Page 135 of Nodus Tollens
Bang.
Silence.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Silence.
Bang. Bang.
“Jesus Christ, who the hell is banging on our door in the middle of the night?” Kate shouted as we both quickly roused from our deep sleep. My heart went chaotic as the banging turned more aggressive. With hazy, unclear vision, I peered over at Kate, who was watching the door in confusion. Then, her eyes shot to mine in fear.
“Who’s there?” I asked with shaky words. Everything was dark, which made it even more eerie, but the second a voice materialized, I went deathly still.
“Doe.”
The name only one person called me answered my question, and I immediately jumped out of bed like I was on fire.
Why was he here?
“Open the door.” He sounded desperate this time when I heard a thud against the door.
Confused, I felt my heart climb to a hazardous rate. Then, with unsteady legs, I walked over to the door.
“Wren? Who is that?” Kate shouted in a whisper, but I was too focused on getting to the door to answer her question. I then went to reach for the door handle, but I paused. Something inside my gut twisted as if it could already sense something was wrong.
And it only intensified as I stood listening to Mal’s ragged breathing beyond the door. Call it intuition, but I started to panic. My mind went reeling into places and thoughts it shouldn’t be in, but what could one think when someone was pounding on your door insistently? Not once had I ever heard a story where someone was told good news in the middle of the night. It just didn’t happen. Once I summoned enough courage to open the door, I was met by Mal, whose arms were stretched out in front of him, leaning against the door frame with his head titled downward. The bright lights of the hall had my eyes taking a longer time to adjust, and when they finally did, Mal’s head lifted, and he was staring right at me.
“What’s going on? What are you doing here?” I asked, realizing I was dressed in a thin see-through cami, and quickly crossed my arms over my chest.
Slowly, he removed his arms from the door, and that’s when I noticed how disheveled and disarrayed he looked. The collar of his shirt was sagging as if he’d been pulling on it, and his hair was wild and sticking out in every which direction. He looked like he had just rolled out of bed and ran all the way here.
But it wasn’t his appearance that had me anxious. It was his eyes. Heavy and distant, there was irremediable sorrow plaited in his gaze that rendered me immobile. He knew something that I didn’t, and when silence still filled the space between us, I only grew angrier.
“Mal, you have about two seconds…”
“It’s Hayes.”
The name I prayed I wouldn’t hear fall from his mouth.
“He…. FUCK!” He swore as his hand went straight to his hair and pulled. Hard.
My lungs seized. Everything inside me had gone eerily still. A moment of disbelief ran through me and had me replaying what he said in my head again. Like maybe he hadn’t said Hayes’ name, or he didn’t mean to say it, but when curses started flying from Mal’s mouth and tears began to stream down his face, I knew. And that’s when it finally started to register that he was talking about Hayes.
My Hayes.
And that something bad had happened.
“Mal…” I spoke through the collapsing feeling in my chest. “You need to tell me what’s going on right now, or I swear to god, I’m going to lose it.”
I was about two seconds away from grabbing his face to get him to focus, but then he finally met my despondent eyes with his.
“He was in a car accident, Wren. A really bad one.”
What?
No… I didn’t believe him. There was no way he was in a car accident when he was at the hotel, right?
“What are you talking about? He was at the hotel, wasn’t he?” My anger started to shift towards Mal now. Nothing was making sense. I ran back inside the room and frantically searched for my phone. When I found it tucked underneath my pillow, I brought the screen to life in hopes of finding evidence, but there was nothing there. No notifications. No calls from Hayes. No texts. Nothing.
