Chapter 7
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, except for my own. The rest belong to Tribune Entertainment.
Something happened over the week and I feel really bad about it. My favorite uncle keeled over with a heart attack. His heart went into ventricular fibrillation twice, and he literally 'died'. They managed to revive him, and he's okay for the moment. But I was out of the country for business at that time, and nobody told me about it, despite the fact I'm contactable by handphone and e-mail 24 hrs a day, no matter where I am. Well, my husband would have told me, except they didn't tell him either.
What made me feel bad was that my uncle was asking where I was because he thought he was going to die. And all the 2 days I was in Hong Kong, all I worried about (selfishly) was whether I would contract atypical pneumonia, without giving a thought that other people might be in worse straits.
So anyway, this chapter is written for my uncle, who doesn't even know I watch Mutant X.
Rated PG-13
Emma awoke, the bits and pieces of the night's events like mental flotsam in her consciousness. There was a warmness trickling within her, a permeating fluffy suffusion that she could neither give shape nor form....What was it again? Oh yes, I've decided I'm in love with Brennan Mulwray. That was so easy. The admittance, and then the helpless surrender to inevitable fate.
She looked at his sleeping form; it was still early, the sun had yet to rise. This thing called love, experienced so rarely and so acutely....it was already hurting so much inside, a pulsating throbbing within each heartbeat; of expectation and trepidation. Waves of elation and fear, interchangeable like a magnetic field, swinging from one polarity to the next.
Oh what oh what, she wondered, if he doesn't feel the same way?
That's the way it always is, isn't it? With love. When you are the index case, when you are Patient Zero and you've decided you're in love with somebody. And you don't know what he's feeling, or even what he's thinking about.
And if you tell him, Emma, and if he's not ready for it....can you bear the rejection?
The awful truth of the matter hit her suddenly like a blow to her stomach. She gasped, it was almost visceral.
I can't tell him, she thought. I can't tell him because I can't bear to know if he doesn't feel the same way.
And the knowing of it would surely tear her apart, wringing her heart into a million pieces and scattering it far and wide, until there would be no option for possible healing. Oh, this thing they had now, this closeness, this physicality.....it was so wonderful. If she told him now, and if he was not ready to hear it; if he pushed her away and shut himself to her, she would have lost him, this closeness they now enjoyed and any possible future their coupling might bring. And worse, it would destroy their friendship forever.
She had seen it too many times to other people. Love unrequited. The palpable pain and the ecstasy of it.
And what you didn't know....that was when hope blossomed, opening its petals tentatively, like a fragile flower braving the last of the winter winds.
You have to ride it out, Emma, the voice of reason told her. Ride out this plan till its culmination. And then you will know. And accept whatever fate has doled out to you.
Her situation was so hilarious she wanted to laugh. She was far from being the only woman ever to be in this state. All this yearning and frustration, all this second-guessing and rumination.... There were men and women who would give their right arms to be telepaths or tele-empaths just to know what their object of adoration would be thinking about. And here she was, with all that power, and he had shielded his mind from her!
What a riot.
It was his present state that she could not access, it was only his past that he opened up to her. And he had done this with such a skillful, unconscious dexterity she had to marvel at it. It was almost as though he knew she was going to invade his mind...Perhaps he truly had precognition. There might be a key she could unlock, she might be able to probe into him a little. But somehow that felt like rape and she would be no better than Gabriel Ashlocke if she attempted it.
Oh the agony of it.
What are you thinking of, Brennan? she wondered desperately. Why won't you let me read you?
All his actions, put now in prolonged analysis - his words, his gestures, every turn of his head, every touch of his hand. His kisses, his smiles, the gleam in his eye - there was never one moment or incident that stood out with great clarity to suggest he might have been in love with her. Oh yes, they had made love, long and languorous and passionately. But he had made love to plenty of women, and he had not loved them, even when they had given their hearts to him, opened their souls bare to him in desperation and abandonment. He had even been honest in this revelation.
That botched blow-job she had tried to give him. And his symbolic pushing away of her head. You're not falling in love with me, are you Emma?
And yet...those sweet tender kisses. The way he had opened up his heart to her.... 'I guess I had to tell somebody someday'.... The way he had kissed her closed eyelids when he had melded his mind with hers to share his mental orgasm. The pause in the shower. 'I love you...as a best friend, I mean.'
No. Her decision was the correct one, that much she was sure. There were things she had to find out before she could take the next step, things she had to do.
If she even dared to take the next step.
*
*
*
'Brennan, can I ask you something?'
They were in his room this time, for variety. They had made love in his bed, or discovered new ways of extremely heavy petting - as she would like to call it, since there was none of the requisite intercourse at the end of it. Goodness, he was such a mess. She had felt something digging in her back, and reached out beneath to pull out his belt....and by that time the buckle had already made an indent in her skin.
And when she had tried to stretch her legs under the quilt, she encountered something with her toe. Flinging off the quilt, she discovered two dog-eared magazines - Muscle and Fitness and of course, Hustler. That summed up his interests pretty nicely.
'Brennan!'
'Sorry you had to see that,' he said with a grin, sounding not one bit sorry. And snatched them away from her to toss them under the bed.
She wondered what else was under his bed. But she didn't have time to find out because he was unscrewing a jar of eucalyptus oil and was proceeding to give her a sensual massage. Damn, but the man had magic fingers.
She had given him one in return. And now they were cuddling up again in slippery earnestness, giggling at the heady scent of eucalyptus and the squishiness of their bodies sliding up against each other's. She made a mental note to help him change his bedsheets after this. And to help him to clear up what was under his bed.
Now that she was in love with him, his every kiss, every touch and every caress seemed to hold so much more significance. It was as though her sensory fibres were intensified, their receptors primed and stimulated in manifold. Even a mere look from him could now make her quiver in pleasure. Oh, she had it bad. And she was feeding it, devouring this fantasy like a ravenous glutton at a banquet.
'What do you have to ask me?' He was smiling, bringing her hand up to his lips and kissing her eucalyptus-slick fingers.
'It's about Dash MacKenzie. She loved you so much, but you didn't love her. And yet, you had so much history together.'
'Yes.' He was sobering up now. She was almost sorry she brought it up, but she had to know. 'You're asking me why I didn't love her.'
How could you not? That was really what Emma wanted to know, if she was honest with herself. 'I mean....she gave you everything, her body, her soul...she held nothing back. And yet....' The question was at the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't say it.
What would it take for you to love a person back, Brennan Mulwray? Especially when she had given you her all and she had nothing left to give.
He was quiet for a moment, as though he was considering the most careful answer to give.
Then he sighed. 'I wondered about that myself. But loving someone is so complicated...you either experience it or you don't. It's not something you can force yourself to do. Or maybe it might have been reciprocal love for me and Dash, given time. Like those Eastern brides who grow to love the husbands their parents had chosen for them, but only after many years. And Dash and I didn't have time.'
*
*
*
He stood there, in the anteroom next to the Intensive Care Unit, his mind a void.
Was it possible to feel anything anymore? All through the journey from school to the hospital, all the teachers looking at him, reproachful glances tinged with pity. Carol looking at him blankly, not blaming him, not accusing him, not even acknowledging him...that was the worst of all.
And the parting words from the principal, 'Maybe this is a life lesson, boy. It's too late now, but there are always consequences to everything you do. And it will do you well to think about that next time. You better hope she pulls through.'
