Human Hieroglyphix - Dex & Leila (34 page)

When Dex got to the hospital the waiting room was mostly taken up by people that knew Crys.  His eyes roamed until he found Leila sitting between Marianne and Caitlin and all three of them were holding hands, talking softly.  He saw Ben and his son Gabe in another huddle in the corner of the room and a couple of the dancers from Fuego's that Crys hung out with occasionally.

He made his way to Leila and watched as she stood and turned to him, eyes red-rimmed and swimming with tears.  He brought her close, feeling her forehead tuck into his neck.  He breathed in the scent of her hair as he held her close.

"Any news, babe?" He whispered against her hair.

"No."

"You okay?" He again whispered.

"No."

Dex tightened his arms around his girl and stood with her, creating a quiet place for the two of them. 

After a few minutes, Leila raised her head.  "The lady at the desk asked for next of kin information.  I didn't know.  I mean, you told me her dad had passed.  But none of us knew, honey."

"Her mom skipped out when she was about five or so.  Don't know if anyone even tried to find her.  Max wouldn't talk about her hardly at all and when he did, he just referred to her as 'the bitch'."

"So she has
nobody
?" Leila asked, her face stricken.

"Look around, babe.  This look like 'nobody' to you?"

Leila turned slowly and saw that Frank-kay had taken her seat between Marianne and Caitlin.  Jake was there talking soft with Benny and Gabe.

"Oh."  Leila looked around again before turning back to Dex.  "This
is
her family. 
We
are her family."

"Yeah, babe.  We are her family and she is part of
ours
," Dex whispered.

Leila turned back into his chest and he could feel her shoulders shaking before he heard her sniffing.  When he felt she had a handle on it, he motioned to Frank who came over to where they were standing.  Dex loosened his hold and turned her towards Frank, who wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back while calling her 'Precious'.

Dex had to put a tight rein on his own emotions as he walked over to join Ben, Jake and Gabe.  When Dex got there Gabe moved off to join some of the others in the room.

"You holding up, Dex?" Jake asked with a chin lift, giving his friend a sharp look.

"Barely.  I've got something else to share, Jake."

Benny excused himself and made his way over to Gabe.

Dex told Jake what Pierson had told him about Leila's house.  Specifically Leila's bedroom.

Jake's face got hard and he dropped his head when Dex finished.

" I want to fuck them up, Jake.   I want to fuck them up so
bad
that they won't
breathe
without mechanical help."

"Gotta keep a lid on that shit, man.  Care for your woman, do what the cops ask you to do and keep a lid on your temper, yeah?.  Know it feels like you're powerless but you aren't.  Now, where you guys gonna stay?"

"We were thinking my place…"

"Nope.  Not good.  The fuckin' ass-hat who's doing this whacked up shit knows where you live, man.  You're welcome to stay with me and Cait.  Or if that doesn't work, I'm sure we can find something else."

"I appreciate it, Jake.  I'll talk it over with Elle and see what she thinks."

"Your woman doesn't look like she's in any condition to make a decision."

Dex glanced over to the huddle which now had Leila in the middle of a group hug of Frank-kay, Cait and Marianne and all of them were pretty weepy.

"You might be right.  Let me think on it and I'll get back to you."

Chapter Thirty One

The doctor had finally come out and said that Crys had a severe concussion and was going to be in the hospital for a couple of days.  The girls, Frank-kay and I were the first ones in her room and even though she was really groggy from the drugs and probably her concussion, she was coherent.  She gave Caitlin her house key and asked her to bring some stuff back to the hospital tomorrow morning.

We made our way back to the waiting room and since I was the last one out, I saw Gabe leaning against the wall outside Crys' room.   He gave me a chin lift as I passed and was already moving through the door to her room when I turned back. 

For a moment, for just the moment our eyes connected I could've sworn that his were full of pain.

And before the door had closed all the way, even from where I was halfway down the hall, I thought I heard Crys' voice.

Crys' voice saying, "Baby."

Long,
long
day for me and my man.

We said goodbye to the others and decided to hit Enrique's for dinner before planning what we were going to do about tonight.

"Jake suggested we not stay at my place, Elle," Dex explained as our waitress removed our decimated plates.  "Says that whoever the fuck is doing this stuff knows where I live."

I nodded understanding completely.

"He said we could stay with him and Cait," Dex finished.

I scrunched up my nose and shot Dex a glance.  "Not my first choice, honey.  Love them
both
to bits.  And they are the
best
people, but would rather stay at the hotel if we have to stay outside our own houses."

Dex moved his hand over mine and played with my fingers.

"I agree, babe.  But we should probably stop at my house first and get clothes and I need to feed Fred and Wilma."

We made the trip to Dex's house, me in the Mustang, Dex on his bike just as the sun went down.  I got out of my car and met Dex at the front door, mentally reviewing the clothes I had left at his house during the last rotation.  I was thinking it was either a couple pair of jeans and cute tee's or my denim skirt, a sundress…

"Honey, what's wrong?" I asked as Dex stood frozen at the dining room table.

"Shhh," he said.  I stopped.

And listened.

"Hear that, babe?" he asked, his eyes moving to the dining room window.

I didn't hear anything except one of his dogs was barking a deep braying kind of bark.  A bark I'd not heard before.

"Elle, get your cell out, 'kay?" he requested, moving closer to the window.  We had only turned on one of the table lamps when we came inside with dark falling, so seeing outside was already hard and getting harder.

