Love, Lies & Lizard Babies by PoorQueequeg
Chapter Nine
Helen dragged Jason away, the toes of his boots scuffing on the stone as he moved with lumbering, heavy movements. "Come on!" she urged.
"I can't believe it," he muttered. "I just..." he shook his head and fell silent. Helen clasped his hand firmly and set a brisk pace up the hill. Halfway up Helen turned down a track between the houses and lead him off the main road. The track was lined with garages and wooden fences, a furrow of grass running along the centre between deep tire tracks. Helen tried to skirt the great puddles that formed in the uneven ground but her boots slipped on the mud, soaking her feet. Her toes itched and she wriggled them inside her damp socks, sniffing loudly as she led him along the path.
They trudged along in silence for a while, the sound of the rain loud against the rooftops. Helen took them across another street and straight over onto a similar dirt track. She was cold and wet and longed for the huge tub in her hotel suite but they were miles across town. Jason followed silently behind her, his feet splashing noisily in the mud. She was aware of the sound of sirens in the distance and anxiously pressed her lips together, looking up and down another stretch of track that bisected their path. She glanced up at Jason with a questioning look on her face but he seemed miles away so she scowled and tutted before turning to the left with a huff. Further down, the track forked in two and Helen shrugged her shoulders and let out a loud breath.
"Do you have any idea where we are?" she asked with a sigh and when he didn't reply she turned to look up at him, a raindrop hanging from the end of his nose for a second before running down over his lips and and into his beard. "Jay?" she questioned, blowing ineffectually against a strand of hair that had stuck to her lip. "JASON!" she repeated loudly and jerked on his hand roughly. He blinked and sucked the moisture off his lips, looking around blearily.
"This is ridiculous," she continued, digging in her pocket to retrieve her phone and turning to shelter under the narrow overhang of a tin roof that stuck out over a nearby wall.
"What are you doing?" .
"Calling a cab," she replied, her eyes flicking up to him for a second and wiping a large raindrop from the screen with the pad of her thumb. "I'm cold, I'm hungry and I just want to get out of the rain," she complained.
"Huh, don't bother," he told her gruffly and Helen raised her head look at him with furrowed brows. Jason lifted his arm in response, his finger pointing in the distance behind her. "That's my house."
A little while later Helen was following him up the steps at the back of his house, a wiry tabby cat shadowing them along the top of the fence as they crossed the garden. Helen stood to one side, rubbing her forearms and casting her eye across the clouds, the sky brightening as the sun began to rise behind them. There was a rapid tapping sound as water poured from the guttering overhead and down the drain with a gurgle as Jason opened the door and she followed him inside.
Jason threw his keys to one side, and they landed with a clank on the kitchen table, the cat trotting in after them and winding itself around his legs. "Hey Sweep," he muttered absently and started to shuck off his coat. Helen stood watching for a moment, sucking her upper lip into her mouth and sniffing as she rubbed her palms across the damp skin of her face. The cat meowed pathetically, looking up expectantly at Jason as he rubbed a towel over his head and face. Helen gingerly placed her gun and her phone on the sideboard and began to loosen the belt of her coat. Jason twisted his neck to one side with a grimace and she noticed a spot of blood on the towel where it had rubbed against the cut on his head.
"Alright, alright," Jason told the cat as it weaved about and followed him across the room. Helen draped her coat over the back of a chair and watched as he pulled a box out of the cupboard, emptying the contents into a plastic bowl in the corner. The cat butted his hand with it's head and began to purr loudly as it ate. He straightened up he ran his gaze over her, gripping the box in both hands and swallowing before he spoke. "I ah...I'll find you a towel or something," he told her and she nodded at him, rubbing her arms against the chill.
Shoulders hunched, she walked stiffly into the next room and sat down on a chair in a corner, bending her leg up over her knee to remove her boot. She tugged it off and set it down on the floor, peeling her damp sock off with a sigh of relief. She rubbed her toes for a minute, flexing them to get the feeling back and inhaling deeply through her nose. With both her feet pressed against the wood floor, she gathered her tangled, sopping hair and pulled it up over her shoulder. The water ran in rivulets down her arms and dripped off her elbows as she squeezed. At the sound of footsteps on the stairs she let her hands drop down against her knees, her wet hair coiling like a rope around her neck and a moment later Jason entered.
