Dynamics of a Human Heart Ch. 04

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Tyler_H
Tyler_H
62 Followers

"I have an idea," Miranda replied.

They spent what felt like hours beating on Grey. They used their hands and feet until those got too sore, then they used the stick, a trash can, anything.

And all Grey could do was laugh at them when he wasn't vomiting up blood or choking to death.

"Come on there lads," he gurgled around a mouthful of loose teeth, "Step on up."

"Fucking psycho," one of them muttered.

"You have no idea," Grey replied and winked as best he could with two swollen eyes.

"Fuck this!" Billy had managed to staunch most of the bleeding in his groin, though the pain was excruciating. He vented his pain through rage, grabbed the stick again and started hitting Grey over and over again.

Grey cackled in between blows, "Better be careful, lad. That's a nasty cut you got there on your John Thomas. Looks like it's liable to infect," Grey gasped as Billy brought the stick down across his shoulder, he felt the joint go and gritted his teeth. "An infected wanker means no more little Billy's to squirt into some unlucky cunt's belly."

"Fuck you!" he screamed and cracked the staff across Grey's face. His nose cracked audibly and Grey could no longer breathe through it.

One of the guys grabbed Billy's arm, "That's enough man; you're going to fucking kill him."

"This gobshite?" Grey gestured at Billy with his functional arm, "Not bloody likely, but I appreciate the thought, your concern warms the cockles of my heart."

Billy brought his boot down hard onto Grey's chest. Blood spurted out from between split lips.

Grey couldn't draw enough breath to talk any longer so he just did his best to grin in the general direction where he thought they were.

"Fine," Billy snarled, taking the stick in both his hands, "Something to remember me by."

Billy brought the stick up and raised his knee. Grey smiled to himself.

The young man brought the stick down hard across his knee and promptly screamed in agony, falling over, causing his wound to reopen.

"Hickory..." Grey rasped out.

Billy just moaned, clutching his knee and his crotch at the same time as one of his friends confronted Grey. A big guy, like Billy.

"What, you think that's funny, tough guy?" he demanded in a low tone.

"Yeah...," Grey exhaled.

He kicked him in the head, causing Grey's vision to explode into stars.

"How you feeling now, tough guy?"

"Good....enough....to fuck your mother," Grey brought his hand up and gave him the finger.

The youth knelt down and punched Grey in the face, driving bone fragments deeper into his wounds. As he drew back, he saw something shiny: a locket. He grabbed it in a meaty hand and tore it from Grey's neck.

Grey slapped a bloody hand over his arm,

"That's....mine...arseface."

The other man head-butted him between the eyes and Grey went limp.

"Figures," Miranda muttered, "The one time I want him around and he's nowhere to be found."

Miranda and Samantha had left the school and gone hunting for Grey. Miranda had suggested that Sam head towards home and see if he would turn up there while she would look around the area where the party had been.

Fortunately, she was able to narrow down the search from all bars to those that had an "understanding" with their patrons regarding smoking. It was these latter establishments that she was focused on. She had been to six different bars and while each and every last bartender questioned was able to identify Grey by her description instantly, none of them knew where he was right now.

She was headed towards bar number seven when something glittering on the sidewalk caught her eye. She knelt down and examined it: broken glass smeared in something dark. The sodium streetlights distorted color and provided very poor illumination.

One piece of glass wasn't like the others: it was concave in shape, dark, and mirrored and riddled with cracks and scratches.

Her eyes widened in comprehension as she examined a small pile of twisted metal and shattered glass.

Grey's sunglasses.

She felt something in her tighten up in dread. No way would he just leave these behind willingly, let alone smashed into bits.

Squinting, she followed a trail of uneven, black splotches from the sidewalk to the mouth of a nearby alley.

There were more dark stains here, on the wall and ground. The yellow light shining above her made it look black as pitch as she gathered some in her palm and scrutinized it, rubbing some of it between her fingers.

Carefully, she stepped into the alleyway, "Hello?"

She saw something towards the back shift slightly. The air left a metallic taste in her mouth, like sucking on a penny as she pressed deeper into the gloom.

There was a wet, coughing sound followed by the sound of someone vomiting. Miranda wrinkled her nose in distaste: just some drunk that had had one too many and came here to throw up and pass out. Miranda opened her phone to check the time, it was quarter past eight.

