Instinct (24 page)

The door bangs
open, crashing into Shockey’s legs with devastating force. He screams as
something in his knee snaps with sickening clarity and then suddenly he is off
me, hanging in midair, face nearly purple with visceral hate. I drag myself
backward, trying to get away, and then I see him, I see Jake, gripping the back
of Shockey’s neck and holding him several feet above the floor with no more
effort than clutching a basketball. Shockey’s eyes go wide with awareness and
with a savage roar Jake flings him across the room to slam against the desk of
computers and crash to the floor. Shockey twitches and frantically tries to get
to his feet, but Jake is on him in an instant, pulling him up by his head and
then smashing it against the desk with enough force to crack his jaw. Shockey
slumps to the floor, bleeding and unconscious.

I try to get
up, but my vision goes hazy and I sink back to my knees, watching with a sense
of unreality as Jake raises his fist like a sledgehammer and poises it to come
down on Shockey’s limp frame.

Some part of
me waits quietly, knowing that if I do nothing, this blow will kill Shockey and
he will never hurt anyone again. He deserves to die. I believe it with my whole
being.

I struggle to
my feet and fling my arms around Jake’s waist, pulling him back, ignoring the brutal
slash of pain in my side, and he collapses on top of me, knocking preciously bought
air out of my lungs.

“Don’t, Jake,”
I whisper. “You’ll kill him. Don’t do it, please, please…” I beg, my voice
little more than a whisper. He shrugs off my hold with pathetically little
effort and gets to his feet, ignoring me and readying for the strike again.

“No! Please,
Jake, for me, please stop.”

Jake turns
slightly and I nearly scream in terror again, seeing the uncontrolled gale of
rage in his glare, his irises wholly black with inhuman fury. My fear must
register with him somehow and he blinks, lowering his arm slightly.

“Please, Jake,
you’ve done enough. I need your help, I’m hurt,” I soothe, reaching out for
him, wincing as pain wracks every inch of me. For a never-ending moment he
vibrates with the force of his battle to regain control, his eyes locked on
mine like an anchor, the frail connection between us twining tighter, more potent,
until all I can feel is the space separating us like a shivering pane of glass
that splinters and falls as he takes one step toward me, then another. I sag,
my body shutting down with exhaustion and shock, and he is there, catching me,
wrapping me in his arms and covering my face with his kisses, his gentle words,
the fluttering tremor of his pulse no more than the brush of a feather across
my skin.

My vision
swims and lurches and it is dark, and the pain follows me.

Voices murmur
overhead and something warm strokes my face, but the ground beneath me is hard
and unforgiving. I blink, my vision coming into focus before everything goes
grey and upside down. I collapse to the side and vomit uncontrollably, great
heaves that seem to shred my organs and break bones with their intensity. When
there is nothing left but the acidic burn on my tongue, someone rolls me back
over, lying my aching head on something soft before putting hands on my sides,
pushing slightly, testing.

A tremor races
over me and I whimper, hating the sound even as it escapes. Compelling myself
to emerge from the safety of my shock-protected mind, I force my eyes open and
swallow the nausea that threatens to tear me apart.

“I almost
killed a man,” Jake says, dropping to his knees beside me.

“Thank god,
you’re finally awake. I think you’ve got a concussion or something; you keep
passing out.”

I raise a hand
to my head and gently prod the back of my skull, wincing at the tender lump at
the base. “Can you help me sit up?” My voice chafes the back of my throat,
which is throbbing hotly.

“I don’t think
I’d better. We’re waiting for the EMTs. I think your head is in bad shape,”
Jake says, his voice as gentle as I’ve ever heard it. His cloudy blue eyes
stare down at me with a murky blend of worry and adoration. Panic itches along
my skin, and suddenly I can’t stand to be touched, as though his fingers are
sinking through the skin like a hot knife through butter.

“Too close,” I
whisper and after a moment he seems to understand, pulling away slightly so
that I don’t feel so penned in. For once, he doesn’t seem irritated with me.

“Is that
better?” he asks solicitously, his eyes steady on mine. I nod and then close my
eyes against the pain.

“Thank you.
You saved me.” Opening my eyes, I reach out and take his hand, giving a grateful
squeeze. His eyes blaze with emotion and he just nods, looking away after a
moment and taking a deep, balancing breath.

Having no idea
how long I’ve been out or what’s happened since, I glance around the room as
much as possible without moving. To my right, I can see Shockey and my vision
nearly goes black with terror, but after a moment I register he is still
unconscious, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I almost ask if he is
dead, but I remember what Jake first said and breathe easier. The computers on
the desk above Shockey are a mess, on their sides, the keyboards drooping
listlessly over the lip of the table. The desks along the front wall of the
room are fine, untouched, and I pray my phone is still there.

“Jake. My
phone is over there, behind my computer. Can you get it?”

