Chapter Four - His Story

The next morning I woke sore and hungry. Intellectually, I knew I had to get out if I was going to stand a chance of making it back up to midtown for the lunch rush. Business-y folk in a rush to get back to the offices were always happy to throw away the heavy change in their pockets that was weighing down. Grumbling, more out of habit at this point, I dragged myself off the filthy mattress and shuffled to the bathroom. The Employees Only sign on the door was broken long ago and now read "yee". I never bothered to pull it down because I thought it was funny.

I turned the knob at the faucet and grabbed the dingy hand towel from nearby. Despite having no waterline, the faucet produced fresh, lukewarm water. Thank you, former squatters! I had discovered this place from the battered journal that now rested on the bookshelf in the main room. Isabelle Basset, the daughter of Hecate, had gone all out enchanting the place to be safe from monsters and people alike, and also to provide the basic necessities of heat, light and water. I didn't fully understand it, and she never went into detail in the book, but as long as it worked, who really cared?

Wetting the rag, I wiped the previous day's dirt and grime from my face, neck and arms. I winced as the water made contact with my skin, the moisture evaporating quickly in a puff of steam. Freshly cleaned, I stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror. Striking green eyes stared back from beneath a mop of untidy black hair. I frowned, tugging self consciously at one long strand. I'd have to get it cut again soon.

A glint of metal from the main room reflected in the mirror. I turned, and spotted Pinkerbelle's ornate knife. Crossing the room, I grabbed the knife and went back to the mirror. Making eye contact with myself once more, I held the knife firmly in my right hand and grabbed as much of my hair as I could in my left. A quick jerk of the blade and my hair tumbled free to the floor. I repeated the process a couple more times until my hair was mostly uniform, albeit still incredibly choppy, and grinned. Short hair absolutely suited me better.

With one last glance at the mirror, I smoothed out as many of the wrinkles from my shirt as I could, grabbed my backpack and headed out without bothering to lock the front door. One of the protections on the place meant that anybody that didn't already know about it would never find it - unless they were told about it first.

A few hours later found me walking away from Midtown with roughly thirty-seven dollars in loose change which, after processing fees at the coin counting kiosk, came out to just over thirty-two dollars cash. Overall, not a bad day. I picked up a six pack of Coke, a couple bags of chips, a loaf of bread, some various lunch meats and some aluminum foil. Toasted sandwiches for dinner tonight would be a nice treat! I even entertained the idea of stopping by Katz's on the way back to my squat. I ducked into an alley to get off the main street.

"Hey, kid," a voice cut through my thoughts. I turned around. Stupid mistake.

The speaker was a sandy-haired boy, about fifteen years old, and looked slightly out of shape. Standing to his right was a skinny boy with red hair holding a baseball bat.

"This is our street," the first guy said. "If you want to pass, you gotta pay the toll."

"Fuck off," I said, turning to keep walking, only to bump into a guy almost twice my size.

"Now, there's no need to be rude, kid," the leader of the gang said, footsteps indicating his casual approach. "Just hand over the bag and whatever cash you got on ya, and this never happened, yeah?"

The three teens loomed dangerously in the tight alley, preventing my escape. The big one reached for my bag and I pulled away, making them laugh. Slowly, I reached for the ornate knife tucked into the waistband of my pants. Their eyes followed my hands, widening as the mid-afternoon sunlight glinted off the blade.

"Shit, man, she's armed!" Big guy exclaimed.

I lashed out, but he easily ducked my clumsy swing planting his massive fist into my stomach and driving the air from my lungs with one blow. I hit the ground retching, the knife clattering out of my hands, too far away to grab again.

"We tried to ask nicely," the lead guy said, shaking his head in mock disappointment. "Now we gotta do things the hard way. Rough her up a bit, but leave her breathing boys. We aren't monsters, after all."

