Notes: So that was a longer break than I was planning, but to make up for it there will be a chapter next Thursday too! And maybe even the Thursday after that! Wait that's Christmas Day, hmmmm. Oh, and as a non-fic based note: I've been thinking about changing my pen name for the past few months, and the New Year seems as good a time as any, just a heads up!

Disclaimer: Cobras are Stephen King's, everyone else isn't.

Chapter Twenty-One.

Two weeks passed until I saw Ace Merrill again. Two weeks. I'd been expecting him at the sound of every knock on the door, at the turn of a corner on every street, at the sound of every car engine on Main St. But it was like he'd simply vanished – an impressive feat for the guy who supposedly ruled the streets of Castle Rock.

After being almost over-saturated in him for the first few weeks of summer, I was at a loss when he suddenly wasn't around. I wondered if he'd found another girl to bother, that maybe he'd just lost whatever interest he'd had in me - then I'd question where that interest had come from in the first place. Maybe, I thought, he'd come back around when summer was at an end, so he could give me a ride to school and destroy my life. Remembering all the other girls, and the secrets that had circulated in the days after, I knew that Ace Merrill only went on a single date with them – that was all he'd ever needed to get what he wanted.

So why wasn't the same true for me? Why hadn't he tried to prolong the kiss? Why had he said his goodbyes when I was still clearly at his mercy? Why was I questioning whether or not I liked being at his mercy? I became the epitome of self-contradiction: telling myself I was glad he wasn't bothering me any more, but becoming annoyed because he wasn't.

Several nights during those weeks, I'd look at where I kept my car keys on the bedside table, the silver 'Jude' catching the light and glinting, and think to myself: Why? I'd reach out and run my fingers along the cursive font and question whether it was done in sincerity or mocking. A little of both, I hoped. Then I'd grow annoyed at how much of a hold he had over my thoughts, just because of a piece of metal, and would pull the blankets over my head, ashamed.

Something else that began to happen frequently, was my increased awareness of the condition of anything and everything around the house. I expected mom to make a passing comment every day about how she'd asked John Merrill to do some more work around the house, further establishing him as our go-to handyman. But she didn't. And, alarmingly, I tried to take matters into my own hands. At dinner, I'd subtly ask dad how the Chevy was, 'no more odd sounds coming from the engine?' Whenever we were in the garden, I'd comment on how I couldn't remember when the guttering was last cleaned out or 'was that a lose tile on the roof?' Mom was a little harder to deal with, because she read into things just as much as I did, so I'd have to wait for her to provide her own bait - she'd never noticed that stain before – to which I'd follow up with saying how the entire carpet was looking a little thread bare, hopefully steering her towards the idea of having it replaced, and who better than the cheap services of John Merrill and co. to fit it for us?

For all my discrete plotting, nothing around the house required enough attention to warrant outside help. At my most desperate, knowing then and there how ridiculous I was being, I wondered how easy it would be to block the kitchen sink. I was in the middle of deciding which vegetable would do the most damage when mom walked into the kitchen, saw me staring at the potatoes, and sent me out of the house for some fresh air – complaining that I'd been moping around the house for the past week.

It was then, whilst I was aimlessly walking along Castle Avenue, that Ace Merrill's '52 Ford crept to a stop on the sidewalk slightly ahead of me. Resolute in my irritation with him, I continued walking without so much as acknowledging his sudden presence, lifting my chin up and taking an interest in the flower beds that ran along the picket fence. I came to a halt when I heard him shout after me, "Jude, you know how to do stitches, right?"

The words knocked all the other thoughts – which were mostly about what either of us was going to say first – out of my head. I felt shocked, and quickly alarmed, when I questioned why he was asking me such a thing. I spun on my heel to look back towards him. Ace had gotten halfway out of the driver's seat, and sat, half twisted to face me, on the very top of the seat. My breath hitched as I took in his altered appearance, his entire upper body looked to be covered in a mixture of dirt and dust, his shirt had been ripped and was barely hanging on, and there were ugly bruises covering his jaw. I stared on, unable to find the words until I spotted it – a bright red splotch the size of a fist on his side.

My legs jolted into action as I approached him, the words tumbling out of my mouth. "What happened? Are you okay?" I couldn't take my eyes off the stain, and despite my feelings of resentment towards Ace, I felt the sting of tears begin in the corner of my eyes, "Should you be driving? Is it bad? What happened?"

"What?" Ace looked down at the bloody remnants of his shirt, "Fuck." There was a strained humour to his voice when he next spoke, pulling at the bloodstain to examine it, "No wonder old man Lyle looked-" I looked up at him, at a loss at the mention of the man who owned Castle Rock General Store. "It's not mine." He ran a hand through his hair and I noticed that the skin on his knuckles had ripped open, "Just get in the car, I'll explain on the way – you can do stitches, right?"

