Scar (8 page)

“Four,” Caelyn corrected him.

“Four?”
The officer’s eyes widened.

“Yeah. I mean, he only went in three times, but he saved four people—the mother and father, the little girl and the older daughter. Is she going to live?”

“Listen, I don’t know. I’m just trying to keep this crowd under control.” The officer smiled at her. “But you better get ready, because he’s probably going to be famous after tonight.”

“Famous?” Caelyn asked, a strange anxiousness creeping into her body.

“What this guy did is like nothing I ever heard of, nothing I ever seen. They say someone took video of it. He’s
gonna
be on YouTube and then probably half the free world will have seen it. You mark my words—by tomorrow afternoon, millions of people are going to know his name.”

“Shit,” Caelyn said.

“Shit is right,” the cop laughed.

Caelyn thought that the cop wouldn’t be laughing if he’d understood why she was so stunned. After all, the last thing on earth that Elijah needed right now was for millions of people to find out his name and know that he was wanted by the police for escaping from prison.

***

Caelyn had to wait a very long time before she was able to finally see Elijah again.

In fact, he was sleeping when they finally allowed Caelyn into his hospital room. She walked in slowly, and a nurse who was checking his IV turned and gave her a strange look.

Do they all know who I am?
Caelyn wondered, and decided that yes, they probably did.

A police officer was sitting in a chair just inside the door, and he nodded at Caelyn.

She took a deep breath and let it out.

The nurse was leaving the room, and Caelyn stopped her. “Hey,” she said, softly. “How is he?”

“He’s got a few serious third degree and second degree burns,” she said. “He also suffered from smoke inhalation, so we’ve been giving him oxygen periodically. He’s responded well.”

“But he’s going to be okay, right?” Caelyn asked, her fingers twisting against each other as she asked the question.

The nurse made a strained smile. “I’m sorry, I can’t give any kind of prognosis. I’m just a nurse, you’d need to speak with his doctor.”

“Okay. Well, thanks anyway,” Caelyn told her.

The nurse looked away and then walked out of the room.

Caelyn went and pulled a chair close to Elijah’s bedside and then sat down as near to him as she could get.

Close up, she could see the burns, although he was bandaged over his chest and shoulders. Some of the lesser burns were slick with ointment and hadn’t been bandaged or covered in any way. They were red and raw looking.

His hands were blistered, and his sheets had spots of blood from all of the open sores that were bleeding and draining.

She could barely stand to think of how much pain Elijah was in, although he did look peaceful enough. His eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open, and his chest rose and fell rhythmically and deeply.

“I love you,” she whispered.

His eyelids fluttered but remained closed. Part of her was hoping he’d wake up so she could talk to him and make sure he was all right, but another part of her just wanted him to be at peace.

He’d likely be in profound discomfort if he
was
awake, so she opted to just sit beside him and watch him sleep.

“You two are lucky to be alive,” the officer said from his seat by the door.

Caelyn turned and looked at him. “I know,” she said.

The officer was older, with a clean-shaven face, pale freckled skin, and light green eyes. He had bags under his eyes, and a paunchy stomach that threatened to pop the zipper on his jacket. “You know he’s going to go to jail, right?” the cop said, examining his fingernails as he talked.

Caelyn hated the fact that the officer had to be in the room with them. “I really wish you would leave. You do understand that Elijah couldn’t possibly go anywhere in his condition,” she told him.

“Not very likely he’s going to jump out the window,” the cop agreed, still looking at his cuticles.

“Then why are you guarding him like he’s Hannibal Lector?”

The cop laughed at that. He glanced up at her. “It’s just a precaution,” he said, his smile fading as he looked at her. “And you’re lucky they haven’t arrested you yet for aiding and abetting, obstruction of justice, breaking and entering…shit, maybe they still will arrest you.”

“Maybe they will,” Caelyn said. She glared at him, not afraid of his opinions or judgments. She’d already given her statement to three or four different police officers and she’d been completely honest about everything.

If they wanted to arrest her, they were welcome to do it.

So far, they hadn’t quite seemed to know what to do with her. There was so much chaos with the fire and Elijah’s heroics, and people were dumbfounded that this hero was also a convicted criminal on the run from the law.

For now, it was a waiting game. She’d been told to stay in the hospital while the police awaited response from the authorities in Massachusetts.

And that was just fine with her, as Caelyn wanted nothing more than to be with Elijah and make sure that he was going to recover from his injuries.

The cop quieted down.

Caelyn sat and watched Elijah sleep for the next hour or so.

He began stirring, moaning a bit in his sleep, his eyelids fluttering as his eyes moved from side to side—maybe he was dreaming,
Caelyn
thought. And then he startled awake, and he was breathing fast, his eyes open wide, staring into hers.

“Caelyn,” he gasped. “Oh, shit, Caelyn. I had a dream that you were stuck in that house,” he said, his throat gravelly, his voice low and strained.

“Shhh….” She whispered, getting off her chair and leaning closer to him. “Don’t hurt yourself trying to talk.”

He laid his head back on the pillow and blinked uncertainly. “Fuck, it was so real,” he said, as if amazed. “I’d gotten everyone out of the house, and I felt like I was about to drop dead myself. But then I looked up and saw you in the second floor window, pounding against the glass and yelling, screaming for help.” He licked his lips. “Thank God you’re okay. Thank God.”

“Everything’s fine,” she soothed.

Now he looked at her more closely. “Is everything fine? Did the others…are they all right? Did everyone live?”

“I’m not sure,” she told him. “Nobody tells me anything.”

