Fledgling(4)

I wrapped the blanket around me and got into the car.

“Did someone hurt you?” he asked when he had gotten the car moving again. “Were you in someone’s car?”

“I was hurt,” I said. “I’m all right now.”

He glanced at me. “Are you sure? I can take you to a hospital.”

“I don’t need a hospital,” I said quickly, even though, at first, I wasn’t sure what a hospital was. Then I knew that it was a place where the sick and injured were taken for care. There would be a lot of people all around me at a hospital. That was enough to make it frightening. “No hospital.”

Another glance. “Okay,” he said. “What’s your name?”

I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it. After a while, I admitted, “I don’t know what my name is. I don’t remember.”

He glanced at me several times before saying anything about that. After a while he said, “Okay, you don’t want to tell me, then. Did you run away? Get tired of home and strike out on your own?”

“I don’t think so,” I frowned. “I don’t think I would do that. I don’t remember, really, but that doesn’t feel like something I would do.”

There was another long silence. “You really don’t remember? You’re not kidding?”

“I’m not. My … my injuries are healed now, but I still don’t remember things.”

He didn’t say anything for a while. Then, “You really don’t know what your own name is?”

“That’s right.”

“Then you do need a hospital.”

“No, I don’t. No!”

“Why? The doctors there might be able to help you.”

Might they? Then why did the idea of going among them scare me so? I knew absolutely that I didn’t want to put myself into the hands of strangers. I didn’t want to be even near large numbers of strangers. “No hospital,” I repeated.

Again, he didn’t say anything, but this time, there was something different about his silence. I looked at him and suddenly believed that he meant to deliver me to a hospital anyway, and I panicked. I unfastened the seat belt that he had insisted I buckle and pushed aside the blanket. I turned to open the car door. He grabbed my arm before I could figure out how to get it open. He had huge hands that wrapped completely around my arm. He pulled me back, pulled me hard against the little low wall that divided his legs from mine.

He scared me. I was less than half his size, and he meant to force me to go where I didn’t want to go. I pulled away from him, dodged his hand as he grasped at me, tried again to open the door, only to be caught again.

I caught his wrist, squeezed it, and yanked it away from my arm. He yelped, said “Shit!” and managed to rub his wrist with the hand still holding the steering wheel. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” he demanded.

I put my back against the door that I had been trying to open. “Are you going to take me to the hospital even though I don’t want to go?” I asked.

He nodded, still rubbing his wrist. “The hospital or the police station. Your choice.”

“Neither!” Being turned over to the police scared me even more than the idea of going to the hospital did. I turned to try again to get the door open.

And again, he grasped my left upper arm, pulling me back from the door. His fingers wrapped all the way around my upper arm and held me tightly, pulling me away from the door. I understood him a little better now that I’d had my hands on him. I thought I could break his wrist if I wanted to. He was big but not that strong. Or, at least, I was stronger. But I didn’t want to break his bones. He seemed to want to help me, although he didn’t know how. And he did smell good. I didn’t have the words to say how good he smelled. Breaking his bones would be wrong.

I bit him—just a quick bite and release on the meaty part of his hand where his thumb was.

“Goddamnit!” he shouted, jerking his hand away. Then he made another grab for me before I could get the door open. There were several buttons on the door, and I didn’t know which of them would make it open. None of them seemed to work. That gave him a chance to get his hand on me a third time.

“Be still!” he ordered and gave me a hard shake. “You’ll kill yourself! If you’re crazy enough to try to jump out of a moving car, you should be in mental hospital.”

I stared down at the bleeding marks I’d made on his hand, and suddenly I was unable to think about anything else. I ducked my head and licked away the blood, licked the wound I had made. He tensed, almost pulling his hand away. Then he stopped, seemed to relax. He let me take his hand between my own. I looked at him, saw him glancing at me, felt the car zigzag a little on the road.

He frowned and pulled away from me, all the while looking uncertain, unhappy. I caught his hand again between mine and held it. I felt him try to pull away. He shook me, actually lifting me into the air a little, trying to get away from me, but I didn’t let go. I licked at the blood welling up where my teeth had cut him.

He made a noise, a kind of gasp. Abruptly, he drove completely across the road to a spot where there was room to stop the car without blocking other cars—the few other cars that came along. He made a huge fist of the hand that was no longer needed to steer the car. I watched him draw it back to hit me. I thought I should be afraid, should try to stop him, but I was calm. Somehow, I couldn’t believe he would hit me.