Wild Horses (45 page)

“You got busted?” Her hazel eyes took on a harder edge.

“My… my nephew’s girlfriend had been abducted and held in a warehouse on the North Shore. She and the other girls escaped, but there was a lot of sorting out to do.”

Brown eyebrows rose into the auburn hair. “Oh! You were involved with that? I heard something on the police scanner, and it was on the news last night, too.” Her shoulders relaxed somewhat, and Attila felt that his credibility was, for the moment, restored. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. If it was anyone else, I’d have said he tied one on, except I’ve never seen him do that before. But he’s gotta be freezing in that T-shirt. Do you have anything for him to wear?” She peered at Attila, obviously expecting him to be inept in case of an emergency.

“I have a blanket. Let me get it out of the car.”

“Before you do—here’s his stuff. He left it all in a pile. It’s lucky nobody took anything.”

Attila nodded his thanks and gathered Kai’s wallet, cell phone, and an empty bottle with a small bouquet of fragrant white flowers wedged inside it. He took a deeper breath as he walked toward the car, unconsciously letting the heady scent relax him. As he placed the items on the back seat, he thought to flip Kai’s cell phone open.

The battery was dead.

D
EATH
by drowning was an odd way to go. Kai felt disoriented and dizzy, his head hurt a lot more than it should have, and he thought he’d throw up all the river water he must have swallowed not too long ago. Yet he didn’t need to vomit because he was, after all, already dead. It made perfect sense. His eyes were pressed shut by the weight of the silty river and he knew there was mud on his face, in his mouth. He disliked the grit between his teeth and opened his mouth a little, hoping the river current would carry the offending particles away.

Dying wasn’t so bad after all. He felt… warmer than he expected to feel, and that confirmed his suspicion that he had truly drowned, for his body would have been freezing cold in the Allegheny by now. If his spirit got liberated, the water temperature wouldn’t affect it whatsoever and he could stay as warm as he imagined himself to be. That, too, made perfect sense.

He didn’t feel as alone as he had thought he would—he even heard familiar voices. Attila was not one of them, though, and the finality of his act landed on his shoulders with all its crushing weight.

I can go see Attila, but he won’t be able to see me.

As he felt the current rock him from side to side, he reflected that death was a silent state of being. Silence spelled lack of communication.

I can’t talk to Attila anymore.

I can’t hold him in my arms.

I have no arms….

The shocking realization broke his concentration and he began to feel cold again. His spirit had to keep it together now—he had to keep thinking about warmth to stay warm—and for the first time, he wished he could open his silt-covered eyes. Yet no amount of effort would dislodge the press of green, rain-swollen river water upon him, making his separation from Attila final.

Attila….

He felt something wet and warm on his cheek. That must have been his spirit warming up again—were he not dead already, he would have figured it was tears. Yet no tears could flow out of his dead, sullied eyes, although the more he thought about how much he missed Attila, the more his spirit made his cheek warm again.

A
TTILA
glanced at his passed-out lover, whom he had wrapped in a woolen army blanket and buckled into the passenger seat of Tibor’s Mazda. There was no smell of alcohol, so Kai wasn’t drunk. There was no smell of weed, but that would have been unlikely to make him pass out to start with. Stuck in traffic, Attila thought hard. He should take Kai to the hospital. In fact, he should have done that yesterday. Had he known that Lindsey was alright, he would have, but a decision made on the spot was not necessarily the right one. Thinking back, Attila should have called the police right after they got out of Frankie’s, which would have taken care of Kai—and Johnny—and he would have learned that Lindsey was alive and well. His pride might have suffered a bit from the possible public exposé of his past, but sparing Kai another injury—and sparing himself the indignity of his panic attack at the warehouse—would have been worth the cost. Twenty-twenty hindsight. Now Kai was hurt, and Attila was left feeling like an idiot. It seemed to be their
modus operandi
, and he didn’t like it one bit.

