Page 23 of Spooked (31 Days of Trick or Treat: Biker & Mobster #13)

CHAPTER TWELVE

MAEVE

I’d apparently come around from a coma, not slowly with a polite regaining of consciousness, but with a gasp, and such a sudden movement from horizontal to vertical that it shocked the fuck out of the nurse who’d come in to monitor the machines in my room. Unprofessionally, she’d screamed.

Even though, to her credit, she’d recovered fast, I was unable to comprehend her words.

My mind was assailed by other times, other places, a whole kaleidoscope of colours and images that made no sense.

And an overwhelming sensation of a stranger who, for some unknown reason, had become important to me.

Doctors had rushed in, at first concerned that my vitals were triggering warning lights, but as I’d gradually come back to myself, my heart rate slowed, as did their frantic efforts.

Finally, when I was breathing at a rate they seemed to accept, they answered the question of why I was lying here, hooked up to machines.

Anger caused by the explanation that I was in the hospital as a drunk driver had rammed into my car, and concern when they told me I’d been unconscious for over three weeks, had my blood pressure rising all over again.

I’d been an idiot. I’d no longer had ties to Tucson, so why the hell had I felt driven to come back to visit the remains of my childhood home at this particular time?

Damn that sixth sense of mine that seemed to have been pushing me to come.

Instead of listening to revived images triggered by dreams, I should have listened to that sane part that told me revisiting my past would just cause me pain and resentment.

Though any distress I’d envisaged would have been mental, not physical.

“Steady.” One of the doctors places a firm hand on my shoulder. “You really need to stay calm.”

I ask the obvious question—what are the extent of my injuries?

To which I’m told I suffered a severe concussion and a brain bleed that had eventually stopped.

Apparently, I have stitches at my hairline, but I am reassured that my bangs should cover that.

I’ll be weak due to being laid up for a while, but subject to anything new arising, should now be well on the mend.

Well, that’s what I interpret from the medical jargon they throw at me.

All I want to know is when I can go home.

The medical staff are cautious due to my abrupt return to reality.

I’m told that while my vital signs have already returned closer to normal, I need to have more tests run and remain under observation for perhaps another few days until they can be sure I’ve suffered no lasting effects.

While the medical expenses build up, I sardonically think to myself.

That thought makes me query who ran into me and whether they were stopped. Because how else was I going to pay the hospital fees? I’m no millionaire with spare cash lying around.

Those questions are best directed to the police, is their reply, before continuing with their examinations.

After being prodded, poked, blood taken from my arm, and a sample of urine gathered from a container underneath the bed, I’m relieved when finally I’m left alone.

It’s then thoughts intrude, a dreamworld weaving around me—sights and sounds entwining, threading, and tangling in ways that can’t be sorted out.

Recollections as firm as memories of things that can’t be possible and must have been dreams and nightmares filling my head while I was unconscious in the morphine-induced nightmare world.

The Sullivan House, both as it had been in its heyday, and ruined by neglect, and then me seeing …

ghosts? There was a man, too, such a handsome being only my imagination could have conjured up.

Like a common issue with dreams, I can’t recall his exact features, but I know there was something about him that attracted me more than it should have.

My skin heats as I remember some X-rated scenes that I question how they could have come out of my head.

And then, the recall of that odd feature, he was injured himself, hampered by crutches and a broken leg.

It's true I’ve never been in a coma before, so I wouldn’t know what to expect, but such vivid images are not what I’d have ever thought to bring back to the conscious world with me.

Suddenly, I’m startled by a sound coming from the corridor outside, a peculiar clack repeated in a slow rhythmic manner.

For a second, my dreams and reality collide.

It’s him. The man who touched me so inappropriately, but so wonderfully, in my family home.

Shit. Fuck. Does this mean he was real? My heart races, causing me to give a concerned glance to the monitors faithfully recording every vital sign.

As my sane mind reminds me that I conjured him up in my head, I will my pulse rate to slow.

My aim is to get out of here, not to give the nurses a cause for more worry.

