Page 10 of Edmond
“No, love, it is not. And I was going to jump on you tonight if you didn’t come through for me. I’ve been jerking off for—hang on. They’re coming out.” Mac gave a running story about what was going on with Edmond.
“The captain of the police force, Jamie Grover, just sat down next to Edmond. He’s in uniform and has confronted the couple.” Lica asked if Edmond was safe. “Yes.”
She turned to look at the two of them and told them what had happened when the man drew his gun. Dizzy, with the idea that she could do something like that as well, she sat down hard on the ground.
The last thing that she could remember when the ground just flew right up her nose and knocked her back was that she was suddenly terrified of what she and Edmond could do with their vines. It wasn’t a vine like they thought but a fucking web.
When she opened her eyes, she was sitting in the back of an ambulance. There were men all around her that she didn’t know but really didn’t care about, and there was an IV in the back of her hand. Pulling it out, she wasn’t the least bit surprised when the wound sealed right up. She was getting out of the back of the sucker when the medic, whose badge said his name was Billy, backed away from her.
“Don’t touch me, please?” She said that she wouldn’t but asked him what had happened. “You…you know. You know that happened. I heard you say that it was helping you. You, you just have to stay away from me for a minute or two. Mr. Lica told me that it’d not hurt me, and I want to believe him, but this crap just got real, and I’m not ready to handle that.”
Mac decided to find someone else who wasn’t as easily freaked out. About three steps from the ambulance, she stopped moving. It just occurred to her what had happened when she’d passed out.
Stopping quickly had young Billy running into her, and she reached out her hands to touch him. When she got…a reading? A reading from him, she helped him back to his station and asked him if he was all right.
“I want you to go home right now, Billy. It’s important.” He said that he’d lose his job. “No, I won’t let them…Go now. Can you drive?”
“I’ll take him.” Nodding once, she was glad that Lica had done that for the kid. While she didn’t know why he had to rush home she only knew that he had to be there for his family. “You’ll explain when I get back, right?”
“If I can.” She turned to Brandy when she said her name. Lica was peeling out of the driveway, not at all concerned about the police that was in the yard.
“Did, I’m almost afraid to ask you this, but did Edmond take care that the officer wasn’t killed?” She nodded. “Then that’s all I need to know for now. I will say that I think that you have labeled that shit wrong. It’s like a fucking green spider web rather than a vine.”
“I figured that out as well. That’s what had me—” Brandy put up her hand as if to warn her off from saying any more. “If it helps you a little, I’m freaked out as well. I’ve never…I really need to figure this out so that I know what we’re dealing with. And I know that you don’t want anymore, but I’m wondering if it would do the same to you that it did to that officer if you needed help and I or Edmond weren’t around.”
When her eyes widened, she knew that she had just opened up a can of buckshot, as her grandda Jacob used to say that she didn’t want to have to deal with. When she walked away then stood still, Brandy turned back to her. She didn’t know if she wanted her to tell her or not but she only nodded as she began speaking.
“Billy’s dad had fallen asleep in the living room with a pot on the stove. If not for Billy coming home when he had, the house would have been a total loss, and Mr. Birmingham would have been killed. You saved a man’s life today.” Brandy just walked away. And with her back still toward her, she told her what to do if she had figured out something about her. “If you know something about me. I’d appreciate it if you would slap me into gear if I hesitate. One minute, Lica said, and the house would have fallen in on the elderly man.”
“I promise you with all my heart that I will.” Sitting down again, the medics’ on board the ambulance avoiding her. She told them what had happened at Billy’s home and suggested that they head in that direction. It was then that their walkie started squawking about a house fire in Trinway. They asked her if she’d be all right, and when she told them to just go, she was happy to have some quiet for a few minutes.
“How are you doing, love? Are you still with my brother and Brandy?” She told Edmond what had happened and how he’d taken the young man to his home. “Good for you. That must make you less freaked out, right?”
