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9

Head Wounds All Around

M arisol needed a real day off. Not a day off consisting of numbing her headache with pills and scrounging the last of her cash to replace her stolen phone.

After couch diving and a trip to the coin machine at the supermarket, she had her new phone in hand, but she wouldn’t complete her mission until she headed in the direction of the police precinct to file a report. Probably for her insurance agent to do nothing but wipe his ass with, but it was one of those things. If she didn’t file a report, there would be hell to pay. Or a grand. But hell felt more accurate as the recent events of her life depleted her savings account. She pulled her black stocking cap lower to cover the bandage on her head and wore an oversized gray Shadowhaven Rooks’ basketball sweatshirt that an ex-boyfriend left behind in her apartment long ago .

The memory of the Patron Saint mere hours before warmed the inside of her wrist. Was Tobias at the precinct? Don’t be a little girl. Of course, he wouldn’t be working. It was Sunday.

Before crossing the street to the precinct, she glimpsed her reflection in a parked car’s window. What if she saw Tobias? Compared to her dress the night before, she appeared a sorry sight. She had to think quickly, so she ran her fingers through the ends of her hair and put on lip balm. The bulky ex-boyfriend’s sweatshirt had to go, so she took it off and tied it around her waist. Her Henley, a utilitarian layer, served little against the cold. She rubbed her arms together as she marched up the stairs into the precinct.

Inside, the dull greeting from the officer at the front desk calmed her foolish notion of Tobias being there. But after the officer handed her a copy of the filed report, she dared to ask, “Is Detective Quinlan in today?”

The officer walked her over to Homicide and opened the door a crack. Marisol peered inside the department. Everything inside appeared gray and reeked of stale coffee. The overhead lights were off, clouding the room in shadows and the smoggy haze of veiled daylight. With the way the sparse Sunday crew slumped at their desks, they all must’ve been nursing hangovers.

Surrounded by piles of file folders, Tobias bent over a computer keyboard, stabbing away at the keys .

Marisol greeted, “Hey Tobias!”

He startled and turned his head toward the door. “Kid.”

She walked to his desk and watched a few detectives straighten and spring to life with smiles and a few snickers. Did women visit Tobias often at the precinct? She studied his desk for an answer, but he didn’t have any photos. Not like the other desks.

With zero views into his personal life, she scanned over Tobias’s work. There wasn’t much to see. What appeared to be crime-scene photos, important documents, and file folders were mashed into uneven stacks.

Marisol propped her hip against the cluttered desk. “I didn’t think you’d be working today of all days.”

“Putting in overtime. I must say, this is a pleasant surprise.” Tobias leaned back in his chair, extending his legs and crossing his arms behind his head.

“I had to file a report. Someone um…” Marisol hesitated. First, because over her lifetime, she had developed a survivor’s instinct for under-embellishing the truth. The tactic prevented people’s polite intrigue from becoming pity. Last because she liked how he smirked as she struggled to cook up a half-truth. She pulled her stocking cap firmly in place and said, “Someone pickpocketed my phone. ”

Tobias maintained his relaxed posture when he cracked, “That sucks.”

Marisol rubbed the inside of her wrist and wanted to say everything. “He’s you. Just admit it!” But if her instinct pointed her in the wrong direction—that the Patron Saint wasn’t Tobias? She’d be a girlish fool. Now, if her instinct pointed in the right direction...? Without the dress, she felt a babbling rush of nervous energy. “What are you working overtime on?”

“Cross-checking some of Narcotic’s work with mine in hopes of getting a conspiracy charge thrown in Izzy’s way.”

“Cross-checking? You don’t look like a pencil pusher.” As a heavyweight, he looked more like the guy who swung the ax that felled the tree that became the pushed pencils.

“Welcome to actual police work.”

She nodded to the piles. “All this thanks to my tip?”

“Sure.” Tobias sat forward and ran his hands over his face. “I’m gonna sound like a jerk, kid, but getting Izzy? It wasn’t because of your tip.”

The news hit like a gut punch. “Oh.”

