Broken (26 page)

She goes to Kyle, but after several moments she realizes he is truly dead and that nothing and no one will bring him back.

Touching Kyle doesn’t seem so strange. His body is already cold.

Laila just breathes in and thinks for a long time, wondering where to go and what to do.

But there’s only one thing she can do. Find Lex.

•   •   •

Sure enough, just like they said it would, the call comes through. It’s from Kyle’s cell phone. It’s around one a.m.

“Yeah? Kyle?”

“No. Kyle’s not around anymore.”

Lex is being watched as he sits on the chair in the corner of the hotel room. Both men wait and listen to hear what he says.

“Where are you?”

The voice on the other end waits for a minute. “This isn’t Kyle.”

“Okay, yeah, is Laila okay?”

“This is what you’re going to do if you want to see your pretty little sister alive again. There’s a hotel named Hotel St.
Marie. I’m going to be waiting there. And your sister will be there too.”

“Hotel St. Marie,” Lex says carefully. “That’s where you’re at?”

“Yes. And listen to me. I’m not here for you or for the girl. I’m here for those two men following her. The dark-haired guy
who thinks he’s pretty cool and the other scrawny one with the creepy face. I’m here for them. Go to the hotel and go to room
212. You understand all that?”

“Yeah.”

James and Connor stare.

“Just make sure Laila stays there. That she’s safe.”

“She’s safe all right.”

The man clicks off the phone and leaves Lex hanging, wondering if there’s more to say. He does the same.

Lex looks at them. “You heard it.”

“Just like that, huh?”

He nods at Connor. “Just like that.”

“You think we can trust him?”

“Why shouldn’t we?” James asks. “Did you talk to your sister?”

Lex shakes his head.

“Why were you following us in the first place?”

“To make sure she was okay.”

“We don’t want to hurt anybody,” James says.

“Doesn’t look like that to me.”

“Listen to me. We’re going to go to that hotel and get your sister. Then the four of us are going to make a trip to Texas
to visit your family. You’re going to call ahead and ask for some money. And then when we get there, we’re going to do a swap.
You give us the money, and we’ll leave both of you alone.”

“What about the other guy?”

“Amos?” James asks. “The fella at the hotel doing the shooting?”

“Yeah.”

“Best thing you can do is come with us. There won’t be any leaving New Orleans if it’s up to him.”

“Not like I have any choice.”

“No, you don’t,” Connor says.

“Shut up,” James tells him.

“He doesn’t.”

“I don’t care, just shut your face.”

James stands and holds the revolver in his hand, thinking for a minute.

“This guy with your sister. He’s not going to try to be some hero or something, is he?”

“No.” Lex doubts Kyle is in any position to be a hero.

Amos, on the other hand, is another issue.

For a moment Lex wonders whether to tell them.

He looks at Connor and knows this is a dangerous man. A man he can’t trust.

He’ll figure out something when they get to the hotel.

I wonder what it would feel like to not be haunted. To not feel the weight of the spirit world wrapped around my neck. To
not wonder when the ground is going to slide away and I’m going to fall and feel the noose tighten and hear my neck snap.

Spirits aren’t hard to believe in. It’s their maker.

I’ve seen evil things. Evil I never knew existed. Not in dark alleyways but in pretty houses and decadent rooms. In brightly
lit restaurants and on busy street sidewalks.

I’ve seen evil. And it resides in the heart.

It knocks on the door.

It invites me in.

It looks at me in the mirror.

And then it slowly and carefully smothers me.

It’s my hands and my eyes and my heart and my soul.

It’s the window I look out of.

It’s the room I find myself in.

It’s this life I wish I could escape.

It’s the emptiness I continually find.

L
aila walks for what seems like miles in darkness that slowly becomes lit streets, passing cars, and strangers. She ignores
a few pausing vehicles and an occasional shout. Perhaps they’ll
eventually ignore her too, seeing the traces of blood on her shirt and hands. Blood from the man she left behind, the man
she cradled one last time. The young guy who was just helping out and trying to be a friend. Trying to be a good guy. She
knows what happens to good guys in this inkblot of a world. They get erased.

