Through a Glass, Darkly (Assassins of Youth MC #1) (15 page)

“Well.” I was of the belief that even unconscious people can hear what’s going on around them, so I said, “Don’t be surprised if Gideon digs there and finds a buttload of skeletons.” I’d been swearing more lately. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

“Oh, yes,” said Dingo, almost cheerful, “I have known about these disappeared men for years, even before I was driven out and dumped by the side of the road. In fact, I often wonder if that’s
why
I was driven out and dumped. I knew too much.”

I left this part out as I talked to the freshly awakened Gideon. My heart overflowed with bliss to see him talking again, and none the worse for wear. I immediately texted Drakelle to come running to check him out. I wanted to leap on him, to literally throw myself on him, but all I could do was hold his hand and wring it like a sponge. For once, my prayers had been answered, and inwardly I apologized to God for the names I’d called him. Was it wrong of me to hope his recovery was, well, a bit on the slow side?

I asked Gideon if he knew a guy named, improbably, Dust Bunny.

He frowned. “Dust Bunny…Yes. I do. He’s an old associate of another associate of mine, Sax Saxonberg. What about him?”

“Well, apparently he’s a geologist or something?”

“Yes. Well, I don’t know if he’s got a degree, but he works with Sax running his gem and mineral shop in Pure and Easy in Arizona.”

“Oh. Apparently Allred approved him to run the mine in your absence. He’s come over a few times, waiting for you to wake. Obviously, he has a few questions.”

“Tell him to come over any ti—” Gideon winced, and his hand went to his side. He was smart enough not to touch the wound, but it was time to change his dressing.

“I can do it,” I said, indicating a tray with scissors, antiseptic, and a roll of gauze.

The wound looked good. The stitches were holding, slightly puffy, but Drakelle had told me that was to be expected. I admit, I probably took longer than I should have patting antiseptic onto the wound. With his arm above his head, his ribs sticking out in sharp relief, he was vulnerable and sexier than ever.

This was when he told me his unconscious dream, his dream of the afterlife. It was wild and beautiful, and coming from him it suddenly seemed natural, to be expected. That was when I told him about the bodies buried in the Streaked Wall Bench.

“Do you think my angel meant bodies instead of gold? It’s too big of a coincidence.”

“Your sleeping body probably overheard me sitting right here, talking to Dingo about the Streaked Wall bodies, and your subconscious mind converted it to ‘gold.’”

Gideon tried to laugh. “Well. There’s a world of difference between gold and bodies of your fellow brethren. Guess which one I’d rather find?”

I was cinching up his torso gauze, but I never wanted it to end. “You know, we’re just pilgrims in a strange land. Being born is just a new sleep, a new amnesia of what came before. I’m surprised you even remember about the angel, since you don’t remember what came after. Well, now you’ve had an experience of a pre-existence.”

“Afterlife.”

“Same thing. It all originates from the same heavenly place. Now you know why your heart longs for your roots, that it knows you’re floating adrift from your home.”

I was so desperate to keep touching him, I was delicately patting the gauze flat around his navel. He was watching my hand avidly, and now he grasped it. Our gazes met. He said, “I know why my heart longs for you, Mahalia. You’re a stunning goddess and you’ve been sent to me by the powers that be. I’m not a religious man, but I agree there are more things in heaven than I’ve thought about. Knowing this actually comforts me.”

“It
is
comforting.” I was stunned that his heart longed for me, and I wanted to know more. “It gives one comfort from storms and helps one weather tribulations more easily.”

“Well, I want to weather them with you. Please tell me that once I get better we can concoct a scheme to get the hell out of here…together.” His thumb gently rubbed mine, and just that small touch was electric. “Now that Breakiron’s gone there’s plenty of space for you in my house, for you and your daughter, so she can grow up at her own speed and do what she wants. Become a clothing designer or whatever it was you said.”

My heart was soaring. It was too good to be true, the idea of running away with Gideon. In my experience, any slight hope for anything slightly fun or beneficial was always instantly quashed by Allred or his minions. And this was no exception.

