Chapter 9

Theme: Don't You Worry Love—The Cat Lady

(The theme was perfect for this gloomy chapter. XOXO—Jvalentine0)


Juli had no idea how long she had been laying on the floor in the divide of the light cast from above the oven and the shadows creeping their fingers from the bar parallel to the island of her kitchen. She thought the smiling black cat clock on the wall had chimed twice… or was it three times? Her brain felt five sizes too big for her skull. Cold sank straight into her bones; the house coat cutting high along her thigh was hardly long enough to keep her warm. She could hear the gentle dripping of something close by. Likely, it was her own blood leaking from her mouth, the taste of copper was still oozing on her tongue. Eyes slowly opening and closing, everything was a blurry mess where light and shadows were not good friends. There was one thing she could see, past the derelict remains of her beloved things shattered on the floor.

He left the fucking door open…

She closed her eyes, the doorway was empty. She opened her eyes and a blurry figure stood in the doorway, black as night. Juli held her breath, expecting it to be him, coming back to finish the job.

"Miss Kidman?" A worried voice…

Juli's entire body shook as she huffed in relief and tried to reply. Her only reward was to have pain realize she was coherent enough to feel it. Every inch of her body awoke with ache. The bones of her wrists screamed at her under their bruising. Her ribs whispered pleas to just stop trying to move. She moaned in agony, rolling away as she felt nausea overwhelm her senses, and purged despite her huddling. Blood and bile… a terrible mixture.

Footfalls, quick and hard, made their sound known on the antique wood flooring. "Miss Kidman, can you hear me?"

"Doctor Jimenez?" She tried to focus, reached out and failed. An unfamiliar hand on her wrist and lightning shot through the woman's form. Her head fell back against the marble of the floor with a yelp of pain.

"No… it's Nicholas. Nicholas Withers, we met at the Victoriano Estate. What happened?" The silver haired youth couldn't hide the worried tone in his voice as he propped her up with his arms. Glass crunched under his feet as he tried to be gentle about adjusting her.

Just how bad did Louis beat me after I was out like a light?

It was hard to keep cognizant. She heard him addressing others…whoever they were.

"No, do not bring him up now! There's broken glass everywhere. …I don't care what you have to express to him. Call 911." Nicholas' normally warm voice warbled in and out of volume.

She reached up to grasp onto the sleeve of his suit. "Please don't leave me…" Juli sobbed, tears already stinging down the sides of her face. "Please… Ruvik…"

"I wouldn't leave you right now for anything." Nicholas tried to smile, noting her delirium. He brushed a few sticky brunette strands away from her mouth, letting them frame her face. "Who did this?"

She couldn't stay awake…

"Juli?"

She did try. It was hard to keep her eyes open. Nicholas' visage faded into black.

"Juli, who did this to you?"

Sometimes it's easier to sleep.


"It's three in the morning, Juli." Marcelo replied. A look of relief had washed over his features as the woman woke and asked for the time with an empty voice. "I…don't think I know exactly what to do with you anymore." Like a father with a teenager daughter, he had more questions than answers. He thought he might find answers as the bottom of a Styrofoam cup of coffee as he slurped it down. The burning liquid peeled at the roof of his mouth unfortunately.

"It's not your fault." Juli mumbled, hissing as her tongue touched a spot on the inside of her mouth. Stitching had greeted and warned not to touch further.

"Louis?" The aged doctor's expression hardened at her nod. "Well, he seems not to know just what will land him in jail. Assaulting a cop that already had a restraining order against him sounds like the perfect way to do it. Mobius will be informed that you were attacked. I don't know exactly what they will do."

"Am I going back to Beacon?" She interrupted his line of thought with her chief concern.

Marcelo paused, lips forming a thin line. His fingers rotated the rim of the cup between his fingers. "Do you wish to hurt yourself or others?"

"Just Louis…" She whispered, a tear streaming down her bruised and battered cheek. The heart monitor on the other side of the pair quietly blipped that she was doing okay.

"Me too," He uttered softly, running a hand against his thinning hair. "No, but you are going to have to make arrangements to be somewhere safe until this stops."

"I burned my bridges with Victoriano… Maybe I can stay with Tatiana." Defeat hugged her shoulders as she stared up at the shadows scouring the ceiling.

Marcelo took notice of her dejected expression. "Did you?" Jimenez sounded almost concerned.

She nodded several times.

Pursing his lips, Marcelo gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "I need to go address your KPD police chief before he busts down the door demanding answers. Try to get some sleep. I will call Tatiana in the morning and have her take an hour off to come see you. I know you two are fairly close. You can make arrangements then."

Fat chance on sleep Doc…

The thought of sleep made her nervous. Marcelo leaving made her more nervous.

