The laughter was there again….
…“Six,” Fischer whispered in my ear. “Goddamn it, Gloria, six.” He looked up at a dark figure laughing in the background, and his voice was rough and gutted when he screamed at them, “Why are you doing this to us?”…
…I held Bastian desperately to me, the blood from his wound smearing down my arms. His eyes were already dead, and a moment later, there was nothing for me…
…The fire roared around us, as Bastian and I huddle with another man and Wren. She and I were in tears and the other two just looked shocked, destroyed. The smoke was roiling through the tiny room and the acrid stench burned our noses.
“Stand up,” the other man said. “Stand up. Inhale the smoke. I don’t want to burn to death. If we breathe in the smoke, we’ll pass out long before the fire touches us.”
“I don’t want to give up,” Wren said.
I leaned over and kissed her hard. “We aren’t done yet. We will win this.”
She smeared away the tears and glanced at Bastian. He nodded once and all four of us stood to breathe the hot smoke in…
Bastian was staring at me. I saw the gray of death on the edge of my vision, closing in.
He leaned in. “Don’t breathe the smoke this time, baby. Don’t do it. Fight. The ambulance is already on it’s on way.”
“Bastian?” It was Wren’s voice from the hall. She burst into the office as my vision got a little darker. “Oh, God! Paige!”
She dropped to the carpet next to me and grabbed my hand. “Don’t go, Paige. Don’t.”
I didn’t want to.
But the black was there, laced with cruel laughter.
Bastian
I wanted to puke.
I didn’t even care that my back was killing me, and I hadn’t moved from this position in nearly an hour. My legs were numb, my arms were numb, and my face was covered in tears.
Wren was curled against me in not much better shape. Every once in a while, I could feel her shake with the sobs she tried to hide.
“Jesus,” Lincoln whispered, halting in the door.
Looking up, I knew we were a sight. The nurses had made us both wash up in the scrub-in room in the ER, but we still had blood all over our clothes.
Paige’s blood mostly. But there were a few smears on my cuffs that were from where I had smashed Alain’s face to shit. Had a few cuts from that as well.
“What’s going on?” Fischer asked. “You were hysterical on the phone, Bastian.”
“Alain came after Paige,” I answered. “He stuck her with a Bowie knife, right in the side.”
“That’s all her blood?” His eyes went wide.
“Yes.”
He turned on his heel and marched out of the room, back down the hall.
“He’ll get the whole story for us. Well, the medical side. What the hell?” He gestured to us vaguely.
“Alain stabbed her. I think after he tried to make her walk,” I explained. “She wouldn’t go with him, so he went all me-or-no-one on her.”
“Where’s the prick now?”
“A few doors down, getting his face fixed.”
Lincoln smirked and nodded. “Well done. Concussion?”
“I sure fucking hope so.” I rubbed my knuckles a bit, and grinned. “I smashed the hell out of his face.”
“I kind of wish you’d killed him.” Wren took my hand in hers and rubbed the bruises that were starting to show. “I don’t even feel bad about that.”
“He’ll go to jail,” I said. “He slid a knife into his pregnant wife’s side. Judges and juries don’t really like that.”
“All the divorce papers are set up,” Lincoln added. “Even if the divorce is contested, it won’t be a long process now since he’s got about a half dozen charges against him. Including attempted murder.” Glancing back at the door, Lincoln sighed. “What happened? Will she be okay?”
I took a few minutes to explain what had happened when I got back with the drinks from Starbucks. Seeing Alain holding her arm like that had just snapped something inside me.
“How did you get there so fast, Wren?” Lincoln cocked his head. “Your office is at least five minutes away, and you were there in seconds.”
She picked a fingernail. “Remember that knowing thing that keeps happening? It happened again and I knew I had to get to her office as fast as I could. I ran the whole way, but…”
“Don’t take blame for this,” I said, kissing the top of her head. “Neither of us was to blame. He was waiting for me to leave, I know he was. He is not sane.”
Wren nodded. “No, he’s not.”
“So, what do you know about Paige’s condition?” Lincoln asked.
I took a deep breath. “Virtually nothing.”
“They wouldn’t let us ride in the ambulance with her, we had to follow in the car.” Wren was clearly pissed about that. “And when we got here, they were all over us about not allowing anyone in except her family. They wouldn’t even hear us about the POA, or that we’d been there when this happened.”
“They rolled the fucker in right behind her.” My words were bitten off, chewed, but I didn’t feel like tempering what I was really thinking.
“Haven’t heard a thing since you came in,” Lincoln mumbled, drawing the right conclusion.
“Not a thing.” Wren’s eyes were so sad.
“Fischer and I will clear that up.” He eyeballed both of us. “I’m also sending in scrubs for you two. Get the hell out of those clothes.” He turned, about to leave, but stopped himself. He walked over to us, and squatted down.
“This is all Alain. This was not you. Whatever happens, this was not your fault.” His hand rested on Wren’s cheek and she nodded. He put a hand on my thigh, and I nodded. Even though he was right, that wasn’t how I felt at that moment.
Standing he leaned down and gave her a kiss, then took my chin and gave me one as well. It was…rejuvenating in a way I didn’t understand but also didn’t question. He was gone the next moment.
“Wren, baby.” I leaned us back on the chair and pulled her in close. “Paige saw things before she passed out. I saw them, too, through her eyes. It was pretty revealing.”
She let out a breath. “I don’t know if I can handle it right now. I’m so damn raw and unready for this.”
“No, you need to know. She’s died before. We’ve all died before. So far in that there were five and six of us gathered to you. She saw her deaths, and mine, and yours.” I grabbed her hand, but didn’t force images on her. “We’ve all died over and over. Someone is keeping us all from getting together again, and they are gleeful each and every time we die.”
Wren stared at me, her eyes wide and frightened. “If she dies, the cycle has to start again.”
“If any of us dies, it has to start again.”
“How many times has this happened?”
“I don’t know. I saw six, but who knows how many times she or I weren’t there.”
She scrubbed her hands over her face. “Christ. Bastian, what is this? We keep dying before what happens? And what happens if we get all eight of us together again? Damn it, Paige was doing so well with us. She was getting it, she was getting to be part of a family. And now…”