I've murdered her, he thought hollowly. Just like I murdered my stepfather. And even if she pulls through, I would have murdered her all the same.
Was there no end to the suffering he caused people?
And even now, this blank slate that was in his mind, this numbing melange of remorse and self-loathing that was now ebbing away into a murky emptiness....almost as though his consciousness was refusing to accept any of it. There was anger even....why did she have to do this? Why couldn't she just have waited till the day was over? And the humbling paroxysms of guilt - guilt in huge doses, guilt upon guilt in waves, guilt like he had never known before. The signs were there....the turning of her head, the glazing of her eyes, the brokenness in her voice.....he should have known even as he walked away from her....
'Are you here to see someone?' A voice shook him out of his reverie.
He looked up to see a nurse, fully gowned with her hair done up in a surgical bonnet.
'Uh yes, they told me Dash MacKenzie was in here. I was wondering if I could see her.'
'Are you family?'
'Well no. I'm her boyfriend.'
He raised his eyes to meet the nurse's, and caught the flicker of understanding and sympathy. 'Well, I'm the nurse in charge of Dash and she's very ill. Her father is in there right now, very distraught. Her mother was in there earlier, but she had collapsed and we had to give her a sedative. She's resting in another room now.' The nurse paused. 'Given the circumstances of the case, and the fact that her parents haven't come to terms with it yet, perhaps it's best you don't see her. At least not yet.' She looked at him expectantly. 'I hope you understand.'
Yes, of course. He understood. They were blaming him for it. He had met Dash's parents only briefly, they were working class and poor, just like his mother. Dash was one of the few highlights in their lives.
He looked down. 'Yes. I...I guess I'll go now.'
The nurse gave him a sad smile. 'You don't want to see her now anyway. She's on a ventilator. We are giving her 3 pints of blood and prepping her up for surgery. There's nothing you can do.'
He licked his mouth. It was so dry it tasted acrid. 'What's going to happen to her?'
'Are you sure you want to know this?'
He nodded, his heart beating painfully against his ribs.
'Well, she's bleeding massively from her womb, she used an object on it, as you know. She tore herself very badly. We tried to contract it with drugs, but the hemorrhaging hasn't stopped. The doctor thinks the only way to stop it is to go to surgery, repair what she can. But if we can't repair it, the doctor might have to remove her entire womb.'
He felt faint. Around him, the world was reeling slightly. 'And what does that mean?'
The nurse laid a compassionate hand on his shoulder. 'It means she won't have any more babies.' She added. 'If she pulls through in the first place.'
He felt himself tottering, and hands steadying him. The nurse's eyes wide open in alarm. 'Are you all right? I shouldn't have told you. Here, come with me, let's sit you down.'
He allowed himself to be led dazedly from the anteroom to a chair outside. Completely numb now. Unfeeling.
The nurse was saying, 'You just sit right here. I'll get you a drink. And a counselor. It's best you talk to someone. Don't go away, okay?'
He was not sure if he nodded in acquiescence. Everything was a blur. But when he became aware of his surroundings again, she had gone and he was alone.
I have to get out of here, he thought desperately. He had not forgotten how much he hated hospitals. Standing up, he felt the blood draining from his head and pooling somewhere in the pit of his stomach. He placed one hand on the wall to steady himself. His lungs felt hot and constricted, he suddenly needed air.
He made a mad dash out of the hospital into the twilight, the cool air blasting his face, reviving his panic attack somewhat. Pausing at a wall in the darkened parking lot, he gulped down breathfuls as he rested his forehead against the cold plaster.
And felt a large hand grab him from behind.
'So Mulwray, we finally meet.'
He turned his head only to find a tire iron smashing into his face. As he sank to the ground, his last unclouded vision was that of Frankie MacKenzie, standing grimly over him.
*
*
*
He awoke in great pain, with a throbbing headache that threatened to cleave his brain into two. Water was dripping from his hair and eyes. In his mouth he tasted blood, and as he probed with his tongue, he felt a loose back tooth. He felt the sudden splosh of water thrown into his face again, inhaled before he knew what was happening and spluttered, gasping incoherently.
He felt rough hands pulling up his head by the hair.
'He's awake,' someone said. 'About time. No one will recognize him.'
'Show him a mirror, Frankie.'
He opened his eyes, they were encrusted with a sticky substance probably blood, he thought, and looked into a room. It was mostly bare, with just a light bulb overhead and a sink by the corner. That's where they must have gotten their water, he surmised weakly. There were five of them in the room, all with hooded eyes. The cigarette smoke in the room was so thick it was almost palpable, it made his eyes smart painfully. He recognized Frankie, but didn't know who the others were. Probably friends of Frankie, though it didn't matter. He had a notion they were going to kill him anyway.
His wrists hurt. Looking down, he realized that he was strapped to a metal chair, his hands bound behind his back - it felt like rope and it was biting into his flesh, cutting off his circulation. The tips of his fingers felt numb, he couldn't feel them moving. His bare feet were similarly bound, strapped against the legs of the chair.
Raising his eyes, he saw Frankie MacKenzie walking over to him, tapping the end of a baseball bat in his hand.
He squeezed his eyes shut, averted his head - Oh God - and waited for the blow.
When it came, it was less excruciating than he expected, so he was surprised. He gasped, the shock of the impact liquefying in his lower chest. It was almost numb for a little while, and then the pain hit him. The sudden intensity of it made him stagger, he would have fallen off the chair had he not been so securely fastened.
He swallowed lungfuls of air. Oh God, it hurt to breathe, to even move his chest....they must have broken his ribs.
'I'm sorry,' he said. Or tried to say. 'I never meant to hurt her.'
He didn't expect mercy, it was just something he needed to tell them. He wasn't even sure they heard him, his voice had been reduced to a croak, it hurt to even vibrate.
The blow came again, this time to the other side of his chest. This time he felt it crack - it was a snap, like a dry twig. Anymore of this, and his entire chest was going to cave in. If they were going to use it on his head, he thought, he prayed they would be swift.
'Break his kneecaps, Frankie.'
'Yeah.'
'And his legs.'
He didn't want to open his eyes. He was terrified. So very terrified. He was glad his bladder was empty, because he was sure he would have wet himself.
'Nah,' he heard Frankie say. 'He'll probably pass out. We'll save that till last. This one needs a lesson in slow pain, bit by bit, till he's drowning in it. Like what he did to my sister.'
He had to bite down on his tongue to keep himself from gasping out in pain. Some stubborn part of him, honed by years of fighting off bullies and maintaining fronts insisted it wasn't manly. And yet another part was saying, Screw trying to be manly. It's okay to be scared, you're just a kid. He was resisting that part, because some instinct told him it was still important to maintain appearances.
He was damned if they were going to see him cry.
He felt a pang of regret. He had lived 14 years, and they weren't exactly good ones. He was sorry he didn't get to do so many things, or at least get to plan to do them anyway. He was sorry he wasn't going to get a chance to love Dash. He hoped she was going to be okay. And he hoped someone would be taking care of his mom.
'What do you have in store for him, Frankie?'
He heard a snigger, and someone not Frankie snorted. 'He's just a kid. What does your sister see in him anyway when she can have me.'
There was an ominous silence. Then Frankie's voice, booming. 'You shut your trap about my sister. Or I'll shut it for you.'
Were they going to fight? He wondered if he dared exploit this. Only he wasn't sure how. Slowly, he opened his eyes a slit.