“I don’t know that I’ll ever feel less freaked out than I am right now.” Mac thanked him for that. “I don’t know if Brandy will ever speak to me again. I think she has had it with me and this freaky shit that I have going on. Do you suppose she’ll ever forgive me for being whatever this is?”
“Yes. She loves you, too. Lica was just telling me that you’re handy to have around. I told him that it was more than that, and he said he knew that but was worried about the Birmingham family.” She asked if the dad was all right. “He is. But he’s going to be arrested. Burning down your house while you’re drunk is a bad thing, apparently. Also, I have been in contact with your brothers. Not directly, but I do know that they’re still in jail and will be there until the judge comes into town the day after tomorrow. They more than likely won’t be getting free for all the damage that they’ve done. The hotel is pressing charges. What is the likelihood of your parents paying it off?”
“I honestly don’t know. It’s been a while since they’ve been around me and longer since they’ve had anything to do with them. My brothers are a pain in the ass, but they’ve pretty much made their bed, and they’re going to have to live in it.” Edmond said that he’d get them out of what she wanted. “I don’t. I’m sick of being the one that is responsible for the lot of them. I heard from the diner. Thelma has been put into a nursing home. She’d wandered off again. She was hurt when they tried to bring her back to the nursing home. She broke her hip when she was trying to break out of the building she was in. They don’t even know how she got into the little room. The man that I spoke to, he said that she’d been fighting with the effects of dementia for a long time. Probably since her husband died. That breaks my heart.”
“It does mine, too. Poor Thelma.” They talked about a couple of other things that were going on neither of them mentioning the web or what had happened to either of them since this crazy vine/web thing had touched them.
When he pulled into the drive, she was waiting for him. It was that or go into the house and be alone. She didn’t think that she should have been alone right now. There was just too much going on in her head that she couldn’t deal with one more thing. Mac thought that if she were to pull out her teacup, the last thing that they’d brought to the house, and somehow drop it, she was going to shatter just like it would have done.
He held her in his arms. The pressing of their bodies was nothing sexual, but it made her feel like she was a part of something special. As she rambled on, knowing that she was babbling, she held onto Edmond as he was giving her the strength and love that she so desperately needed.
~*~
Edmond decided that he was going to pamper Mac to the best of his abilities. She was such a strong yet very fragile woman right now. He thought that if one more thing happened with her, she’d go off the deep end, and he’d never be with her again. She was his, and he was going to do everything within his power to make sure that she knew that she was loved and that she was his forever. Just as they were walking into the house, her cell phone rang. She pulled it out to look at it.
“It’s my dad. I don’t want to talk to him. Please? Will you?” He told her that it would be his pleasure. “Thank you. I’m going to go up and take a shower or a bath. I’ve not decided, then you come up when you’re finished and join me. I’ll scrub your back if you scrub mine.”
He put the cell phone to his ear to answer just as he heard Alan was talking to who he thought was Debra. As soon as he said hello, he asked if Mac was all right.
“She’s gone up to take a bath. She needs it more than anything right now.” Alan agreed and told him that it wasn’t important, but he wanted her to know that he had no intentions of bailing any of them out of jail. “She’ll be glad to hear that. Thank you for letting me know.”
“You’re a good man, Edmond. To be honest, I was wondering if you were good enough for my daughter, but you’ve gone well beyond my expectations and have made her very happy.” He sniffled, and he could tell that he’d been crying a little. “I’ve never liked my mother-in-law. Not since the first time that I met her. But as I’m sure that Mac would say, she’d made her bed now she had to lay in it. She called here a little while ago and cursed Debra out. For her not wanting to…I’m sure you have better things to do than to hear an old man blubbering about someone making his wife cry. But it hurts. All the way to my soul, it hurts me to know that that witch is out there doing whatever she pleases to hurt people.”
“No, you go on blubbering, Alan. I’m so glad that you’ve cut ties with her. I’m assuming that’s what you did?” He said that he not only cut ties with her but his sons as well. “Good for you. I have a feeling that they’d drain you dry if they could. And if you want to talk to Mac, I can certainly get her for you.”