FOUR
“WAIT!”
I followed the girl into the hall, where she had already disappeared through the fire door. As I went through the doorway, she pounded down the stairs, her flip-flops slapping on the stairs while I tried to keep up. “Hold on!” My voice echoed in the stairwell, way too loud.
As she descended, the girl looked more and more certain of her steps. She sure as hell didn’t move like someone with a traumatic brain injury.
I tried to close the gap. She reached the emergency door, which opened to the sidewalk. Her hand reached out to push the silver bar, but then she turned and opened the door leading out of the stairwell and back inside.
A second later, I lunged through, bumping into her, righting myself just as I realized we were not alone.
A man dressed in a white orderly uniform had snagged the girl by the arm and held tight while she struggled. His name tag read Dennis. His eyes widened slightly as he noticed my scar, but his voice was gruff when he asked me, “What’s this?”
I looked down for a second to catch my breath, wondering how I was going to get out of it.
“Steve?”
Was he talking to me? Then I realized I was still dressed the same as he was. Maybe I wasn’t screwed. As I raised my head, I put a grin on my face. “Yeah, I’m … uh…” I tapped my name tag. “Steve. I’m Steve.”
“Oh. Didn’t know we had two Steves.” Dennis glanced at the girl again.
“I’m new.”
He rubbed his chin as he asked, “What floor she from?”
Took me a minute to remember. “Sixth.”
Dennis looked at my backpack.
“I was just about ready to check out and then she took off running.” Trying to play the part, I shook my head and swore.
“Believe it or not, that happens on the geezer floor, too, sometimes.” He grinned. “But they’re a little easier to catch.” His eyes roamed to the girl’s chest and farther down, then back up to her face. “She’s a looker.” Dennis licked his lips. “So you want me to take her back up?”
Yes! That was it. My out.
One word from me and I was out the door, off to the cabin. I could forget ever being at the Haven of Peace.
My mouth opened, but my breath caught in my throat. What was I doing? There was nothing I could do to help her. Was there? Maybe the bigger question was, did I want to be involved? Saving people was what I did. I wasn’t one to back down, ever. But this situation involved my mom, to some degree. She was responsible for the girl. Did I truly think my mom wouldn’t do the best thing for her?
My mind was saying, Go, dude. Find Jack and leave.
But my gut was saying something else. That something just wasn’t right. That the girl did need saving. And I was the one to do it.
Her eyes were still on me, almost like she knew what I was thinking. Dennis the orderly still stared at the girl, a smarmy expression on his face that made me want to cringe. I allowed myself one more look.
Her brown eyes pleaded with me.
And it was those eyes that made me do what I did next. With one hand I reached out and held her firmly by the elbow. “No, I’ve got her.”
With what seemed like an effort, Dennis took his eyes off her and released his grip. “Okay, big guy.” He pointed at me. “Big Steve. That’s the ticket. You’re Big Steve. That’s how we’ll tell you two Steves apart.” He gave me a little wave and headed down the hall.
I waited until he was out of sight, then pulled the girl through the door and outside as I muttered, “This is so dumb, this is so dumb, this is so dumb.…”
Still pulling the girl along, I ran down the sidewalk toward the parking lot. Two men dressed like me turned the corner, and I yanked her behind the hedge, where we crouched until they passed. But when I stood back up, I could see they were blocking our path to the sidewalk. “Perfect.”
The girl frowned, then stepped over to the brick wall that bordered the back of the parking lot. “We need to climb over.”
Even at my height, the top of the wall was nowhere near reachable. “How?”
She bent in front of me and made a cradle with her hands. “Step up.”
“Oh, come on,” I protested. “I’ve got at least a hundred pounds on you.”
“Step up.”
Just to prove my point, I lifted my foot and prepared to give her a little sample of my weight. But before I knew it, she’d hoisted me up like I was some tiny cheerleader.
I almost lost my balance and grabbed her shoulder as I planted a hand on the wall. “Whoa!”
“Grab the top of the wall and pull.”
I didn’t need to do much pulling, because she practically launched me up and over.
I had just dropped to the ground when her feet landed next to mine. The top of the wall seemed very far away. “How did you do that?”
She didn’t answer.
I heard a vehicle approach and saw Jack pulling up.
Chilly rain dripped on us as we stood there. Her shirt was getting wet in spots.
