CHAPTER EIGHT
Dex
I woke up feeling like a nun’s ass – all dried out and tight as a rubber band, my head absolutely pounding from a headache that wouldn’t go away. I must have pressed snoozed a million times before I got out of bed, and by snooze, I mean I swatted at Perry every time she tried to shake me awake. I could have slept forever.
But she did remind me each time that her parents would be showing up at the hotel soon with pitchforks and since I was to be their future son-in-law, I needed to show them some respect. That wasn’t exactly her words, of course. She just didn’t want me to get frozen by the Swedish Queen of Planet Frigid.
Eventually I pulled myself out of bed and staggered right over to the shower. One look in the mirror and I was certain Perry would be calling off the wedding. My cheekbones were sticking out like Ziggy Stardust and my face had taken this pasty shade of grey. The dried blood beneath my nose didn’t help but at least it matched the red in my bloodshot eyes.
I felt a little more alive with hot water flowing on my face but my mind kept wanting to float to things that I wasn’t sure I could afford to entertain. It wanted to think about Michael. It wanted to think about the sixth floor of this hotel. It wanted to think about the beginning of the end.
Dude, I need an IV drip of coffee, I thought to myself, trying to rip that last thought from head. The beginning of then end? What the hell was wrong with me? When did I turn into such a fatalistic douche?
Since my brother apparently abducted me, I guess. I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. The facts just made no sense? even though they were the facts and the only things we had to go on.
“Dex!” Perry cried out, pounding on the bathroom door.
The franticness of her voice surprised me. I blinked a few times, realizing I was staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, water slowly dripping off of me and pooling at my feet.
I tore my eyes away from my reflection to answer her but as I did so, the reflection in the mirror changed. Even though it was out of the corner of my eye, I could see the face in the mirror open its eyes and mouth wide in a distorted scream.
My breath froze in my chest and I immediately looked at the mirror dead on. It was just me, staring at myself with a look of shock.
I willed my pulse to return to normal and quickly opened the door, no longer wanting to look at myself.
“What is it?” I asked, my voice cracking a bit.
Perry was totally dressed, her hair and makeup done. “What are you doing in there?” she asked, sounding more concerned than annoyed.
“I don’t know, showering?”
“I’ve been knocking on your door and yelling your name, didn’t you hear me? You’ve been in there for like forty-five minutes.”
I tried to not let the shock register on my face but there was no way I was in there for that long. Oh god, please don’t let those quantum leap time jumps start up for me because that’s the last thing I need.
“Well, I’m done now,” I said. I grabbed a towel off of the rack and quickly wrapped it around my waist. Like a car wreck, I couldn’t help but let my eyes drift over to the mirror again.
This time my reflection was staring right at me and grinning like a madman.
I knew I wasn’t.
I whipped my head around to look at Perry. She was staring at me in mild horror, though I wasn’t sure why. Did she see it too?
“I’m worried about you,” she said and that’s when I knew that the whole thing must have been in my head. If she had seen my reflection move separately from my body, she wouldn’t just be worried. She would be freaking the fuck out times a million.
Kind of like how I was feeling. And I know I should have told her what I was seeing but I didn’t see why giving her another reason to worry about me would have helped.
“Don’t be worried,” I said, but that wasn’t going to change her mind at all. I stepped out into the hallway and made a mental note to avoid all mirrors. “So when do your parents get here?”
“They’re already here,” she said sternly. I sat down on the bed and looked at her. She really was all dressed and ready to go and, more than that, she had her battle face on, the stance she got when she was about to face her parents. To my admiration she looked less afraid and more combative. She’d changed a hell of a lot this year, especially when it came to standing up to her parents. I didn’t think they were necessarily bad people but they certainly didn’t make things easy for either of us.
“Okay,” I told her, wishing I had other clothes to put on than the ones I had been found in yesterday. “I’ll be ready in a second.”
I quickly pulled on my pants and shirt and wondered how Perry would feel about a shopping spree this afternoon. She usually liked that kind of shit and what better place to do it than New York. I’d pay her all back, of course, so as long as I didn’t have to keep wearing the same pair of briefs for days.
I was ready fast and thought she’d be impressed, but instead she just came over to me and put her hand over my chest. I automatically put my hand over hers.
“What were you doing in there?” she asked, unwilling to let it go.
My mind immediately conjured up the image of me screaming at myself. I swallowed the bubble of fear and put a smile on my face. “Jacking off, naturally.”
She narrowed her eyes but seemed to be happy with that answer. Good to know. She was going to make a fabulous wife.
I grabbed her hand and together we went out into the hall, about to take the elevator to the lobby where she said her parents already were. But as soon as she pressed the button, she seemed to think twice about it and said, “Come on, let’s take the stairs.”
