The Devil Inside, page 2
The elf-man was there again. He held something in his arms. ‘Who …?’ She tried to ask who he was, but only a rasp of sound came out. He turned, eyes widening as he saw her looking at him. ‘Mel?’ The bundle in his arms moved. ‘Shh, shh. It’s okay, Arwen,’ he said to the bundle.
Her throat ached like it had been cut by razors. She tried to speak but it hurt so much. She tried to lift her hand but it was so heavy. She moaned, nostrils flaring, eyes wide. What had happened to her?
The beeping sped up a little.
The elf-man rushed over to her, juggling the bundle into one arm so he could squeeze her hand. ‘It’s okay. You’re safe. You were in an accident. But you’re okay now. We’re all okay.’
She tried to hold onto his words, to hold onto those honey-coloured eyes. But she was tired. So tired ...
Darkness smothered her again. She tried to fight it, but it was all around. She didn’t want to play this game anymore. She wanted her ‘Mamochka?’ There was no answer. No sound. Everything was quiet. Why hadn’t Dyadya or Tetya found her yet? Mamochka said they would find her. But they hadn’t come.
Should she go find them?
But Mamochka had said stay.
She stayed. She slept. She woke up hungry and thirsty. She remembered the bottle of water but couldn’t find it in the dark. Her throat hurt so bad. She started to cry.
‘Mel. My love. It’s okay. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.’
Her eyes fluttered open again to see the elf-man there. The beeping was loud, obnoxious. She wanted to tell him to find it and turn it off, but she could do nothing more than whisper the words.
‘What was that? Jerry. She’s trying to speak.’
‘I’ll get her something to drink. Her throat will be sore from the tube.’
‘Will she be able to talk?’
‘Give her time. It’s only been a few days since we removed it. Here. Let me help you sit up.’ The man—Jerry—was in nurse’s scrubs. Was she in a hospital? The thought fluttered away as the bed was raised a little—the room spun for a moment.
‘Here, have a sip of water.’ He held a cup with a straw. She managed to wrap her dry lips around it after the spinning stopped, gave a few weak pulls on the straw, swallowed then choked, coughing. Oh god, it hurt.
‘Easy. Take it easy.’
She was still thirsty, so when she stopped coughing, she indicated she wanted more. He held the straw to her lips and this time she held the liquid in her dry mouth for a moment before swallowing. It was wet and like heaven. She managed two small swallows before Jerry withdrew the straw. She made a sound of protest. Thirsty. So thirsty.
‘A little now then a little bit more later.’
The elf-man hovered over her again, squeezing her hand. ‘I’m so relieved you’re awake, Mel. Everyone else is too. Dae, Lexi and Craig will be in later. There’s so much to tell you.’
‘What?’ was all she could manage. She had so many questions. Wanted to ask them.
‘No, don’t talk. Here. Write on this. I’ll hold it for you.’
He held up an iPad and put a stylus in her hand. She tried to write but the word fell off the edge of the page. Tired. Eyes so heavy. They fluttered closed as she heard the elf-man calling to her, ‘Mel? Mel?’
Why did he call her Mel? Who was he?
The thoughts disappeared into the dark ...
She whimpered.
The secret door opened and light flooded in, blinding her. ‘Milessa. Kukla.’ Hands reached for her, lifted her.
‘Ona v poryadke?’ Is she okay?
‘Da. Da. Poydem. Poydem.’ Yes. Let’s go.
‘Mamochka. Papochka. Ya khochu svoyu mamochka. Ya khochu svoyu papochka.’ I want my mama. I want my papa.
‘Shh, kukla. Shh. Vy uvidite ikh pozzhe.’ Shh, babydoll. You’ll see them soon.
‘Ne vri yey, Mikhail.’ Don’t lie to her, Mikhail.
‘Chto eto znachit.’ What does it matter? ‘Ona ne budet pomnit.’ She won’t remember.
Remember? Remember. Remember …
Light flooded into the dark behind her eyes. She became aware of the strange beeping again. It went on and on, constant, never stopping, keeping a steady rhythm like the dripping of a tap in the middle of the night.
She wished to hell it would stop.
