Oleander Dreams

The request isn't unexpected. I don't want to believe that anyone is purposely trying to harm me, but too many things aren't adding up. "When will he arrive?" I ask.

"Shortly after lunch." He calls for the orderlies, staring at me for the few seconds it takes them to retrieve me. When I turn to leave, he calls out, "Don't take any more unauthorized meds, N. Reynolds."

I stop, but don't turn around. "I have no intention of it," I say. The orderlies escort me back to my room. I stare out the window, wondering if I'm safer here, or with D. Webster.

No, Danny. I need to get used to calling him by his first name until I can figure a way out of this mess. I try not to play with the oleander charm. It's not in my best interest to develop a tell.

A nurse brings a dress for me after lunch. I haven't worn a dress in years. Pants or shorts are much more convenient. It's made of finely woven hemp dyed a pale pink and scattered with flowers. It's a garment someone might wear to a wedding, if there were such things anymore. "Where did this come from?" I ask.

"Your partner brought it." She gives me a cheerful smile. "It's very pretty. Did you buy it for a special occasion?"

"No," I reply. "I've had it for awhile."

She nods and walks to the door. "Your partner will be here in about half an hour. I'm sure you want to look your best, so I'll let you get cleaned up and changed."

I shower and finger comb my hair, then let out a short gallows laugh when I realize how much I resemble the woman in the glass casket. There are dark circles under my eyes that no amount of concealer will hide, but it's the best I can do.

I sit on my bed. I've made it and cleaned up a bit. The hospital robe and short nightgown are folded neatly under the pillow.

Along with the dress, the nurse gave me a pair of rubber flip-flop sandals. They're cheap, and look like they'd fall apart if I even think about running in them. I suppose that's the point. Can't have the crazy woman taking off, after all.

There are three sharp raps on my door before D. Webster walks in, accompanied by the doctor. I never got his name, and it doesn't seem important now.

"Good afternoon, N. Reynolds. Are you ready to go home?" he asks.

I stand up and straighten my skirt, tugging the hem down to cover my knees. I don't like the way D. Webster's gaze falls on my exposed skin. My fingers twitch to touch my oleander pendant.

"Yes," I say, my voice even and soft. "Thank you for helping me get better."

D. Webster takes my hand and pulls me close. Wrapping his arm around my waist, he says, "Yes, thank you for that. You have no idea how much it means to me to have Natalie safe and healthy."

"Good, I'm very pleased everything worked out." He takes off his glasses and wipes them, then looks at his watch. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask a nurse to show you out. I'm late for my next appointment."

Before I can beg him to stay, he walks out, leaving me alone with a man I'm not sure I know, despite working for him for the better part of ten years.

His fingers bite into my waist, digging painfully. "Let's go. I want to take you home... partner."

I press my lips together, biting back a cry of pain when he squeezes my hip. He walks me down the hall and through a security door, the buzz of the locking mechanism loud. It shuts with a hard bang behind us.

Looking around, I try to get my bearings. Most of the city is ubiquitous cinder block. You can't tell one street from another anymore. But I grew up here. I know every inch of la grande dame, and this place isn't familiar to me.

"Where are we?" I ask.

"It's a private hospital for special clients," D. Webster replies. "Keep walking."

He chivvies me forward, his steps hurried and jerky. I have to trot to keep up. My feet stall when he turns a corner and I see a black vehicle. I hear the quiet purr of an electric motor. It's modern, but no one has cars anymore. At least, no one I know has a car.

Thunder rumbles overhead and I see a flash of lightning forking in the sky. The crack is sharp and the immediate scent of ozone fills the air.

D. Webster curses and picks me up, slinging me over his shoulder like a sack of flour. He's stronger than he looks, and despite my struggles, I can't get free.

Racing forward, he reaches the car and flings me into the passenger seat. Gripping my chin, he pinches, bringing a spark of tears to my eyes. "Don't even think about trying to run, Natalie. I will catch you," he hisses.

