When my eyes finally adjusted, I saw something... a white sack leaning against the far end of the space.
“There’s something back there,” I said. “It looks like a sack of something.”
“Can you reach it?” Marty asked.
“No, not without crawling all the way in.”
And that was when I heard a low growl coming out of the darkness inside the space. I felt my heart start to beat in earnest as something crawled out of the darkness, something massive and vaguely animalistic. Something covered in fur. I wasn’t sure how the thing was even managing to stay inside the space, without breaking through the ceiling to the kitchen below.
But, I also didn’t want to stay and figure it out.
Before I could start scurrying down the ladder again, a strong, cold hand seized me by the ankle and whipped me from the gap like an adult preventing their misbehaving toddler from climbing back up a slide. I fell backward with a yelp, losing my footing on the ladder as Marty struggled to keep it stable.
But it was too late. My feet slipped off the ladder and starbursts flashed before my eyes as soon as my head made impact with the cupboards behind me. Then the world started running in streamers of color as I hit the ground… hard.
Chapter Eighteen
Marty was standing right in front of me, close enough that I could reach out and touch him. And he was staring at me. Before I knew what was happening, he leaned down and enclosed my lips with his. And his lips were warm, full. His tongue took me by surprise as it pushed past my own lips and then mated with my tongue.
I heard myself moan as I collapsed against him, cradled by his strong arms. And then his hands were on me—in my hair, on my face, my breasts…
“Now you’re on the trolley!”
My eyes blinked open, and I found myself staring at a white ceiling as something beeped in the near distance. My hand groped along until it met something solid and my fingers closed around a slim metal railing. I cracked my eyes open and squinted blearily at my hand. Sure enough, it was wrapped around a metal rail. A hospital bed railing.
Before I could open my mouth to ask what the hell had happened and where the hell I was, Darla popped into my line of sight.
“You were havin’ a hanky-panky dream, doll,” she said with a huge grin as a blush spread across my cheeks at the realization that not only had I been having a ‘hanky-panky’ dream, but she’d witnessed it!
I tried to shake my head, but was in a world of pain when I did.
“I felt like tellin’ you the bank was closed!”
“The bank?” I grumbled as she nodded. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck.
“Yes, ma’am! That’s what you tell someone to get them to stop smooching.” Then she started giggling as she floated down to my bedside and pretended to take a seat beside me. “And here I thought you were just another bluenose! Turns out you’re the cat’s pajamas!”
“Where am I?” I asked as I glanced around and recognized a hospital room when I saw one. But how…
“Looks like you’ve been committed, dollface,” Darla answered, shaking her head like the whole thing was a big shame. “But let’s get back to that dream you were having! You were moanin’ up a storm!” Then she started kissing the air and making wet-sounding noises which thoroughly grossed me out.
“Darla, what are you doing here?”
She motioned to my necklace. “Well, I buzzed on over as soon as I realized you weren’t home when you were supposed to be. An’ I’m thinkin’ that exorcist, who sometimes drops the kid off, pulled a clean sneak.” She nodded. “I’m sorry, dollface, I know you’re fond o’ the kid.”
“Exorcist?” I repeated, shaking my head. “What are you talking about?”
“Yeah, that handsome cat who’s been hangin’ around a lot lately.”
“Marty?”
She nodded. “I think he took the kid an’ beat it.”
“Marty didn’t kidnap Finn,” I grumbled as the pieces started to fall into place. Marty, Bailey and I had been at Layla Clemmons’ and I’d climbed up the ladder to investigate the dark hole in the ceiling and… I must have fallen off the ladder and passed out, ending up in the hospital. Marty must have picked Finn up from school which was why Darla hadn’t seen them.
“So back to this dream of yours… who you carryin’ the torch for, huh?”
I ignored her. But, that didn’t matter because once started, Darla was near impossible to stop.
“An’ the most important question: did he slip you his dingus?”
“Darla,” I groaned.
“You were makin’ these kissy sounds an’ I was startin’ to get jealous!” She paused for a second. “So… who you stuck on? You can tell me! I can keep a secret, swear.”
“Darla, I order you to return to the house,” I managed, even as my head pounded with the exertion it took to speak.
“An’ just like that, you’re back to being the flat tire.” She pouted, wrapping her arms across her flat chest as she frowned at me.
At least she disappeared. After a few seconds of making sure she really was gone, I fell back to sleep.
***
I woke to the smell of chicken soup.
My hands fisted reflexively in the blanket that covered me, and I moaned. My head felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton, the inside of my mouth tasted like bile, and my stomach roiled.
“Finn?” I called out, alarmed.
“Sorry to disappoint,” a familiar, rumbling bass voice said from nearby. “It’s just me… I brought you some soup.”
I raised a hand to rub the crusties out of my eyes and an IV pulled at the skin of my hand. It stung and forced me to blink rapidly to clear my vision. When the streaky picture finally resolved itself, I found Roy Osbourne sitting at my bedside.
Roy Osbourne?
“The doctors say you should be free to go soon. You have a concussion, but they ruled out anything worse.”
“How long have I been out?”
He cocked his head to the side. “A few hours.”
And then I remembered Darla’s visit and immediately starting looking for her in the room. Luckily, I didn’t see her anywhere.
“Do you remember what happened?” Roy asked.
“No,” I started and shook my head as I looked from him to the door to my room and back at him again. “I’m surprised they let you in.”
I mean, he wasn’t family, and we weren’t even dating… and last I’d checked, hospital workers weren’t going to just let anyone in. So, how had he managed…
He chuckled. “I can be… persuasive.”
An absurd little pang echoed through me. Why wasn’t Marty standing at my bedside? Hadn’t we been together when... and then it all fell in on me—everything that had happened leading up to this point.
I sat up straighter. “Oh my God,” I hissed. “Danny Clemmons pushed me!”
Roy leaned over and deposited a Styrofoam to-go soup container on my bedside table. He strained the limits of the chair, looking about five seconds away from hulking out and breaking the fragile thing. He seemed utterly relaxed, and even so, his muscles bulged beneath his flannel shirt. Dressed like he was, he really did look like he was auditioning for the part of the paper towel man.