Armed and Dangerous (The IMA) (15 page)

None of those possibilities were comforting.

By the time I got him over the threshold I was covered in a light sweat that wasn't entirely due to exertion. I was a hair away from freaking out.

I paused to catch my breath, steeled myself, then dragged him into the bathroom.

He grunted. Okay. He wasn't dead. That was good. Maybe.

I plopped down on the toilet seat and stared at him. The obvious next step was to dial 911. Had he been any other man, I would have. But Michael was a wanted criminal. They'd have him imprisoned as soon as he recovered. He'd die a traitor's death.

Regardless of what he had done in the past, I didn't want him killed because of me. I couldn't have his torture or his death on my conscience. I couldn't.

Just the thought of betraying him in such a callous manner, like Judas kissing Jesus before condemning him to his death inspired a guilt so devastating it bordered on actual physical discomfort. I had taken him in. He was my responsibility.

I stripped off his shirt with shaking hands.
Too much responsibility.

There were no wounds I could see, no open sores, but he had some fresh scars I hadn't seen before. He needed a bath, and badly, but I didn't want to put him into the tub; I wasn't sure I'd have the strength to haul him back out.

I took some washcloths out of the drawer beneath the sink and soaked them in hot water and soap. The hot water stung my hands, ridding me of any lingering hopes that this was an exhaustion-induced nightmare. I wrung out the extra moisture with sharp jerks that made my fingers ache. If only it were that simple. But nothing ever is.

He turned his head away when I began to scrub off the worst of the grit. His face was so filthy that his skin grew lighter in hue with each rinse. There was a bruise on his temple, a knot on the back of his head, dark shadows ringing both eyes. His shoulder was swollen — from a needle, I suspected. Drugs. Maybe a narcotic.

Something in my chest tightened. I hadn't expected looking at him to make me feel so sad. I was still furious at him for all the horrible things he had done because he'd made his choice — and knew what he had been doing when he made it.

Yet, he looked so helpless. So broken.

He isn't.

I blinked. I couldn't let myself forget he was a killer. Not if I wanted to escape this with my heart intact. Not if I wanted to stay alive. He was a professional assassin, and to romanticize that would not only be stupid but also potentially fatal as well.

But what if it's the truth?

His eyelashes fluttered. I'd forgotten how green his irises were. The color of olives, or summer leaves. His most arresting feature, capable of so much sadness. Even ice can be melted into warm water.

“Michael?” I hated the quiver that crept into my voice. I gave him a gentle prod with the washcloth. “Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

His eyes snapped fully open. They didn't look sad now. No, he looked…. I sucked in my breath. He looked angry. Furious.
Murderous
. Something was horribly wrong. His pupils were huge, dilated,
wild
.

I watched, frozen in horror, as he sat up. That sharp, terrifying gaze locked onto me, with all the deadly precision of a sniper rifle. “You.”

He had been invalid moments before. I had no way of knowing I was mere seconds away from being tackled like a football at the Super Bowl. But I was. My head hit the linoleum tile with a hard crack. The air escaped from my lungs with a
whumph
.

In a low, terrifying voice, he said, “I'm going to tear you apart, you fucking bitch.”

Chapter Thirteen

Altered State

Christina:

He gave off the scent of sweaty clothing twice dampened and twice dried, marinating all the while beneath the hot, Arizona sun. His sour breath made my eyes water. That was the first thing I noticed.

He smelled like alcohol and a bad dream.

I struggled to get out from under him and he tightened his grip hard enough to hurt. “Ow,” I gasped. “Ow! What are you doing?”

“You think you can fucking fool me?”

“
What? No. No, I just — ”

“
Then drop the innocent act.”

I didn't understand why he was acting this way. The last time I saw him, he had given no impression of being so unhinged. But then I remembered the empty wine bottle on the rug that last morning, and his propensity towards violence. How he had almost raped me on the floor of that basement in Oregon.

This was bringing it all back in sharp focus. I made myself look into those wild, blood-shot eyes that couldn't quite focus on my face; I saw too much in them. “Are you on drugs?”

His heavy breathing stirred my hair and stung my eyes. He didn't say anything.

I tried again, anything to pierce this horrible silence pregnant with so many horrific outcomes. “What have they done to you?” I whispered.

His eyes latched on to mine. “What? Who're they? Shut up,” he snapped, before I'd even said a word. I closed my mouth. “That's right. Don't think you can scare me with your threats about
them
.”

Reddish splotches around his cheeks and nose hinted at burst blood vessels.
Is he drunk?
The thought returned, buzzing as angrily as a wasp in my ears. He was acting a little too crazy to
just
be drunk. Paranoid, delusional, possibly hallucinating — you needed harder stuff for that.

“
I know what you are.”

My mind reeled, oscillating between mindless panic and desperate cogency. The more I stalled for it, the more I sensed that I was running out of time.

There hadn't been many drug-related incidents at Holy Trinity. We
were
a Catholic school, after all. A couple girls smoked in the bathrooms and the wildest did pot, but neither of those made people
violent
.

I couldn't remember what to do in situations like this. Could I talk him down, or was that unadvised? God, why couldn't those anti-drug groups teach us anything useful in school?
Okay. Freaking out isn't doing you any good
.

I drew in a breath. I had to focus here and play it carefully. One wrong move could get me hurt or killed. The big question here was: could I get him before he got me?

Michael was still leaning over me, breathing hard. Waiting for an answer. Seconds could have passed. Minutes. All sense of time was being sucked into the terrible void of his madness. “W-what am I?” I ventured.

