The Alignment (9 page)

Chapter 12

Liv

I
force myself to
get up. Two hours spent lying beside him, and I’d do it longer if I could. I’ve become a Trey Bevan fangirl overnight, and it’s not due to his stimulating conversation. He’s half-dead on the floor and the least I could do is give the man some space, but it feels much better to be burrowing against him. He’ll never know unless he has this house under hidden surveillance. If that’s the case, I’m busted. Although I would like to see the footage—maybe a replay of this scene will give me a clue. I can’t figure out this pull he has on me. It’s too ingrained, too primal, to even feel new.

Down the hall the bureau blocking my path into the bedroom remains a nuisance. Pushing so hard my feet slide away proves to be a waste of energy when I notice one of its feet stuck on a slightly raised floorboard. I squeeze through to the bedroom the same way I got out.

At first glance, the bedroom looks empty except for a few black trash bags on the floor, so I paw through them and find my clothes and bath stuff. I open a dresser drawer, and it’s empty. I don’t remember packing my things, and I don’t know why I would have. All I remember is fighting with Trey.

Oh yeah. Fighting with Trey. Over what he found. That explains the bruises on both my wrists. If I saw these on a patient, I’d notice each bruise looks like the mark of a finger and immediately think domestic violence. Until now, I blamed my struggle to get Trey into the house last night. A cold flush runs through my body in forewarning of what will happen when he wakes up. But one thing is sure, I remember nothing after fighting with Trey. I must have been so mad that when we got back here I packed my things. To go where? Back to my house I suppose.

The stream of hot water draws attention to every disgruntled muscle. I sit down in the tub, close my eyes, and let the water pound me until I’ve nudged the dial all the way into the red but my shower has turned cold. After putting on clean clothes and twisting my hair up, I stretch and shake out my limbs. I feel renewed, like last night’s trauma has been washed from my system.

On my way through the living room, I place my hand on his forehead. He’s a little warm, but his breathing and heartbeat both feel normal. There’s no way to know how long he’ll be unconscious. Or how long I can possibly let this go on before taking him to the clinic.

Trey’s jeans buzz on the floor. I stand over the jeans and finally reach in and retrieve the phone on the third buzz. ‘Christian’ is displayed on the screen. My thumb hovers in position to answer the call. There’s no way to know if Christian is a good guy or a bad guy. I wonder if he could help me. I glance at Trey’s comatose body, as if he has a say.

And I know it doesn’t matter. Whether this guy Christian would help me or kill me, I’m not going to answer Trey’s phone. I place it on the hearth and take his jeans to the laundry room.

In the kitchen, I down a cup of coffee, wishing he was awake so he could sit with me, bad attitude and all. Maybe he could show me how to cook a fancy risotto, or make a Christmas wreath. His get-over-yourself-dude domestic talents that made me want to gag before…well what can I say? Now I’m game. I wet a washcloth and sit cross-legged next to him in the living room. I gently wipe his forehead, his cheeks, and his neck. The cloth comes back bloody. I roll his head to the side to find his ear bleeding again.

Swelling of the brain means he might need burr holes. He needs a neurosurgeon in a hospital for that. To determine any of this, he needs an MRI or a CT scan, that I know for sure. How long do I wait? Until he’s brain damaged, or dead? There’s no doubt if he were awake he’d refuse the hospital. And with him unconscious and unable to explain his side, I have no excuse for his injuries. Police would get involved in something my gut tells me is above them. The little I know about him is enough to guess police and hospitals would make this situation more dangerous. My gut might change its mind if his condition worsens. Hopefully I’ll get enough of a warning.

I check his ear for a cut that would explain the blood and also end my worries but I find nothing. I put a clean towel under his ear to catch the blood. My fingers stroke his hair before I can stop them. It’s darker than mine by a shade. Brown so dark it could be mistaken for black. Like the color of the strongest dark chocolate. Or the tea he gave me. Maybe I missed these physical traits the first time we met. Spinning into the curb from the force of a Ford truck could have jarred my brain a bit. But it’s a little strange to be living in a man’s house, eating meals with him for days, and not notice the color of his hair until he’s limp on the floor.