'Hey.' A mediating tone. 'We're not fighting, okay? We're just going to do the kid and split, that was the deal.'
'Yeah. And if we're going to do this torture thing, Frankie, you'd better do it quick.'
He opened his eyes fully now, and saw Frankie standing in front of him. There was a significant lack of expression on the older boy's face. It reminded him horribly of Carol's blank features. Rumors of Frankie reverberated in his head, echoes from murmurings in school hallways and the streets, each story more terrifying than the other. Suddenly, he felt a new wave of fear wash over him.
'Take off his pants,' Frankie said.
His heart stopped in mid-beat. He wasn't sure he had heard it correctly. He gripped his fists, they were so numb he hardly felt himself doing that. Surely they were not going to...
He saw the other guys grinning. 'What d'ya have in mind, Frankie?' They were edging towards him now. One of them kneeling in front of him, unbuttoning his fly. In consternation, he realized wasn't wearing underwear.
'I'm going to cut off his balls, the way they should do for all rapists, and hang them around his neck.'
No, he thought, his mind racing. This was not possible. He was not, not going to let his happen. He began to tug frantically at his ropes. In front of him, Frankie was bending down, reaching into his right boot and taking out a knife.
I didn't rape your sister, he wanted to scream. But it wouldn't have mattered. Somewhere, in the clutter of Frankie's mind, he had already made the connection (perhaps it was an easier concept to handle than to admit she had consensual sex) and whether it was erroneous or not mattered little.
The knife unsheathed. Brennan stared, paralyzed, as the blade caught the reflection of the light. Oh dear God..
'We're going to have to cut through his leg ropes, Frankie, can't remove his pants otherwise.'
'Don't bother.'
He felt the cold knife tip at his crotch, and suddenly, a fiery trail of pain as it sliced down the inside of his right thigh through the fabric of his pants. As the knife descended down his knee and shin, he felt it scrape against bone, a grating sound like a cleaver through gristle. The pain was excruciating. Every single nerve fiber was now in flame, and not just on his leg.
This time, he couldn't stop himself from screaming.
The ropes that bound his right leg lay severed at his feet. Blood, massive doses of dark blood, was pooling at the wound, staining what was left of his right trouser leg. A dark veil clouded his vision, and he felt himself blacking out.
Someone shook him and placed a cuff on his right temple. 'Oh no you don't. You're gonna stay awake through this.'
He felt the knife slicing through the ropes on his left leg, dicing the skin of his ankle there, again scraping against bone, and someone pulling off his pants by the trouser leg that way. He thanked his lucky stars they weren't meting out the same treatment for his other leg....probably thought he would pass out from the pain, or loss of blood. If he wasn't passing out already.
He didn't know how he was going to last past the next few minutes.
It suddenly occurred to him that his legs were now free. Hope burgeoned. Perhaps he could still fight his way through. After all....his hands grazed against the metal seat of the chair....of course, metal.....if only he didn't feel so weak...
'Hold him,' he heard Frankie say. 'He's going to be a bit of a struggle. I've seen it happen. Hold his arms tight. And his legs wide apart. Don't let him move.'
He felt rough hands pinioning his arms and shoulders, bending them backwards. He didn't know why they bothered, his hands were tightly bound anyway. Strong forearms were locking his thighs, grazing against the wound.
His head was still wet from the water they threw on him. He was probably going to kill himself doing it anyway. But he didn't have a choice. He just had to wait. Just a while longer.
He felt Frankie grip his scrotum in an iron fist white flashes zig- zagged across his vision and he felt a deep visceral pain in his depths and felt the cold serrated edge of the knife against his skin.
Now! He thought.
He gripped the edge of the metal chair with his hands, still bound behind his back. And discharged with all the energy that was left in him.
He didn't know how much he put into it, but he felt the sizzling shock of electricity course through the chair and back into his body, burning the parts of his body which were in direct contact with the metal - his back and his bare buttocks. And rampaging through his flesh like a conduit, electrifying everything and everyone in contact with him.
Thank God they were gripping him so tightly, he thought as he spasmed in the aftershock and passed out.
*
He awoke. He was surprised that he did, because for a moment he couldn't remember what had happened, only that it was something bad. He was lying on his side, still bound to the chair. One of the ropes was loose, and he tugged at it, feeling it give. It was probably singed. His head felt like it was spinning in a vortex.
Around him, motionless bodies were strewn. Wildly he thought, dear God....I've killed them all.
But that was the plan wasn't it? He had planned it somewhere in the frenetic recesses of his mind. He had gambled that his body would be able to withstand shock far better than anyone else's, since it practically channeled electricity every day. He had also gambled on the fact that if the shock didn't kill them, at least he would have been the first one awake.
He wondered if the electric chair would kill him. And how much voltage it would take. He wasn't sure about the death penalty in the state, or whether it applied to minors. But he was pretty sure that was where Detective Javier would get a judge to send him if he ever found out.
All of a sudden, it became imperative he should get away. And in great haste.
He tossed away the remnants of the rope, feeling his hands prickling as circulation flowed into them again. Picking himself up, he felt blackness descend into the periphery of his vision - he was losing a lot of blood - and his wrecked body, especially his right leg and his chest, was hurting like something hellish.
I need something to wear, he thought feverishly. And his wallet and keys were in his ruined pants, mustn't leave that behind as evidence.
Kneeling at the nearest body - and experiencing a vertigo attack - he felt for a pulse, and was relieved to find one, faint and erratic as though it may be. He understood enough about electricity to know that it caused the heart to fibrillate, and perhaps that was happening. Anyhow, he didn't know if it was going to be fatal, and he was in too much agony to care anyway.
He unbuckled the belt on the body, feeling like a corpse robber - though technically it wasn't a corpse, not yet - and pulled the jeans off, his fingers fumbling due to the lack of strength in them. He didn't want to check Frankie, or any of the others. Images of eyes fluttering wide open and hands grabbing him by the throat as soon as he knelt over them coursed through his mind. Perhaps he had seen too many horror movies, but then, his life was turning out to be one big nightmare.
Ha knew he had to flee from it.
He spent the rest of the journey in a blur, almost blacking out periodically. His right leg was soaking the trouser leg, the flow was ebbing, but the (very long) wound still bled. He didn't want to go to a hospital, he had an adverse phobia of being a patient in them. He would go home to his mother, and she would know what to do. He hoped she was home. Belatedly, he realized he had totally lost his time orientation - he didn't know what hour of the night it was, only that there were very few people around winos and homeless people mostly in this part of the neighborhood. Nobody looked at him, and he didn't look at them.
'I don't know how I made it home,' Brennan told Emma, 'but I did. When I reached the apartment we rented, and I was fumbling for my keys, I realized my hands were bloody, and I was leaving prints all over the handle and the door. All I could think of was that I wanted to sleep, and maybe I would stop bleeding. I was very naïve.'
The apartment was bathed with light. Which was unusual because he thought his mother would have been asleep.
'Mom?' he called out. His voice sounded puny and weak.
No one answered. And yet he knew she was home, because she wouldn't have left the lights on. She was real careful that way, with bills.
'Mom?' he called again. The apartment was so small it was easy to navigate his way around, he was glad for that. He was aware that he was leaving bloody footprints on the threadbare carpet, he hoped she wasn't going to be too mad at him. He peeked into the one bedroom, she wasn't in there either, though the lights were on.