“Yes, let’s think about it,” I whispered, as I heard people coming.

Drakelle was there to check on her patient, but Allred was with her. She had to unwrap the gauze I’d just so lovingly swathed him in while Allred took a stool and pretended to be on the same side as us. It was sickening, but we had to play along for the good of everyone.

“Well, now, son.” He even called Gideon “son.” That must be a good thing. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all you’ve done for me. Helping me out with protection on this place. That Breakiron was a loose cannon, an accident waiting to happen. He told me he saw my Mahalia at the High Dive, but now I see he was just a base liar. You’re doing the Lord’s work, whether or not you know it.”

Gideon looked at me when he said, “Oh, I know it. I know it all right.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed Allred’s face, and he said to me, “Woman, get this man some refreshment. He’s been lying in limbo seeing visions of our heavenly father for five days now, and looking like a skeleton.”

“Of course.” How did Allred know Gideon had visions while in a coma? But then, some of Allred’s visions seemed to actually have a shred of fact to them. He’d been known to see things he couldn’ve possibly have seen with mortal eyes.

I went to the kitchenette and started some water to boiling. I knew Gideon liked his coffee black. My heart was soaring in the clouds thinking that Gideon wanted to weather storms with me. He wanted to help me save Vonda from a cheerless fate. Was he just saying these things because he was under the influence of massive amounts of opiates? I’d had surgery before. I’d been on morphine in the hospital after surgery once to remove a defective ovary. I knew how much fun it could be, and how addictive, pushing that button to get more drugs, but not once had I lied under its influence.

No, I believed Gideon. He seemed clear and conscious, and Drakelle said she’d given him the lowest amount to kill his pain. We didn’t need to run far, Gideon and me. If we played our cards right, he didn’t even need to quit his mine job. Gideon and I would be defined by the choices we would make in the upcoming weeks. I might have been suffering the results of Allred’s poor and misguided choices. But my own decisions would form my own future.

As I fussed with the coffee—taking my time, I admit, so I could eavesdrop on the men—I heard Allred claim, “It is all right, Brother Gideon. You were commanded to kill that man. It’s not as though you lusted for blood, as though you took a sick thrill from murder.”

“No, not at all,” Gideon said guilelessly. “He was my brother, for better or worse.”

Allred waxed thoughtful. “I know that feeling. Being forced to go against someone who was formerly your brother. Believe it or not, but in my position I struggle with many who would topple me. There are many who yearn for my position, my power. I have had to deal ruthlessly with them in order to maintain my throne. Many of them were not worthy of their own families. I absolve you of all wrongdoing, Gideon. You’ve been fasting to ask the Lord your path. His answer has been to give you title to half of the Altar of Sacrifice Mine.” Allred beamed with the charity he was doing. “Yes, my son, you are the worthy owner of half the mine. I, of course, retain title to the other half.”

“Why…” murmured Gideon. I looked over my shoulder and saw he was completely taken aback. “That’s more than generous of you. It was just an automatic reaction, really. I saw Breakiron about to shoot, and I leaped to one side.”

Yes. He didn’t say
about to shoot you
because Breakiron had been about to shoot
me
. But aside from that, Gideon spoke the truth.

“You didn’t need to do that, son,” said Allred. “You could have let me take the bullet from that crazed assassin. It was your fine and exalted mind that prevented that from happening. I’ve had a revelation that it was destiny.”

As I carried Gideon his coffee mug, I had an idea. “Prophet,” I said, smooth as silk, still standing because the superior men were confabbing. “My daughter Vonda is set to be sealed next month. I was wondering, with me nursing this servant of yours and all, if we could be given a time extension. I’m sure Orson Ream wouldn’t mind. He’ll want all our attention to be on him during his day of glory, and right now, we are very worried about this servant who was ready to give his life for yours.” How could Allred resist that? I looked at Gideon meaningfully. Why not strike while the iron was hot?