Skinny swung his baseball bat at the back of my head as the big guy landed a powerful kick to my side. I barely registered the sandy-haired boy spilling out the contents of my bag on the ground. What little spare clothes I had were kicked aside as he inspected everything else. The cans of Coke were set off to one side while the loaf of bread was unceremoniously stepped on. The big guy landed another solid kick to my side and I heard something crack as my vision went white with pain.

After a painful eternity, the sounds of approaching sirens nearby set the gang running. A soft breeze blew past me, ruffling my hair. I imagined I heard a soft, feminine voice whisper in my ear; Help is coming. And with that, my eyes closed and darkness took me.

I slowly felt awareness returning to me, and with it came the pain. Though for some reason, I hurt less than I thought I really should given the thrashing I'd gotten. The second thing I noticed was that I was lying on a stiff mattress. Where was I? The smell of chemical disinfectant filled my nostrils, as my ears registered a steady beeping sound nearby. I felt like if I could just open my eyes, it would become clear. The sound of someone else breathing nearby, however, made my eyes fly open and I winced at the sudden brightness, closing them again.

Slowly, I blinked through a blurred haze of pain, letting my eyes adjust to the light and saw the familiar face of uncle Joe looking down at me. His usually smiling face now frowning, his forehead creased with worry.

"Nipote," he said, softly.

"Where...?" I started to ask, but it was unnecessary. Now that I could look around, I could see that I was very obviously in a hospital room. No. No, no, nope, no. Also; NO! I struggled to get up, finding my range of motion severely limited by the bandages tightly compressing my ribs. The diodes attached to my skin pinched and the needle in my arm twisted uncomfortably as I moved.

"No, don't move." He placed his hands on my shoulders gently, making me go still. "You're in the Hospital. You were... You are hurt very badly," he said, his accent thick. "If I hadn't been walking by and heard you, I... You..." He trailed off.

So he had been the one to find me. That explained why he was here. I sighed, settling back onto the bed with a wince. Whatever painkillers they had me on seemed to be doing their job for now, but I wondered how long that would last. Probably just until the drip stopped, I guessed.

"...for observation." Oh, he was still talking. I tried to focus on his words even as my head swam. "Doctor Phoebe is a good woman, you can trust her to help you get better."

As if summoned at that moment, the door opened and the doctor walked in. She had honey blonde hair held up in a loose bun. Her kind, hazel eyes gleamed with specks of gold. My pulse quickened and, with it, the E.K.G. monitor I was hooked up to began to beep faster. I closed my eyes, feeling myself blushing and cursed inwardly. The doctor hummed with amusement.

'Gods, kill me now,' I pleaded silently.

"Now, now," the doctor said, her voice warm. "Don't feel too embarrassed. I'll take the compliment, as long as you understand I'm too old for you."

I risked cracking open one eye. She winked at me, her lips quirked upward with a smirk. I clamped my eyes closed tighter. Could this be any more mortifying?

"Okay, doc, she's probably going to die of embarrassment if you keep it up," uncle Joe laughed.

"Well, we can't have that," Doctor Phoebe conceded. "Okay, no more teasing. I promise. Now, I have some good news, but you have to open those eyes for me first, okay?" I slowly opened my eyes, wincing again at the light.

"Good, good. Now, I need to you follow my finger with just your eyes," she said, "No moving your head." She began moving her finger back and forth across my vision and I did my best to track its progress. "Alright, everything looks good there. Now, I'll want you to take it easy for the next couple weeks, you hear me?"

Next couple... what? Did she mean ...-?

"Does that mean I'm getting out of here today?" I asked, my throat catching.

"It does," she said, handing me the glass of water from the bedside table. Blessedly, it had a straw. "I just need your uncle to sign the release forms and you'll be free to go."

I was free to go? I didn't dare get my hopes up. There was no way it would be that easy.

As it turned out, it really was that easy. After uncle Joe signed the necessary papers, the hospital released me into his care. I had, perhaps naively, believed we would simply part ways outside. Instead, he had called for a cab and had me wheeled out to the curb in a chair. The ride back to his restaurant was spent in silence as the painkillers had already run their course through my body and I was in no state to talk. When we arrived, he gently helped me out of the cab and up a set of stairs on the side of the building leading to his apartment over the restaurant.

