Page 46 of Stoker's Serenity

I kept my mouth shut and her voice died. I was hoping with patience, she would pick up the thread of this bedtime horror story.

“There was an emergency exit: go right outside the library doors, to the left, down the hall, another left. It was an access hallway, two doors. One was the emergency exit, one led down to the boiler room and the janitor’s area. The librarian hustled us to the emergency exit, but somebody had chained the doors. There wasn’t any getting out.”

I held her a little tighter and kissed her forehead. Shit, I couldn’t imagine. The fear alone, the terror…

“I didn’t stay. I should have, but I needed to find Kyle ? he was my boyfriend. I was so scared for him. I knew he was in the science wing, I just needed to get there. I went for it, down one hallway, the shortest route, cutting through the cafeteria.” She gulped and shuddered against me.

“You ain’t gotta tell me anymore if you don’t want to, Orchid. I don’t blame you if you’re not ready,” I told her.

“I… I found him in the cafeteria. He, uh… he died.”

“Shit,” I breathed. I held her tight.

“I didn’t understand, at first. I mean, he was so gentle, and he loved me so much… he never said a thing to me. He never – I didn’t know. I still don’t know how he could have done such a thing.” She sniffed and I felt a wet splash in the center of my chest from where a tear dripped off the end of her nose.

“It’s okay,” I whispered and held her close.

“That’s just it,” she said. “It’s not okay, and it’s never been okay since… right up until I met you. Now, it feels like –” She took a shuddering breath as if she needed to gather her courage. “Now I feel like there may be hope for some kind of a normal life for me and that scares me so much.”

Because if I left now, if I ditched her…she didn’t have to say it. It clicked. I got it, and I have to say, the fierce visceral reaction I had to the thought of leaving her cold, like this?Not only no, but hell no. No way,I thought savagely.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised her.

“You say that now,” she said with a cold, hollow laugh that held no happiness, no joy, just bitter disappointment that tasted of the same ol’, same ol’.

I didn’t like that, so I spit it out, figuratively speaking, with a derisive “Tch! I’m not going anywhere until you tell me to go, Orchid. That’s a promise.”

“Please, don’t make promises that you can’t keep,” she whispered.

“I never do.”

And I wasn’t about to fucking start now.

People. They called us, the MC brotherhood, the savages… I was thinking I needed some help. Some advice. Good thing I knew just where to go for it.

I’d be making some calls in the morning.

15

Serenity…

I sighed, hanging my purse up on the coat rack. Returning to an empty apartment sucked, even after only having had Stoker here the two nights. I would see him again, Friday night. After I got off of work and headed to Ft. Royal.

I had the weekend off, so there was at least that to look forward to. Today had sucked, though. Sucked so hard, in fact, that Linny was coming over with the Margarita mix.

Taco Tuesday was about to go down with my best friend to lament the absolute horrid new working conditions at my store.

I heard her car pull up outside halfway into dumping the ingredients for the taco filler into my pressure cooker. She let herself in with a gusty sigh and demanded, “Where are the glasses and where’s my blender?”

“Where they always are, bitch. Get it yourself!” I retorted.

“Some best friend you are!”

I rolled my eyes. “Please,” I said. “I am way up on best friend points. Food will be ready in like ten minutes.”

“You cooked! Okay, you are way up on best friend points. Food over drinks any day.”

“Exactly,” I said, as I went about setting up a taco bar on my kitchen counter.

---