Toby Neal: Blood Orchids

This crazy shit was the kind of thing you did when you were Damaged Goods.

The calm that follows pain came to her at last.

She blotted the cuts with a paper towel and striped them with antibiotic ointment in the bathroom, covered them with a band-aid. She also took care of the nasty bite on her collarbone, changing the bandage by looking in the mirror. She never once looked at her own eyes.

Lei changed into running clothes, went back into the kitchen and put the phone back together, anchoring the pieces with a strip of duct tape. Fortunately it still worked. She slipped the bottlecap into the pocket of her running shorts as she called the station and requested Lieutenant Ohale.

“Hey Lieutenant. Lei here. I’d like to request to come back on active duty.”

“Yeah, Pono came by to see me already.” She heard the creaking of his overworked office chair. “Good to hear from you. How’s the wrist?”

“Getting stronger every day,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “I did an hour of target practice yesterday and it held up fine.” She looked at the wrist, ignoring the dull ache it gave her back.

“So what about those counseling sessions? And I wanted you to have that extra post-trauma debriefing after the incident with Ito.”

“All done,” she lied. She knew Dr. Wilson had turned in the evaluation paper in good faith, and guilt stabbed her before she ruthlessly quashed it. She couldn’t afford to let the psychologist know what was going on. Her only chance to get back to normal was to get back to work and find Charlie Kwon herself.

“A few more days, okay? The investigation is wrapping up. When you do come back I want you to wear a sling. Last thing I need is some workmen’s comp claim years from now.”

“Deal,” Lei said. “Thanks, Lieutenant.” She closed the phone, snapped her fingers for Keiki, and took the truck out onto the road toward Volcano Park.

She couldn’t be home when Stevens came by-he’d never accept just a phone call to break things off.

Lei ran down the narrow path along the crater, Keiki ahead of her, the dog’s ears laid back. She’d chosen the lush side of the park where massive fern trees arched over the trail winding along the cliff’s edge. The north side of the volcano caught rain, and a primordial jungle of ohia trees, wild ginger, and hundreds of ferns blanketed the slopes while the south side stretched away in miles of raw black lava. Knobbed guava roots reached up to tangle her feet, and off to the right the caldera steamed gently, a vast black moonscape hundreds of feet below the path.

The sheer scope of the scenery failed to distract her today.

The brittle calm from cutting herself had evaporated halfway to the Park. Her mind churned with nauseating memories she couldn’t stifle. Over and over again Kwon’s face loomed, his pupils darkening her vision as she remembered and felt again all the ways he’d raped her.

The drop off the massive cliff she ran along seemed to pull at her, an almost magnetic tug. Her agony of self loathing, her rage, her dim future as Damaged Goods could be over. How easy would it be to just take a running leap out into space? She pictured a cartwheeling fall, the vast distance to the bottom of the crater more than high enough to make sure the jump was fatal. Her mind played the jump again and again as her body ran on autopilot.

Lei increased her speed, having to concentrate fully on the treacherous ground, the emptiness of total effort finally extinguishing the fantasies. She ran all out, oblivious to the exotic beauty of the setting.

God, help me. I can’t take much more of this, she thought. The prayer echoed in her pulse. God help me, God help me.

Keiki began to lag, her tongue lolling. Lei pulled up at a vista area bordered by the service road, resting her hands on her knees as she caught her breath, looking out over the drop behind the low steel safety barrier, but no longer feeling that murderous pull so strongly toward the edge. With a pang of guilt, she wondered what would happen to her dog if she were gone. Keiki quested through the long grass for moisture, lapping at dewdrops.

“Sorry, baby,” Lei panted. “I have a drink for you.” She took a water bottle out of the pocket of her windbreaker, now tied around her waist. She poured water into her palm, holding it for the big dog to drink.

The shoulder holster was hot and itchy. She unbuckled it and laid it on a picnic table, sat on the table with her feet on the bench and let the wind off the caldera cool her face.

She noticed the sweet piercing song of the apapane at last, the rare, red honeycreeper that called the park home. She looked across the vast expanse of the volcano to the distant rim. A steam vent exhaled vapor that blew off the edge in a falling cloud. The sky arched overhead, a dome of soothing blue. All was right with the world.

She let go of Keiki’s leash, letting the dog nose through the grass and flop down to rest after a good roll. She lay down on the picnic table, covering her eyes with her good arm. The vigorous exercise had finally broken through the turmoil of her mind.

A different memory came to her, a line from the Bible that she had read over and over in the dingy hotel rooms of her life with her mother, as if repetition would help her understand: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it.

Did that mean she was in darkness, because she didn’t understand? But I think God is helping me anyway. I have to remember exercising works better than cutting myself… She sat up, sighing. Maybe it was time to make a new card that would help her remember.

A charcoal Toyota truck with heavily tinted windows rolled toward them, cruising slowly along the narrow blacktopped road. Lei sat up, reaching for the leash as Keiki stood, her ears pricked. The truck drew abreast of them, stopped. She tensed as the mirrored window rolled down.

This couldn’t be good.

She saw a muted gleam of sunlight off a matte black metal surface, and launched herself off the table onto the ground.

“Keiki! Down!”

Lei saw the muzzle flash, heard the blast, and her dog yelped, twisting in the air as she fell.

“No!” Lei screamed. “Keiki, no!” Her ears rang from the shot, a jolt of terror and shock blasting through her system.

She reached up and caught the dangling strap of the holster, yanked it down into the grass beside her. The vehicle’s door opened, a leg stepped out. She pulled her gun, and hunkered down in a slight depression beneath the picnic table. The wide crossbar blocked her view.

“Lei, come out.” He knew her name.

She sighted around the crossbar and fired, hitting the jeans-clad leg. The man shrieked, falling back into the truck. She crawled forward, braced her elbows on the ground for another shot. The shooter’s curses were cut off as he slammed the door. The engine revved, and the Toyota began to pull away.

She surged up from the grass, aiming for the front and side tires. They blew out with a satisfying boom. The truck ground into a turn. She heard the thunder of more shots fired back at her, but stood square, aiming for the other back tire. She blew it.

The Toyota kept going. She aimed for where the driver’s head would be. The reflective back windshield broke inward, a grapefruit-sized hole, and the vehicle jerked to a halt.

She dropped flat again, belly-crawling to Keiki. The dog raised her head and whimpered. A bloody hole showed where the bullet had entered her upper chest and blown out the shattered shoulder in a much bigger crater, leaving a long oozing score down her side. Blood welled from the exit wound.