Khan (Bowen Boys, #2)(23)

“Hello?”

He was startled by the voice, but couldn’t quite understand why. Who did he expect to answer the phone but his mother? But the voice wasn’t quite right. When the woman on the other end said it again, he smiled and answered her.

“Is my mother there? I’ve been trying to talk to my dad, but he’s not answering either. I want to get him to look something up for me.” The person was quiet. “Is she at one of her meetings again? Can you have her call me?” He ended the call and put the phone down. Tony tried to get his mind to let go of something, but he couldn’t get it to. Pounding his fists to his forehead, he tried, but there was nothing. Finally, he laid his head down on the bed and closed his eyes.

Nothing was going right. He’d been trying to find his Monica for two days, and still she wasn’t around. He’d even gone back to the hotel where he’d seen her, and he wasn’t able to get anyone to tell him anything there either. No matter how hard he’d tried. Then at the Mild Pepper, the restaurant he’d thought he’d seen her enter, there was…he tried to think what had happened there and his head felt as if it were zinging.

Tony needed to find her. Monica was going to make sure he didn’t have any more headaches. And she’d keep him from having to stay in the hospital.

“No more hospitals. I don’t like hospitals.” He rolled to his side and stuck his thumb in his mouth. “No more.”

The noises in his head were calming now. He could think past the pain, but all the blood was still there. It was bright and it was all over him. When he tried to think where he’d seen all the blood, all he could remember was a fireplace. When things got quiet, he looked at the bruises on his hand.

“There, there now, Tony, you’re going to be just fine. Just fine indeed.” He laughed at his own voice. “You’re going to be just fine.”

They always said that. All of them. The girls had said it would be fine, they’d help him with his little problem. He didn’t have a problem, it was them. All of it was them. He heard the voices again and tried calming himself. That worked, and he lay there very quietly while he thought calm thoughts. He liked thinking about calm things.

“Trees in the wind. I like trees in the wind. They dance like a kite does. Kites are pretty until they get caught in trees.” His head started to beat hard and he went back to calm things. “Kittens are pretty and soft. And ice cream, I very much like ice cream on a hot day.”

He kept saying the calming things like they’d told him in the place his mother had put him when he was a child. He’d been there for ages it had seemed, and she’d never come to see him. His father did. And brought him gifts. Tony decided to add gifts to his calm things. He decided that mothers were off the list now and forever.

Tony sat up when his head no longer zinged. He looked around the room, thinking he’d never seen it before and maybe someone had moved him. He tried to remember getting here, and all he could think was someone had moved him while he’d been asleep.

“I don’t like to be moved,” he yelled to the room. “Do you hear me? I don’t like to be moved. I hate it, as a matter of fact.”

Standing up, he saw his clothes lying on the floor. When he went to pick them up, he noticed the blood. They were covered in blood. Dropping to his knees, he held his head when it starting pounding. Blood, fireplaces, and cheese. He saw a bell like the kind on a counter, beer in a can. Tony tried to make sense of the things flashing before his eyes, but it was going by much too fast, and he couldn’t keep it straight. Looking at the bed again, he crawled to it and climbed into it. No amount of calm thoughts were going to take this away, and he cried out for Monica.

“She’ll make them go away. No one will be able to put me away again.” He sucked on his thumb again and talked to himself around it. “The others didn’t help me like Monica will. You’ll see. She’ll be the one that will keep me from hurting people. I don’t hurt many, but I have to hurt some. Yes, just some.”

When he woke, it was dark. He hadn’t realized that he had fallen asleep and thought of the nurses that used to come in and make him tired. The ones that had…his head started zinging again. “No, you don’t. We aren’t going off on that tangent again. No we are not. We have to stay focused and our head on straight. How are we going to appear normal if…”

Tony remembered his father saying that to him one day. They’d been in his father’s office and he had just…what had he done? He’d been bad again. Bad with someone. Trying to sort it out, he remembered what they had said to him. The nurses.

“Such a pretty boy, and so big too.” He’d been in the bed when they’d said that too him. “A pretty boy who is going to give me what I want.”

“They wanted something from me. Everyone wants something from me.” He wasn’t sure what, but he knew that people had been taking from him. “Taking and taking until I had to make them stop.”

Just how he made them stop was not clear. “That’s why you have to stay focused, son.”

Tony giggled and pulled the blanket up to his chin. His dad would be so proud of him if he could see him now. He was calm and focused. Tony picked up his cell phone again and dialed his father’s number. This time instead of ringing, it went to voicemail. He thought his father an important man and ended the call. He would try later.