Kimber Read online

  Doctor Gilfred slowly peels back the white tape and gauze to reveal a straight line about four inches long covered in a shiny, glossy and clear substance. Around my wound are deep black and purple bruises. It’s weird to look at. No stitches, no staples, just a smooth red line. I feel like I should panic. I know the knife isn’t there anymore but I can still see the handle sticking out of my chest as though it’s there. I feel sick just looking down at myself and seeing the mark of something that nearly killed me. It’s unnatural.

  “This is a liquid tissue adhesive called Indermil. We closed the incision this way because the risk of infection is significantly low and scarring is minimal.” Doctor Gilfred takes one last look before covering me up and giving Leo the all clear.

  “You were very lucky Miss Knowl. You lost quite a bit of blood. We had to give you a transfusion. Thanks to Mr. Chambers, we had an ample amount of RH negative on hand.” Doctor Gilfred explains with a satisfied look. “The damage was minimal. The knife went straight in and ruptured none of the surrounding organs or major arteries. You’ll have bruising in and around the area for about six to eight weeks but once it heals, you should have no discomfort. No stretching, lifting, or vigorous activity until the healing period has passed. If you don’t feel a hundred percent by then or have any symptoms listed in the recovery pamphlet I’ll leave with you, you’ll need to make an appointment with your family Doctor.”

  “Can I go home?”

  “Not just yet. I want to keep you for observation. Even though the scans showed no head trauma, I’d like an explanation for the coma.”

  “Coma?”

  “You slipped into a mild coma for just under thirty six hours Miss Knowl.”

  I don’t have a medical degree but even so, I don’t believe it. I close my eyes and try to recall the last thing I remember. Flowers, fear and heat but the one most pressing memory is of Luke and his confession. A sick feeling rises in my stomach just thinking of him.

  “Is it true?” I ask Leo.

  “That doesn’t matter now. Just rest.” He responds ignoring my question. “So you’ll need a CT scan? How long before you get the results back from that?”

  “I’ll order the test when I leave here. We should have the results back by tomorrow morning.” Doctor Gilfred pats me on the shoulder. “The nurse will change your bandage. Try to take it easy.”

  “Ok.” I say genuinely grateful to Doctor Gilfred for saving my life. Leo leaves the room this time but returns after my bandage is changed.

  “What happened to Luke?

  “He went off the deep end. Being on the good side isn’t natural for Nephilims. Luke took the easy way out.” His jaw flexes and his brows twitch. “Now tell me, before you woke, what was happening to you?

  I think back to that hot and stormy hell. “I don’t know. It was a nightmare. Hot lava was all around me. The sky was dark and angry. I could feel you touching me. I could hear your voice but when I looked around there was nothing. It was like I was trapped in some horrid limbo.”

  “It’s happened then.” He says saddened, looking down at the floor.

  “What’s happened?”

  “To activate the magic in our blood, you have to be brought to the brink of death. Normally it happens in water because it’s neutral ground. It’s like what the Watchers experienced when they fell but in reverse.”

  “An Awakening?”

  Leo nods. “It’s the final faze for Nephs like me. It’s an honor. For you…we’ll see what happens.” He stops shy of what I know he wants to say. He’d rather warn me or turn back time to prevent it.

  “How’d you pull me out?”

  “I’ve taken some classes in the art of trance meditation. It helps me clear my mind. It helps me pin point where I need to be.”

  “How?”

  “When I’m in a trance I can see things I normally wouldn’t. It’s a lot to explain. You should rest.”

  “Leo.”

  “Everyone heard you scream. Lena did the best she could to distract them. I knew they were all watching but it didn’t matter. I went into a meditated trance as fast as I could.”

  “How do you find someone when they’re trapped in that…Hell?”

  Leo smiles at me. “It’s not Hell.”

  “Tell me.” I say unable to resist smiling back at him.

  “Trance is a powerful thing. I didn’t believe it at first but once you study it and practice all the levels anything is possible. Channeling. Energy manipulation. Even remote viewing. My experience was different but I knew where to look.”

