The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,29
again for his brow.
“Well, you’re not taking it.” She wrapped it around her two fingers, leaned over toward him, and began blotting his wound gently with it. He looked at her, surprised at her compassion. “I’m giving it to you. Your blood is already on it.”
He accepted her generous gift reluctantly but shot back a look of concern rather than gratitude. Blood had begun to pool at her hairline and run down toward her eye socket.
“You’re injured too,” he said. “Let me call an ambulance.”
“No.” All the questions she’d be asked, the explaining she’d have to do, the excuses she’d need to make were not worth the attention she’d surely receive. Not tonight. “Let it bleed. We learn to live with a little pain, you know?”
“I can’t let you out here,” he said, the sky looking as if it were about to close in on them.
“I’ll be okay,” she assured him. “I’m sorry that I hurt you.”
Lucy got out, threw all the money she had in her wallet into the backseat, hoping it would compensate for any damage. It felt good to get rid of it anyway, the only thing that she worried about as much as her public profile. The cabbie slid back over into the driver’s seat and the car rolled away silently, except for the sound of hard rain suddenly pelting the cab like a never-ending spray of bullets. She watched his red taillights disappear down into the night like two evil eyes in the dark. He didn’t bother to switch the fare light on his roof back on. She was his last for the evening. Anybody else looking for a ride from him was out of luck.
She expertly leaped in her heels over pools of water and bolted for the aluminum- and plywood-covered walkway across the street.
The covered walkway extended around almost the entire church and offered little protection from the elements raging around her. It was a whole block long on all sides, obscuring her view of everything but the black iron fencing along the perimeter of the church grounds. She followed the fence about halfway down the side street until she came upon a flight of steps with an ornate wrought-iron railing on either side, riding up to huge wooden double doors, closed shut. The tall windows on either side were boarded up and affixed with NO TRESPASSING stickers.
The doorway was too high and too dark. She lifted her wrist and tried to catch whatever beam of streetlight might find its way through to her, but it was useless. The storm was becoming increasingly more violent. Branches were being tossed like twigs, and windows, under assault from the wind and dropping barometric pressure, were beginning to crack into shards like hardtack candy. The thunder began to rumble and the first flashes of lightning strobed the sky. She felt like prey being stalked by it. Targeted. Hiding under the walkway covered by metal around a building surrounded by steel in an electrical storm was a death wish, Lucy thought.
She needed to get inside.
If a storm like this had ever blown through Brooklyn, she couldn’t remember it. The streets of Cobble Hill were by now completely barren, and lights inside and out were beginning to blink spastically on their way to going out. The power grid was clearly overmatched by the weather gods. Some of her favorite haunts, patisseries, and boutiques were already starting to suffer some damage with cracked windows and signage, like the ALWAYS DIGNIFIED funeral home advert, flying recklessly down the street.
She turned with her back to the doors and looked down from the makeshift portico at the deluge running along the sidewalk. Where were all those paparazzi tailing you when you really needed them? she wondered. She was drenched and cold, but her heart was racing and her palms were sweating. She should have listened to the cabbie. Getting home would not just be a problem; it would be impossible.
Fortunately, Lucy had her weekender bag with a spare outfit in case a pretender aiming at her pedestal attempted a sartorial sneak attack and copied her look. “Shoot first” was her motto, and it had served her well. She had never been the loser in a “Who Wore It Better” spread, and she was determined never to be. Fashion emergencies were rife in her world and she always planned ahead, right down to the just-add-water miniature bath towel from her local dollar store.
She stepped back carefully and looked over at the windows once