Collide (27 page)

“What did you see when you arrived at the
scene?’ the same cop asked.

Akira’s face darkened and he clenched his
fists. “This really large guy had twisted Jane’s hands behind her
as he held a knife to her throat. Maria was on the ground off to
the side. I couldn’t check to see if she was all right since, you
know, guy with a knife threatening my friend and all. He didn’t see
me coming, so I hit him from the side and he let Jane go. We
exchanged a few blows, but he must have decided that he was in over
his head and ran off. I didn’t chase him because I was worried
about the girls.”

The cops looked at me and by way of
explanation I held out my hands where they could see the dark,
purple bruising on my wrists. I swallowed, swallowed again, and
managed to rasp out, “He said there were others.” My EMT gave me a
disapproving look and shook her head as she told me that I needed
to stop talking. I just looked at her for a second and whispered,
“It’s important.” She sighed and gave me a go ahead.

“When he had me, he mentioned something about
other girls,” I whispered. I was morbidly amused by the fact that
my soft voice was making all the cops lean in like I was telling
them some deep, dark, family secret. “When I demanded to know how
many, he asked me if I had meant here or in the other places he had
lived. You might find unsolved assault cases in the national
database, or whatever you guys use to exchange information.”

A couple of the cops moved off after hearing
what I said, and I could hear them talking into their radios in cop
speak which, I suppose, meant that they were doing what I had
suggested. One of the younger guys asked us if we’d be wiling to
work with a sketch artist, and we all agreed, though by rights
Akira had only seen the guy after he had made his transformation
from human to
Oni
, but I had a feeling he’d leave it to
Maria and myself to get the human version of the
Oni
drawn
even though it wouldn’t do any good since it had been returned to
where it had come from.

“If you gentleman are done,” my EMT said
crisply, “I’d like to get these children into the ambulance so we
can get them to the hospital to be checked out more thoroughly than
we can here.”

“That’s fine. Just have them put their
clothes into plastic bags so that we can go through them for trace
evidence,” the guy I decided was the lead investigator said.

“I can drive,” I whispered, only have a dirty
look leveled on me by my EMT, Akira, and Maria.

“I think not,” EMT Lady said. “Your skin
feels cold to the touch, and it’s not just from being outside for a
while. You might not feel like you’re in shock, but all it would
take is something out of the ordinary to happen to send you
crashing, and that makes you a liability to both yourself and
anyone else on the road. Into the ambulance with all of you.”

I grumbled, but I knew she was right. Fine
tremors ran up and down my muscles, and I was suddenly over come by
a wave of exhaustion so strong that I wavered a little as I climbed
into the back of the ambulance. The EMTs were kind and gave us all
blankets that we wrapped around our shoulders, and we all sat down
on one of the gurneys with me in the middle. I fought back a
hysterical giggle at the thought that they had flanked me in case I
tried to run away again. I thought it was a totally unnecessary
move as I had no where go to and there was no way to run from what
was going on, even if I still wanted to.

The ambulance pulled away with a slight bump,
and my head began to droop a little after a few seconds of the
gentle swaying motion. Maria gave me a little nudge that sent me
bumping into Akira. My exhaustion was such that I didn’t even move
away and I allowed my head thump onto his shoulder as I closed my
eyes. If there really was a god who governed sleep and dreams, then
he was really pissed at me because there was no gentle drifting
off. Instead, I was dragged under into the realm of nothing as
deep, dreamless sleep fell over me.

Consciousness returned in increments, and I
couldn’t help but wonder if I had been dropped into a vat of
molasses and told that I needed to swim to the edge in order to
live because things were so muted and slow. For a few wonderful
moments I believed that everything that had happened had been one
insanely long, overly tripped out dream and I promised to never,
ever eat left over pizza right before bed again. Then I shifted and
found that I couldn’t hide any longer.

The first thing that registered was the fact
that my eyes had been glued shut over sand paper. They were dry,
painfully scratchy and did not want to open. The next was that
something had died in my mouth, and the third was that everything
ached. My throat, my neck, my shoulders, and my poor wrists felt
like I had gone a round with a professional baseball player, only I
had been used as the bat. Which probably wasn’t too far from the
truth, but still.

