Through A Glass, Darkly (The Assassins of Youth MC #1)(35)
“I can do it,” I said, indicating a tray with scissors, antiseptic, and a roll of gauze.
The wound looked good. The stitches were holding, slightly puffy, but Drakelle had told me that was to be expected. I admit, I probably took longer than I should have patting antiseptic onto the wound. With his arm above his head, his ribs sticking out in sharp relief, he was vulnerable and sexier than ever.
This was when he told me his unconscious dream, his dream of the afterlife. It was wild and beautiful, and coming from him it suddenly seemed natural, to be expected. That was when I told him about the bodies buried in the Streaked Wall Bench.
“Do you think my angel meant bodies instead of gold? It’s too big of a coincidence.”
“Your sleeping body probably overheard me sitting right here, talking to Dingo about the Streaked Wall bodies, and your subconscious mind converted it to ‘gold.’”
Gideon tried to laugh. “Well. There’s a world of difference between gold and bodies of your fellow brethren. Guess which one I’d rather find?”
I was cinching up his torso gauze, but I never wanted it to end. “You know, we’re just pilgrims in a strange land. Being born is just a new sleep, a new amnesia of what came before. I’m surprised you even remember about the angel, since you don’t remember what came after. Well, now you’ve had an experience of a pre-existence.”
“Afterlife.”
“Same thing. It all originates from the same heavenly place. Now you know why your heart longs for your roots, that it knows you’re floating adrift from your home.”
I was so desperate to keep touching him, I was delicately patting the gauze flat around his navel. He was watching my hand avidly, and now he grasped it. Our gazes met. He said, “I know why my heart longs for you, Mahalia. You’re a stunning goddess and you’ve been sent to me by the powers that be. I’m not a religious man, but I agree there are more things in heaven than I’ve thought about. Knowing this actually comforts me.”
“It is comforting.” I was stunned that his heart longed for me, and I wanted to know more. “It gives one comfort from storms and helps one weather tribulations more easily.”
“Well, I want to weather them with you. Please tell me that once I get better we can concoct a scheme to get the hell out of here…together.” His thumb gently rubbed mine, and just that small touch was electric. “Now that Breakiron’s gone there’s plenty of space for you in my house, for you and your daughter, so she can grow up at her own speed and do what she wants. Become a clothing designer or whatever it was you said.”
My heart was soaring. It was too good to be true, the idea of running away with Gideon. In my experience, any slight hope for anything slightly fun or beneficial was always instantly quashed by Allred or his minions. And this was no exception.
“Yes, let’s think about it,” I whispered, as I heard people coming.
Drakelle was there to check on her patient, but Allred was with her. She had to unwrap the gauze I’d just so lovingly swathed him in while Allred took a stool and pretended to be on the same side as us. It was sickening, but we had to play along for the good of everyone.
“Well, now, son.” He even called Gideon “son.” That must be a good thing. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all you’ve done for me. Helping me out with protection on this place. That Breakiron was a loose cannon, an accident waiting to happen. He told me he saw my Mahalia at the High Dive, but now I see he was just a base liar. You’re doing the Lord’s work, whether or not you know it.”
Gideon looked at me when he said, “Oh, I know it. I know it all right.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed Allred’s face, and he said to me, “Woman, get this man some refreshment. He’s been lying in limbo seeing visions of our heavenly father for five days now, and looking like a skeleton.”
“Of course.” How did Allred know Gideon had visions while in a coma? But then, some of Allred’s visions seemed to actually have a shred of fact to them. He’d been known to see things he couldn’ve possibly have seen with mortal eyes.
I went to the kitchenette and started some water to boiling. I knew Gideon liked his coffee black. My heart was soaring in the clouds thinking that Gideon wanted to weather storms with me. He wanted to help me save Vonda from a cheerless fate. Was he just saying these things because he was under the influence of massive amounts of opiates? I’d had surgery before. I’d been on morphine in the hospital after surgery once to remove a defective ovary. I knew how much fun it could be, and how addictive, pushing that button to get more drugs, but not once had I lied under its influence.
No, I believed Gideon. He seemed clear and conscious, and Drakelle said she’d given him the lowest amount to kill his pain. We didn’t need to run far, Gideon and me. If we played our cards right, he didn’t even need to quit his mine job. Gideon and I would be defined by the choices we would make in the upcoming weeks. I might have been suffering the results of Allred’s poor and misguided choices. But my own decisions would form my own future.
As I fussed with the coffee—taking my time, I admit, so I could eavesdrop on the men—I heard Allred claim, “It is all right, Brother Gideon. You were commanded to kill that man. It’s not as though you lusted for blood, as though you took a sick thrill from murder.”