Sovereign Ground (Breaking Bonds) (18 page)

The terrible sound of flesh striking flesh causes
me to open my eyes. My new view is Hayden’s back. Brody’s cornered, with an
expression to match. Brody swings, a rounded cowboy punch packed with all the
effort of his broad shoulders. Hayden catches it and spins in such a way that
Brody follows the momentum of his arm and circles round with it. Brody falls to
the ground, but his arm remains in Hayden’s hands. Hayden kneels and bends it
backward over his own knee.

I hear a crack, and Brody wails.

Hayden drops the arm, kicks and strikes until the
heap of Brody neither moves or moans. It’s finished. Still, Hayden continues to
pummel limp Brody with kicks.

“Hayden,” I say. He looks up. I think I expected
the serene eyes of an African lion, a natural killer, or even revenge buoyed by
hate. But the golden orbs of Hayden’s light brown eyes are filled with terror.

This makes me burst into tears. He steps over my
boss, the pile of a mean man, and hugs me close. He cries too. I feel his fear
and sadness dripping on my forehead while he strokes my hair.

“There are two more.”

Hayden steps back and picks up my backpack from the
floor. He pulls me the opposite way around the desk and my knees buckle. The world
teeters. “Do you know what he gave you?”

“I think I heard him say a roofie.”

Hayden slips my backpack over his shoulders. “Then
it will wear off. Can you walk?”

I nod. “Where are we going?”

“To the hospital, we need to make sure you’re okay.”

Clint. “No, this started there—at the hospital.”

I grip Hayden’s shoulders and, with weak arms, try
to turn him to me. He complies. There is a cut on his left cheekbone. “A cop
brought me from the hospital.” He looks surprised—not skeptical as though he doesn’t
believe me. “Only, later, I’m not sure,” I continue. “When Brody gave me the drink,
I thought the cop was a vision or chimera. I’m not even sure if he was there.”

“Everything about this in here is demonic.” He
points to the bedroom through the doorway. “But that’s not uncommon with what
he gave you. It’s called a date rape drug and events, even people will be
unclear—if you remember at all.”

He steers me away from the putrid-smelling bedroom
and starts out of Brody’s office. Abruptly, he returns to the desk.

“I’ll call 911.” He presses three buttons and sets
the phone on the floor next to Brody.

 Hayden takes my hand and leads me down the hall.
When I get to the stairs, I have a little trouble, but he slips his arm around
me and supports me down and out through the back door of the building. We cut
through landscaping and another parking lot, zig-zagging until we reach his
truck which is parked down the street from the TorchLight.

“I won’t go back to the hospital.” For as much
fear as I feel, I’m surprised at the mellow reaction in my body. “I won’t go to
the cops, either. Don’t you see? A cop brought me to Brody. And the detective
was there.”

“Which detective?”

“The one who interviewed me at the hospital.
Hayden! Brody gave them Thom’s address. He was headed to my apartment and
Thom’s. To look for me.”

Hayden pulls out his cell phone and starts
dialing. “Thom.”

My brother’s voice pipes up like they talk all the
time. Hayden’s interrupts. “Get Lorna and leave as quick as you can. Sorry. I
need you to trust me. Yeah. Meet me at my place.”

What has happened in the last six weeks? Hayden’s
best friends with my half brother and his flute-stealing wife?

“I need to get something at my apartment.”

“You don’t want to go to the hospital. You don’t
want cops. Now you think we need to go to your place?” Hayden keeps his eyes
forward as he drives.

“I don’t just think. I’ll go without you,” I say. His
knuckles grip the steering wheel tighter. The tension in the car is miserable.
I don’t want him mad at me. “Turn here.” I tell him.

He does.

“Oh, Hayden.”

“Not now.”

“I know why you’re mad. Last time I saw you, you
asked me not to work…there.”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“Thank you.”

He turns and looks at me.

“Pull in there.” I direct him to the parking space
reserved for me. He drives past it slowly. “Where are you going?”

“I just want to look around before we stop.”

“Are you looking for something?”

“Anything suspicious, the best way out of here…”
We circle around the building that contains my unit and park in a guest spot
behind my apartment. I pull my house key from my backpack and zip it shut. Hayden
locks his door then mine, and I lead the way.

