When Roman was done freeing me from the seat, I thought the thing would have made me attack him and flail wildly like an injured worm. But I was motionless. Not in control, but quiet. Maybe waiting for them to let their guards down. Maybe the thing inside me knew what Roman was capable was. I sure as hel didn’t.
Roman took my legs and Bird wrapped his hands around my shoulders and together they lifted me out of the car and walked sideways to the house. It was sunny but surprisingly cold, with a bitter breeze that rol ed off the far-off hil s. Dex kept the rusted door open as they took me inside.
From my limited view, the house was clean and threadbare. What little furniture there was was neat but stil gave the impression of either poverty or neglect. There was a screen door that had holes punched through it in places and looked out onto the rol ing, brown land outside.
They took me down a smal narrow hal way with yel ow wal s that Bird kept hitting with his stocky shoulders. I could see a room at the end of the hal that looked like a study and a greenhouse combined, fil ed with plants and books. I was put into a room comprised of a narrow bed, an armchair and a few native artworks on the wal .
They laid me down in the middle of the bed, and as Bird left the room, Roman reached under the bed and pul ed out three leather straps.
Dex’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”
Roman ignored him and went around to the other side, pul ing out three more straps. Then he leaned over me and started strapping me in, one across my chest, one across my hips and one across my legs.
“Is that real y necessary?” Dex exclaimed, making a move for him.
Ada reached out and grabbed his arm, pul ing him back.
“You know it is,” she said quietly, her eyes warning him to stay put.
Dex eyed her hand and then relented. They watched from the back of the room as Roman finished up. He fished a pocket knife out of his back pocket and flipped open the blade. He held the blade above me and I heard Ada gasp.
But he merely stuck the edge of the blade underneath the duct tape and freed me down the middle, tearing me open like sausage casing.
“I won’t rip it off,” he said to me. “I know it would hurt you, stil .”
“I hope you’re talking to Perry,” Dex said.
Roman gave Dex a grave look. “I am. I can see she’s there, too. But you both must understand that I may have to hurt Perry at some point.”
“What? No!” Ada protested. “You don’t hurt her. You hurt what’s in her.”
Roman straightened up and flipped his knife back in his pocket like it was second nature. Just what kind of a shaman was he?
“Sometimes you don’t have a choice,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Is that what happened with the last boy, the one who died?” Dex asked snidely. He immediately regretted it.
Roman’s eyes turned to steel.
“I barely touched the boy. He would have died anyway. I did get the demon out and that’s what counts. Do you think it’s easy to see that happen? He was only four. I had to move towns; everyone was saying I did something wrong.
But I didn’t. The damage was already done when he came to me. It was too late.”
The room grew silent. Dex looked down at the floor and Ada shifted uncomfortably.
Bird came back in the room holding a heavy box and placed it in front of Roman. He gave Dex and Ada a stern look. “If Roman seems cold, it’s because he has to be. The medicine man can have no emotional attachments to the person in question. He can have no fear. Evil preys on fear.
It feeds on emotions. Even love.”
Roman started lifting things out of the box. I raised my head to look and was struck by the fact that I could. Was I in control?
I tried to talk but nothing came out. My throat wouldn’t work, my mouth wouldn’t move. Just my head moved and it was probably the thing, trying to take stock of what was going on.
But Dex, he took his attention off the boxes and looked right at me. I held his gaze, wondering if he could see my real eyes or if they were just swirling black pools. His own eyes were magnetic, his brows furrowed grimly. It was like he was trying to tel me something, hoping I’d hear it. I didn’t know what it was, but it helped knowing he was there and watching me, trying to establish a connection.
Bird and Roman brought out a smal native drum, something that looked like incense holders, matches, little wooden bowls and baggies of earth-colored herbs and plants. Roman looked up at Dex and Ada and said, “We have to set up for the ceremony. You wil have to leave the room.”
Dex tore his eyes away from mine with effort and shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Bird got up, one leg at a time, and placed his hand on Dex’s shoulder. “I know you care about her. But she’s not going anywhere for now. We have to cleanse the room.
Then you can come back in.”
Roman said something to Bird in the native language and Bird nodded sharply. He looked back at Dex with imploring eyes. “Please? We must hurry.”
Dex and Ada sighed and left the room, both of them throwing a glance at me over their shoulders before they went out the door. Bird went over and closed it after them. It felt so final. I know he said they could come back in after, but I had no idea what was in store.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
With Ada and Dex gone, Bird lit up some sage and started waving it around in al corners of the room. It reminded me a lot of the ceremony we did in the sweat-lodge with Rudy.
