If Only She'd Loved Him

Chapter 78

Saturday 7:05 pm

"Wake up!"

The hand that slapped him wasn't gentle. He'd felt it before. Sean looked up in a daze to see Jean and Matt hovering over him.  He shut his eyes, fast.  Awww crud, he was sure it had been a dream.  He'd woken up and had to go so bad.  But that damn bathroom was at the other end of the hall.  Somehow he'd managed to crawl off the bed and down the hallway, but he'd ended up going the wrong way.  Pulling himself to his feet by the stair railing, he'd stood up.  It was then he'd heard the voice, shrill and loud.  It couldn't be, but it sounded like Jean.  At that point, he'd made the mistake of looking down the steps.  It was too much.  The stairs seemed to go on forever.  Wondering how the architect got them to look like an Escher painting, he'd seen a flash of red hair.  He'd wavered.  Clutching at the railing, he'd tried to stay upright, but Jean had called out his name.  Instinctively, he had leaned forwards, trying to hear what she said.  Boom, boom, splat.  This had to be hell.  Sean kept his eyes closed and wouldn't open them again.

As soon as he heard the noise from Sean's fall, the bartender had rushed right over.   Slightly reassured, since Matt and Jean seemed to know Sean, he had agreed to help carry him back upstairs to his room, and then quickly left. He didn't want to be near a potential law suit.

Matt held a glass of water up to Sean's lips. The water trickled out of his mouth and on to the sheets.

"C'mon, Sean, we know you're awake," Jean said.

Sean, still with his eyes tightly closed, shook his head no.

Matt laughed as he watched him.  He was like a little kid, hoping that if he wished hard enough, he could make them disappear.  For a second he reminded him of his kid brother.  "We aren't going to hurt you," he said gently, warning Jean with his eyes not to say a word, "We just want to know what you're doing here."

Sean peeked one eye out, then reluctantly opened the second one.  Matt had stopped Jean before.  He sorta trusted Matt, and as for Jean, well she was kinda strangely hot when she was psycho, but—Sean's head now hurt twice as much as it had before.  Jean looked like an avenging Valkyrie, he decided, a short Valkyrie, but a mad Valkyrie.  Matt just looked concerned.  However, neither of them had budged from his bed.  They weren't going away till he talked to them.

"Hunting," he muttered, answering Matt's question.

"Hunting?" Matt raised an eyebrow. "Hunting season's two weeks from now, try again."

Jean dumped the rest of the glass on his face.  He sputtered, gasping as the cold water hit his aching head.  "Bitch!"

Jean didn't flinch.  "Where's Erik's cabin?" 

"What cabin?"

"Look, we know Megan's in trouble, and we know she's with Erik."

If it was possible to sneer when you were in such intense mind-boggling pain, Sean managed to do it.  "How do you know that?" he asked.

"We got a note from her today."

He snorted. "That's impossible."

"Why?" Matt asked cunningly.

"Because," he floundered, "because it just is."

"Why is it impossible, Sean?" Matt pushed. "What aren't you telling us?"

"Go away, my head hurts."  Sean screwed his eyes shut. "Leave me alone!" He pulled his pillow over his face, but Jean ripped it away.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded. "How did you get here?"

"Erik drove me." Crud! Sean tried to recover. "I mean, I drove myself."

Jean pounced.  Pulling the note Megan had written out of her pocket, she tossed it on his chest.  "What does that say?" she asked, pointing to the letters in burnt orange juice.

Sean refused to raise his head till Matt helpfully lifted it for him.  Hands on both sides of Sean's face, he held the paper in front of him.  Sean tried to turn away, but Jean waved the note in front of his face.

"What does that say?" she repeated.

He peered at the letter through blurry eyes.  "H...E...L, Hell.  It must be talking about you two."

"Finish it off, moron!"

Sean looked at the paper.  He spelled out the letters again. "H....E... L...P.  Help? It says help?" he asked in confusion.

"And below that," Jean prompted.

Sean sat up straighter.  "E...R...I...K.  Erik.  And some word I can't make out." He was puzzled by the note.  "Maybe the tramp wasn't lying," he muttered to himself.

"What?" Jean asked. 

But before she could probe further, Matt interrupted.  "Sean, Jean's not a patient person.  Tell us why you're here, and we'll leave you alone so you can go back to sleep."

Sean shook his head, trying to clear it.  The last time he'd seen Megan dashed into his mind.  She'd been screaming at him that Erik had kidnapped her; he'd felt something hit him on the head, then he'd woken up.  And there was Erik, and there was beer, and that was all he remembered.  Jean had her fingers clenched.  Boy, were her knuckles white and pointy.  She looked like she was going to punch him.  Hastily, he reread the note.  It clearly said Help and Erik, but why was the writing so funny?  It was like somebody had taken a laser and burned the letters on the page.  That didn't make sense.  He traced the letters with his forefinger. The burned parts were slightly raised to his touch.

"You said Erik drove you?" Jean prodded.

"I did.  I mean, he did.  We had a couple of beers, and he didn't want me driving when I'd had one too many."

"Why didn't he just let you stay at the cabin?" Matt asked.  Jean smiled at Matt's cleverness: Sean had never said where he came from.

"'Cause Megan was coming back," Sean replied in exasperation, realizing too late he hadn't told them he had seen her there.

"You saw her?" Jean wouldn't, couldn't let up.  She wanted to shake the truth out of him, and if it broke his skinny neck, so be it.  "What did she say?  What did she look like?"

She looked like hell, Sean thought to himself, but Erik's my friend. "She was fine.  She and Erik had a fight and she left, that's all I know."

"Bull," Jean replied.  "Megan was scared, wasn't she?"

"She was fine," Sean asserted. "In fact, she was playing one of her little games.  I bet she was laughing her ass off when she left."

"Playing a game?" Matt asked. "What do you mean?"

Sean ignored Matt.  He turned to glare at Jean instead. "You know how your roommate was always playing with Erik.  Telling him she loved him, then ignoring him the next day.  Well this was obviously just another one of her mind fucks.  I don't know why he put up with her shit for this long.  She drove him off campus with that crap."

"What exactly did Megan say?" Jean managed to grind out.

"It was bullshit."

"What did she say?!"

"She said she'd been kidnapped," he admitted. "She said Erik had kidnapped her." His voice got stronger, more determined.  "But I talked to him later, and he told me that they'd just had a fight."

"She told you that she'd been kidnapped, and what did you do?!"

"I don't remember.  Something hit me on the head."

"And when you woke up, Erik was there and Megan wasn't.  Do the math, Wozianowski," Matt said in disgust. "Miller hit you because he was afraid you'd help her."

"But I wouldn't have.  I mean he wouldn't have," Sean replied, too many thoughts going through his head to respond clearly.

Jean leaned over one side of the bed.  Matt leaned over the other.  Their breath shot into his face in tandem, though only Jean spoke.

"Guess what, Sean, you're taking us to Erik's cabin, and you're doing it right now."