He disappears
and I can hear him fumbling around with the equipment before he drops back down
next to me, holding the phone out. I take it carefully and look at the screen,
blinking against the stab of light that seems to pierce through the soft tissue
of my brain. The recorder is long since turned off, but I flip through the
files until I find the one I need.

I hit play and
my own voice comes out clearly, starting the conversation that led to me lying
battered and bruised on the floor. I mean to turn it off before it can get too
far, but Jake hears the mention of Miranda and goes stiff, staring down at me
incredulously. The recording plays through about half of my fight with Shockey
before cutting off.

Jake looks
down at the phone for a moment and takes a deep breath. Without a word, he
stands and takes a step toward Shockey’s inert body and I know without a doubt
he is closing in for a killing blow.

“Jake no, you
don’t need to. He’s going to jail, he’ll be punished,” I croak, desperately
trying to get to my feet, ignoring the sick spinning in my head and the spike
of pain in my side. Before I manage to do much more than groan, another taller
figure steps through the now-propped open door.

“I am going to
use this situation for my re-election campaign,” a commanding voice booms,
halting Jake in his tracks as though he has walked into a wall. Geoffrey Wise
towers over me, his designer suit without a crease or wrinkle, hair gelled back
into a careful wave, making him look like he’s just walked off the factory
line.

“Jake, I said
come here.” The words hit again with a mixture of dominance and an unexpected
sense of contentment. Nothing can go wrong if I just listen to that voice.

Jake slowly stirs,
his feet dragging as he turns away from the body and toward his father, his
movements almost robotic. When Jake is safely out of the way behind his father,
Geoffrey turns his attention to me.

“I’m glad to
see you’re still with us, Derry. You’re far too valuable to lose through
carelessness.” The tone of his voice is right, but words are jarringly callous.
Still, my skin is quiet, and I know he means what he says.

That’s what
worries me.

Glancing
around, I realize who is missing. “Where’s Cole? He was supposed to be here,
that’s why I…”

“Yes, yes,
well,” Geoffrey interrupts, ignoring the rumble of frustration from his son.
“Cole got held up by the principal when he tried to sneak onto school grounds.
By the time he arrived on the scene, Jake had already taken care of everything,
so I told him to go home.”

Betrayal and
disappointment snake through my gut, almost overtaking the discomfort in my
head and ribs. I never imagined Cole wouldn’t come for me, that he would let me
down. Tears leak from my burning eyes and I close them, too tired to deal with
any more drama, too tired to think of all the consequences.

The sounds of
rolling wheels and loud voices penetrate the haze of self-pity and I open
bleary eyes to see a paramedic drop down next to me, checking my vital signs,
prodding the knot on my head, pressing careful hands on my ribs.

“Mayor Wise pays
me to steal medical records,” the younger of the two says, his eyes soft and
comforting despite the venal curve to his lips. The other EMT has finished
examining Shockey, who is now making incoherent sounds of waking. My pulse
leaps and I begin to shake, sending needles of pain through my chest and head.

“Terry, get
him out of here. I think she’s having a panic attack,” my paramedic says,
gently putting an oxygen mask over my face and telling me to breathe.

Things are
blurry and fast for a while, and by the time I’m lucid again, I am on a
stretcher, a neck brace tucked around me. Two police officers, one of whom took
my statement about Nicole just the day before, are wandering around, taking
notes and talking to Jake. The familiar officer, whose name I think is Sowers,
catches my eye and gives me an encouraging smile.

“The mayor is
telling us how to handle the crime scene,” he says, giving me an awkward pat on
the arm. I don’t know what to say in response, sure whatever he’s really
telling me is not even close to what I heard. I glance around, looking for Jake
and his father, but they are nowhere to be seen as I am rolled out of the room
and down the hallway.

“I don’t want
to go to the hospital,” I whisper, but no one pays any attention to me and I am
loaded unceremoniously into the ambulance.

I thought my
head was hurting before, but I have never felt pain like this, bumping unmercifully
as the ambulance hurtles over every pothole with the speed of a wild horse. The
sirens scream all around me, searing the inside of my skull with the kind of
hurt that makes it impossible to think. I am beginning to wish Shockey had
succeeded in killing me.

As though
thinking his name conjured him, I look to my right and see him lying there,
strapped to his own gurney, a paramedic working to stabilize him. Evidently
they are afraid he punctured a lung when Jake hurled him across the room.

Even knowing
Shockey is incapacitated, that handcuffs chain him to the gurney, I am chill
with fear. His eyes are open and fixed on me with such intense hatred I know if
he ever gets the chance again, he will murder me.

My paramedic
sees what I’m looking at and steps between us, tossing a glare over his
shoulder. “I’m so sorry we had to bring him on the same trip; he’s banged up
even worse than you and we didn’t want to wait. I won’t let him near you
honey,” he says reassuringly. Despite what I know about his illicit activities
for the mayor, I am comforted. He hasn’t left my side once and has kept up a
steady train of pleasant chatter to distract me, whether I have been conscious
or not.