And she had blood all over her hands.

She gasped as the led light showed that the blotches she'd been following were not black, but a deep red, the crimson color no longer distorted by the orange lights that had been above her.

She looked up at the wall in front of her; handprints of blood peppered the stone like a child's finger-painting. The handprints became a steady smear that slowly descended into the end of the alley.

To a huddled shape in a tan overcoat, now stained red.

Miranda's heart started to pound, "Grey?"

The shape moved again and an arm limply fell into view, hand clutching an unlit cigarette.

"Got a light?"

Miranda brought her hand to her mouth in horror: every inch of what she could see of the man was caked in blood or filth.

"What happened?" She still couldn't see most of him.

"Go away," Grey's voice gurgled. It sounded wrong, strained and wet, like he was talking underwater. He began to cough and Miranda could see a small splash of fresh blood splatter against the wall.

"What?" she asked incredulously.

"Leave, Miranda," he wheezed as he shifted his weight, "This isn't your problem. Go back to your books and your school. Go back to your lover and your life. Nothing here for you."

Miranda was rendered speechless.

"You don't need me around," he continued, taking a moment in between breaths to cough up more blood, "And I know you don't want me around either. But you and Sam know what you need to, she'll be up and walking again in a year's time," the hand that she could see flopped about slightly, "And I'm willing to bet that those equations I left for you, has generated enough interest in the right circles that you could do quite well from a career point of view."

"But what about you?" she whispered.

"What about me?" he replied, "You just happened to wander by. Nothing says you can't keep walking."

"That's murder!"

"Only if you get nicked," another cough, "And I'm sure as hell not going to tell anyone," he shifted again, Miranda wished she could see more of him, "You can have everything you want, Miranda: your lover walks, you advance beyond your station and you rid yourself of someone that is making your life more complicated than you want."

Grey took in another ragged breath and moved in for the kill.

"And there's one more way this works out for you?"

"How?"

"With me gone, you can go back to being the smartest person you know."

The hand that she could see tightened into a fist.

"And that's what you want, right? To go back to how it was before all this? All you need to do is turn around and walk away."

Miranda felt like she had been struck in the face: Grey's words tore into her heart, found her deepest shames, and proceeded to stab her with them. It was at that moment that Doctor Miranda Inoue experienced a moment of vertigo: she felt as if she was at the precipice of a vast abyss. She could almost feel that which she was familiar and comfortable with begin to crumble under her feet. The future loomed before her like a great beast and it began here and now.

And in that first moment, she almost succumbed to temptation: the temptation to return to the familiar, to the safe.

All she had to do is walk away.

"No!"

She advanced on Grey, "I am not leaving you're here to bleed out!"

"Why not?"

"Because I have a soul, God damn you!"

And then Grey turned his head about and allowed his face to come into view.

"So did the people who did this."

Miranda had both hands over her mouth and nose, trying to avoid screaming. She doubled over; one hand on the wall bracing herself, the other across her stomach to keep from throwing up as she began to tremble violently.

From his hair down to his chin, Grey was completely caked in dried blood and filth. Both of his eyes were so swollen she could barely see them. His nose was a smashed in-ruin with blood pouring out of it and his lips were split and ragged. His shirt had been torn open and it was stained almost completely red. His pants were in the same condition, he even had blood on his socks.

Grey saw the expression on her face and his lips pulled back into a rictus.

"Hello Sunshine," he choked out, "Give us a kiss." Blood began to leak from his mouth and from between his teeth in streams. He began to cough, great globs of crimson spurted from his mouth and he sagged against the wall, spent.

Miranda didn't remember taking that first step towards him, but before she knew it; she found herself kneeling before the man.

"Who did this?" she asked quietly.

"What do you care?" he replied.

Miranda gripped his head in her hands and forced him to look at her. He tried feebly to avoid her hands, but it was no use. Her fingers, pale and cool danced over his cheekbones, across his brow into his matted hair where she began to stroke gently.

"Who?"

Grey began to cough and Miranda did her best to help him sit up. No matter where she touched him it was wet and it was red.

"Billy and the rest of his sorority took exception to my interfering with their reindeer games the other night."

Miranda felt something deep inside her hurt: he had received this as revenge for saving her and Sam. She began to experience another foreign feeling: it was like a loud roaring sound in her ears coupled with the feeling of an intense pressure inside her chest.

