Breath on the Wind (21 page)

The curtains parted again as the doctor swept in.  Chiz figured he was getting old because all the doctors he encountered were starting to look younger, like, not-old-enough-to-have-graduated-high-school-yet younger.

“I’ll be back soon, doll.”  Ignoring the doctor’s look of disapproval, Chiz pressed a kiss to Elmo’s forehead before he followed Shane out of the cubicle and back to the reception area.  Shark was still standing at the door.  His sheer size, along with the kutte, encouraged people to give him a wide berth.  He was an island of calm amid an ocean of pandemonium.

“Shark, meet Shane.  Shane, this is Shark.”  Chiz affected the introductions with a wave of his hand.  The two men, both walking mountains in size, acknowledged each other with a nod.  Shark was obviously still not feeling too friendly.

“So, wha’d’ya know?”  Chiz asked.

Shane looked around them, then dropped his voice low as he spoke.  “They’re sayin’ it could be anythin’, a gas leak or some shit like that.  Bullshit.  It was bomb.”

Chiz immediately understood the need for discretion.  If nothing else, the B word would unleash panic in the crowded room.  “Why the fuck would anyone want to blow her club up?”

“We’ve been havin’ some difficulty with a church down the block.  The First Church of Christ.  Real hardliners.  They’ve been hasslin’ us for months, ever since they found out we catered to that bit more.  Usually they just camped out and shouted at the customers.  The other night they went for the boss lady personally.”

Chiz was assaulted by more emotions than he could name.  Shane noticed the effect his words had had.

“Not like that.”  He assured Chiz quickly.  “She got home to graffiti all over her house.  They must’ve been real stealthy, the neighbors didn’t see shit.  The law don’t wanna know.  Kept sayin’ they couldn’t do anythin’ while it was just nuisance shit.”

“This is a bit more than nuisance shit.”  Shark said.  “How many were hurt?”

Shane ran his hand over the bandana covering his head and tugged at his ponytail.  “I’ve been here since I got the call from one of the guys who owns a bar opposite.  It looks like almost everyone inside was killed.  Four of ours, four customers, Joe, the other guy who worked the door with me, and two cleaners.  Eleven people in all.  Joe was blown clear out the building, right through the widow onto the street.  The only person who was inside who made it was Jackie.  You remember her?”

Chiz wracked his brain.  “Yeah.”  Jackie had been the lighter of two blondes who’d introduced themselves, and made sure that he was comfortable, and had a drink in his hand, on the night he’d met Elmo at the club.

Shane’s mouth twisted into a grimace.  “She lost a leg and banged her head real bad.  They’re lookin’ at spinal damage, too.  She lost a lot of blood.  She’s somewhere between surgery and ICU.  There wasn’t much I could do there, so I’ve been stayin’ with Andy.”  Shane motioned at the people in the room.  It looked as though the medical staff were beginning to regain some form of control.  “These guys are all people off the street.  They got hit by glass and debris mostly, like Andy.”

“So what’re the cops gonna do about it now?”  Chiz asked.

Shane looked like he’d smelled something offensive.  “My guess is nothin’.  They ain’t interested in helpin’ us out.  Either they disapprove of us just as much as those fuckin’ nuts do, or they just won’t get up off their fat, donut-munchin’ asses.”

“Question is, how’d the Church get a device into your place?”  Shark was scanning the room as he asked the question.

Shane shook his head.  “I don’t know.  I’m certain from the way Lenny described how it went down, how it looked, that it was somethin’ deliberate.”

“They damaged their own building to do it.”  Chiz mused.

“That’s just it.”  Shane said, almost too quietly to hear.  “They’ve had their windows boarded up since day one.  They painted ‘em with all sorts of religious shit, real colorful, so no one said anythin’ or thought anythin’ of it.”

“Fuckin’ bastards.”  Chiz breathed.  He was almost astonished at the audacity, but only almost.  He’d seen too much to be truly surprised at the lengths people would go to for whatever they believed in.

