Authors: Ros Baxter
I looked at Carragheen and thought about the kiss. A nerve jumped in his temple as he watched my face. From this vantage point, I saw again the similiarities with Kraken. That wanton face, the carnivorous edge. The full lips. I remembered myself kissing those lips, and closed my eyes. Against the backdrop of my mind’s eye, Carragheen’s visage morphed into Kraken’s, and I was imagining myself kissing the arrogant old priest. The arrogant old rapist priest, I reminded myself cruelly. Mom’s old boyfriend. A dull lurch saw the bottom drop from my stomach, and I suddenly tried to remember when I had last eaten.
“Did you know?”
He opened his mouth, squeezing my hand as he made to respond.
He knew. He freakin’ well knew about my mother and that freakin’ rapist.
I thought about the story. Tila, and Leisen. I knew it was all true, all he told me.
So why hadn’t he told me this?
Now I understood Mom’s fears. Did she see echoes of Kraken in his son? The shells reminded me how many unknowns remained and how much danger was waiting. And here I was. French kissing some mysterious hottie like a schoolgirl while women were being tortured, Doug was in the hospital and I was supposed to be saving the world.
A hottie who was keeping secrets from me. Important secrets.
“Leave,” I whispered, turning my face away.
He spoke into my mind.
No
.
I refused to go into his brain, and focused on a spot on the wall. “Leave.”
I am not him
. He squeezed my hand again, harder, bringing one hand up to my chin to pull my face roughly back towards his. That nerve still jumped wildly at his temple. His eyes shone, darker than I’d ever seen them.
You know me
.
I turned to him, pouring all my fury stilling my breath so I could speak as calmly and slowly as possible, each word a perfect bullet. “I. Know. Nothing. About. You.”
Still, he held my gaze. This time I didn’t look away. “Leave. Now.” He dropped his hand from my chin, and wiped it on the towel at his waist, shaking his head. Seconds later, he shut the door quietly as he went. Saying nothing but looking like a man with a lot to say.
After he left, I sat very still on the couch in the place where he’d kissed me. The flat was death quiet, apart from the slow dripping of that tap. I looked over at the clock, but had trouble deciphering the numbers. I scratched at my arm, where the scar ran the length of it, but felt nothing. I pinched a twist of plasticy scar tissue between my fingers. Nothing. I thought about the homeless girls I’d met in the city, cutting deep trenches into their teenage skin, proof of life. For the first time, I got it. My limbs were leaden. I wondered if they would ever move again.
My cell suddenly buzzed and leaped on the coffee table in front of me. I stared at it as though it was some strange, alien artifact. After what felt like hours of its tinny buzzing, I picked it up to switch it to silent. As I did, the ringing stopped. But not before I caught sight of the numbers flashing on the screen. My brain whirred and clicked, trying to make sense of them, taking long moments to connect before coming through for me.
Susie.
The room seemed to snap back into focus.
I punched the voicemail button, suddenly aware of my breath again as my heart rate went from frozen to boiling point in nanoseconds. And then I heard her, words spilling out with
girlish shyness at leaving a message. “Um… Rania. ‘S’me. Susie. Just wanted to tell you I’m okay. And I did it. I told mama about the dreams. And she made me hot chocolate. Bye.”
The breathy monologue over, I looked at the phone as I punched the “end” button.
Huh. Susie. She told her Ma. She listened to me.
I felt all the numb edges of my skin start to sizzle back into life.
This Carragheen thing was not the end of the world. Not yet, anyway. It was just a blip.
I took a long, deep breath. A breath that felt like the first I had taken since I’d seen him, sitting there on my couch. It was a blip, but it would serve a purpose. For a start, it would teach me to buck the habit of a lifetime and start trying to trust new people.
Any other time I would have gone to Mom straight away, and told her what I’d learned. Asked her about Kraken, about what had happened between them. But I knew that wasn’t the right course of action tonight. I couldn’t rush in. This was her history, Mom’s history, and it deserved some respect. Some privacy. I was gonna have to wait until we had some alone time.
Right now, Mom had things to do. And so did I. I needed to get back to Aegira, regardless of what had just happened, regardless of what I had just learned. But first, I needed to go check on Doug, make sure he knew I wasn’t deserting him but that I needed to get these baddies. For him. For me. And for the others.
