Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jade

I tried not to be judgmental about art. Really, I did. Everyone had a right to express their creativity. From the people compiling pretty little junk journals to those creating this generation’s fine art.

That said, it was hard not to feel really discouraged about your own art and career trajectory when you got yourself all gussied up to go to a fancy art gallery only to find that the hunks of twisted metal with words like Overconsumption scrawled on the heaps with spray paint were selling for over a hundred thousand dollars a piece.

And all of them were sold by the end of the night.

I was surprised just how down I felt as I got in my car after the gallery. Especially considering that there had been some big strides in my career just in the past few weeks.

Including that email that came in from Levee’s friend Teddy (well, his assistant) about the hotel job. One that would include at least six pieces of art for the common areas of the hotel. And, possibly, original artwork for every single room in the hotel.

I mean that was too big of a job for just one artist, of course. But even if I was one of ten, that was a lot of commissions. And a lot of exposure to people who might want to get their own prints or originals.

And I wasn’t even factoring in the doors that might open to me with Zayn, according to Levee.

Things were really looking up for my career. I should have felt really positive, even if I still genuinely didn’t understand the hunks of metal with spray paint.

I knew as I turned the car over, then just sat there with the cool air blowing on me because I didn’t want to go home, that my mood had nothing at all to do with my job.

I was just in a funk.

Emotionally.

There was still no noise from 7D’s apartment. And the mailman couldn’t shove anything else into his mailbox anymore.

He was gone.

But no one seemed to be looking for him.

I found myself sneaking a look at one of the letters as the mailman tried to push it into the mail slot. Getting a name.

Albeit not a super original one.

Harvey James.

I was sure he wasn’t the only one in Florida. Probably not even the only one in Miami-Dade county.

Still, though, I hadn’t been sleeping. So online sleuthing became the way I spent my nights.

Until, finally, I found him.

His social media profiles were all locked down tight. So save for his profile picture, I couldn’t see if there were any recent posts from him or not.

I mean, it wasn’t like I was expecting to see one that said something to the effect of Gonna be off the grid for a while. Bad guys are after me or anything. But I figured maybe there might be comments asking where Harvey had been, asking him to check in.

Something.

Anything.

I did go through his contacts and eventually sent messages to a few people asking if they’d heard from Harvey, that I was his neighbor and hadn’t seen him around and that I was worried.

That was literally all I could do at that point. I hoped it might put some red flags up. Then maybe someone else could look into this whole thing and leave me out of it.

Still, though, the discomfort, uncertainty, and fear was making it hard to sleep, eat, work, focus.

That was why I’d made myself go to the gallery even when I wasn’t really feeling keen on getting myself all fancy, let alone leave my apartment.

It wasn’t like me to be such a shut-in. I didn’t want it to become some sort of disorder that might actually prevent me from being able to leave. I’d known someone in high school who, over the summer vacation, developed bad panic attacks that struck her whenever she left the house until, eventually, she couldn’t anymore. She’d needed to drop out of public school and become homeschooled.

And while I did feel like my fears were justified in wanting to be and stay somewhere relatively safe, I was trying not to let the fear rule my every move.

“Of course,” I grumbled when I got back from the gallery to find no spots on the well-lit street. Meaning I had to park in the back lot with the three busted lights and one flickering one that always made me feel a little twitchy, then walk around the building to get to the front.

It was something I probably wouldn’t have given too much thought to before. But now, I felt sweat prickling my neck as I climbed out of my car.

I eyed the dumpsters like the men would be hanging around there, beating on another one of my neighbors.

There was nothing. Save for the rustling and chewing sounds of, I imagined, rats, since the dumpsters had overflowed and spilled bags onto the ground.

My nose wrinkled at the rotting smells of hot garbage as I ducked my head and walked a little more quickly, feeling like I wouldn’t be able to breathe fully again until I was behind my locked door. After a sweep of my entire apartment, of course. It was another new ritual of mine that I hoped wouldn’t be hard to shake.

I was reaching to pull the scrunchie that had my key attached off of my wrist as I rounded the corner of the building.

I heard the breath of them behind me just a second too late to react.

By the time my breath sucked in, planning to scream, even if I didn’t know if anyone would actually come running, hands were grabbing my arms, turning me, and slamming me face-first into the brick wall.

Too fast to throw out my arms to brace myself, to push against the wall, to slow the momentum.