  “I think you’ve been around Lena for too long. Trance sounds like something she’d dabble in.” Leo considers it and agrees. “Leo, why didn’t you look when the doctor examined me? It’s not like you haven’t seen me before.” I blush.

  “You know I love your body but when I look at it, I want it to be because it’s what you want. That scar…I thought I lost you.” He pauses trying to push back his frightening thoughts. “I held you. You felt lifeless. I can never go through that again.” He pinches the bridge of his nose.

  I get it now. Everything he’s been trying so desperately to hide from me. “I’ll keep my promise if you’ll do the same.” I nod. Neither of us wish to see a day the other doesn’t exist in.

  Just then, Tiffany, Amber and Lena come back into the room. I wish they hadn’t. They start asking me a million different questions. I have no idea how much they already know so I decide it’s best not to answer and tell them I need to rest.

  A short time later I’m taken away for everything from a CT scan to neurological testing. Once I’ve been poked and prodded to the max I’m brought back to my room and left alone. Visiting hours have ended.

  I toss and turn in my hospital bed ‘til two a.m. I can’t sleep. I call the nurse who graciously gives me something to sleep.

  By the time I awaken the following day Lena is in my room and delivers the news. My tests have all came back normal and Doctor Gilfred has released me.

  “Where’s Leo?” I’m a little disappointed he hadn’t shown up.

  “He didn’t think you’d want to stay at the condo so he’s setting up his family’s beach house.”

  I hadn’t thought of where I would go after the hospital but Leo is right. My condo doesn’t sound appealing. “How did you get away?”

  “I’m not mandated to stay there. I choose to. It’s safer for me there. It’s the only home I’ve known.” Lena replies pushing me in a wheel chair toward the elevator. Stupid hospital regulations.

  “Thanks for being here.”

  “We’re all we have left. No need to thank me.”

  The hospital calls a taxi for us but before we head to Leo’s we stop by the drug store to fill prescriptions. Vicodin to help with the pain and Penicillin to prevent infection.

  I remember spending summer days at Leo’s family beach house. It’s located on Indian Rocks Beach just north of Redington Beach where my condo is. It’s gray on the outside with white shutters. A small flowerbed lines the front of the house. Other than that the front yard consists mostly of sand and shells. The majority of the house is long and extends backward where there’s a private walkway to the beach.

  Leo is at the door by the time Lena and I make it up the pathway. Gently he helps me inside.

  “Are you tired? Hungry? In pain?”

  “None of the above.” I say smiling up at him. This is what I had waited for. To feel safe and ready to put the past week behind me.

  Upon entering the house I find myself in the living room with a wooden floor below me. The interior is different than I remember. The furniture is more modern now. The west wall is bare which I think is odd. Two hunter green crush velvet couches form an L shape around a wooden coffee table. The hung artwork behind the sofas is black and white. A lonely tree standing in an empty field. A lightning bolt breaking free from the sky. I wonder if Leo or his mother had taken these pictures. I look up and see something hanging from the ceiling. I’m not up to date
with technology but it looks like a high tech projection machine. I realize now that the windows that were once in the living room are now gone. The wall where the TV once was is painted pure white. Talk about your own home movie theater.

  Leo helps me get settled on the couch. As soon as I find myself able to relax there’s a knock at the front door. Lena answers it and as she does, I see my wish for putting things behind me isn’t going to start today. His eyes seek me out.

  “Hello ma’am. I’m Detective Muller. Is Kimber Knowl available?”

  “Yes. I’m Lena Middleton, Kimber’s aunt.” Lena shakes Detective Muller’s hand as he enters.

  I dread seeing Detective Muller. I wish I could run and hide. I know what he’s here for. I hate what seeing him does to me. How bad memories are associated with his presence. Detective Muller takes a seat across from me.

  “Detective Muller, I didn’t know you were coming by today.” Leo says shaking the detective’s hand.