She opened her eyes. Light stabbed into them. She lifted her hand to cover them and hit herself in the face. Why was her arm so heavy?
‘Mel?’ The elf-man appeared above her. ‘You’ve been asleep for so long I thought you weren’t going to wake up.’
Asleep? For so long? Like Sleeping Beauty? Or maybe Rip VanWinkel. Although this didn’t feel like a fairy tale. It was too heavy. Too … raw.
‘Can you hear me?’ Elf-man had a sexy accent—English? A Londoner accent. How did she know what a Londoner accent sounded like? She had no idea. He looked at her with such hope, with such worry. It made her ache. She winced.
‘Are you in pain, Mel?’
She frowned. He’d called her that before. Hadn’t he? Why? Nobody ever called her Mel. Her parents had always insisted on Melissa —never shortening it to Mel or Lis or Lissa. She’d come to hate shortenings of her name too. Or had she hated the shortenings first? She couldn’t remember. Should she remember?
A memory swam into her mind: holding a photo of a woman who looked familiar. Who looked a little like her. But then Mama had come in, saw what she held and began yelling for Papa and …
Her head pulsed sickeningly, the thoughts slipping away even as she grappled for them. ‘No,’ she rasped. Hell, her throat hurt.
‘Mel.’ The elf-man squeezed her hand softly, compulsively, kissed her cheek, his breath a warm brush against her skin. ‘Please stay with me. I need you to stay with me this time, okay? I need you. I’ve missed you so much.’ His voice, so full of hope, need. ‘I’ll go get a doctor. But stay awake. Please. I’ll be right back.’
He disappeared. Even though he was a stranger, she wanted him to come back, wanted to touch him to see if he was real. To see if she was real. He must be. Every time she woke, he was there. But the memories were like wisps of fog on a wind. She couldn’t grasp them. Were they real?
They had to be. He had to be.
He’d asked her if she was in pain. Yes, she was, kind of. A strange kind of pain that was in her skin and bones, an aching, a sensation of heaviness and loss.
Maybe it was the dream she’d struggled to wake from. She had a feeling she’d dreamed a lot lately, but couldn’t remember them now, except they had made her sad. So sad. And frightened.
Her head throbbed.
She tried to sit up but had very little strength. The beeping sped up, coming from just behind her to the right. She managed to turn her head a little. A heart monitor machine sat behind her—the source of the beeping. What the hell?
She tried to move again, managed to grab a hold of a ribbed blanket, pull herself up onto her elbows for a few moments before collapsing into the pillows again. From the little she saw, it looked like a hospital room. She remembered thinking that before—didn’t she?
The elf-man ran back into the room, a doctor in a white coat and a nurse in blue scrubs in tow. So yes, a hospital.
‘Mrs Paris, you’re still awake?’
‘See, I said she seemed more awake this time,’ the elf-man said as he rushed over to grab her hand again.
‘Yes. It’s good. Very good.’ The doctor smiled down at her. His accent was strange, twangy. Australian? Why was there a Londoner and an Australian in a New York hospital?
‘This might be a little bright.’ The doctor flicked a light in her eyes. She flinched. ‘Sorry, Mrs Paris. The pupil reaction is good,’ the doctor said to the nurse who nodded and wrote it down.
She tried to tell him her name wasn’t Mrs Paris, but she couldn’t get the words out.
‘Don’t try to answer. Even though we took the breathing tube out a week ago, your throat will be a bit swollen and sore for a few days more.’
Breathing tube? What the hell had happened to her?
She closed her eyes, trying to recall. Her breath came in little skips, her heart thumped faster in her chest as for a moment she was rolling and rolling, metal and glass crunching all around her and pain, so much pain.
The loud, fast beeping brought her back. Nostrils flaring, eyes wide, she looked up at the doctor and the elf-man. ‘What … happened?’ she managed to ask even though her throat felt like she’d swallowed razors.
‘You were in a car accident, Mrs Paris.’
‘What? No …’ Then why could she remember fire? Blood? Screaming? A gunshot?
‘Mrs Paris, you need to stay calm.’
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t breathe.
‘Doc, what’s happening?’ The elf-man—he sounded so worried.
