Dark Paradise (30 page)

W
hite-hot pain jerks me awake.

I scream and hot, sticky liquid runs into my mouth.

My blood. I'm drinking my own blood.

My stomach lurches, and I roll onto my side, gagging. The coppery taste lingers on my tongue and mingles with a charcoal, burnt-beef stench that claws at the back of my throat and makes my stomach heave over again and again. Pressure in my head keeps me from curling up into a ball to ease the ache in my gut. The fire burning in my left eye won't stop. My eye socket feels bloated with fluid that leaks down my cheek. It throbs.

I can't see.

Darkness presses down, a heavy weight on my chest. Each breath wheezes. A cough tickles my throat, and I hold my breath, fighting it back. Maybe if I don't move, I won't hurt. What total bullshit. I won't hurt as much.
Why is it so dark?

The distorted shouts of male voices echo in the distance, broken by the crack of gunshots even farther away, but loud enough to jerk me upright. My head explodes in agony like I sucked on a live grenade. A scream rips its way upward, scratching and clawing at the lining of my throat. It doesn't stop until I'm gasping for smoke-tainted air. Wheezing. Choking. Suffocating.

The darkness eats me…

Rough hands roll me onto my back. I can't see who kneels at my side. It's too dark, and I can't focus my eyes. Whoever it is presses a smoke-tainted cloth against my injured eye, and I shove at a thick chest. The man shoves my hand away and continues to wrap the bandage around my head. He's not gentle.

“It hurts.
Don't touch me.
” I scream the words.

Hands slide beneath my armpits and circle around my chest. Another pair of hands grips my legs. I'm lifted. My head thumps against a chest.
Stop running? It hurts.
Each step stabs a shard of agony into my eye. My throat burns, raw and scratchy. Whimpers come from deep in my chest with each ragged breath. Voices yell over my head, but I don't recognize them. It takes too much effort to focus. I let their words wash over me.

An approaching engine jerks me awake. I'm lying on gravel. Rocks dig into my back. A bandage is tied around my head. I want to look around, but I can't move. I'm scared of the pain. Thick smoke mixed with that acrid, burnt-meat stench fills the air. Orange flames flicker. The fire dances, twisting and weaving. I try to focus on the source of the blaze, but my narrow field of vision contracts, cutting off.

Darkness swallows me whole.

My heart races. It pounds in my ears, throbbing.

The pop of rocks beneath tires grows louder, then stops. A car door opens. Feet run in my direction. I tense.

“Landry!”

Relief surges through me, momentarily dulling the pain. When it flares up again, I want to die.
Help, Dad…please.

He skids to a halt right beside me, kicking dirt and pebbles across my chest.
It's so dark. I can't see.
I reach for my father, but he pushes me back down before I do more than twitch.

I'm lifted into the passenger seat of Dad's truck. That small bit of movement sends a wave of fire rolling through my eye. My head lolls against the headrest. I smell the pine from his air freshener and the cinnamon spice of his cologne. I'm safe. He'll know what to do. I want to pass out. Why aren't I passing out?

My shirt's soaked with blood and sweat. The smell of smoke and offal begins to overpower the other smells filling the cab of the truck. The seat shakes when Dad gets in, and I groan. He buckles the seat belt. When the strap touches my shoulder, I cringe. It's like every nerve is on fire.

“It'll be okay, son.” Tears thicken his voice.

He hits the gas. I rock sideways when he makes a quick U-turn.

I black out.

When I come to, I can see. The interior dashboard lights look blurry. Even the high beams can't pierce the seeping fog licking the outer edges of the light. Trying to focus brings on a wave of nausea, and I clench my teeth, swallowing acidic vomit.

Why does my head hurt so bad?

I should know the answer.

Dad pulls my hand down when I touch a wet bandage around my eye. In order to see him, I roll my head to the side, panting against the pain. “What happened to me?”

“An accident…” Dad says, not looking from the road. “Don't talk. Rest. We'll be at the hospital soon. They'll fix your eye.”

They'll fix…No, I don't think so. I don't know why. It feels permanent. It feels right, like I deserve to suffer. But why? What did I do?