The pain exploded across my nose and spread outward, making my cheeks and eyes hammer with agony.

Tears flooded my eyes and streamed down my cheeks from the impact.

The hand shifted up to the back of my neck.

This time, my reaction was just slightly faster, turning just enough so that when the pressure was applied to my neck, it was my cheek that met the brick.

There was a jagged edge to some of the mortar between the bricks that scraped against my cheek. It was a burning type of pain that was quickly eclipsed by the throbbing pain still taking over my nose.

“You need to mind—“ the voice seethe, his spit touching the shell of my ear.

“Get the fuck away from her,” another voice interjected, making my heart soar even as the hands released me, as the presence of the other man disappeared completely.

I whipped around, my whole body shaking, searching in the darkness for my savior.

I don’t know what I’d been expecting. But a tall, scrawny teenager in clothes about five sizes too big was not the hero I’d anticipated.

His voice sounded deeper than his years. Which, judging by certain facial markers, I would put at only maybe fourteen.

“You okay?” he asked, moving closer.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, reaching up toward my face to grab my nose, feeling the blood immediately start to coat my palm and fingers.

“You should prolly get it looked at. My brother got his nose busted. Didn’t have money to go to the clinic, so he got this nasty-ass bump on it.”

All I managed then was a nod.

“Come on. I’ll walk you back to your car. No one’s gonna mess with you,” he assured me, and I heard a flicking sound that made my gaze move toward his hand, finding a serrated pocketknife in his grip.

“Okay,” I agreed, not knowing much except that there was no way I could make myself walk into that building, make myself a sitting duck in my apartment.

I fell into step beside the kid who, sadly, did seem capable of defending me if he should need to. But that was what this neighborhood did to kids who probably should have been doing kid stuff like playing basketball or video games. Not carrying knives and defending women.

“Why’d you take it down?” he asked as we walked.

“What?” I asked, trying to resist the urge to sniffle, not wanting the blood to trickle down my throat.

“The whiteboard. Why’d you take it down?”

That was him?

My savior was the kid I’d been bonding with via little sketches on my whiteboard?

“I got a message,” I admitted.

“Same kinda message you got tonight?” he asked, wise beyond his years.

“Kind of.”

“You need a boyfriend,” he told me, confident that a man would solve all my problems. “Or a dog,” he added. “Big, mean one.”

That was something I hadn’t considered. That I might have to give some thought to.

“This is you, right?” he asked as we got to the side of my car.

At my nod, he moved around the car, checking in the windows, even taking my key to pop my trunk and check that too.

“What’s your apartment?” I asked him when he handed me my key back.

“Why?”

“So I can drop by and work on some sketches with—“

“No,” he cut me off. “No, you don’t wanna come to my apartment. I can come to you maybe.”

“Sure. I’d like that. Maybe in a few days, though.”

“Yeah,” he said, wincing at my face.

“Thank you for saving me,” I told him, watching him puff up at the praise.

“Don’t like guys putting hands on girls,” he admitted, a pained look in his eye that I wished I knew him well enough to help wipe away. “Go get cleaned up,” he said, pulling open the door for me.

“Thanks again,” I said, sliding into the car. Then nearly jumping out of my skin when the kid knocked on the window.

“Lock the doors,” he called.

I didn’t need to be told twice.

He took a step away as I turned over the car, then stood and watched me as I pulled away.

It wasn’t until I was on the main drag that the adrenaline seemed to slip away, leaving my whole body shaking and tears pouring down my cheeks as I headed in the direction of the clinic.

I thought I was okay.

The blood would stop; it had already slowed significantly.

I didn’t really need to be checked out.

But I needed somewhere to go to get myself together. The clinic seemed as good as anywhere else.

It was a long, low building in a strip mall. The blinds were drawn but the light was streaming through them.

The lot was mostly empty, so I got to park close and shuffle my way up to the door.

There was a metal detector and security guard. But one look at my face and he just waved me inside where I got to check in at the front desk with the male nurse whose eyes went sad as he took in my injuries. I imagined that in the nursing profession there were a lot of women who ‘ran into a wall’ with their faces. The same ones who would come back a few months later with a broken wrist from ‘trying to catch their fall’ or whatever other excuse they came up with to keep themselves safe from getting abused worse from their partners.

“It should just be about half an hour,” he told me, waving me toward the waiting room where a mom was struggling to console her pink-cheeked, feverish-looking toddler with an impressive amount of snot escaping her nose.