"Here," he said softly, handing her a large fluffy towel. She took it with a slight smile and flicked her gaze lazily over the t-shirt in his hands. "I um, I didn't know what you wanted to do. I mean, if you were going back to your hotel or..." he swallowed and stared at the back of the t-shirt. "But I got you some dry things, ah, if you want them."
Helen blinked slowly and nodded. "Thank you," she told him quietly and reached out to take the shirt from him. He smiled back and met her eyes for a brief moment before she dropped her gaze bashfully. "You should let me take a look at that cut on your head," she said, stretching her arm up. Jason jerked his head to the side out of reach but Helen followed his movement with her hand, touching her fingertips against his skin. "Come on, there must have been all sorts living in that place," she explained at his grimace. "We better clean it at least."
"Okay," he replied nodding. "Just...let me change out of these wet things."
A little while later Helen stood in front of the bathroom mirror, her hair wrapped in the towel as she rifled through the cabinet. The hum of the dryer drifted up the stairs, the sound of rain coming through the open window beside her. She found a pair of tweezers, slightly warped from being wedged at the back of the cabinet and she turned them around in her fingers to inspect them before setting them on the side of the basin. The towel began to unravel, slipping down her back so she pulled it off and hung it over the side of the bath. Continuing her search she found some cotton wool, a half empty back of band aids and a crusty tube of antiseptic ointment. She sucked her lower lip as she considered the sorry items she had cobbled together and sighed. She had worked with worse.
Jason climbed the stairs slowly and turned his head to peer through the banisters at the open door of the bathroom. Helen's bare feet shifted on the tile and he ran his gaze up her long legs, watching as she hitched the ill-fitting shorts he had given her over her hip. His t-shirt hung loosely over her frame, obscuring her figure but when she turned to look at him he couldn't help his eyes from running over the exposed planes of her collarbone as it hung over her shoulder.
"I ah...this was the best I could find," he said, proffering a bottle of whiskey. Helen turned and took it from him, leaning back against the sink to inspect it.
"Forty five percent," she said with a nod. "That'll do fine. Sit down." She gestured at the toilet and turned to shake the toothbrushes out of the glass on the corner of the basin, rinsing it under the tap for a second before pouring in a couple of inches of whiskey. Jason dropped the lid on the toilet seat and lowered himself onto it as she swirled the tweezers around in the alcohol, the tips knocking into the glass with a high pitched ring. He watched as she held a wad of cotton wool to the bottle and upended it, stepping closer and peering down her nose at the wound on the side of his head. "This will probably sting like buggery," she warned as she pressed the sodden wool against his skin and he hissed loudly. Jason gritted his teeth and grimaced, tipping the bottle to his lips and taking a long swig. Helen turned back to the sink and picked up the glass, taking out the tweezers and setting it down on the cistern, her chest brushing against his face as she leant across. Jason's eyes went wide and he swallowed hard.
Helen straightened up and shimmied closer. His leg slipped between her thighs, her stomach pressing lightly against his bare arm. Gently tipping his head to the side she began to slowly pull miniscule shards of glass from the wound. Jason screwed his eyes tight shut as she pressed the tweezers deeper into the soft flesh inside. He took another swig from the bottle and tried not to stare at the swell of her breasts under the white fabric of the t-shirt.
"I'm sorry I let him get away," he uttered after a few minutes, his eyes flicking up to her face. Her mouth opened slightly and the pink tip of her tongue poked out to swipe lightly across her lower lip, her breath in his ear.
"It's alright," she told him softly as she tore open a band-aid and began to pull the skin together, sticking it across the wound like a make shift butterfly stitch. "Happens to the best of us." She quirked a brow at him playfully and he couldn't help the smile that spread across his face. Helen's gaze dropped to the green bruise that peeked over the collar of his vest and her expression morphed from teasing to concerned. "Dear Lord!" she exclaimed, slipping her finger underneath and tugging the material away from his skin.
"Ah...it's okay," he replied reaching up and circling her wrists with his fingers gently.