I stumble through the confusion, searching for answers in the fog filling my mind.
No. Smoke.
“The house was burning. I ran into a fire.” Flames licked at a couch. The woman screamed as her hair burned.

Oh God, Mala…

I ran inside to get Mala. She fought, but I dragged her out. Her mom burned, but I got her out. I gasp. “She stabbed me in the eye.”

“Landry—”

“Men in masks. They set fire to her house, Dad.” Mala sat on my chest with the knife held over my heart. She thought I was one of the bad guys. I wouldn't let her go back to save her mom. They would've killed her too.

The gunshots. Mala got shot before she could stab me. She ran into the woods, but one of the men followed her. He had a gun. He'll kill her. “Turn around.”

Dad's jaw flexes. “No.”

“We've got to go back. He's after Mala. He'll kill her!”

“She's dead. Acker went after her. There's no way she escaped him.”

A shiver goes through me. “Oh my God. You helped murder Mala's mom and you…”

“No, Landry—”

I lunge sideways, grabbing the wheel. I yank it hard.

“Landry, stop!” Dad yells, fighting me for control as the truck weaves from side to side. The right front tire skids in the mud. For a second, I think we'll slide down the embankment, but Dad jerks the wheel and all four tires return to the road.

“You almost killed us!”

My heart tries to leap up my throat. I can't believe I could be so stupid. We could've died. I've got to figure out a way to make him stop that doesn't involve crashing.

I glance up to see him staring, then my attention shifts.

A shadowed figure stands in the road. Misty tendrils lick her bare feet and curl up her legs, like it's a living coat. White hair floats around her head. I squeeze my eye shut. Clearly, I'm hallucinating, but when I look again, she's even closer.

“Dad, watch out!”

He jerks, eyes widening. “Do you see…”

I swear it's a wraith in a
Stargate Atlantis–
inspired costume, only instead of leather, she's wearing a black top hat and coat. She even holds a cane, which she swirls around her head. The spinning gold head reflects the headlights back into our eyes. I'm not sure how, but I can't see worth a damn. Dad slams on the brakes, but we're moving too fast to stop. The spinning cane leaves her hands as she flings it. It crashes against the windshield. Cracks spiral through the glass.

Dad shouts, twisting the wheel. He slams on the breaks, but the truck skids into the turn, weaves, then runs off the road. We're airborne. Then we hit the raised embankment. My arms rise instinctively to protect my face as my head whips forward then back.

I'm surprised I don't black out.

The truck lands in a ditch filled with runoff from the bayou. Muddy water flows into the cab and soaks into my shoes. The carpet squishes when I unbuckle my seat belt to check on Dad. Blood flows from a gash in his hairline. I find a heartbeat, but he doesn't wake up when I shake him. The fucking airbags didn't deploy on either side.

Dad's cell phone is in his pocket, but it doesn't have service.

A shadow moves at my window. The woman who had been standing in the road presses her face against the glass. She studies my face then smiles, motioning with a hand for me to roll down the window. Like I'm crazy. Shit! The bitch ran us off the road on purpose. Why?

Her eyes narrow.

Her shoulder moves. I can't see what she's doing with her hand. I hold my breath. Too terrified to move.

The click of the latch startles me. The door's unlocked.

I grab for the handle. I yank hard, but it's a fight. The woman's old, but she's strong enough that, for a second, I think I'm going to lose. Then I hear Dad groan. I can't let her get in. She's dangerous. We won't survive if she gets in. I grab the handle with both hands and slam it shut, then hit the lock.

The woman stares at me with yellow eyes, then shrugs. She walks off, vanishing behind the truck. I sit there for I don't know how long. Maybe I even fade in and out of consciousness. Blaring sirens bring me fully alert. I glance at Dad. He hasn't woken up. His head wound isn't bleeding anymore. The pain in my eye still makes me sick to my stomach, but I must be able to tolerate it better. I can think clearly…not rationally, but I know what to do.