There was only one place left she could be, if she was there at all. And he suddenly had a premonition that she was in the apartment, and the nightmare was not going to be over.
'Mom?' His voice sounded very scared and very young to his own ears. He rushed to the one bathroom, and saw her sprawling there on the tiles dear God , a patch of bright red blood near where her head lay. There was blood all over the sink, blood on the toilet seat....it was all bright, bright red, he didn't know blood could look like that. And there were some awful flecks of he couldn't even bear to think what it could be dark red substance that looked like flesh, only it was flesh like he had never seen before, scattered all over the blood.
He turned her over in despair (she was lying on her stomach), and her head flung backwards and hit the floor. The front of her dress he was thinking it was her blue dress, the one he thought she looked nice in, and the one she had like forever was covered with the same blood and the same flecks of fleshy substance, and when he felt her pulse, there was none.
'No no no,' he howled. Not this, not tonight. Had they killed her? But how..he had just left them behind, unless they had done it earlier when he was attempting to visit Dash in the hospital. The images and possibilities were spinning round his head, making no coherence whatsoever. First Dash, and now this. Oh dear dear God please don't let it be true....
He looked frantically for signs of a wound all over her dress and her body, but he found none..not that it mattered, there were other ways of killing a person, internal ones, he had learnt that from the streets....And he suddenly realized she was still warm, and hope ignited again, perhaps she had a chance....
And he had the power.
Placing his palm on the left side of her chest, he channeled. And felt the electricity sing through his body into hers, jerking her entire torso into an awful parody of what he had seen with defibrillators on TV. She did not respond.
It wasn't enough, some rational part of him thought. He had to do CPR as well. Tipping her head backwards, he opened her mouth and placed his own over it, blowing hard into her lungs, tasting the metallic tang of her blood on his tongue. Again and again, wondering if he was doing the right thing or if he was botching it up. And he would be responsible for her death. He interspersed it with cardiac massage, fifteen to every two breaths, like he had been taught in martial arts school.
And placing his hand on her chest, he shocked her again and again, not knowing how long this went on, only that it was long....and beyond the capacity for the human brain to be deprived of oxygen. Until in horror, he noted that he had burnt through the fabric of her dress where he had laid his palm on.
He sank down on his haunches in a final moment of revelation - she was dead and there was nothing he could do to bring her back. He had screwed it up, trying to save her when he was such a screw up himself.....and he had killed her as surely as he had killed Dash and his stepfather. Was there no end to the nightmare? Perhaps it would be better for everyone if Frankie had killed him back in that dark little room.
Perhaps it would be better for everyone now if he just lay down to die, next to her.
Sinking slowly into further and further despondency, he lay himself next to her, stretching himself out, holding her hand in his, squeezing it as tightly as what was left of his strength would allow him. And as he bled his life blood out from his body to intermingle with hers - dark red upon bright red - he thought, Mom...I'm so sorry. I'll try to make it up to you. When I see you. Soon.
*
*
*
She might have to officially stop him from telling stories soon, the way they were going. This particular memory trip had left him shaken, and it was a while before he drifted to sleep. And when he finally did, she held him for a long time; she liked the feel of him in her arms, and if she could banish his nightmares by doing so, she would do it for as long as it took.
When she was sure he was in a deep, deep sleep, she gingerly removed his head from her shoulder onto the pillow, taking care not to wake him, and got up. She was thirsty, and she needed a cool drink to calm her nerves.
Wrapping herself in the white terrycloth bathrobe she had brought with her, she exited his room, making sure no one saw her. And padded her way down the cool corridor to the kitchen.
She wasn't alone. At the kitchen table, Jesse was munching the remnants of a pizza boy, she thought, he sure liked pizza , one of those boxed ones that came in a supermarket freezer that you could only heat up in an oven, and not a microwave. She smiled at him, before realizing she was naked under her robe and smelling pungently of eucalyptus oil. Surely he had to notice. She felt her cheeks beginning to flush.
He eyed her curiously. 'This your normal nightly get up?'
'It's a girl thing,' she retorted, turning her back on him so he couldn't see her red face. She removed a bottle of orange juice from the refrigerator and drank from it straight.
She could feel his eyes on her. 'Want some pizza, Em?'
'No thanks.' She felt guilty for snapping at him. He was really very nice, one of the nicest people she knew. A lot nicer than Shalimar most of the time, and certainly a lot nicer than Brennan. In fact, she thought, that was the whole trouble with him. He was too nice, and as a result, everyone walked all over him, including Adam. People didn't notice you when you were nice and adaptable and accommodating. They only noticed you when you were a troublemaker, always dashing off to do your own thing and getting everyone else in a wrap wondering where you were, like Bren and Shalimar.
She had hardly noticed him herself for the past couple of weeks, she had been so preoccupied with Brennan. This made her feel even guiltier.
To make him feel better, she sat down at the table with him, watching him eat and smiling encouragingly. She supposed she must have looked pretty stupid and marmsy.
He was really very handsome, she thought, in a way that was so different from Brennan, though his beauty was more understated, unlike Brennan's, which grabbed you immediately. No, Jesse's blond-haired, blue- eyed beauty was something you noticed over time (and especially when Brennan was not in the room). And when you did, it seized you and left you gasping, wondering why you never noticed it in the first place.
There was a lot of angst behind those clear blue eyes. Jesse was extremely deep, he suffered greatly and silently, but he didn't let you know about it. Not (like Brennan) because he had an image to upkeep but because he didn't think his problems were worth bothering anyone about. He was self-deprecating that way.
She knew he suffered from a huge lack of self-confidence, brought on by a poor little rich kid syndrome and a traitorous father; but mainly from being around Brennan and Adam, and maybe even Shalimar. Brennan was so alpha, so in your face; he actually zapped the energy out of a room when he was in it. Jesse was more moon-like compared to Brennan's exhaustive supernova, orbiting in the fringes, hardly ever the center of the universe, but no less important.
She knew he loved Brennan, and resented him at the very same time. Envied him. It was such a complex love-hate relationship.
He smiled back at her. And paused. Then remarked, 'You've been spending a lot of time with Brennan lately.'
She wondered if he had picked up on them. And decided, no, it was just an innocent observation. She had been spending a lot of time with Brennan, even out of the bedroom.
'He's just helping me through a rough patch, that's all.'
An expression she couldn't define flitted across Jesse's features. 'You know, Emma, you can always tell me. I'm always here for you. I'm your friend too, you know.'
'Yeah, I know. It's just that he's like a big brother to me.' Not anymore, he wasn't. She felt marginally guilty for lying.
Jesse nodded. 'Okay.' He gathered the empty pizza foil and crumpled it. She caught another expression as he got up, was that hurt on his face? She didn't mean to hurt him, but that was all she seemed to be doing tonight. 'I'll go back to bed, it's really late. You have a good night.'
'You have a good night too,' she replied, gathering her empty orange bottle and getting up herself. She wanted to be getting back to Brennan and holding him in her arms, and maybe to tease out a little love fantasy about him.
She saw Jesse pause at the doorway, and make like he was about to say something. She looked up expectantly. But he seemed to change his mind, averting his head abruptly.
As he walked away, she caught a wave of raw emotion - something that was so naked and tortured and stark she didn't even have to reach out to know it was there - and she took an involuntary step backwards, almost tottering over the chair.
Gasping, she thought, Oh my God.....he's in love with me.