He lets go and slams the door. I'm too shocked by his behavior to take advantage of the few seconds it takes him to race around the front of the vehicle.

Physical violence is a thing of the past. I'm not prepared for it. I've gotten soft in this new environment of ease and relative plenty. The survival instincts of a lifetime in a large city are gone.

"Why are you doing this?" I ask. "What do you want from me?"

D. Webster sneers and the vehicle leaps forward, throwing me against my seat. I don't bother to ask where he's gotten it. Maybe he stole it.

"You stupid bitch!" he yells. "Ten years, you ignore me. I had everything arranged. You were going to come to me for help with your mental problems. I was going to rescue you!"

He jerks the wheel and I grab the dashboard. "It was you?" I ask. "You gave me bad drugs, and the food. Why would you do such a thing?"

Ignoring my question, he says, "And the day I planned to give you my help, you went to a socialization center and fucked someone else!" He slams on the brakes and grabs my throat. "How dare you?"

My stomach churns with fear. Yet something else fills me. It's rage. I almost don't recognize it. My emotions have been so dulled by boredom and ennui that it takes me almost a moment too long to figure it out.

He squeezes, cutting off my air and I lash out. I catch his face with my nails, drawing blood, but I can't get enough leverage for a good swing at him. I'm screaming inside, so furious that I can't see straight as I fight to get free with everything I have.

A sudden blow to my temple stuns me and I slump. My head aches. When I go lax, he lets me go with a satisfied grunt and starts the vehicle moving again.

The sky rumbles again, turning black with that familiar green tinge that heralds a hurricane. I can barely hear the noise over my harsh breaths rasping in my injured throat.

Lightning strikes the pavement in front of us, making D. Webster curse and swerve. My vision is wrong. It must be. I think I see L. Martinus walking toward us.

He's wearing black leather, I think. The storm doesn't seem to affect him at all. He's smoking a cigarette, but those haven't been a thing in almost fifteen years. But I know what I see, and the cherry tip of his smoke glows red as he takes a drag.

He nods at me, then jerks his chin toward D. Webster. I don't know what he wants, and aside from him, I can't see a damned thing through the sheeting rain.

The wind howls, drowning out the sound of the car and D. Webster's curses. L. Martinus jerks his head to the right and points with the glowing tip of his cigarette.

I think he wants me to go that way, but I don't know. He scowls and points again. It isn't helping. I don't know what to do, or how to make D. Webster go in the direction L. Martinus wants.

This is all like something from a fever dream. I wonder if it's real. Am I still in the hospital? Will I wake from yet another nightmare when the sun comes up?

Something looms off to the side. It's tall, impenetrable to my view. I rub my sore throat, trying to ease the ache and feel something strange.

But not strange. It's thin, gossamer chain. My fist clenches around a delicate carved charm in the shape of a flower long gone, created by a man who exists only in my memories.

With a hoarse scream, I launch myself at D. Webster. He isn't expecting my attack and jerks away, giving me just enough time to turn the wheel sharply to the right. I don't look up. I don't want to see where I've taken us.

"Stupid bitch!" D. Webster screams. His angry yell is cut off when the vehicle slams into something. I curl into a ball and feel his body fly forward. The sound of crunching metal is like a wild animal caught in a trap. It groans in agony and then quiets.

The battery ticks, then lets out a low hiss of released pressure.

For a few seconds, the only sound I hear is the rasp of my labored breaths. I smell blood, but not mine, I don't think. I sit up and back away from D. Webster. A piece of glass from the broken windshield is lodged in his eye, so deep it's as if something pushed it there. His uninjured eye stares at me accusingly and I shiver.

This is not going to go over well with the good doctor at the hospital. The thought makes me choke out a bitter laugh.

Chapter 9

The passenger door opens, cutting off my laughter. I hiss, crouching on the seat like an animal preparing to defend itself.