After a struggle, I managed to get my eyes to
crack a little and I found myself staring up at an unfamiliar
ceiling that connected to some very unfamiliar white walls. The bed
I was laying on was extremely firm, and it wasn’t until I
cautiously turned my head and saw the bed railings that it
registered I was in a hospital room. No wonder it was so
uncomfortable. I stared around, puzzled, and started to sit up,
only to fall back with a groan when my back and neck muscles
screamed
at me.

“Oh, honey,” I heard my Mom’s voice and I
swiveled my eyes in the direction it came from and saw her framed
in the doorway of my room. “Don’t try to move just yet, your
muscles were strained and are going to be very stiff and
painful.”

I wanted to ask her what she was talking
about, but what came out was a rather strangled sounding “Buh?”
that made my poor throat swell with pain.

“I wouldn’t talk, either,” Mom said as she
walked over to the bed and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Your
throat was extremely raw when you got here, and the doctors say it
might be a few days before it gets back to normal.”

I sighed. “Can I at least whisper?” I asked
tentatively. My throat didn’t immediately flare up with stinging
bees the way it had when I tried to talk normally, so I took that
as a good sign.

“You can talk softly as long as it doesn’t
irritate your throat,” Mom said as she poured me a glass of water
and handed it to me. I have no idea how she knew I desperately
wanted something to drink, but I guess that’s what moms do best. I
drained the glass and winced as it passed through my raw throat but
I forced myself to ignore it in favor of the slight cooling the
water brought.

“Why am I in the hospital?” I asked as I
squinted at the walls.

“I’m so glad to see you awake!” a cheerful
voice called from the doorway before Mom could answer, and I looked
over to see Akira walk in carrying a bag from Baker’s Bookstore. I
gave him a puzzled look, and he cocked his head in that oh so
familiar, bird like way.

“You’ve been asleep on and off for two days,”
Mom said, and my eyes widened in horror. Oh man, if that was true,
then I most likely looked like a total wreck! Ack! And on top of
that, if my mouth tasted like something had died in it, than my
breath must . . . EWWWWWW!

“Don’t worry,” Mom leaned in to whisper in my
ear. “Your face is clean and your hair is braided, so you don’t
look too bad, just very pale. And I have a stick of gum if you
want.”

I shot her a grateful look, popped the gum in
my mouth and asked, “What happened? Two days?”

“You were asleep when the ambulance pulled
up, and no one could get you to wake up for longer than five
minutes. The doctors were worried that you had hit your head and
ran some tests, but everything was normal, so they said that you
just collapsed from exhaustion due to severe emotional and mental
stress. They kept you here for observation just in case there was
something that they missed. The only reason you’re not on an IV
drip is because we were able to get you to wake up enough to eat
and drink meals, but that was about it,” Mom said.

I frowned as a vague memory of someone
bullying me surfaced from the clouds, but it faded back into the
ethers the more I tried to concentrate on it.

“How’s Maria?” I asked as I carefully began
to hunt for the little remote that operated the bed. I was a little
tired of staring up at everyone while flat on my back, and truth be
known it was embarrassing, too.

“Here, let me,” Akira said as he set the bag
down and picked up the remote from where it had fallen on the
floor. He depressed a button and the bed started to lift up behind
my back. I gritted my teeth as my muscles pulled and complained,
but I knew if I uttered a single sound Akira would stop and Mom
would scold. The bed finally stilled and I released a sigh of
relief before I gave Mom an expectant look.

“Maria’s fine,” she said. “In fact, she was
in better shape than you were. Only a mild concussion, and the
doctors let her go home. She would be here right now, only I heard
from her mom that she wasn’t feeling well again and they think it’s
the mono flaring up. She did make me promise to let her know the
moment you were fully awake, though I think she’d forgive a little
time lapse. Mrs. Dupree also sent her eternal gratitude for what
you did. It’s because of you and Akira over there that Maria
escaped with minor bruising and a slight bump on her head. My
little warrior.”