So. I put aside my fears, and my rage at Carragheen. And drove.
I would have liked to take Ariel but I had to return Mary’s sedan. As the little car ate up the miles, I watched the black tarmac and smelled the smells of my home. The only real home I’d ever known. My head started to clear and I felt more like myself. I gave my scar a hard poke and registered the itchy wince that meant I was real too. I was back.
When I got to Dirtwater Memorial, I parked the sedan around back, with a “thanks, sorry” note taped to the windshield. I needn’t have bothered. When I got inside, Mary hadn’t left. She’d been keeping vigil by Doug’s bedside. Larry was still there too, sitting at a computer and frowning like he did when he was trying to solve the Times crossword.
“Hi,” I said, feeling fifteen different kinds of guilt rock me as I thought about kissing Carragheen while Doug lay there, in pain and alone. “How’s he doing?”
Larry pushed back his chair, scratched his right ear and puffed out a defeated sigh. “Rania,” he said with a whoosh of breath. “Come here.” He motioned to the chair beside him. I could feel it coming, and I knew it was gonna be bad. I felt sick right down to my toes.
“It’s bad,” he confirmed. “Doug came out of his coma… momentarily.” I watched Larry clock the hope light my eyes and move quickly to squash it before I allowed myself to indulge in any fantasies about Doug being fine, and living to ride another day. “No, Rania,” he cautioned me, a hand on my arm. “He… he’s not right.”
“What do you mean?” Not like Larry to be so cryptic.
Larry ran his big hands through that silver hair, chewing his lip. “He’s… he was ranting and screaming. He didn’t recognize us, didn’t know his name.”
“What?” I felt my brain want to slip back into that place it had gone to in Mom’s apartment, slowing down, not computing. I shook my head violently, giving my brain a mental shake at the same time. No way, brain. You don’t get away with your part in this that easy.
I tried again. “What do you mean? You mean… he’s gone crazy?” It wasn’t something I could imagine. Solid, brave Doug. Losing his mind. It just wasn’t possible.
Larry just shrugged, and I saw the exhausted lines criss-crossing his face, and the dullness weighing down those eyes that had seen it all.
“No,” I stammered, feeling my tongue thick and clumsy in my mouth. Don’t cry.
Don’t. Cry.
Larry threw a heavy arm around my shoulders and guided me into where Doug was lying. He looked pale and somehow smaller. The smell of antiseptic and linen played in my nostrils. I stood still, willing my legs to move forward, go to him.
Larry took the initiative. I watched him walk over to Doug, pick up one huge hand, touch his wrist carefully, feeling for the pulse. “Me again, pal,” he whispered gently.
And something about that. That tiny, simple gesture, from this man I loved. To this other man who was hurt because of me. I imagined Larry, in war zones and jungles, with other men. Wounded and broken men. I imagined the things he’d seen. I knew what those things had done to him. But I also knew, better than anyone, that he’d never seen anything like this.
My breath started to hurt as it picked its way in and out. Spots swam before my eyes.
No. No, no, no. Don’t cry.
It was as though Doug heard me. He began to moan.
A deep, pained braying that I could feel right down to my toes.
Larry turned back to me, and I looked at him for answers. He shrugged helplessly. “Doug obviously got a really major buzz from this thing, whatever it is. More than you did. Maybe more even than Blondie. He’s seriously tough, so it didn’t kill him. But the pain, the effects of it... you need to understand, honey, he might never recover.”
Larry guided me outside the tiny cubicle, one arm around my shoulders. Then he pulled back and looked at me. Whatever he saw made his mouth turn down at the corners in this eloquent gesture of sympathy. He touched my shoulder, the lightest of feather touches, and, finally, I crumpled, hurling myself against him, beating his solid chest as he stood to hold me.
“No.” I yelled at him, feeling the starched thickness of his shirt as I pummeled it over and over. “No, no, no. Bullshit.”
“Shhh, sweetheart,” Larry soothed, patting my hair.
