Broken (38 page)

“Like what he does in his lab?” Now that I’ve roughed up the wound, I jab him in a tender spot.

“You saw the animals?” He lays on the horn and narrowly avoids a car sliding out of its lane.

“And I overheard your argument last weekend,” I remind him, then add, “and I’ve done some research on my own.”

“Research?”

“Internet, Alex,” I say and tighten my seat belt. “After you were hurt, a string of suspicious accidents and missing person reports hit the news. All guys. Daniel was the last one. Considering nothing as perfect as you happens by accident…”

A smile flirts with his lips before he pulls them into a frown. “You think my dad killed them all,” he finishes for me.

I nod, though I’m not sure he sees it with his defensive winter driving skills being taxed.

“I’m not sure what he’s capable of anymore,” Alex continues, turning onto a snow-choked country highway. The world has turned to white—he must be driving on instinct now. “I always thought the animals were his way of giving me back what was broken.”

“Broken isn’t dead.” If it is, my heart would be hanging limp in my chest.

“I know.” He scrapes at the frost on the windshield, then guides the car off the road and into a seeming field of nothing. A sea of white washes in front of us. Headlights hit a stand of trees acres back and an old farm house. The house looks empty, but too well-taken care of to be abandoned, when the wheels churn to a halt in the driveway. “We’re here.”

“Where’s here?” I leave the seat belt buckled.

“The only safe place I could think of.” The car shudders a little when he puts it in Park, and then kills the engine. “My grandparents’ house.”

“Are you crazy?” My voice hits a sharp pitch. He’s feeding me to the wolves. “You brought me to your grandparents’ house?”

“No, and yes.”

Infuriatingly, Alex unhooks his seatbelt, and climbs out. Discussion over. The trunk opens, then closes and Alex appears at my door with two bags in his hand. My brain is locked on the fact that he’s driven us out into the middle of nowhere where his crazy father can come and murder me in my sleep. “That’s it,” I tell Renfield. “We’re going to die.”

The cat doesn’t respond.

I lock gazes with Alex when he opens my door. His lips curl down, mismatched eyes radiating hurt that I don’t trust him. I can’t help it; too much bad has happened. Even though he came to my rescue, his dad tried to end my life. A tickle follows his fingers across my stomach when he unhooks my seatbelt. “You’ll freeze to death out here.”

Huffing a sigh, I climb out into knee-high snow. Bone deep chill burns my bare feet and sopping wet legs. I yank up both hoods to ward off the blizzard winds. The farmhouse watches us through dead, curtain-covered windows. I take the handles of both my backpack, and a leather carry-on sized suitcase while he ducks into the back seat and coos to Renfield as he lifts the carrier out.

“Back door,” Alex says into the biting wind, then takes my hand and forges a path for us.

At the rear of the house, he stands on tip-toe and wedges a small window open a couple inches. A metallic flicker stabs through the snowfall when he pulls a key from the windowsill. I huddle closer when he slides the key in the lock and opens the door.

A short set of stairs rises in front of us, and a longer set plunges off to the left into the gloom of a cellar or basement below. The braided rug swishes under our feet on the landing. The utter strandedness of my life hits me when I watch Alex climb the short back steps with the cat carrier in front of him. I have nowhere to go, except a friend I don’t want to bring trouble on, or follow Alex.

He opens another door at the top of the stairs and steps into a kitchen.

Everything is sunny yellow, white, wood, and covered in doilies.

“Where are your grandparents?”
and how can you think this is safe?

“They’re in Florida,” he says, and flicks on the lights. “They’re my mom’s parents, by the way,” he adds, “and my dad hates them. He hasn’t been near here since she died.”

He walks to a thermostat on the wall, and jacks up the heat, then walks further in the house and turns on more lights.

Safe
, I think. Actually safe, with no fire or madman chasing me.

All the tension keeping my spine straight and legs moving snaps like a wire stretched to its limits, and coils back inside me. Standing doesn’t work anymore, and I slowly crumple to the floor. Tears rush over my eyelashes, and a wracking sob hurts my throat. I’m vaguely aware of Renfield mewing in the crate over the snotting, sobbing wreck I’ve become.