He was about to smile—Kai was with him, right by his side—until he glanced at the pale face and noticed the tears that streamed from under Kai’s shut lids. They waited at yet another set of lights, and Attila used the opportunity to text his brother-in-law, letting him know he’d pick him up in front of his building. He glanced way from traffic and at Kai again. His lips were moving, his voice barely intelligible.

“Attila… Attila….”

He would have answered, but he then saw Tibor waiting for them at an intersection and he focused on swerving to the side to let the other man inside the car.

“Shit, Attila. He looks like crap. What happened?” Tibor asked once he buckled up in the back seat.

Attila’s shoulders twitched as he tried not to shrug. “Not sure. I know he was drugged earlier, but that should have worn off. As far as I could tell, he fell off a loading dock. No injuries, I think.”

Tibor grimaced. “He might have a concussion. And, some people are more sensitive to drugs than others. Give me an ordinary Benadryl, and I’ll sleep for twelve hours. Did he drink any alcohol on top of that?”

Attila shook his head. “I don’t think so. I certainly didn’t smell any.”

Tibor lifted the empty soda bottle. A small water tube of stephanotis was still wedged in its glass opening. “What’s with the flowers, do you know?”

“I figure they’re from Theodore.” Attila sighed. “I was tempted to throw them out, but they smell so nice.”

Tibor got into the back of the car and Attila turned right onto the 16th Street bridge. There was no time to lose. He was impatient to get out of the city and back home, where things were quiet and familiar. Attila swerved the vehicle to avoid somebody cutting him off. Fifteen minutes later, they crossed the river once again.

“Attila?” Kai croaked in the passenger seat next to him. “Attila, I think I am dead.”

T
IBOR
guffawed in the backseat. “Wishful thinking, Kai. How are you feeling?”

The familiar voice coaxed Kai to force at least one eye open. The light of the day was too much, and if that weren’t bad enough, sun and shadow flashed through the suspension bridge structure like a strobe light. Kai howled and turned his head away from the painful stimulus, but the sudden movement was ill advised, as was another swerve of the car, courtesy of Attila, who was now navigating the last of the morning rush-hour traffic.

“Owww.” What he thought had been the rocking of the river was the movement of the car over uneven pavement. Instead of being heavy with silt, his eyes had been glued shut with gritty sleep-sand. The silt in his mouth was real, though, as was the mud that glued his T-shirt to his bare skin. Then Kai realized he was wrapped in an old army blanket like a mummy and buckled into place. Only his head showed.

“Attila!” he croaked again.

The tenor of his voice was meant to be cautionary, but Tibor, who was not known for coddling even his own sons when they got hurt, only cackled in the backseat. “You sure are a sight, punk!” Tibor said.

Wave upon wave of nausea seized Kai’s entire body as the sour flavor of almost one gallon of Mountain Dew and greasy pizza rose back to his mouth. He tried to struggle his arms free to open the window by his side, but the blanket and the seatbelt wrapped him nice and tight. He pressed his lips together and breathed through his nose, eyes shut again.

I won’t puke, I won’t puke, I won’t….

His resolve might have done him good were it not for the fact that Attila, who was accustomed to clearing annoying obstacles on horseback, hopped the curb from the street to the parking lot in order to avoid another ten minutes of sluggish traffic. The very action that moved the car from a congested road into the large parking lot of the warehouse—a mere ten feet away from Attila’s black Bronco—was the last straw for Kai’s nauseous stomach.

What Kai hoped would be but an innocent belch resembled Old Faithful in its intensity and projection. Vomit ejaculated from Kai’s throat, coating the interior of Tibor’s favorite car, windshield included. Realizing the damage he was doing to Tibor’s Mazda, Kai tried to redirect the stream of putrid juices to an area that would be easier to clean. As he turned toward the door, however, another spasm eliminated the offensive contents of his stomach, approximating the efficient, ellipsoid watering effect of a finely tuned lawn sprinkler.