‘It’s okay, Mrs Paris. You’re having a panic attack. It’s natural given everything. We’ll give you something to help you calm down. Nurse, draw up—’
‘No.’ She managed to grab his hand. ‘Stay. Awake.’
The doctor took her hand in his, met her gaze. ‘Then you need to breathe. In, out. Nurse, some oxygen.’ A mask went over her face. ‘Breathe. That’s right. In. Out. Nice and slow.’ She focused on his voice—low, patient, comforting—slowly managing to do as he asked. She didn’t want them to give her something. The elf-man was right. She needed to stay awake. She didn’t want to go back into the dark. She’d always hated the dark.
Chapter 3
Melissa took deep breaths. The oxygen—sweet and cool—loosened the tightness in her chest, easing some of the ache in her throat. She took in more deep breaths. The beeping slowed.
‘Good. Good. That’s better. Well done, Mrs Paris.’
She shook her head, tried to remove the mask so she could tell him that wasn’t her name.
‘No. Let’s leave this on for a moment longer. Everything is fine, Mrs Paris. You’re safe. It’s important to understand that. I’m Doctor Seggers. I’ve been looking after you since you were admitted. Do you understand?’
She frowned at him for a moment before nodding.
‘It’s natural to be disoriented and I’m sure you have many questions about the accident and what happened to bring you here. We will endeavour to answer them, but first, I just need to cover some basic cognitive questions. Are you okay with that?’
Yes. Yes. She wanted to sort this out. She nodded very gently and opened her mouth but it was so dry, all she could say was ‘thirsty’.
The nurse came forward with a plastic cup and straw and, after moving her mask, she sipped from it gratefully.
‘Slowly, Mrs Paris,’ the nurse said, her accent also with that definite Australian twang. ‘You don’t want to be sick. Just enough to wet your throat.’
She didn’t need to be told. She remembered that from a few hours ago when she’d taken too much in and choked. Or had that been days ago? The memories all blended into one.
Her eyes slid to the elf-man. He was in those memories, his face, his smile, swirling around alongside another face, one she thought she knew, who told her she should have been looked after. That he was going to make them all pay.
Oh god.
Nausea rose up and she closed her eyes, grasping at the cup.
‘Sip. Just sip.’
She did. The water ran down her dry throat—blissfully wet. Her mouth felt less like she’d swallowed a month of herd dust with every trickle. The coolness of it centred her. Brought her thoughts into focus.
She opened her eyes.
‘Do you think you can talk?’ Doctor Seggers asked.
‘I think so,’ she said but winced—the water helped with the scratchy dryness but she still felt like someone had punched her in the throat.
‘Maybe we’ll try writing again today.’
She’d tried writing before?
‘I have her iPad here,’ the elf-man said.
‘Good. Let’s try that. Are you up for writing?’
‘Try,’ she said. She wanted answers so she would do more than try. The elf-man turned on the iPad as the doctor raised the bed a little. The elf-man held the device for her and handed her the stylus—it all seemed horribly familiar. But why—she had no idea.
‘Ready?’ the doctor asked. She nodded. ‘So, do you know who you are?’
Melissa Linklater, she wrote, her writing big and sloppy, but legible.
‘Who are your parents?’
Cal and Claire Linklater.
‘Where were you brought up?’
On a ranch. Hill territory. Ten miles from Gruene, Texas.
‘Do you work on the ranch?’
She shook her head gingerly. She hadn’t been back there since moving to New York to study and get the job of her dreams with one of New York’s biggest publicity firms, Bettina Starr Agency. Publicist.
‘How long have you been working as a publicist?’
‘Umm …’ she rubbed her head. Two years? The elf-man frowned and shot a look at the doctor as if she’d got it wrong. Why? She was right. She’d worked for Bettina for two years, building a name for herself.
‘Do you remember the accident?’
Rolling, crashing, crunching … she closed her eyes against the painful flash of memory. Was it a memory of the accident? She couldn’t tell. It held no form. She shook her head.
‘Okay. That’s fine. It’s not unusual to have some memory loss after suffering a traumatic brain injury.’
Traumatic brain injury? What the hell was he talking about? Her breath coming a little faster, she started to write the question but her hand trembled too much and she couldn’t focus on the screen. She grasped the oxygen mask—she needed to ask him.
