Destiny Calling (24 page)

“Okay, Lucille.” I smiled, not sure how to begin. Surely, it wouldn’t be appropriate to start by asking why her son told me she was dead, or why he didn’t come to visit, or why she was here in the first place.

I frowned. I hadn’t thought this far ahead. None of what I came here to find out would be easy to determine without being blunt.

We sat in silence, looking at each other, but Lucille didn’t seem to mind. Being confined here probably provided her with a lot of free time just to sit.

The rising clamor of voices in the hall, and the sound of doors opening and closing broke my attention. I glanced through the window on the door. Residue of the Oppressors floated around the patients, but not as much as what was on the ones confined to the ward. My limited stint of working in mental health didn’t include patients as ill as the ones here. Then, I hadn’t been able to see the Oppressors and I didn’t know what I knew now about them enough to understand what was going on.

Lucille followed my gaze and answered my unspoken question. “Census is done. Those are the patients with building or grounds privileges.”

“Oh, I’d wondered. Thank you,” I said, and Lucille beamed.

The light scent of cinnamon filled my senses. Despite none of the more dire patients being in my area, this wasn’t a good place for me to be with the extreme weight of hopelessness. Their need and desperation was intense.

How many of the patients here were genuinely mentally ill? Or did they become mentally ill because of the force of the Oppressors? It was almost like the age-old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg.

Without the possibility of an answer to either anytime soon, I’d have to get what answers I could from Lucille while I was here. I didn’t have the time to be as tactful as I would’ve liked and felt bad about that, because she seemed like a kind woman.

“Lucille, I’m here about your son, Griffith.”

Her smile faltered and faded, and she began fiddling with a button on her blouse. “My son?”

She averted her eyes, and twisted the button so much that I waited for it to pop off. She gave up on the button and began smoothing the end of her shirt over and over with her other hand. “I don’t have a son.”

“I know he hasn’t been to see you lately, but I wanted to let you know Griffith is okay. You’re probably upset with him for not visiting.” I tilted my head, trying to gauge her response.

Lucille leapt up off the couch and rushed toward me. “You know?” She bellowed down at me. I pressed back into the chair, startled by the sudden shift in her mood. “You know?”

Lucille’s face distorted with rage. “You don’t know anything.” She whipped away to pace the room, running her hand through her hair over and over.

“Mrs. Kneel.” I stood and turned toward her.

“I said, don’t call me that.” She held both hands over her ears. “Don’t ever call me that name.”

“I’m sorry, Lucille. I don’t want to upset you, but I wanted to find out about your son.” This wasn’t going at all as I’d imagined.

“I said, he is
not
my son. He cannot be my son. You don’t know what he is. What his father was.”

She cringed back, holding her hands against her chest and shaking her head. “I could never have borne a monster like that. I’m a good Christian. I’m good. I’m good.” She nodded vigorously.

“Yes, I know you’re good. Everyone knows you’re good.” I reached toward her, but she drew back. Her gaze darted around the room, and she hunched her shoulders forward, as if to make herself smaller.

Lucille nodded emphatically and continuously, making me worry she’d hurt herself. “I know I’m good.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “That’s why they leave me alone in here.”

She scurried across the room toward me. I tensed and put my arms in front of me, shielding my face. She stopped abruptly a few inches from me, and slowly peered around the room, reminding me of a caged animal.

She leaned in, gesturing for me to come forward.

I tensed as I closed the space between us, fearful she was going to hit me for upsetting her. As she drew close, the terror on her face, and knowing I’d put it there, made me forget my fatigue as the desire to help her overwhelmed me. I wrapped my arms around her.

She sank into me and her shoulders fell as she started to relax.

“Hope.”

“It’s okay,” I said. Running my hand along her back, feeling my energy deplete as hopefulness filled her.

Lucille gripped my shoulders and shoved me so hard that I hit the wall and slid to the floor onto my ass.

“What are you? I felt it. You aren’t normal, not right. No.” She shook her head. “No, not right. You’re not right. Not them, but not right. I don’t like it.”

She pushed her fist into her mouth, backing away.

