Chapter 4: The Trident

Jim

This isn't happening. This isn't real. Alex would never let himself get caught like this. It ain't true – it can't be.

But there he is, bruised and bloodied as all fucking hell in his mug shot. No Dad, no Alex . . . No, no, no, no, no!

"This isn't fucking happening!" I scream, tearing at my IVs and kicking off the hospital sheets. "It's a fucking lie!" I can't pull the IVs out, no matter how hard I tear at them, and I feel my arms start to freeze like they're covered in ice. I see black figures crowd around my hospital bed, and their skeletal fingers point at me.

"What – whaddya want?" I ask, my voice cracking. "Who are you?"

They don't talk, but I feel their thoughts all around me. Murderer, Murderer, Murderer, Murderer. Going to Tartarus for your bad deeds. Murderer, Murderer, Murderer. Tartarus? What the fuck is that? One of their skeletal hands scratch at my chest, tearing the hospital gown and cutting into my skin, and I try to thrash and kick at them but they just end up grabbing my legs and sticking their claws into my flesh there too.

"I ain't a murderer!" I yell, "I never killed anyone!" Did I? I can't remember. There's another deep scratch down my chest, and I scream. "Stop it!" I yell. Coward, they hiss back at me. Murderer. "I'm not a fucking coward!" I scream, "I'm not a fucking murderer!"

Coward, murderer. To Tartarus you will go – in Tartarus you will burn. The hospital bed is ripped out from under me, and I'm falling, falling, falling, and falling, down an endless cavern filled with screams of dread and tongues of green fire. This is it: this is my fate.

And then, somebody catches me, and I feel myself being lifted from my doom.

"Dad?" I ask. It's gotta be him.

"Go to sleep, Jim," I hear him reply. So I do, and when the monsters come back and I feel like my heart is going to burst out of my fucking chest, I know he's behind me with a strong grip on my shoulder.

"You're fine, Jim," he says. "You're okay," and the rest of the night I sleep calmly, 'coz I know he's there.

When I wake up and look at the clock on the wall to my left, it's around 11:30. There's note on my lap. I read it aloud:

Jim,

Went to work; won't be back until around 5:30. Give Rachel a text if you need anything; I'll see if I can pick it up. I left my phone next to the bed.

Also, you're grounded. For a long, long time. We'll talk about it when I get back from work at The Trident. If you get bored, I brought a few of your favorite books.

I love you,

Mom

"Well, shit," I say. My eyes move to the bathroom, and I realize that I gotta take a piss really, really badly. I see a chair on the left side of my bed, and I swing my feet over to that side, 'coz I wanna move it to the back of the room. My toe feels like it hits a concrete wall as I bring my feet over the chair, and I hear a noise like someone's just grunted. My toe feels like it's fucking broken too, now. Fucking great.

The worst part is when the chair fucking moves; like there's a goddamn invisible person sitting up really fast, and then the chair gets fucking knocked back, like that very same invisible person has just fallen flat on their ass from trying to get up too fast.

"What. The. Fuck."

And I swear to fucking God, I hear a fucking groan coming from that direction, and what feels like hands trying to push up from the edge of my bed. And then, and fucking then the goddamn note my mom wrote me starts to float, up above me, behind me, and through the door, which seems to just magically open.

Damn, I must have a bad concussion.

Cora

Tips come in slow as I serve late lunches to the customers here at The Trident. I lean back against the wall as I take my five minute break, rubbing my eyes. God, Jim.

"You doing alright, sweetie?" I open my eyes and see my best friend, Rachel Yanez, smiling at me. I hug her. "Oh Rachel, I was so scared!" I feel like I'm on the verge of crying. "I thought – "

"Shhhh, it's okay, chica. You want me to cover for you today?" I laugh and shake my head.

"I can't let you do that, Rach. Besides, working helps calm me down."

She nods. "If you need anything, just let me know."

"I will," I say, smiling at her.

She looks like she's about to get back to waiting on customers, but she stops. "Hey, why don't you serve the customer in the corner booth?" She has a mischievous look on her face.

"What are you up to, Rach?"

She winks at me. "Just do it – he's handsome."

I giggle. "Two, five, eight?"

"Nuh uh, girl – he is a perfect 10 all the way. Check him out for yourself. I call him, Rugged Amazingness."

I snort. "You gave him a nickname already?"

"Damn right I did. You haven't seen Rugged Amazingness yet – you need to so we can fan ourselves over him."

"Darn it, Rach, now I'm curious." I peek behind the corner. There's a man sitting in the corner booth, but he's reading the menu. "I can't see him."

"Take his order! Go, go, go!" She pokes me every time she says "go." "For womankind, you must go! Prepare yourself, though: Rugged Amazingness's amazingness might just make your ovaries spontaneously combust."

The manager is looking at us now and I put a finger to my lips, trying to simultaneously be quiet and shush Rachel, and failing.

"Wish me luck on my mission, Rach," I try to whisper, but it comes out as a giggle.

"Good luck and Godspeed, soldier." She gives me a salute, and I burst out laughing again as I walk over to the man sitting in the corner booth.

"Hello, sir, and welcome to The Trident. What would you like to have?"

Then he puts his menu down, and I feel my jaw drop.