Tobias hunched over in his chair, resting his elbows against his knees. “I’ve been getting outside help, but the work never ends. I mean, Izzy’ll make bail tomorrow. And when he’s on trial, he’ll be a first-time offender sentenced to piddle and squat. He’ll be out on parole in no time. And this whole mess?” Tobias gestured to the piles on his desk. “It’s like there are chess boards within chess boards. We thought we had ourselves a king, but he’s someone else’s pawn.” Tobias grabbed a baggy containing a burnt shard of Varian pharmaceuticals packaging from his desk. He smacked it against his palm before flicking it back on the messy pile.

“Who do you think Izzy’s working for?” Marisol asked.

“I’m thinking this city’s gangs are all working together, at least, to sneak a pretty sizable and quality drug supply under our noses. You gotta admire it. A United Nations of heroin. Just don’t tell Narc I did their jobs for them. They hate it when I do that. My only joy is the big pain in my lieutenant’s ass I’ll become Monday.”

The belligerent patient from a few days ago and his ominous warning echoed through her head. That “the Bloodsucker” controlled everything in the city. “It wouldn’t be this Bloodsucker guy I’ve heard about?”

The color drained from Tobias’s face. “What do you know about that?”

“Nothing. Only what that patient said.” She shuddered. Izzy, the man she believed orchestrated the pain and frustration of the Westside, took orders from someone far more powerful? It would be best to not think about it. She crossed the room toward a whiteboard full of names to distract herself. Most of the names were written in red. The ones named John Doe and Jane Doe stood out the most to her. “Lots of names,” Marisol said.

“Those are our cases,” Tobias said.

How many names had Caz put up there? “Lots of red.”

Tobias walked to the board and tapped against the names. “Those are the ones we haven’t solved yet. Once they’re solved, we put them here in black. They stay there until the end of the quarter.”

Marisol tensed, feeling how close he stood to her. “Does the black ever outnumber the red?”

“Someday it will, but there always seems to be more. That’s how it is in Shadowhaven. It’s hopeless, really. Best I can hope for is a decent clearance rate and one less body buried in the mass grave south of town.”

She couldn’t believe him. Not after the last two days. Not after a wipe of a tear. Not after a kiss on the wrist. The Patron Saint’s actions vowed to make her world a better place. She turned and faced him. “If Izzy messed up that easily, he’ll do it again. And out on parole? He’ll get more time, and you’ll never have to worry about him again.” Marisol smiled. A tiny spark in his eyes lifted the gloom off his expression. Now would be the time to say it—she knew who he was. She parted her lips and breathed in.

Her phone rang. Work. They’d ask her to cover someone else’s shift. She’d say no—she was so close to her Patron Saint… but emptied savings and couch cushions. Defeated, Marisol resigned to pi cking up her phone and another shift. “When do you need me?”

“In half an hour,” the scheduling nurse squawked on the other line.

“In half an hour?!” The evidently eavesdropping officers pricked up to attention. Civilians in police precincts had an expected level of decorum, which Marisol wasn’t displaying. She sighed away her frustration. “I’m on my way.”

Marisol pulled her sweatshirt aside before she tucked her phone in her jeans. Sweatshirt boyfriend accused her of being too distant and busy to make anything work. One-sided. Too much work. And she couldn’t blame him. Her romantic relationships yielded to either a crisis at work or a crisis at the Novotny household. Falling head over heels for a weirdo in a mask who could swoop in as her schedule saw fit seemed all-the-more reasonable. “I got to head to work.”

“I’ll walk you to your car,” Tobias said.

“I don’t own a car.”

“Then I’ll give you a ride.”

“It’s not that bad of a walk.”

“It is in this weather without a good coat.”

She untied the sweatshirt from her waist. She wasn’t a child who couldn’t dress for the weather. As she pulled the sweatshirt on, she said, “See? I’m okay.” But the sweatshirt knocked her stocking cap askew, exposing the white bandage on her head .

“Doesn’t look like it.” Tobias indicated the bandage.

Marisol shrugged. “What I get for opening a medicine cabinet in the dark.” Her face warmed from the lie.