I get out of the truck. My feet slip in muck. I thrash until I get balanced, then wade through chest-high water to the raised bank. It's slick. My feet and hands sink into the mud as I climb up the steep hill. I lose a shoe but don't stop to dig it out. Each minute that passes scares the piss out of me. Dad's hurt. He's waiting for me to get help.

I
wake in a white room. Sunlight filters through the drawn shades to fall on the sleeping man's face. He looks uncomfortable scrunched up in a tiny chair beside the bed. But his faint snore proves he rests. My mouth feels dry as sand, and my tongue doesn't seem to be working, much like the rest of my body. A dull throb echoes through my head and settles in my shoulder. When I reach for a cup of water next to the bed, the throb turns into a sharp pain, and I gasp.

The guy in the chair twitches then sits upright. He blinks at me with swollen eyes.

I point a finger at the pink plastic pitcher on the nightstand and grimace when even that small movement causes me pain. “Water, please,” I croak.

“Mala, thank God.” He grabs my hand, and I hiss. “Sorry, are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“I'm thirsty.”

“Sure thing.” He moves slower than I'd like. I'm a step away from drying out like a salamander on a stoop. He turns with the glass. Condensation fogs up the sides and little, happy chips of ice dance in the water. I can almost taste the cool silkiness sliding down my parched throat.

“Hurry,” I beg, unable to take my eyes from the glass.

He holds the glass out to me, but pulls back before I can take it. “Oh, I don't know. Maybe I should get an okay from the doctor first.”

“No, I'm thirsty.” Tears fill my eyes and the guy melts. Literally. His shoulders slump, his head lowers, and he takes that extra step to reach the bed. He wraps his arm around my shoulders as he helps me upright. His hands are gentle, and he smells nice.

“Thanks.” I take a sip. My eyes close as the cool liquid slides down my parched throat, and I shiver in ecstasy.
Heaven.

“I remember you,” I say, lying back.

He frowns, scrubbing a hand through his copper curls. “Remember what?”

“When you carried me to your car and stayed with me the whole ride to the hospital in the ambulance. Then they tried to kick you out—” I smile at the memory. “You put up such a stink that they let you stay in my room.”

He sits in the chair with a grin. “You remember all that, huh?”

“My hero. You kept your promise. Thanks.”

Darkness settles over his features. “I don't know why you're acting all surprised. Of course I stayed. You were dying. Hell, you almost bled to death, and it's my fault.”

“Why? Did you shoot me?”

“No! Don't be stupid. I—” His eyes narrow. “That wasn't sarcasm, was it? Are you seriously asking?”

“Someone shot me. If you didn't do it then it can't be your fault. You saved me.”

He collapses back into his chair. “How much of that night do you remember?”

“Everything. You found me in the road and carried me to the car. You kept me from blacking out.”

“What else?”

“What do you mean? That's everything.”

“Think back before I found you. What do you remember?”

I close my eyes and concentrate on the gray shadow in my head.

“Mala, do you remember?”

“Nothing's there. It's all gray and cold. Nothing's there before you.” I try to turn onto my side, but pain flares in my shoulder. Something bad happened to me and continues to affect me. Why am I so calm about not having any memories of before he found me? I should be upset, but truthfully, I don't care.

He rises quickly. “I'm getting the doctor.”

“No!” Panic fills me to the brim, hearing those words. “Don't leave me alone.”

“I have to. This isn't right.” He backs toward the door, his face filling with fear. “You know me, Mala. You know who I am.”

“You keep calling me Mala. Is that my name? Wait. Come back.”

He practically runs out the door, leaving me alone and terrified. I don't know who or what I'm afraid of, other than myself. I focus on slowing my breathing, not wanting to lose control. The wait stretches. The man doesn't return, and with each minute that passes, terror builds along the edges of my thoughts.

After about ten minutes, a nurse wearing fuchsia scrubs decorated with white daisies, with a nametag reading Delores Lindquist, enters the room. She proceeds to check my temperature and the fluid level in the IV bag attached to my arm by a long tube.

The man enters the room as she asks me to hold out my arm so she can check my blood pressure. He runs his fingers through his mussed hair. “I can't find the doctor. Did she come while I was gone?”

