Page 40 of Seize the Night

“Okay. Let’s do this,” he said.

“Open up. Time to lower your temperature.” Salena popped an ice cube in his mouth and Julien sucked on it. “And you should go. This place will be crawling with people soon.”

“We’ll walk you out.” Julien placed his hand on her lower back. “This probably shouldn’t happen in my bedroom anyway, or they’ll wonder why Salena was in my room at one in the morning.”

They returned to Julien’s mother’s office and Julien opened the door that led to the back porch. She wrapped one arm around his back and kissed him.

“No, no,” Salena said. “We want to lower his blood pressure, not raise it.”

“Oops.” Remi pulled back. With one private smile at Julien she whispered, “See you on the other side.”

He kissed her forehead, and she left him and Salena alone in the office. The last thing she saw was Salena shoving a needle into Julien’s arm and Julien collapsing onto the floor. No going back now.

As she drove away from Capital Hills, two ambulances and a police car passed her. She knew exactly where they were going.

Julien and Salena were doing their part. Merrick would do his part tomorrow. Only one thing left to do now.

Her turn.

Mr. and Mrs. Brite

At dawn, Remi got out of bed like usual, got dressed to go riding, and headed to the stables. She rode often at work. Arden Farms was so large that workers drove golf carts between the stables. She much preferred to ride one of the working horses and ride wherever she had to go—usually one of their three Tennessee Walkers. This morning, however, she picked Benvolio. There wasn’t a horse on the property that could jump like Benvolio could. Perfect.

“Don’t be mad at me,” she whispered to Benvolio as she tightened the girth. “I’m going to do something very stupid, but I won’t let anyone blame you.”

She fed Benvolio an apple and stroked his long nose.

“You won’t get turned into glue for this, I promise,” she said, brushing a tangle out of his mane. “I’m crazy in love with someone and you’re going to love him too when you meet him. So just trust me, okay?”

Benvolio didn’t answer with anything but a nuzzle against her shoulder. She took that as a sign she had him on her side.

She stepped into the stirrup and swung her leg over his back. With a twitch of the reins he started down the path toward the practice track. She warmed Benvolio up with a few small jumps. Good. They could do this. As she neared the track she saw her father leaning against the fence like he had for as long as she could remember. Coffee cup in hand, newsboy cap covering his bald spot, and an intense look of concentration on his face as two of their strongest four-year-olds pounded down the practice track.

They passed the finish line and she saw her father hit a button his stop watch. Finally he looked away from the track and noticed her. She waved at her father. He waved at her. And just as he was starting to look away again, Remi gave Benvolio the signal to break into a canter. With a shift of her weight, he obediently jumped. Well-trained as he was, the horse obeyed. Even though she knew she’d have one hell of a bruised ass from this little stunt, Remi let go of the reins and fell from the saddle.

She hit the grass with a thud that rattled her teeth. Any other time she’d been knocked off a horse, she’d get right back up again. But not today. Today she was on a mission.

Instead of getting up, Remi closed her eyes.

Only seconds later she sensed herself being surrounded by people, nervous and scared. She heard her father’s voice shouting for a doctor. She heard one of the trainers saying they should call 911 immediately. People called her name, patted her face, tried to pry open her eyelids. She lay there as best as she could, pretending to be unconscious.

Ten minutes later, she was in the back of a speeding ambulance. Her father had yelled he’d follow right behind in his car. As she was being loaded, she pretended to come to just long enough to ask her father to bring her mother too. He promised he would.

Now it was on.

As soon as she was alone in the ambulance with the EMTs, she miraculously recovered and started talking. The EMTs said she’d be checked at the hospital for a concussion and monitored for a few hours. Of course she would. She knew exactly what would happen once she got to the hospital. In her twenty-six years she’d fallen off a horse and bumped her head half-a-dozen times and had gone through this routine every time. She hated that she had to scare everyone like this, but she knew Merrick was right—this was the only way to guarantee both of her parents would be away from the farm long enough for him to do his digging. The guilty feeling gnawed at her, but considering her parents had involved the farm in possibly illegal activities, she decided giving their parents a brief scare was a fair trade for the hell they’d put her through.

Luckily, at the ER she was considered a low priority patient as she was awake, alert, and seemingly unharmed. She was shunted into a side room and semi-forgotten. Every fifteen minutes a nurse would peek in the door and make sure she was still conscious. The nurse asked if she wanted her parents back in the room. She politely declined the offer. Instead she turned on the television and found nothing on but soap operas.

So this is what Julien went through for years—sitting alone in a hospital room staring at a television and waiting for his life to start.

Finally, Merrick texted her.

Got it,was all the text said plus a rocket ship emoticon.

Get here, she wrote back and just because she loved him a little bit today, she added a smiley face.

And a banana.

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