“That’s my ride.”
She looked from the truck back to me. “I need a ride.”
“Yeah, but—” But what? There was no use saying I wasn’t involved. Yes, she had run from the sixth floor all on her own, but I became part of that escape the moment I took her from Dennis. Could I really just walk away and leave her standing in the parking lot?
Yes, I could. I had to.
Didn’t I?
“Holy crap.” So I ran to the truck, the girl right behind me. My hands trembled so much that it was difficult to open the door. The girl slid into the middle and I hopped in beside her and slammed the door.
Jack turned to me, mouth open. “They have babes working here?”
“Jack! Drive.”
“Geez frickin’ Louise.” Jack shook his head, pulled out of the parking lot, and headed toward my house. “I work here all this time and don’t meet anyone under the age of eighty, and you’re here for, like, twenty minutes and—”
“She doesn’t work there.” I needed to tell him. “She’s a patient on my mom’s floor.”
Jack slammed on the brakes and we jolted forward as far as the seat belts would give.
I probably should have waited until he was parked to tell him that. “Jack! Just keep driving.”
He tromped on the accelerator and turned into the deserted parking lot of the Washington State Bank, then screeched to a stop. “She’s a patient? You stole a patient?”
The girl watched Jack.
I tried to explain what happened on the sixth floor. “She took off and I followed and this orderly saw us. I couldn’t just let her go back up there.”
Jack’s eyes were wide. “So what? You just what, figure, oh, I’ll STEAL HER? What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t steal her. She left first. I just chased her.” My voice was quiet. “She wanted to go.”
“Oh, great, Mace.” Jack dropped his forehead onto the steering wheel. “This is just great.” When he lifted his head, his eyes blazed as he reached past the girl and stuck a finger in my chest. “You can’t do this all the time! Be the frickin’ hero! Some people aren’t supposed to be saved. Some people can’t be saved. Not by you, anyway.”
I leaned away from him, resting my head on the cold window.
But his curiosity seemed to overcome his anger for a moment. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t know,” the girl answered, rubbing her eyes as she peered out the windshield.
“Great,” said Jack. “I suppose you don’t know where you’re from, either.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not from here.”
Jack smacked the edge of the steering wheel with a fist. “God, Mace! You know how much trouble we’re in?” He shook his head. “We’re taking her back.”
“And telling them what?”
I unbuckled and jumped out, stripping off the orderly uniform and rolling it into a ball, which I tossed behind the seat before climbing back in. “Jack, just go to my house. I’ll call my mom, figure this out.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed and he said something not very nice under his breath.
“I mean, really, how are you going to explain all this? You snuck me in, gave me an orderly uniform, I steal a girl.…”
He put the truck in gear. “You suck.”
The girl was quiet as we drove slowly through the town’s 25 mph zone, but then she leaned over me and placed both palms on the window. “Those lights.”
Distracted by the nearness of her, it took me a moment to follow her gaze.
Up on the hill above town, the lights from TroDyn illuminated the night sky with a bright glow. I said, “That’s just a company that—”
She cut me off. “There’s something familiar about them.” She shook her head. “I’m just so … It feels like I have cobwebs in my head. I’m so fuzzy.” The girl slapped both hands to her forehead. “Oh.”
“What?” Jack glanced over at her, then back to the road. “What? What’s wrong with her?”
At once, her head jerked back so that she stared straight up. Her eyes were wide as she spoke. One of her hands clutched at my shirt. “We’ve got to get away!”
Jack asked, “From where?”
Slowly, she turned to face the lights of TroDyn. “From there. We have to get away from there.” And she started to rock back and forth, repeating, “We need to go, we need to go.…”
I held out a hand to touch her, do something, but I didn’t know what, so I just put my hand back in my lap. “Jack, I think we should take her with us to the cabin.”
His shook his head. “What? Are you nuts?”
I banged my head against the window a couple of times. “I know this is insane and you’re pissed.” My voice lowered. “But you weren’t there, you didn’t see them. I just couldn’t leave her there.” I had to convince him. Or at least say the right thing to get him on board, and I knew what that was. “It was like … destiny that I wake her up. I mean, what are the chances of me happening to play that DVD in the same room as her?”
He met my gaze and looked away.