The beeping sped up again.
‘Mrs Paris, we need to keep this on, okay? And you need to concentrate on breathing slowly or we’ll have to give you something to relax. Okay?’
She shook her head—she didn’t want to go back to sleep. She had to stay out of the dark. She took a deep breath. And another.
‘It’s okay, my love.’
Her gaze slammed into the elf-man’s. She shook her head. It wasn’t okay.
He grasped her hand with both of his, thumb rubbing over the back like he had a right to touch her. ‘I know it’s confusing. And that you probably want to know everything all at once, but the doctor said when you did wake up, we’d have to take it slow.’
She glanced at the doctor. ‘That’s right. We will get to everything, I promise, but we do have to take things a little slowly, just until your brain has a chance to catch up. Okay, Mrs Paris?’
‘Not Mrs Paris,’ she blurted out.
The elf-man snorted. ‘You always hated to be called that. Said my mother is Mrs Paris,’ he explained to the doctor. ‘And she “didn’t like being lumped in the same pool as that bitch”.’
The doctor’s brows rose. ‘Melissa, then.’
She nodded. Yes. She was Melissa. Not Mel. Not Mrs Paris. She breathed in and out, nice and steady.
The elf-man kissed her knuckles, held them against his lips—the contact zipped right through her. Her breath sped up again.
‘It’s okay, Mel. I’m here. You’re safe. I’m here.’
Why would it matter to her if he was here or not? Where were Mama and Papa? They were still angry with her for moving away and she hadn’t seen them for the last two years, but surely if she’d been in an accident and ended up in hospital, they would have come to see her? They loved her. As she loved them. Despite the anger between them, that had never changed. ‘Parents?’
His brow furrowed. ‘Mine? They’re not here—I didn’t ask them to come. Not that they would if I had.’
‘No. Mine.’
‘Your parents?’
She nodded. ‘Where?’
His frown deepened as he looked at the doctor. ‘They died. A year and a half ago. In an accident on the ranch. Don’t you remember?’
She shook her head, eyes hot with tears, dread a heavy weight in her stomach. ‘Dead?’
He nodded. ‘Your Aunt Grace and Uncle Gilbert bought the ranch for their son, Trace. Don’t you remember?’
Grace and Gilbert? Mama and Papa’s closest friends. She’d always called them aunt and uncle. And Trace? The last she’d seen him he’d been a gangly seventeen-year-old know-it-all. How could he own and run her parents’ ranch? It wasn’t right. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.
Tears spilled from her eyes and she tried to move the mask again to tell him he was wrong.
But the nurse tutted and re-seated the mask as the elf-man said, ‘My love, I’m so sorry. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.’
She didn’t want to cry. Didn’t like to cry. Certainly not in front of strangers. But why couldn’t she stop? Her hand fluttered and her breath hitched on a whimper.
‘Are you still in pain? What hurts?’
Her heart. It hurt. And it was difficult to breathe past the threatening tears. The world swam around her and darkness encroached on the edge of her vision.
No! She couldn’t sink back into the dark.
She grabbed for control, anything to hold onto, to keep her here. She grabbed the elf-man’s hand and held on. Breathe. Breathe. Oh hell, breathe!
Slowly the world stopped spinning and the beeping behind her slowed and she was able to focus on the room, the elf-man, the doctor, the nurse. She had this. She could be calm no matter what they threw at her. She was known for her calm in a storm. She would be calm.
‘Mel? You’re still with me?’
She nodded, even though she wished he’d stop calling her Mel. She opened her mouth to say as much when he kissed her hand again and pleasure zipped up her arm from the contact. Why? She didn’t know him. Didn’t let strange men be intimate with her. But when he did it, it made her feel ...
‘You’re okay?’
‘Fine,’ she managed after swallowing hard. ‘Thirsty.’
He nodded and reached for the water the nurse had put down on the bedside table, held the straw to her lips. ‘Here.’
The nurse helped her remove the oxygen mask so that Melissa could take another sip of water. The cool wetness soothed her throat, helping with the burn of repressed tears. She took the cup, held on with both hands. He held it with her, hand cupped over hers. Tingles scattered up her arm. She frowned at him. Her breath hitched,