“
A traitor.”

“
A
what
?”

“
I fucking told you to cut that out,” he snarled. One of his fists slammed into the tile beside my face. I flinched as the linoleum cracked and blood exploded from his shattered knuckles. I felt some of it spatter my cheek. This time I couldn't hold back my scream. He had
punched
a hole in the linoleum.

That could have been me
. “Oh my God,” I whimpered.
He could have punched me
. “Oh my God, your
hand
. Oh my God—”

“
Shut the fuck up, you little cunt.” His uninjured hand closed around my throat. I froze, thinking he was going to snap my neck. His unfocused eyes scraped over my face and the visible parts of my body. I redoubled my efforts to get away and he squeezed. “You're a hot little ride, aren't you?” he said, while I struggled to breathe. “Built to last.”

This was disgusting, even for him.

“You look like her,” he continued, and his eyes rolled back for a moment. “Just a bit. She's better looking. Big blue eyes. A body that a man could really hang on to. I loved her. Her, she wouldn't touch me if you paid her.
Ha
.”

I shook my head slowly. Even if I'd had words to speak, I wouldn't dare voice them aloud.

The movement caught his attention. “What's the matter,
bebe
? Decide I'm not good enough for you? Fucking think you're better than me? Maybe you have more in common with her than I thought. Or maybe you're too busy spreading your legs for them, know what I find? Wouldn't surprise me in the least.”

Unexpectedly, I felt the sting of tears. “
Please
.”

“
What's the matter? You want I should whisper sweet nothings into your ear?
Je veux t'enculer? Tout le
fucking
toi
. That what you like to hear? Is that what gets off the bastards you're wearing the wire for?”

“
I'm not wearing a wire.” Something hard dug into my side. My keys, I realized. The mace. I'd left the knife in the other room but I still had the mace.

“
We'll see about that.” He leaned in, nose brushing mine, as he squeezed one of my breasts hard. “I'm up for whatever you can dish out,
petit
.”

With a growl, I sprayed him in the face.

He was off me with a roar, cursing up a storm in French and English. His head banged against the edge of the toilet lid with a loud crack that I half-hoped would knock him out, but all it seemed to do was enrage him further. I shouted at him to stop, terrified that the neighbors would hear his mad raving and call the cops because that would undoubtedly bring the IMA here, too.

Michael was beyond listening. It had never been his forte to start, but now he was in a world of his own and no amount of logic or reasoning could bring him back.

He started for where I'd retreated — following the sound of my voice, I realized.

I shut my mouth, backing up several paces. I held the can of mace out at arm's length, ready to use it again if I had to. Ready to dash into the kitchen and grab one of the knives. I wiped away the sweat that was dripping into my eyes and waited.

Please, oh please, God, let me get through this without shedding blood
.

God must have been feeling merciful. Before violence became necessary, Michael dropped to his knees and vomited all over the bathroom floor he'd just destroyed. I turned away, but I could still hear him retch — thick, clotted sounds that made my own throat tighten and hitch in sympathy.

Don't you dare throw up
.

Michael moved again in my periphery. I brandished the mace just in time to see him do an ungraceful faceplant into a puddle of his own puke. That almost did me in. I swallowed hard, forcing the bile back down my throat.

Don't you dare
.

I waited several more seconds before approaching him. The smell was terrible, but he appeared to be out cold. With a groan of disgust, I grabbed the soap dispenser from the counter and prodded him with it once, hard, in the side. He didn't move.
Is he dead?

No — he was still breathing. His hand was still bleeding a lot. Fresh blood. He had a heartbeat. I tossed the soap aside with a clatter.

He deserves to die
.

It was an uncharitable thought. Not very
christian. Appropriate in a way because kneeling in puke, with bruises on my throat and wrists, and particles of mace burning my eyes, I wasn't
feeling
very christian.

Maybe he had a good explanation. I'd find out soon enough when he regained consciousness. If he hadn't — if he had become a recreational drug user or turned to petty crime — then I wasn't interested in his story. He could tell it to the cops, for all I cared.

I ripped a swatch of fabric from the bottom of my wife-beater in lieu of gauze and began binding up his hand. I fastened it with a bobby pin I'd grabbed from the counter, piercing the fabric with the little prongs to keep it in place.

Once I'd dressed his wounds, I searched for the soap dispenser, locating it where it had rolled behind the toilet. I squirted the fruity solution onto one of the washcloths. This time I made no effort to be gentle. He didn't deserve it.

It wasn't fair. I'd been trying to come to terms with the evils that had happened to me, and God had brought the most troubling reminder of all back into my life. I scrubbed at said reminder until his skin was an angry pink.
Bastard
.

Finished with his upper body, I consigned myself to the inevitable and yanked off his pants. Naturally, being a bastard, he wasn't wearing anything beneath them.

I studiously avoided his crotch as I swiped the increasingly scummy washcloth over his legs and feet, trying to ignore his erection. I'd only seen his naked body that one time in the dark and I hadn't seen much. Seeing everything now, laid out under the glare of fluorescent light, was quite a different matter. Frightening and clinical.

I rinsed the cloth in another cascade of steaming hot water and wiped it over the hard muscles of his thighs. I swallowed hard, then ran the washcloth, quickly, over and around the length of him. The skin was tissue-thin and soft, but at the same time solid and corded with veins. He grunted, low in his throat and labored, and it
moved
, and I yanked my hand back as if I'd been stung by a scorpion. My heart was going like a jackhammer. Beside me was the washcloth, like evidence left at the scene of a crime.