  “I know we spoke about meeting tomorrow but when I called the hospital to check on her they said she had been released.” Detective Muller answers before turning his attention to me. “How are you holding up?”

  “As best as I can, considering.”

  “That’s understandable. I just need a few things. I already have Leo’s statement so now I need yours.” Detective Muller cuts right to the chase. I remember liking that about him. Always down to business. No nonsense.

  I never doubted Detective Muller’s drive. From day one he had been supportive and spent restless days right beside me in search parties and helping with suggestions. He once told me I reminded him of his oldest daughter who had been hit and killed by a drunk driver. Maybe he thought by helping me he was helping her. I never questioned his unwavering faith in finding my mother’s killer. He’d always been realistic with me but I chose not to believe the statistics against my mother’s return. The day Detective Muller delivered the dreadful news to me had clearly been difficult for him. He did it gently.

  “Ok, Detective Muller.”

  “Please call me Dan.” He requests out of the blue.

  “Dan.” I say not knowing detectives give out their first names. I go with it. Dan was a lot easier to say than the mouth full of Detective Muller.

  I give him the rundown of everything that happened the last time I saw Luke. I take my time and accept a tissue Lena hands me. I recall the moment Luke admitted his guilt in taking my mother’s life. Lena herself takes a few tissues during this time. I’m cautious and a little fuzzy when explaining how Luke went from being alive to dead on the living room floor.

  When I’m finished Dan turns his attention to Leo. “I’ll be turning the statements and any evidence we find over to the D.A.’s office. They’ll decide from there what to do with the charges. I’m sure they’ll be dropped.”

  “What charges?”

  “It was self defense!” Lena protests with me.

  “In Florida there’s a ‘Stand Your Ground’ law, but even though Leo had a right to defend himself an investigation is required in any murder. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

  I cringe involuntarily. It’s like the hell isn’t over. Luke has found a way to torment us after his death. My only regret is that it wasn’t I who avenged my mother. It shouldn’t be Leo in this situation. If it had been I who killed Luke, I doubt there’d be any investigation.

  Detective Muller, Dan, doesn’t stick around. He’s eager to close my mother’s case. That’s when I realize a pinnacle chapter in my life would be ending. What were the possibilities for me now that my mother’s case would be officially solved? What would the future be like if Leo went to prison for saving my life? I can’t think that way. If it means spending every cent I have and calling on my mother’s old colleagues, I will.

  No matter how many times Leo tells me to relax and calm down I just can’t. I try explaining that the best defense is a good offense. I verbally list a slew of lawyers I know by heart but Leo insists he has a good one. I’m worried and angry. Unlike Leo I’m not willing to put all my eggs in the, it will all work its self out, basket. I lived with a lawyer. Just because a murder charge is thrown out doesn’t mean a laundry list of other charges can’t be made. I try to explain this to Leo but he isn’t having it. He brushes it off as if it’s nothing.

  With all my mental exertion used thinking about our predicament, I fall asleep on the couch before I make Leo see my point. I feel him scoop me up as he carries me to his room. He lays me on the bed, removes my shoes and slides the navy blue comforter over me.

  “Will you stay for a moment?”

  “Yeah.” He walks around the other side of the bed and sits facing me. “Does it hurt?”

  “No. They gave me some pretty good stuff.”

  “It’s going to take some time to get used to this.”

  “To what?” I ask fighting the sleep that threatens to take me.

  “At some point, we have to move on. I almost got you killed.”

  “No, you saved me. Had things been different we might not know about Luke.”

  “That’s not true.” Leo whispers. “I knew. That makes it my fault.”

  “Knew what?” My voice shakes.

  He sighs heavily. “Between what Lena saw and what I felt from him, I knew. Lena was having incomplete visions. I told her what I thought. She agreed. That night on the beach, I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. I couldn’t put you through it. What I did almost coast you your life. I’ll never be able to make that right. I’m so sorry, aroha.”

