Waking Nightmares (9 page)

Read Waking Nightmares Online

Authors: Christopher Golden

BOOK: Waking Nightmares
8.66Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Nikki reached out and touched Octavian’s face, pushing her fingers back through his hair. “He
is
something, isn’t he?”
Octavian rolled his eyes, not because he minded public displays of affection but because he had never been comfortable with lavish praise, not even from the woman he loved.
“All right, rock star,” he teased.
Nikki bristled. She always argued that her music wasn’t technically “rock.” When they were sparring like this, it never failed to get a rise out of her. It felt good to be playful with her. Much of the tension that had been growing between them had abated, though he feared that soon enough, like the tide, it would roll back in again.
Nikki did not offer a retort, and he knew why. Ever since Viviane had opened the door to let them into the apartment, the girl had been alternately staring at Nikki and sneaking glances at her. She hadn’t made it to superstardom, and would be happy if it never came to that, but there was no denying that Nikki had attained a certain amount of fame. Viviane Chenot was having difficulty adjusting to having a celebrity sitting at her table, drinking her coffee.
“How’s your brother doing, anyway?” Nikki asked.
Viviane smiled at her. “Amazingly well. When he woke up this morning, his vision was a little blurry, and I’m going to take him to see a doctor if it doesn’t clear by tomorrow. Otherwise . . .” She frowned, shrugging. “His throat is sore and kind of hoarse. I’m not sure if it will ever go back to normal, but honestly, if that’s the worst of it, he’ll adjust. Everyone else is . . . well, they’re gone forever. And I’ve still got my brother.”
Her eyes welled with emotion. Octavian shifted in his chair, a bit uncomfortable.
Nikki laid a gentle hand on Viviane’s arm. “He was lucky to have you. If you had just brought him to a doctor and waited for them to realize they had no idea how to help him, he’d never have survived.”
Viviane smiled, then glanced lovingly at the professor. “It’s Derek, really. When I told him . . . he was the one who suggested calling Mr. Octavian. I was totally out of my mind—just didn’t know what to do.”
She grabbed the professor’s hand and tugged him toward her for a tender kiss. Octavian caught Nikki watching them and smiled at her. Tough as she pretended to be, Nikki had a profoundly romantic heart. She met his gaze, and a moment of sweet silence passed between them. Once, it had been this way all the time.
“We should go,” Nikki said, as much to him as to Viviane and Derek. “Let you guys get on with your lives. I’m sure you’ve had to let a lot of important things fall into chaos this week. You’ll need to catch up.”
Viviane nodded, squeezing Derek’s hand. “After something like this, your definition of what’s ‘important’ changes.”
She rose from the table, and they all followed suit.
“Thank you so much,” Derek said, shaking Octavian’s hand, and then Nikki’s.
“I’m happy I could help,” Octavian said, as he and Nikki put on their coats.
“Hang on,” Viviane said. “Before you go, let me just have a quick look and see if Michael is awake. I know he’ll want to thank you himself.”
Octavian glanced at Nikki, who nodded. Her next show was in Portland, Maine, on Friday, so they had two days to make their way down into the States. No rush at all. They waited while Viviane went down the hall and checked on Michael, but now that they’d said their goodbyes it felt strange to linger.
A musical trilling sound defused the awkwardness. Octavian had left his cell phone on its factory-set ring tone, but still it took him a moment to realize the noise came from the pocket of his jacket. Nikki looked at him expectantly—usually it was her cell phone that rang incessantly. Only a handful of people even had Octavian’s cell number.
“Hello?” he said, pressing the slim black phone to his ear.
As he listened to the voice on the other end of the line, he saw Nikki watching him and already he felt the distance between them returning, so much sooner than he had expected. He felt a twinge of guilt knowing he would be drawn away for a time, and resented the feeling.
Viviane rejoined them. “Sorry, guys. He’s still . . .” she began, before she realized Octavian was on the phone and let her words trail off.
“All right,” Octavian said. “I’ll call you from the road and give you an ETA.”
He ended the call and tucked his phone into his jeans. The interior of the small apartment seemed to have dimmed, as though clouds had begun to gather outside.
“What’s going on?” Nikki asked, making a visible effort to hide her disappointment.
Octavian glanced at Viviane and Derek but then returned his attention to Nikki, the others in the room forgotten.
“That was Keomany,” he said. “There’s trouble.”
What more could he say? She knew that there were certain kinds of trouble he was better at handling than anyone else in the world, and that his conscience would never allow him to refuse to help. Nor would she want him to refuse, if only for the sake of her own conscience.
Her gaze full of regret, she nodded and reached for his hands.
“I’ve toured on my own plenty of times.”
“You don’t have to go on your own,” Octavian offered. “The label will send a minder or an assistant or something.”
Nikki arched an eyebrow. “I’d rather be on my own than have a babysitter from the label.” The corners of her mouth lifted in a coquettish smile, a game attempt to dispel the renewed hesitation between them. “I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.”
“I know you can,” Octavian said.
“I could come with you. Cancel a few dates,” Nikki offered.
But Octavian shook his head. “No. I know how you feel about letting people down when they’ve paid good money to see you. I’m only going as far as Massachusetts. Keomany and I will get this thing sorted out, and then I’ll catch up with you, wherever you are.”
Nikki kissed him. “You’d better.”
Octavian glanced at the professor. “Derek, can you run me to the airport? I need a rental car.”
“Sure,” the professor said, he and Viviane looking at them with concern. “Just tell me when you want to go.”
Octavian turned back to Nikki. “It needs to be now.”
“It’s that bad?” she asked, worry creasing her forehead for the first time.
Octavian kissed her, caressing her cheek, wondering how many days it would be before he saw her again.
“I guess I’ll find out when I get there.”
 
