Scorned (15 page)

“That’s interesting,” I said, trying to make
light conversation. Eddy looked up at me and frowned.

“You don’t like it?” His voice held such
condemnation that, if I didn’t already deal with it on a regular
basis, I would have said something nice to fix it. As it was, I
just shrugged and went back to working on my last arrangement.

“I don’t like pink.”

I guess that was enough for him, because
Eddy went back to his piece without another word until he had to
stop so we could deliver the arrangements. It was awkward, the two
of us riding in the van alone. There was nothing really to say
except to comment occasionally on the stupidity of the other
drivers on the road or to hope that the sunshiny weather didn’t
turn dismal and gray. Not that I’d mind, but Eddy seemed to, so I
went along with it. The mood was almost pleasant. The bride loved
her fish arrangements, and it was a good thing too. We rode back to
the shop in silence and Eddy let me leave right away.

“Hey, Eddy, um, I’m not trying to have a
moment or anything. I know you don’t like me much, but I just
wanted to thank you for calling me. I really need the hours.”

“Yeah. See you later.”

I wasn’t really expecting anything, but I
got an almost smirk. The corner of his mouth rose ever so slightly
and, even in that simple movement, his face changed and he became
an entirely different person.

It was hard not to feel light hearted as I
left, but I didn’t let myself read too much into it. I’d just saved
the man’s bacon. He owed me a little gratitude.

Pierce and I rescheduled for dinner and I
met him at a greasy spoon where we’d caught breakfast a few times
before. Pierce liked greasy spoons because they had good food and I
was inclined to agree, provided the spoons weren’t actually greasy
and nothing else was either.

We both ordered hamburgers and Pierce added
an extra hotdog on the side and extra fries to his order.

“How’ve you been, babe?” Pierce asked before
he bit into his hotdog. I took a moment to answer, taking a bite of
my burger and sipping my soda.

“You know. Bored, broke, and bored.
You?”

Pierce smiled. “Gable and I went out of town
on some family business. Been kind of busy.”

I nodded.

Well, isn’t that just lovely for you. I bet
you didn’t even consider that-

“You were on my mind, though,” he said and I
knew I was blushing.

“Oh.” I took another bite of my burger and
chewed slowly. I really didn’t know how to act. I wanted to be
happy that Pierce was back after our two week hiatus, but at the
same time, I couldn’t just let it go that he’d disappeared for two
weeks without any sort of contact. Granted, it was my fault,
but...

“What?” Pierce asked, giving me the perfect
segue.

I shook my head. “I just want to enjoy this,
Pierce, please. I don’t want to be angry right now.”

“I can understand that.”

“How’s Petrice?” I asked. Surely someone
would have called me if she’d had the baby.

“Very pregnant.” I guess I looked relieved,
because his next words were, “Staci, do you really think we would
have let that girl have her baby without calling you?”

I looked down at my plate and fiddled with a
fry, because I didn’t know what to say. I honestly didn’t know.
Pierce hadn’t wanted anything to do with me for the last two weeks,
so why would he, or his brother for that matter, bother to call me
just because Petrice was having her baby?

“Staci, babe, I’m not mad at you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to do this
right now, Pierce. Please?”

“Okay. That’s fine. What are you doing
today?”

“I don’t have any plans.”

“You want to go to a movie or
something?”

I shook my head without looking up. “No, I
think I’m going to go home.” I looked up then and saw with dismay,
that wall go up behind his eyes. I’d hurt him, both intentionally
and not, and that hurt me, but I wasn’t about to jump back into the
fire before I knew what was really going on between us. I knew that
my feelings toward him hadn’t changed, but I needed to know what he
was thinking and feeling and I wasn’t ready to deal with it just
yet.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. Pierce just
shook his head.

“You’re good.”

I lost my appetite after that, and I guess
he did too, because we both asked for takeout boxes for our barely
touched burgers and fries. He’d already downed the hotdog before we
got into the heavy stuff.

I watched Pierce while we waited for our
takeout boxes. He’d been good enough to put his cell away while we
were talking, but now that we weren’t talking anymore I guess he
had business to handle.