For the first time in her life, Miranda wanted very much to take a human life. As much as Grey had aggravated her, it had been, ultimately, innocent. What she felt now hammered in her head like nothing else she'd experienced.

So this is what 'hate' feels like.

She shook her head violently back and forth to clear it as Grey pulled away from her grip.

"I've got to get you out of here," she insisted.

"Why?"

"Because you'll die."

"So?"

Miranda forced Grey to look at her again,

"I don't know what kind of hell turned you into this, but I will not let you die like an animal in some alley!"

"Perhaps I've earned it." He rasped and tried to pull away, Miranda wasn't hearing any of it.

"Bullshit, I don't care what you've done or to who, I can't leave you like this."

"Why not?"

"Because I care about you," she whispered, touching his face tenderly, gently dabbing away at the odd speck of blood or dirt.

"Why?"

"God help me, I don't know."

Miranda tilted his head back and brought her phone up,

"What are you do-?" he couldn't finish speaking as he began to cough up blood in thick, dark, strands.

The young woman cradled his head and wiped the blood from his mouth before she shined the light in his eyes and peered intently. What she saw astounded her.

His right eye was green. She'd heard of a "soft green", this was the opposite: a hard green. Like someone had captured rage in an emerald. The blood vessels in the eye had been damaged, causing the sclera to turn red, but the green was unmistakable.

His left eye, however, was even stranger: the iris was a pale green, like jade, and the pupil was fixed and fully dilated; giving it a surreal appearance.

"Beautiful..." Miranda whispered, touching his brow and peering deep into them. She noticed that the flesh around his left eye seemed to be some kind of raised scar tissue.

"I'm getting you out of here," Miranda proclaimed. She wrapped Grey's arm around her neck and shoulder and began to lift upwards. Grey groaned in pain and Miranda could feel blood, warm and sticky, begin to seep into her shirt where she was pressed against him.

"I've gone and ruined your shirt," Grey rasped.

"I have others," Miranda replied. She ran her hand across his chest and ribs to support him, it felt like holding a wet bag of broken glass.

"You shouldn't be getting involved,"

Miranda looked him over for a moment and then punched him in the ass.

"Ow! What the bloody hell was that for?"

"Stupid should hurt."

A pause, "Okay, fair enough, but what did you punch me in the arse?"

"It was the only part of you that I could see that wasn't injured," She explained as she touched the back of his head. It was matted and bloody as well.

"Did they hit you in head?"

"Yeah."

"How often?"

"I lost count after four."

"Kuso," she muttered, "You could have a concussion; we need to get you to a hospital.

"No."

Miranda looked at him askance, "What do you mean 'no'?"

"No doctors, no hospitals."

"That's crazy, you feel like you have a half a dozen broken ribs along with a concussion and God knows what else."

"God has no say in the matter: no hospitals, take me home."

"But why?" she demanded.

"Because I bloody well said so."

"You're not serious."

"Do I look like I'm taking the piss?" he asked gesturing to his face.

"Okay, you're clearly suffering from brain damage. Let me get a cab and we'll get you to a hospital and they'll keep you from dying—"

"Miranda...please. Take me home."

The girl nearly dropped him in shock not pet-names and a 'please' to boot.

"Okay, now I know you have brain damage, you only get civil when you're upset."

"All my snark has already leaked out," he explained.

Miranda just held him tighter as she carried him out of the alley.

"Get a lot of practice doing this?" Grey asked wryly.

"Yes, although Sam isn't usually soaked in gore."

"Lucky girl," he rasped before going into a coughing fit. Miranda pressed her hand against his chest gently, keeping him upright.

"Bugger me."

"You're going to be okay, Grey." The girl insisted. She propped him up against a storefront and moved a few paces into the street, waving her arms.

It didn't take long for a cab to stop. Miranda opened the back door and returned to gingerly lift Grey's battered form and easing him into the backseat.

"Where are you headed?" the driver asked before getting a good look at Grey through the Plexiglas divider between the front and back seat. "Shit..."

"North," was Grey's only reply. "Drive."

Miranda wrapped one arm around Grey's shoulders, letting him use her arm as a headrest. Her other hand touched his face, tracing out the contours of his cheekbones with her fingertips. She moved down further and lightly stroked his lips, dabbing away as much blood as she could.

