Djinn: Cursed (8 page)

I was curious what kind of car she drove.  She turned to a covered area in the alley, that had two heavy steel doors.  It was the type of cubbyhole restaurants and clubs used to put their dumpsters in so that people didn't try dumping their own trash in the dumpster without permission, filling them up.

I actually squeaked and chuckled when she pulled the doors open, steel hinges groaning in protest, to reveal a sleek black Harley with a matching sidecar.  Oh hell, could Hai get any sexier?

She handed me the hoodie, and I pulled it on and zipped it up as she rolled the bike out into the alley.  I glanced around, taking in the area.  It was a pretty typical alley and looked just as dank and dirty as it had been in the dark.

I oofed as a helmet was thrust into my belly and I had to let go of Dori's hand to catch it before it fell.  Hailey put on her own helmet.  A black one that when the light hit it just right, revealed that it was actually a purple so dark and deep that it simply looked black.

She dug in the sidecar and pulled out a beat up skull cap style white helmet that had a yellow smiley face sticker plastered on it.  She handed it to Dori, tongue in cheek, saying, “Safety first.”

Dorian said as she held up her middle finger an inch from Hailey's nose and deadpanning, “This is my middle finger in case you can't see it clearly.”

Again, I caught the smile as Hailey looked away from her, acting aloof.  She said almost like she was snapping out orders, “Angel, with me.  Sidekick, in the sidecar.”

I smiled at the two as I put my helmet on.  It matched Hai's but was actually shiny black like my hair.  I sort of liked the new look and wondered if I'd want to go back to my dirty blonde after all this.  If I survived all this.

Dori said, “I'm not the sidekick, you are, Suzy come lately.”  Then she added like they were just discussing the weather while she got into the sidecar while Hai smoothly mounted the bike, “Head west toward the coast then loop around toward the Bay, that will keep us off their radar.”

Hailey nodded once as she kicked down solidly, bringing the metal beast between her legs to life.  I awkwardly mounted up behind her and timidly placed my hands on her hips.  She shook her head without looking back and grabbed one of my hands at a time and pulled them firmly around her waist so that I was almost hugging her from behind.

Then moments later, we were screaming down the alley and out onto the streets, heading west.  After a few blocks, I let go of Hailey and spread my arms wide, letting the wind blow past them.  I felt my wings straining against the binding, wanting to be free.  I felt the exhilaration of flying again for the second time.  Only this time it was without my wings, and it made me feel so free, so alive.

I whooped, and Hai glanced back for a second with a crooked smile on my face.  I almost snorted when I glanced over to see Dorian almost pouting with her arms crossed over her chest as she sat in the sidecar with that silly smiley helmet on.

I reached a hand over as I wrapped my other back around Hailey's waist.  Dori broke into a smile as she reached out to take my hand.  It just felt natural.

I felt, I don't know, safe?  With the two of them there with me.

Then I sighed in disappointment as we pulled into the hospital's parking lot.  The ride was over.

Dorian was pulling her helmet quickly off.  “We need to get inside fast.  They say one of the men from the cars last night is walking around the hospital.  I think they know you'll try to see Billie.”

We stowed the helmets in the sidecar and hustled inside.  I whispered to Dorian, “How do they know?  We just got here.”

She looked like she wanted to roll her eyes but restrained herself as she said, “They went ahead to scout it out.”

Ok, now that was intriguing.  I had so many questions that had to wait until we had time and weren't being hunted by a crazy power hungry family.  Like, how did they get there before us? Can they fly?  Or can they just pop to different locations instantly, like some sort of ghostly teleportation?

Then I thought of something.  People died every day.  Were there millions, if not billions of ghosts in the world then?  She seemed to only talk to Randy, Robin, and Stacy.  I whispered to Dor as Hailey led us through the hospital toward the ICU wing, “Are there, you know, others around that can keep watch on Billie?  I mean, people die every day, there must be as many as the living in the city, right?”

She shook her head and said, “It doesn't work like that.  I still just think I'm crazy, but you have me questioning it with Stacy here.  Only those who died violent and senseless deaths leave a psychic imprint behind.”