ALL
Amber wanted was to go home. She smiled and nodded at the nurse but barely listened to the woman. From the moment Dr. Millet had given her a clean bill of health, she had been champing at the bit. All of her life, she had hated hospitals. At age six, she had broken her leg, and she could still remember the hellish discomfort of the hospital bed and the stink of human rot that lay just below the smell of disinfectant they used to try to hide it. But the worst part of being hospitalized had not been the injury or the treatment—it had been the sensation of being trapped there, on that awful bed, surrounded by the sick and the dying.
So she forced herself to smile and she signed the paperwork for her release, and she took the piece of paper the nurse had printed up giving her nutritional advice on how to avoid doing the kind of damage to her body that might lead to a seizure. They were giving her a piece of paper instead of drugs because they had spent five hours trying to figure out what had caused her morning to turn to shit, and they’d come up empty.
“Just call us if you don’t feel well, or if you’re concerned about anything at all,” the nurse said.
Kind of hard to make a call if I’m spazzing out on the floor,
she thought. But she smiled and nodded some more, and managed to thank the woman.
Amber had been holding her cell phone in her hand, ignoring the buzz of new texts coming in because she didn’t want to be rude to the nurse. Now, as the woman ushered her out of the examination room and pointed her toward the exit, she glanced down at her messages. Two new ones, both from her best friend, Tami Nguyen.
What time can u meet tonite?
read the first message. Tami had followed seconds later with
Is he really still waiting for u?
Tami had been fretting dramatically over Amber’s health ever since Amber had first texted her that she was being taken to the hospital. But the second Amber had told her that the doctor thought she had just been dehydrated and possibly overcaffeinated, Tami had moved on to her more traditional concerns—partying.
The doc said to rest tonite,
she texted, which was halfway to a lie, in the sense that the doctor had actually given her that instruction, but Amber would never have obeyed it if she really wanted to go and get drunk with Tami. More and more, of late, she had found herself losing interest in such things. She still had nearly two years left of college, but partying had lost its appeal the day she had turned twenty-one. Not that she had ever been nearly as into it as Tami. The girl had her charms, and Amber adored her, but she was a self-proclaimed drunken slut. There was real heart and intelligence and wisdom underneath the party-girl exterior, but over the past six months or so, Amber had been having to dig deeper and deeper to find that part of her friend, and it saddened her.
Loser,
Tami texted her.
I know. How can u stand me?
So is he still there or what?
Amber clutched the phone in her hand and shifted her pocketbook from one shoulder to the other as she went out into the emergency room’s waiting area. She spotted Ben Draper immediately. He was reading a paperback book but seemed to sense her attention and glanced over to see her looking at him. Instantly, he jumped up from his chair and hurried toward her, his eyes hopeful.
Yep,
she texted.
Wow. He so wants you.
Doesn’t everyone?
I do,
Tami joked.
Right now.
Rain check. TTYL.
Amber silenced her phone and dropped it into her pocketbook, zipping it up as Ben approached.
“Hey,” Ben said, searching her eyes. “Are you okay? You
look
okay.”
“Yeah. I mean, they think so. But ohmygod, Ben, you didn’t have to wait all this time. You’ve been here all day.”
“Not all day,” he said, smiling. “Besides, it’s fine. I told Professor Varick I’d go with you, and when you said you didn’t want anyone to call your parents, I figured you’d need someone around to drive you back to campus to get your car. Anyway, I ate lunch and picked up this book at the gift shop.” He held it up like a prize he’d won. “Plus I was texting people. The time went by. Mostly I was just worried about you.”
A strange warmth spread through Amber. She had liked Ben from the very first time they’d met, appreciated his sweetness and sincerity, but there had never been a spark between them, at least not for her. She had told herself he was
too
sweet, and too earnest. But now she looked at him and thought she saw, just for a moment, the man he was evolving into. She thought about the guys she usually ended up hanging out with when she partied with Tami, and she felt like she had just stumbled upon a universal truth—none of those guys were going to evolve into the kind of man she envisioned as part of her future.
Maybe sweet could be sexy.
“Thank you so much for waiting,” she said, and kissed Ben on the cheek. His clothes were rumpled and his hair its usual mess after hours in the waiting room, but that disarray—his Ben-ness—suddenly seemed more than cute.
Amber laughed, ending a moment she knew they both had felt go on too long.
“What’s funny?” Ben asked.
“Me,” she said, forcing herself not to look him in the eye. “I must have hit my head pretty hard.”
As soon as she said it, she realized he would understand. Of course he would. Ben wasn’t stupid. He must have sensed something between them in that moment. How could he take that comment as anything but an insult? A dismissal?

Other books

Mercy Me by Margaret A. Graham
Druids Sword by Sara Douglass
The Pastor's Other Woman by Boone, Denora
Adopted Son by Warren, Linda
Steal My Sunshine by Emily Gale
Yolonda's Genius by Carol Fenner
The Murder Wall by Mari Hannah