Did he say “boyfriend”? About me? To a policeman? As in, officially?
“Who are you,” I ask him slowly, “and what have you done with Joel?”
Joel turns to me, flashes me a wide smile and a wink, and returns to his job of intimidating the poor policeman.
Holy… That didn’t just happen, did it?
“Our girlfriend is waiting for us outside. I don’t like to keep her waiting,” Joel says, and I struggle to keep my face serious as he accompanies the guy outside—then pokes his head back in to waggle his brows at me and make me laugh.
Then of course I’m cursing and gasping because laughing isn’t that good for my broken ribs and stab wound.
Dammit.
After that, though, Candy comes in and takes my hand. She reads from Harry Potter to me and when I get too drowsy to follow, she takes her glasses off and curls up beside me on the bed.
I smile at her, her touch calming me. Between Joel taking care of the police and her stroking my cheek, I fall asleep, and this time there are no nightmares.
***
My father’s father was a real bastard. He’d abused my father so badly as a child, it was a miracle that social services had found him alive after his father’s last murderous binge.
Whether that was what turned my own father into a crazy murderer or not cannot be proven. I guess we’ll never know what triggered the madness. And why every five years?
Another riddle. The police think it might be just a serial killer thing. A ritual. A pattern. He did have a thing for number five, I remember. He liked it.
Christ.
“Jet?” Candy always has a knack for knowing when I need her close. She sits beside me, laces her hand with mine. “Okay? You’ve been awfully quiet since that man from the police left. Did they find out anything else about your father?”
“It’s all supposition. He was nuts, Candy pops.” I try to swallow, but my throat is too dry. “He waited five years and came to finish me with the knife he killed my mom with. I just… Fuck.”
I’m horrified by the threat of tears. I’ve cried more these days than I have my whole life. It’s like the stabbing really broke something in me. How am I gonna get it fixed?
“He’s gone now, Jet.” She’s reading my mind again, or maybe it’s my face, who the hell knows? She puts her other hand in my hair, stroking, and my breathing eases. “It’s normal to feel like this. He’s your father. And he’s done gruesome things to your family and to you. It’s okay to hurt.”
I’m not crazy. And I’m not alone. The nightmare is over.
It’s okay. I repeat the words in my mind as she caresses my hair, soaking them in. It will be okay.
And when Joel walks in with a shit-eating grin and informs me I’ve been cleared to go home, I can finally believe it.
Epilogue
A month later
CANDY
This bed is huge. Like, humongous. Joel wasn’t joking when he said he’d get the biggest bed they had. It’s in what used to be his bedroom, taking up most of the space.
Joel isn’t on it, though. I check under a blanket.
Nada.
“Did you lose something?”
Jet is standing at the door of what used to be his bedroom, now a room-for-all uses—mainly a room where they both throw whatever they don’t want to bother with putting away, from clothes to shoes to books and papers.
Of course it’s officially called the Drawing Room, and there are also all of Jet’s drawing supplies and his folders of drawings, but nah. He prefers drawing in the living room, lying on his stomach on the carpet, or sprawled on the sofa.