NINE
A dazed woman grabbed Mellie’s arm as she ran out of the hospital.
“Did you see that hottie with the open gown running down the street? I haven’t seen a backside that fine since I was in high school.”
“Which way did he go?”
The woman pointed, a dreamy smile on her face. It was the same for several blocks—Mellie looked for people with various expressions of shock, surprise, anger, or anything other than the usual blank leave-me-alone face that people wore when walking down the street. In the middle of Honeysuckle Park, she found him.
“No, don’t. He’s injured,” she yelled, running to stop the four cops from hurting Connor, who was crouched, teeth bared, swinging a sword with one hand and holding a dagger with the other. He looked like a painting come to life, and for a moment she simply admired his form. Then the shouting snapped her out of daydreams of a knight carrying off the damsel in distress to a land without social media or cell phones.
“Whoa, look out, Jones.” But Jones was too late, and took a smack with the sword. So Connor wasn’t trying to kill them—he purposely made sure to angle the blade so it wouldn’t cut. Another cop landed on his back in the grass, spitting blood, and then, just as fast as it had begun, it was over.
Another officer arrived with his partner and tased Connor a couple of times until he slumped on the ground on his side, the flimsy hospital gown blowing in the wind, making Mellie avert her eyes.
“Now that’s the way a man should be made.” The female officer nudged her partner. “Get a load of him, Danny,”
If Mellie thought magic were real, she’d say one of the museum sculptures came to life when the storm hit. He was so perfect, right down to the scars. The man had so many scars: the slashes on his chest, the hole in his hand and another in his shoulder and arm, not to mention all the other faded, jagged lines she could see.
“Too bad he’s crazy. That is one fine-looking man.” The female cop unabashedly admired Connor, and Mellie wanted to smack her. Of course she did; there she went, falling for a lunatic thief. Her brothers would laugh and pull the family together for an intervention of ditzy Mellie and her bad taste in men.
No, she didn’t care what happened to Connor. Even if he was almost too beautiful to look at. Easily over six feet tall, heavily muscled, with long black hair and dark lashes. The midnight eyes were closed, and she shivered, remembering how they’d looked into her soul. He had a six-pack deep enough that she could run her fingers in the ridges, nothing at all like rotten Greg, who played tennis but was skinny and thought muscled guys were idiots.
The cop named Jones rubbed his arm as he finished talking to someone on his phone. “Thirty days of observation at Mint Hill for you, buddy.”
“No, not there.” Horror filled Mellie, thinking of the pale green walls, the scuffed floor, and the smell.
“Let it go, miss. He needs help. Mint Hill is a good facility. They’ll see he gets the treatment he needs.”
Helpless, she watched them put Connor in the back of the car, none too gently, and slam the door. As the car pulled away, Connor woke, pounding on the glass. She turned in time to meet his eyes and heard him yell.
“Lass, doona let them take me. I beseech ye.” The car sped away. Mellie found a bench and sank down, head in her hands, shoulders shaking.
“Please. Not again.”
Had Connor spent the night drinking and wenching? Nay, from the way his head pounded like the sea against the rocks, ’twas at the very least a se’nnight, though there were no wenches in his bed. When he rolled over, reaching for a plump arse, he fell onto a cold floor and sat up blinking at the harsh light in yet another odd room.
Truly the almighty was punishing him for the great many sins he had committed during his score and eight years.
The room he found himself trapped in was small, the bed fastened to the floor. A small silver basin was empty, and there was a bowl he did not know the purpose of. Perchance to drink?
The water was cold to the touch, so he stuck his head in and drank deeply, only to hear laughter from the demons. Had they poisoned him?
“Get your head out of the toilet, McTavish. You piss and shit in there, dumbass.”
“Then where might I ease my thirst?”
He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then kept rubbing it against his mouth and cheek. ’Twas verra soft. The man in white stomped over to the basin and turned a handle.
“From where does the water come?”
He turned it again, and the water stopped. When he turned the other handle, the water came out hot.
“How is the water heated?”
The man grunted and shut the door behind him, leaving Connor to turn the water on and off, over and over, trying to figure out from whence it came. And the light, ’twas brighter than a summer day, so much so that his eyes burned. No matter how he tried, he could not open the door; ’twas barred from the outside. To what end? Was he a prisoner? Hell was nothing like the priests preached—’twas cold and ugly, but there was no lake of fire nor demons peeling the skin from his bones. Mayhap they kept him here until ’twas his turn to burn?
Bars covered the window. Why was there a window in hell? Connor banged on the door.
“Do not imprison me. Burn me and be done with yer foul deed. Hell is not what I expected.”
The demons on the other side of the door chortled.
“Mint Hill is far worse than any prison or hell, McTavish. Now pipe down before we knock your ass out again.”
Odd; he did not feel dead. Connor dragged his arm across the corner of the bed. He bled. If he was dead, he did not think he would bleed—unless in this hell he was to be tortured? In the tales he’d learned from his father, there was always a way to escape the underworld, if the warrior was brave enough and strong enough. So he would escape, make his way back home, and live a better life. And then Connor would tell the priests they were daft. Hell was nothing like they said.
Three times a day, food was shoved through a metal opening in his cell. Though ’twas food unlike he had ever tasted. The demons said he was to call them “guards.” They did not like being called “demon”; they thought they were human, and while they looked human, why would the devil need humans as guards?
The clothing provided was finely woven yet ugly. The hose were called pants, and while soft, they were a dreadful yellow that made him think of heaving his guts after a long night of drinking. The pants stretched when he pulled them on and off, which made it easy to dress when the guards bellowed at him.
The shirt was the same color and fashioned from the same cloth. And the bedding for the small bed—it too was finely made, the sheets the gray of a stormy day. The walls were green, the ceiling pale blue, and the gray floor was cold under his feet. There was no hearth or fire, no tapestries on the walls and no rushes on the floors. ’Twas an ugly hell indeed.