“Not yet, but at least the nurses haven't abandoned me.” I give Delores a little smile as she fiddles with my IV.

The man focuses on me. “Did the nurse say what time to expect the doctor?”

Why don't you ask her yourself?
“No, I expect the doc will be here when you see the whites of her eyes.”

“Cute, Mala.”

I shrug. “Why are you asking me? Ask the nurse yourself.”

Delores's expression grows severe. “George has been told the last four times he's asked that Dr. Morris will be in later this morning. She'd been on duty fifteen hours by the time she went home last night. She needs the rest.” She pats my foot and gives me a little smile. “He's kind of stubborn. In a cute way, I guess.”

My eyes widen, and I glance at this guy named George, but he's too busy stretching the kinks out of his back to pay attention to Delores's remarks. That or he doesn't hear her. Which makes no sense.
Right?

“You're healing just fine, Mala,” Delores says. “Breakfast should be coming soon. Make sure you eat a lot before they start running tests.” She writes a note on her clipboard, then vanishes.

I blink, waiting for my vision to stop acting wonky. Surely she didn't disappear, like for real? I glance at George, mouth opening, and then shut it quick. Just because I'm an amnesiac doesn't mean I'm crazy. I hope.

Dr. Morris arrives an hour later and asks me a bunch of questions about how much I remember. She orders a slew of tests: an MRI, EEG, blood work…
yuck
.

Once they finish treating me like a human pin cushion, they move on to psychological testing to see if I've lost my mind. Judging by the expression on the face of Dr. Rhys, the hospital psychiatrist, I failed. Probably because I'm talking to people he says aren't actually in the room.

Which is total bullshit!

George goes missing about three hours into the testing. He leaves a message with a nurse named Isabel, who I hate on sight, about being called in to work. His absence brings on a panic attack that traps me in a waking nightmare for a day and a half. With my emotional control so fragile, my hallucinations become stronger.

Ghostly specters float in and out of my room. Some, like Nurse Lindquist, look and sound so alive that I confuse them for real people. Others terrify me by the violence of their appearances. Those are the worst: blood-covered torsos, missing limbs, burns. Nurse Isabel keeps a syringe of a powerful sedative tucked in her pocket. One quick jab of the needle into my IV line, and I'm out like a beagle curled up in front of a fireplace.

The drugs trap me within nightmares. I can't escape. No matter how fast I run or how hard I fight, I can't wake up. I run through fire, sink in quicksand—suffer one terrible, life-threatening event after another. Over and over. I find myself wanting to die and go to hell, rather than be stuck in the endless, revolving loop of my dreams.

I wake with a cry. A hunched shadow fills the chair beside the bed. When I scream, it moves forward.

“George.” I hold out my hand. “I had a nightmare…of fire…and a girl with blue eyes.”

His warm hand takes mine. “Shh, you're safe now.”

With a startled yelp, I snatch my hand back and turn on the lamp beside the bed. I pull the blanket up to my neck, making sure to cover all essential private areas. “Who the hell are you?”

“Don't you remember me?” he asks.

Am I supposed to? Will his feelings be hurt when I say I don't remember him? More important, will I be the only one able to see him? I think he's real. Unlike my previous visitors, he doesn't set the hairs on my body on end. He also doesn't seem to have the ability to walk through solid walls or vanish on a whim. But I've been mistaken by how real my delusions appear and embarrassed myself enough that Dr. Rhys wants to start me on antipsychotic medication.

I reach out real quick and pinch his arm.

He yelps, jerking his arm free. “Hey, no groping.”

“Uh, sorry.” I tap a finger to my bandaged head. “I have a head injury. A few quirks come with the territory. Like the whole remembering-who-you-are thing. My doctor says the amnesia is my mind's way of protecting me from a traumatic experience. I figure it must be pretty horrible since nobody will tell me what happened. They think that if they say something, it'll trigger a memory before my mind's ready to deal with it, and I'll go crazy.”

I brush a shaky hand through my hair. Why am I telling a stranger so much? He probably doesn't even care.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“That I'm already insane.” I cringe at the confession. Wanting to change the subject, I ask, “So, what are you doing in my room? It's the middle of the night.” I squint up at him, then it hits me. “Oh my God! You were watching me sleep, weren't you?”

