Leticia (45 page)

“In honesty Tish
,
” Tristan interrupted. “And to avoid pussyfooting around...
w
e don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Not long after you hit the deck, a few guys dragged him out of the house. We were too busy
fighting;
Jackson was too concerned with not letting anyone else get near you. We could
n’t
stop them. He fought against them as much as he could, but they overpowered him.”

“Did you
even try to get to him?”

“Of course we did.”
Nancy replied, seeming hurt by my question.
“Leticia if you get your memories back, if you remember how many came barging in
that
house, you will understand why we failed to save him. I told you, some of them were strong, they must have
ingested
some of Tristan’s blood.”

“Towards the end we were a man down, well, woman, but you know what I mean.” Tristan continued. “That affected us. It’s surprising how much difference being one person short can make
. However, once they had Luke they retreated. It seems it was actually
him
they wanted, not us
.”

“I’m sorry, I didn't mean to sound nasty towards you
,
” I told them. “Have you heard from any of them since?”

“Nothing. We’ve been on our guard, but we haven’t seen anyone around. They probably can’t find us. But no doubt they’ll track us in the end. Nancy did go out to see if she could find them, but obviously she changed her appearance. She was trying to find Luke, but sadly
she couldn’t.
There was no trace of the men
or
him, anywhere. She searched
every day
for two weeks, I did too. It seems only
G
od will know where they went.
”

“Oh
Jesus
, I don’t know what to do. I need to try and find him. God only knows what they’ll be doing to him, if they haven’t already killed him. But I don’t want to leave Jackson.
”

“
Well here’s an idea, why don’t Nancy and I go to Milton Keynes? We
can check the
lab out again, see if there’s any sign
of him.”

“Look Tristan, I can see why
you’re
thinking that, but do you really think they would be stupid enough to go back there? They know we’ve been there already.
..
”

“It’s got to be worth a look
,
” Nancy said.

“I agree, they may not be staying there but they could have paid the place a visit. We
w
on’t know until we look.” Tristan
continued.

“
Now think of it this way, what if their expecting you to go there...
What if you both walk into a trap?”

“We’ll go prepared. Only one of us will go inside
while
the other keeps watch, just in case. We’ve spoke about this for the last week or so, we’ve got a good plan. Trust me.”

“Right,
OK
..
.
It seems it won’t matter what I say, you’ll go anyway.

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I guess so...
When are you thinking of going?”

“Pretty darn soon. Better to go
while
these creeps have no idea where we are. I don’t fancy losing
this
house too, and if there are only two of us here, we could.”

“Are you going to wait to see what happens with Jackson?”

“Of course we are
,
”
he
assured me. “We’re not going anywhere until he is back to normal.”

“Are you
OK
?” Nancy asked me. “Seriously.”

“Not really,
I
’ve lost three weeks of my life
and wake up to find
the guy I adore is in coma upstairs
.
T
he people I care about are in constant danger and have lost their home, and a man I used to care deeply about has been taken and I have no idea where he is. So all in all, it’s not been a good day.”

“Don’t worry about us, we keep telling you. We don’t regret getting involved. As for Jackson, we
will
return him to normal
, and with regards to
Luke, we’ll find him
,
” Tristan
assured
me.

I didn’t respond there was nothing I could say that I hadn’t already said a thousand times at least. I looked at the clock, it was gone three. I excused myself and went upstairs to Jackson’s room; when I walked in, I noticed he’d moved. This morning, he was
lying
on his back, his arms straight by his sides. Now he was
lying
on his side. I almost screamed for Nancy, before running over to him.

“Jackson
,
” I said shaking him. “Jackson can you hear me
?
”

There was no
response
.

“What’s the matter?” Nancy asked, running in with Tristan.

“Look, he’s moved.”

Nancy knelt down beside me, shaking him and calling his name.
In the end she shook him so hard that he ended up rolling on his back again.

“COME ON!” she shouted at him. “WAKE UP!”

“Nancy,” Tristan said, grabbing her arms. “
It
’s
not going to work my love.”

Every tiny bit of hope I’d felt only seconds ago, left me. I felt empty.

“Why don’t you both leave him be.” Tristan suggested, walking Nancy out of the room. “Come on Tish.”

I took a deep breath and nodded.

Just as I reached the end of the bed, he shot up straight, eyes wide and gasping for breath.

Nancy and Tristan spun around. I quickly cupped Jackson’s face.

“It’s
OK
, it’s
OK
, calm down, you’re
OK
,
” I told him.

“You’re alive
,
”
he
croaked.

“
Y
es.”

“Oh thank
G
od.”