I stood, rubbing my hand along the back of my head where I’d hit the wall. I knew I wasn’t right. Lucille didn’t need to remind me. The pain of hitting the wall couldn’t compare to knowing she found me to be the monster. I thought I was the good guy.

“There are lots of bad, bad people in here.” Lucille’s voice altered so she sounded like a small child. She pointed toward the door then clutched her arms tightly to her chest.

“The monsters come for them.” Her eyes bulged. “I hear them sometimes. They tell me bad, bad things.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to hear bad things. I don’t want to do bad things. I’m good. I sing to make them stop trying to talk to me.”

Plopping on the floor, she scooted back into the corner. She pulled her legs up to her chest and put a finger in each ear. Closing her eyes, she began to hum, blurting out a word or two now and then to a tune only she seemed to hear.

I sat transfixed as I watched her, uncertain what to do or say.

The door to the lounge burst open, and a few staff from the ward stepped in. They spotted Lucille and then looked questioningly to me.

“I’m sorry.” I held up my hands in front of me as I stood. “I didn’t mean to, but I seem to have upset Mrs. Kneel.”

“Lucille,” she said as my words permeated through her plugged ears and out of tune song. “My name is Lucille. Lucille. I’m good. I’m good. I’m good.” She rocked forward and back with each outburst.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. All I did was make everything worse.

The staff knelt and tried to calm her, but her rocking and yelling intensified. One person scooped under each of her arms, but Lucille refused to take her fingers out of her ears and kept her eyes squeezed shut. She straightened her legs like a board, so the staff was forced to pull her along with them.

I rushed over to open the door to the lounge, grateful to do something to help.

As they took Lucille back to the ward, I hurried toward the elevator, but her words followed me.

“I’m good. I’m good.”

“I know you are, Lucille,” I whispered to the elevator door as it closed and a tear escaped.

I pushed the moisture away. “I know
you
are.”

Chapter Sixteen

“So you like the crazies?”

I swung my head toward the voice coming from the passenger seat, my tire thumping against the curb as I struggled to park.

Drake lounged in my passenger seat, with his elbow propped against the window. “Get the hell out of my car.”

I’d thought the walk would clear my head before I saw Griffith, but now regretted not parking closer to the liquor store.

The thick cloud of blackness swam around Drake as if alive, looking like a male medusa as tendrils slithered around his face. I breathed deeply in and out of my nostrils, unable to calm my racing heart.

“Oh, a feisty one.” Drake reached toward me with spindly long fingers, and I edged toward the door out of his grasp. “Those nuts are too easy.” He pulled his hand back and studied his pointed nails. “No fun at all.”

His gaze raked over me as I fumbled with the door handle. “But you—” He licked his thin, black lips. “Breaking you will be lots of fun. Unless…”

His attention settled on my hands, where the glittering fog leaked out in my duress. “Unless you’ve made the right choice.” He narrowed his eyes and smiled. “Then perhaps I shall be the one to deliver you to our Queen.”

I yanked the keys out of the ignition and pushed the door open. Stumbling out of the car, anxious to be away from his filth filling my car with intoxicating hate and despair. “You’re nothing but a…but a…a…bully. Toying with the minds of those poor people. They’re sick. Most likely because of you and your kind.”

His fingers snaked out through the window, and he hoisted himself through to sit on the edge of the open window. Moving in a way that would be physically impossible for even the most flexible person. His laugh echoed through the street and my head.

“A bully?” His body flickered and faded as it moved through the window seamlessly, and then he rested his narrow chin on his crossed arms on the roof of the car. “I’m nothing of the sort, luv.”

He winked. “You would know. But wouldn’t you rather be on the winning side for once? Have the power, rather than continuing with the losers?”

I held my hands over my ears, the glittery fog gushed out of my fingertips. “Shut up.”

“Oh, those poor, poor people.” He mocked in a sing-song voice. “Couldn’t help her, could you, Hope? Maybe you should’ve been named Hopeless, instead.”

I cringed at his insult that so accurately reflected my own fears. “What the hell are you?”

“Hell? You’re getting close.”

A couple walking down the sidewalk made a wide birth around me, watching from hooded lids.

They couldn’t see Drake in this form, so I must look like a raging lunatic.

