Chapter 4 pt3
When I woke up again, I was being jostled around and I could hear the sound of nervous voices. I peeked through my lashes to see where I was going; I found I was dressed in real clothes, not the hospital gowns that give the orderlies a clear shot at my needle-scarred ass, and I was being rushed down the halls at a nauseating speed.
“How a woman like this acquires visitors is beyond me!”
Heidi. Oh, joy.
“I’ve never seen this one before! He claims he’s her brother!”
Mark. I’ve been blessed this dismal morning! Huff, huff. Man, they were breathing as heavy as oxen. What was the high priority?
“Did you see that limo?”
Oh, that answers that.
“What does he want with her? Seriously? He doesn’t even look like her!”
That brought me back to reality. I didn’t have a brother, not anymore! Who could this be? I thought about my dead brothers, but none of them could have ever aspired to be rich like they said this man was…a limo? I couldn’t fake sleep anymore. My head shot up, my eyes flung open, and the first thing I saw was Seven. I hadn’t felt his hand on me or his body keeping Heidi from getting too close. He was grinning at me, a look that denied any answers even if I asked out loud.
Then I noticed the branch of the hospital we were going down.
Minimal security? What the fuck? What were they trying to cover up?
My heart skipped a beat when they rounded another repetitious beige corner and the front doors came into view.
Are they letting me go? Have they had enough of me?
I wanted to get up and bolt for freedom, but Seven’s hand traveled from my back to my shoulder, holding me down with a force I didn’t know the man had. I blinked in confusion, but I didn't have time to think of that. Staring at his hand, I saw my shoulder. I looked over my frail body and saw that I was wearing a summer dress! Yellow! Oh, it was gorgeous! I ran my hands over it and then noticed the matching yellow pumps as well, and my hair! It was silken soft! And curly again! I wondered then if my face was covered in makeup.
I coughed loudly as they took me outside; the flower gardens! The trees! The air! Oh, the amazing array of colors! I almost didn’t notice the stretch limo taking up the grand entrance to the hospital, or the several black vans behind that, and especially not the many men and women in black.
When I did, I counted the people—thirty-seven. They stood and watched from all over; they watched hospital doors and the entrance to the driveway, they were in a line across the yard, and several stood around the limo itself. It occurred to me then that Mark and Heidi were fawning over me with worried faces, but not only them; everyone’s eyes were set on me! I looked at them, Heidi first.
“Emily, Emily? Are you all right? Are you sick?” She dabbed my forehead with a handkerchief, while her other hand worked on dabbing makeup on my bruised wrist.
They’re acting…for me? I laughed out loud at them.
“What are you people doing?” I asked them incredulously. Both of them frowned and Mark tapped a small black pouch tied to his belt—injections. I bit my lip instantly.
“What’s the meaning of this? Is she sick?” a familiar voice demanded.
I furrowed my brow and looked up into the face of Seven. He was dressed in a high-fashioned pinstripe suit…was that Armani? His long hair was slicked back and tied at the nape of his neck.
When had he left my side? I hadn’t felt the weight of his hand leave my shoulder.
He winked at me, but his face went hard and cruel as he looked at the orderlies. My world started spinning, they could see him now? My eyes started to blur and I slumped in my chair, only able to keep track of the conversation as black, pink, green, blue, and any other color in these gardens swam past my eyes in a blur of confusion.
“Speak up!” Seven demanded.
“I-I-I…” Mark stuttered.
“I-I-I what? The health of this woman could mean your very life! Is she sick or isn’t she?” Seven snapped. Heidi gasped loudly and Seven smirked.
“She’s not! She’s in maximum health!” Heidi shrieked. The thought of her life hanging in the balance was enough to make her turkey chin tremble.
“So this is why you refused to let me accompany you to her room?” He ran a slender finger over my wrist. “She’s badly bruised and you needed time to hide it.”
