adventure / sci-fi / drama / romance
Flatiron Angel: Part Twenty
S a’id laid with Nancy, their legs intertwined and skin coated in the salty sweat of love. His head rested on her heaving chest and she stroked his hair with her fingers.
“Well that was fun,” she smirked.
“Mm-hmm.”
“I knew you were different from the other hunters when I first laid eyes on you.”
Sa’id smiled, but his eyes were vacant, focused on a matter not in front of him.
“Gentle and kind,” she continued. “The opposite of them, really.”
He turned to her.
“I did what I was built for. Nothing more.”
“I’d say you were built for a little more,” she smiled and glanced down at his body.
He tried to hide a blush and laughed it off, choosing to return to his thoughts instead of responding.
“Oh come on. What’s got you so distracted you can’t focus on the naked women laying next to you?”
Sa’id chewed on his lip.
“It was something the man said when we were chasing him. It didn’t register at the time, but now, I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Nancy sat up more so she could look him in his eyes.
“What did he say?”
He shook his head a bit, eyes narrowed.
“He said…pull me out.”
“Pull me out?”
“Yeah. He was shouting it. As if Abel himself would swoop in and save him.”
“And then what happened?”
“He just disappeared. Right after that. Gone. Vanished.”
Nancy nestled into the pillows.
“Not that odd really. I mean, people say crazy things when they’re on death’s doorstep.”
Sa’id shook his head.
“This wasn’t a grown man crying for his mother before the sword swings down. There was,” he paused, searching for the right word. “Projection.”
“Projection?”
“Yah. The more I think about it, he wasn’t just yelling it to anybody. It was intended for somebody. Somebody that we couldn’t see but he knew they were listening. I can’t explain it. There’s something missing from this, just staring at me.”
“Could be the hallucinogens poisoning your memory. Reframing the events in your mind to try and bring clarity where there is none.”
“I don’t know. Nothing else seemed strange before or after.
“Does anything ever feel strange when you’re dreaming?”
“No, but after you wake up it does. There’s distance between then and now, but it still plays the same way.”
“You don’t believe you were poisoned?”
Sa’id just shrugged. A knock came at the door and a petite angel with dark hair drew inside. She hesitated at the sight of Sa’id, naked in the bed, then turned to Nancy.
“Apologies, ma’am. Doyle needs you quite urgently.”
Nancy rolled her eyes and made a show of throwing the blanket off of her.
“Very well,” she turned to Sa’id. “Don’t wait up darling. But don’t go far.”
She grabbed a silk robe and wrapped it around herself, loosely tying it in the front before sauntering out of the bedroom. Sa’id waited alone, her footsteps padding down the hall. When he couldn’t hear her anymore, he slipped from the bed and dressed. He was about to leave when a thought struck. His fingers unfurled from the door handle and he stepped back into the room. The room was both lavish and bare at the same time. Ornately decorated, but that’s all it was, decorations. It lacked the personal items that made a room feel lived in, a fact Sa’id confirmed rifling through her drawers and opening every cabinet door. He didn’t know what he was looking for. In fact, the longer he searched, it became clear that what wasn’t there was just as telling.
The bed he approached last; it still smelled of her floral perfume mixed with his sweat. His fingers ran along the bed frame, from empty end all the way around to where she slept every night, her small frame permanently impressed into the mattress. He had to crawl on his knees to do so, and as he reached near her pillow a new angle of her bedside table appeared; one that from a standing position would be perfectly hidden. A notch in the wood near the back. He fiddled with it for a moment and a concealed shelf holding a green book slid out. One single word was embossed on the front in glittering gold: JOURNAL.
A gold ribbon fixed to the spine was nestled halfway through its pages. Sa’id cracked its pages, the book opening up to reveal a golden pen on the same page the ribbon had marked. His eyes grew wide as he took in the first few lines. He flipped a few pages back, read for a moment, then flipped back more, and more, and more. His shoulders fell and he closed the book shut, careful to place the ribbon and pen where she had left them. The book and shelf slid back into place with a click. Sa’id sat down on the edge of the bed, his head hanging down.
“Nancy, darling, what have you done?” he said to himself. “What have you all done?”
~~~~
Seth marched down the halls towards Nancy’s room. He’d already circled the garden twice and hadn’t spotted Sa’id or her so things must have progressed to a more private affair. He almost ran straight into Nancy turning a corner. She jumped back wearing nothing but a silk robe and Seth excused himself and pressed against the wall to allow her by.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
“Thank you.” She went to dip around him then thought better of it for a moment. “It’s quite late, I’m inclined to ask where you might be going seeing as there’s not much beyond here except for my bedroom and a few other odds and ends.”
“I suppose I was looking for you in a way. Or rather, who you were with.”
Nancy blustered, “If you mean my maid, I see no use of her to you. Otherwise, I have been alone.”
“Alone?”
“That’s what I said, so don’t make me repeat it captain.”
“Very well.”
Nancy looked at him expectedly. Seth pursed his lips and turned back the way he had came. Nancy watched him slink down the hall before turning and scurrying back to her room. She flung open the door to an empty room and hurried to her window where the fading silhouette of Sa’id hung in the air and breathed a sigh of relief. She retightened the strap of her robe, locked the door behind her, and set off to meet with Doyle once more.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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AUTHOR
Joe Shields