“Yes,” Gideon added. “I’d like to keep Mahalia as my nurse if you don’t mind.”

I said, “I still have time for my Relief Society work. And Drakelle can check in on him. Right?” I looked pointedly at my sister-wife, who hadn’t really had anything to do since checking on Gideon’s stitches and giving him more morphine.

“Oh, absolutely,” said Drakelle. “They get along well, and she sat here for days reading him poetry.”

“John Keats?” asked Allred.

“Among others,” I said serenely. “Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson.”

Allred nodded, approving. “All shall be well,” he said, not really answering my question.

But I could tell from the look I shared with Gideon that all
would
be well, even if it was through no help from Allred. Freedom and free will were blueprints, basic future constructs that we could erase and change at our own free will. And we
willed
this escape with Vonda. Gideon had to get better first, and I had to postpone Vonda’s vile nuptials, but escape we would.

MAHALIA

W
e became closer
and closer as those days went by.

And what days they were! They were the glory days before the storm—happy, serene, filled with my little visits to Gideon’s cottage. I barely noticed what I did outside that cottage because it wasn’t important. I passed my time doing daily chores while thinking of Gideon.

I’d been right about my first impression of him. He was intelligent, multilayered, sensitive—an old soul who was both my teacher and my savior at the same time.

Drakelle lived for her visits with him too, but more and more we only needed her for the morphine, which she was weaning him off of. One day she declared he could go without the bandage. I’d been waiting for that day, because Gideon had been complaining about wanting a bath.

There was only a shower in the cottage, and he wanted to soak, so I found an old-timey tin tub that would probably cover him in water up to his waist. I managed to get rid of Drakelle by telling her I could take it from here—I was his nurse, after all! Vonda had said it was funny how women fought over him, and I was glad Allred wasn’t there to see it.

I helped him out of the bed, and he stood gingerly. True, he’d wasted away a bit. We hadn’t wanted him to lift weights in bed like he wanted to due to the strain it’d put on the stitches.

His bony ribs prodded against mine as I walked him to the tub. I’d been boiling pot after pot of hot water on the kitchenette’s stove. His soft skin was hot, burning even, though he didn’t have a fever. As he eased himself down into the lovely water, I thought
now I can finally see his ink
. He’d been lying on his ink, and finally the swirling waves and jumping Japanese fish were revealed to me as he ran his arms down the edge of the tub. The Asian picture only went to his scapula in back and maybe halfway down one bicep, and I sat on a stool to admire it. I’d withheld the soap on purpose. I wanted to be the one to bathe him.

“You’re a very beautiful man.” It just slipped out of me. I was seeing his pious, sacrosanct self. The biker who shot people and dealt in guns was gone inside these walls. I loved all sides of Gideon, but in here, he’d reverted to being a child. In here, he was allowed to be uncorrupted, undefiled.

Out of nerves from what I’d just blurted, I picked up the bath pouf that I’d sponge him with. But he quickly said, “You’re a very beautiful woman, Mahalia. I’m not just saying this because my life lies in your hands. I’ve thought that since the first minute I was you in Chiles’ office.”

Although it was distasteful, him using the name “Chiles” in the same sentence that he praised me, I was flattered, and nervously squeezed soap onto the pouf. Gideon’s hand shot out, gripped my wrist, and his other hand tossed the sponge into the water. His look was intent as he wound his fingers around my neck and pulled me to him. Suddenly we were kissing, brazenly, openly. It was brazen even though I’d locked the door to protect Gideon’s privacy.

The forbidden quality of the kiss sent a chill down my spine, stiffening my nipples. I had to grip Gideon’s shoulder to prevent myself from plunging into the steaming water along with him, although that wasn’t a bad idea. I felt like his lover as he gently kissed me, slipping his tongue between my lips, tickling them with his tongue-tip. Sighing into his mouth, I smacked on his delicious, bow-shaped lips. I pressed the cleft of his chin with my thumb. I’d never kissed a man so beautiful before, and it was like kissing an angel.