But that clack, clack is getting louder, the definite sound of something hitting the vinyl floor. Not only that, it reaches a crescendo and then stops right outside my door. There’s a perfunctory knock, then it opens into the room.

I suck in air through my teeth, feeling disappointment that it’s not my dream man made flesh.

Instead, it’s my aunt who’s approaching, leaning heavily on a cane.

It’s been fifteen years since I last saw her.

Now, pushing seventy-plus, it appears that physically her body is failing.

As her eyes, sharp as ever, focus on mine, her face fixed into the familiar scowl, I assume her mind is still active, and her personality not softened from when I first met her as a child.

For a moment, I let the memories take hold of me.

Arriving at this huge house in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest, I’d stayed close to my mom’s side as she rang the doorbell, totally in awe of a place so grand I expected a butler or at least a maid to answer.

Instead, it’s a woman who, while stylish and well dressed, is, to me, a fourteen-year-old, older than time.

After the elderly woman stares at my mom for a few awkward moments, my mom introduces herself. “I’m…”

“I may be old, but I’ve got all my senses. I know who you are,” the elderly woman declares. “How could I not recognise the devious features of my own daughter?”

I respond by instinctively moving closer to my mother, unsettled by the hostility directed toward her.

Nonetheless, she calmly places a reassuring hand on my arm and, disregarding the severity of her illness, composes herself.

“Devious? Is that how you see me?” she replies, her voice measured despite her declining strength.

“It is clear you have accepted my sister’s account.

” She shakes her head regretfully. “I thought sufficient water might have flown under the bridge by now.”

“You disgraced our family. Fell in with the wrong crowd.” Before Mom can protest, she adds, “So what’s brought you crawling back after all these years? You after money?” Her tone is brusque, suspicious.

My mom takes my hand. “Maeve, I’m sorry, sweetheart, there’s nothing for us here. It was a waste of time to come. Let’s go.” She stumbles slightly as she turns, and I give her a supporting hand.

“Wait!” the old woman says sharply. “I demand to know what you want and why you have come?”

Glancing at my mother, I can see she’s battling with herself, my young teenage self recognising her pride wants her to just turn her back and leave. But there’s more than just her feelings to worry about. There’s mine, and what my near future holds.

Taking the time she needs to turn back around, Mom raises her eyes.

“Mother, going into care, being fostered, is a life I don’t want to impose on my daughter.

Maeve will need family around her with what’s coming, and you’re the only living relative I know.

Apart from Siobhan,” she adds quickly. “And she’ll never lift a finger to keep her niece out of the system. ”

I hadn’t known we were visiting family. As far as I knew, all we had was my dad’s, not that I knew him.

He died before I was born. Gramps and Granny had given a home to us both, but they’d passed away, leaving us all alone.

Mom calls this elderly lady her mother, so I suppose that means she must be my grandmother.

It makes me eye the woman in front of me more carefully, but with no love.

I’ve always known that she and my mom were estranged.

“Why do you want to foster your…” she obviously tempers what she was going to say after a glance in my direction. “Child onto me?” It seems it’s the first time she’s really taken in her countenance. Her eyes narrow as she adds, “You into drugs or something again? Or come back to steal from me?”

Mom breathes in deeply. Her body shudders, and even at my age, I know she doesn’t want to admit the truth that she’s already carefully and tearfully explained to me.

Fighting down my nerves, I address my grandmother directly for the first time.

While I might want to spit the awful truth out, I temper my voice, making it quiet and respectful.

“Mom’s got cancer.” Voicing it aloud, I can’t help the tears that fill my eyes.

A squeeze of my hand, a proud look down, and Mom takes over from me. “I’ve got months, Mother. But no more.”

For a moment, Mom’s words hang heavy in the air.

I hold air in my lungs. I doubt there’s any happiness to be found inside these doors, and while I’d give everything to have my mom live forever, even at fourteen, I’ve accepted the truth that, against her will, she’ll soon be leaving me all alone. Where would I go?

Even the birds in the trees seem to wait with bated breath as the silence drags on. Then the old woman steps back out of the doorway, raises her hands, and beckons, “Well, you better come in.”