Mom said this affectionately as she gently
smoothed some stray hair away from my face, and my cheeks heated up
from even more embarrassment (shouldn’t there be a limit to how
many times a person is made to blush in a day? It can’t be healthy
to do it more than once) as I cut a quick glance at Akira out of
the corner of my eye. He was busy looking into the bag he had
brought, and I relaxed slightly. Motherly affection is fine, but
not always appreciated when in the presence of the opposite
sex.

“Mom, is there anything they can give me for
the pain?” I asked when my back twinged another protest.

“I’m sure there is, I’ll be right back.”

I turned my attention to Akira as Mom left,
and found that he had pulled a book out and was holding it in his
hands while he fidgeted slightly. I quirked an eyebrow at him in
question when he looked up and caught my eye.

“I wasn’t sure what you liked to read during
your down time,” he said. “So I asked Mr. Baker and he recommended
this.”

He handed me a shiny new paperback copy from
one of my all time favorite authors, and I had to fight down a
rather loud and most certainly painful squeal.

“Thank you!” I said softly, running my hands
along the glossy cover as I admired the cover art and the neatly
gathered pages. “I’ve been wanting to read this, but never got
around to picking it up!”

His shoulders drooped and he let out a sigh
of relief. I was too busy drooling over my newest acquisition to
really pay much attention until he sat down in the chair next to
the bed and reached out to place his hand over one of mine. I
looked up at him, startled.

“What you did the other night was incredibly
stupid, but one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. Most people
would have bolted when the
Oni
showed his true form, but you
kept right on going at him,” he said, his eyes serious as he
reached out and lightly ran a finger down my cheek. I blinked at
him then shrugged, or rather, I tried to. What came out was
something that looked more like the movement of a sick ostrich as
my back muscles creaked and protested.

“I’m trying my best not to think about it,” I
told him honestly. “I’m finding it hard to understand, but I also
know that if I try to deny what I saw and what I was told, no
matter how fantastic and out there it sounds, well, I run the risk
of pushing away my best friend. And I’m not willing to lose her
because she’s a . . . she’s . . .” seems I still had trouble saying
it.

“I’m trying to figure out what and how it
happened,” Akira muttered in response to my unspoken question, and
I nodded. “She gives a few indicators that she’s a real zombie, but
something isn’t right. It could be related to the
Gaki
, but
I don’t know for sure.”

“We all need to talk,” I said and rubbed my
throat. Akira refilled my glass and handed it to me, and I sipped
on it.

“Not until your voice is better, though,” he
admonished and shook his finger at me. “You’re so volatile
sometimes that I don’t think you’d be able to keep yourself down to
a whisper during the entire conversation, so it’s going to have to
be postponed.”

“Keep shaking that finger at me and I’m going
to bite it off,” I hissed and glared at the offending
appendage.

“Is that a promise?” he asked, his voice
suddenly husky. My jaw dropped and my eyes flew to his and the jaw
snapped back into place when I saw the heavy lidded look he was
giving me. I wasn’t given time to ponder the potential meaning
because Mom returned with a small cup that contained some
pills.

“I’m so sorry it took me so long,” she said
as Akira casually leaned back in the chair. I mentally thanked and
cursed my Mom for her timing as he crossed his ankle over his knee
and stared at his shoe with studied nonchalance. “But I ran into
some friends of yours.”

My smile nearly split my face in two when
Kat, Jessica and the rest of my lunch group tumbled into my room
behind Mom. There was a general low babbling hum as they greeted
Akira and chattered at me about how they had been collecting my
school assignments and they were all so glad to see me awake and
wow, must really hurt if I made that kind of face while swallowing
my pills with water.

“Yeah,” I whispered.

Mom explained how I was to speak softly on
pain of no fresh baked cookies the next time they visited. Everyone
nodded and promised (all the while looking suitably horrified at
the thought of no cookies), and Mom left to pick up the twins.
She’d come back and collect me later.