I give him a
weary smile and then close my eyes, but I can still feel the heat of Shockey’s
hatred eating up all the oxygen until there is nothing left to breathe but the
poisonous remains.

By the time we
reach the hospital and I am processed, stuck back in the exact same room I
occupied in the emergency room only a week before, I have reached a kind of
numb acceptance. The nurses are calling it shock, but I know that’s not it. I
was shocked when I found Nicole, when I dragged her dead body out of a frozen
river. Nothing can shock me after that.

My mother
arrives before long, her face streaked with tears, a frenzied look in her eyes.
Guilt stabs me through when I realize what she must have been through hearing I
am in the hospital after nearly dying yet again. The nurses have to hold her
back while they finish putting in IVs and getting ice for my throat. Once I’m
relatively settled, waiting for them to bring in the portable x-ray machine to
check my ribs and neck, Mom is allowed to take a seat next to me, her hand
trembling as she takes mine.

“I can’t
survive losing you,” she says quietly, and I know whatever she has really said
would mean less to me than these words. So often I feel that she only puts up
with me because of my gift and the benefits it brings her. There are many times
that I question whether she really loves me or if she resents me for being the
tool that destroyed her marriage. But I see in her eyes, feel in the peace
under my skin, hear in her accidental honesty she does love me, in her own way.

“I love you
too, Mom,” I whisper.

“I’ll kill
that dirty sonofabitch,” Mom growls under her breath as the doctor inventories
my injuries, which aren’t really all that bad considering. My neck is bruised
and covered in small lacerations from Shockey’s nails, but thankfully he didn’t
have enough strength to do any permanent damage to my trachea. I am covered in
contusions and muscles I didn’t know existed are clamoring for attention,
including my heavily bruised side, but the most serious injury is a mild
concussion.

“Yes, well,”
the doctor says, looking uncomfortable at the naked fury in my mother’s eyes.
“We’ll want to keep Derry here overnight, just for observation. She’ll need
someone checking on her vitals periodically and can only sleep in short bursts
for the next twenty-four hours.”

With a groan I
reach up my free hand to rub the bridge of my nose, although it brings me no
relief. The last thing I want is to be stuck in this hospital again,
particularly when the man responsible for me being here is somewhere down the
hall, hooked up to his own life-saving machines.

“Alright,” Mom
sighs, getting to her feet. She follows the doctor out to sign the admission
forms and I am alone for the first time since the fight. The pulse monitor
hooked up to my middle finger beeps steadily, and after a while the repetition
lulls me into a drowsy state of indifference. When Mom returns I am barely
awake, so she sits in the chair next to my bed and in a soft voice tells me
about the antiques auction she is going to next week, describing the pieces
she’s going to try for, who she hopes to sell them to.

Eventually I
drop off, only to be woken an hour later to give my statement to Officer
Sowers, who is much gentler with his questions than the last time.

“And you say
you have all of this on tape?” he asks eagerly.

“Yes, on my
phone. I don’t know what happened to it,” I reply with sudden anxiety.

“It’s fine, we
have it in evidence. You told us at the scene, though you were a little
incoherent.” He gives me a kindly smile and I relax, knowing that recording is
my ace in the hole.

“Okay. Yeah,
he told me about Cathy. And raping Miranda.” I pause, swallowing the lump in my
throat. It hurts.

“And then he
attacked you?”

“Right.” I
force my attention back on the moment. “Some of the fight is on the recording
too.”

Sowers gives
me a calculating look. “Why do you think he told you all that? I mean, it’s
pretty unusual for someone to just dump a confession on a kid.”

This is where
things get tricky. “I don’t know really. I just asked, and he answered. People
tend to tell me things,” I say, knowing I’m being cagey, but seeing no way
around it.

Raising a
skeptical eyebrow, Sowers resumes his questions, retrieving details from me
about the fight and how Jake fit into the picture.

“How did Jake
find me in time?” I asked, finally lucid enough to start wondering about his
father’s presence at the school.

“He said he
left his backpack behind and came back for it. Apparently he heard sounds of a
struggle and joined in just in time.”

I remember
Jake rushing after Cathy when the class ended and bless whatever hand of fate
made him forget his bag. I have no doubt that I would be dead by now if he
hadn’t returned, and as much as the debt makes me uncomfortable, I’d rather be
alive to repay it.

“Why was the
mayor there?”

Sowers shrugs
and puts his notebook and pen away. “Apparently Jake called him after calling
911. His dad beat us there.”

Unsure of how
to respond to this information, I change tactics.

“How’s the
investigation into Nicole’s death going?” I ask, wondering if I might be able
to get more out of Sowers than I have from Radcliffe, who has avoided me like
the plague since our little conversation at the funeral home.