“What kind of family business- Ow!” I almost
screamed. The waitress came back with our boxes, and tripped over
her own feet. When she stuck her hand out to catch herself on the
table, her hand slipped and her ancient-looking ruby ring dug so
deep into my arm I thought she’d scrape bone with it. Thorns
twisted around the ring and the ruby and it was no wonder it
stabbed so deep.

“Oh my god!” the girl exclaimed. “I am so
sorry!”

The wound on my arm was bleeding freely.
Actually, gushing was a better word for it and blood poured down my
arm and onto the table and floor.

“Good god!” I exclaimed without thinking.
“What was on the end of that thing? An ice pick?!”

She shoved some napkins into my hand with a
sobbing, “Here,” before she disappeared into the bathroom.

“Damn,” I exclaimed under my breath. Pierce
stood next to me holding the napkins to my arm to try and staunch
the blood flow, but it didn’t seem to do much good. Whatever she’d
done, she’d nicked me good.

“Do you want to wait and see if it stops or
do you want to go?”

“We can go,” I said, looking down at my
ruined burger. “Oh, god. I’m gonna be sick.”

Pierce jumped out of the way as I dashed for
the bathroom. I barely made it to the toilet before I lost what
little bit of food I’d eaten and then the dry heaves started. I
couldn’t get the image out of my head of my burger drenched in
blood. By the time I stopped retching my stomach, throat, and head
hurt and my eyes were teary. I heard sniffling from one of the
other stalls.

“Hey, I’m not mad at you,” I said and I spit
into the toilet to get rid of the throw up taste. “It just hurt and
I said the first thing that came to mind.”

“Will you need stitches?” the meek voice
asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe. It doesn’t want to
stop bleeding.” The napkins were soaked. I flushed them and went to
the sink, hoping some cold water might help it clot. All it really
did was sting like hell. I let the water run over it for a few
minutes before I washed my hands, rinsed my mouth, and got some
paper towels to dry myself off.

“Stace?” Pierce called through a crack in
the door. “You alright?”

“Yeah. It’s still bleeding.” I walked out of
the bathroom with the paper towels pressed to my arm. “Should I go
to the hospital?”

“Do you want to go to the hospital?”

“No.”

No. I really just want you to hold me.

But I wouldn’t say that out loud. Not
yet.

I didn’t want to look. I tried not to, but
curiosity won out and I shot a glance over to our table. My plate
was gone. A boy with a mop was cleaning the spot on the floor like
he was trying to pry away the tiles.

“The manager’s Italian,” Pierce whispered in
my ear. “He threw a fit and said we didn’t have to pay for the
meal. I think he was trying to keep us from pressing charges or
suing.”

“I’m not going to sue,” I whispered back.
“It was an accident.”

“Well, let’s get out of here before he
figures that out.”

I nodded. After a few more profuse apologies
from the owner, who normally spoke perfect English but couldn’t
seem to find a single English word now, we ducked out the side door
and went to our cars. I was still bleeding pretty badly, but we’d
gotten some tape so I’d be able to drive without holding the towels
to my arm.

We stood between our cars. I leaned back
against mine. Pierce stood in front of me, his amber eyes carefully
empty.

“You sure you don’t want to come over for a
little bit and hang out?” he asked. He took a step forward so his
right knee was between my legs, and he brushed some hair from my
face. I expected him to drop his hand back down to his side, but he
didn’t. He cupped my face in his hand and stroked my cheek softly
with his thumb. It sent a shiver down my spine, my insides melted,
and my eyelids drooped. I pressed my face into his hand, desperate
for his touch.

God I missed you!

Pierce leaned in and kissed me, soft and
slow, but with an urgency I didn’t quite understand. There was pain
in that kiss, guilt and pain. I kissed him back because I wanted
him to know nothing had changed. I still loved him but I was hurt
and confused. When he pulled back, neither of us was out of breath.
Neither of us really turned on. Pierce rested his forehead against
mine.

“LeKrista.”

I think that’s what he said. It sure sounded
like it, but he said it so softly I couldn’t be completely sure.
Then, he stepped away, his fingers trailing off the end of my jaw
like he didn’t want to relinquish contact yet.

