Hush, Hush

Chapter 22

Twenty minutes later patch and I washed up at the entrance to a low-budget motel. I had not spoken one word to him as we'd jogged through the sleeting rain, and now I was not only soaked, but thoroughly… unnerved. The rain cascaded down, and I didn't think we would be returning to the Jeep anytime soon. Which left me, Patch, and a motel in the same equation for an undetermined amount of time.

The door chimed on our way in, and the desk clerk stood abruptly, dusting Cheetos crumbs off his lap. "What'll it be?" he said, sucking his fingers clean of orange slime. "Just the two of you tonight?"

"We n-n-need to borrow your phone," I chattered, hoping he could make sense of my request.

"No can do. Lines are down. Blame the storm."

"What do y-you mean the Mines are d-down? Do you have a cell?"

The clerk looked to Patch.

"She wants a nonsmoking room," Patch said.

I swiveled to face Patch. Are you insane? I mouthed.

The clerk tapped a few keys at his computer. "Looks like we've got… hang on… Bingo! A nonsmoking king."

"We'll take it," said Patch. He looked sideways at me, and the edges of his mouth tipped up. I narrowed my eyes.

Just then the lights overhead blinked out, plunging the lobby into darkness. We all stood silent for a moment before the clerk fumbled around and clicked on an industrial-size flashlight.

"I was a Boy Scout," he said. "Back in the day. 'Be prepared. "

"Then you m-m-must have a cell phone?" I said.

"I did. Until I couldn't pay the bill anymore." He drew his shoulders up. "What can I say, my mom's cheap."

His mom? He had to be forty. Not that it was any of my business. I was far more concerned what my mom would do when she arrived home from the reception and found me gone.

"How do you want to pay?" the desk clerk asked.

"Cash," Patch said.

The desk clerk chuckled, bobbing his head up and down. "It's a popular form of payment here." He leaned close and spoke in confidential tones. "We get a lot of folks who don't want their extracurricular activities traced, if you know what I mean."

The logical half of my brain was telling me I couldn't actually be considering spending the night at a motel with Patch.

"This is crazy," I told Patch in an undertone.

"I'm crazy." He was on the brink of smiling again. "About you. How much for the flashlight?" he asked the clerk.

The clerk reached below the desk. "I've got something even better: survival-size candles," he said, placing two in front of us. Striking a match, he lit one. "They're on the house, no extra charge. Put one in the bathroom and one in the sleeping area and you'll never know the difference. I'll even throw in the matchbook. If nothing else, it'll make a good keepsake."

"Thanks," Patch said, taking my elbow and walking me down the hall.

At room 106, Patch bolted the door behind us. He set the candle on the nightstand, then used it to light the spare. Lifting his baseball cap, he shook the ends of his hair like a wet dog.

"You need a hot shower," he said. Taking a few steps backward, he ducked his head inside the bathroom. "Looks like bar soap and two towels."

I tilted my chin up a fraction. "You can't f-force me to stay here." I'd only agreed to come this far because I didn't want to stand out in the downpour, for one, and I had high hopes of finding a phone, for two.

"That sounded more like a question than a statement," said Patch.

"Then ans-s-swer it."

His rogue smile crept out. "It's hard to concentrate on answers with you looking like that."

I glanced down at Patch's black shirt, wet and clinging to my body. I brushed past him and shut the bathroom door between us.

Cranking the water to full hot, I peeled out of Patch's shirt and my clothes. One long black hair was plastered to the shower wall, and I trapped it in a square of toilet paper before flushing it. Then I stepped behind the shower curtain, watching my skin glow with heat.

Massaging soap into the muscles along my neck and down through my shoulders, I told myself I could handle sleeping in the same room as Patch. It wasn't the smartest or safest arrangement, but I'd personally see to it that nothing happened. Besides, what choice did I have… right?

The spontaneous reckless half of my brain laughed at me. I knew what it was thinking. Early on I'd felt drawn to Patch by a mysterious force field. Now I felt drawn to him by something entirely different. Something with a lot of heat involved. A connection tonight was inevitable. On a scale of one to ten, that terrified me about an eight. And excited me about a nine.

I shut off the water, stepped out, and patted my skin dry. One glance at my soaked clothes was all I needed to know I had no desire to put them back on. Maybe there was a coin-operated dryer nearby… one that didn't require electricity.1 sighed and pulled on my camisole and panties, which had survived the worst of the rain.

"Patch?" I whispered through the door.

"Done?"

"Blow out the candle."

"Done," he whispered back through the door. His laughter, too, sounded so soft it could have been whispered.

Snuffing out the bathroom candle, I stepped out, meeting total blackness. I could hear Patch breathing directly in front of me. I didn't want to think about what he was-or wasn't- wearing, and I shook my head to fragment the picture forming in my mind. "My clothes are soaked. I don't have anything to wear."

I heard the sound of wet fabric sliding like a squeegee over his skin. "Lucky me." His shirt landed in a wet heap at our feet.

"This is really awkward," I told him.

I could feel him smiling. He stood way, way too close.

"You should shower," I said. "Right now."

"I smell that bad?"

Actually, he smelled that good. The smoke was gone, the mint stronger.

Patch disappeared inside the bathroom. He relit the candle and left the door ajar, a sliver of light stretching across the floor and up one wall.

I slid my back down the wall until I was seated on the floor, then tipped my head against the wall. In all honesty, I couldn't stay here tonight. I had to get home. It was wrong to stay here alone with Patch, vow of prudence or not. I had to report the bag lady's body. Or did I? How was I supposed to report a vanished body? Talk about insane-which was the terrifying direction my thoughts were starting to go anyway.

Not wanting to dwell on the insanity idea, I concentrated on my original argument. I couldn't stay here knowing Vee was with Elliot, in danger, when I was safe.

After a moment's consideration I decided I needed to rephrase that thought. Safe was a relative term. As long as Patch was around, I wasn't in harm's way, but that didn't mean I thought he was going to act like my guardian angel, either.

Right away, I wished I could take back the guardian angel thought. Summoning up my powers of persuasion, I banished all thoughts of angels-guardian, fallen, or otherwise-from my head. I told myself I probably was going insane. For all I knew, I'd hallucinated seeing the bag lady die. And I'd hallucinated seeing Patch's scars.

The water stopped, and a moment later Patch strolled out wearing only his wet jeans hanging low on his waist. He left the bathroom candle lit and the door wide. Soft color glowed through the room.

One quick look and I could tell Patch clocked several hours a week running and lifting weights. A body that defined didn't come without sweat and work. Suddenly I felt a little self-conscious. Not to mention soft.

"Which side of the bed do you want?" he asked.

"Uh…"

A fox smile. "Nervous?"

"No," I said as confidently as possible under the circumstances. And the circumstances were that I was lying through my teeth.

"You're a bad liar," he said, still smiling. "The worst I've seen."

I put my hands on my hips and communicated a silent Excuse me?

"Come here," he said, pulling me to my feet. I felt my earlier promise of resistance melting away. Another ten seconds of standing this close to Patch and my defense would be blown to smithereens.

A mirror hung on the wall behind him, and over his shoulder I saw the upside-down V scars gleaming black on his skin.

My whole body went rigid. I tried to blink the scars away, but they were there for good.

Without thinking, I slid my hands up his chest and around to his back. A fingertip brushed his right scar.

Patch tensed under my touch. I froze, the tip of my finger quivering on his scar. It took me a moment to realize it wasn't actually my finger moving, but me. All of me.

I was sucked into a soft, dark chute and everything went black.