The Art of Hero Worship (6 page)

“You couldn’t help her, Jase. There was
nothing you could do.” His voice is deep and rumbly and familiar,
his arms are thick and sturdy, and his presence is steady and so
very dependable—it’s all I want, and just what I need. “She died
instantly.”

Those words are just too difficult to hear,
although I recognize their truth. “Where are we?”

“In the safe house… the hotel the police put
us in to keep Dom from finding us.”

I turn onto my side and nuzzle into his
chest. Like a baby animal reconnecting with its mother, I breathe
in his scent. I roll around until I’m placed perfectly in his arms.
“Why do I need you so much? Why am I addicted to your arms and your
voice and your sound and your smell?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You saved me.” He smells like sweet mint
and almonds, the best parts of nature… and I can’t get enough. I
push my nose into the hollow of his neck and brace myself for his
rejection but it doesn’t come. Neither does he offer to repeat our
sexual interaction of the other night. I
think
I’m relieved
but maybe it’s a disguised disappointment.

“You saved me right back. Saving you saved
me.” Strong fingers tighten on my hip and shoulder, and I know
instinctively that everything in my life has changed.

I’m
so
not myself that I don’t even
recognize the sound of the cell phone for what it is. Instead, its
shrill ring brings me back to the night in the theater when the
fire alarm screamed out. Visibly startled, I look all around the
bland room for a fire… or a crazed gunman. Blood races through my
veins as fresh adrenaline surges.

“It’s okay, Jase. It’s just the phone.” His
big palm easily finds its way to my knee where it lingers and I
stare at it, wondering why the hell my heart slows back to its
normal pace with this man’s mere touch. “It’s gotta be the police.
No one else has this number. I can call them back when you feel
better.”

We’re sitting cross-legged on the bed we’ve
adopted as
ours
, half-heartedly playing gin rummy. Liam more
or less set up camp on my bed after my major freak-out last night,
for which I’m grateful. “No… it’s okay. Go ahead and answer. It
might be important.”

Once again, he leans and grabs the cell
phone off the night table. “Yes? Yeah… this is Liam.
She did
what?
Jesus Christ, gimme a goddamn break!”

Liam looks markedly different than he did
thirty seconds ago. His skin has paled, his expression is suddenly
stressed, and his hand tightens painfully on my knee.

“Where the fuck are we supposed to go,
Spader?” He isn’t smiling, so I know this is a serious question.
“The fucking
laundry
room
? You got any better ideas
than that?”

The fight or flight response.

I learned about it in Intro to Psychology,
an elective I took during senior year in high school. It’s defined
as an instinctive response to a perceived harmful event that tells
you to get the hell out of Dodge if you don’t plan to fight with
everything you’ve got for your very survival. My heart pounds so
intensely that I can feel it in my eardrums, and the skin of my
chest and neck and upper arms prickles, as if with electricity. I
leap off the bed, ready to run, entirely certain that something has
gone hugely wrong in the plans to keep us safe.

“Okay, okay… we’re leaving.” Liam drops the
cards he was holding and gets up off the bed but doesn’t reach for
me. “Yeah, we’re going
right now.
We’ll meet you in the
housekeeping suite.” He ends the call and stares at me.
In a
state of controlled panic
is the perfect way to describe
him.

“What’s the matter, Liam? What’s going on?”
I don’t even try to play it cool. The appearance of “composed” I’ve
managed to fake for the past few hours washes away like blood down
a bathtub drain.

“We’ve gotta get outta here, ASAP! Jase,
they think Dom knows….”

“Dom knows
what?”

“He knows where we are.”

“H-how? H-how does he know? We’re supposed
to be safe here!” After my outburst, I put my head in my hands and
mumble
what the fuck, what the fuck,
over and over until I
can breathe again.

“Some friggin’ idiotic news station
televised a broadcast from right in front of this hotel. The
reporter talked about how two terrified witnesses are being held at
an undisclosed location, but
this fucking hotel
was clearly
visible in the background. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure it
out, and Dom’s damned sharp. We can’t risk it by just sitting here
on our asses and waiting for Dom to show up and blow us away!”

“No…. n-no….” Any final semblance of
calmness slips away, demonstrated by the rubbery wobbling of my
knees. “No… this can’t be happening….” I return to repeating
what the fuck
because I find it more soothing than anything
else I’ve tried.

“Look, Jase. We’ve gotta go. As in,
now
.” He grabs my sneakers from beside the bed, then shoves
them into my hands. “Here… put these on. Detective Spader and a
whole slew of cops are already on their way and they told me we
should meet them in the housekeeping unit in the basement… in the
room with all of the washers and dry—”

His explanation is interrupted by three loud
bangs on the door.

Three single ominous terrifying thuds that
bring back memories I have not yet fully grasped, let alone dealt
with.

And I know as well as Liam does that not a
single soul with the exception of the police has a clue that we’re
here. Detective Spader even told housekeeping, “the boys in 312
won’t need no cleaning service.” And didn’t he say that the police
would always identify themselves when they knocked?

Our gazes meet; we both know who has come to
call.

Where Liam’s brain seems to be on the same
path as mine, I slide into my typical immobilized panic mode,
staring at the door with one sneaker in each hand, while he springs
into action. “We’re gonna have to use the window.”

Pop-pop-pop….

Is that the sound of
actual
gunfire or am I reliving Friday night as I have so often in my
nightmares?

I think I might cry out, “Not again!” but
who can be sure in times like these?

Then I hear it: a strange sing-song, maybe
even cheerful-sounding, male voice calling to us from behind the
door. “I told you I’d find you… and unlike
some
people, I
keep my promises.” I have no idea what he means by that, but he
seems to find it funny. He laughs and the sound is warped and
creepy and disconcerting. “Just like my old man always says, a man
is only as good as his word.”

