Forgotten (5 page)

Disinfectant dominated my sense of
smell, except for a scent I couldn’t place. It was faint, but
ethereal nevertheless. I patted my upper body down. My school
uniform was still intact – damp and sweaty but intact. My hands
were cold and clammy. A chill encased me. Didn’t the nurse keep
spare blankets somewhere close? Tissue paper shifted under me as I
sat up. I swung my legs over the side. My feet didn’t come close to
touching the floor. I rubbed my hands together and listened for any
sound that would indicate the nurse was nearby, nothing. There
wasn’t a sound, except for the background music. Wishing I had a
glass of water, I licked my dry lips.

“
You do have lustrous
lips,” Jace said and the organized thread of jumbled words seized
to resonance. His song stopped.

A trickle of heat crawled up my spine
as he sat down next to me. The tissue paper didn’t make a sound as
it shifted under his weight. It unnerved me to no end. How could
anyone be so soundless?

“
Is the nurse here?” I
asked.

“
She’ll be back soon,” Jace
said. His mood was light, but I could feel his eyes taking me in,
analyzing my actions, my appearance, and whatever he deemed
important. “I seek many things from you, but for you to fear me is
not one of them.”

“
I’m not afraid of you.” My
stomach knotted.

“
Then why are you
trembling?”

“
I’m not,” I said
defensively, and clutched my hands together.

He chuckled like he didn’t believe me,
not even for a second. The low tones in his laugh were hazardously
appealing. A voice that was as deep as his should have personality
to match. Of course, I hadn’t actually met many creepers – were
they all tempting?

“
What do you want with
me?”

“
Many things,” he answered.
Warmth flooded from him. Heat crawled over my body. “But it’s
obvious you need more exposure to others like us.”

“
Let me make this clear,
there’s no you and me – and there’s never going to be an
us
,” I said, making
quoting signs as I finished my sentence. What he could possibly
want from me made my skin crawl. I doubted that finding out would
make it less disturbing.

He nudged his shoulder against mine.
Muscle spasms erupted in my arm and upper body, even after he
stopped touching me. “You know, it doesn’t have to be this hard,
sitting next to me, Gwyneth. If you’d accept my presence instead of
combating it, the tension would ease, and dare I say you might even
enjoy the affect I have on you.”

“
I’m not making myself feel
like this,” I said as I put my head between my knees. Praying that
the world stopped spinning out of control, I focused on breathing
evenly and covered my eyes to block out his glowing
silhouette.

“
Give it time, I’ll grow on
you.”

“
You’re not doing
anything
on
me,” I
said, but stopped my rant when he began rubbing my back. He worked
on the knots, but his touch only made me stiffer. My elbows slipped
on my legs. Sweat dripped from my brow. “What do you want from
me?”

“
You aren’t ready to hear
what I have to say,” Jace whispered, as his fingers lingered on my
back. “If you can’t sit next to me without having such strong
reactions, I sincerely doubt you’re ready for what I have to
offer.”

No one else was in the room. What I
wanted to say was going to sound crazy, like lock me up
insane-crazy, but the question was begging to be asked. “Are you
going to kill me?”

Utter silence.

He didn’t move.

The tension in my stomach tightened,
but it wasn’t from whatever sickening effect he had on me. It
should have been an easy answer – right? No, I’m not going to kill
you. Why would there be any reason to hesitate? So why was he
hesitating?

My apprehension actually eased, the
longer I thought about the absurdity of the question – which made
no sense. If someone didn’t give an immediate answer to a question
like that, shouldn’t anxiety heighten? Instead, calmness passed
over me; I no longer felt like ripping out my stomach and stomping
on it. My head no longer pounded like a bass drum. My damp hands
dried.

Lowering my hands and opening my eyes,
I half expected him not to be there even though I could still feel
his hand on my back. His white silhouette still glowed next to me.
He whispered words that I didn’t understand. Time passed as I
listened to every syllable he spoke. Eventually he got around to
speaking my language.

“
I’d never kill you, unless
you beg me,” he promised.

What kind of a response was that? I
imagined my jaw hitting the floor. However my lips barely
parted.

“
Good, you’re awake,” the
nurse said, walking into the room.

“
I believe Miss Thompson
could use a glass of water,” Jace said cheerfully, hopping off the
mattress.

“
It’s Patterson,” I said,
and then wondered why he would suggest my last name was Thompson –
the surname of my foster parents.

“
Of course,” he said. A
hint of amusement lingered in his voice. He started to walk out of
the nurse’s office. “For a second I thought you might be blowing
smoke up my –”

“
Watch your mouth,” the
nurse warned.

“
I wasn’t sure if the name
your friend gave me at the bowling alley was real,” Jace said. “I
thought it might be a fake name and so I did a little
investigating.”

Martha raced into the nurse’s office
just as Jace left. Long ago she tried convincing me she was as
skinny as she wanted to be, (which meant she never dieted and hated
exercising but kept herself trim). She had long, flowing brunette
hair that retreated in length over the years (meaning that she let
Bree come near her with a pair of scissors to practice trimming it)
and claimed she wore magnifying glasses to hide her bland green
eyes. (There are times that I’ve considered my sight to be better
than hers even, even when she wears her thick rimmed
glasses.)

Kissing my forehead, Martha deemed I
had a fever and needed rest. The nurse suggested I take in extra
fluids. I’d sweated through my uniform in the short time Jace
played his sick game with me. The sixth-period bell chimed just as
Martha escorted me into the hallway. There was nothing like having
my foster mother rescue me to cap off a horrendous day.

Squeezing my hand in hers, Martha led
me to her ‘91 Ford minivan. In the past twenty years, this vehicle
taxied seventeen kids, but I was the only long-term and current
resident.