It's guy from the hospital: the guy with the cane.

"What – what are you doing here?" I sputter out.

The man – Hank, I think he said his name was – shrugs. "I came here to eat."

"You had to come here to eat?" He taps the pummel of his cane, which is leaning on his left leg.

"I was told the place is good." The Trident? Good? Now I know you're lying.

"Are you stalking me?" My words are whispered so that only he can hear it.

"What? No!" He shakes his head. "You ran off so fast yesterday, I just wanted to talk about –"

Oh my God, that's right: this guy is paying for Jim's hospital stay. I pinch the bridge of my nose and look back at the manager, who seems to be sneering at me.

"Look, Hayden –"

"Hank."

"Hank. I really appreciate what you're doing, but I really need to get back to work – the manager is going to kill me –"

"Don't worry about the manager," he says, flicking his icy eyes to my boss. "I told him that I needed to speak with you; I will repay any money lost." Seriously, who is this guy? He lifts his hand out to the seat across from him and smiles softly at me. "Please, Cora, sit." I didn't hear it before, but he has a light accent when he talks. Almost too light to notice, so I can't tell where he's from. I do as he says.

"I'm sitting," I say, crossing my arms.

He runs a hand through his messy hair and clears his throat. His fingers tap the silver skull pummel of his cane, and I think he might be a little nervous.

I wait and wait and wait, but he still doesn't say anything.

"Well . . . ?" I ask, raising my eyebrows and he just smirks at me. This guy is unbelievable.

"What does 'Cora' mean?" he asks, pointing at my name tag with his cane.

I huff in frustration and start to get up. "Look, if you're going to waste my time –"

"No, wait!" He touches my hand, and when I look down at him, I once again get that feeling that I've seen him somewhere before. Normally, I would have slapped a guy for presuming he could grab my hand like that, but this time, I don't know . . . I just . . . don't. I do glare at him, though. He seems to notice belatedly that he's overstepped his bounds and he immediately lets go.

"I'm sorry," he blurts out, looking at what must be a really interesting stain on the floor. "Please stay: we can discuss it over lunch."

And so we do, and he tells me about how he found Jim on the sidewalk, looking like he had just taken a beating, and how he lifted Jim onto his own back and walked his way over to the hospital until he finally managed to hail a cab. He decided at the hospital that he was going to pay for Jim's stay.

"But why?" I ask him. "Not that I don't appreciate it, it's just, well –"

He leans back in the booth and scratches the stubble on his cheek. "When we were in the cab, your son begged me and pleaded with me not to take him to the hospital – he said it would be too expensive. And of course, I couldn't not take him to the hospital; so took him, and I paid." He shrugs, grimacing as he takes a drink of his coffee. "This is disgusting," he says, wiping his mouth. "I hope you know that this is disgusting."

I laugh. "Believe me, I know."

The food comes, and it's Rachel serving – she winks at me. He –Hank, his name is Hank – Hank puts a huge amount of ketchup on his burger, along with some hot sauce. Oh boy, this is going to be good. I watch with anticipation as he brings the burger to his mouth, bites into it, and gets a big drop of ketchup down the front of his shirt. He curses in what I think is Greek for about five minutes, doing his best to wipe the front of his shirt off. I laugh and then he looks back up at me, and his eyes are big and confused and his expression is just priceless. Then I see that he's got some ketchup on his chin and I laugh even harder. There's no way I'm going to be able to eat my grilled cheese sandwich now.

"It looks like you missed a spot, tiger." I take a napkin and wipe the remaining ketchup off his face. "There you go: good as new."

"Thank you," he says running his hand through his hair again. "I feel rather silly after that. How will you ever take me seriously?"

"I won't."

"Wonderful." He sounds upset, insulted even, but he's smiling warmly. Actually, the way he's looking at me . . . for a second it's really intense, and it makes my heart flutter in my chest. I even forget that his scar – jagged and awful thing that it is – is there. I know you. What aren't you telling me? My watch beeps and I have a mini heart-attack. It's 5:00.

"S-sorry, Hank, I have to go. I told Jim I'd be at the hospital by 5:30. I need to get to the subway –"

"I can take you," he says, his voice deep voice getting light in his excitement. I contemplate that idea.

"Hank, we really don't know each other."

"C'mon," he says, slowly pushing himself up with his cane. "You can pepper spray me if I try anything. Besides, it'll be faster. Maybe." Probably not – traffic in New York sucks – but for some reason, I want to spend more time with this guy. I want to figure out who he is.

I sigh. "Just to let you know, I have an extra strong pepper spray – it can take out bears; I've seen it myself."

He smiles. "Noted." He holds out his arm, and his expression is teasing. What do you want me to do, take it? He raises his eyebrows expectantly. Seriously, guy? Fine.

I'm going to hate myself for this, but I take his arm, and when I do, I'm pretty sure I hear Rachel scream "Yes!" somewhere in the background. His limp makes walking like this kind of awkward, but all the same I feel strangely comforted.

When we finally get to his car, my jaw drops for the second time today.

"This – this is your car?"

He opens the side swinging doors, and I almost feel like I'm going to faint as he leads me towards the passenger side.

"Hop on in," he says, grinning at me.

Oooh boy. I'm in big trouble, aren't I?