God… what is Mobius going to think of this? I'm their only agent on the ground monitoring relations to STEM and I can't keep it together. I'm supposed to know how to protect myself. Why didn't I fight back more? Why did I let him…?

Reduced to tears, Juli was left picking up the pieces of her own mind—to try to find a way to put on a brave face. She'd need it for the music that was in her immediate future.


Marcelo scribbled another prescription for a mood enhancer, wracking his brain for the best means to combine medications. "I just finished dealing with the KPD… Can't this wait until tomorrow? I am exhausted, Nicholas."

"No. He wishes to see her tonight. You and I both know how this will go, Doctor. He's out in the car, waiting for the hall to be clear and permission to see her." Trench coat draped over his right arm, Nicholas only had his left hand to gesture with.

Ruvik actually dared to come this far into the city? That's rare… That's a good sign but that is rare… Marcelo sighed deeply, playing what appeared to be a poor hand once again. "Just what happened? She feels as though he never wanted to see her again." Concern wrought his words. "I can't have his presence upsetting her. She's fragile and for God's sake she was just assaulted! Her mental state is so deteriorated that she, a highly trained police officer, was overwhelmed and beaten by a common thug!"

"I highly doubt she said anything of the sort to you." Nicholas' clipped response hid a warning to the doctor.

Marcelo's face turned to stone. "She did. Why is he here? Why isn't he working? He got to play for a few days and agreed he'd be back to work after that."

"It hardly matters. You know just how far he will push you in order to get his way."

"Unbelievable…" Marcelo's expression was torn between utter annoyance and defeat as he scratched another prescription on the pad and handed it to the ER nurse.

"You published his work again…"

"Alright, fine!" The clipboard in Marcelo's hand was dropped on the nursing station with a slam before he stormed off down the hallway.

"Tell Leslie I'll see him on Saturday! I'm bringing donuts if you care to join us, Marcelo." With a rather pleased grin, Nicholas slicked his silver strands back.

"Oh go to Hell, Nicholas!"

Three nurses were left caught in the crossfire of the exchange, confused as could be.


The sound of footfalls caused Juli to stir from her sleep. There was dim light cast from the moon in her corner and there were sunflowers. Five of all, their yellows shone brightly even in the shadows where her bed stood. Despite the pain, she turned her head toward the window. Her heart forgot how to function for a brief moment.

Ruvik, with a forearm shrouded by a well-tailored suit's sleeve against the window, was looking out to the lights of the city. The angles of his bandaged face were harsh in contrast of light and shadow. Even with it he still looked every bit the Adonis of his heritage. His thoughts wandered amid a vague comparison of such a place as the city to the brain in his own skull.

Vehicles and their headlights…like messages sent between. It's almost poetic.

Ruvik turned his head to regard the sleeping beauty, only to find her wide awake.

Wide awake, covered in bruising. Her left eye was blackened. Someone had brutally left finger paint in shades of violet, blue, red and yellow all over his precious joy. Her throat bore the marks of hands that should not have touched her.

It had been too much for Laura's phantom, who had been rather smug the entire ride into Krimson City. She had fled out the door, as a nurse came in, the moment she saw the damage done.

He, on the other hand, was torn. Half of his being would rage against any dying light just to see the one responsible put in a shallow grave missing a head and all appendages. Every last appendage severed long before death. The other half wanted nothing more but to curl up and die. The burden was his like so many others… He sent her away.

This…is entirely my fault.

Ruvik tried very hard to soften his stare. For her, he would try. He hadn't realized his jaw was dropped until she climbed out of the bed and made her way toward the bathroom in complete silence. He fumbled with what to say, watching her…

Think.

"They're discharging you in a few hours."

She threw a glare to the wall opposite both of them, a hand on the doorframe. "Great, maybe my asshole ex-boyfriend will be caught in that time so I can go home."

A slam of the bathroom door and Ruvik was left standing in the dark. He was so used to it; he couldn't hold it against her.


Juli emerged from the restroom, a frown stitched on her face. The damage was extensive, both to her face and her ego.

What am I going to do?

The curtain shading an empty bed opposite her own gave way as her bare feet pattered over the tile back to her bed. She stopped.

He hadn't left, merely found a perch on the window's interior ledge to sit and wait. The orbitoclast was flicking light off its edge with each rotation of its owner's skillful fingers. Like some sort of living gargoyle, a trick of the light allowed his gray eyes to hold an almost ethereal glow when they shifted from the busy city below to her. His coat was hung across the back of the only chair near her bed. A confession forked from his lips. "Nicholas told me that you called out for me in the apartment."

Her features became cynical. Swallowing hard, she shrugged on approach. "I don't remember."

"It isn't something to be ashamed of…Juli." Her name was rust in his mouth, disused and unwanted. Juli was such a common name. She should have been called something far more fitting of being his joy.

