Chapter Three - Languages
She was up early on Friday, even by her own standards; the world was still dark outside, and James was curled into an S-shape on his side of the bed. In the quiet of the morning she could just make out his breathing, slow and regular, just on the light side of snoring. He looked good, and sweet, like a husband from a TV movie, and Kate felt warm and fuzzy watching him sleep. She could see why she'd fallen in love with him, why she'd married him.
She just couldn't remember it.
Quietly, she pulled a jacket over her workout clothes and made her way down the pitch-black stairs, cursing the dead light bulb that had led to this entire disastrous week. She stepped out onto the front step, feeling the cool October predawn air crash against her face and neck. She exhaled quickly, trying to see if it was chilly enough to see her own breath, but the weather hadn't gotten quite that cold just yet. The entire neighborhood was asleep.
Her feet left the porch as she broke into a steady jog. Across the front lawn and down the sidewalk, passing all of the neighbors whose names she somehow knew by heart but whose faces and personalities were a foggy mystery: the Clarks; the Delasalles; the Jacksons with their cute pink castle mailbox; the Khans. She wondered if she would ever see any of them again. Wondered what she would say to them if she ever did.
She was halfway down Fillmore Street when she first saw the van. White, beat-up, missing paint in spots. Slowly making its way towards her. She stared at it, trying to explain why it seemed so odd, and then she noticed that its headlights were off. It approached at a speed no faster than her own.
She kicked and screamed, twisting her body in every direction, squirming as if her muscles had been replaced with a mass of slimy, wriggling eels. The two kidnappers managed to hold on to her anyway. A sneaker flew from her foot and struck the side of the van with a dull thud. Her vision dimmed as she was roughly shoved into the rear of the van like a box. The male kidnapper crawled on top of her, pinning her to the rough floor. Splinters of wood from the dirty plywood jammed into the small of her back as she struggled. "Prepare her," she heard the female kidnapper say, as the man jammed a piece of cloth over her nose and mouth. The chemical smell was overpowering as she slowly-
The van slowed even more, and coasted to a stop.
Kate froze. The memory in her head faded away to join the others in the mist. The van was in front of her, idling at the curb. She could hear the rough clacking tumble of the tired old engine. Her nose filled with the smell of oily exhaust. A sudden
whirrr
filled her ears. It was the passenger window winding down, activated from deep within. A face peered out at her.
"Señorita, donde esta... ah, where is... is this Van Buren Avenue?"
"No señor," she said. "La proxima calle." Her raised her left arm. "Por ahi."
The face broke out into an appreciative smile. "Gracias!" Another
whirrr
, and the man vanished behind dark tinted glass. The van's engine reluctantly coughed to life, and the mystery men were soon a block away, turning left towards Van Buren. Only when they finally vanished from sight did she exhale, unaware until that moment that she'd even been holding her breath.
The neighborhood woke up around her as she jogged back to the house where James... where
they
lived. He was in the kitchen waiting for her when she got back, a pot of coffee and two scrambled eggs waiting along with him. They kissed as she took a seat, pulling the coffee mug to her.
"James," she said after a while. "I have a dumb question."
"I am an expert at dumb answers," he said. "Shoot."
"When did I learn Spanish? Did we go down to Cabo for our honeymoon or something? Did I take a class? Just curious. There was this Spanish-speaking guy outside asking for directions and..."
James helped himself to the last of the coffee. "I have no idea, Kate. Aside from 'burrito' and 'taco' I don't think I've ever heard you say anything in Spanish. Maybe you were a señorita in a past life."
She barely touched the eggs.
* * *
The taxi ride had been her idea, and it was with some satisfaction that she paid the driver and stepped out of the cab. She didn't doze off or zone out at all during the ride, hadn't accidentally given the driver an address in Brazil or jumped out of the car halfway over the Freeport Bridge. She was where she wanted to be, on time, and feeling pretty damn good about it.
Her good mood carried over into the hospital visit itself, where a sunny young nurse named Amy helped her to prepare for the scanning machine. She very much appreciated the fact that the nurse didn't leave her trapped in the exam room, staring at blood pressure posters and eye charts, for a ridiculous amount of time.
Give this girl an award for customer service.
Amy led her down the usual maze of hospital corridors and into the Radiology department.
Kate dropped down into a metal chair next to the hulking scanner. The device was smooth and white and futuristic, looking like something that would send her into the future, or perhaps shoot her into space. It bleeped and hummed at odd intervals. She turned to face the nurse, painfully aware that she was missing part of an important conversation.
"...injection so that the machine has something to track inside of you. It doesn't hurt. I promise. Well, the needle hurts. But that's it."
"Ugh," said Kate, shaking her head. "Needles. You'd think that after two hundred years they'd have figured out a better way of getting things into the human arm, right?"
Amy chuckled. "Well I think they can, but not on
our
budget. Besides, everyone hates needles. It's the curse we bear as humans. Don't worry, I was first in my class at jabbing people with sharp objects."
Kate looked away as the needle pricked her skin, and winced as the pain intensified. She could feel her arm burn as whatever Amy was injecting flooded into her bloodstream, the drugs piling on top of the cocktail that was already flowing through her tired body. Kate watched the spiral twist in slow circles on the TV screen, pulling her gaze to the center. Every so often a series of strobe lights would flash- off to her side, mostly, but sometimes above or below her line of vision. Each time she felt herself being dragged back into the spiral, tumbling, spinning, sinking deeper into the middle.
She groaned. "No more drugs... please... no more... don't want to...over... over... die... please... please stop."
"Soon, my sister, soon." A feminine voice, soft and gentle. "As soon as you let your mind open to the truth. You're getting there, I can tell. Once you let go, it will all make sense. It'll be so wonderful."
More strobes, more flashes, back to the spiral. Her eyes glazed over. "You can't... can't hypnotize me. I won't... let... let you." She felt the new drugs kick in. It was an amazing high, better than anything she'd tried in college. Every part of her tingled with electricity. The chair was metal and hard and cold, but she'd stopped feeling it hours ago. Everything since then had been the spiral. Only the spiral.
