Bulletproof (Healer) (17 page)

             
I feel nauseous. Why do I have to wait so long? He has a face that blows any previous idea of beauty out of my mind. It makes me forget a lot about the past. Looking at it, tracing the shadows cast by his nose and lips, consumes my thoughts. I can't remember what I thought and dreamt about before I knew about his perfect features. And I can't imagine what I will do tomorrow. I feel achy but before I can worry about how I will attempt to pass the time whilst avoiding Gabe, Maurice leans in and kisses my forehead, cupping his hand behind my neck. I want his lips to move to my mouth, down my neck, my body fizzles but Maurice pulls away leaving a cold imprint on my skin where his lips grazed. "Goodnight Cassie," he says and walks away.

             
I imagine him returning to his room, lying on the steel table and closing his eyes. Unable to open them until the moon rears its fat face again tomorrow night. I feel drunk when I stumble up the stairs up to my bedroom. I can't believe how lucky I am. How wonderful Maurice is. When I think of all the nights I spent searching the internet for stories about vampires, could I have imagined meeting one? A vampire who represents the danger and thrill I so badly want but who is also heartbreakingly gorgeous and charming. I have to lie down straight away, I'm so dizzy with the memory of his lips on my forehead, his fingers twisted in between mine, his hauntingly pale eyes looking at me so fondly.

             
Getting ready for bed is made so difficult because I am so deliriously happy. I trip up and spin round and I grin. I grin and grin until my face hurts. I peel off my dress, it lies in a muddy, crumpled heap on the floor. I don't bother searching through the huge wardrobe filled with delights purely for my pleasure and just sleep in my bra and pants. I will save looking at all the clothes for tomorrow while I wait for nightfall. I wash my face, black gunky mascara pouring into the sink.

             
By the time I collapse onto the bed, the wooziness has dissipated slightly and now I'm just tired. I stare at the ceiling and cast my mind back. How long have I even been here? Only a day in Toulouse but then there was Paris last night and almost a week with Gabe and Rose. I mark the days off on a calendar inside my head and think about my dad. Red eyed and wearying. Would the police be hunting for me? Would they think I was dead? Now the happiness of my night with Maurice is exchanged for a black hole of guilt, sucking up my insides until I feel hollow. It seems so cruel that I am having the time of my life. Having midnight picnics with a handsome vampire in his luxury home in Toulouse while dad worries himself sick about his lost daughter. Would he think my condition would keep me alive? I wonder. Or does he think that danger has finally celebrated victory over me, swallowing me up and now there is nothing left of me. Will he feel guilty? Does he wish he let me go out more with my friends or encouraged my running and my ambition to pursuer a career in extreme sports?

             
I hope Shannon is coping for the sake of Bruce and Jana. Poor Bruce and Jana. Do they miss their sister? Is Jana asking for me to give her a goodnight kiss before she goes to bed? One lone tear drips down my face, there is absolutely no happiness left in me when I fall asleep. The guilt left nothing in its wake.

              I'm standing in the surveillance room. Gabe is by my side. He doesn't speak. Doesn't touch me. As usual. We peer into Maurice's bedroom. I see the hospital bed then I see Maurice lying on top of it. He startles. He's waking up. I look at Gabe, worried, scared. He just smiles at me. Am I dreaming? I turn back to the window and I'm not looking at Maurice anymore. At first I can't make out who it is. It's so dark in here. Who is it? A girl. Long, blonde hair. I touch the glass. It's me. I am watching myself rise from the metal bed. Now I'm staring into my own eyes. Blue and sparkly like a clear ocean view. Then I am speaking. What am I saying? I try to lip read the words. Get out? Then she's screaming. Screaming GET OUT. And then I wake up.

THIRTEEN

              Angelica wakes me up in the morning. Opening the curtains and letting the sun pour in and sting my eyes like acid. I'm so tired. Bad dreams and a late night combined have made me feel very groggy but Angelica is barking at me to get up. Telling me that Maurice has a lot planned for me. Maurice. I smile. I try not to think about the image from my dream of him as a corpse, try to remember him with the candle flame dancing a waltz on his white skin. That was just a bad dream.

             
Clothes are being thrown at my head by the time I get up. Angelica is firing them in the every direction from the wardrobe and telling me to choose something comfortable. Comfortable, yes! No more frilly gowns or obnoxious heels that pinch at my toes. I feel rusty when I move so it takes some time for me to rifle through the clothes before I pick something. A button down gingham shirt, I roll the sleeves up to my elbow for extra comfort factor, and a pair of blue jeans which I recognise from one of my shopping trips with Rose. I miss Rose, I wonder if she is still staying here at Maurice's house or whether she has went back home to look after her brother and spend the stacks of money Maurice gives her before starting her next task. I am certain she must still be here, she would say goodbye. Thinking about Rose only leads to thoughts of Gabe. I push Gabe's face and how angry it makes me out of my mind. It's like cramming too much stuff into an overflowing cupboard, knowing that I can close the door but sooner or later I will have to open it up and then it will come crashing down on me.

             
Angelica brushes my hair for me but says there is no need for me to wear make up today. I'm relieved. My skin deserves a break. Then we go down for breakfast. I'm in the East Wing today, which has the feeling of a cosy cottage, where a dining table is set for breakfast. Miriam pops her head out of the door, balancing bowls in her hand. "Morning sunshine," she says, placing a bowl of steaming porridge in front of me. Porridge was my daily breakfast at home but usually just the packet you put in the microwave for a few minutes. This is a different concept altogether. It is drizzled with syrup and there is a hearty serving of berries plopped in the middle. I don't care what Maurice has planned for me; I want to spend the whole day eating Miriam's food.

