was all around. All the time.
There was a confusing few minutes while we figured out what to do first, which culminated in my brother and Remy gingerly herding me, without ever seeming to push, into a bathroom to shower off the blood and dirt before being seen by the doctor.
The hot water stung. I’d gotten slashes, bruises, a graze from a stray bullet, and plenty of contusions from being knocked around on that rocky hillside.
No big deal, except for my feet, which had gotten torn up from frantic sprinting over sharp rocks.
They’d been very soft, from a year of feeling nothing but the smooth tile floor of my prison for months.
The soap and water hurt like a motherfucker.
I was standing in a swirling pink puddle for the entire time I was in the shower.
Angela brought up some of my own clothes from my apartment.
I barely recognized them, or remembered the man who wore them.
Athletic pants, a soft, comfortable sweatshirt.
Everything felt loose on me. I looked taut and stringy when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Like I’d been boiled down.
Dr. Josef Demiguel, an old friend of Ethan’s, was waiting for me in the bedroom when I shuffled out of the bathroom.
I submitted to a doctor’s examination, teeth clenched.
Demiguel was a short, chubby guy, usually cheerful, but very serious looking tonight.
He was as gentle as possible, but having my feet worked on was an ordeal, even with the anesthetic spray.
He tweezed out embedded grit, smearing the wounds with salve, put stitches into the slash on my arm. Shone a light into my eyes.
Then, he unwound the bandages that Red had put onto my throat and let out a sharp gasp. “What is this? Did someone try to garrote you? Fifty different times?”
“More or less,” I said, wincing as he explored it with latex-gloved fingers.
“From the sound of it, you have some vocal damage,” he said, his voice worried. “You’ll have to be seen by a voice specialist. Among other things.”
More smearing of antibiotic salves followed.
I had to endure an injection of some broad-spectrum antibiotic or other that the doctor insisted on, to ward off all the possible infections.
I steeled myself for the blood-drawing for various lab tests.
But I drew the line at getting an IV bag of electrolytes.
No fucking way was I lying here on my back with a drip in my arm.
Demiguel closed up his bag, his eyes worried. “You should be admitted to the hospital immediately,” he said. “After an ordeal like yours, there’s only so much I can do for you here at the house. We need to run tests. X-rays, ultrasounds—”
“Later,” I said. “Not now.”
“I strongly advise you to do it now,” he said. “You should come with—”
“Later.” My voice slashed down, silencing him.
Demiguel’s mouth tightened. He grabbed bag of blood samples. “I’ll go take a look at the young lady and the little girl, then,” he said stiffly. “And be on my way.”
“Won’t you stay for dinner, Josef?” Ethan urged.
“No. I’m sure you all have a lot of catching up to do.” He shot me a nervous glance. “And it’s late. Just please. Consider going to the hospital. As soon as you can.”
I nodded. Sure, fine, but I was locked in mortal combat with a blood-drinking monster at the moment. The check-ups and the spa treatments could wait.
Ethan waited until the door closed behind the guy, and then stared at me with cool eyes, arms crossed over his barrel chest. “This experience hasn’t done much for your manners,” he said.
“It sure fucking hasn’t,” I agreed readily.
As we locked eyes, I felt it. The pull inside me, toward something that I just could not reach. Like I was trapped behind a six-inch wall of fortified glass, screaming, pounding on it to get his attention. But he couldn’t hear me through the barrier.
“What happened, Shane?” he asked.
I shook my head. “It’s just like I told you.
I was taken, chained up, fucked up. Vincent and Nicole worked me over.
Then Halliwell took his turn. I had some brain damage after Vincent and Nicole bashed my head in.
That was lucky. It was the only thing that kept me from spilling what I knew about SmokeScreen.
Somehow, Red got me out. I’m not even quite sure how.
I’m still alive. That’s all I can say. And I don’t really want to dwell on it right now. ”
“You can’t just grit your teeth and pretend it never happened.”
“Watch me,” I said.
His jaw tightened. “Shane. For fuck’s sake—”
“We are not having this conversation. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.”
Ethan let out a sigh. “Fine. But I killed some of the people who took you, by the way. So did Freya, and Jed, and Kat, and the Drakes. Even Holly got in a couple of good licks. We’d do anything to help you.
