Chapter
Eleven
At six p.m. that evening, Jim ran out of cigarettes.
He’d started his vigil outside of Sissy’s bedroom with a full pack, but that had been hours and hours ago— although he couldn’t say he’d actually smoked all that much. Sitting across from her closed door, ass on the Oriental runner, back against the lath and plaster, he’d mostly just lit them and let them burn out.
Exhaling a curse, he ground his last one in the ashtray; then he braced his palms on the threadbare carpet. Punching upward, he hefted his weight up on his arms and let some fresh blood get down into his lower body.
She couldn’t be dead, he told himself. She was just asleep … resting … chilling in the room they’d moved her into.
She’d already died.
From out of nowhere, a
He’d heard the line while flying over some ocean, heading somewhere dry and hot to kill someone—and he held on to the foggy memory because it was so much better than the other direction his mind wanted to head in … namely, the image of the girl hanging upside down over that white porcelain tub of Devina’s.
Rubbing his eyes, he refocused on the corroded brass doorknob across from him. Like that would wake Sissy up and make her put the thing to use.
After she’d had lights-outed on the front porch, he’d picked her up and carried her to the second floor. He’d thought about giving her his room again, but that was wrong. Sooner or later he was going to have to change clothes—or hell, have a lie-down. The last thing he wanted was for her to get creeped out, and shit knew she had enough to worry about right now—sleeping in some man’s bed even though he wasn’t in it? So not it.
In the end, he’d walked down the hall with her in his arms, kicking open doors, trying to pick the best of the bunch. Talk about splitting hairs. Each room was a different version of the dusty last, the beds all cratered in the center, the drapes hanging moth-eaten and limp, the wallpaper faded or falling off at the corners—or both.
He picked the one on the far side that had the most sun exposure—that way, if she woke up, she would see that she was not in the wall. She would see the sunlight.
Or at least, that had been the plan. But the afternoon had come and gone, and so had the sunset. Now it was dark all around the house, and inside, too … so if she—
“For Godsake …” He supposed he should go and turn on some lamps, but he didn’t want to leave now. What if Sissy finally got—
Illumination flared over on the right—and considering that the last time he’d seen a burst of light, Nigel had come to rip him a new one, his head whipped around.
The sound of a heavy person walking with a limp told him who it was—and reminded him that he hadn’t seen Adrian all day long. Or Dog, for that matter.
The latter was a good thing, though. Jim was pretty sure that the little guy wasn’t alive in the conventional sense, any more than the rest of them were, but he still felt uncomfortable smoking around the “animal”—and there had been no way he wasn’t lighting up over the course of this day.
As Adrian made an appearance at the head of the stairs, the angel took a breather after all those steps, leaning on the balustrade.
For a split second, Jim got pissed that the guy had sacrificed his physical well-being just so Matthias could get laid in the previous round. But come on. It wasn’t like Jim had a leg to stand on when it came to making questionable calls about personnel.
Adrian looked at Jim’s door, and in the overhead light his face registered all kinds of, Whatever, dude.
“I’m down here,” Jim muttered. “And so is she.”
Ad glanced over. Limped over. Didn’t sit down—then again, getting him back up from the floor would be a thing.
“I’m glad you moved her,” Ad said gruffly.
Exactly when had the guy grown a sense of propriety? “She’s still asleep.”
At least … that was the theory.
“I’m going to bed,” Ad said. “There’s leftover Pizza Hut in the fridge.”
“Where you been?”
“Out. I’ve been out.”
On that note, the guy shuffled away with his cane—and went past the door to his own room. He just kept going, heading for the staircase, and then going by that, too.
Clearly, he was crashing in a linen closet in the hall. And didn’t that make as much sense as anything did lately.
A moment later, Jim looked up at the high ceiling above his head. Footfalls in the attic sent dust down like a mist, making him sneeze once. Twice. And then there was a series of thumps, as if a box had been overturned and whatever encyclopedias had been in it were scattering across the floor.
Silence.
Ad was clearly seeking solace with Eddie.
God, if that angel had been with them right now? Jim could just imagine those red eyes staring at him like he’d lost his ever-loving mind.
Nearly made him relieved the guy was gone.
With a groan, Jim got to his feet. Lifting his arms up over his head, he pulled his spine back into alignment, and as his vertebrae resettled, he went across to Sissy’s door.
As logical as he wanted to be, his adrenal gland got the better of him. He knocked quietly, his waiting game over.
No answer. He knocked a little louder.
In the end, he cracked the door, but didn’t look in. “Sissy?”
When there was no answer, he wished he had even one caretaking gene in his body. That girl in there deserved her mother’s TLC after all she’d been through—or at least someone’s compassionate hand stroking her hair, rubbing her back, bringing her food, drink … whatever she wanted.
To have died and gone to Hell … only to be brought back in a kind of limbo?
“Sissy…?”
He put his shoulder through the opening, pushing it wider. Then he leaned inside.
There wasn’t much light to see anything, but he heard the covers shuffling as if she were moving around. “Sissy?”
He took a step into the room, and opened the door all the way, weak illumination falling on her curled-up form.
She was definitely breathing. Whether she was asleep or just pretending to be? He didn’t know. What he was clear on was that she didn’t acknowledge him.
After a moment, Jim closed the door. Sat back down. And kept waiting.
“Actually … I’m meeting him now.”
As Cait hit her turn signal, she tried to figure out exactly where the cut-through to the Palace Theatre’s parking garage was.
“Okay,” Teresa said over the phone, “I’m not going to lie. I am so jealous I can barely speak.”
“Well, it’s not like we’re dating. Don’t get ahead of things.”
“You are going on ‘a’ date. One more after this? You are ‘dating.’”
“Finally!” Cait slammed on the brakes and yanked her car into the two-inch-wide slot to hit the ticket kiosk. “Why don’t they mark these things better?”
“You’re deflecting.”
