Chapter 10
Five boys crowded about me. The points of my bones had grown cold from the touch of the bathroom floor. The lights blazed into my eyes to the point they buzzed like an old tube television. Every bit of me had become covered in sweat.
Their lips were moving. One ran off.
I hurt. My abdomen hurt. It burned, right between my legs. I sucked in a breath, but it couldn't get past my throat. Suffocating, I rolled onto my side, clutching my middle—and threw up.
The boys chattering went alarmed. The one that had been in range of the sick had jumped back at the last second. Another boy retched, slapped a hand over his mouth, and clattered into a cubicle, where he too threw up. One asked the vomiter why he couldn't have been a man for just a moment while another got up to yank paper towels out of the dispenser.
And then there was Naru, dark haired and beautiful. He all but shoved the guy who had been holding my head away from my own vomit to pull me into his arms. It was only then that I realized how hard I shook. It was like my very bones were trying to escape from my body.
"What happened?" he asked.
"She's bleeding," said the boy Naru had brushed aside in a cool tone—as though trained for these sorts of things. "I think she just started her period. If she already had low blood pressure, the drop of blood could have been why she passed out, but you might want to get her to a hospital just in case she hit her head too hard."
He glanced up at the boy. "Were you there when she dropped too, then?"
"No, but I was just down the hall when the boys started yelling for help, and I'm studying to be a nurse so I felt I could be of some help. They said she walked in and just fainted."
"I was there," said another. "Nearly caught myself on my zipper, it was spooky. The pupil of her eyes just shot open—I could even see it from across the bathroom. I think she might've hit her head pretty hard."
I opened my mouth, but for what? This boy wasn't Swii. I had never seen him before. Had I really just passed out? No, Swii had had me. Swii had blown that powder into my face and had been yanking apart my legs. He had pounded into me—it hurt. It had hurt so bad. My stomach hurt.
Naru's face suddenly snapped to me, alert, tuned to me. It was only then I realized I had said something.
"Where is Swii?"
The two boys still in my sight frowned. They didn't know Swii, they said. The croaking voice of the boy who had just vomited answered though.
"Swii hasn't been around all morning. He's got this lecture block to set up in the atrium. I would know, I'm his roommate. He kept me up all night with that stupid project."
"Swii's the one with the funny smell, right? Is it true he's a pot pusher?"
"No man, I heard it's meth."
"Yo, roomie?"
"Hey, if he's doing drugs, he ain't stupid enough to stock them in our room. I'd kill him, and he knows it."
Naru's eyes didn't leave me. His arms had tightened about me, curling me to his chest until I could no longer see his face as he had tucked my head against the curve of his neck.
"How many of you were there when she fell?" Naru asked.
"Us three. Puker was in the stall, but he came out with his pants half on when he heard the commotion. Such pretty panties—"
"Shut up, asshole."
Naru grunted and lifted me. My stomach heaved up with him, but this time I breathed all the way through my throat and I didn't throw up. The words I was hearing echoed around my head. I hadn't left the bathroom at all. I had just passed out. The boys had been there to witness it. Swii hadn't even been in the building.
"Naru, how long was I gone?"
"Only five minutes. Just focus on breathing, you're okay. You're safe."
I thought this a strange thing to say, as I hadn't given any signs of panicking. I was just cold, weak, shaking, and in pain from the cramps I now recognized all too well. Aunt Flow had certainly picked a fine time to hit me. Oh god, and those boys had seen the blood. I just had to pick today to wear a mini-skirt. Please tell me I wasn't getting blood all over his arm and—oh god, I think I was going to be sick. Not all over his face, please not all over his neck. That's just what I needed to complete this day.
Naru had carried me out of the bathroom and down the hall by now. Young men from around the dorm had crowded outside in curiosity. I covered my face, stomach rolling.
"Please don't take me to a hospital," I whispered, afraid that if I spoke any louder my stomach would escape. "Please, just take me home. I want to go home."
"Mai—"
"My head isn't even hurting." Which was a partial lie, as it did feel a little bruised, but nothing that could have been concussion worthy. "Please. I'm going to be sick."
And right as I said that, I retched, hand over my mouth. Thankfully, my stomach had already emptied itself of most of its contents, so I didn't have much to hold back.
Naru's pace quickened. In a moment we were at base, where Lin held the door open.
"Lin, keys."
