The Rock Star Next Door, a Modern Fairytale (53 page)

He remembered well the panic attack she had over a month ago, the one that sent her to the hospital and the subsequent diagnosis of a mild heart condition. Jessie’s pale white hand was
splayed over her heart
. He noted it, but figured
it was due to the emotion of the moment.
“Are you all right, sweetheart?
” He asked, just to be sure.

“Yeah.”  Her answe
r wasn’t convincing
. Her voice was thin, high, almost child-like.

“
You
!”

The
vehemence in that one word from across the room was enough to make Lex turn his head to the owner of that malicious hiss
. The dumpy blonde woman opposite them made the hackles rise on the back of his neck as he experienced a frightening sense
of
déjà
vu. Lex knew this woman. He
knew her from a past encounter. He couldn’t place her exactly, but every fiber of his being screamed danger. He froze,
instinctively put
ting his arm
in front of Jessie in a protective gesture
to prevent her from advancing toward the dangerous wretch
.

Th
e attendants kept talking to Jessie’s mother
as they closed in on her from either side. “Now, Marcie, don’t get upset. Your daughter is here to see you. She came all the way from California, just like your
son. Isn’t that nice?
”

Marcie
started muttering to herself. She turned away from them, nervously
twisting her fingers through her dirty blonde hair with neurotic agitation.
She started tugging at her ear
and then licked her palm and ran it over her hair as if to smooth it.

“So, Mom,
I guess this is goodbye.” Jessie said in a shaky voice that wound tight, curling fingers around Lex’s hea
rt
.

“Goodbye?” The wild eyes turned about to face them. “Good
bye?” She screeched like a Kyrie
. “This is the thanks I get for taking you in? You bitch.”

Lex’s blood ran cold. He knew this scene. He’d been here once before.

“
Marcie, is that any way to talk to your daughter?”  The attendant chastened.

“Behave or we’ll take you back to your room.” The other one added.

“Jessie, we need to go.” Lex whispered, curling his arm tighter about her
waist
.

She put her hand up, signaling she wished for him to wa
it. “Yeah, Mom. I’m leaving. I doubt I’ll be back, u
nless there is a trial. You killed
my d
ad.”

Marcie Kelly rolled her shoulder in an odd quirk. “He betrayed me.” She whispered, her distorted, wicked-scary brown eyes devoid of guilt or
sorrow. “He was cheating on me with the serving girls. H
e was going to leave me. Just like you!”

“No, Dad didn’t betray you, Mom. Dad protected y
ou. He cleaned up after you. H
e kept on loving you, even when you
drove us away. Even when
you
beat him into the ground with your threats and your ultimatums. He stayed true to you.  I guess you were his addiction.
” Jessie’s voice was taut, laced with rancor and raw pain.

This wasn’t good. It wasn’t going to end well.  He could feel it. Taste it.
Lex felt a little dizzy, a little light in the head.  H
e swore he could smell the coppery
scent of blood
. He didn’t like
this
.
Déjà
vu. We’ve been here before,
together,
the three of us. 

Lex started to pull Jessie back, away from this mad woman.
Time to go.

“Wait.” Jessie told him, resisting his insistent tugging. “Just let me have my say. Mom, I mean Marcie, I hope you get better. I hope one day, you emerge from the f
og in your mind and realize
you’ve destroyed your family, that you’ve driven away all
the people in your life who could
have loved you.”

Marcie rolled her shoulder again. It seemed to be a sign, Lex thought, a signal of some kind that her mind was working through a problem. She brushed her
nose with the back of her hand
and stared
stra
ngely at the wall beyond
them
as if seeing into another dimension on the blank wall. Her eyes wavered. H
er nostrils flared. “So, you’re leaving me, after all I’ve done for you? You’re running away together?”

“We’re getting married.” Jessie corrected.

Marcie
smacked her lips and put one hand into her pocket. With the
other hand, she pointed at them
and her glittering brown eyes fastened on Lex for several seconds. She cocked her head, as if suddenly remembering him
, recognizing him
. “You were mine.”

“Jessie, let’s go” He insisted, ready to
toss her over
his shoulder and head for the door
.

“You were brought here for me, for my pleasure.
” Marcie’s brown eyes took on a perverse cast. “To sing, but for other purposes. And
she
stole you away from me. She stole your heart--it was mine--
it was supposed to belong only to me.
”

“Yeah, that’s right, Mom. It’s all a big conspiracy. Well, I’ll leave you to them.”

“You’re leaving me, after everything I’ve done for you? You little whore.”

It was like a broken record, the needle of an old vinyl album in her mind stuck on that same
inane
phrase;
You’
re leaving me?
It was like a trigger.

“Marcie, calm down. You won’t have any visitors if you keep insulting them. First your son, now your daughter.”

Lex kept staring at the woman before them. Her features,
her voice, or was it her words?
There was something familiar
about her.
Too familiar
.

“Yes, Mother. I’m leaving you after all the wonderful things you’ve done for me. After all the nightmares, the suicide calls in the middle of the night . . . the false accusations and all the ruined holidays . . .”

The Castle. The Lady Marcella. Julianna
.