“C’mon, kid. I’ll take you in one of our unmarked cars. City’s best taxi. As an honest taxpayer, you’ve already bought it, so you might as well accept.” He put on his trench coat that hung off a hook.

She nodded like a bobblehead. A shot of alone time prickled in her throat like a cheap whiskey. Warm and giddy, she followed him outside to a maroon, four-door gas guzzler. The muscle car stood out among the parking lot’s basic sedans with its long, smooth body and fat grill. If the car moved forward, backwards, and braked as planned, it would impress her. That it reached freeway speeds in split seconds or power steered around tight corners was gibberish to her. When Tobias started the car and revved the engine, she flopped into the passenger seat with an eye roll. Was that necessary?

In the close quarters from the passenger seat, she picked up his faint scent. The night before, she felt close enough to taste him—like burnt air molecules leftover from a lightning storm. Nothing like that in the car. Here, Tobias smelled of artificial pine.

Tobias maneuvered the car through traffic. When the driving became less hazardous, he asked, “What made you become a nurse? ”

“Fell into it. My sister needed the tuition money for a good high school, so I dropped out of med school and landed on my feet.”

“You were studying to be a doctor.” Tobias tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. The tapping crescendoed into a loud slap. “Damn, I knew you were too smart for me.”

Maybe she should follow Annie’s advice. “I suppose I could go back to school, but I like being right in the trenches with people, where I know I make a difference.” She looked out the window at an old woman waddling to the bus stop with a pull-cart of groceries. The car zoomed by, and she watched a gangly teenager cradling a basketball. The vapor of his breath trailed behind him like car exhaust.

At a stoplight, Tobias asked, “How is Caz your brother? You seem like you’re not cut from the same cloth.”

She pulled her hands inside her sleeves, afraid Tobias saw in her skin and the pattern of her veins the same hands that Caz had, the fists that crunched bones, the grip that swung bats against bodies. And the finger that pulled triggers.

She stared at the glove box. “When the dock jobs dried up, he felt like Dad wasn’t even a man. Enforcing for the Shadows gave him purpose. It made him the tough guy. I’d like to say that he made the wrong decision—that he should’ve handled life like me, but I didn’t have my greatest role model let me down. Another roll of the dice, it could’ve been me.”

The light turned green. “More evidence that I shouldn’t make you angry.”

“I’m not an angry person.” She recoiled, squeezing her limbs together to take up less space. She’d spent her whole life listening to others label her with negative words she was somehow supposed to be flattered by—angry, outspoken, and fiery. But a worry lingered. Was she an angry person?

“I know that, but you could kick my ass.” As he rubbed the top of the gearshift, he added, “And I just might let you.”

Finally feeling that same heat from last night, she sat higher in her seat. “I wouldn’t do that out of anger.”

Tobias’s mouth twitched at the corners as if he was holding back a smile. “You hungry? We passed a corner store that has the best microwaves in the whole city. Nuclear grade. It shaves off a whole ten seconds of cooking time.”

Once she accepted the offer, it wasn’t long before they sat on the hood of the muscle car with piping hot cups of noodles in their hands. Stationed on the top floor of the hospital parking ramp, she saw all the people who entered and exited the main entrance of the hospital.

Below, a silver roadster shined like a mirror and stuck out from the dirty street. Someone had strategically parked the car as close to the hospital’s entrance as legally possible. The tires appeared centimeters away from the tow zone. Tobias whistled. “Who do you think drives that? Not sure if it takes stupidity or cajónes to street-park that kind of car.”

Marisol laughed. “There’s only one person in this city that I know has that kind of money and cajónes. Vincent Varian.” From their brief interaction last night, Vincent seemed too in control to be completely stupid. Vincent couldn’t simply be a fool. As she looked at the shiny, expensive car below, daring to be vandalized or sideswiped, she had a suspicion that Vincent wanted people to think he was stupid. She scratched the inside of her wrist. “What do you think about the Patron Saint? The guy that dresses up and fights crime?”

Tobias guzzled the last bit of noodles stuck to the bottom of the cup. A lone straggler dangled from the corner of his mouth, which he heartily slurped. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and squinted toward the distance. “I suppose you reap what you sow. If our city makes people desperate, they’re going to resort to desperate measures.”