As I waited for him to respond, the clock tower downtown struck the first few chords of nine o’clock.
Bong.
Bong.
Bong.
“Mace, are you screwing with me?” Jack’s voice was drenched in doubt. As it should be, because I couldn’t give a crap about destiny.
But, at that moment, I really needed him to think, to believe, that I did indeed give a crap. Because love, according to Jack, involved destiny. He got it from his mom, who met his dad only because she slid into a ditch on an icy night, and Jack’s dad was the first person to come along and offer assistance. Plus, he was lost and not even supposed to be on that road. I’d heard the story about eighty times, so Jack must have really heard it a lot.
I shook my head. “No. I’m not screwing with you.”
He bit his lip for a second. “You know how seriously I take destiny.”
Yes, I knew. So I nodded. Furiously. “I’m being serious. Destiny. For sure.”
“Well.” Jack nodded a little bit, like he was thinking it over. “Okay. We’ll go to the cabin.” He looked at the girl and then at me. “But you still suck.”
Jack headed south on I-5 toward Portland.
The girl seemed to be concentrating on holding her head and staving off voices or whatever it was she heard, then she gradually calmed the farther we got from Melby Falls. We connected with 84 East about an hour later, just as my cell phone rang. Mom was frantic, her voice a fast whisper. “Tell me you just left. Tell me you just left and you and Jack are on your way to the cabin. Tell me that.”
It took me a minute to answer. “We are. We’re on our way to the cabin right now.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Mom. We just got on I-84. Why?”
She sighed. “No reason. Just … I … heard sirens, wanted to make sure you were okay.”
She was lying; I could tell she was lying. “Something wrong, Mom?”
“No!” The word came too fast to be true. “No, it’s fine. You and Jack have fun. Stay out of trouble.”
The connection fizzed. “Mom?” I could hear only every other word. “Lost her!”
Jack leaned forward. “We’re in the Gorge. Lousy coverage.”
No point in wasting the battery, so I turned off my phone.
A few miles farther, Jack pointed at an exit sign with a Chevron symbol. “I need some gas.” As we pulled in, I got out to fill the tank, but Jack motioned for me to stay put.
“This is Oregon,” he said. “They have attendants for that.”
So the girl stayed in the truck. Jack went inside and came back out carrying a plastic bag, which he handed to me.
I climbed back in as Jack started the truck. I was finally starting to relax and I couldn’t do anything but think about the girl. Her smell, the way her leg felt pressed against mine, the sound of her voice. God, I finally find the perfect girl and she’s a nutcase.
Jack reached over her and started rustling around in the bag.
“Just drive, I’ll do that.” I was hungry. “Did you get anything good?” I held up a Yoo-hoo. “Chocolate milk?”
The girl took it from me and cradled the bottle with both hands in her lap. Jack held out his hand and I found another Yoo-hoo for him.
I pulled out a can of Mountain Dew and opened it with a loud click. “Yes.” The soda was icy. I took a big swig. “Ah. I needed that.”
Jack tipped back his head and took a gulp of Yoo-hoo. “I haven’t had this since I was a kid.” He looked at her. “What about you?”
“I’ve never had it.” She glanced down at the Yoo-hoo. “I like the colors.”
And that was when Jack started whistling the theme from The Twilight Zone.
The rain came down harder as Jack steered onto the two-lane Bridge of the Gods across the Columbia River, and started up the mountain road toward Glenwood and the cabin. Jack and I chatted for a while, but it seemed we didn’t have much practice acting normal in freakishly bizarre situations. So we pretty much rode in silence for most of the way.
As we reached Glenwood and drove through the deserted streets, the girl still just held the chocolate milk and stared out the windshield into the night, the steady hum of the wipers the only sound.
The cabin was down the second right after the Glenwood Bed and Breakfast, and it was just a few minutes before we pulled into the yard of the cabin. Jack said, “Hit the garage opener, will you?”
I reached up for the shade. “It’s not here.”
Jack sighed and turned off the engine. We walked up the steps to the deck, where Jack tipped up an antique milk can and retrieved a key from underneath.
Inside, he flipped on all the lights.
The girl looked uncertain and I ushered her in. “It’s okay. We’re the only ones here.”
She kept a tight grasp on her Yoo-hoo as we entered.