TBC
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, except for my own. The rest belong to Tribune Entertainment.
Something happened over the week and I feel really bad about it. My favorite uncle keeled over with a heart attack. His heart went into ventricular fibrillation twice, and he literally 'died'. They managed to revive him, and he's okay for the moment. But I was out of the country for business at that time, and nobody told me about it, despite the fact I'm contactable by handphone and e-mail 24 hrs a day, no matter where I am. Well, my husband would have told me, except they didn't tell him either.
What made me feel bad was that my uncle was asking where I was because he thought he was going to die. And all the 2 days I was in Hong Kong, all I worried about (selfishly) was whether I would contract atypical pneumonia, without giving a thought that other people might be in worse straits.
So anyway, this chapter is written for my uncle, who doesn't even know I watch Mutant X.
Rated PG-13
Emma awoke, the bits and pieces of the night's events like mental flotsam in her consciousness. There was a warmness trickling within her, a permeating fluffy suffusion that she could neither give shape nor form....What was it again? Oh yes, I've decided I'm in love with Brennan Mulwray. That was so easy. The admittance, and then the helpless surrender to inevitable fate.
She looked at his sleeping form; it was still early, the sun had yet to rise. This thing called love, experienced so rarely and so acutely....it was already hurting so much inside, a pulsating throbbing within each heartbeat; of expectation and trepidation. Waves of elation and fear, interchangeable like a magnetic field, swinging from one polarity to the next.
Oh what oh what, she wondered, if he doesn't feel the same way?
That's the way it always is, isn't it? With love. When you are the index case, when you are Patient Zero and you've decided you're in love with somebody. And you don't know what he's feeling, or even what he's thinking about.
And if you tell him, Emma, and if he's not ready for it....can you bear the rejection?
The awful truth of the matter hit her suddenly like a blow to her stomach. She gasped, it was almost visceral.
I can't tell him, she thought. I can't tell him because I can't bear to know if he doesn't feel the same way.
And the knowing of it would surely tear her apart, wringing her heart into a million pieces and scattering it far and wide, until there would be no option for possible healing. Oh, this thing they had now, this closeness, this physicality.....it was so wonderful. If she told him now, and if he was not ready to hear it; if he pushed her away and shut himself to her, she would have lost him, this closeness they now enjoyed and any possible future their coupling might bring. And worse, it would destroy their friendship forever.
She had seen it too many times to other people. Love unrequited. The palpable pain and the ecstasy of it.
And what you didn't know....that was when hope blossomed, opening its petals tentatively, like a fragile flower braving the last of the winter winds.
You have to ride it out, Emma, the voice of reason told her. Ride out this plan till its culmination. And then you will know. And accept whatever fate has doled out to you.
Her situation was so hilarious she wanted to laugh. She was far from being the only woman ever to be in this state. All this yearning and frustration, all this second-guessing and rumination.... There were men and women who would give their right arms to be telepaths or tele-empaths just to know what their object of adoration would be thinking about. And here she was, with all that power, and he had shielded his mind from her!
What a riot.
It was his present state that she could not access, it was only his past that he opened up to her. And he had done this with such a skillful, unconscious dexterity she had to marvel at it. It was almost as though he knew she was going to invade his mind...Perhaps he truly had precognition. There might be a key she could unlock, she might be able to probe into him a little. But somehow that felt like rape and she would be no better than Gabriel Ashlocke if she attempted it.
Oh the agony of it.
What are you thinking of, Brennan? she wondered desperately. Why won't you let me read you?
All his actions, put now in prolonged analysis - his words, his gestures, every turn of his head, every touch of his hand. His kisses, his smiles, the gleam in his eye - there was never one moment or incident that stood out with great clarity to suggest he might have been in love with her. Oh yes, they had made love, long and languorous and passionately. But he had made love to plenty of women, and he had not loved them, even when they had given their hearts to him, opened their souls bare to him in desperation and abandonment. He had even been honest in this revelation.
That botched blow-job she had tried to give him. And his symbolic pushing away of her head. You're not falling in love with me, are you Emma?
And yet...those sweet tender kisses. The way he had opened up his heart to her.... 'I guess I had to tell somebody someday'.... The way he had kissed her closed eyelids when he had melded his mind with hers to share his mental orgasm. The pause in the shower. 'I love you...as a best friend, I mean.'
No. Her decision was the correct one, that much she was sure. There were things she had to find out before she could take the next step, things she had to do.
If she even dared to take the next step.
*
*
*
'Brennan, can I ask you something?'
They were in his room this time, for variety. They had made love in his bed, or discovered new ways of extremely heavy petting - as she would like to call it, since there was none of the requisite intercourse at the end of it. Goodness, he was such a mess. She had felt something digging in her back, and reached out beneath to pull out his belt....and by that time the buckle had already made an indent in her skin.
And when she had tried to stretch her legs under the quilt, she encountered something with her toe. Flinging off the quilt, she discovered two dog-eared magazines - Muscle and Fitness and of course, Hustler. That summed up his interests pretty nicely.
'Brennan!'
'Sorry you had to see that,' he said with a grin, sounding not one bit sorry. And snatched them away from her to toss them under the bed.
She wondered what else was under his bed. But she didn't have time to find out because he was unscrewing a jar of eucalyptus oil and was proceeding to give her a sensual massage. Damn, but the man had magic fingers.
She had given him one in return. And now they were cuddling up again in slippery earnestness, giggling at the heady scent of eucalyptus and the squishiness of their bodies sliding up against each other's. She made a mental note to help him change his bedsheets after this. And to help him to clear up what was under his bed.
Now that she was in love with him, his every kiss, every touch and every caress seemed to hold so much more significance. It was as though her sensory fibres were intensified, their receptors primed and stimulated in manifold. Even a mere look from him could now make her quiver in pleasure. Oh, she had it bad. And she was feeding it, devouring this fantasy like a ravenous glutton at a banquet.
'What do you have to ask me?' He was smiling, bringing her hand up to his lips and kissing her eucalyptus-slick fingers.
'It's about Dash MacKenzie. She loved you so much, but you didn't love her. And yet, you had so much history together.'
'Yes.' He was sobering up now. She was almost sorry she brought it up, but she had to know. 'You're asking me why I didn't love her.'
How could you not? That was really what Emma wanted to know, if she was honest with herself. 'I mean....she gave you everything, her body, her soul...she held nothing back. And yet....' The question was at the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't say it.
What would it take for you to love a person back, Brennan Mulwray? Especially when she had given you her all and she had nothing left to give.
He was quiet for a moment, as though he was considering the most careful answer to give.
Then he sighed. 'I wondered about that myself. But loving someone is so complicated...you either experience it or you don't. It's not something you can force yourself to do. Or maybe it might have been reciprocal love for me and Dash, given time. Like those Eastern brides who grow to love the husbands their parents had chosen for them, but only after many years. And Dash and I didn't have time.'
*
*
*
He stood there, in the anteroom next to the Intensive Care Unit, his mind a void.
Was it possible to feel anything anymore? All through the journey from school to the hospital, all the teachers looking at him, reproachful glances tinged with pity. Carol looking at him blankly, not blaming him, not accusing him, not even acknowledging him...that was the worst of all.
And the parting words from the principal, 'Maybe this is a life lesson, boy. It's too late now, but there are always consequences to everything you do. And it will do you well to think about that next time. You better hope she pulls through.'