“These are really nice.”

I hate that he comments this, so I don’t
acknowledge him. It was Brody’s doing, all part of the master plan. Imagine if
I had followed through with getting a car payment and a cell phone. I’d be even
deeper.

Hayden follows me up the stairs. When I insert the
key and turn it, there isn’t any resistance.

“Unlocked?”

Hayden doesn’t wait for an answer. He steps in
front of me, shielding and moving me at the same time. A gun is in his hands,
held nearly at eye level. He uses it to press the door open and everywhere he
looks, the gun aims. He slides into the room and points the gun in every corner
as he walks, hunched, tight. He takes sure, even steps over clothes and books,
stuff I’ve left scattered. Hayden goes to the bathroom and kicks the door open,
flinching slightly with the trigger half-squeezed.

“Empty.” He shoves the gun back into a holster
under his T-shirt and even though I know it’s there now, I can’t see it.

Hayden brushes past me, locks the door and slides
the chain in. I thought he was trying to kill Brody back at the TorchLight, but
if he had a gun and didn’t use it—that couldn’t have been his intention.

“What happened here?” He kicks a pair of my jeans
aside, so he can stand on the carpet.

“I was in a rush.” My explanation falters, but he
doesn’t seem to notice. First, I grab my flute from the table. “Hold this.”

Hayden takes it, and I sit on the floor to put on
my shoes. I didn’t bother to untie them, so I have to work the knot loose.

“Hurry.” He’s right, I feel urgency too. Hayden
turns and goes to my bookshelf. “For someone who doesn’t believe in love, you
sure read a lot about it.”

I have no answer for him. My shoes are on and tied,
and we stand there looking at each other. I don’t believe in love—only the
thrill of attraction. I go to my small dresser and open the top drawer filled
with bras and panties. Out of the corner of my eye, I see that he turns away
from me. I think I’ll dress right in front of him to prove it. I unbutton my
jeans.

A knock at the door.

Hayden and I stare at each other. I button my
jeans, shove my underwear in my pocket and look through the peep hole.

The rhino detective.

“It’s him.”

Hayden puts his hand over my mouth. He has his gun
out again, and I pick my flute up from where he dropped it. Instead of another
knock, there is a tiny prick, a scraping metal noise and the door handle
wiggles. Hayden turns the bookshelf on its side in front of the door. How did
he move it so fast while it was full of books?

He points to the window and I cross the room to
open it. The man at the door isn’t quiet anymore. He’s banging the partially
opened door against the chain and the shelf. He will make it inside.

Hayden doesn’t even look out the window. He just
pushes out the screen, perches on the edge and jumps two floors. It looks like
his legs crumple under him, but then he rolls and stands as though it had been
on purpose. I can’t move. I can’t do it.

“Me or him, Sparrow.”

It’s all I need to hear. I choose Hayden. And I
leap.

We hobble to his truck. Me, because my knee is
throbbing—Hayden, because he took most of the shock of my fall and it knocked
him on his butt. I think I struck him in the face with my flute, too, because
he keeps rubbing the left side of his forehead.

He peals out of the parking lot. The detective comes
into view, sprinting behind us. Hayden’s bulbous, purple truck isn’t the best
getaway car. Loud and obvious, it would be better suited for a parade. We leave
the apartment complex, whipping through side streets.

“Okay. We’ll meet Thom at my house. Then we call
Malcolm.” He keeps muttering, tallying things I already know like where Brody
is, that there are two other men. His phone rings. Thom’s name is on the screen,
so I take it from his hand.

“Hello, Thom.”

“Sparrow. Thank God.” I’ve never heard him curse
the name, much less thank it. “I haven’t heard from you. I hoped Hayden was
bringing you for a surprise, but, is Hayden there? I think something is wrong.”

“Why?”

“A guy in a white van is following us. Man, I have
wanted to talk to you, Sparrow. Lorna and I want you to come back home. Here’s
Hayden’s place.”

He wants me back home? Then everything he said
registers. “Wait. A white van is following you? Don’t go to Hayden’s.”

“We just pulled into the driveway.”

“Leave. Leave!”

Lorna’s voice sounds through, but muffled. “He has
a gun.” There is a thud, a gunshot, terrorized voices and screeching tires.