Now the officer spoke up again from his seat. “Last I heard, they’re all in stable condition.”

“Even the older daughter?” Elijah said.

The cop got up and walked over. “Yeah, even her.”

Elijah exhaled and smiled. “Good,” he said. “That’s really good.”

“It don’t matter that you tried to play Superman, you know,” the cop told him, folding his arms and smirking. “You’re still going back in the can.”

Elijah gave the cop a sidelong glance. “Is that supposed to scare me or something?”

“You were trying pretty hard to avoid being in jail, so I guess it does scare you. Yeah, I think you’re scared shitless to go back, but you’re going back.”

“Could you just leave him alone?” Caelyn said, looking at the cop, her jaw clenched with rage. “He’s sick. He’s burned. Why are you trying to get him upset? Is that what you do for kicks?”

“Relax, kid,” Elijah said, touching her shoulder softly with just the tips of his fingers. “Don’t let it get to you.”

“You’re supposed to be recovering, not listening to threats from an insecure little man who thinks he’s tough because he’s wearing a uniform.”

The cop grinned. “I’m just telling him the truth. I don’t want him to think he got away with anything. You can’t hero your way out of the crimes you committed, son.”

Elijah chuckled. “I’ll remember that next time I think about jumping into a burning house.”

Caelyn was still glaring at the cop. “Why do you even care? Are you jealous that Elijah has more courage than you? Because you never would’ve saved those people if you’d been in his position.”

The cop’s smile faded and he looked at her once more. “He saved those people to save his own ass. Don’t think you’re going to fool anybody.”

“Elijah almost died. We could’ve left—I wanted to leave. I tried to make him run away with me, but he refused. So you have no idea what you’re even talking about.”

“Sure, that’s the truth.” The cop rolled his eyes. “He went from being a career criminal to a selfless hero and I’m supposed to believe it’s because he’s really got a heart of gold?”

Caelyn was about to stand up and really scream at this idiot.

But before she could, Elijah said, “He’s right.”

The cop even looked surprised.

“He’s not right,” Caelyn replied.

“Actually,” Elijah said, coughing weakly, “he is right. I’m not a good guy. I’m not a good person. And I should go to jail for the things I’ve done in my life. I have a debt to repay and I plan to repay it.”

Caelyn just stared at him, shocked at what she was hearing. “You’re the best person I know, Elijah.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I’ve stolen, I’ve hurt people, I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life. And when I was in that house trying to save those people, I realized how useless so much of my time has been. What I did tonight, some people spend every day of their lives doing. They protect people. Like this officer, here,” he said, gesturing to the cop. “He’s spent years doing his job, getting shit from people like me, and then he’s supposed to consider me a hero because for twenty minutes I did the right thing?”

Elijah began coughing and Caelyn began searching for something to help him. “He needs water,” she said.

The cop grabbed a plastic cup and went to the bathroom, filled it in the sink, and came back quickly, handing it directly to Elijah. “You need to talk less and sleep more,” he said, and the cop’s voice sounded distinctly less sarcastic now.

Elijah gratefully drank the water, and it streamed down his chin. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“That’s my job,” the cop said, and this time he smiled and Elijah smiled back at him, nodding.

Elijah turned his head to Caelyn. “I’m gonna sleep now, okay kid?”

“Yeah, you sleep. You rest.”

“I love you,” he told her, his eyes already closing.

“I love you too,” she said.

The officer scratched the back of his neck and squinted down at Elijah. “Maybe I was a little hard on him,” he said softly.

Caelyn shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said. “He understands.”

“Yeah, I think he really just might,” the officer replied, and then he walked back to his chair and sat down, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

***

Caelyn slept that night at the hospital on a couch in the Emergency waiting room. She was so completely exhausted that she actually passed out and slept straight through until dawn, opening her eyes as the sun began filtering through the window and the first shift of employees and patients began streaming inside the entryway.

People glanced curiously at her as she sat up and rubbed her eyes, yawning.

Doctors and nurses with their coffee cups, wearing their hospital uniforms, made light conversation as they made their way inside.

Caelyn thought immediately of Elijah. If she could’ve stayed in his room all night long, she would have, but it wasn’t allowed. They’d kicked her out just before nine o’clock last night and she’d spent the next few hours sitting in the lobby before finally going unconscious from exhaustion.

Now she felt better, although she most definitely needed a shower. Maybe she’d be able to use the one in Elijah’s bathroom in the next little while.

The television set in the waiting room was playing the morning news, and Caelyn became slowly aware that they were covering the fire from the previous night, as she glanced up and saw them cut from an anchorman to the scene of the house with smoke pouring out of it.

“This is footage that was shot from a bystander,” the anchorman said, as the shot panned in and showed Elijah emerging from the house, carrying the teenage girl on his back. “A young man heroically entered the burning house three times in attempts to save the trapped family members who were asleep when the fire started.”

The television set cut back to the anchor desk, where a man and a woman were shaking their heads.

“So is there any word on the condition of the people that were trapped inside?” the female anchor asked.

“All four family members are listed in stable condition,” the man replied. “It’s a miracle.”

“And the young man who risked his life to save them?”

“Well, Tina, that’s where this story takes a very strange turn. Apparently, the young man in question is Elijah Daniels, from Boston Massachusetts.” The anchorman shuffled some papers and sighed. “And we’ve been told that at the time of the fire, Mister Daniels was the subject of a statewide manhunt.”

The anchorwoman cleared her throat and raised her eyebrows. “So this hero was also a criminal, and he was wanted in two states?”