Page 90 of Demon's Desire

“Ma’am, stay right where you are!” a man called, holding out his hand like I was a wild animal he was testing. I simply nodded and stayed in place. “Good. We got a call about some screaming. Now I need you to tell me whose blood is on your clothes.”

I nodded and pointed inside. “A man… I think his name is Jackson, but he might have been lying about that. He’s been stalking me for a while…” I allowed tears to well up in my eyes. “I just moved here with my friend. I was walking around downtown and he… he chased me in here…” I started to wipe my eyes, making an effort to look pathetic and helpless. Honestly though, I didn’t feel that way.

One of the officers took my hand and let me sit in the back of their car, but they left the door open, not like I was arrested. They called an ambulance to check out my head. Everyone believed my story. They had no reason not to. Jackson wasn’t from here, he had no friends or family to back him up, and I had the injuries to corroborate my story. After Soul threw Tiernan’s body in a dumpster, he came out and stayed with me the entire time. We couldn’t talk with so many people around, but we didn’t have to. Him being there and being safe was enough for me.

21

The EMTs that arrived determined that I didn’t have a concussion, but they recommended that I basically act as if I did have one, just to be safe. Still, since they had to document all of my injuries for the investigation, I still had to go to the hospital. On the way there, I called Kelly. She sobbed on the phone when she realized I was alive and said she’d meet me at the hospital. We didn’t talk in detail about anything else since there were so many people around me.

When we got to the hospital, they took me to a room to wait for a doctor. When I was alone with Soul, I took his hand. He had kept Tiernan’s horn, the one that I’d torn off. I hadn’t had a chance to ask why.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like hell.” I smiled at him. “But I’ll be okay. Listen. I think when Kelly gets here, the police will stop her before she can come see me. So I need you to wait outside. When she pulls into the parking lot, tell her she needs to tell the police I was being stalked.”

“I don’t want to leave you.” He frowned and squeezed my hand.

I brought his hand to my lips and kissed it. “I know. But this is important. Honestly, she’ll be here any minute. Then you come right back. Okay?”

“You’re right… Okay.” He kissed my head, then kissed me quickly. “I’ll be back soon.”

He left me alone for about fifteen minutes. When he came back, there was a female doctor as well as a female officer asking questions about what happened and taking pictures of my injuries.

They all seemed sympathetic. The officer assured me multiple times that they just had to investigate, but she was sure that after a day or two, I’d be all cleared and I could put this behind me. The doctor said to take it easy and take Tylenol for any pain, but that none of my injuries were severe. The only thing that was difficult to explain was the fresh burn on my forearm from Tiernan, but I eventually managed to convince them that I’d just had a mishap with our gas stove the same morning.

When they finished everything, they said I was free to go. The second I stepped out of the exam room, Kelly practically tackled me in the hallway, holding me as tight as she could and crying into my shoulder.

“I can’t believe you’re alive!” she whispered.

“I know.” I smiled and hugged her back. Tears started to flood my eyes again. These were genuine, and more from relief than anything else.

I stood there and held Kelly for a moment. Over her shoulder, I smiled at Soul. He smiled back. Still, I had noticed that ever since the danger was over, he’d seemed pensive. I was anxious to ask why.

“Let’s go home.” I smiled, pulling back from Kelly and taking her hand. “I’ll put on clean clothes, we’ll order delivery and relax.”

Kelly smiled and wiped her eyes. She knew not to ask details until we were alone. I was grateful for that. “Did you talk to your parents?”

“I was able to call them in the ambulance,” I said. “They want me to come home. I said no. So they said they’re going to fly up on Friday just to make sure I’m okay and stay in a hotel for the weekend.”

“Do they know what happened?” Kelly asked. “Like, how you got injured?”

“Yeah.” I nodded as we walked through the lobby. “I told them about the stalker, and I told them that I killed him in self-defense. My dad said he’s going to call the best lawyers in Chicago. I told him I won’t need a lawyer, but he’ll probably hire one anyway, at least for a consultation.”

We finally made it out into the parking lot and toward Kelly’s car. Soul wrapped his arm around my waist. I leaned against him as we walked.

When we got to the car, Kelly got inside and completely fell apart. She cried again as she started the car. “The police talked to me, like Soul said. They asked if I knew what was going on. I said you called and told me your stalker chased you and you killed him in self defense. They asked all these prying questions, like what do I know about him?”

“It’s okay.” I reached over and rubbed her arms. “Whatever you said, I’m sure it was perfect.”

She nodded, wiping her eyes. I’d never seen her cry this much. “I told them that I couldn’t remember his name, but that you’d been seeing him everywhere since we moved here. I told them he followed you home once, then a few days later he stole our landlord’s phone so he could break into the apartment. Then they asked why we never called the police on him.”

“They asked me that too.” I nodded. “I told them I was just scared and hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”

“Okay.” She sighed. “I said we were talking about it and you’d been meaning to. So that works.”

“See? You did great.” I smiled. “Do you want me to drive home?”

“No. You need to rest.” She wiped her eyes and finally put the car in drive. “So tell me what actually happened.”