I've murdered her, he thought hollowly. Just like I murdered my stepfather. And even if she pulls through, I would have murdered her all the same.
Was there no end to the suffering he caused people?
And even now, this blank slate that was in his mind, this numbing melange of remorse and self-loathing that was now ebbing away into a murky emptiness....almost as though his consciousness was refusing to accept any of it. There was anger even....why did she have to do this? Why couldn't she just have waited till the day was over? And the humbling paroxysms of guilt - guilt in huge doses, guilt upon guilt in waves, guilt like he had never known before. The signs were there....the turning of her head, the glazing of her eyes, the brokenness in her voice.....he should have known even as he walked away from her....
'Are you here to see someone?' A voice shook him out of his reverie.
He looked up to see a nurse, fully gowned with her hair done up in a surgical bonnet.
'Uh yes, they told me Dash MacKenzie was in here. I was wondering if I could see her.'
'Are you family?'
'Well no. I'm her boyfriend.'
He raised his eyes to meet the nurse's, and caught the flicker of understanding and sympathy. 'Well, I'm the nurse in charge of Dash and she's very ill. Her father is in there right now, very distraught. Her mother was in there earlier, but she had collapsed and we had to give her a sedative. She's resting in another room now.' The nurse paused. 'Given the circumstances of the case, and the fact that her parents haven't come to terms with it yet, perhaps it's best you don't see her. At least not yet.' She looked at him expectantly. 'I hope you understand.'
Yes, of course. He understood. They were blaming him for it. He had met Dash's parents only briefly, they were working class and poor, just like his mother. Dash was one of the few highlights in their lives.
He looked down. 'Yes. I...I guess I'll go now.'
The nurse gave him a sad smile. 'You don't want to see her now anyway. She's on a ventilator. We are giving her 3 pints of blood and prepping her up for surgery. There's nothing you can do.'
He licked his mouth. It was so dry it tasted acrid. 'What's going to happen to her?'
'Are you sure you want to know this?'
He nodded, his heart beating painfully against his ribs.
'Well, she's bleeding massively from her womb, she used an object on it, as you know. She tore herself very badly. We tried to contract it with drugs, but the hemorrhaging hasn't stopped. The doctor thinks the only way to stop it is to go to surgery, repair what she can. But if we can't repair it, the doctor might have to remove her entire womb.'
He felt faint. Around him, the world was reeling slightly. 'And what does that mean?'
The nurse laid a compassionate hand on his shoulder. 'It means she won't have any more babies.' She added. 'If she pulls through in the first place.'
He felt himself tottering, and hands steadying him. The nurse's eyes wide open in alarm. 'Are you all right? I shouldn't have told you. Here, come with me, let's sit you down.'
He allowed himself to be led dazedly from the anteroom to a chair outside. Completely numb now. Unfeeling.
The nurse was saying, 'You just sit right here. I'll get you a drink. And a counselor. It's best you talk to someone. Don't go away, okay?'
He was not sure if he nodded in acquiescence. Everything was a blur. But when he became aware of his surroundings again, she had gone and he was alone.
I have to get out of here, he thought desperately. He had not forgotten how much he hated hospitals. Standing up, he felt the blood draining from his head and pooling somewhere in the pit of his stomach. He placed one hand on the wall to steady himself. His lungs felt hot and constricted, he suddenly needed air.
He made a mad dash out of the hospital into the twilight, the cool air blasting his face, reviving his panic attack somewhat. Pausing at a wall in the darkened parking lot, he gulped down breathfuls as he rested his forehead against the cold plaster.
And felt a large hand grab him from behind.
'So Mulwray, we finally meet.'
He turned his head only to find a tire iron smashing into his face. As he sank to the ground, his last unclouded vision was that of Frankie MacKenzie, standing grimly over him.
*
*
*
He awoke in great pain, with a throbbing headache that threatened to cleave his brain into two. Water was dripping from his hair and eyes. In his mouth he tasted blood, and as he probed with his tongue, he felt a loose back tooth. He felt the sudden splosh of water thrown into his face again, inhaled before he knew what was happening and spluttered, gasping incoherently.
He felt rough hands pulling up his head by the hair.
'He's awake,' someone said. 'About time. No one will recognize him.'
'Show him a mirror, Frankie.'
He opened his eyes, they were encrusted with a sticky substance probably blood, he thought, and looked into a room. It was mostly bare, with just a light bulb overhead and a sink by the corner. That's where they must have gotten their water, he surmised weakly. There were five of them in the room, all with hooded eyes. The cigarette smoke in the room was so thick it was almost palpable, it made his eyes smart painfully. He recognized Frankie, but didn't know who the others were. Probably friends of Frankie, though it didn't matter. He had a notion they were going to kill him anyway.
His wrists hurt. Looking down, he realized that he was strapped to a metal chair, his hands bound behind his back - it felt like rope and it was biting into his flesh, cutting off his circulation. The tips of his fingers felt numb, he couldn't feel them moving. His bare feet were similarly bound, strapped against the legs of the chair.
Raising his eyes, he saw Frankie MacKenzie walking over to him, tapping the end of a baseball bat in his hand.
He squeezed his eyes shut, averted his head - Oh God - and waited for the blow.
When it came, it was less excruciating than he expected, so he was surprised. He gasped, the shock of the impact liquefying in his lower chest. It was almost numb for a little while, and then the pain hit him. The sudden intensity of it made him stagger, he would have fallen off the chair had he not been so securely fastened.
He swallowed lungfuls of air. Oh God, it hurt to breathe, to even move his chest....they must have broken his ribs.
'I'm sorry,' he said. Or tried to say. 'I never meant to hurt her.'
He didn't expect mercy, it was just something he needed to tell them. He wasn't even sure they heard him, his voice had been reduced to a croak, it hurt to even vibrate.
The blow came again, this time to the other side of his chest. This time he felt it crack - it was a snap, like a dry twig. Anymore of this, and his entire chest was going to cave in. If they were going to use it on his head, he thought, he prayed they would be swift.
'Break his kneecaps, Frankie.'
'Yeah.'
'And his legs.'
He didn't want to open his eyes. He was terrified. So very terrified. He was glad his bladder was empty, because he was sure he would have wet himself.
'Nah,' he heard Frankie say. 'He'll probably pass out. We'll save that till last. This one needs a lesson in slow pain, bit by bit, till he's drowning in it. Like what he did to my sister.'
He had to bite down on his tongue to keep himself from gasping out in pain. Some stubborn part of him, honed by years of fighting off bullies and maintaining fronts insisted it wasn't manly. And yet another part was saying, Screw trying to be manly. It's okay to be scared, you're just a kid. He was resisting that part, because some instinct told him it was still important to maintain appearances.
He was damned if they were going to see him cry.
He felt a pang of regret. He had lived 14 years, and they weren't exactly good ones. He was sorry he didn't get to do so many things, or at least get to plan to do them anyway. He was sorry he wasn't going to get a chance to love Dash. He hoped she was going to be okay. And he hoped someone would be taking care of his mom.
'What do you have in store for him, Frankie?'
He heard a snigger, and someone not Frankie snorted. 'He's just a kid. What does your sister see in him anyway when she can have me.'
There was an ominous silence. Then Frankie's voice, booming. 'You shut your trap about my sister. Or I'll shut it for you.'
Were they going to fight? He wondered if he dared exploit this. Only he wasn't sure how. Slowly, he opened his eyes a slit.