Jack’s grandpa had made the cabin from old-growth timber. We walked into one huge room with a large kitchen, dining table, living room, and floor-to-ceiling fireplace made of Columbia River rocks.
I set the bag from the gas station on the table and headed over to pour water into the coffeemaker.
Along with destiny, Jack’s family also believed in having the fire laid out in the fireplace, ready to go, and Jack soon had it roaring. He said, “I’m gonna go put the truck in the garage.”
The girl stood in front of the fireplace, one hand outstretched toward the burning logs. The other still clutched the Yoo-hoo.
After a bit, the coffeemaker started to make slurping sounds, and I pulled a cup out of the cupboard, then hunted for some kind of creamer.
Leaving the fireplace, the girl looked out the front picture window. Clouds started to break up, revealing the moon.
I felt like I should say something to try to put us both at ease. “There’s a gorgeous view of Mount Adams. Sits right in the meadow.” Yeah. That didn’t work, because she didn’t reply and I felt even more tense.
The half-and-half in the fridge was spoiled, so I poured it down the drain. I had to settle for powdered cream, which refused to dissolve entirely in my coffee.
“Looks like she’s tired.” Jack had come back in.
“Huh?”
He nodded at the girl.
She stood by the window, yawning.
I went over to her. “Do you want to get some sleep?” This seemed a funny thing to ask someone who recently came out of some freaked-up coma.
But her eyes drooped as she glanced over at Jack. “Here?”
Jack pointed down the hallway. “My sister’s bedroom is down there.” His older sister, Vanessa, was at Harvard. She wasn’t as nice as Jack, but just as rich. And much better at taking standardized tests.
The girl nodded and looked at me. “Okay.”
“I’ll take you.” I motioned to her Yoo-hoo. “Want me to put that in the fridge?”
She hesitated, then handed it to me, and I set it on the table.
Jack said, “There are some pajamas that’ll fit you, I think. And the bathroom is across the hall. There’s all kinds of girl stuff in there; help yourself.”
I led the way and the girl followed.
In the guest room, I turned on the light and pulled open a few drawers until I found a nightgown. It looked a bit short for her, but she took it anyway. There was a quilt on the end of the bed and several pillows. “You’ll be okay?”
She sat on the very edge of the bed, barely touching it.
“Here.” I spread the quilt over the bed, and then folded down the top. I threw all the pillows on the floor except for two, which I fluffed and lay on the head of the bed. “It’s all ready for you to crawl in.”
She didn’t move.
“Okay. So just change and you’ll be set.”
Her eyes remained fixed on the garment in her lap, then they slowly raised to meet mine. “I’m not sure how.”
The girl could throw me over a wall, but she couldn’t get dressed?
She stammered a little. “I mean, there are so many things swirling in my head, and it’s like I have to reach up and catch them in order to use them. But the one about getting dressed, it’s just not … letting me grab ahold.”
“Well, you just take those clothes off and put that on.” I pointed at the nightgown.
She looked so helpless sitting there.
I rubbed my eyes a bit. “Okay. Just … turn around.”
She stood up and turned around to face the window.
Stepping in close behind her, I tried to ignore the fact that I was living some amazing fantasy, and instead focused on my latent leadership skills. “Put your arms straight up.” This wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined my first time undressing a girl.
She lifted her arms toward the ceiling.
I gingerly grasped the hem of her shirt, a little fearful I might make some wrong move that would cause her to heave me through the wall. Averting my head so I couldn’t see anything, I lifted it off. I instructed, “Okay, now put the nightgown on.” I couldn’t resist sneaking a brief glimpse of her sinewy bare back.
She struggled a little but managed to get the nightgown over her head. Then her arms got stuck and I yanked a bit until it drifted down, the bottom coming to just above the knees of her red sweatpants.
“And when I leave, you can just, um, take off your sweats and you’re all set.”
She turned around so that we were just inches apart.
I stepped back.
She almost smiled. “I’ve got it now.” Before I could look away, she dropped her sweats, but the nightgown covered anything I shouldn’t have seen anyway. “I’ll sleep now.”
Walking backward toward the door, I said, with a little too much cheer, “Good! Fine, I’ll just get the lights—”
As she started to climb into bed, her short nightgown revealed the back of her legs from the knee down. And I tried not to keep from gasping at the circular scars that covered the entire length of them.