He was distracted by Shane jerking his head.  “The doctor’s out.”  Chiz followed his nod.  The doctor that had been in to see Elmo was now talking to a nurse over by the reception desk.

Chiz went back to the cubicle by himself.  He found Elmo perched on the edge of the bed.  She was dressed in what she had obviously been wearing when the explosion had happened.  Her leather skirt was scuffed and scarred.  It was long enough to meet the top of her boots, which Chiz figured explained why her legs weren’t bandaged.  Her sweater was torn up and ragged.  As he took her in, he experienced the completely foreign sensation of just wanting to get her somewhere safe and private where he could look after her.

Elmo looked up at him with a tight smile.  “They’re cutting me loose.”

Before he could say anything, her attention was distracted by movement of the curtains behind him.  Chiz turned to see a round man, balding, and overcompensating for it with collar-length hair and a moustache.  He smelled ‘Cop’ even before he saw the badge pinned to the guy’s belt.

“Detective Hill.”  Despite her fragility, Elmo’s tone was distinctly unfriendly.  Chiz guessed that Shane really did have more than a personal natural dislike of the police to color his view of their lack of action about the religious harassment.

“Ms. Broussard.”  Chiz could tell straight away from the detective’s tone that he was going to be no use whatsoever.  He actually sounded smug.  Eleven people dead, and the bastard almost sounded happy about it.  “I just wanted to get your statement.”

Either this guy had a memory like no other, or he was going to make Elmo’s statement up himself, because he hadn’t bothered to get his notebook out.  As battered and bruised as she was, that fact hadn’t escaped Elmo, either.  It showed in the skeptical tilt of her eyebrows.

“There’s nothing I can tell you, detective.  One minute I was standing on the sidewalk, the next I was on my ass being showered with glass.”  Chiz could see the effort that Elmo was making to appear nonchalant.  It showed in the strain in her face.

Chiz swallowed the urge to reach for his gun, and found some politeness that he didn’t know he’d ever had.  “Detective, if you don’t mind, Andrea’s had a hell of a day.  I’m sure you’ll be able to swing by her house tomorrow, if you’ve got any questions.”

The cop looked Chiz over, as if noticing him for the first time.  His brow creased, but he resisted from saying anything.  He addressed Elmo directly again, ignoring Chiz.  “Well, if you think of anything else, Ms. Broussard, please call me.” 

The detective left the cubicle.  The fucker hadn’t left his card.  He didn’t give two craps whether Elmo called him or not.

Elmo slumped, and sighed.

“You okay to walk, doll?”

“I think so.  Everything hurts.  They won’t give me the good stuff.  I need someone to stay with me, and wake me every two hours if I go to sleep.”

“You’ve got a walkin’, talkin’ alarm right here, doll.”

They were interrupted by a nurse carrying a battered handbag.  “This is yours, honey.”  She presented the scratched purse to Elmo.  “A patrolman brought it by for you.  He said your cell is toast, though.  Your cab’s here, too.”

“That’s okay.  Thank you.”

The nurse nodded and left. 

Elmo did a quick inventory of the contents of her bag.  “Guess I’m okay for cab fare.”  She slid off the bed with a pained gasp.

“You wouldn’t’ve had to worry about that anyway, doll.”

Chiz took Elmo’s arm carefully.  She didn’t need much support to walk, but she leaned on him a little as they walked out to where Shane and Shark were waiting.

“S’good to see you up and about, boss lady.”  Shane grinned.

“Yeah.  Thanks for keeping me company, Shane.”

“No problem.”  His smile faded. “I’m gonna go find Jackie.  She should be out of surgery soon.”

“Let me know how she is, please?”  Andy asked, a frantic note in her voice.

“Will do, boss lady.”  Shane leant down and pecked her on the cheek, before he disappeared further into the hospital.