“I heard he’s a part of a super-cop program.”

Tobias huffed out a laugh. “That’s a yarn. We can barely pay overtime, let alone a fancy schmancy super-cop program.”

She set her cup of noodles on the car hood as her nerves finished off her appetite. “Would you do it? Dress up and fight crime?” Her heart beat faster as she braced in anticipation for the answer.

Tobias looked at her and smiled. “I do every day.”

Marisol checked her watch. Her shift would start soon. Dammit, Tobias, I know it ’ s you.

Screech! A speeding car from the street below split her eardrums. As she searched for its direction, Vincent Varian exited the hospital and waltzed toward his silver roadster. A black town car bounced over the curb and stopped on the sidewalk with a familiar, rubber-burning squeal. Vincent jumped back to avoid the car.

Tobias sprang from the hood of the car and watched the dumb show with a clenched jaw.

The passenger window rolled down. Vincent shook his head while two burly men in puffy coats exited the backseat and encroached behind him. Between the car and the two men, he couldn’t bolt forward to his car or run back to the hospital. One man struck Vincent on the head while the other shoved him inside the black town car, which sped away from the hospital.

“Call 911!” Tobias entered the unmarked car. The engine started, and he turned on his lights and siren.

Her hands shook as she dialed 911. “I’m at the Varian Family Hospital. There’s been a kidnapping. ”

The maroon muscle car crashed through the parking barrier and swerved onto the street.

In the hospital, she wheeled a chair under the shared television on the patient floor. Nothing had come over the dispatch. She stood on the chair to reach the button to change the channel. Maybe the news caught wind.

Nurse Rossi greeted her. “Long time no see.”

Desperate channel clicking robbed Marisol of her ability to vocalize niceties. She simply nodded and grunted.

“Picked a good day. Vincent Varian stopped by with an armload of coffee gift cards for the staff. Said it was for Shadowhaven’s true finer people.” Rossi held up a gift card. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I just saw some people kidnap Mr. Varian.” She flipped through all the channels. No coverage yet.

Rossi helped her down from the chair and hugged her. “You’re freezing. Change into my spares. They arrived fresh from laundry and will warm you right up. I’ll check with first responders over dispatch to see if they heard anything.”

In the locker room, Marisol ran her hands under the hot water of the sink and splashed her face. Her breath steadied, and she grabbed a fresh set of scrubs from the laundry cart. At her locker, she removed her cold layers and stuffed them inside .

A shiny object caught her attention. She reached in and drew it out. She gasped. It was Abuelita’s necklace with its clasp fixed. Marisol looked around. He had been here. The necklace’s comfort melted away her fear, and she held in her heart that he would make everything all right.

Outside the locker room, the EMTs wheeled a man in a puffy coat with a pair of gardening shears stuck in his thigh into trauma surgery. The man screamed about being attacked by a monster. She recognized him as one of the men who had kidnapped Vincent.

“I’ll take garden shears. You’ve had enough of craziness.” Nurse Rossi followed the EMTs deeper into the hospital.

Spared, Marisol settled into double-checking the medicine log.

“I know you’re not supposed to play favorites.”

She jumped at the gruff voice.

Tobias leaned over the counter. “But his name is on the hospital, and I told him I knew a good nurse.” He turned around and nudged Vincent Varian forward. Vincent held a bunched-up dress shirt to the back of his head. Dots of blood sullied his white, V-neck undershirt.

“Really. I’m fine,” Vincent said.

She shook her head. Only Vincent Varian could use a head injury to charm. “Come with me, Mr. Varian. I’ll clean you up. ”

She guided Vincent to the table inside a private exam room, and she washed her hands, put on her gloves, and greeted his dopey smile with a sigh. His siren allure had nothing on her Patron Saint.

She wheeled a stool over to him and sat down. “Mr. Varian, I’m going to clean your wound. The doctor will then examine you to see how we can help you.”

“I insist you call me Vincent.”

“All right. Vincent.”

“It’s head wounds all around, I see.” He arched his eyebrows and pointed to the Steri-strip on Marisol’s head.