"I really don't want to put you to so much trouble," I said, trying and failing to hold back the pain from my voice. "Besides, it doesn't really hurt all that... Ouch!"

"Uh-huh," he said. "Come on, there's fresh linens on the guest bed. You will stay here at least until your ribs heal. Wait right here, I'll get you something to help with the pain," he said, helping me onto the bed.

I wanted to argue, but all thoughts of why it was a bad idea for me to stay fled from my mind as I was helped onto the pillowy mattress. It was firm, yet not rigid. Soft, but not lumpy. The only discomfort I felt came from my own body. I tried to relax, but my muscles remained stubbornly tense.

He returned a minute later with one of those green plastic tumblers from the restaurant half-filled with a thick liquid, the color of the cup making it unidentifiable.

"This is an old family remedy," he said, passing me the cup. "Drink slowly, it will help."

I wasn't sure how some herbal tea was going to help cracked ribs, but with the pain growing worse, I was willing to try anything. Besides, my throat was dry. The cool drink would help that much, at least. I almost spit out the first gulp. It wasn't that it tasted bad, don't get me wrong. I just hadn't expected it to taste like uncle Joe's tiramisu. I looked over to see him grinning, as if having a laugh at some private joke, then took another drink. The second gulp tasted better than the first having been prepared. Before I realized it, I had drunk the whole cup. He snatched it away before I could start shoving my tongue inside to lick at the walls.

"How do you feel, nipote?"

The question brought me up short. The pain, while not gone, had definitely improved. I no longer felt so stiff as I had earlier.

"But... How?" I asked.

"Old family recipe," he said with a wink. "Very old family."

"All right, then. Keep your secrets."

"Oho, you want to know?" I nodded. "Then you'll have to sit through an old man's story."

He chuckled at the look on my face, as if to question my resolve. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of backing down, so I made a show of getting comfortable on the guest bed. Truthfully, it wasn't hard. He waited for me to get settled before pulling over a high back chair from the window to sit closer to the bed.

"My story starts a long time ago, when I was only a little bit older than you are now.

"Back then, I went to a special summer camp. It was there that I met the girl who would become my wife. Elena, her name was. Oh, nipote, let me tell you she was a real good looker. Soft brown hair that set her apart from the rest of her cabin mates, with eyes like the darkest storm clouds. I was stricken the moment I laid eyes on her. Of course, she didn't think too highly of me at first," He sighed with a grin on his face. "If asked, she'd say I was reckless and irresponsible. She was right, of course. I was always so caught up with living in the moment that I didn't know what living really meant. The only thing I hesitated on was approaching her.

"It was almost two years of summer camp before I worked up the nerve to ask her to the Fourth of July fireworks event at the lake. It was the place to be for couples. When I finally asked, she just stared at me over her book with those piercing eyes, no doubt getting a thrill at seeing me sweat before she agreed. And in that moment, I found my anchor. For the first time ever, I started looking to the future.

"She wanted to teach, she had told me. That was why she was always reading. Always studying. It didn't come easy for her, you see? But, she had set a goal for herself and was determined to see it through, no matter how difficult. At first, I was intimidated. I had never given much thought to such things. I told her as much, and you know what she did? She laughed."

He chuckled slightly, his eyes closed as he reminisced. The only sounds in the room coming from the traffic outside. I idly wondered how this story related to an old family recipe that made broken bones feel better, but by now I was invested. I had to hear more. "She was the one who brought out my love for cooking, and encouraged me to open this little restaurant," he finally said.

"We moved in just after we both turned eighteen. She had enrolled in her fancy college and was all set to get her teaching degree," his voice trailed off, and there was a bitter edge of sadness in his tone that caused me to choke a little. "She died not long after that. When la polizia had found her, she had already bled out in a dirty back alley. Alone and broken. Officially, the report claimed it was gang activity. But I know a cyclops attack when I see one."

Wait, what?