My stomach rolls to complain of its emptiness. Lunch has crept up on me. Hopefully it’s the only thing creeping up on me. I pause in front of the sliding glass door in the kitchen to notice the day for the first time. Eating outside on the porch is a tempting idea, but leaving the safety of the house gives me a bad feeling even though it’s ridiculous to feel safe inside. If they wanted me, they could come straight through the front door and there would be nothing I could do about it. No creeping necessary.

A squirrel bounds along the porch railing, flaunting its freedom in the beauty of the day. I can imagine how the air smells outside. Thick and heady, with a crisp edge indicating fall is just around the corner. Cracking the window over the sink offers a compromise when the sounds from outside permeate the room. The air is better than I imagined.

After a thorough exploration of the cabinets and the refrigerator, I decide this guy must be on some psycho diet. There’s not an ounce of processed food except for my own groceries which he must have brought from my house. Stew from the other night is still in the refrigerator, so I spoon some into a small pot and put it on the stove. While I’m waiting, I boil some water for iced tea. All of a sudden it occurs to me that I have to leave him when I go to work tomorrow. There’s just no other way around it. At least I can come home for lunch to check on him. I’ll have to somehow smuggle an IV, a bag of fluids, and a catheter from work.

The stew is just as delicious as it was the first time and I eat slowly, savoring it. When I get up to take the tea bags out of the tea, the breeze coming in the window hits my face and I take a deep breath. Just yesterday, I was suffering with unending stomach sickness. I don’t know how it could be gone, just like that. If it was related to emotional distress, it seems like it chose the most stressful time to disappear.

I can’t keep my mind from wandering back into the living room. If only I could lift him. It would be good to get him up on the couch where he would be more comfortable, although then I couldn’t sleep next to him. It’s a betrayal, sleeping next to him when he can’t refuse. I imagine him awake and aware while trapped in a comatose body, mentally kicking and screaming as I snuggle up next to him. I wonder what he’d do if the situation were reversed. If he’d care for me like I’m caring for him, or if he’d have left me out there to die.

When I return to Trey, he looks the same. He could remain like this for weeks, possibly months. I’d have to get someone to help me move him. He’d need medical supplies I couldn’t easily take from the clinic more than a few times. And this would all require explanations. Overwhelmed, I push that thought to the back of my mind.

I never examined his back, the one area I wasn’t able to clean yesterday. I roll him onto his side.

His back is much worse than I thought. He must have bled for awhile last night without my knowing. A wide abrasion runs from his right shoulder blade down his spine to the bottom left side of his back. Untreated, it glistens with pus. It hasn’t been long enough to develop an infection like this.

A towel on the bedding at his back catches the runoff as I wipe the wound until no blood remains then I wash it with soap and water. After patting it dry, it looks a little better. Clean skin reveals more old scars similar to the ones he has on his chest. I dab the wound with ointment and apply bandage after bandage until the whole abrasion is covered. It’s really not good he’s going to be lying on this for who knows how long. I’m going to have to clean it like this at least once a day. The bloody bedding will need to be changed too, but I’ll need to search the house first to see if he has any more blankets. I spread out a bath towel over the stain in the meantime and gently roll him back.

I start searching the house for more blankets. The bedroom closet contains nothing but his clothes. A check of every closet and every piece of furniture leaves me empty-handed. The door in the kitchen opens to basement stairs, so I feel for a light, flip it on, and descend into the basement.

Shelves and cabinets line the wall nearest me, and a large workbench occupies the central area. I search around for another light in the semi-darkness. A string hits me in the forehead, so I give it a pull and the area is bathed in light. It’s immediately obvious this is not a place to store blankets. I reach for the pull chain but pause, my eyes catching the wall closest to the stairs.

I’ve never seen a gun this close in person, and there are so many here I’m almost afraid to move. Knives and other weapons mix with the guns and hang on the wall above. Some shiny new, some rusty, some I can only imagine a use for.

A half-empty bottle of liquor sits among it all like a lighthouse in a choppy metal sea. I spin it by the cap so the label faces me. Scotch. Scotch and guns. What a combination.

