The Law of Nines

43

ALEX LEANED TO THE SIDE A LITTLE, trying to balance Jax’s weight with his right arm and hip as he used his aching left arm to try to unlock the door. In her semiconscious state, Jax did her best to stand, but her legs kept giving out, making his hand pull away from the keyhole. He at last managed to turn the key in the lock. The door swung open.

He used his foot to shut the door, then swept Jax up in his arms and carried her into the room, following the well-worn track across the beige carpeting. It hurt his injured arm to hold her like that, but he figured it would be easier than trying to get her up off the floor if she passed out completely.

In her groggy state, she let out a soft moan as she put her arms around his neck. She laid her head against his shoulder as he carried her into the dark room. It made him imagine the innocent, feminine little girl she once had to have been.

A long rectangle of light from signs for the truck stops shining in through the window beside the door fell across the double beds. An older TV sat on the long counter where it could be watched from bed. A tiny table with two wooden chairs sat under the front window beside the door. It smelled a little musty, but he wasn’t about to complain. At that moment the small room looked like a presidential suite to him.

Outside, semitrailer trucks constantly rumbled past on the interstate. He could hear a TV on in the room beside theirs. Still, it was a relief to have what appeared to be a safe place to stop, a place hidden away from all the people hunting them.

Alex gently laid Jax on one of the two beds.

“The mirrors, Alex,” she mumbled.

“I know, I know.”

He went into the bathroom, flicked on a buzzing fluorescent light, and draped the white bath mat over the mirror. He brought a towel out and hung it over the mirror on the wall beside the TV. He adjusted the towel to make sure that not the tiniest part of the mirror could peek through. He felt like his mother, draping things over mirrors.

Alex pulled the cord, closing the heavy, ugly blue drapes, shutting out the garish light of the truck-stop signs. Once the drapes were closed, he turned on the lamp on the taller section of the long counter. The dark fake-wood veneer was chipped along the edge of the counter from people hitting into it as they lifted their suitcases up to lay them open. The bedspreads were the same blue as the curtains, with bands of burgundy designs that matched the valence above the window. It was tacky and cheap-looking, but it was a place to stop, to rest, to hide from the people hunting them, and for that reason Alex was delighted with the room, already thinking of it fondly as home, at least home for the night.

Jax sat up, blinking slowly at him, as if the single lamp he had turned on was too bright.

“Lie down,” he told her.

“I can’t. My bladder is going to burst.”

“Oh. The bathroom is right there,” he said, pointing.

He put a hand under her arm and helped her up. Using her legs after the stress of stretching up on her toes all night to breathe followed by the heart-pounding escape left standing almost more than she could manage. Without the spur of terror, her muscles were giving out and her legs wobbled unsteadily.

As he was helping her to the bathroom, she said, “I need a needle and thread. I need to sew up your arm.”

He left her at the doorway into the bathroom. “We’ll worry about that tomorrow.”

She gripped his shirt for support. “Now, Alex. We need to wash it and do it tonight or it will become infected.”

Alex sighed. He had an idea.

“All right. You go use the bathroom. Wash up for bed if you want. I’ll go get what we need and be right back. I’ll leave you the gun.”

“No. I’m hidden inside. You will be out there where people can see you. You have no way of knowing who might be looking. You take the gun. I have my knives.”

He couldn’t imagine that she could fight very effectively in her condition, but he didn’t want to argue and she did make sense. “I’ll be right back. I’ll knock twice, pause, and knock twice again before I open the door so that you know it’s me coming back.”

Alex locked the door and checked it before jogging across the parking lot. It was starting to drizzle. The inky blacktop reflected the bright light of signs off its slick surface. The spotlights pointed up at signs for interstate travelers illuminated the otherwise invisible mist drifting past.

The cross street was busy, even late at night. People were coming off the interstate for gas, to get something to eat, or to stop for the night. Trucks were pulling in and out of a nearby truck plaza.

The convenience store had half a dozen truckers and other travelers inside. Alex carefully checked each one for potential threat as he picked up a basket and went to the coolers. A memory of the first time he’d met Jax flashed through his mind. She had looked at everyone that same way, checking for threat. Now he understood it so much better.

