Red Fox (30 page)

“
I’m OK, Dex,” I
said.

“
You’re not OK,” he
murmured. “You were hurt.”

I remembered the clawing. I
felt down at my stomach. There was a bandaged pad there. If I ever
got out of Red Fox, I was going out as a mummy made of
gauze.

“
Oh jeez,” I said feeling
sick. “How bad is it?”

“
Rudy fixed you up,” Dex
said. “You’re OK. He gave you some shots, some antibiotics to be
safe. It just the wounds…I can’t even talk about without wanting to
kill someone, I’m sorry.” He looked disgusted.

“
What about
them?”

He reached up for my hand
which was still at his cheek and took it in his.

“
I think he may have had a
knife,” Dex said.

A knife. Or claws. But I
didn’t want to mention that now. In fact, I didn’t want to know
anymore. Except for one thing.

“
Did you undress me?” I
asked, squinting at him.

He turned a bit pink in the
cheeks, a color I rarely saw on him.

“
Yes,” he said wryly. “But I
didn’t look, I swear.”

“
Right,” I rolled my eyes.
The fact that Dex saw me naked, and in a totally incompetent state,
was just another mortifying thing to deal with. Yeah, I had bigger
things to worry about but apparently I was still going to embarrass
easily over something as vain as that. That was actually kind of a
good sign.

“
Hey,” he said, squeezing my
hand again. “It’s all good. Don’t worry about it, kiddo. Just get
some sleep now. We both need it.”

I smiled knowing he was
right and dared to close my eyes again. The room slowly stopped
swimming and I fell asleep holding his hand, my heart swollen with
gratitude.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I stood on the edge of
precipitous cliff. In front of me lay a dark and undulating land
lit by the icy power of a full moon. There were no clouds in the
night sky but there was a strong wind that came from invisible
origins and ruffled my hair till it was blowing behind me like a
flag. I was in bare feet, just inches from falling into the shadowy
canyons below. My arms were outspread like a young condor about to
take its first flight.

“
The truth is in the fire,”
a voice whispered from behind me.

I dropped my arms to the
side and slowly turned around. I was facing a fire that smoldered
and crackled high in the star-lit sky. Around it sat two people in
high-backed chairs. On one side was a man dressed in denim
overalls, on the other was a woman in a black dress. They had deer
heads poking out of their collars, watching me with those blank,
liquid eyes.

“
Look in the fire,” one of
them said, though their deer mouths didn’t move.

I looked at the fire. It
swirled and flowed like a red river of flame. In the base of the
fire, where the logs burned and cracked, the ashy black kindling
moved. A snake made of charcoal crawled out of the flames leaving a
trail of black soot in the ground behind it. It made its way to me
and was about to strike.

I gasped and stepped
backward. There was nothing left beneath my feet.

I fell and I fell through
the air like a stone sinking in a bottomless pond. The angry mouth
of the canyon below was open and waiting to engulf me with its
sharp rocks and horrible depths. I was gone for.

“
Perry?” I heard someone
say.

I opened my eyes. I was
standing outside, in between the Lancaster’s house and the barn.
Dawn was breaking somewhere in the east, bringing hazy light to the
horizon and warming up the ending night.

I looked down at my feet.
They were barefoot. In front of me was the remains of a fire, only
blackened logs remaining. My hands were bloody.

“
Perry!” I felt a hand on
my shoulder and turned to see Dex peering anxiously at me, dressed
in just his pajama pants. I showed him my hands, frightened out of
my gourd.

He swallowed hard and
looked me over.

“
It’s OK, you must have
ripped open your cuts,” he said softly. I looked down at my
stomach. Blood had seeped through my tee shirt.

Dex leaned over and cupped
my face in his hands. I had a hard time focusing on him, or on
anything, really.

“
What happened? Why are you
out here?” he asked.

I didn’t know. I didn’t
remember coming outside. I remembered my dream but…that was just a
dream. Wasn’t it?

I told him about it. He
took in a deep breath, trying to process it.

“
And there’s a fire,” I said
slowly. “I don’t know what that means.”

“
What happened?” we heard
Bird yell out from behind us. He came barging out of the house with
his shotgun in hand and ran up to us.

“
What happened?” Dex
sneered. “What happened to you? You were supposed to be watching
her.”

Bird shook his head looking
worse for wear. I felt sorry for the old man.

“
I must have fallen asleep
for a second, I never heard her leave,” he said
helplessly.

“
I’m sorry,” I said meekly.
“I guess I was sleepwalking or something.”

“
Let’s hope that’s all this
was,” he said. He peered behind me at the fire remains. “Somehow I
doubt it. Come on, it’s freezing out here.”

He took one of my arms
while Dex took the other and they led me back in the house like I
was some kind of invalid.

Inside it was warm and the
floor felt delightful against my cold feet. They led me into the
kitchen. Bird brought the first aid kit out of the top drawer. It
was certainly getting a lot of use lately.

It was dark in the kitchen
except for a small lamp in the corner but the day outside was
coming on brighter by the minute. It didn’t seem Will or Sarah were
up yet, which was a huge relief. I waited patiently while Bird
lifted up my shirt and put on a new bandage on my wounds. It looked
disgusting but he said it wasn’t infected.

“
Do you remember now how you
got this?” Bird asked.

I told him the truth, what
I had kept from Dex last night.

Dex was shocked. “Are you
serious? Claws?”

“
That’s what it felt like.
It wasn’t knives, he didn’t have any. It felt like I was being
raked by a giant bird. I think I know what that feels like now.
It’s what it looked like.”