So try to keep track of who you’re really pissed at.
We don’t deserve it. I’m sorry we didn’t rescue you.
I’m jealous of this girl for doing all the heavy lifting.
Grateful as hell, yes. But I still wish it had been me. ”
I nodded. “I’m not pissed. I’m just… like this, now. I don’t want to be, but I am. Don’t know how to be any other way. At least not yet. I’m just… you know.”
Locked behind a wall of glass.
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “I mean, of course, I can’t really know. But I can imagine.”
“No,” I said. “You can’t. Be glad that you can’t.”
He nodded. “If you say so.”
“Look, Ethan,” I blurted. “I’m sorry. Truth is, I’m still not even sure this is real.
I’m not convinced you’re here at all. I’ve hallucinated you before, more than once.
Maybe I’m dying, and this is some wishful end-of-life fantasy.
Maybe I’m just having a psychotic break.
I just can’t relax into it. I just don’t dare. So don’t take it personally.”
“Gotcha,” he said. “Maybe when Halliwell is finally dead, you can relax into this dimension of reality. It’s a good dimension. You’re going to like it. Eventually.”
I flexed my hands, trying to breathe out the tension in my chest. “I hope so,” I said. “I don’t want Holly to see me like this.”
“You can’t put that off,” Ethan warned. “She’s on her way here, right now, and she’s wild to see her daddy.
So whatever complicated stuff that you’re feeling or not feeling right now, you have to pull your shit together and put on a good show for her.
The rest of us can be patient and understanding. Not her.”
“Understood.”
“And think about what Demiguel said,” Ethan scolded. “Going to the hospital to get checked out by the doctors is pretty damn basic, Shane. You know it’s the smart thing to do.”
“Give me a minute, okay?” I said. “Give me some time to be here. I’ll be fine.
I’m not shot or stabbed or bleeding out.
My bones have healed. I know who you all are.
The big stuff is still intact. Let’s think about keeping Halliwell off our throats before I let down my guard in a public hospital setting.
Because I just fucking can’t right now.”
Ethan made a frustrated sound. “We’ll get right on this. The Drakes are all over it, and Jed and Freya will be too, when they get here tomorrow. Say. About that redhead. What’s the deal with her? Are you, ah… you know?”
I was so started by the gossipy frivolity of that question, I actually laughed, rusty and stiff as that sensation was. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Well? What is her deal? You made this fraught bargain with her, you got us to save the cute little sister, she busted you out of that hellhole all by herself. She’s brave, she’s tough, she’s smart. And, ah…”
“She’s also smoking hot? Drop dead gorgeous? A walking wet dream? Were those the phrases you were looking for?”
Ethan’s lip twitched. “You said it, not me. But I’m only flesh and blood, so yeah, I couldn’t help but notice. So? What’s up with that?”
I rubbed my face, feeling the weird, aching strain of rusty smile muscles unused to doing their thing. “I don’t know what to think,” I admitted. “She blows my mind, definitely. Can’t deny that. No one could blame me for it. But I’m fucked if I know.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”
I was reluctant to voice the thought, which felt ungrateful and unworthy.
“She just came to me, out of the blue,” I said.
“I’m not sure if she’s real, either. I mean, what are the odds?
I was buried in that place. There was no way I was getting out.
It was like being locked in a bank vault.
And then, abracadabra, a shining princess in a fucking ball gown spirits me out singlehandedly. ”
Ethan looked puzzled. “Ball gown?”
“Literally. I swear to God. She was wearing a ball gown to my execution. With a corset top and a big, puffy skirt. Like a cartoon princess, except sexy. She said she switched out the lethal gas for a sedative, and then stole my apparently dead body. I woke up in a body bag in the back of a van. I take no credit for any part of it. And she was still in the ball gown at that point. It was surreal.”
“Sounds like you got busy later, when those goons came at you at the cabin,” Ethan said. “Based on what you told me before we picked you up. You can definitely take credit for that fight. That was some quick thinking. Using the van against them.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. But that was later.”
“So,” Ethan said. “You’re wondering if she’s too good to be true.”