Chiz escorted Elmo out through the doors with Shark following.  He wasn’t interested in affecting introductions, only in getting Elmo comfortably into her ride.  Plus, he wasn’t entirely sure what to say.  The cab was right outside.  Chiz helped Elmo into the back seat, and leaned in.  “I’m gonna follow you home, doll.”

He closed the door before she could argue, and patted the top of the vehicle to send the cab on its way.

As they were starting their bikes, Shark asked, “Don’t s’pose she’s got a guest room?”

“Sorry, brother.  She lives in a fuckin’ shoebox.”

“Don’t worry.  I’ll find myself a bed.  I’ll call you and let you know where I end up.”

“Okay. I’m gonna go catch up with my girl.”  The taxi had pulled away, and was almost out of sight.

Shark was smirking as he fastened his helmet and got comfortable on his bike.  “Yeah, bro.  You go do that.”

Chapter Nineteen

She’d missed Chiz overtaking the cab on his bike.  Given the volume of the damn machine, Andy thought she would have heard it.  Maybe he’d taken a different route, or maybe she’d zoned out.  Zoning out would be bad.  The doctor had given her a list of symptoms to be wary of, and should she experience them, she was under instructions to get her backside back to the hospital.  She didn’t want to go back to the hospital.

Chiz was waiting outside her house when the cab pulled up.  He’d been there long enough to have dismounted – he was perched on the side of the saddle – but not so long that he wasn’t still staring at what was left of the graffiti.  He stood when the cab pulled halfway into her driveway; his bike was occupying the other half.  It occurred to Andy that her car was still in the lot near what was left of the club.  She had no idea what condition it was in, but she didn’t care enough to worry about it for more than a moment or two.

Andy ached from her toes right to the roots of her hair. As she was carefully easing herself out of the vehicle, Chiz paid her fare.

“I’d’ve got that.”

Chiz replied with only a look, like she was speaking nonsense.

Chiz came up close as she fished in her bag for her keys.  The cab pulled away, probably a little quicker than normal, having seen the scrawl over her walls.

“When’d this happen, doll?”

“Sunday night.”

Chiz’s face twisted.  “Damn, I wasn’t far from this neck of the woods on Sunday.”

Andy found the keys and got them into the lock on the second attempt, just as Chiz was reaching for them.  Once she’d twisted the handle, he pushed the door wide, and ushered her into her own house with his hand on the small of her back.  He followed her in and shut the door behind them.

He spoke before she could even utter a word, not that she was sure whether she’d been about to protest or not.  “I’m stayin’ tonight.  I wanna keep an eye on you.  You want me to sleep on the couch?”  He gave the piece of furniture a dirty look, “Then I will, but you’re not on your own.”

As if to emphasize his statement, he took her keys from her limp fingers, and locked the door.

“Sit.”  He instructed.  As Andy complied, Chiz wandered through to her kitchen.  “You want a drink?  Somethin’ to eat?”

Andy tried to get comfortable; it was virtually impossible.  Her lower back was screaming, and her legs felt like spaghetti.  Her stomach turned at the thought of food.

“No.  No food.”  She put the back of her hand against her mouth, wondering just how uncooperative her stomach was going to be.  Retching would hurt.  She really didn’t want to throw up.  “Just water.  Please.”

She heard Chiz rummaging around, and filling a glass straight from the tap.  When he brought it to her, he gave the glass to her, along with a couple of pain pills that he tapped out of the prescription she’d been given at the hospital.  He crouched down in front of her.  She swallowed the pills, and drank the water down in long gulps.  Once the glass was empty, she began to turn it around and around, running her fingers over the smooth grooves of the cut crystal.  Chiz had brought her one of the glasses she normally drank whiskey from.