She jerked her gaze away from Vincent as the truth of her violent mugging dared to surface. “Lost a battle opening a cupboard. I’m such a klutz.” She prepared gauze with a sterile solution. “You need to lie face down.”

“Gladly.”

She moved the dress shirt from his wound and dabbed at the dried blood. “It’s strange. I thought with how much you bled, you would for sure need stitches. They barely made a dent.”

“I heal quickly thanks to a daily vitamin infusion. You should try them.”

“I’ll consider them the next time I get hit over the head,” she said with an outpouring of sarcasm.

“When you lose another round to a cupboard.”

“Right.” She patted his wound dry .

Dr. Foster came in and repeated Marisol’s surprise of Vincent not needing stitches. Shining lights in his pupils, the doctor checked for a concussion and asked Vincent basic questions to test if something worse happened to his head. Marisol tried to hold back an astonished expression when he said he was thirty-three. He had seemed younger to her.

“Do you remember how you hit your head?” Dr. Foster asked.

“Struck from behind.” Vincent raised his arm and gestured the blow to his head.

“Do you remember what happened after your injury?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I’m an ER doctor, Mr. Varian. You might be surprised about what I’m willing to believe.”

Vincent’s chin trembled. “They were going to… to...” His voice quivered. “To cut my fingers off with gardening shears if I didn’t tell them my secrets. Whatever those could be.” He rubbed his face in his hands and whimpered.

Dr. Foster looked at Marisol with pointed eyes, directing her to “do something.” Vincent let out a high-pitched hiccough, and his shoulders heaved. Marisol rolled her eyes, grabbed some tissues, and walked over to Vincent, patting him on the back. She handed him the tissues. Instead of taking them, he gripped her hand. He straightened with his composure completely regained. Marisol wrinkled her nose, puzzled as she watched his emotions quickly turn. His eyes weren’t even red from crying.

With his sudden resolve, he continued the story. “Once they knew the police were on them, they pulled into a parking garage. Said they were going to switch cars to throw them off. Out of nowhere, a man in a dark cape and mask jumped on the hood. He dented the whole thing. It was inhuman. He punched right through the windshield and ripped the driver from the seat. The car crashed into a wall, throwing me from my seat. I’m not sure if I blacked out, but the next thing I remember is Detective Quinlan pulling me from the car.”

Marisol flickered a smile and yanked her hand away from Vincent’s. Tobias had to be the Patron Saint.

“I’m glad you’re safe, Mr. Varian. You may have an unconventional story to tell, but you don’t have a head concussion. Nurse Novotny will tape you up, and you’ll be good to go.” Dr. Foster left.

Vincent lay back down on his stomach. Marisol taped the cut on his head.

With his chin against his arms, he asked, “Do you think my story is unconventional?”

“Actually, I don’t.” Marisol glided away on the stool. She looked down, unsure if she should admit it. “I’ve seen him myself. The Patron Saint.”

Vincent sat up. “Do you think he’s the real deal? The man you saw? ”

“I don’t know. This city can wear on you, you know? And I think whatever he is…”

Marisol paused, remembering the repaired necklace in her locker. She rolled closer to the exam table. “He gives me hope.” She looked into Vincent’s eyes.

Vincent gulped. He blinked, and then his serious expression turned into a smirk. “You lied to me earlier. About your head.”

Marisol scooted back. “How did—?”

“Ticks you pick up from people when you deal with a lifetime of sycophants. Lack of eye contact. Strained smile. I see it a lot. People who want something from me tend to lie—”

“I don’t want anythi—”

“You didn’t want me to worry about you.” The glee he took from catching her in a lie chafed worse than his pompous mug sunk in pity.

“You’re my patient with a bleeding head wound. Of course, I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

“Another explanation is that you’re protecting yourself because you think I wouldn’t give a shit if you told me what really happened. Lying saves the sting of unexpressed sympathy.”

“Or my bedside manner doesn’t consist of regaling patients with my problems.” Marisol stood and tossed her gloves into the waste bin .

Vincent moved toward her. “Or you like to jump to conclusions about me. You think I’m a vapid rich guy.”