But for some reason, she is not erased. She’s still here. She’s still breathing and still moving, and now she heads back into
the city to try to find her brother.

She hears an occasional voice whisper amidst the growing buzz of the night. An occasional voice that sounds just like it always
has. That whispers from the night above and the alley around her.

“Keep going. He’s there. You’ll find him in there.”

Laila is heading back to her hotel. And then she’ll try and figure out where to go.

She hears a hiss, and then something clangs to the ground in a street she’s passing. She glances down it and sees something
rolling on the sidewalk, bouncing off the curb, and stopping on the street.

It’s a can of spray paint.

Footsteps run away.

She doesn’t hesitate. Not now, not after everything.

Laila walks down the street and sees an old building with red paint bleeding down its side.

It says one word over and over again.

Marie

It’s the same word she heard in her dreams back in her hotel room.

The same name that doesn’t bear any significance.

She glances in the direction the steps went, but she hears nothing now.

Laila touches the paint and once again knows it’s real. Then she picks up the can and knows that it’s real too.

But what is real and what is fantasy? These are things she no longer knows. She hasn’t known for some time.

When a man used to visit her, she wasn’t real. She was an illusion, a fantasy, a mirage of something he wanted and needed.
But when he left, he would leave the real behind, wounded and aching and trembling.

The real and the fantasy. She doesn’t know the difference anymore.

Laila touches the word one more time and then says it out loud. “Marie.”

Who is Marie and what does she want with her?

•   •   •

“Is everything okay, sir?”

“Yeah, everything is fine.” Amos appears cordial and relaxed. “I was just wondering if you could help me out with getting
another room.”

“Sure.” The woman is fortyish and stout with a round smiling face.

“I’m going to be having some friends possibly coming tonight, and I wanted to get them a room. Actually, I’m going to give
them mine, but wondered if you could give me a room across from them.”

“What’s your room number?” she asks.

He tells her and watches as she looks behind the desk. It should take her probably thirty seconds, but it takes this woman
about five minutes. She apologizes several times as she glances in one book, then realizes it’s the wrong book and checks
another. When she looks up, her face red from being flustered, Amos smiles and waves his hand and tells her to take her time.

She eventually discovers that the room is empty, something Amos already knows but he obliges her ignorance.

“I’ll let them know you got the room for them.”

“Actually, thank you, but no. It’s a surprise. I told them to just come on up.”

“Oh, good, then. Well, I’ll be on the lookout.”

“Thank you so much.” He holds up the card key and nods, then wishes her a good night.

•   •   •

Laila wanders down one street and then circles back and goes down another. She has no idea where she’s going. At one point
when someone in a black BMW slows down and says something to her, she asks which direction is New Orleans. The driver, shrouded
in darkness, only laughs and then asks what she’s looking for. She says the French Quarter, and the driver volunteers to drive
her. But she says no and asks again. He tells her to stay on this street and then gives her directions, saying it’s only a
few miles away and that she’s in the ninth district. He asks her why she’s in the ninth district, but she doesn’t answer and
starts to walk away.

Laila then stops.

“Is there a Marie something around here?”

The face pops out the window revealing a good-looking young driver. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what I mean either.”

“You talking about the St. Marie hotel in the French Quarter?”

“Yes.”

“I think it’s right around Bourbon Street. You sure you don’t want a lift that way?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“It’s really nothing.”

“It’s fine,” she says again.

“Okay then.”

The driver pulls the BMW away and she keeps walking.

Now she knows where to go.

She’s not going to ask questions because there will be no answers.

It might be a mere coincidence, but at this point she doesn’t believe in them the same way she doesn’t believe in miracles.
Even though both seem to be happening around her all the time.