             
When breakfast is finished and an old lady with a bad back clears away our dishes, Angelica begins to recite my schedule. Relaxing massage in the morning, a gym session, a dip in the pool and most exciting of all a drive in one of Maurice's cars. I have never taken lessons before so I don't exactly know how to drive but I figure I'll learn fast. "Gabe will be here in a minute to escort you to the spa in the North Wing," Angelica says, sinking her sharp teeth into a crunchy green apple.

             
"Gabe?" I squeak.

             
"Yes," Angelica says impassively. "Is there a problem?"

             
"Gabe and I had a fight," that doesn't sound right. I uncovered a hideous secret about him, yelled in his face and ran away crying before he had the chance to explain. Not that there was anything he could have said to justify his actions. The misery he inflicted on me for the past two years.

             
"I see…"

             
"Could someone else take me? Justin or Channing? Or Rose?" Please let me see Rose.

             
"Rose and Justin are recruiting in the city,” Angelica says. "I'll call Channing but I think he’s busy. If not, he can take you. If so, you'll just have to bite your tongue and play nice with Gabriel. I don't blame you though, he is the most uncouth young man I've ever met."

             
Angelica makes a call while I ask myself what recruiting is? Don't read too deeply into it, I remind myself, probably just looking for new staff. It must take hundreds of people to keep Maurice's paradise running smoothly. Gardening, cooking, cleaning. All those cars and a spa, a gym and a pool too? Not to mention the occasional spontaneous ball Maurice throws in honour of a strange girl from the other side of the Channel.

             
"Channing will take you to your first  few appointments," Angelica returns. "But I'm afraid he has to pick up a new suit for Maurice in the afternoon…"               Thus Gabe will have to take over. I don't want to see his face. His sulking expression. His tattoos. His brown eyes with those long black eyelashes. I feel sick. My heart physically hurts when I think about him and his betrayal. I even question myself. Did he really hit me with that car? And if he did, did he mean it? But it makes too much sense for it not to be true. I badly wish it wasn't though.

             
In the past week, Gabe had grown to be my friend. Maybe something more in my eyes. I liked seeing him smile and I cared about him a lot but everyone disappoints you eventually. Angelica just nods at me and gives me a pitying smile. She doesn't like me. In fact she is completely indifferent to me. To her, I have as much significance as picking up dry cleaning for Maurice. I'm a menial task that her boss has asked her to carry out. At least Rose, Gabe, Chec all looked at me like I was a human being. I didn't like, in Chec and Gabe's case, the way they would look at me sometimes but at least I was breathing, flesh and blood, to them.

             
Channing arrives and takes me to the North Wing where Maurice's spa is. There are no bedrooms, kitchens or lounges in the North Wing. It is purely used for leisure. We pass the gym and then the pool. Both are empty. What is the use of all these facilities if nobody can even enjoy them. Clearly there is nobody around but staff, Maurice and I. So what's the point in all these luxuries?

             
I smell the spa before I see it. Hot, sticky cinnamon smells are floating down the corridor. When we open the door, the pretty Asian girl I saw yesterday outside the house is smiling at me. Her shiny black hair tied back in a plait. Channing leaves and the girl introduces herself as Aimee. She doesn't talk much and seems very committed to her work. She asks me to undress and wraps a towel around me. She takes me to the steam room first and leaves me in peace to saturate. I come out feeling clammy. I don't know why women come to a spa to sweat, to feel even dirtier than they were when they arrived. But I don't complain. I've never been to a spa before and the experience is certainly interesting.

             
Aimee gives me a back massage first, ladling scented oils all over my skin and digging her fingers deep into my muscles. Then she moves on to a facial. It feels like she is injecting toxins into my cheeks as she pinches my skin with her fingernails. I am more relieved for the massage to be finished than I was relaxed by it. Aimee suggests I try the sauna but I gently decline. I've had enough steaming and sweating for one morning.

             
I am picked up from each location like a child from school. Thinking about it, it is just like home. I am  never allowed to travel myself. People treating me like I can’t be trusted to take care of myself. I don't understand. I'm the last person you would expect to be hurt.

             
Channing takes me to the gym. I am in awe of all the fancy technology. I am excited to get started. No running and too many cakes will take its toll on my body and I want to keep in shape especially now that I have somebody to impress. Running on the treadmill isn't ideal, I much prefer being out in the fresh air, feeling like a leave blowing in the wind, but it is definitely better than sitting around in that steamer all day cooking like a vegetable.

             
Channing stays and works out with me. Watching him lift weights is quite distracting. I am being spoiled with all the good looking people here. Justin and Channing are like cutouts from a catalogue and Gabe was never hard to look at with his pretty eyes and chiselled body. Then there was Maurice: the most beautiful of all. I almost stop moving completely when I think about how unearthly his face was but then I start to laugh thinking about Chec and his tubby stomach. He broke the rule that every man working for Maurice has to be devastatingly good looking.

             
"It's twelve now, Cassie," Channing says, wiping sweat from his brow with a towel. He even makes that move look sexy. I wish I could take him home to the girls from school. They would love him. "I have to go."

             
My stomach sinks. I know what that means. Time to swap handsome Channing for Gabe, the traitor. I'm not ready to see him. Not since I ran away crying. Maybe it was a good thing that I am going to see him so I could show him that I don't care, that I am here to be with Maurice now and what Gabe does is his own prerogative, it doesn't affect me. I won’t even blink if I pass him the corridor and I would step over him without a second thought if he was lying drunk on the floor.               Channing leaves me alone in the gym for a few minutes. I use the crunch machine but with very little fervour because I am so nervous to see Gabe's face. I wonder if he will apologise or pretend nothing has happened. After all he is Maurice's employee, he needs to keep our relationship separate. Our relationship? I don't know what to make of it.