Both my orderlies stepped back towards the door and I heard several footsteps approach angrily. I willed my eyes to focus and I saw both Jokers and three Fours glaring menacingly at my orderlies. All of them were wearing suits like Sev’s.
Seven bent before me and signaled to his guards with a hand gesture. Without a word, they raised their hands and began to push the orderlies back out of earshot. I shied away from their unfamiliar attitudes and nearly jumped when Sev took my hand. He brushed a stray strand of hair from my eyes, but all I could do was gape at him.
“It’ll be alright now, Emily. I’m here at last. It won't be long until I can take you home again. The charges against you were dropped; the real murderer has come forward. All we have to do now is wait for your paperwork to be…found.” His voice went cold with the last word and he glared at the orderlies. He stood then and brushed off his knees.
“We’ll return in an hour to retrieve her.” He looked down at me and lifted my hand, palm up, and gave me a brand new deck of cards. On top of it was the Jack of Hearts, and with a wink, he flipped it to face down. “I trust she’ll be in your finest room.” It wasn’t a question, but more a statement. Sev kissed my forehead and turned on a heel. “See you soon, Emily.”
In a matter of minutes, they had all gone, the streak of black cars disappearing into the tree-lined road.
Over my shoulder, I heard Mark cuss under his breath as Heidi turned me around and rolled me back inside without saying a word. I raised the deck of cards to my chest and cradled them there. Nothing else mattered anymore; I was going to be free!
Mark and Heidi began to push my wheelchair in the opposite direction of my room and I knew that fear of Seven was making them obey, and it made me chuckle. In moments, they left me alone in a large room decorated in bright yellow. The windows didn’t have bars, the bed didn’t have railings, and there was a T.V. and a closed personal bathroom! I stood and danced over to the window. I leaned on the cold pane and stared out at the brilliant gardens as a tear slipped down my cheek, and I flipped the card Seven had given me.
A warm finger slid over my cheek, catching the teardrop and lingering there. Gently, the finger turned my face, my Jack was here. His warm perfect lips found mine as he pulled me close. I pressed against him with an overbearing need, my mind soaking up everything about him—his smell, his look, his taste. I loved him so much.
I yelped when he swept me off my feet and sat on my bed with me cradled in his arms. Content, I parted our kiss and stared into his deep brown eyes, letting my fingers trail through his short brown hair as his hands rubbed my arms gently. He was wearing a suit like the rest of them, but his hair wasn’t slicked back. His golden skin seemed to glisten, the planes of his perfect face every bit as royally handsome as I remembered. He kissed my tears away, then my eyes, then my nose, then my lips…
“Jack…” I sighed into his mouth, our tongues caressing between words.
“Shh, Emily; everything’s going to be ok, now, I promise.”
I nodded and sighed again. Deepening the kiss and pulling on his collar with the growing heat of my need rising low in my stomach.
“How, Jack? How is this happening?”
“I’m afraid we haven’t been completely honest with you, my love.” He quieted; his breath hot against my skin. “We’ve been…pretending. Pretending to be the cards for you. What you’ve been seeing, and what now holds you, is a sort of doppelganger. The 37 of us who you know are kind of… astral project to you… And Seven—” he said the name with an accent, not like the number. “—is truly your brother. It was his idea to use the cards. We’ve been trying to save you since they locked you up. We kept you company, seething over your treatment, but there was nothing we could do without revealing your true lineage…
“You see, Emily, we sent you here to keep you safe from the King and Queen of spades, their names as you know them. This world…it’s not even yours. We hoped your human parents could protect you. We raised them from infancy and trained them just for this task, knowing years before your conception that you could not stay at home…”
“I watched you your whole life…and slowly fell in love with you. When we were allowed to see you, though only because you needed us desperately in this place, you returned those feelings…” He pulled me tight against his chest and kissed me again, a tear falling down his cheek. “It took us a very long time to get here…longer than we thought…outer space is—in short—huge,” he grimaced.
“Emily, you aren’t human.”