I didn’t get to speak to him for a few minutes then, as Nancy decided to dive on him. He didn’t seem to understand why everyone looked so relieved.
He
didn’t have any idea what had happened to him and how long he’d been out of it.
I knew how that felt.

“Are you
OK
?” Tristan finally got to ask him.

“I’m starving.”

“Yeah that means you’re
OK
,” he laughed.

Nancy then decided to go and cook her brother something nice, and thankfully, Tristan went with her.

“I feel
as
stiff as a board,” Jackson moaned.

“Well, you’ve been
lying
there quite a while.”

“What’s going on, what’s happened?”

“
Eat
first, I’ll tell you later.”

“No, tell me now.”

I couldn’t refuse, I
’d
wanted to know everything straight away and Nancy had been good enough to tell me. I sat on the edge of the bed and told him everything I knew.
The more I explained, the more annoyed and agitated he got, until finally, he snapped.

“Three weeks!!” he bellowed
.
“Three goddamn weeks!!”

“Jackson calm...”

“I thought you were dead, you were limp in my arms
;
I
honestly
thought I’d lost you. I was shocked to say the least when I saw you in front of me, not a mark on you... now on top of that I find out that my house has been destroyed, we’ve lost Luke who was the only link we had to them, and I’ve lost out on three weeks of my life. Don’t tell me to calm down.”

“I’m...”

“I swear to god, I will find each and everyone of these bastards and pull the
ir
bleeding heads off. I’ll find this
“
Boss”
person
and torture the arrogant,
self-centred
son of a bitch for the rest of his life.”

“Jackson, I understand you’re pissed off baby, I really do; I am too. Extremely. But we both need to get our strength back before we attack, and, we need to
find
them in order to
actually
attack.”

“I’m sick of this shit now. I just want it over and for us, me and you, to be happy.”

“We will be, I promise.
But at th
is
precise moment in time, can we get you back to normal?”

“I feel fine. Just stiff that’s all. When Nancy comes up with whatever she’s cooking, I’ll be great.”

“
OK
.
” I
said
, before walking over to the window.

“Leticia, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

A moment later I felt his arms wrap around my waist.

“Don’t lie to me.” he said, turning me to face him.

“
You just wake up after three weeks of being in a coma.
OK
so you feel well. But don’t you think
it’s
a bit stupid to instantly want to go out fighting.
I know how you feel, I mean, I want to find Luke, I can’t bare the thoughts of him going through all that again, but I can’t yet. It’s just something I have to deal with. If we go now, we could both end up dead. We’re not dealing with normal people.
..
”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry
,
” he said pulling me close to him. “I’m just so annoyed.”

We stood by the window, holding each other until Nancy came in. Then much to Jackson’s displeasure, I left them alone for a while.
I needed time on my own with
my
thoughts.

Later that evening we all sat together in the living
room
. It felt strange. Knowing that only yesterday two of us were comatose, and yet here we all were together again, almost as though nothing had happened. It was great, but strange. Jackson stayed glued to me all night, just holding me and kissing me. None of us spoke much since all we
seemed to
talk about was Luke and what was going on. So we decided to just watch some TV.

Since Jackson seemed to be fully healed, which also amazed us, and Tristan was going to remove any traces of silver left in my system later on, it was decided that he and Nancy would travel to Milton Keynes tomorrow. Jackson and
I
were to remain here, but be on call just in case. Neither of us
was
particularly happy about it, but no matter what we said, they wouldn’t change their minds. We wanted to go with them, but like Tristan said, we needed to be here to monitor things, and try and track them down in case they
were still in the nearby area.

Just before bed, Tristan
sucked the last of the silver out of my bloodstream.
He
didn’t have to take much at all, which I was relieved about. He didn’t even take enough to make me sleepy. Jackson
and
Nancy would
n’t
come in the room, I understood Nancy’s reasons, I’d had them explained to me. But Jackson had no reason to stay away.
The only thing he’d said, before shooting Tr
istan a rather evil look, was for me to go and see him afterwards.

When I walked in his room
he
was already under the duvet, he smiled at me and patted the bed, wanting me to sit with him.

“How are you feeling?” He asked.

“A lot like me again,
I think after a good
night’s
sleep,
I’ll be back to normal.” I said, sitting beside him.

“Good, I’m glad.”

“I can’t believe we both woke up on the same day, don’t you think that’s a bit strange?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it, maybe
it’s
just coincidence.”

“Hmmm
.
”

“Does it matter really, we’re both
OK
. I don’t feel any different
than
I normally
do;
even the stiffness has worn off now. You still look as amazing as ever, you feel...”