"What happened?"
"He kicked me," Jason explained, quirking his lips and tilting his head to the side. "It's not so bad."
"Let me see!" she said in a sharp tone and he babbled incoherently in protest as she unceremoniously tugged the vest over his head. Jason held his arms aloft as she stooped closer and prodded him in the chest.
"Ow! Careful!" he chided and her eyes flicked up to his face.
"Sorry," she replied stroking over the bruise gently for a minute before she straightened up. "Do you have any pain in your chest?" He shook his head .
"Really, it's okay. It hurt like hell at the time but now it just aches a little," he assured her. Helen regarded him sceptically.
"Alright," she said quietly after a minute and sat down on the edge of the tub.
"You really shouldn't have any more of that," she said reaching up to pull the whisky bottle from his hands and tilting it towards his bruised sternum. "It'll make it worse."
He huffed softly and looked at her through sleepy eyes. Helen held his gaze for a minute before turning her head away and chewing on her lip, twirling the bottle in her fingers.
"Quite a day," he said quietly. Helen nodded, shifting her legs and clasping the side of the bath.
"Hmmm," she replied. "I'm sorry we didn't find your brother," she said, looking at him sadly.
"Yet," he finished for her and she smiled, chuffing at him with a flare of her nostrils. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled back and his gaze fell on the yellow bruise on her cheek. "You okay? You took a few knocks yourself."
Helen raised her chin and stuck her jaw out a little, nodding before she replied. "Nothing a good cup of tea and snooze won't cure." Jason chuckled.
"Snooze I can do," he said leaning forward and taking the whisky bottle from her. "As for the other thing, well...I don't have any English tea," he told her pushing up from his seat. "But maybe I can fix you a little dirty green tea?" He waggled the bottle at her and she smiled.
"Do you have a computer?" she called after him as he made his way down the stairs.
"Yeah, in the bedroom," he replied through the banisters, gesturing down the hall. "Go ahead."
Helen sat at his desk and peered through window as the computer beeped and whirred to life, pushing the curtains aside with her fingers and cricking her neck. She rested her elbow on the table, leaning her chin in her hand and began to read. A few minutes later Jason returned set a steaming mug beside her, tipping another to his lips and taking a loud slurp.
"Thanks," she said wrapping her hands around the porcelain and raising it to her face, inhaling the hot vapor for a moment before sipping it. "Ah, that's nice," she sighed, looking up at him through lazy, slitted eyes. He smiled and nodded his head towards the screen.
"What you doing?" he asked, turning and moving across the room to sit on the edge of the bed. Helen swivelled in the chair to face him, crooking her knee up and bringing her foot to rest on the seat as she spoke.
"Just a bit of reading," she explained. "Monitor lizards."
"What? Those things back there?" Jason asked, his eyes roaming across the smooth skin of her thigh as he took a long swig of his whiskey and hot water. Helen licked her lips and nodded.
"Yes I..."she began, turning back to the screen. "I don't think there's anything especially abnormal about them. I can't be sure..."
Jason emptied his cup and slid back across the bed to rest it on a small chest of drawers against the wall. "Uh huh," he uttered, crossing his arms behind his head.
"...but I think I recognise some of our friends at the shipping yard in these pictures and if that's the case, well...I don't know for certain but then it means our friend Worrall, while himself an abnormal, was actually just dealing in illegally imported reptiles as a side to his more conventional trade in narcotics. I'm thinking methamphetamine judging by the equipment we found," she prattled, scrolling through the blurb on the screen. "Well that or he was just..." she paused and wrinkled her nose up in distaste as she finished. "..eating them."
Jason was quiet and when she turned around he was laid out on the bed fast asleep. Helen sighed and smiled softly, pushing up off the chair she reached for a blanket folded at the foot of the bed and began to spread it out over him. It did look very comfortable, she mused, pulling the rug up over his bare chest and and eyeing his toned arms. She let her gaze run across the lopsided band-aid on the side of his head - he seemed much less fearsome in repose. Her eyes were a little dry from reading off the computer, she thought, trying to suppress a yawn and failing, chewing her lip thoughtfully for a moment before lifting the rug and sliding in beside him.