“He’s shooting them.”

Hayden grabs the phone from me and drives with one
hand.

He yells into it a dozen times. “Pick up the
phone.”

Finally, I hear Thom’s muffled voice.

“Are you sure you’re both okay?”

I keep looking behind us to see if we are being
followed. I can’t discern the conversation between Hayden and Thom.

“I need you to pull it together, Sparrow.”

I nod but the panic is pulling me under.

“Sparrow.” The tone demands so much of me. I never
hated Lorna enough for her to get shot at. I don’t want them hurt. I wish I
could throw up again. How can I expel this curse from me?

Go to the one who started it.

The external presence—the demon I have felt off
and on all morning—flinches.

I’ve had very few epiphanies, but the tingling
realization that comes now proves my thoughts. That’s what this is all about—my
curse. I hold my flute in front of me.

I want to be free. Sliding fingers over the holes in
the pattern of my dad’s song is like wrapping a blanket around my shivers. Music
sends the fear away—but I want permanent freedom. Sovereignty.

“The only way to stop this is to go to my
grandfather.”

“What?”

Hayden isn’t aimless, he’s driving us somewhere. I
turn my body to him and enunciate. “I don’t want to go where you are taking me.
I need to go to the Humboldt Colony.”

“You don’t know where I’m taking you.” But then he
maneuvers his purple beast into the Reno Police Department parking lot.

“The cops are in on it.” I call him a dirty word.

His look chides me. Doesn’t he understand why I’m
so angry? I flail my arms to strike him before he parks. He brakes while taking
my feeble blows. With his right hand, he pinches both of my wrists together. With
his left hand, he turns into a parking spot. Curse this drug. Curse Hayden.
Curse his God.

My flute rolls off my lap. No. I can’t curse his
God. I’m too weak. His God led me to my flute. His Jesus knew where I was when
Brody drugged me. At least that’s what the rose couple said. He brought Hayden
to help me.

A Great Spirit. There must be a balance to the
evil I met in my apartment—if there wasn’t, the world would already be
consumed. And if there is something good to equal the bad…

“There is hope.”

“There’s always hope.” Hayden answers immediately.
I reach for my backpack, and he lets me go. Once I have the stolen pictures, I start
shuffling slowly.

“Brody’s been spying on me.” I pause on one where
I’m completely naked. Hayden’s jaw flexes and the scar over his lip turns
red-violet. His hand clenches into a pale fist and a little cut on his knuckle opens,
trickling blood.

“You’re washing off in a bathroom?”

Only Hayden would see the foul bathroom soap
smeared over me as I try to scrub away the humiliation, instead of my nudity.
He places a hand over mine, and his warmth soaks through my skin. I look down.
His battered hand covers the pictures. He covers me.

“Cori left a note.” My breath rattles like I’ve been
crying, but I press on because if we enter the police department—I’ll never
leave under my own free will. I know it like I know I need to go to my
grandfather. “Cori was helping Brody do something, trick girls somehow.” He
takes the note from me and his lips move silently. “When those two guys came in
with Brody, they said he ‘wouldn’t get paid unless they found me.’ And…”

“More?”

I pull out the disk. My hands shake so bad he steadies
them for me. “I have no idea what this is. But I know it’s important because it
was taped flat, under Brody’s desk. Hidden.” Now Hayden knows everything,
almost. He doesn’t know about the curse.

In the distance behind Hayden, Clint stands near
the door to the building. I’ve been watching the spot, expecting him there. I
switch places with my backpack and kneel on the floor. “That’s the cop that
hangs out at the TorchLight. He works with Brody.” That is, if Clint’s real. There’s
no way I’ll tell Hayden about the spirits. If I ever get weak and want him to
know, all I’ll have to do is remember Cori’s reaction. Cori’s rejection hurt, but
Hayden’s would destroy.

“Thom and Lorna are headed here.” He stares down
at the disk in his hands and then searches the area. “I figured it was the
safest place for them, but if you know a cop is involved…”

“And a detective. Don’t forget the one who
interviewed me at the hospital.”

“Yeah, I better stop them. Have them meet
Malcolm.”

Hayden’s friend who hates me. “I don’t trust Malcolm.”

“I do.” He looks down at me, cowering on the floor.
“With my life.”