An oversized shadow was leaning
against the outside wall of McKesson High, watching Martha and me
pull out of the parking lot. It wasn’t until his head twitched that
I recognized him as Jace’s friend from the bowling alley. Were they
conducting surveillance on me?

I might have been slightly
paranoid.

“
Martha, does the tall guy
leaning against the building have deep red hair?”I asked,
remembering that Bree had mentioned his ginger roots.

She looked up. “Winnie, there’s nobody
out here.”

***

Martha’s husband showed up after she
watched me sip down two bowls of chicken broth that evening. After
reassuring his wife that we would call her if anything happened to
me, John helped me escape to the sanctuary of my bedroom. Max
eagerly followed us, holding a squeak toy in his mouth.

He was the father I never
had, or rather the one that had been stolen from me. He wasn’t the
type of man who’d wear a suit at work and forget to take it off at
home. Serving the Missoula area, John was one of the greatest
lawyers that Ashwick employed. Then again, I might have been a
touch biased. From what Bree told me, he looked like any dark
haired, tired, crusty lawyer on
Law and
Order
but had a smile to die for. Martha
always talked about how she fell in love with him because of the
sparkle in his eyes. Honestly, she was probably tickled pink that
he hadn’t sued her, after she spilled a hot cup of coffee on his
designer suit, years ago. Fate wove their destinies together. They
fell in love. Unable to have children of their own, they became
wonderful role models to countless abandoned children.

“
You okay?” John asked,
closing my bedroom door.

“
Pretty sure I just ate
something that disagreed with me, that’s all.”

I’d slipped into a pair of flannel
shorts and a purple colored t-shirt as soon as I got home, so I was
all ready for bed. I crawled onto the mattress and patted the
pillow top so my canine friend knew he was welcome. The entire bed
swayed as Max wagged his tail, happy he’d been invited to be my
cuddle-bud for the night.

John loosened his tie and sat down
next to me. “Martha’s getting a little overprotective,
again.”

“
She’s going through some
kind of kiddo withdrawal.”

“
A runaway might be bedding
down here for a bit, which might get her off your back,” John said
as he pulled my comforter over me. He knew all too well how
difficult it was for me to not get attached to the other kids in
their care. “But you never know how long kids like that will stick
around, so prepare yourself, okay, munchkin?”

“
You know I’m not a little
girl anymore,” I said, just as I hoped he’d never drop his personal
nickname for me. In his eyes, I’d always be the lost little
nine-year-old who showed up on his door one snowy
evening.

“
Of course,” John said as
he finished tucking me in. “Are you still up for watching the game
with me Thursday night?”

“
I’d never miss a
kickoff.”

With that he kissed me good-night and
left me alone with my thoughts. Sleep evaded me – which wasn’t
completely horrible since John tucked me in hours before I normally
went to bed. My mind kept drifting to the vision of my demise. I’d
be an old woman when death would take me from this life – and I
wasn’t wishing it away – but my soul burned for the reason why the
young man would kill me. The regret in his eyes before he killed me
made my chest hurt. It was clear he didn’t want my death, so how
could he go through with it? It’d take a lifetime for the answer to
unravel, but my intuition screamed that it was
imperative.

It was well into the night before my
eyes finally became heavy. As slowly as sleep took me, I woke
suddenly.

I was free-falling. As I collided with
the ground, it felt like my body was being ripped into pieces. My
skin seemed to melt away from my bones as they crushed under
unexplainable pressure. I retched and gagged, fighting the urge to
expel everything in my stomach. I held my head as my skull was
being crunched. A blast exploded in my ears.

Just as I quickly as I was torn apart,
my body pieced itself back together. I screamed into the night sky
with the first breath I could take. Gasping for air, I tried to
relax, which was exactly the opposite of what my body wanted. My
muscles tightened and relaxed like they weren’t sure how to
properly respond. I kneeled on my hands and knees, struggling to
breathe.

A tear escaped my eye and ran down my
cheek while I trembled on the ground. Horror erupted within me, but
my fear brought on the tears – had I just died? It was only then
that I realized someone had their hands placed tentatively on my
back.

“
Just breathe,” Jace
whispered.

I choked on the air. I couldn’t. My
lungs wouldn’t work properly. Sensing my distress, he began to
sing. It was in the language I didn’t understand, but my anxiety
lessened.

When breathing became natural again,
my awareness of my surroundings heightened. A moonless night
revealed little of my surroundings. Few shadows played in the
twilight. A light breeze twirled my hair around itself. The air was
cooler than it should have been. I shivered. My shorts and thin
cotton shirt weren’t much help. Crushed flower petals cushioned my
knees and palms. Their refreshing scent complimented the appealing
aroma of the young man behind me.

Jace worked knots from my back as I
straightened up into a kneeling position. Anticipating my
movements, he moved upright with me and situated himself snuggly
behind me. His hips molded perfectly against my backside. I told
myself that if I wasn’t so confused and shaken, I would push him
away and demand answers.

I closed my eyes, concentrating on the
aromas around me: burnt wood, flowers, grain… and a hint of Jace’s
smoky scent hung in the air as well. His hot breath hit my neck
when he whispered my name while I simultaneously heard the name
he’d spoken the night we first met. Deino.

My surroundings didn’t make sense,
given that I’d fallen asleep in my bed only to wake outside. I had
to be sleeping; it was the only logical answer.

“
Don’t fight me, not here,”
Jace demanded.

Staying as still as
possible, I counted to ten. This place didn’t feel real; it
couldn’t be real. It had to be some kind of nightmare with a
twisted happy ending. Jace confused me; if I was completely honest,
I’d admit I was - he scared me. My subconscious was working over
time to come up with a dream based on my
minor
attraction to him.