•   •   •

The three men on the small stage jam out as Connor eyes the woman coming up to him.

“Wanna shot?” she asks Connor, the only one at the table who pays her any attention.

“No,” James says.

“Sure we do.”

“Take a hike.”

“No need to be rude.”

Even though the brunette looks young and cute, she acts as though she’s heard and seen everything. James bets here on Bourbon
Street, she probably has.

“Maybe later,” Connor tells her as she smiles and takes her shots away.

Connor finishes his drink.

“Well?” he asks James.

James has been studying the hotel across the street through the window. Occasionally he has gone to the door and stepped outside,
then come back in.

“You look nervous,” Connor says.

James glances at Lex, who is quiet. The guy makes him nervous.

“What’s up with you?”

Lex looks up at him and shakes his head.

“You’re going to do everything we tell you to do, right?”

“Of course.”

Connor laughs. “When are you going to tell us to do something?”

“I just want to see who is coming and going at the hotel.”

“And?”

“Haven’t seen anybody yet,” James says.

“Let’s just get it over with.”

“You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?”

Lex shakes his head at him. “Lying about what?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

“I just want to see my sister. I just want to make sure she’s fine.”

“See, now that’s something I don’t particularly get,” Connor says, already buzzing from the drinks he’s had. “Did she tell
you she was in trouble?”

“No.”

“Then you just knew, huh? You just felt it, right?”

“No, it wasn’t that.”

“Then what was it?” Connor asks.

“Who cares,” James says. “I just want to see your sister too. And to make sure that she and you get home fine. And you make
us happy, and you’ll never have to see our faces again.”

“Can you promise me that?”

“You gonna trust me?” James asks.

“No.”

“Then why should I bother promising?”

Lex just nods. Connor stands up as if he’s going to get something else to drink.

“Stay put.”

“Why?”

“Because you and Lex are going to go inside there.”

“And do what?”

“You’re going to bring Laila out of the hotel and in here.”

“And then what?” Connor coughs, and his eyes look watery.

“Then we leave. That simple.”

“Why can’t he just bring her to us?”

James doesn’t even believe what’s coming out of his brother’s mouth. He looks at Lex. “You understand?”

“Yeah,” Lex says.

“If he does anything, Connor, you hurt him, okay? Just don’t—” James pauses, looking around. “Make sure he stays alive.”

“Okay.”

“Hurry up,” James says.

He watches them leave the bar and walk across the street to the hotel.

After all this time, it’s going to be this easy.

•   •   •

Lex feels like he can’t move or breathe even though he’s doing both as they enter the hotel. All the notions of things he’s
seen in the movies where a guy elbows his way out of trouble or punches the bad guy or takes off running evaporate. The fear
is real and tangible and it’s something he can taste. It’s sickening and it prevents him from thinking too much. All he can
do is move and try to think about staying alive and keeping Laila alive. But now that they’re in the hotel, he doesn’t know
what to do. He doesn’t know what’s waiting in that hotel room and he doesn’t know what Connor will do once he finds out.

They pass a glass table with two fancy armchairs that stand in front of the built-in desk carved into the wall. Nobody is
behind the desk, so they find the elevator going up. Connor is behind him and walking slowly, carefully.

In the elevator, Lex glances at Connor. The man smiles in a sickening sort of way. The way a man might smile as he pokes at
a gaping, bleeding wound that’s fresh and sore and biting.

“Doesn’t look like such a good idea anymore, does it?” Connor says.

“What?”

“Finding your sister. Following her down here.”

Lex nods, but he doesn’t agree. He’s glad he’s here. And the fear inside him—still very much there, still very much bubbling
at the surface—gets mixed with something else that’s piping and boiling.

Anger.

Lex looks in the eyes of this man and wants to hurt him. He not only wants to hurt him, but he wants to kill him.

He thinks back to why he’s here.

He remembers the feeling of fear he had in that car so many years ago.