I fumble with my sneakers. “Jason—forget the
damned sneakers! Get your ass over here
now!”
He’s standing
by the window, pushing out the screen. “
Now!”

I shake my head hard hoping it will help me
to get with the program and, still barefoot, I drop the sneakers
and move to the window.

Pop-pop-pop….

The door splinters in several places. I can
see through to movement on the other side, which seems unreal.
Moisture dribbles down the side of my chin as I’ve lost my ability
to swallow.

Liam grabs me roughly and shoves me through
the open window, just as he pushed me through the trap door to the
orchestra pit several nights ago. I know he’s following because I
can feel his heat behind me on the landing of the narrow fire
escape. My forearm is gripped tightly and I think of fingerprint
bruises. And of how lucky I’ll be if I live to see the evidence of
Liam’s second show of heroism in small dark bruises up my arm.

Déjà vu and then some, huh?

Pop-pop-pop….

One bullet hits the inside window frame,
another flies right through the open window and whizzes past my
head. It occurs to me that if I just stand still I can join Ginny…
wherever she is now. I cheated death once, but apparently the Grim
Reaper has my number and—

“I’m not leaving you here, Tripp! I didn’t
leave you
then
and I’m not gonna leave you
now
!”
Liam’s piercing dark eyes are wide with fear and something else…
something like resolve. I allow myself to be dragged in his wake,
to the creaky stairs, and then down.

The shooter—Dom DeSalles, minus all the
threatening black clothing of Friday night—is now leaning out the
window that we climbed from no more than fifteen seconds ago. Minds
are funny things, and right now mine is thinking that this version
of Dom, in a bright red Nike “Just Do It” T-shirt and messed up
dark curls, looks like he just rolled out of bed. But instead of a
teddy bear, he’s clutching a handgun… it’s black and silver and I
realize that, aside from in sports shops and outdoor magazines,
I’ve never before seen one close up. And never before in the light
of day have I seen a gun pointed directly at my head at the
distance of ten feet.

I’m helplessly spellbound by the sight of my
intended assassin. Dom is transfixed by me in an entirely different
way. His eyes are unnaturally round; the whites seem to diminish
the size of his eyeballs. And he’s smiling—not so much a happy
grin, but rather a satisfied, “I told you so” leer.

Silently, he aims the gun at my head, even
squinting in concentration. Instead of running, I dutifully brace
myself, unwilling to get shot without being ready for it. But
before I hear the deafening cracks of the first of three well-aimed
shots, accompanied by the blinding pain of having my forehead
ripped apart by scorching metal, I’m tackled and slammed to the
ground. Liam is at first on top of me, but he scrambles to his
feet, and is more than willing to pick me up, push me in front of
him, and shelter me by curving himself around my body. A mutual
stumble and fall to the bottom of the rusty stairs puts us
momentarily out of Dom’s line of fire. Surprisingly, probably to
all three present, Liam and I have made it to the hotel parking lot
relatively intact.

Without thinking, I scan the nearly empty
lot for a cherry red muscle car, but I don’t see it, and then I
remember that we were delivered to this “safe house” in unmarked
cop cars, not in Liam’s supercool wheels.

Pop-pop-pop…. Pop-pop-pop….

“Get behind that truck, Jase!” Liam again
drags me to my feet and pushes me in the direction of a shiny,
white Ford Tundra. Apparently still coherent, my brain reluctantly
sends the orders to my legs and I manage to step behind the
vehicle. But my heart isn’t invested in this second escape from the
crazed gunman determined to kill us for no reason I can see. I curl
up into a tight ball, reminiscent of the fetal position I formed on
the theater floor before Liam found me. I’m so far less than the
measure of a man—I’m weak and scared and… and surprisingly less
disappointed in myself than I’d have predicted.

Pop-pop-pop….

Liam hasn’t curled up on the pavement beside
me, though. He’s standing behind the truck, shifting around and
seemingly trying to keep an eye on the madman. “Shit! DeSalle’s
climbing out the window!” He shakes me until I release myself from
the fetal position that I so consistently form in my nightmares,
and, as of late, in my reality. “Get ready to run, ‘kay?”

I’m supposed to run through this parking
lot, dodging bullets that have my name written on them? Really?

“And when you run, you gotta kinda
zig-zag.…” He gestures awkwardly with his arm, movements that are
meant to explain. “Don’t run in a straight line. He’s not a great
shot, so chances are good he’ll miss us!”

Chances are?
For some reason, the
words make me want to smile; they strike me as whimsical and
romantic, which this situation certainly is not. My mind is
apparently separating from the here and now because it’s way too
much for me to deal with. I wonder apathetically about our odds of
surviving this sunny Tuesday morning in the parking lot of the
Sleep and Stay Hotel.

“
Sleep and Get Frigging Shot At” is a
much more fitting name for this hotel.
I suppress a senseless
giggle and coil my body into the tiniest of circles.

“He’s climbing down the stairs…. We’ve gotta
frigging run!” Liam tugs on my forearm, trying desperately to
uncurl the tight ball into which I’m now locked. “Jason! Man,
you’re coming with me… like it or not you’re coming with me!” He
pushes on my shoulder and scratches at the side of my legs in an
effort to uncoil me, but I’m too caught up in the hollow sound of
the shooter’s footsteps as they approach us, to do so much as move
an inch.

“L-leave me here… just g-go… go….” Beneath
the truck, I can see a pair of black and white Nike LeBron
Soldiers—nothing but the coolest of shoes for the guy who’s gonna
take me out—coming closer and closer. “Liam… please… leave me
here….” Something is seriously wrong with my brain, and I know it.
I’ve shut down because I can’t cope. But Liam shouldn’t have to die
here with me. “Go on… run, Liam… I’m okay with it.”