“If you need your space, I’ll give it to
you. I can understand how you would. I love you, Babydoll.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “That’s a new
one.”

Pierce smiled back. “Yeah. I like it
though.”

I nodded my agreement.

“Get home, babe. It’s supposed to get nasty
later.”

“Okay.” I kissed him one more time before I
got in my car. “I love you,” I told him before he closed my
door.

“I love you too, Staci.”

The door slammed and I turned the key in the
ignition. I don’t remember much of the ride home. My mind was in
other places, dealing with things much more important than driving.
I didn’t speak to anyone when I got home. I changed clothes and
climbed into bed. I didn’t have any tears. I just went to
sleep.

Everything was disjointed like an
out-of-body experience. Perdita primped her long, thick hair in a
gilt gothic mirror. Her makeup was dark against her milky pale skin
and her eyes stood out so bold they almost glowed. She wore a red
and black dress that looked like something out of an Alice in
Wonderland film. She had her long, thick hair tied off to one side
so it trailed over her shoulder in a fall of dark, wavy curls and
she ran her brush through it, only to have the curls pop back into
place.

A girl entered the room and I recognized her
as our waitress from earlier. She came in and knelt by Perdita’s
chair and handed her a small vial of dark red liquid. I knew it at
once to be blood. I guess after all the blood today it only made
sense to dream about it. The blood loss probably didn’t help
either.

“
Thank you,” Perdita said in her sultry
voice. She unscrewed the top of the vial and tipped it up, downing
every bit of it within seconds. Perdita sat back and closed her
eyes...

Everything changed. I was back in my bed,
laying in the dark, but only for a moment. I lost consciousness
quickly, lulled deeper into a place I didn’t know.

“
Hello, stupid girl.”
Perdita’s voice
saturated the air like thick perfume. I could almost taste it and
feel it coat my skin. It was so hard to breathe. Distantly, I felt
myself gasping for air. I could feel that little niggle at the base
of my skull and knew something bad was about to happen.

“
Perdita.”
I didn’t mean for it to
sound like an accusation.

Perdita chuckled and the air grew even
thicker, intoxicating now, like a very rich wine.
“You remember
me. How sweet.”

This couldn’t be good.
“How could I
forget you?”
I gasped. The air steadily grew thicker and there
were spots in my vision. In reality where I lay in my bed I was
suffocating, dying, and Perdita had everything to do with that.

“
I’m going to kill you, one way or
another. I respect that you had to protect yourself. Nothing wrong
with that, but you killed my lover. I can’t let that go.”

I gasped, but got no air.
“I
understand,”
I tried to whisper, but it came out so choked it
was a wonder she understood. Apparently, not being able to breathe
in real life had an effect on how I spoke to people in my head. “I
hope you’ll understand,” I tried to continue, “that I’m going to do
everything in my power to keep that from happening.”

“
Oh really?”
she laughed.
“You can
hardly control your own thoughts. How do you plan to do that,
exactly?”

“
Let me show you. Roman!”

I hadn’t tried to contact him since I told
Pierce about him, but the connection was always there, ready and
waiting for me to make the first move. So I made a move and felt
the connection fly open in alarm. I caught a glimpse of blonde hair
and a room decorated in reds and golds before they were shut off to
me. In my head I felt Roman roar in anger.

“
You weren’t invited to this little
foray,”
Perdita bitched.

“
LeKrista invited me,”
Roman answered
back.
“You do realize that by harming LeKrista you bring the
full force of my wrath down upon you.”

“
I don’t fear you, old man.”

Roman chuckled.

I wasn’t dead yet. Perdita was killing me
slowly. As it was, even though she was trying to put me through as
much agony as she possibly could, I knew I was about to go. I felt
my body preparing for a grand mal seizure. I’d only ever had one of
those before in my life but I would never forget what it felt
like.

“
Roman,”
I gasped.
“Roman, I’m
seiz...”
I couldn’t get the rest of the word out. My body
convulsed. Perdita’s maniacal laughter echoed in my skull. She was
deliberately keeping me conscious.