Page 20 of Eternally Ginger

12

Ghoul

Iran as quick as my feet would carry me, fighting the urge to call out her name. “Do a perimeter check,” I quickly instructed, looking over my shoulder to Wily as soon as we broke through the door. There was no telling how many people were here, and we didn’t need to be caught by surprise. Of course, we would deal with it if it happened, but it would be a lot easier to completely avoid the situation if possible.

There were two bodies lying on the floor, one male and one female, on either side of Ginger. There were so many random blood spatters that I couldn’t distinguish who they belonged to. No matter how many rooms I had left in this manner, seeing Ginger in one literally knocked the air from my lungs. My eyes fixated, and I had tunnel vision as I ran to her, telling myself she was okay with each step. I had to believe it to be true; otherwise, there would be another body added to the count today. Mine. The thought of living without her was never something I could contemplate. It just was not something I could withstand. If something happened to Ginger, I would die, and I wasn’t melodramatic by thinking that. It was just the way it was. She was every bit a part of me as my own heart.

I ran to Ginger’s side, not caring who the other people were or why they weren’t moving. She was the most important thing. Red specks were peppered along her face and up her arms, some small, and a few were alarmingly large. It was blood. The very real possibility that it belonged to her scared the shit out of me. A gigantic ball of terror climbed into my throat, and my insides quaked. Her right hand was drenched and clutching her throat as she rocked back and forth on her knees. Her left pointer and middle fingers were holding the woman’s wrist. Ginger’s eyes didn’t find me immediately; it was as if she was in a trance. Of course, she fucking was. This was the second time in her life she’d had to bear witness to such carnage—that I was aware of at least.

The closer I drew to her, the pieces of what happened fell into place. Other than the red imperfections on various parts of her body, she seemed okay. Confusion flooded me, and each theory of how this all happened made it worse. Did Ginger do all of this? Truthfully, it didn’t matter what she had done; she was alive. My lungs collapsed and expanded, pulling in an enormous sigh of relief. I’d never been more thankful for anything in my entire life than I was right now. She was fucking alive!

Her lips were moving ever so faintly, and yet, no sound left her body. The poor girl was in shock. I had seen it countless times over the years.

My movements were intentionally slow and methodic since I didn’t want to traumatize her more than she already was. “Ginger?” My hand reached for her, and my fingertips carefully rested on her shoulder as I warily spoke her name. I told myself to remain calm but failed miserably when the body beside her shifted. My attention immediately shot to him when his leg jerked. The fucker had his pants around his ankles, and his bare ass flinched. “What the hell?”

“Are you really here? How are you here?” She wept, her muscles relaxing marginally beneath my grasp. Her words exploded against my heart, and it destroyed me.

“I’m here,” I promised, hating myself for not being here to protect her, although it seemed she had not needed as much protection as I expected.

“Help my mom,” she begged in such a frail voice; it amazed me the statement had any sound at all.

The man groaned, and Tin Man dropped his weight on the guy’s blood-stained side, using all of his might and his sized fifteen boots. The man, whom I now assumed to be Kingsley, weakly moaned. I hated to tell the fucker, but that was the least amount of pain we Bastards were about to reign down upon him. Tin Man’s eyes focused on Kingsley then flickered to me for instructions. I motioned to the next room with a twitch of my head. I doubted the son of a bitch had any fight left in him, but if he did, Ginger didn’t need to see that shit. She had already seen enough.

“What in the hell happened here?” Sac blurted out, grabbing Kingsley by the ankles and jerked his body.

“I…I…killed him,” she stammered, squinting her eyes hard a few times before shaking her head.

“Fuck-stick isn’t dead yet, but I’ll take care of it,” Tin Man assured her, helping Sac with Kingsley.

Even though I wanted nothing more than to whisk Ginger into my arms and leave this wretched place, I did as she asked, lifting her mom off the floor. Sledgehammer held his hand out to help steady Ginger, no doubt thinking the same thing I was; she was going to fall apart any second now. The only question was when it would happen. She waved him off when his fingers clung to her frame in case we were both right and she collapsed down into the bloodshed. In that instant, she made it clear she wouldn’t.

I had loved this woman for much longer than I realized, and yet, that single motion made me love her more. She’d taken down a monster who’d haunted her dreams, and I was damn proud to call her my old lady. It might not have been his face specifically who taunted the nightmares she constantly had, but doing this would be cathartic for her, nonetheless.

* * *

My cell blared from my pocket, and I stepped out of the room and into the hallway so I wouldn’t disturb Ginger’s mom. A woman sitting behind the desk glared at me. “Do you mind?” She pointed at the sign which asked people to shut their phones off while in this unit of the hospital.

“Excuse the fuck out of me,” I sneered, and she shrunk down into her chair a bit. Immediately, I felt like an asshole. She didn’t deserve my outburst. “Shit. Sorry.”

A small smile touched her lips in response.

“Yeah,” I breathed into the phone after reading Wily’s name on the screen, turning my back to the woman and walking down the hall toward the vending machines to grab a couple coffees.

“You don’t want to ever piss off your old lady.”

“Why’s that?” I half-heartedly laughed; he wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. When people saw us together, they stupidly assumed I was the one they needed to worry about, and often, flinched at the sheer sight of me. They were all wrong, though. She was more dangerous than I ever was. It was an undeniable thing she had taught me: never mess with a pissed off woman, especially her.

“She jabbed a-foot-long screwdriver into him.”

“Good,” I simply replied, not surprised in the least due to the quick run-down of details she’d shared with me on the ride over to the hospital. He deserved every bit of the hell she gave him, plus whatever Tin Man and Wily cooked up for him, too.

“What do you want us to do with the cabin?”

“Fuck if I care. Torch it, bulldoze it, run Tin Man’s eighteen-wheeler through it. Use your imagination, brother,” I mindlessly rambled, taking my wallet out of my back pocket, and snatched out a few bills.

“10-4, Boss,” he guffawed. “Just get rid of the place. I get the point. How is she?” He was careful not to use names while on the phone; it was hard to tell if anyone was listening.

“Shaken up, but otherwise okay, I think. Haven’t really had a chance to talk to her much without a nurse or someone walking in,” I gave him a bullshit answer, not divulging what information I had already learned. There were too many unknowns lingering around the whole story to share it with him. Besides, this wasn’t a topic that needed to be discussed over the phone. I had learned one thing: she fucking lied to us about where she was going and could have gotten herself killed. I was so unbelievably pissed at her for risking everything and taking us Bastards out of the equation entirely but didn’t get the chance to tell her about it because Wily called.

“Understandable.”

“Yeah. I’m going to head back in,” I told him, ending the call, and dropped my phone back into my jeans.

Ginger blankly stared at her mom’s body, holding her breath for a second each time an alarm would pop up on a screen or a machine would beep—which was pretty damned often given where we were. She didn’t notice me, so I took a moment to drink in her beauty, etching this moment into my memory. It wasn’t one most people would consider memorable, but it was to me. In spite of how upset I was with her for putting her life in danger, I was one thousand times more thankful for her to be alive. Her eyes found mine, and at this moment, I was reassured of something I had known for a while now. I never wanted to live a day without her again, but I was still pissed, and she was going to hear about it. If she wouldn’t protect herself, someone had to. Fortunately for her, I didn’t mind doing that for the rest of my life, but I prayed she never pulled any shit like this ever again.

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