“You really don’t know, yet?” He climbed up to stand on the roof of the car and thrust his arms to the sky. “I’m yours…” He winked at me. “…and everyone else’s, worst nightmare.”

He shrugged his boneless shoulders. “Sorry, sweetheart, you’re going to have to share me.”

His body dissipated and reformed with him sitting on the roof leering down at me. “I’m your deepest, darkest fear. I’m your shortcomings, your mistakes, your secrets hidden away.” He ticked his fingers off one by one.

“Oh, I know all the dirty little secrets.” He nodded and his long locks swam around his head. “The skeletons in your closets, and...I make sure you never, ever forget them.”

I averted my gaze, absorbing his words. Despite the despair surrounding Drake, he was beautiful, as one can appreciate the beauty and grace of a predator.

I felt the pull, the need to stare, to drink in his power and his unnatural magnificence, a primal craving filling me to have the power for my own. Certain this was part of the hold he had over people and their inability to resist the darkness.

“I thought you gave hope to people?” He slithered on the top of my car.

I took a few steps back.

His body appeared weightless as it glided into a relaxed position. “That’s why your name is Hope, isn’t it?” His tongue flickered out uncomfortably close to me, tasting the air, then snapped back into his mouth. “You must feel oh so bad that you upset little, old Lucille so much.”

I should do something, anything, but I couldn’t. I was frozen in fear, indecision, and longing. Never taking my eyes off Drake, I circled the front of the car, moving to the sidewalk before an oncoming car hit me.

He spun around on the roof and sprang onto the sidewalk in front of me, landing gently on his toes, hovering there. He lowered himself, then elevated a few inches from the ground and back again, taunting me.

A woman walked down the sidewalk, unaware how closely she brushed past this monster. Afraid he would touch her or worse, I flinched.

“Watch out,” I said. She looked at me and smiled, as one would at someone who seemed a little addled, and continued on.

Drake inclined his head toward her and a wisp of black dust trickled off and floated through the air toward the woman to dance around her head. “What? She can’t see me, luv.” He narrowed his eyes. “Not unless I want her to. Watch and learn all that can be yours.”

“No.” I held up my hand, but with a flash and a puff of smoke, he disappeared.

The woman startled when Drake appeared in front of her, and then picked up her step to hurry away from him. Despite her haste, she couldn’t escape the black tendrils trailing out of his fingertips following her.

“She’s having a bad day.” Drake pushed his lip out into an exaggerated pout. “She feels so, so terrible.” He shrugged. “What’s the use of getting up every day, Melinda?”

The woman turned when he used her name. Her eyes widened. I didn’t know what she saw, but I knew what she felt.

His filth invading her mind and pouring over her thoughts.

I followed the trail to Melinda, whose pace had slowed, and her steps became labored. Losing the jaunty step she’d had before Drake saw her.

“She doesn’t feel that way.” I glared at Drake. “You’re making her feel that way.”

Drake laughed. “You got it, sugarcakes.” He floated up into the air and did a somersault mid-flight like some crazed clown.

“Stop it.” I clenched my fists and scowled. When the glittering fog leaked from my hands, I tried to hide them in the folds of my coat. “What makes you so sure I won’t hurt you?” I wanted to hurt him, and I didn’t feel guilty about it.

Did that make me like them?

“What? You gonna make me stop?” Drake planted himself on the ground in front of me, and a mixture of disgust and intrigue filled me. He opened his palm and blew on it. I coughed when a cloud of ash flew into my face. “Taste it. I can tell you’ll like it.”

Sucking in my breath, my mouth watered as succulent flavors rushed across my tongue.

“Fear is delicious, is it not?”

I turned and fled after the woman, and his laughter followed. When I caught up to her easily because she’d stopped walking, she slid down the side of a building to the sidewalk like a broken rag doll.

I tried to temper my anger to stem the glittering essence leaking out of me. Drake only toyed with this innocent woman to show me what he was capable of.

What I could be capable of.

Kneeling down beside her, I placed my hand on her arm, directly through the black soot-like substance engulfing her. “Are you okay?” I fought the urge to pull into myself, focusing on infusing into her instead.