Andy supposed she should feel anger or resentment towards him.  They’d never made each other any promises, but he’d run out on her like she meant nothing, after he had turned her life upside down.  But she couldn’t call those emotions up. Whatever had happened, he’d come to be by her side, ridden a journey hours long the moment he knew she was in trouble.  That was some powerful magic to cancel out his mistake.  A mistake he’d admitted to making.  Andy wasn’t sure how much trust was there, but there was the beginning of some, maybe.

And just like that, with no warning, the tears came.  As if being in her house, being with Chiz, finally being in a place of normality and relative safety, had given her permission to break down.

“I was just on the street.  Talking to you.  I don’t know what hit me first, the sound or the air.  And then there was glass everywhere.  I saw Joe.  I knew he was dead, I just knew, and when I saw him, I knew where the blast had come from.  I had to go see, had to try to help.  I found Jackie, and pieces of people.”

“Shhh, doll.  You don’t have to do this.”  Chiz rubbed his palms over her calves, from her ankles to her knees, but she neither heard nor felt him.

“It was too early for the strip club to be open.  It could’ve been so much worse.”  Andy put her hand to her mouth again, feeling the bile rise as she remembered the disembodied arm.  The more the sight reoccurred to her, the more she was sure it had been Emma’s limb.  Something about the understated French manicure, and the graceful fingers, had seemed awfully familiar.

“If it had been later, Joe might have been outside.  He might have been okay.  But upstairs was full.  It was booked full all day.  Tuesdays were always our busiest day.”

Chiz stiffened, and his hands stilled their circuits on her legs.  “Who would have known that?”

Andy hiccupped.  “I don’t know.  We kept a paper diary, because I was worried about hackers.”  She sobbed again.  “It was always out on my desk.  Anyone who went in my office could’ve looked in it.”

“When you’re feelin’, stronger, doll, I’m gonna want to ask you who had access to your office.”

Andy nodded dumbly, and tried to keep from retching again.  “I can still smell it.  Burnt meat and something chemical, something sharp, and the bricks or the concrete.  I can’t stop smelling it, and that burnt meat, it was my friends, people who trusted me.”

“Hang on, doll.”

Chiz pushed himself to his feet, and disappeared further into the house.  Andy stared at the laminate floor, memorizing the false knots in the false wood, trying to breathe shallow breaths though her tears.  She saw Chiz’s feet when he dropped down in front of her again.

“Here you go, doll.”

She looked up.  He was holding out a tub of vapor rub.  He unscrewed the lid, dipped his finger into the salve, and with more gentleness than she would have credited him with, rubbed the ointment on her upper lip, under her nose.

The world no longer smelled like a horror movie.  Now it smelled like menthol.  It smelled like days wrapped in her fluffy dressing gown, sipping hot, sweet tea while watching trashy television.  It smelled normal.

“I’m alive.”  The words escaped as a gasp.

“Yes, you are.”  Chiz finished screwing the top back on the little tub, and set in down on the floor.  There was something frenzied in his touch when he gripped her calves again.  “I was so scared.  When I heard the bang.  When the line went dead.  When I got to the club, and saw what it looked like.  I ain’t never been that scared.  Never.”

Andy knew that he was telling her more with his earnest words than he was actually saying, that he was trusting her with some knowledge about himself, about her.

“But I’m alive.” The words were stronger this time, and they were accompanied by an all-consuming wave of euphoria.

Chiz didn’t say anything, but Andy felt the need to reaffirm the statement somehow, to reaffirm her state of being.  Because she was actually being, she was living, and breathing, and whole, when so many people were not. 

She dropped the glass absently as she leaned forward and hooked her hand around the back of Chiz’s neck.  He hadn’t pulled away, but she wasn’t going to give him the chance.  What she wanted to do was slide off the sofa onto his lap, but the tight skirt she was wearing didn’t give her that range of movement.  All she could do was press her lips to his.  At first he didn’t respond, except to move his hands from her calves to her shoulders to push her back.

“You sure you want this, doll?”