They were called back first, leaving me alone with the painfully bright lighting in the waiting room, staring blankly at the TV screen that was issuing a hurricane warning. Category Two. I learned from the locals that no one even blinked an eye until it was looking like a Four.

“Jade?” the male nurse called, making me pop up out of my seat. A little too quickly. Anxious. God, I felt like I was going to shake right out of my skin. “The doctor will be right with you,” he assured me as he set me in a small, but newly renovated room.

Actually, for a clinic in a rough area, the whole place seemed like it had been redone. New dark wood click-flooring instead of the old, peeling linoleum I’d been expecting, new cabinets, exam tables, and freshly painted walls.

I scooted myself up on the table, taking a deep breath through my mouth since my nose was still lazily leaking blood.

I heard the low buzzing sound of the hand sanitizer outside of the room before the door pushed open.

And there was a really gorgeous woman with her long, dark hair pulled back from her pretty face.

She had on a long white coat on that she left open to make room for her very pregnant belly.

Her name tag said Call me Ama.

Not Dr. Something-or-other.

Her first name.

I liked that.

“I hear you… walked into a wall,” she said, glancing down at the clipboard in her hand.

“Ah, yeah,” I said as her gaze continued to scan my chart.

“Jade,” she said, her head popping up, brows pinched. I had a second where I tried to place her since she was looking at me like I was in some way familiar to her. She quickly tamped down the shocked look on her face, giving me a tight professional smile instead. “That’s a very pretty name,” she said as she walked over to set down the clipboard. She slipped on gloves, and started to pile some supplies onto a rolling metal tray.

“Alright,” she said as she got in front of me. “Let’s get you cleaned up a bit, so I can see the damage underneath, okay?” she asked, giving me a soft smile. “I would say that this isn’t going to hurt, but that would be a bold-faced lie,” she told me, getting a little laugh out of me before she started to wet gauze and wipe the blood away.

“I’m just gonna roll this up and stuff it up your nostril to stop the blood,” Amarantha told me just before doing exactly that then gently starting to probe around my nose.

“I don’t think this is broken,” she told me. “It still seems pretty well-aligned and you have no bump. I think the impact just broke the blood vessels that caused the bleeding. I could be wrong,” she was quick to insist. “But you’re not even very swollen.”

“There’s not really anything to do for it if it is broken anyway, right?” I asked.

“I mean, I know a few men who just… yank that thing back into place,” she said, shuddering a bit. “But not really. Splinting it. Ice. Over-the-counter pain meds. You’re starting to get a decent shiner, too, though,” she told me.

“I think I’ll skip the splint,” I said, getting a nod from her as she turned her attention to my cheek. “Alright, we have a couple choices for this,” she said, pressing the skin on either side of the cut. “I can put some butterfly stitches on. Or I can do some skin glue. You don’t need real stitches.”

“I guess the glue,” I decided. I hadn’t seen it myself, so I had no idea how bad it looked. But judging by the long strip of liquid bandage she put on me, it was pretty big.

“Alright. That should cover it,” she said, taking her tray over to dispose of the bloodied gauze. “You can pull that gauze out of your nose in a few minutes. I would definitely get some ice going sometime tonight,” she told me.

“I will,” I told her, my stomach twisting in knots that this was over so fast, that I had to go back to my building now. Without the kid to protect me, solve this problem.

Amarantha made her way to the door, but turned suddenly back.

“Hey, Jade?” she called, sounding conflicted.

“Yes?” I asked as I got up off of the table.

“I probably shouldn’t be saying this,” she said, gaze sliding to my nose and cheek before making eye contact. “But… go see Levee, okay?”

With that, she was gone.

I leaned back against the exam table, realizing that Ama was Amarantha. The doctor that Levee talked about. The girl he’d grown up with. Who eventually married her best friend, Seeley.

She’d clearly heard enough about me to recognize me and my name. And my file that listed my address was probably a big tip-off too.

I knew what she meant, of course. That I should go to Levee, tell him what happened, let him be the big, strong man and protect me.

Suddenly, I didn’t want that.

I didn’t want to talk about it.

I didn’t want to even think about it.

I wanted to get away.

I wanted a distraction.

I reached for my phone to text Levee before I even left the exam room.

And by the time I was back in my car, I had an address to drive to.

If I was going to escape for a while, doing it with Levee seemed the best possible choice.