She looked haunted.  Well, I guess she was.  She said, “When they realize I can talk to them, they hang around with me until they get bored and move on.  Only Randy and Robin have been with me since we met.”  She nudged her chin forward, indicating where they must have been.

The hospital was busy as always with lots of people wandering the halls.  I kept my head down, feeling as if everyone could see right through my disguise and someone would blurt out at any moment, “Here's the girl the entire city is looking for!”  It didn't happen, though.

As we approached the nurses desk, I saw a uniformed police officer standing by a door down the hall.  I knew without asking that that was where my friend was.  How in the hell were we supposed to get in?

Hailey brought us to stand beside the corridor, in the wide spot at an intersection where the nurse's station was.  She motioned for us to stay as she walked away and toward one of the many nurses on duty.

She spoke loud enough for her voice to carry but not quite loud enough to be overly obnoxious, “I'm here to see Willamina Beaumont.  I'm Hailey Frost, the one who saved her and wanted to see how she is.”

This got the police officer to push away from the wall he was leaning his shoulder against.  Billie's name pulling his attention.  He eyed Hailey as the nurse told her that only family members and hospital staff were allowed in Billie's room.  That's when our purple haired badass started to get animated, raising her voice a notch, but not enough to sound threatening.  “Oh, come on, you can make an exception for me, can't you.  I feel sort of responsible for her, you know, saving her and all.”

The nurse started to argue in a calm and measured tone that it was a police matter, if not hospital policy.  Hailey's voice went up again, with a frosty tone.  “Let me speak to the supervisor.”

The woman straightened, and said, “I am the supervisor.  Are we going to need to call security ma'am?  I understand your desire to see the girl, but it just isn't possible, and it is against hospital policy.”

The word security is what seemed to make the decision for the young officer by the door.  He straightened his belt and stepped past us to the nurse's station.  “Excuse me ladies, is there a problem here?”

Hailey glared at the man and said to him, thrusting her chest forward, “You're damn right there's a problem.  This woman won't let me check on the girl I saved last night.”  She was absently shooing us with one hand as she distracted the officer by pointing accusingly at the nurse.

I almost snorted, the cop was trying hard not to look at her chest she had puffed up like a prize chicken at the county fair.  Dorian clasped my hand and dragged me down the hall, and we slipped into the room the officer had been guarding.

I stopped dead at the sight before me and my breath caught.  There was my roommate, laying on the bed by the wall.  Half of her head was bandaged, her rich black hair shaved off and her face looked so swollen and purple and sickly yellow bruises shown through her dark chocolate skin, bandages in a few places on her other exposed skin.  She looked as though she had been dragged through a meat grinder or wood chipper but lived to tell the tale.  There were so many IVs and electrode leads hooked up to her.

I covered my mouth to prevent from making a distressed sound.  I raced to her side and looked down at her.  She seemed so... small?  Frail?  She had always been so strong and full of life.

I grabbed the clipboard hanging off the heart monitor and skimmed over it as I checked the monitors and the IVs.  Months of training kicking in.  She had a subdural hematoma, intracranial hemorrhaging from blunt force trauma.  Open and basal fractures.  One eye had fixed, unilateral mydriasis... a blown pupil.  Various contusions and abrasions.

I paused when I reached some notes from the doctor that looked little more than chicken scratching,  but I made out that she was conscious and aware.

I flipped through the chart to medications, they currently had her under mild sedation and on some pretty hefty pain killers.  I covered a mouth as I fought back tears.  That was an encouraging sign.  I released the chart and grabbed Billie's hand and gave it a squeeze in mild relief.

I heard her voice in my head, whispering in a thousand tones, “I wish the world would stop spinning.”  I almost pulled my hand away from her's.  The need to do something was almost overwhelming.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she groggily turned her head toward me, wincing and slowing down.  I patted her hand whispering, “Take it easy Bil, go slow.”

She stared blankly at me a moment, one eye blood red.  I saw no recognition in her expression, just confusion.  Then her eyes went wide, and she asked in a slurred, drugged out drawl, “Angel?  Damn girl, you look hawt.”

I felt a tear escape my watery eyes and roll down a cheek as I smiled softly at her.  I just nodded dumbly and said, “Yeah, it's me.”