Just then the elevator doors opened, empty and beckoning. “Are you sure, cuz it’s kind of here and everything…”
For whatever reason, fear came over her eyes, her pupils becoming tiny pinpricks, but she brushed it off like she did to her hair as she pushed it behind her shoulders.
“All right,” I conceded, following her to the stairwell and heading down the echoing stairs. It didn’t matter what building you were in, all stairwells had this impersonal, institutional and cold feeling to them, the doors shutting you in like you’re being locked into prison. I didn’t know why this was preferable to the elevator and I was just about to ask when rounded the sixth floor and she nodded to it.
“Ada says there’s a demon on this floor. Our elevators have been stopping there.”
Again, the image of me in the mirror, me but not me, grinning like I was going to eat myself alive, burned behind my eyes and my skin immediately erupted into goose bumps.
At any other time I would have brought up the fact that it could make a great EIT episode, that we should explore it and film it, but now, even though EIT no longer existed, there was nothing I wanted less. I wanted to stay as far away from anything supernatural as possible. I was way too fucking weirded out to take on any extracurricular scary shenanigans.
“That’s just fucking great,” I said.
Soon though we were out of the concrete prison of the stairwell and into the lobby that toed the line between classy and try-too-hard trendy. I mean, a carafe of cucumber water is a nice touch but does anyone need house music piped over the speakers or neon pink fringe pillows? I think not.
And, over there, on the white leather couches adorned by the aforementioned pillows was Mr. and Mrs. Palomino. They didn’t look happy.
That said, they didn’t look like they wanted to kill us either, which I thought was progress. Usually they looked at me as if I’d just talked about slaughtering puppies, even when I was just waving hello. Of course it could all have something to do with the fact that I dare to open my mouth around them, and, well, I knew from life experience that my mouth got me in trouble more often than not.
“Perry,” her mother said, holding out her arms getting to her feet. She looked great – I hoped one day I liked the woman enough to admit that she was a total babe – even though she looked utterly drained, the same kind of look in her blue eyes that I’d seen in Ada’s the other day.
I watched as she pulled Perry into an awkward embrace. Perry stiffened, unsure of what to do, and I silently encouraged her to just suck it up and enjoy her mother’s affection while it lasted.
Perry, however, for all her telekinetic abilities, didn’t seem to pick up on that thought. Her mother embraced her and then let her go. Her sharp Nordic features instantly became severe, perhaps because Perry didn’t give when she wanted her to. For the first time I was acutely aware that their relationship was more of a two-way street than Perry made it out to be.
Of course, the affection and concern didn’t last for very long. Suddenly her mother launched into near hysterics, about how irresponsible she was for jetting off here, for the money she wasted, for the danger she put her sister in. All the while, her father, Daniel, was staring me down with that Mafia-look he sometimes had. I’d learned not to be intimidated by it over time, but now he was especially Pacino-esque.
I mean, it was all my fault they were here, wasn’t it?
“You know,” her father said, stepping toward me, “if you just wanted to go to New York, we wouldn’t have cared. You’re both free to do what you want and Dex, you’re a man of your own will, you can do what you want as well. But to involve Ada…” he shook his head, disappointed and looked away, jamming his hands in his pockets, “I just don’t know what you were thinking.”
Obviously Perry had tried to explain to them what really happened but the truth never settled very well with her parents. Actually, it never settled well with anyone, even with us. So we let them think what they were going to think anyway. Eventually, they’d get over it.
When her mom had calmed down a bit, she shot me a nervous glance. I thought that was kind of strange since her looks usually consisted of the glacial variety. I wasn’t used to her acting anxious around me. I had to wonder if I still had blood on my face. Maybe I smelled. I subtly pressed my nose to my shoulders and breathed in. Yeah. Time to buy new clothes.
I smiled at them. “Now that you’re here, have you been checked in? Why don’t we all go out for lunch, do some shopping?”
“Our room isn’t ready yet,” Daniel said sternly.
The door from the stairwell swung open, saving my ass. It was Ada and she ran right into her mother’s arms with a big smile on her face.
Her mother hugged her tight, then pulled back and held her stiffly by the shoulders, and the whole lecture she gave Perry came out once more. At least this time Ada was seen to be at fault almost as much as the rest of us were.
When it was all said and done though, Ada offered for her parents to store her bags in her room until their room was ready. I noticed that she didn’t mention Maximus, which was probably a good thing. I know the burly redhead had been a favorite of theirs back when Perry was possessed but I wasn’t sure if this was going to go over too well with them. A nearly sixteen-year old sharing a room with a man who may have been thousands of years old?
Well, they didn’t have to know about the thousands of years/ex-immortal/supernatural guide part. Thirty-two year old ginger was bad enough.