Morbid curiosity pushes me along the wall to the next set of shelves which holds dozens of jars. Like his herbs upstairs, some are labeled, some are not, but of those that are labeled, many are in a language I don’t recognize. I see liquids, powders, herbs, gelatinous substances, with labels identifying some names I recognize as medicines, some as poisons. Thankfully, the amount of dust on most of them gives me hope they haven’t been used recently.

The wooden workbench in front of the shelves is littered with tools and containers one would find in a chemistry lab—beakers, tongs, stirring rods. A loose end of a rubber hose continues somewhere to the storage area underneath. Can anyone say meth lab? In the center a heavy stone mortar and pestle holds the remnants of something brown and flaky, like crushed peanut shells.

Moving toward the far end of the wall reveals a library of books, some in English, some in Latin, some in an undistinguishable language. They don’t appear to be organized and the subject matter varies. Cooking, gardening, martial arts, weaponry, herbs, chemistry, medicine, botany, astronomy. I pull out an ancient-looking one with a Latin title and flip it open. The entire book is handwritten. I study the drawings, trying to understand the subject matter, unable to decide if they depict an ancient form of medicine or an ancient form of torture. If it’s the latter, he certainly has the tools for it. Hopefully he isn’t planning on using me for practice.

If some of these books are really as old as they look, they’re probably worth a fortune. Did he rob a museum or something? Sending assassins seems an awkward way for museum curators to get their stuff back. I remember the body of the man outside. I have no idea what to do about that.

I circle around to the other side of the basement, conventional in its assortment of power tools, camping gear, workout equipment and free weights. A door in the wall appears to lead to the outside, but several two-by-fours have been nailed over it. I return to the shelves and pull out a modern astronomy textbook. I tug the light chain and climb the stairs to the kitchen where a mountain of laundry awaits me.

Another check of Trey reveals the towel under his ear is soaked with blood, so I replace it with a clean one and apply ointment to the wounds on his cheek, throat, chest, arms, and knuckles. I settle myself on the couch with the book I brought up from the basement. Maybe by the time he wakes up, I can teach
him
a thing or two about astronomy.

The room dims with the sinking sun. It’s already time to check my patient’s back. I roll him over and remove the bandages. With each one my astonishment grows. The open flesh has been sealed by a healthy scab and there’s no sign of infection. I have never seen a wound so inflamed heal so quickly in my life. The towel I had placed under him is completely dry. After poking and prodding the sealed wound in awe, I lower him back down.

A sharp rattle fills the room and my head jerks toward the noise. Silence. With a second sharp rattle, Trey’s phone hops off the edge of the hearth. I cross the room and pick it up. Another call from Christian. Surely someone with a name like Christian must be good. He knows Trey isn’t answering his phone and must be worried. Maybe Trey didn’t show up somewhere. Maybe Christian is checking one last time, making sure Trey is unable to answer his phone before he comes to kill me. I notice three new text messages before I power off the phone to eliminate any future temptation of answering it. Several days from now, I may be too desperate for help to care about what kind of person I’m inviting here. My only option should be the police.

With another load of laundry in the washer, I heat up more stew for my dinner. I close the window to the chilly gust blowing through it. It’s going to get cold tonight. When my stomach is full, I brew a mug of chamomile tea. The sight of the mug compels me to open the herb cabinet and stare inside. When I realize what I’m doing, I slam the door and return to Trey’s side.

The chill from the kitchen has crept into the living room. It can’t be too difficult to build a fire. I’ve seen it done enough to know how to start it. A layer of ash covers the base of the fireplace. I open the flue and put the solitary piece of firewood on the grate. There must be more outside, and there is—a pile stacked to the porch ceiling. I take an armful inside.

There’s a box of pine cones next to the wall which I assume is kindling. I add more wood and pine cones and light them with a match I find on the mantel. The fire blazes high, hot on my face, and I imagine it exploding out of control and the house catching fire. And here I am, with a half-dead man and no coyotes to help me this time. The flames settle down like they’ve just read my mind, lapping at the wood as if it’s a tease before fizzling out. I try another match, but it burns down to my fingers before anything catches. My gas fireplace in Chicago was a lot easier than this. We had a remote control.