“No, Jess, come
away
. Now.”

“Marcie!” The attendants screamed, moving to restrain her but she was too fast.

Marcie Kelly y
anked something out of her
pocket and lunged toward Jessie with her weapon held high and her eyes glazed with malicious insanity. “
You took him away from me,
you little whore. You’ll never make it to Paris.”

Everything seemed to move in slow motion, like a football
game
on
instant replay. The attendants
moved after the raving madwoman. S
he was too quick
. Jessie stood frozen in horror, unable to believe her mother was trying to kill her
.
Marcie was no longer Jessie’s mother. She was someone else, someone
intent on thrusting the
sharp object into her competitor’s
chest, just as she ha
d several hundred
years earlier.

Stepping before her, Lex shoved Jessie back, out of the way and put his
forearm up in front of himself
to block her assault. The stinging pain in his arm told him he’d disarmed his assailant.
The attendants grabbed her about the shoulders and the waist and wrestled her to the floor.

“Jessie.” He turned about to see if his beloved was standing.

Jessie was on her knees, holding her chest. Her eyes were glazed and she seemed to be lost in another time. “Jessie, honey.” He crouched before her, concerned that she might be having another cardiac episode.

The room was swarming
wi
th people. Nurses brushed past them as they
came to assist the pair in wrestling their patient into submission.
Jack and Steve c
ame in and hovered over Jessie
to see what all the fuss was about.

“What the fuck?” Jack was red faced, ready to do battle for his sister’s soul. “That bitch tried to attack you, Jess, I saw it through the window. Good move Lex.”

“Dude, you
have
toothbrush sticking out of your arm.” Steve pointed out with a perplexed look. “That’s not a good look for you.”

Lex glanced briefly at his
throbbing
arm. Sure enough, that object sticking out of his forearm ha
d bristles on the end of it. Marcie Kelly
stabbed him with a broken toothbrush with a jagged plastic point sharp enough to inflict pain or kill someone who annoyed her. And that someone was Jessie. She meant to kill Jessie.
Again.
Lex lifted her in his arms and stood. He gazed about them at the staff as they
all
rushed to subdue the hissing, spitting, wild-eyed patient who was now about to be c
ategorized as extremely violent and deranged.

They left the visitors lounge. A nurse came up to Lex, seeing he was carrying a stunned Jessie in his arms, she assumed Jessie was the victim. “Come, this way.” She directed, leading them to an exam room.

Lex set Jessie down on the table. She was sitting up, but she was in shock, he could see it in her eyes. He quickly plucked the toothbrush out of his arm and handed it to the nurse. “Here, you might need this as evidence.”

The nurse’s dark eyes widened as she took in the crimson
stained weapon so easily accessible to all the patients in this place. “Oh, dear. Where was she stabbed?”

“Not her, me.” He insisted, showing the nurse his wound. “I’d like a do
ctor to examine both
Ms. Kelly
and me
. We need to document this.”

“
If you were the victim of the assault what’s wrong with Ms. Kelly
?” The nurse’s gaze moved from the gaping hole in his arm to the girl on the table.

“She has a
mild
heart condition.”

Jessie’s eyes grew wide and she gasped aloud, clutching her chest.

Oh, shit. Jessie
was reliving her death from the past.
What he wouldn’t give to have his guru, Ravi, here. Even Madame Aria would do. Past life regression could be a treacherous path for the mind to wander down, particularly if people re-lived the traumatic events of their death.

Marcie Kelly ha
d been Lady Marcella in a past life
, the woman who murdered his
bride-to-be in the
13th century during the time of the troubadours of Eleanor of
Aquitaine’s court. Lex’s mind quickly filled in the hazy details from dreams and nightmares. He never really saw the assailant’s face in his dreams. He only knew it was a woman, a very sumptuously dressed woman with a jeweled dagger and a hatred for his beloved. But he remembered that grating voice in his dream, and that hate-filled line;
You’re leaving me, after all I’ve done for you?

Jessie was seeing it, he was sure of it as she kept gazing with horror into a space above his navel, staring haplessly at his white silk shirt.
And then she si
mply moaned
. Lex steadied her as she slumped forward in
to his arms. He held her against him as her head tipped back and her eyes
rolled back with only the white
s showing
.
He h
eld her before him on the table
with her arms draped over his shoulders and her knees parted so he could stand pressed tight against her
and hug her against him
.

Lex was not sure what was happening to her. She appeared to be having some sort of seizure. He started yelling, screaming, begging someone to help them, help him as his lady love was slipping into some sort of a
ltered state of consciousness.

He was terrified that Jessie was leaving him
,
again.

The burning, searing pain was unlike anything she could have ever imagined.

Jessie clutched her chest, shocked by the
sharp, stabbing sensation penetrating deep into her body
. She lifted her hand to her face. Blood. She was bleeding. Something was stuck in her chest. She tried to pry it out. She clutched at it, jerked it.

“No, my love. No, don’t touch it.” He was bending over her, dre
ssed in his beautiful clothing. The
rich brocade he always wore for the nobles when he sang for them. He was holding her across his lap, and she was bleeding all over his fine suit of clothing.