“Please…”

He rolled to his feet, dragging her with him by his grip on her shoulders.  He pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her back as he did so.  He kissed her, although kiss was not the word.  It was something else altogether.  Chiz took her mouth as he crushed her against his solid body.  Andy twined her own arms around him, pressing herself closer until there was barely room enough between them to draw breath.

She could feel him, every inch of him.  His tongue was silken, yet demanding against hers.  The wall of his chest was a firm mass of muscle behind his clothing.  She could feel his cock, hard in his jeans, against her lower stomach.  They were too clothed.  They weren’t close enough.

Andy broke the kiss and pulled back.  Chiz took a step back, looking almost... bashful.

“Doll, I’m sorry, you’re not...”

But he stopped speaking when he realized that Andy was tugging her frayed sweater over her head.  Once she was rid of what was left of that garment, she went for the zipper on her skirt, and shimmied out of it.  She stood before him in her lingerie, knee high boots and bandages, while he was still fully clothed, and went to unhook her bra.  Unfortunately, that was a step too far.  Her stitches had made their presence known when she’d pulled her sweater off, but they outright screamed when she tried to reach up to her back for the clasp of her bra.

“Let me.”  His voice was little more than a growl. He spun her round.  He swept her hair over one shoulder then he unfastened her bra and slid the straps over her shoulders and down her arms.  He kissed the back of her neck, and then her shoulder, sucking gently at the skin before nipping sharply with his teeth.  Once her bra was on its way to the floor, he slid his fingers back up her arms.  It was a light touch and raised gooseflesh in its wake.

But Andy didn’t want tender, she didn’t want gentle.  She wanted a definite affirmation of her survival.  She twisted away from Chiz and headed to the bedroom.  At the doorway she paused with her hand on the frame and turned.  Chiz was watching her, but he hadn’t moved. 

“You coming?”

Watching him come towards her was almost terrifying.  Intensity radiated from him.  He practically knocked her backwards into the room. She stumbled on her heels as he kept walking into her, until her legs hit the bed.  Andy let herself drop onto the mattress and scooted back into the middle of the bed.  She thought Chiz would follow her down.  It looked for a moment like he might, but then he was stripping, quickly and efficiently, until he was gloriously naked.

He put one knee on the bed, and caught the side of her thong at her hips.  He yanked it down, causing her hips to bounce on the bed, until he was able to wrangle it over her boots.  And then he was on her, over her, his body pressing along the full length of hers. 

He was kissing her again, although that was still too tame a way to describe the way he was devouring her, and the way in which Andy was taking what she wanted in return.  She felt him grip her hip, felt his fingers dig into her flesh, and she pulled her knees up, wrapping her legs around him, crossing her ankles at the small of his back.

Chiz surged into her.  Andy threw her head back, breathing her scream in, rather than letting it loose.  Chiz slid his hands under her back, until he could take hold of her shoulders and pull her body down onto his.  He took the opportunity to fasten his mouth to the join of her neck and shoulder.  He set his teeth into the tender skin as he thrust into her, hard and fast.  Andy dug her nails into the muscles that layered his shoulder blades, ignoring the pain in her arms.  It soon became lost in the sensations flooding every other part of her body.  She marveled at the flexing ridges, which were even more defined than she remembered.  Vitality was almost a tangible aura around him, emanating from the flow of his muscles as he moved.

She arched off the bed, trying to press into him, through him.  His cock was hot and unforgiving in its invasion of her flesh, but that was exactly as she wanted it.  Andy felt herself climb, felt the delicious spiral as her orgasm began to grow and expand, until it flooded her body with a feeling better than ecstasy.  But then Chiz was no longer thrusting into her.  He’d pulled out, but his cock was still trapped between them, and his hips were still moving.  That silky steel shaft was rubbing over and over against her clit, burning and urgent against her naked mound.  It was only as he began to come, grunting into her neck, and when Andy felt his scalding sticky semen spurt between them, that she realized what he was doing, and that she’d never told him he didn’t need to worry.