He pulled a handful of packaged turkey slices off a peg in the cooler and threw them in the basket. He grabbed some ham as well, along with a variety pack of sliced cheese. He picked up a couple of six-packs of bottled water and a variety of other small items he thought they might need.

As he kept an eye on a big guy with long, greasy black hair and a beard, he stopped at the section with first-aid supplies and picked up the things he needed. As far as Alex was concerned, the man looked a little too much like a pirate. But in the end it seemed he was buying far too much beer to be a tracker from some distant world hunting the last Rahl.

Nonetheless, it was comforting to have a Glock only a twitch away. After the brawl in his truck had ended, he had quickly retrieved the gun from under the seat. It was a relief to have it handy. The next time someone from another world showed up, he vowed to be ready. They had been fortunate and survived a number of surprise attacks. He didn’t want to be caught unprepared again.

At the checkout counter he asked the clerk for two of the prepaid cell phones on the rack against the back wall. Alex paid for everything with one of the hundred-dollar bills Sedrick Vendis had used to buy Alex’s six paintings.

That seemed not only like a lifetime ago, but like a different life. Maybe it was.

When he got back to the room, Alex knocked with his special signal to let Jax know it was him. When he opened the door, he saw her sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed staring at the TV. There was a talk show on.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he set the plastic bags on the small table.

Jax looked rather alarmed. “I saw one of these things where they held us. I was drugged so I couldn’t pay much attention to it. But they have one here as well, just like at the crazy house. I saw a button that said ‘on,’ so I pushed it.” She pointed. “These pictures appeared.”

Alex thought that having a TV in a “crazy house” was rather appropriate.

The host on the TV was fawning over an actress who thought she was brilliant because she happened to have been born beautiful and read lines written by other people. It amazed Alex what qualified a person for being worthy of adulation.

“Why are you watching this?”

Jax looked up again. He could see that she was so sleepy that she could hardly keep her eyes open.

“This is something like watching this world through mirrors.” She gestured to the TV. “I wanted you to see this.”

“I’ve seen TV before.” Alex switched it off. “You mean to say that this is what it looks like when you saw me through the mirrors in my studio?”

She made a face as she considered. “Not exactly, not this clear, but in some ways it looks much the same. I was astounded when I saw this.”

Her gaze drifted away. “It. . reminded me of home.”

Alex understood then. “Oh.”

He took off his jacket and for the first time, because they were finally in the light, saw that his shirtsleeve was completely caked with dried blood.

Jax patted the bed beside her. “Come sit.”

She used her knife to cut the sleeve away from the rest of his shirt. Once he had his shirt off, she cut the length of the remaining sleeve and helped him pull it away from his skin. On his way to the bathroom to wash the wound, he set the security latch on the door.

As sleepy as she looked, Jax followed him into the bathroom and helped him undo the bandage she had put around the wound. Her concern for him seemed to have given her a second wind as she worked. She washed the blood off his arm and then, being as careful as she could, she cleaned the wound while he held his arm over the sink. Washing it made the pain flare up, and made it start bleeding again. He winced against the pain.

When Alex really saw the cut for the first time, he cursed under his breath. He wondered if maybe he really should go to an emergency room. He quickly decided against it.

“Here,” he said, “put this antibiotic in the cut.”

“Did you get the needle and thread?” she asked as she drizzled the brown liquid in the wound. It stung like mad.

“I got something better,” he said as he opened a package of superglue, getting it ready.

“What could be better?” she asked as she dabbed his arm dry with a towel after it stopped bleeding.

“Just hold it closed and I’ll show you.”

She used both hands to do as he asked, carefully aligning the sides of the wound. With two fingers, Alex pressed the top layer of the cut tight together. With his thumb and third finger he squeezed the tube of superglue, spreading it generously down the length of the cut. He went back over the places where it hadn’t closed completely and added more glue on top of the cut.

“What are you doing?” Jax asked in astonishment.

“Superglue.”

“Superglue?” It sounded like an exotic foreign word when she said it.

“Yes, good old superglue. Bonds skin instantly. They use it in surgery now.”

He waited a few minutes just to be sure, then took his fingers away. The deep wound stayed tightly closed.

