Hold Me Closer, Necromancer - Lish McBride [57]
Ramon finished with the salve and taped on some new padding. “We’re going to need to get some more supplies soon, too.”
I grunted in reply and grabbed a mug out of my cabinet. I heated water in a pan on my stove. I popped some ibuprofen and stared at the water while it heated up. I know, watched pot, blah-blah-blah, but staring at the water was soothing. I’d learned a lot since yesterday, but I felt no closer to understanding what I needed to do. I’d run out of ideas. I couldn’t join up with Douglas. Besides being morally sketchy, it was suicide. Running wasn’t much of an option. He’d either find me and kill me, kill someone else if he couldn’t find me, or do some as yet undiscovered, horrible third option. And even though I knew now why my powers were bound, that didn’t change the fact that they were bound.
When the water finally boiled, I made some of my mom’s sleep-aid tea. I handed Ramon his mug and sat carefully in the chair, leaning into the armrest to try and stay off my back. Ramon had turned on the news for Brooke. Sandwiched between a story on the Seahawks and the weather was a thirty-second blurb on Brooke.
“Hey, that’s my house!” she chirped.
The newscaster didn’t reveal her name or picture, stating only that a young girl had been found murdered early that day. Thankfully, they didn’t have any shots of Brooke’s family, and they hadn’t managed to interview them, either. I hoped her parents were getting a little time to mourn.
After it was over, we flipped to the other stations to see what they had to say. Nobody else had information, either. It appeared as though the cops were managing to keep a tight lid on it. The newscasters must have been foaming at the mouth. Seattle wasn’t a mecca for violent crime, and once they saw a prom photo of Brooke, all the TV producers in the state would be kicking up their heels in evil glee.
Ramon and I sat in awkward silence as the news cycled into a story on the salmon population. I think he wanted to comfort Brooke, too, but wasn’t any more sure of what to say than I was.
“I’m sorry, Brooke,” I said. It was lame, but I needed to break the silence.
“I know,” she said with a sniff. “Do you think we can change it now?”
The newscaster was babbling about some missing businessman with the unfortunate name Dave Davidson when Ramon changed it to the cooking channel.
Once my tea was done, I said good night to both of them and went to my room. In my drained state, I wouldn’t be much help to Brooke, so I left her to Ramon. He had better people skills anyway. I pulled my medicine bag out of my pocket and put it back on. It seemed kind of futile now, but it made me feel better.
Even though I was tired, I couldn’t fall asleep right away. I felt like I’d gone through half of my vinyl already, but the music wasn’t helping. My brain wouldn’t turn off, and I kept wondering how Brooke’s family was doing, when the cops were going to question us, and if anyone at the zoo had noticed that one of the pandas wasn’t eating his bamboo. It also took a while to find a comfortable spot where my back wasn’t bugging me. Later, I had a nightmare. I was trying to get to the ferry docks downtown while being chased by man-eating pandas. Some dreams don’t need Freud to figure them out. My next step was going to involve a ferryboat and something I dreaded worse than a panda with a thirst for blood.
For the second day in a row, I was startled out of a deep sleep by knocking. I jerked, rolled, and fell out of bed, trying not to scream while I considered how long it was going to take my back to heal if I kept waking up this way.
Ramon came running into my room. “Sammy, get off the floor. Now.”
“Can you just tell them we don’t need Jesus, Girl Scout cookies, or whatever the Mormons worship, and let me lie here in peace?”
“It’s the cops.”
An image of Brooke’s head on my armchair flashed in my mind. “Don’t just stand there, help me up,” I said, holding a hand out to him. With Ramon’s help, I quickly pulled on a sweatshirt. “Ramon, Brooke’s head—closet.”
Ramon