  My mind starts to reel from this revelation. How could he lie and betray me? He kept something so important from me because he thought he was doing the right thing. In reality, I just can’t see it that way. I’m not a child. I’m not some fragile doll that will break under pressure. She was my mother. The one and most important person in my life. I had every right to know. I was the only person who had a right to know. Leo took that from me because he didn’t think I was strong enough to take it. I can appreciate it, but I can’t condone it.

  “I wanna be alone. I’m tired.”

  He hesitates but doesn’t protest as he rises from the bed and closes the door behind him.

  I pull the pillow over my head and whether or not anyone can hear me, I scream. I breathe fast and shallow ignoring the pain I start to feel in my chest. I scream again and sob aloud. So much inside me hurts. I’m so consumed in the painful prison I’ve built I don’t hear Lena as she comes into the room. She wraps me in her arms and together we cry. Not until now do I recall today’s date, July Third.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE MORNING RESEMBLES night. Outside rain drums against the window. The wind animates palm trees swaying them from side to side. For all I know there could be a hurricane out there and I wouldn’t know its name.

  Lying here in Leo’s bed, I can’t escape last night’s revelation. It taunts me. Demanding to either be recognized or dismissed. I don’t see a way to forgive. One thing is for sure, I can’t stay here, in Leo’s house, with him, in his bed, alone. He’s different. We’re different. Today will obviously not be the first of all the rest. It’s Sunday, a day that requires laziness. With any luck I’ll escape the day free from lurking destruction.

  Slowly I start to ease myself out of bed. I expect every move to result in pain. I’m surprised to find I can move with little to no discomfort. I’m astonished by how revitalizing movement feels. It’s almost like I hadn’t slipped through deaths fingers.

  I move to the front of the bed where a small leather bench sits with my suitcase and purse set on top. From my suitcase I grab jeans and a plain lavender shirt and get dressed. I peek under the white gauze concealing my wound. The angry purplish scar that disfigures my chest has transformed into a calm pink. If only I could use my body’s ability to heal at will, I’d be ten steps past Leo. I pull my hair back in a ponytail and forgo any make up.

  Hesitating fear impedes me as I reach for the doorknob. Luke isn’t here, I assure
myself and pull the door open.

  “I know my best friend. It’s a perfect distraction.” I hear Amber’s voice coming from the kitchen.

  I walk down the hallway towards the all too white kitchen. I feel like I should scrub down and suit up before entering.

  “Hey. How you holding up?” Amber asks once I come into view, hugging me as if I might break open.

  “I’ve been better.”

  I won’t hold back from telling Amber the truth or as much of it as I can. She’s one of the only people I have left that hasn’t crushed me.

  In retrospect I’m sure Luke had manipulated Amber into going along with trying to convince me that I suffered from depression. It struck me as odd then but I was blinded. He probably did it because he could. Because he was sick and twisted. Hell, the pills were probably poison for all I know.

  “Well, luckily I’ve decided to cheer you up from your down. I’ve asked everyone near and dear to come over later for a little potluck barbeque. So how ‘bout it? You up for it?”

  I smile, recalling just how many barbeques this beach house has seen. As a group, it has always been our favorite escape. But those days don’t exist anymore. In those days friends didn’t murder my mother and things with Leo weren’t so… twisted.

  “It’s raining and I appreciate the thought, but…” I stop short of saying no. The look on Amber’s face tells me there’s more to this. I may have suffered the biggest blow but I’m not alone in the aftermath. My friends are wounded by Luke’s deceit and just as effected as me. “But it’s not my call.” I nod towards Leo keeping my eyes off him. If someone has to be the bad guy, well, he’s mastered it.

  Amber turns to Leo. “Well?”

  “It’s raining.”

  “Ok, well, it’s rain not acid and it won’t last all day.”

  “Fine, but you’re on clean up.”

  “Great, be a pal and grab the stuff from my car, it’s unlocked.” Amber dismisses Leo with a sweet smile and a flick of her wrist.