I stared at him, confused. My confusion forced itself through the haze of horniness.
“I’m so sorry, Emily…we thought…we thought this would protect you from them. You are a creature identical to the humans, with several differences…for one: your eyes. You see six colors that humans could never even imagine; you have a heart twice as big, two stomachs, and a perfect body. Have you noticed that you never get sick? How can the illnesses that humans get never touch you? How can no doctor specify your blood type? How medicines seem to poison you?” He shook his head and shed another tear and cleared his throat.
“You were only allowed to flip a couple of cards at a time because you would be bombarded…and the chance of you drawing a spade was too risky. Somehow, our enemies took control of that face, the spades, and we were never able to take that power back…the day you drew the King… Seven was at war with the four Nations and I was protecting your mother and father…we had no one to make you safe…and he worked so quickly to ruin your life…
“But we’ve erased everything you’ve done, destroyed the documents, and eliminated the memory of your crime. Even now, several doppelgangers from our planet are erasing the memory of you ever being here.” He paused and stared into my eyes, watching something only he could see; but as I watched his eyes, I saw what he must have been seeing in mine.
The colors of his irises began to change. Blue, green, and colors I could never name swam in his eyes, swirling and mesmerizing me. It was so amazing, yet the dance of colors looked so sad. Was he…crying? These words came to me so easily, like memories. This was how our people cried…their eyes swam with sad colors, slow circles. I remembered what happy looks like, almost like fireworks in the eyes. I cupped his cheek and his eyes stilled, waiting.
“Our planet…what is it called?”
He chuckled and kissed my face all over. “In human tongue, it is called Solitaire…that's where the idea to come to you when you play cards came from.”
We both laughed, our eyes sparkling and swimming at the same time.
Jack leaned in slowly and kissed me again, a long soft kiss. His hands slipped under the hem of my dress and slowly up my thigh.
“I need you…” He whispered as he nibbled on my ear. It’s been so long since I’ve been touched like this that my body just reacts on its own. I opened my legs and his hand slipped to the very core of me. His clumsy fingers fumbled around, not rubbing anywhere in particular. I had to remember how much I loved him and think of something better happening just to get a little wet. Once I tried to correct him on what he was doing wrong and he quit altogether and just left. All too soon he decides I’m ready and pushes me down on the bed.
“I can't begin to tell you how much I’ve missed your body…” He smiles, saying all the right things with all the wrong moves, as he unbuttons his pants. Is this what sex is? Quick and unfeeling? I always imagined this great overwhelming surge of pleasure but this is all it is. Fumbling fingers and a quick dip. I smiled and reached for him, touching his cock as he pulled it out. He is a little below average, but I would never tell him that.
He pushed me back down and hiked my legs up, plunging into me with little warning. I’m n ot fully ready, so it hurts for a moment, but I moan like it's the best thing I’ve felt in my life. He’s fucking hard and fast, and before I know it hes already done. The smallest amount of cum leaked out of me and he stood back up, buttoning up his pants. Soon enough, Seven entered my new room; he gave Jack a meaningful look and he stood, cradling me in his arms.
“Time to go, Emily,” Seven said.
We stepped from my room and I saw before me the frozen form of everyone I’d known in the hospital. They were blue, as if frozen by ice.
“What did you do to them?” I asked. Any possible worry I could have expressed for them was vacant from my voice.
“We’ve frozen time until we can leave,” Seven told me. They both escorted me to the limo and I slipped inside with an excitement I never thought I’d feel.
I awoke from this dream crying, my heart pounding with desire.
“Why can’t it be true?” I demanded from no one, screaming at the roof.
I sobbed uncontrollably, completely oblivious to the small woman beside my bed, her hand on her mouth in shock. She stood, her tiny form no more than four feet tall, and rushed to my side, stroking my hair gently and cooing in my ear.
“Emily, Emily, it’s ok. Three is here; I won’t let anyone hurt you…”