The awkward tension leaves my wrist when Alex takes the bags from me, then crouches and gathers me into his arms.

“You’re okay,” he says, “I’ll make sure of it.”

I fling my arms around him, nuzzle close to his neck. I crave the leather and Alex smell. Instead, there’s nothing but smoke.

“You stink.”

“Well, thanks.” Rich laughter rolls from him. “You don’t smell so good either.”

The world tilts and then centers on Alex as he stands. He takes my good hand and hauls me upright. Upstairs in the Sunshine house—the yellow and white theme is everywhere—he leads me into a small bedroom with more lace than a sewing store. White, ruffley eyelet dissects the squares of a pastel calico quilt on the bed, the doll leaning against the pillows wears ivory and lace, the curtains are lace.

“Gran,” he tells me in a voice light and reverent, “said this was my mom’s room. They redecorated, but kept her things.”

He disappears in the closet, then comes back dragging a large cedar trunk. The scent of lavender and mint whoosh off piles of folded denim, flannel and jersey when he lifts the lid.

“Find something clean,” he says, “And we’ll wash our clothes.”

“Oh. Um…” I didn’t think there was room left for awkward in my overload of stress. “I feel really funny wearing your mom’s clothes.”
His dead mom’s clothes.

“Please don’t. I’m sure she would’ve wanted my girlfriend taken care of.”

Girlfriend. The word makes my heart want to soar. I drop a glance to the pearl ring on my left hand. Of course he’d call me that—even if I have doubts, Alex doesn’t. I heave a sigh, and slide closer, hesitant to touch the chest full of memories. He nudges me, knee in the curve of my butt, and the folds of material tip toward my face.

“Hey!” I catch the edge, and swing my cast at him.

“Just helping,” he says, ducking the pink cudgel. “I have a spare pair of clothes in my bag downstairs.” Then he’s gone.

I have clothes, too, though I’m not sure what I shoved into my backpack—it might be all underwear, might be summer tank tops. Besides, the bag smells as bad as I do. I’m sure everything in it reeks. Resigned, I carefully sift through the clothing in the chest. Simple jeans, flannel shirts and pajamas, team jerseys from the different sports his mother played. The sizes are all wrong. Alex’s mother was taller than me, and curvier in the areas I wish I were. Thinking I lost the wardrobe lottery, I settle on a pair of pink flannel pajama pants (legs cuffed), a baseball jersey and pair of socks.

Alex stands in the hallway, leather bag in hand. “The bathroom’s through there. I’ll shower first and give the hot water time to heat up for you.”

“Aw. You don’t have to freeze for me, Alex.”

“Haven’t you figured it out?” he says. “I’d do anything for you.”

A dozen things jumble in my mouth and die. I smile, and know it goes all the way to my eyes.

“By the way…” He ducks into the bathroom. His voice comes muffled from the other side of the door. “There’s cat food under the sink in the kitchen for Renfield. Gran has a litter pan somewhere, too. And here,” the door opens and I see a long, vertical flash of skin when his clothes fly into the hall, “I’ll wash our clothes once you’ve showered.”

Blush ravages my cheeks, flows past into my forehead and throat. Atop the pile of smelly clothes lies a pair of boxer shorts. Toeing his underwear under his shirt, I gather his clothes and then return to the Sunshine kitchen. The cat supplies are in the cabinet under the sink, neat and tidy—until I get Renfield taken care of and released from the plastic crate. The desperate cat uses the litter right away, even in a stranger’s home. Then I ferret Alex’s cell phone from his jacket, and call my parents.

Mom’s a wreck, Dad’s not much better, and they’re more concerned about me than losing everything. I don’t tell them the darkest truth—Alex’s dad is most likely the culprit and trying to kill me. The story I give them is a big string of falsehoods, from Alex coming over to watch movies to him being snowed in and sleeping on the couch. Him rescuing me from upstairs is totally true.

They aren’t happy with not knowing the address of where we are, either.

“It’s kinda hard,” I say, “to read street signs in the middle of the night in a blizzard, Dad.”