'Hey.' A mediating tone. 'We're not fighting, okay? We're just going to do the kid and split, that was the deal.'
'Yeah. And if we're going to do this torture thing, Frankie, you'd better do it quick.'
He opened his eyes fully now, and saw Frankie standing in front of him. There was a significant lack of expression on the older boy's face. It reminded him horribly of Carol's blank features. Rumors of Frankie reverberated in his head, echoes from murmurings in school hallways and the streets, each story more terrifying than the other. Suddenly, he felt a new wave of fear wash over him.
'Take off his pants,' Frankie said.
His heart stopped in mid-beat. He wasn't sure he had heard it correctly. He gripped his fists, they were so numb he hardly felt himself doing that. Surely they were not going to...
He saw the other guys grinning. 'What d'ya have in mind, Frankie?' They were edging towards him now. One of them kneeling in front of him, unbuttoning his fly. In consternation, he realized wasn't wearing underwear.
'I'm going to cut off his balls, the way they should do for all rapists, and hang them around his neck.'
No, he thought, his mind racing. This was not possible. He was not, not going to let his happen. He began to tug frantically at his ropes. In front of him, Frankie was bending down, reaching into his right boot and taking out a knife.
I didn't rape your sister, he wanted to scream. But it wouldn't have mattered. Somewhere, in the clutter of Frankie's mind, he had already made the connection (perhaps it was an easier concept to handle than to admit she had consensual sex) and whether it was erroneous or not mattered little.
The knife unsheathed. Brennan stared, paralyzed, as the blade caught the reflection of the light. Oh dear God..
'We're going to have to cut through his leg ropes, Frankie, can't remove his pants otherwise.'
'Don't bother.'
He felt the cold knife tip at his crotch, and suddenly, a fiery trail of pain as it sliced down the inside of his right thigh through the fabric of his pants. As the knife descended down his knee and shin, he felt it scrape against bone, a grating sound like a cleaver through gristle. The pain was excruciating. Every single nerve fiber was now in flame, and not just on his leg.
This time, he couldn't stop himself from screaming.
The ropes that bound his right leg lay severed at his feet. Blood, massive doses of dark blood, was pooling at the wound, staining what was left of his right trouser leg. A dark veil clouded his vision, and he felt himself blacking out.
Someone shook him and placed a cuff on his right temple. 'Oh no you don't. You're gonna stay awake through this.'
He felt the knife slicing through the ropes on his left leg, dicing the skin of his ankle there, again scraping against bone, and someone pulling off his pants by the trouser leg that way. He thanked his lucky stars they weren't meting out the same treatment for his other leg....probably thought he would pass out from the pain, or loss of blood. If he wasn't passing out already.
He didn't know how he was going to last past the next few minutes.
It suddenly occurred to him that his legs were now free. Hope burgeoned. Perhaps he could still fight his way through. After all....his hands grazed against the metal seat of the chair....of course, metal.....if only he didn't feel so weak...
'Hold him,' he heard Frankie say. 'He's going to be a bit of a struggle. I've seen it happen. Hold his arms tight. And his legs wide apart. Don't let him move.'
He felt rough hands pinioning his arms and shoulders, bending them backwards. He didn't know why they bothered, his hands were tightly bound anyway. Strong forearms were locking his thighs, grazing against the wound.
His head was still wet from the water they threw on him. He was probably going to kill himself doing it anyway. But he didn't have a choice. He just had to wait. Just a while longer.
He felt Frankie grip his scrotum in an iron fist white flashes zig- zagged across his vision and he felt a deep visceral pain in his depths and felt the cold serrated edge of the knife against his skin.
Now! He thought.
He gripped the edge of the metal chair with his hands, still bound behind his back. And discharged with all the energy that was left in him.
He didn't know how much he put into it, but he felt the sizzling shock of electricity course through the chair and back into his body, burning the parts of his body which were in direct contact with the metal - his back and his bare buttocks. And rampaging through his flesh like a conduit, electrifying everything and everyone in contact with him.
Thank God they were gripping him so tightly, he thought as he spasmed in the aftershock and passed out.
*
He awoke. He was surprised that he did, because for a moment he couldn't remember what had happened, only that it was something bad. He was lying on his side, still bound to the chair. One of the ropes was loose, and he tugged at it, feeling it give. It was probably singed. His head felt like it was spinning in a vortex.
Around him, motionless bodies were strewn. Wildly he thought, dear God....I've killed them all.
But that was the plan wasn't it? He had planned it somewhere in the frenetic recesses of his mind. He had gambled that his body would be able to withstand shock far better than anyone else's, since it practically channeled electricity every day. He had also gambled on the fact that if the shock didn't kill them, at least he would have been the first one awake.
He wondered if the electric chair would kill him. And how much voltage it would take. He wasn't sure about the death penalty in the state, or whether it applied to minors. But he was pretty sure that was where Detective Javier would get a judge to send him if he ever found out.
All of a sudden, it became imperative he should get away. And in great haste.
He tossed away the remnants of the rope, feeling his hands prickling as circulation flowed into them again. Picking himself up, he felt blackness descend into the periphery of his vision - he was losing a lot of blood - and his wrecked body, especially his right leg and his chest, was hurting like something hellish.
I need something to wear, he thought feverishly. And his wallet and keys were in his ruined pants, mustn't leave that behind as evidence.
Kneeling at the nearest body - and experiencing a vertigo attack - he felt for a pulse, and was relieved to find one, faint and erratic as though it may be. He understood enough about electricity to know that it caused the heart to fibrillate, and perhaps that was happening. Anyhow, he didn't know if it was going to be fatal, and he was in too much agony to care anyway.
He unbuckled the belt on the body, feeling like a corpse robber - though technically it wasn't a corpse, not yet - and pulled the jeans off, his fingers fumbling due to the lack of strength in them. He didn't want to check Frankie, or any of the others. Images of eyes fluttering wide open and hands grabbing him by the throat as soon as he knelt over them coursed through his mind. Perhaps he had seen too many horror movies, but then, his life was turning out to be one big nightmare.
Ha knew he had to flee from it.
He spent the rest of the journey in a blur, almost blacking out periodically. His right leg was soaking the trouser leg, the flow was ebbing, but the (very long) wound still bled. He didn't want to go to a hospital, he had an adverse phobia of being a patient in them. He would go home to his mother, and she would know what to do. He hoped she was home. Belatedly, he realized he had totally lost his time orientation - he didn't know what hour of the night it was, only that there were very few people around winos and homeless people mostly in this part of the neighborhood. Nobody looked at him, and he didn't look at them.
'I don't know how I made it home,' Brennan told Emma, 'but I did. When I reached the apartment we rented, and I was fumbling for my keys, I realized my hands were bloody, and I was leaving prints all over the handle and the door. All I could think of was that I wanted to sleep, and maybe I would stop bleeding. I was very naïve.'
The apartment was bathed with light. Which was unusual because he thought his mother would have been asleep.
'Mom?' he called out. His voice sounded puny and weak.
No one answered. And yet he knew she was home, because she wouldn't have left the lights on. She was real careful that way, with bills.
'Mom?' he called again. The apartment was so small it was easy to navigate his way around, he was glad for that. He was aware that he was leaving bloody footprints on the threadbare carpet, he hoped she wasn't going to be too mad at him. He peeked into the one bedroom, she wasn't in there either, though the lights were on.