Something elegant…

Or joyful.

His feet clapped the soles of their shoes on the tile floor as he dropped off the ledge to stand.

"I wouldn't be." She crawled into the bed.

He sat down next to the bed, bandaged fingers coiled over one another. "Do you want something?"

Mahogany orbs glanced to him as she swallowed down agony. "Just for you to go."

She may as well have slapped him. His eyes aired every bit of shock at her confession. "Why?" Ruvik couldn't hide the alarm in his graveled voice.

Hands dropped into her lap, Juli just shook her head. "I don't want you to see me like this." She whispered right into a pained hiss. Glittering tears were wiped away. "I just… This isn't what I want you to remember me as."

Confusion furrowed Ruvik's brow. "Remember you as? I never intended to write you off."

"I just… I cannot handle someone seeing me like this. So battered that I look almost dead…" Nipping her lower lip, Juli winced. "Can you please just go? I don't need you to see me as such a wreck."

She had done a butcher's worth of a dissection to his spirit with her words, treating him like he could not understand. Ruvik ran the edge of his index finger against his lips, gaze steady on her features. For the longest time, he watched her as the silence devoured the space between them. He saw her, much as he saw her for the first time. The reality of their intertwined fates settled deep, and he wasn't so fragile anymore. "May I tell you a story first?"

Juli nodded, pulling the thin blanket up to her waist. "If you would like to."

The orbitoclast's one razor sharp edge sliced the bandaging from the back of his right wrist. "Years ago, two children were playing in a barn on a piece of property recently purchased by their father." His left hand reached for the fold in the bandaging at his right wrist. "They were a brother and sister. The sister was older, full of life and love. She would have been a politician or doctor when she grew up… So much to offer mankind…" Bandaging gave way to severely scarred over tissue.

Juli's eyes widened as the bare hand gestured for her own. Long fingers shyly slid into his hand.

His thumb wandered the peaks of her knuckles. "Her brother, he was a bit of a trouble maker. Occasionally he stole pig heads from the slaughterhouse on the property and left the brain in the mean maid's bed after she switched him across the ass for saying a dirty word."

The brunette woman snorted at the idea, her free hand resting under her nose as she shrouded a grin.

His own lips curled into a smile, the right hand slipping away to slice away the bandaging of his left hand. "He loved his sister…deeply. She was the light of his world. Everyone else saw him as some sort of little freak. Two parents who had little time for them… They were close." Old scars appeared much like those on the right. "The people of the nearby town, religious folk, didn't take too kindly to this wealthy family taking up all of the local lands… So while the children were playing…" Sitting back in the chair, he reached behind to undo the knot that held more bandaging in place. "They set the barn on fire."

Juli's eyes widened.

He unwrapped the bandaging along his ethereal pale throat. "The sister…she pushed her brother through a window in the hay loft as the flames rose higher and higher…"

Juli watched as each layer unraveled.

Like a mummy brought back to life, Ruvik unrolled the bandaging across his face and scalp…until only he remained. The remnants of wrapping hung loose around his neck. "…She died in the fire. My beautiful sister… Laura."

Eyes as wide as dinner plates, Juli gaped that the sight of him before her.

"You wanted to see reality…"

No words escaped her.

He continued. "That little boy never thought he would meet someone who…treated him as well as Laura did. Someone who just didn't care that he was different." Silvery gray orbs lifted their stare from the space between them up to her features. "Then I met you." Ruvik ran a digit along the scar of his left cheek with a sigh. "You and I… in many ways we're one in the same. You merely wear your scars on the inside."

She nodded, slowly.

His marred right hand stretched out, offered to her once again. Leading her out of bed and to the window, Ruvik stood at her back. His hands came to rest on her shoulders, small circles drawn in the radius of his thumbs reach. Their reflections stood bare against the light of the city. The light of cars coming and going twinkled against their outlines.

Juli melted into him, her back resting against his chest. She couldn't ignore how alike they appeared in the window's reflection: beaten and broken. She didn't know what to say and was fine with that. Turning into him, her nose buried against his shoulder. She inhaled him and nothing else.

"Have you ever felt abandoned by the ones you trusted?"

Not today.

Long fingers smoothed over her brunette strands and soon were lost in them from touch. He would have been a liar to say he didn't miss having her close. A broken heart beat faster in its barbwire cage within him. "This world will give us both what we are due, Juli." Her name tasted less like rust. "I promise that you will have your justice. Whether it's that of a god, man… or the Devil himself, you will have what you rightfully deserve."

She nodded against his shirt, tears glittering down her cheeks. "Can we go home now?" Her question was muffled from their contact.

"Soon, we will…" Ruvik's stare darkened as he held her. His ashen spirit wept for her… and it burned red with every bit of fury he had left in him.


See you soon…Louis.