“Well, keep in touch, and we will, too. We’re just so thankful that you’re all right.”

“Don’t worry so much. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodbye, Emma.”

I push End Call, and close Alex’s phone.

The glory of the Sunshine kitchen presses in on me. Welcoming, pretty, happy, and so foreign. I feel like a filthy intruder, a cancer, fouling the beauty here.

I pace the downstairs, drifting from room to room. Pictures are everywhere, from black and white and old, to more recent times. There’s no rhyme or reason like my mom would’ve made with them; elementary here, junior high there, high school in the living room. A young girl in pigtails and a gingham dress shares a shelf with a young woman cradling a brown-haired baby. In another room is a framed older couple, the sun at their side and an elementary school Alex. I find one of him in the kitchen, probably last year, wearing an apron with a jar of preserves in his hand.

He has a whole different life with his grandparents. He had a different life before he woke up wanting me. The stairs creak, and I feel him coming back to me, like a song rising in my blood. The electric tickle courses my skin.

“That’s my favorite picture,” Alex says behind me. “Gran and I picked the berries and canned them that day.”

How do I tell him I’m glad he had a normal influence in his life, other than his psychopath father? When I turn, the thought flees my head. Alex wears a dark pair of jeans, and a forest green, short-sleeved shirt. The color makes the green in his hazels really glow, and it somehow highlights his scars. How could I have ever thought he was anything other than beautiful?

“Okay,” he says, and winks with his left eye, “now that I’m clean, you smell really bad.”

“Thanks a lot.” I roll my eyes, and he herds me to the stairs.

A big claw foot tub commands attention the minute I peek in the bathroom. A bright yellow checkered curtain encircles it, inviting me to scrub away the stink of disaster. Still, it takes washing my hair three times with the citrus and herb smelling shampoo to get the smell out.

Hair loosely braided, and a stranger’s clothes on, I walk out to find Alex waiting in the hall. Renfield sits at his feet, and the leather bag hangs from his hand.

“Emma.” A somber expression casts clouds over his eyes. “I have to show you something.”

I follow him down the hall to another bedroom. This one is paneled in blond wood, with white trim on the doors and windows. An old patchwork quilt of sunlight and denim colors covers the bed, and matches the hand tied rag rug on the floor. Guy stuff sits around the room, a martial arts trophy, a autographed baseball, a collection of well-worn fantasy novels.

“My room,” he says, answering the question I would’ve asked. “I’ve spent at least one week a summer with them every year. The bastard that my dad is,” he runs his fingers over the dresser, “he wouldn’t tell my grandparents they couldn’t see me.”

“It’s hard to picture him being kind.”

“Things were fine, as long as they went his way. For the most part they did.”

“And then you woke up…”

“And then you woke me up.”

He smiles, steps closer and runs a fingertip along my neckline to my braid. I knew it wouldn’t last long. With a little tug, the strands spill loose and damp down my back. “I dreamed about you before I regained consciousness.”

How can I respond to that?

“Sit down,” he tells me, pointing at his bed. “You’ll probably want to anyway.”

I perch on the edge of the bed, near the pillows. My white cat runs up, and pads across the pillows making himself at home, as long as he’s close to me. Alex drags his leather bag to the other end of the bed and sits, too.

“Before I left my house, I took the file my father showed me.” He pulls out the manila folder and puts it between us. He returns his hand to the zippered mouth, and pulls out at least a dozen plastic vials of a red liquid. “This is the serum my father has been injecting me with and telling me it’s a vitamin booster. It isn’t. My survival depends on weekly injections of that combined with a modulated electric treatment.”

Alex places the formula on the folder, and pushes them to me, then watches my reactions. The red liquid is the color of rubies, has a thickness and sparkle to it in the overhead lights. He suffers injections of this every week? Alex is still paying for his father’s sins. Tied to a drug and electrical current to keep him alive.

“My life is in your hands,” he says. Then Alex grabs the hem of his t-shirt and pulls it off. His scars are a map of life and death and the laws broken to revert them. “I know what my Dad took from you. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. And I swear I will never take another dose of that medicine if letting the heart in my chest stop beating will end your pain.”