“See? Easier than stitches.”

She gently tested it with a finger. “I think you’re a big baby and are afraid to have me stitch your arm.”

“Just wrap it with that gauze, will you, please?”

Jax smiled at his annoyance and wound the gauze snugly around the arm, not trusting the glue to hold. After that, he had her wrap it with the tan stretch bandage. When she had finished, he moved the arm, testing it. The bandaging wasn’t too tight, but it was tight enough to cocoon the wound and protect it. He thought that it ought to heal fine, wrapped as it was.

Seeing her eyes keep closing, he helped her out to the other room. He turned down the bed for her and got an extra pillow out of the tiny closet to add to the two thin pillows on the bed.

She sat on the end of the bed and pulled off a boot. “Did you see? They have a bathing tub in there. A real bathing tub.”

Alex smiled at her amazement. “In the morning we’ll flip a coin to see who goes first.”

She looked at him out of one eye. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you ‘ladies first’?”

“I guess that our worlds share some important things.”

When she saw his smile fade, she said, “Sorry.”

Alex nodded. “I know. Me too. I wish. . well, I’m just glad that she was there to help us when she did. If not for her, I think they might have had us.”

Jax nodded as she put her leg up onto her knee to pull off her other boot. “Wake me at dawn.”

“I need you well, Jax. You need rest now or you’re going to end up worse off. We’re safe here for the time being.”

She stared into his eyes a moment. “I know, but we need. . we need. .” She squinted as she tried to think. “Something. .”

“We need your mind working or we’re sunk, that’s what we need. You’re the one who figured out what they want.”

“The gateway,” she mumbled as her eyes started to close. Her hand had stopped with the boot only half off. She looked too exhausted to complete the task.

Alex pulled her boot the rest of the way off, then helped her lie down. He pulled the covers up over her. “I paid for two nights so that we wouldn’t have to worry about checkout time in the morning. I hung the ‘Do not disturb’ sign on the doorknob. We can get up and leave whenever we want. You need to rest.”

“But. .”

He knelt beside the bed, gazing into her half-closed brown eyes. “I need you, Jax. I need you well and alert. You need rest. Do this for me?”

She reached out and cupped the side of his face. “Thank you, Alex — for everything. You need sleep, too.”

“I know. I think we’ll be safe here. Sleep and get strong for me.”

“I don’t want to stop looking at you,” she whispered. “I’m so relieved that you’re safe. I was so afraid for you. . ”

Alex smoothed her hair back as he smiled at her.

And then he leaned in and gently kissed her. Her lips felt better than he had ever imagined. Her hand came around to lightly hold the back of his head for a moment as she returned the gentle kiss. It was a simple act of quiet joy, saying more than words ever could have how relieved they were to have each other safe.

As he got up to get into the other bed, she softly called his name. He turned back and knelt again beside her bed.

“What is it?”

“Alex. . I was so afraid there, at that place.”

“I know. I was terrified for you.”

“I thought I was going to die alone, like so many others Vendis has gotten his hands on. I thought my life was at its end.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “I was so afraid. It hurt so much and I was so afraid. I’m so far from home. I don’t know if I will ever see home again. I feel so alone.”

Alex gently squeezed her hand. “I know.”

When he started to get up, she pulled him back down by his hand. “Alex, would you lie close to me so that I don’t feel alone tonight? Just lie by me so that I’m not alone?”

Alex smiled. “Sure.”

He kicked off his shoes, turned off the light, and lay down on his back beside her. He pulled the bedspread up over them both. Jax nestled close to him.

“Hold me? Please? Just hold me?”

Alex didn’t say anything, fearing to test his voice. He would have given anything, paid any price, just to hold her.

As he slipped his arm around her, she laid her head on his shoulder. With his other hand he gently smoothed her hair.

If she noticed how fast his heart was beating, she didn’t say so. Alex kissed the top of her head. “Sleep well.”

Her breathing slowed and evened out almost immediately. She was asleep in mere moments.

Alex stared at the ceiling in the near darkness, not wanting to go to sleep lest he miss a moment of the simple bliss of holding her in his arms.

But he didn’t last long before he drifted off, the whole time thinking of the precious woman so close to him, safe, for the moment.