She looked around at the monitors and IV trees and said, “I done got fucked up.”  She gave a crooked smile.

Then she looked panicked as she asked, “Stacy?”

I just grabbed her hand between both of mine and shook my head solemnly.  She closed her eyes and sobbed just once, trying to pull herself under control, fighting the medications, but failing.

Her good eye fixed on the deformity on my back and then Dorian standing at my side.  She whispered to me, likely thinking in her drug induced fog, that if she spoke quiet enough, Dori wouldn't hear, “Are you ok, Angel?  Your back.  Who's this?”

I smiled.  Here she was, laid up in the hospital with serious head injuries, and she was worried about me?  I loved my friends so much.  I shook my head.  “I'm fine Bil.  This is my friend, Dorian.  She sort of saved me after those guys came after me.”

She grinned. Obviously, the drugs were doing their job there in loopy land, she lifted a hand weakly and spoke behind it to me,  “And she's a cutie.  You two... you know?  Boom a chick a bow wow?”

I blushed from head to toe as I blurted out, “Billie!” I covered my mouth over my outburst and Dori, and I swung our gazes to the door, holding our breaths.  We could hear Hailey's voice raising yet again.  That was an obvious signal, time to go.

I leaned down and kissed Billie's cheek. “We gotta go, I can't explain now, but I'll be back.  I promise.”

Billie was under the thrall of her meds already, as she just smiled sleepily, her eyes closed as she started drifting off again.  Dorian asked the air as we reached the door, “Stacy?”  We stood there a moment then she smiled and nodded thanks to thin air and opened the door.  We snuck back out into the hall, then walked as normally as possible past the nurses station.

When Hai saw us pass by, she suddenly smiled at the two who were arguing with her and said amiably, “Well the rules are the rules I guess.  Have a great day you two.”  She turned to follow us, leaving two thoroughly confused people in her wake.

I had to bite back an inappropriate chuckle.

We navigated the twists and turns of the corridors in the sprawling hospital complex, making our way back toward the bike.  Hailey's eyes were scanning everything, they didn't seem to stop moving.

Dorian froze for a moment when a man in a dark suit stopped in a corridor crossing and looked around.  She whispered, “Robin says that's the guy.”

His eyes stopped their scan of the area and rested on Hailey.  Of course.  They hadn't seen Dorian yet, and I looked nothing like myself at that particular moment.

He looked from her, to us and squinted his eyes, then raised his wrist to his mouth and said something then started walking toward us as Hai gently nudged me back.

Hailey said calmly, “Keep going, I'll meet you at the bike.”

I glanced back as Dorian, and I backtracked.  The man was trying to act casual as he approached, his hand going slowly toward his jacket.  He was staring at Hailey and us, obviously trying to piece things together.

It was like something out of an action movie as soon as the two reached each other.  All pretenses were gone as his hand shot into his jacket reveling a shoulder holster, Hailey's hands were a blur as she spun backward, slapping his hand aside before he could grasp the grip of the gun he was reaching for.

Then they exchanged a flurry of blows and shin kicks.

Our protector, and a man almost twice her size, seemed evenly matched as people in the halls started yelling and moving away from the two.  I caught a glimpse of Hailey stepping past the man after ducking a blow and clotheslining the big guy as we turned down another hall.  Sending him snapping backwards and slamming down onto the floor

I absently wondered why he attacked her in broad daylight like that if they thought she knew where I was...  I paused.  He had probably been planning to threaten her with whatever weapon he had, kept it mostly hidden and led her out of the hospital.  He apparently hadn't got the memo about how well trained she was.

By the time we found our way out of the maze, we had come around the side of the building to the parking lot to see Hailey jumping on the bike and starting it up.  She scanned the area, and her eyes locked on us with laser focus, and she drove quickly toward us, engine roaring.

Dorian looked at me with a goofy grin. “Ok, even I have to admit.  That was kind of hot.”

I grinned at her, and we piled onto the bike when Hailey stopped, prompting urgently, “Come on ladies.  Let's go, let's go.”  Then we were off, turning down the first alley we came to as we fumbled with our helmets.