I couldn’t speak, just sob, my cries climbing higher and higher. The noise echoed through the little white hospital, bouncing off stainless steel benches and sterile surfaces. I kept trying to claw back control, dragging in breath after breath to try to pull it together but the cries were being squeezed from my insides, like I was a rag doll being played with by a giant. My ears felt like they do when I fly, all messed up with the pressurized cabin. All I could see was the white panel of Larry’s shirt and a black red haze. My shoulders hunched with the weight of it all. So much, and now this. Now I had done this to Doug. Who had only been trying to help. You know, it really is true. I don’t cry.
Not when I got told I was on borrowed time at the tender age of sixteen.
Not when I got zapped.
Not even when my heart got stomped by a lying merman.
And yet here I was. Sobbing like a baby.
Just when I thought I would never stop, that I would stand here ruining Larry’s short forever, an authoritative clap grabbed my attention. I turned to see Mary, poking her head out of the doorway to Doug’s room and clapping nursey hands at me. Her bossy little brown eyes showed pity, but also something else. Her mouth was a tight line and she was sucking in her cheeks. She held up a finger to her lips and spat an emphatic shush at me.
“You’re not helping,” she said, not meanly, but in a voice that brooked no complaints.
My cheeks flushed and the skin on my scalp prickled.
How could I be making such a scene when others had been doing all the hard work?
I dragged in my breath and squeezed my eyes shut, pinching my arm hard at the tenderest part, where the scar bit deep and gnarled, trying to shock myself into sense.
I pulled back from Larry and rubbed my eyes, trying to breathe like the yogi taught me, filling up my diaphragm and focusing on an imaginary red spot on my forehead.
When the worst was done, Larry spoke again. “It might pass. It’s just so very hard to tell. I gave him some really serious sedatives. He was incredibly distressed.”
“I should have been here.” I felt the red black cloud blanketing my vision again, and the ugly push of self-hatred fill my veins. “I should have been here when he woke.”
“It wouldn’t have helped,” Larry said, shaking his head. “He didn’t know anyone. He didn’t know his name. It would only have freaked you out, to see it.”
I thought about Ran.
He will recover, with your help. And his part in this is not over yet
. How could she know that he’ll recover? Maybe she just didn’t realize how bad he was. And what the hell was I supposed to do about it? I didn’t know how to fix this.
Or did I? My brain skimmed to Rick, and his herbs. Could they fix this?
I went in again to see Doug, who was sleeping now, looking so peaceful I could almost believe Larry was lying, except I knew he wouldn’t. Mary came back in with some equipment.
I patted her shoulder. “Thank you,” I whispered.
And she smiled.
It was midnight when I woke to Mom shaking my shoulder.
I would never have thought I would drop off, here on this little chair in this hospital room, my brain turning over and over what happened between her and Kraken, and running over Larry’s words. But even with all the madness of the day whirling in my brain, it wasn’t hard at all. The last four days, maybe all that bawling like a baby, and I guess the hydroporting as well, had done their work, and my body and brain switched off into the deepest of sleeps.
I could hear the stilted creak in Mom’s movements as she went over and placed her fingertips on Doug’s eyes, whispering a blessing. The sound told me she was tired too, so tired. I thought about all the unknowns of the next few days, and the long journey facing us, and I figured I’d have to wait a little to talk to her about Kraken. She needed some rest.
I just hoped she would understand my snooping. And that I wasn’t leaving it too late.
Even though it was late, I called my Dad from the phone at the hospital (no cells allowed) to tell him I was going away again. Because I always keep him posted on my movements, and maybe also because I wanted to hear his voice, warm and reassuring. He had a phone in his cell, so I knew he’d answer. And he must have heard something in my voice, because he chuckled down the line at me, sounding so close and so dear that I felt my throat constrict at the sound.
“So you found it then?” It was a question, but really more of a statement.
“Found what, Dad?”
“Your courage. I seem t’ remember you were looking for it when you came by here a coupla days ago.”
No way. I felt more scared than I’d ever felt in my life at this point. Rushing into burning buildings had nothing on the fear I was feeling. But I did know one thing. I’d be screwed if I was going down without a fight.
“Nah,” I said shortly, hoping he wouldn’t hear the tremor in my voice as I thought about how the things I was most afraid of had started to come to pass. Hurting people I love. Realizing I’ve got to save people, and that I don’t know how.
I thought about Doug, strung out and hurting in the room down the corridor.