Dex folded his arms and
mulled that over. I noticed he was still shirtless.
And with madness comes the
light
. I had to disagree.

“
I’m not surprised,” Bird
said, his voice heavy. “I think I’ll give Rudy a call. The sooner
we can get a start on things today, the better. I’ll be right
back.”

He pulled my shirt down
over the wound and left the house. I looked at Dex and managed a
small smile. “Sure. That’s what they all say.”

Dex walked over to the
doorway and peeked out at the rest of the house. Satisfied, he came
back in the kitchen, grabbed my hand and sat me down at the tiny
kitchen table. He took both my hands in his and looked at me
intently.

“
Listen,” he said softly. “I
think you should leave.”

I opened my mouth to say
something, though I wasn’t sure what yet, but he
continued.

“
Just listen to me. Maximus
is right. It’s still early, I doubt he’s left yet. You can get a
ride back with him to Albuquerque. The longer you stay here, the
worse things are going to get. And I can’t forgive myself for what
happened to you last night.”

“
Dex,” I started.

“
I’m responsible for you,”
he said. “And clearly I’m not very good at taking care of anyone,
let alone myself. I don’t know what I’d do if anything else
happened to you. So you need leave, today. Now.”

I looked into his eyes. I
had never seen them so worried, so sincere. I squeezed his hands
lightly. His concern melted me inside but I couldn’t leave him. I
wouldn’t leave him here with these people. These
things
.

“
I’m not going unless you
go too,” I whispered, paranoid that people could be
listening.

“
Don’t do that,” he shook
his head. “You know I have to stay here.”

“
No, you
don’t!” I said. “We’ll just do something else. There are a lot of
other things. Or just make something with the footage we have. We
have those rocks and stuff on film, that’s something. Nobody said
we had to be freaking
Paranormal
State.”

“
Yes. I did. If I go back
with just that, Jimmy’s going to laugh me out of the office and
this whole thing will be done. We will be done. We only get one
chance.”

“
It’s not worth risking
your life over,” I implored.

“
It’s not
worth risking
your
life over. Mine means nothing.”

I was surprised at how
serious he was about that. How could he say such a
thing?

He must have noticed my
frustration because he added, “And nothing is going to happen to
me. It’s obviously you that they want, that’s what Bird and Rudy
said and I really believe them now.”

I leaned back in my chair
and squared my gaze. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“
I’m not worth it,” he
challenged back.

“
Yes. You are,” I said.
“And if this is what it takes to make something of my life, then so
be it. I’d rather die here then leave without trying.”

“
You don’t mean that,” he
said roughly.

“
Well, no, I’d rather not
die but staying here is worth the risk.” I was even unsure about
that.

“
Why do you care so much
about this? You’ve got plenty going on for you back at home.” He
narrowed his eyes and tried to read me.

Was this the time to tell
him I was not only jobless and living a lie, but there was a
possibility that I was in love with him as well? Nah.

“
I just do,” was my winning
answer.

So we were kind of between
a rock and a hard place as we sat at that kitchen table in the wee
hours of the morning, when the house was still quiet and the
nightmares of last night were swept away like flimsy cobwebs. We
were both too stubborn to give up and neither one of us wanted to
see the other one hurt.

“
What if I can’t protect
you?” he said softly, looking down at my bandaged hands. Rare waves
of his vulnerability and honesty were flying all over the place and
hitting me straight in the chest. I had the biggest urge to tilt
his chin up and kiss him gently on the lips. Just to let him know
it was OK, just to see what it would feel like, just to tell him
how I felt. It seemed the most fitting thing to do.

Instead, I said, “You did
protect me last night. I don’t know what would have happened if you
weren’t there. And in most other circumstances, I’m pretty good at
protecting myself.”

He wiped his mouth with the
back of his hand, a little lost boy look in his eyes. A lock of his
black hair fell across his forehead. I wanted to sweep it away but
was afraid that if I touched his face in any way I wouldn’t be able
to help myself and it would lead to other bad things.

Sensing something in me, he
looked up and our eyes met. Sparks were flying through a current
between us.
This could lead to bad things
too
, I thought.
A
man and a woman just can’t stare at each other like this. Something
has to give.

“
OK,” Bird said as he
suddenly appeared in kitchen. We both jumped a little and gave him
a sheepish look, as if he had caught us doing something we
shouldn’t be.

“
Am I interrupting
something?” he asked, stopping in front of us.

Dex was first to let go of
my hands and shook his head. “Not at all. What’s the
plan?”

Now, being that we were
pretending to be married, it wouldn’t have seemed out of place if
Dex had continued to hold on to me but I guess that little thought
of Jenn was still present in his head somewhere.

“
As soon as you get
dressed, I’ll take you to Rudy’s. It’s best if you don’t eat
anything either.”

“
What do we say to Will and
Sarah?” I whispered.

Bird leaned in closer. “Say
nothing. Let me take care of that. Meet me by my truck in 15
minutes.”

It ended up being about 20
minutes later when we met him by his truck. I was still super woozy
and a bit sick, so getting dressed took some extra effort. It felt
like it was the worst hangover I ever had and I didn’t want Dex
helping me anymore. I could put on my own pants, thank you very
much. It just took a few attempts.

“
What took you so long?”
Bird said as we walked over to him. He looked me over and pointed
at my jeans. “You can’t wear that to a sweat ceremony.”

“
Well, I don’t know,” I said
feebly but he just shook his head. Bird had really changed in the
last 24 hours. I guess we all had.