Rudy, the last shaman I had come in contact with. He had gone missing during that ceremony, presumably kil ed by the skinwalkers. I wondered if Roman knew how dangerous I seemed to be. I wondered if he was ready. Though the thought of him using physical force on me was scary, I was become desensitized to the way my body was treated, and if he had to hurt me to free me, then he could hurt me al he wanted. I’d welcome it.
Roman lit a few candles around the room, then pul ed shut the thick curtains so the room was dark except for a bare lamp in the corner that created haunting shadows on the wal . Bird continued to wave the sage, then he lit another sweet-smel ing herb and started al over again, this time chanting. At first to himself, but Roman would join in at odd times while he burned something in a wooden smudge pot.
After the last herb died to smoldering ashes and the room was thick with blue haze, Roman gestured to the drum. Bird eased himself cross-legged on the floor and brought the drum to his lap while Roman went to the door and stuck his head out, cal ing down the hal way.
Dex and Ada appeared in the doorframe, coughing and waving at the air.
“No,” Roman said, firmly grabbing Ada’s hand in mid-wave. “Don’t move it. It is to help us. Breathe it in. It wil help purify you both.”
He shut the door behind them and told them to stand at the foot of the bed; then he came around the other side and stood beside me.
“Tel me how this al started,” he said.
Ada and Dex looked at each other. Ada stepped a bit forward and started rehashing everything that had happened, leaving out a few things like the miscarriage and Abby.
“And where do you come in?” Roman asked Dex.
Dex coughed and cleared his throat, looking strangely sheepish. “The little one cal ed me. I was the only one who believed what was wrong with Perry.”
“What was Perry’s state of mind before al of this happened?”
Dex opened his mouth to speak but no words came out.
He clamped his lips shut and looked at Ada with a pained face. She raised her brow at him and gave Roman a sadly sardonic smile.
“Perry’s state of mind?” Ada repeated. “She was emo as shit.”
Roman shot a look at Bird, who shrugged.
Ada stuck her finger underneath Dex’s scruffy chin. “This asshole broke up with Perry in November. Broke her poor fucking heart right in two. I’m only tolerating him because he was the last chance we had.”
Dex didn’t protest but he did look away at some imaginary spot on the floor. Roman mused that over, looking bothered.
“I see,” Roman said slowly and with a heavy sigh. I wondered if our history was going to complicate things for him. I hoped not. Things were already complicated enough.
“Yeah,” Ada continued, not done yet, “basical y slept with her and ditched her, used her...”
“Hey, OK, wait a minute,” Dex said, stepping away from Ada’s finger. “That’s not exactly what happened.”
If I could have control ed my own eyebrows, I would have raised them.
She glared at him, her eyes hard in the low light. “Oh yeah, perhaps you better explain what happened. Why Perry cried in her room for days wondering what the hel went wrong. You weren’t there. You didn’t have to help her day in and out, hoping that one day she’d come out of it and realize what a goddamn asshole you are. You didn’t see the way you left her. You didn’t have to help her pick up the pieces.”
She looked at Roman with conviction. “Plus, there was the whole him getting her pregnant and miscarriage thing.”
The words miscarriage hung heavily in the air.
Roman sucked in his breath.
Bird froze.
And Dex...he looked like someone had backhanded him with a shovel. He swal owed hard and his eyes went immediately to me. They held a wealth of regret and sadness in them.
I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I thought, staring across at him.
But then again, when would have been a good time? It was over and done with and none of his business, real y. We had other, bigger things to worry about than sex gone bad. I didn’t have time to worry about his feelings in this, though from the stunned, almost blue look on his blood-crusted face, I could see he was taking it hard. Harder than I thought he would.
“You didn’t know,” Roman said, stating the obvious.
Dex’s chin dropped and he broke eye contact with me.
Ada watched him, her face growing increasingly guilty for the way she just dropped it on him. I guess she, like me, had no idea how he would have reacted.
She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Hey, sorry. I’m sorry.”
He shrugged her hand off of him. “I need to get some air.”
“No,” Roman said. For a skinny, young guy he had quite the commanding voice. I guess you had to have that if you were commissioned to command demons out of people.
“You’re not going. We have to discuss this, al of this. It wil help me figure out what happened. What’s in her.”