There was a jangle and the arms scooped beneath my knees jerked to catch something. That was some serious man skill right there. Catching keys while his arms were full of grown woman. Wait a second. I thought he didn't have a license? Oh whatever.
"Naru," said Lin, stopping him with a hand. Next thing I knew he had taken hold of my legs just long enough to wrap his huge jacket about my hips. It was just long enough to see that, yes, I had smeared blood on Naru's arm. I couldn't hold back a little cry of mortification which went unreplied by the men who were handling me like a paralyzed disaster victim.
"Let me down, I can walk."
"No," said Naru, readjusting his grip on me as he stepped out of base and made his way towards the double doors outside.
"Please, just let me walk—"
"Not while you're looking like death. What happened in there?"
My insides jerked as though trying to escape me. I must have reacted somewhat, for Naru's grip on me suddenly tightened.
"You saw something, didn't you?" he asked. "If you saw something, I'll take you home. Otherwise, it's the hospital."
I groaned. "Do you have to threaten me at a time like this?"
"It isn't a threat. It's the facts. You're not seeing what I'm seeing. So, do you got anything to tell me?"
His shoes clacked against the cement stairs. I could see the 2-B dorm building looming behind him, five stories tall, and of that ugly block cement design from the eighties. All the windows were tinted dark, and I suddenly wondered how someone could have scaled such a flat, ugly face three stories to slit someone's throat. It was all cement slab, no bricks or mortar that could have allowed any foot or hand holds.
My mouth moved without my brain. "Swii raped me."
Naru did something of a little lurch, as though caught half way between throwing me, running, and holding me tighter than ever. He managed to keep going, however, and the click of his shoes became the soft tap of soles on asphalt. We were almost to the van. I was almost home. Then I could curl up in my hot shower until the last bit of my flesh had run down the drain.
"Several witnesses said you never left that bathroom," he said, his tone tense and low. "Swii wasn't even in the building. I saw him leave earlier myself. And you were only gone five minutes."
I rose a hand to my forehead. It, like the rest of my face, had a thin layer of cold sweat. Something powerful rose up to my chest like a punch and I screwed up my face to contain it.
Naru somehow managed to open the passenger side door while holding me, and he handed me in. After making sure the jacket was tucked about my hips still, he ran a hand through my hair. It was hot and damp. I turned my focus from controlling the weird urge to howl to his face, which was watching mine. His breath was hard and quick, and his blue eyes shivered from point to point on my face.
"You're safe," he said. "Mai. Mai, love," he ran his hand through my hair again. "Love, you're safe. You weren't raped. You had to have been living another's experience, probably that girl who has been hanging around you. But…if you say you were, I will believe you." A flash of something frightening flared up behind his eyes. I found myself clutching at the fabric on my chest in sudden apprehension of what Naru might do if I insisted I had. Or rather, what he would do to Swii. A memory of the one time he had released his PK to destroy a god drifted through my mind.
"No…no. If it was only five minutes…" I had to force a gulp of air to keep going, as the intensity hadn't left his gaze. "He took me—her up to the very top floor, and the room he took…there wasn't a roommate. It smelled of him. And there were people who saw us—them, they would have said something, there was no way he could have gone there and back—and I came to right in the middle of—"
I stopped there, the memory vivid as winter ice against bare skin. Now that I was outside, back in the gray light of a cloudy day, it was easy to see that it had simply been another one of my visions. I could see the signs now. Still…
When the muscles of my legs started to hurt, I looked down to realize I had clenched them together so tightly they shook. Naru looked down as well and, after some hesitation, put a hand on my knee. It wasn't as comforting as I wanted it to be.
Was that how sex was? Would Naru act like…it had hurt so bad…
"How did he convince her to go upstairs with him?" he asked. "Did the vision start in the bathroom? Hold on, let me get in. Don't worry, Mai, I'll get you home. You're okay."
"Why do you keep saying that? I'm okay, I'm safe, all that?"
He gave me the 'you're stupid' look. Oddly enough, that oh-so-common droll stare was more comforting than the warmth of his touch. It reminded me who this man was. This was Naru. My Naru. My gentle, shy, proud Naru, who had been so nervous about pleasing me in the kissing department he had spent a whole hour Googling 'how-to's. Not that he would ever tell me that. But seriously, I'm not stupid, and I do work with him…and he trusts me way too much with his computer.
The rumble of the van soothed me, like white noise.
"Seatbelt," said Naru as he clicked in his own. "Then talk."