A browned hand partially covered with a black leather glove reaches for me. "This is not a good place for you to be, cher."

L. Martinus helps me out, steadying me when I wobble on bare feet. I ache all over, both from D. Webster's abuse and the crash. I've lost the flip-flops somewhere, but I don't have any interest in retrieving them. I wonder if I should be sad about D. Webster. He ruined my health, and probably my life.

He's somehow dry, though the storm rages around us. I'm soaked to the skin in seconds. Taking a drag from his cigarette, he exhales and passes it to me. I take it, staring at the glowing tip like I've never seen it before.

The smoke is bitter and harsh, barely remembered. But my hands have the proper muscle memory for the act and I put the butt to my lips.

The first drag makes me cough, just like it did when I was fifteen and bummed a smoke from my very first crush. He'd been the boy from the wrong side of the tracks my daddy would have had heart failure over. His name was...

"I remember you now." I say.

"Do you?" He smiles and wraps his coat around my shoulders.

"Lucian Martinez." I take another drag from the nearly spent cigarette and stub it out on the concrete wall. "You changed your name."

"Oui. Ain't no good being Cajun here," he says, his soft patois giving me a shivery thrill just like it did when I was in high school.

"And you lost the Creole," I accuse.

"That too," he agrees.

I sigh and lean against the wall, sliding down until my butt hits concrete. "You better go," I say. "Someone is going to catch up with me sooner or later. You don't want to be around when they find me."

"Oh, I think I'll manage." He reaches out a hand and pulls me to my feet. "But you have a choice to make, and I want you to ask yourself a very important question."

He cups my cheeks, his large hands warm and comforting. I lean into him, enjoying his subtle musk. Somehow it smells a little like both of us. The storm eases, and I look up into his fathomless brown eyes. "What question? And what choice?"

A choice is a novel thing these days. I'm realizing that I haven't had one in a very long time. Not about my activities, my work, my partner. It's all been arranged and planned, right down to my food. And my mental stability, taken away at the whim of someone I knew and had no reason not to trust.

"Do you want to stay in New Orleans?" he asks.

"No." That choice is easy. The city isn't alive anymore. I don't think she's been alive for a very long time. Laissez les bons temps rouler is a state of mind, embodied by the New Orleans of the past, not of its present or of its future. She lives in my memories of beads and feathers, masks and Voodoo, mausoleums and the scent of a stormed tossed river. "No, I don't want to stay," I repeat.

"Wise decision," Lucian agrees. He tilts my face up and kisses my forehead. Reaching into his shirt pocket, he pulls something out, cupping it in his fist so I can't see it. "Now for my question."

A shaft of sunlight trickles through the dwindling clouds left by the storm. It strikes his face, bathing him in a golden glow. He looks perfect, almost angelic, yet his eyes glitter with a metallic sheen, lightening almost to copper. His pupils narrow, turning into slits. He blinks and the illusion is gone.

"Do you trust me?" he asks, opening his palm to reveal a silvery capsule. It has no distinguishing mark, and looks solid. "I want you to make another choice, Natalie Delphine. Trust me and swallow this pill, and you'll never see New Orleans again."

I don't ask what it is. I know he won't tell me. I clutch my oleander charm, maybe in hopes of getting some guidance from it. "Pills are what got me into this mess," I say drily.

"Indeed." He holds it out and waits, unconcerned when sirens blare from the towers set atop the city wall.

"What are you?" I ask. He's not the boy I remember. He's different, somehow. Despite the oddities I saw in his eyes, they are warm and kind. He isn't going to force me to decide either way.

"Human," he says, giving me a gentle smile. "But with a little something extra. Want to find out what it is?"

"Said every drug dealer ever," I mutter.

We hear pounding footsteps and shouts. I don't have much time left to decide. What's left for me here, though? A lifetime in an institution? No thanks. Even if what Lucian gives me is fatal, it's better than that.

I snatch the capsule from his hand and swallow it down.