“Aren’t you?” Marisol cranked the dispenser for a sheet of paper towel, tore it away, and turned on the sink.

“I find it interesting that you care about what I think.” He leaned against the sink counter.

“I don’t.” She vigorously scrubbed her hands and made an effort not to look at him.

“She doth protest too much.”

Marisol shut off the sink. “Someone mugged me last night. Satisfied? He didn’t make out with much, but it was enough to be annoying.” The percussive sound of the dispenser and the loud ripping of the paper coincided with her growing irritation. “I wasn’t even that scared, so don’t even give me that pitiful look. I stupidly thought I could fight him off but lost. Voila!” She pointed to the bandage on her head. With the truth exposed, Marisol turned her eyes away, afraid to look at Vincent and see his concern. She wadded up the paper towel and threw it away, but she struggled with opening and closing the lid.

The memory of the mugging traveled like a tremor through her body and tightened in her throat. Not to mention that between Dad’s financial woes and a new phone, she’d be having a rough time until payday. It all came for her at once—the fear and the struggle—and she wasn’t going to break down, certainly not in front of Vincent Varian.

“I’m sorry.” Vincent craned his neck. His eyes offered her sincere concern.

She fought the urge to cry the best way she knew how. Marisol met his concern and lashed out. “What do you want from me?”

With the same energy, he replied, “What I want is one less person in my life sparing my feelings. I thought you had more guts than that.”

Good. Keep pissing me off. Anger stopped the whole on-the-verge-of-crying thing. She rolled her shoulders back and put her hands on her hips. “Is this a favorite sport of yours? Irritate the poor nurse?” She stared into his eyes, imagining fire flaring from them and scorching him.

Vincent cracked a haughty grin.

Tobias stuck his head in the door. “She taking care of you?”

Vincent’s gaze didn’t leave Marisol’s. “She’s terrifying.”

Tobias put his hand on top of Vincent’s head. “Now that’s what I call a patched-up head. You did good, kid.” He winked at her, and she, heating with a blush, nibbled her lower lip. “I have more questions about your little incident, Mr. Varian. Come with me.” Both men headed out the door. If Tobias straightened his stooped posture, he’d stand a head taller than Vincent. But if he did? It’d give away how much of the Patron Saint he was .

“Wait!” Marisol blurted. The cocktail of anger and flirtation mixed into half-formed ideas: Add more fuel to the heat, get under Vincent’s skin. She brushed past Vincent and pulled Tobias by the necktie to bring his head lower. “You did good, too, old man.” On her tiptoes, one hand pulling on his tie, the other caressing his neck, she kissed Tobias.

The first touch of her lips tasted as sweet as vanilla. Her mouth opened for more. More burned like a shot of good whiskey, and warmth prickled from her lips, down her throat, across her chest, zinging straight to the dark pit inside her.

Tobias backed away, eyes big and mouth agape. He scratched the back of his neck and laughed. “Well…”

She overdid it. Her lips moved to muster an apology. She never could quite gauge when she’d been too much. The last bit of his tie slid from her fingers. “I’m sor—”

“I could use a kiss,” Vincent said as his lips curled into a feline’s smile.

“No!” She overdid that too—the volume this time. All because her belly fluttered at the chance of using Vincent to draw out the real version of Tobias.

Tobias shoved Vincent out of the room, gaze fixed on her. “See? Ass kicked.”

She rolled her eyes to hide the blush that for sure emerged .

“Call me,” he said as the door closed behind him.

She felt like champagne poured with abandon, bubbling over. She had another chance. A chance to really kick Tobias’s ass with a kiss and devastate him with her lips and tongue. Another chance couldn’t come soon enough.

At the end of her shift, Marisol put on her fixed necklace. But she noticed something else folded inside her locker. She pulled it into the light—a brand-new, black cashmere coat. She whipped off her sweatshirt and threw it in the Lost and Found box. The silk lining glided over her arms as she pulled on the coat. It was tailored perfectly to her body, tapering at her waist and flaring out around her legs. She zoomed through the hallway. The coattails caught in her manufactured wind.

She had become a superhero.