I rushed to my purse that I had dropped onto the chair by the front door and pulled out my cell.  I dialed '911' but didn't press the green call button, waiting for Dex's signal.  I was concentrating on the cellphone in my hand and didn't realize the lights had gone out until I looked up to see what he was doing. 

There was a loud 'oomph' and then a deep thump but there was no answer when I whispered, "Dex?"

I immediately turned towards the front door, my body already in fight or flight mode when my hair was seized at the back of my head and I was yanked across the room by it.  My hands came up and grabbed the wrists of whoever had me by the hair, trying anything,
anything
that would loosen their grasp because it really, freaking hurt.

The sound from the backyard had moved from that braying bark to growls, slobbery growls, the kind you hear in the horror movies of rabid animals.

Through the other sounds, I heard a bunch of  little squeals that added to the cacophony but was a new noise and it took a couple of seconds for me to recognize that I was the one making these high pitched cries. 

I don't know why I thought I was being pulled to the dining room, maybe because that was the last place Dex had been standing but I soon realized that we were going the other way, down the hall towards the bedrooms.  I could hear my harsh breathing and was starting to see stars from pain of having my hair pulled out by its roots.  I had tried planting my feet but that maneuver had only caused more pain, like a lot more pain, so I tried doing the opposite which was to move quicker in the hopes that the tension on my head would ease.

Didn't happen though.

I was thrown into Dex's bedroom and heard the door slam as the grip on my hair was released.  I stood completely still because although I'd heard the door close at the same time the hold on my hair was released, I didn't think I was alone. 

I continued to stand perfectly still, not able to see anything in the room.  I turned my hands and arms outward, trying to sense the menace that I knew, that I knew was there.  I even tried to slow my breathing so I could hear better.  But I was completely unprepared when I felt pain explode in my stomach.

I had been hit, hit
hard
.

So hard that it brought me to my knees.

"Get up, Bitch." I heard the harsh whisper from somewhere over my left shoulder as my head sagged between my shoulders, trying to calm myself enough so I could drag in air, precious air.  At long last, something in me released and I was able to take a breath.

I immediately rolled to the right of what I thought was my original position, bringing me up against the side of Dex's nine-drawer dresser.  I grasped the ledge of the dresser top as I fought to breathe without sound. 

I could still hear the growls, those horrible, horrible growls all the way back in Dex's room.

"Have had fucking enough of you, Leila, and your teasing.  Get up." I heard the harsh whisper command from somewhere above and to the left of me, about eleven o'clock if I were to imagine the direction as a clock.

Wait.

The whisper sounded familiar.  Especially on the word, 'teasing'.  The 's' was said with a small lisp, the sibilant too hard for my attacker to say properly.

I levered myself upward and reached until my hand hit the small knob on the top right drawer.  Dex's dresser had four wide drawers on the bottom portion but had five narrow drawers at the top.  I was counting on one of those smaller drawers as a weapon. 

I jiggled the drawer softly trying to work it out of the slot slowly, without noise.

"How do you know me?" I said loudly.

"Shhh, you want to talk to me, then keep your voice down, Leila," the voice said, still on a whisper.  I couldn't place the voice although I knew I'd heard it.  And having heard it before, I didn't like it. 

"Where's Dex?" I yelled, ignoring the voice commands.  I didn't know where I knew the speech pattern from, but I
knew
that I didn't like it and, even worse, I didn't respect it in the slightest.

"Your lover is being taken care of even as we speak," the harsh low voice explained.  I cocked my head and could hear heavy thuds echoing down the hall and beneath the floor. 

I knew that voice, now coming at the twelve o'clock position.  Since I hadn't moved, except to pull the drawer out further each time I spoke loudly, I knew he was moving on me.

And I was sure it was a he even though I couldn't yet put a name to the voice.

There was a sharp cry from the center of the house, which I used to cover the sound of the drawer finally coming completely out of the dresser.  I quickly upended the drawer, turning it upside down to empty it as I quickly brought it across my body.

"Enough, Leila.  Come to me," the voice commanded.

"Oh,
FUCK
, fuck no, you bastard." I yelled.  "You fucking want ME, motherfucker, you come the
FUCK
to me."

I felt the air in the room shift as the person moved and I got ready, planting my feet wide and swinging the drawer up in an outward motion until it connected with something solid. 

As soon as it did, I let the drawer drop and took the two long steps to the door before swinging it wide and began running down the hall.

As I turned the corner, I saw strange beams of light bouncing across the space I knew was the area between the living room and dining room. 

I wasn't sure if those lights signaled friends or foes, so I pressed myself against the left side of the wall. 

As I made it closer, I heard the metallic voices of several police radios.

"Here," I said in a normal voice, still pressed against the side of the hallway for all I was worth.  I cleared my throat and said, "I'm here," a little louder and felt, rather than saw, a hand reach around the corner pulling me up and away from the hall until I was pulled behind the broad body of someone.  From there, it was another set of hands that pulled me behind their body and that repeated three or four more times until I was outside.

"Elle!"  I heard his voice, my man's sweet voice yell as I took in the amount of police cars on the street, each and every one with their lights still flashing.

I was still trying to process what I was seeing when I felt Dex, my Dex, pull me against him.

And felt his hands grab the sides of my face and bring it to his for a kiss before I realized he was softly tearful and trying to be very quiet about it. Was trying to do it softly and quietly as he cried while he kissed me.

It was a sound that was heartbreaking.

It was a sound that was soul-wrenching.