Starchela in LA

Chapter Twenty-Six: THE MORNING AFTER

Chapter Twenty-Six – THE MORNING AFTER

I remember all the commotion later, like I dreamt it. While sitting on the grass, being tended by my family, I just am there. Sitting like a rag doll. Gazing like a pair of glass eyes. Later, in my bed at the mansion, I remember the flurry of activities around me, and I can't sleep. The day has begun, they have made all the medical tests and checkups, they have put me in bed and drawn the curtains, and I'm back sitting on that grass by the van. Every little detail comes back. Mom's tears, the tear in Evangeline Lilly's dress, Shane's hand under the back of my head, Natalie's hair brushing against my face as she leans and whispers, "It's all right it's over it's all right it's over it's all right..." into my ear. My family.

The largest family member, Torquevald Nordon, slams Bar one last time onto the ground, and holds him pinned down. The two remain like that, like a statue, a monument of two mismatched wrestlers, until security guards rush onto the scene. Suddenly, there are all sorts of lights – flashing red-and-blues, police car searchlights, flashlights, helicopter spotlights. And people running around in uniform: cops, paramedics, firemen.

They put me on a gurney, strap me in. They point little sharp lights into my eye. They ask me what day it is. I don't get it. They ask me the date. I get it wrong. "It's March 3," I say. But that's my mom's birthday, and we haven't celebrated it yet. We were planning for her to come to LA so we could celebrate her birthday together. "It's not March 3," I tell the dude who asked me the date. He doesn't confirm one way or the other.

They wheel me lying on the gurney towards a red fire-dept. ambulance. We pass the other gurney – with a strapped-on Bar in it. I have a question that's been burning the back of my mind since I thought I saw his face flash on one of the screens at Evangeline Lilly's garden party.

"Is it a real functioning voodoo doll?" I ask.

He looks at me from his stretcher. His mind has been broken along with great many bones in his body. He's not making sense of me or my question, I can see it in his eyes.

"Is it a real voodoo doll?" I cry out as our gurneys go their separate ways.

I think I glance a crazy spark in his eye. I think somewhere deep there some bleeding devil is laughing. Don't know if I imagine that devilish spark, or there is indeed something he knows about Natalie's voodoo doll and won't tell.

They insert me into the red ambulance, and we glide through the night, or dawn, or whatever – I don't know what's outside. Just know that it's a smooth ride accompanied by sirens.

Now I'm lying in my bed, unable to sleep.

My mom enters the room, and I know I'm not ready to talk to her. I wish I could Tweet her... or maybe it's too soon even for that.

"You okay?" she says.

I nod. "You?"

"Don't know, baby."

She feels uncomfortable, being in this room. Standing at the door, not knowing whether to come in.

"Still bleeding?" she asks.

"It's nothing." It is. Just a cut on my arm I got when he threw me into the van.

She closes the door. She's inside. There's no avoiding it.

"Your 'trusty handheld' told us where you were," she knows what I call it. "They traced your phone to the place where he... that man... where he grabbed you. You dropped it there."

"I tried to Tweet a pic of the van. When I saw it in the bushes... I took out my handheld..."

"Rather than run?"

"Yeah. Tweet a pic instead of running – how warped am I?"

"You're my sweet baby."

So we both cry a bit.

"I'm sorry, mom."

"I know, baby, it's all right."

She's sitting on the bed now. There's no avoiding it. We'll talk.

"Your phone was on the ground at the spot. They traced the chip or the battery, or something. So they found the spot where he grabbed you. Then they searched the nearest CCTV cameras. That's all Bel Air private cops, it was before the police even showed up. They traced the van from camera to camera. We were driving as they instructed on the phone, that big, tall Scandinavian who brought me here –"

"Torquevald Nordon."

"... could not pronounce that name if they put a gun to my head," she pauses, terrified. "Did... that man... threaten you with a gun?"

"No, mom, no gun." I don't tell her about the knife – she would freak.

"I'm sorry, baby, I'll be more careful. So we drove. He drove us, receiving instructions over the phone from someone who was scanning the cameras. So we drove to where the van was. The Scandinavian guy jumped out of the car, and stormed that van like a bat out of hell."

"He's like that. He's strong."

"He tore right through the side of that van."

"He's strong."

She nods. Tears are choking her again, so she prefers not to speak.

"And last night?" I ask the question I don't want to discuss. "What did I do?"

"It can wait."

"I can't wait, mom. Got to know what I did. I'm going crazy here. I couldn't sleep, or ease up, I couldn't until I know what I did. Is she okay?"

"Your aunt?"

"What did I do to her?"

"She's not okay. Maybe she will be. Maybe she won't. We'll see. You'll see her. Right now she needs to be left alone for a while, as much as you do. You both need to calm down, gather your senses a little bit. There's time for stories and what your reasons were, and making up. Not yet. It's too raw yet."

"Is she that bad?"

 "You hit her hard."

"I can't wait. I'll explode, mom. Tell me what I did to her!"