“Fuck.” Tibor launched himself from the back seat, escaping the cabin of his own vehicle. He wrenched Kai’s side open.

“Here.” Attila pressed Kai’s buckle release from his side. “Now it’s just a matter of you getting out of the car, Kai.”

After a valiant struggle with his army-blanket cocoon, Kai freed himself. Very, very slowly he moved his feet out and extricated himself from the vehicle. Pale and squinty-eyed, he looked around.

“I’m not dead?”

“That’s a dumb question, and no, you’ll only wish you were dead after puking all over my car!” Tibor thundered next to him. “Why the fuck didn’t you say you were feeling sick?”

Kai leaned against the car. “Sorry,” He whispered. “I tried. I just couldn’t talk yet.”

“It’s just as well you were wrapped up in that blanket, Kai,” Attila murmured from the other side of the car as he retrieved Kai’s possessions from the back seat. “At least your clothing won’t smell all the way home.”

Tibor cut Attila a mean look. “And how do you think I’m gonna get home? I’m not driving almost an hour in this piece of vomitous crap!”

“Can Hal drive you?” Attila asked.

“Hal already left with Lindsey.”

“Rita could pick you up while you drop this car at a detailing place,” Attila suggested, ever helpful.

“I’m sorry, Tibor. I really am.” Kai’s voice strengthened, but he still felt shaky and miserable, and avoided the cheerful sunlight as though he were one of the legendary undead.

“Just get out of here, both of you,” Tibor waved his arm, banishing them from his presence as he fished his cell phone out of his pocket.

K
AI
felt something on his forehead, something wet and cold and pleasant. It made the waves of headache and nausea recede somewhat. When he woke up again, familiar hands stroked his hair out of his face.

“It is time to wake up…. I need you to wake up, Kai.” Attila’s voice was smooth and soft, the edges of his breath frayed by fatigue. “Here, drink this. Take these pills.”

Kai rolled onto his side and pried his eyes open, squinting into the dim light of the bedroom. Thin rays of sunshine made their way around the structures outside, filtering through the sheer curtains that covered the sliding door to the patio. “It’s…. Is it afternoon already?” His voice was but an abused croak.

“Yes. I have lessons to teach in half an hour, and I need to saddle up.”

“Okay.” Kai intended to sip just a bit of juice, but ended up draining the glass in several swallows. “Wow.”

“Here is some Gatorade. Now the Advil for your headache.” Attila rolled on in an exhausted staccato voice, almost snapping orders. “We’ll talk later, Kai. I have work to do now.”

So Attila had not abandoned him after all. Kai remembered some things, but not all. He distinctly remembered falling into the river, muddy water in his face and silt in his mouth, and dying, and now he was here again. Alive. The mission didn’t go very well, Kai reflected. “Lindsey?” he asked before he took another swallow of the yellow drink.

“She’s okay. She already went to college. I’ll tell you later.”

Questions teemed in Kai’s mind and he hurried while Attila was still in the room. “Who pulled me out?” he asked, by now his query addressed to Attila’s back.

The older man turned around, confused. “Pulled you out from where?”

“Outta the river. I went in and drowned, and… here I am.”

Thin eyebrows drew together. “You fell off a loading dock into a muddy puddle. You were drugged. Did you drink any alcohol after you left Theodore’s shop, Kai?”

“No. That would have been dumb. I wanted to, but no. Just the pizza, and a lot of soda. I was trying to get as much caffeine as I could, thinkin’ it might help that drug wear off, but nobody was open who’d have Red Bull, so… yeah.” Kai gave Attila a miserable look. “I don’t think I’ll ever drink Mountain Dew again.”

“Okay,” Attila said with a smile. “Dr. Russo was here and he took some blood, and the lab ran the tests. He’ll call with the results later, but he thinks you may be particularly sensitive to whatever the bartender slipped into your drink.” Attila’s expression hardened. “I really need to go—we are shorthanded for the intermediate English class.”