I nodded, feeling a sense of urgency, and quickly made my way around the car to the passenger side. There was a brown paper bag on the seat. Ace asked, "There everything you need in there?" as I sat down and placed it in my lap. I opened the bag to find a small first aid kit and went over the contents as the car began to move - it was less than half the size of the one I was used to, but it had everything required. I was thinking about how I would have preferred to sterilize the needle myself when I realized I didn't know who exactly it was I'd be giving stitches to, or how serious the injury was.

Looking towards Ace, at the rawness of his hands as he gripped the wheel, I didn't know whether or not it was a good time to tell him I'd only ever practised suturing on a reluctant Davey when he'd gotten a cut the previous year – and it had only needed three stitches and I'd been guided and supervised the entire time. My stomach flipped as I stared at the dried blood on his fingers, but I managed to keep my voice steady. "Whose blood is it?"

Feeling around in his pocket, Ace pulled out a pack of cigarettes as he answered, "Charlie's." He tucked a broken cigarette between his lips and added, "Dumb shit."

"Charlie's?" I repeated, "Charlie Hogan?" Even for a Cobra he'd always been somewhat mild-mannered, I couldn't get my head around why he – out of all of them – would have an injury so bad it would need stitches, let alone the fact it wasn't even noon on a Tuesday.

Ace didn't respond, instead he winced as he failed for a second time to get his lighter to work. His hand, in it's battered state, refused to fully cooperate, and I watched the skin angrily stretch each time he tightened his grip. Out of both sympathy and impatience, I leant over and offered my hand, "Here."

He offered a side-glance at me and my hand, and smacked the lighter into my open palm with a disgruntled sigh. I slid over in the seat so I wouldn't have to awkwardly stretch, and flicked the lighter on once I had my other hand up to block the breeze. I kept my eyes on the flame, watching as it flickered and licked at the cigarette, aware that Ace was keeping his eyes on me and not on the road. As soon as the paper began to ember, I hurriedly put the lighter on the dash and shimmied back over to the passenger side of the seat.

After a few moments of silence, and an irritating look of satisfaction on Ace's face, I tried to reignite my concern about what had happened. "So it's Charlie Hogan's blood?"

"Yeah," Ace nodded, "He's a bleeder though – gets nosebleeds if he thinks too hard – so it's not as bad as you think." I hadn't really thought about how bad it could be, the majority of my worry had, unnervingly, left as soon as Ace told me it wasn't his blood. Glancing between the newly bought first aid kit and Ace's own condition, I could safely assume that there had been a fight, but the particulars eluded me – I hoped I wasn't being brought into something that was still ongoing.

I ran my hands along the new medical supplies, still wrapped and neatly placed in the correct compartments, and, despite Ace's aloofness to the severity of the injury, told myself that he had gone out to buy this as soon as he could. And then what? Had he made his way down Castle Avenue in order to pick me up? The car turned onto Harrington Street and I realized we were probably heading over to Town Road #5, towards Castle Hill – the 'bad' side of town where everyone knew the Cobras hung out at the Junkyard. I needed to know what I was getting myself into, or what Ace was getting me into, I closed the kit and turned to him, "What happened?"

"Someone pulled a knife - and it wasn't Charlie." Ace took a long drag of the cigarette, tapped the ash off at the window. "That's what happened."

All the gossip I'd ever heard about Ace Merrill carrying a knife was suddenly screaming at me. I looked at the blood on his shirt and hands, and spurned on by his evasiveness, wondered if there had been some sort of internal dispute. That didn't explain why Ace would be so quick to get help though, and why I was the help – why was I being fetched to fix his mess? I tried to ignore the increasing dryness in my mouth as I remembered the times in movies when people would go to prison for being accessories to a crime.

Whilst attempting to concentrate on something else, it finally sunk in: Charlie Hogan had been stabbed. It would be my second time doing stitches and it was going to be an injury caused by a knife, any chance of admitting I was a novice quickly vanished. I cleared my throat, "Where is it?" I looked down at my lap, struggling with the words, "The stab wound."

"His leg." Ace answered without hesitation, and took a hand off the wheel. "Thigh," he said, jabbing his own in an area only a few inches below his hips.

"There's an artery in the thigh." My eyes grew wide, "He could've-" I shook my head, willing away the numb sense of dread, "You should have taken him to the hospital."

Ace, throwing me what I assumed to be a reassuring glance, responded. "When I left he was as lively as ever – thrashing around and bleedin' all over Chamber's backseat – took three of us just to get him in the fuckin' car in the first place." Neither the look or his words offered me any assurance, and I dimly noticed how he didn't even bother explaining what a ridiculous idea he thought taking Charlie to the hospital was.

As we took a right onto Castle Hill Road, I only felt more confused about what had actually transpired. And the fact that Ace had thought of me as his go-to when one of his pals needed stitches left me feeling more than a little anxious, for myself and Charlie Hogan.

This chapter was brought to you by OH NOES CHARLIE! (DON'T WORRY HE'LL BE FINE) (PROBABLY).