“Yeah, you got a little drool.” He circles his chin with a finger and laughs when I hastily wipe my mouth. “You also snore, but don't worry. It's pretty cute. Like a little flute whistle.”

“I don't snore. I know that for a fact.”

His head dips, and a shock of midnight hair flops over his forehead. “Can I sit? I'm not feeling too good myself.”

I wave toward the chair.

He collapses into it with a groan and lays his head back.

Curious, but not wanting to offend, I fiddle with the edge of the blanket until I work up the courage to ask “What happened to your eye?”

His single gray eye closes. The bandage swathing the other stands starkly against his olive skin. “My dad and I were in a car accident. He's still in intensive care. He hasn't woken up yet. It's been three days.”

“I'm so sorry. I hope he'll be okay.”

“Thanks.” He sits up to lean forward. “So you really don't remember me?”

“No. I really don't,” I say, trying not to sound annoyed since he looks so sad. I don't want to run him off. “I know. Let's pretend like we've never met and introduce ourselves. Like this. They tell me my name's Malaise. Not a name I'd choose, but I'll work with what I've got. Now it's your turn.”

He thrusts forward, rising quickly to his feet. He wavers, catching his balance on the end of the bed. Sweat pops up on his forehead. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “I shouldn't have come. I just couldn't believe…The nurse told me about your condition, but I had to see…to know if losing my eye—if it was worth it.”

His words make no sense, but when he turns to walk to the door, something in me rebels. “Wait, don't go.” I throw back the covers. All the wires attached to the various machines tangle me up, preventing me from leaving the bed.

Pain shoots through my bandaged shoulder. I grit my teeth, breathing hard until the searing agony subsides to a dull throb. “Nobody's been in to visit all afternoon. Even when people do stop by, I don't know them. Please stay. I'm sick of being alone.”

The boy paused at the door when I cried out, and he slowly turns to face in my direction. “So am I,” he says. “And I miss…talking to you.”

“Why? You act like you know me. But you're saying things I don't understand. Will you at least tell me your name?”

“I'm Landry, and yes, I do know you. We're friends.”

“Oh? Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?” I grin and pat the bed. “Nobody else seems to know me at all, except the police. Tell me what I'm like. How long have we been friends? Do I have a favorite food?”

Landry laughs. “I could totally make up all the answers, and you wouldn't know the difference.”

“Yeah, but why would you do that?”

“Just to see you eat broccoli because you think you like it.” He sits on the edge of the bed. “I could say that we've been madly in love since the eighth grade.”

I snort at that one. “Somehow I don't think you're my type.”

“Oh, how would you know?”

“A feeling I don't have when I look at you.”

“How could you've forgotten our long-standing love affair?” He lifts my hand and brings the back of it to his lips. Warmth floods through my body at the tender kiss, and I scowl.

He meets my gaze with an intensity that makes my heart race, and the stupid machine tracking my heart rate beeps like crazy. All I need to complete my humiliation is for a barrage of nurses to race into the room to administer CPR.

He gives me a smug grin. “Ah-ha, confess. You felt that, didn't you?”

“I did not.” I disentangle my hand from his grasp as I study his face. Damn, the boy has good genes. Handsome barely cuts the mustard in describing him. Yet for all his beauty, I still feel disconnected from him, like I'm looking at a painting that is visually pleasing to the eye but would be dowdy in comparison to the original.

“Hey, enough about me,” I say, after I remember how to breathe. “I'm a partially open book. What I know, I'll be up front and honest about. Everything else is locked in the vault of my damaged mind.”

“Guess that means it's my turn.”

“Well, your memory's intact. Tell me about yourself. Start with the basics: name, age, hobbies.”

He bends forward at the waist in a mini-bow. “Landry Prince, at your service. Age twenty-one. My hobby is chatting up cute girls with memory loss while they're stuck in a hospital bed and can't run screaming in horror.”

“Oh, please, I bet a girl never ran from you in your life,” I say laughing.