There was only one place left she could be, if she was there at all. And he suddenly had a premonition that she was in the apartment, and the nightmare was not going to be over.
'Mom?' His voice sounded very scared and very young to his own ears. He rushed to the one bathroom, and saw her sprawling there on the tiles dear God , a patch of bright red blood near where her head lay. There was blood all over the sink, blood on the toilet seat....it was all bright, bright red, he didn't know blood could look like that. And there were some awful flecks of he couldn't even bear to think what it could be dark red substance that looked like flesh, only it was flesh like he had never seen before, scattered all over the blood.
He turned her over in despair (she was lying on her stomach), and her head flung backwards and hit the floor. The front of her dress he was thinking it was her blue dress, the one he thought she looked nice in, and the one she had like forever was covered with the same blood and the same flecks of fleshy substance, and when he felt her pulse, there was none.
'No no no,' he howled. Not this, not tonight. Had they killed her? But how..he had just left them behind, unless they had done it earlier when he was attempting to visit Dash in the hospital. The images and possibilities were spinning round his head, making no coherence whatsoever. First Dash, and now this. Oh dear dear God please don't let it be true....
He looked frantically for signs of a wound all over her dress and her body, but he found none..not that it mattered, there were other ways of killing a person, internal ones, he had learnt that from the streets....And he suddenly realized she was still warm, and hope ignited again, perhaps she had a chance....
And he had the power.
Placing his palm on the left side of her chest, he channeled. And felt the electricity sing through his body into hers, jerking her entire torso into an awful parody of what he had seen with defibrillators on TV. She did not respond.
It wasn't enough, some rational part of him thought. He had to do CPR as well. Tipping her head backwards, he opened her mouth and placed his own over it, blowing hard into her lungs, tasting the metallic tang of her blood on his tongue. Again and again, wondering if he was doing the right thing or if he was botching it up. And he would be responsible for her death. He interspersed it with cardiac massage, fifteen to every two breaths, like he had been taught in martial arts school.
And placing his hand on her chest, he shocked her again and again, not knowing how long this went on, only that it was long....and beyond the capacity for the human brain to be deprived of oxygen. Until in horror, he noted that he had burnt through the fabric of her dress where he had laid his palm on.
He sank down on his haunches in a final moment of revelation - she was dead and there was nothing he could do to bring her back. He had screwed it up, trying to save her when he was such a screw up himself.....and he had killed her as surely as he had killed Dash and his stepfather. Was there no end to the nightmare? Perhaps it would be better for everyone if Frankie had killed him back in that dark little room.
Perhaps it would be better for everyone now if he just lay down to die, next to her.
Sinking slowly into further and further despondency, he lay himself next to her, stretching himself out, holding her hand in his, squeezing it as tightly as what was left of his strength would allow him. And as he bled his life blood out from his body to intermingle with hers - dark red upon bright red - he thought, Mom...I'm so sorry. I'll try to make it up to you. When I see you. Soon.
*
*
*
She might have to officially stop him from telling stories soon, the way they were going. This particular memory trip had left him shaken, and it was a while before he drifted to sleep. And when he finally did, she held him for a long time; she liked the feel of him in her arms, and if she could banish his nightmares by doing so, she would do it for as long as it took.
When she was sure he was in a deep, deep sleep, she gingerly removed his head from her shoulder onto the pillow, taking care not to wake him, and got up. She was thirsty, and she needed a cool drink to calm her nerves.
Wrapping herself in the white terrycloth bathrobe she had brought with her, she exited his room, making sure no one saw her. And padded her way down the cool corridor to the kitchen.
She wasn't alone. At the kitchen table, Jesse was munching the remnants of a pizza boy, she thought, he sure liked pizza , one of those boxed ones that came in a supermarket freezer that you could only heat up in an oven, and not a microwave. She smiled at him, before realizing she was naked under her robe and smelling pungently of eucalyptus oil. Surely he had to notice. She felt her cheeks beginning to flush.
He eyed her curiously. 'This your normal nightly get up?'
'It's a girl thing,' she retorted, turning her back on him so he couldn't see her red face. She removed a bottle of orange juice from the refrigerator and drank from it straight.
She could feel his eyes on her. 'Want some pizza, Em?'
'No thanks.' She felt guilty for snapping at him. He was really very nice, one of the nicest people she knew. A lot nicer than Shalimar most of the time, and certainly a lot nicer than Brennan. In fact, she thought, that was the whole trouble with him. He was too nice, and as a result, everyone walked all over him, including Adam. People didn't notice you when you were nice and adaptable and accommodating. They only noticed you when you were a troublemaker, always dashing off to do your own thing and getting everyone else in a wrap wondering where you were, like Bren and Shalimar.
She had hardly noticed him herself for the past couple of weeks, she had been so preoccupied with Brennan. This made her feel even guiltier.
To make him feel better, she sat down at the table with him, watching him eat and smiling encouragingly. She supposed she must have looked pretty stupid and marmsy.
He was really very handsome, she thought, in a way that was so different from Brennan, though his beauty was more understated, unlike Brennan's, which grabbed you immediately. No, Jesse's blond-haired, blue- eyed beauty was something you noticed over time (and especially when Brennan was not in the room). And when you did, it seized you and left you gasping, wondering why you never noticed it in the first place.
There was a lot of angst behind those clear blue eyes. Jesse was extremely deep, he suffered greatly and silently, but he didn't let you know about it. Not (like Brennan) because he had an image to upkeep but because he didn't think his problems were worth bothering anyone about. He was self-deprecating that way.
She knew he suffered from a huge lack of self-confidence, brought on by a poor little rich kid syndrome and a traitorous father; but mainly from being around Brennan and Adam, and maybe even Shalimar. Brennan was so alpha, so in your face; he actually zapped the energy out of a room when he was in it. Jesse was more moon-like compared to Brennan's exhaustive supernova, orbiting in the fringes, hardly ever the center of the universe, but no less important.
She knew he loved Brennan, and resented him at the very same time. Envied him. It was such a complex love-hate relationship.
He smiled back at her. And paused. Then remarked, 'You've been spending a lot of time with Brennan lately.'
She wondered if he had picked up on them. And decided, no, it was just an innocent observation. She had been spending a lot of time with Brennan, even out of the bedroom.
'He's just helping me through a rough patch, that's all.'
An expression she couldn't define flitted across Jesse's features. 'You know, Emma, you can always tell me. I'm always here for you. I'm your friend too, you know.'
'Yeah, I know. It's just that he's like a big brother to me.' Not anymore, he wasn't. She felt marginally guilty for lying.
Jesse nodded. 'Okay.' He gathered the empty pizza foil and crumpled it. She caught another expression as he got up, was that hurt on his face? She didn't mean to hurt him, but that was all she seemed to be doing tonight. 'I'll go back to bed, it's really late. You have a good night.'
'You have a good night too,' she replied, gathering her empty orange bottle and getting up herself. She wanted to be getting back to Brennan and holding him in her arms, and maybe to tease out a little love fantasy about him.
She saw Jesse pause at the doorway, and make like he was about to say something. She looked up expectantly. But he seemed to change his mind, averting his head abruptly.
As he walked away, she caught a wave of raw emotion - something that was so naked and tortured and stark she didn't even have to reach out to know it was there - and she took an involuntary step backwards, almost tottering over the chair.
Gasping, she thought, Oh my God.....he's in love with me.
TBC