"Look," the cabbie spoke up, "I don't want no trouble, why don't I take you to the hospital?"

"Head north of the 210," Grey gasped out trying to catch his breath, "Between Lake and Lincoln."

Miranda's eyes widened, "That part of town is a war zone, well, for Pasadena anyhow."

"Yeah, but the view's nice," was the man's only response.

"No deal," the cabbie persisted, "I'm just going to drop you two off right here and you can find someone else."

"But--!" Miranda began.

"Poppet, please hand me my wallet, it's in my coat," Grey interrupted.

Miranda complied, her confusion apparent. Grey reached into his wallet; he had thought ahead this time and brought cash with him before leaving his flat.

He took out a crisp hundred dollar bill as another coughing fit seized him and he brought both hands up to cover his mouth.

When it was over, the hundred dollar bill was soaked in blood. Grey slapped the gory bill against the plastic divider where it stuck.

"Now drive the fucking hack!"

The cabbie shuddered but complied.

The screech of the taxi cab's tires filled Miranda's ears as the glow from its taillights rapidly disappeared into the gloom.

"I don't know what made him more nervous," she mused, "You or your neighborhood?"

"Nesh wanker," Grey muttered.

Miranda hefted him up, bracing him against her shoulders, "Wait! I know this one: 'Nesh' means 'coward' and 'wanker' literally means 'one who masturbates constantly' but in this context means 'jerk' or 'loser'."

Grey favored her with a smile, "That's a-girl," and then he collapsed.

"Grey!" Miranda did her best to keep his head from hitting the pavement as he knees buckled, "No-no-no-no-no."

The back of his skull was still bloody and his eyelids were fluttering rapidly. She pushed up his eyelids to check his eyes: they were rolling backwards into his head.

"Don't you do this to me!" she cried. She was cradling his head in her lap, looking around frantically. The situation was rapidly devolving and she had no idea how to deal with it.

"Excuse me," a voice called out. Miranda jerked her head up, "What's going on? Are you all right?" He was big, black, in his mid-forties, with a thin mustache and wearing a ball cap. His eyes widened when he saw Grey, "Mary, mother of God!"

"Hello Moran," Grey rasped.

Miranda looked back and forth between them, "You guys know each other?"

The man called Moran nodded as Miranda struggled to get Grey to his feet, "Yeah, we talk sometimes," he gestured at her and Grey, "Let me help."

"Thanks," Miranda exhaled in relief, but as Moran drew close, Grey tightened his grip on Miranda and drew away from him, his swollen eyes now wide in alarm.

For a moment, a tremendous warmth filled Miranda as she felt him seek safety, seek sanctuary in her, "Grey," she whispered, rubbing his chest gently, "It's okay," she could still feel the muscles in his body tense so she reached down inside her heart to that now-familiar place where Grey dwelt,

"I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."

Grey seemed to consider that for a moment, and then relented, nodding as he sagged against her and the tension drained out of his body.

"Whoa!" Miranda yelped.

"Here," Moran spoke up bending low and picking Grey up in a fireman's carry,

"Wow."

"What?" Moran asked.

"He knows how to do that too," she explained as they headed towards a dark apartment building, "Weird, did you guys hang out a lot?"

Moran laughed, "Wouldn't say that, but we've got a few things in common, yeah," he gave her a sideways look, "although not as well as you do apparently."

"What do you mean?"

"He told you his name, lets you get within spitting distance, and does what you tell him? I thought you might either be a great friend or a small God."

Miranda cracked a smile, "So, his real name is Grey?"

"How should I know; he's never told me his name."

"Well, then when you talk, what do you call each other?"

"He calls me 'Moran'."

"And you?"

"I tend to call him 'Sir'," he replied, "It seems to suit him."

"You're not wrong."

They reached the building and Moran pulled the door open to get in.

"Stop."

Moran and Miranda came to an abrupt halt.

"Put me down," Grey instructed quietly.

"Sir--?"

"Now, Moran."

Miranda and Moran looked at each other and then gently set him down against the wall of the building.

"And I thought I was the only one who spoke to like that," Miranda grumbled.

"No, as far as I know, he's like this with everyone," Moran replied.

"How reassuring."

"Sebastian Moran," Grey gestured, "Meet Doctor Miranda Inoue. Miranda, Sebastian Moran."

Tyler_H
Tyler_H
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