Sneak Peek: Meeting Mal (Patreon)

Today's writing brought us past 60K words.  I certainly never expected this chapter to run so long!  But it's end is finally in sight.  Katherine, Crystal and Jonathon have just broken the news to David, and now it's just a matter of bringing him back home.

But in celebration of crossing this threshold, another sneak peak - a small one - this is the short encounter between Cindy and Mal.  As always, still in draft form.

***

His bracelet suddenly vibrated and flashed the time. “Oh, look at that. I’ve got to go,” he said.

Ivy let go of his hand. “It was nice meeting you, Princess.”

“Yeah.” He took a deep breath. “Same.”

“You ever want to talk,” she said, and slipped him a card. It was a business card: her full name, contact details: Ivy Burgess, and a local address. “You ever want to catch up again, look me up.”

Thinking it unlikely that he would ever meet her again, he left the canteen. Guided by his bracelet, he quickly found his way through unfamiliar corridors to a place he’d never visited at the Clinic, the infirmary.

The infirmary was a bit of an oddity. In a facility designed for the healing and betterment of the ultra-rich or otherwise fortunate, most medical concerns were dealt with through bespoke services, with privacy during both procedures and convalescence. But not everyone at Asklepios was a client. Accidents were inevitable among the massive staff that served the place, and those needing recovery time ended up here.

It was still one of the nicer medical facilities he’d visited, David noticed as he stepped through a door, with large open windows and subdued colours. Individual beds were given a generous space, and from the smell of it, the food was a significant step above typical hospital fair.

The long hall was mostly empty this morning as he worked his way past several beds, stepping in and out of shafts of watery sunlight. He noted his reflection in a bedside mirror, the gilt gleam of hair, the flash of red lips, and he stood a little straighter, chest out, as he approached his destination.

The man was sitting up in bed, eating breakfast, watching the news on a retractable screen. Watching him from a distance, David saw footage of the escalating conflict overseas. The report finished on an image of a burned-out husk of a tank before fading to a graphic of a viral cell. A graph showed domestic infection levels rising before switching to a talking head he couldn’t hear.

He doesn’t look that bad. David tried to convince himself uncertainly as he approached, noting the care the Clinic had taken of his injuries, the healing bruises, bandages and casts. But when the man turned at the echoing sound of heels on the hard infirmary floor, he winced with pain and his face was pale and bruised beneath a week’s growth of stubble.

With one lip split, and an eye still reddened by burst vessels, he watched her curiously and without fear. There was an inquisitiveness to his gaze as he fixed on her face.

David saw the flicker of recognition. He braced himself for the man’s inevitable anger, recrimination or misogyny. Instead, he was taken aback as the man’s face split into a giant grin revealing stained and broken teeth.

“Well, Jesus!” he exclaimed. “It’s you!”

“Hello Mal.” David offered a feminine little wave.

“Sit down, sit down!” Mal gestured with an awkward sweep of one arm, the other one broken, immobilised and healing in a cast. David stepped closer and felt the man’s gaze sweep back and forth over him, assessing him—but not in the same way as the men in the canteen. There was a keen appraisal in this man’s eyes rather than simple lust.

“Fuck a duck,” the man said and whistled. “Look at you! You’re a pretty little thing, ain’t ya?” He shook his head in disbelief and winced in pain. “And served me my ass three ways from Wednesday.”

David pulled up a chair, smoothed down the miniskirt and sat next to the bed, straight backed and knees pressed together. He kept a wary distance from the man but offered a tentative smile. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve felt worse.” He grunted. “But not much.”

“I suppose I should apologise.”

“Don’t.” Mal scowled. “I deserved it.”

“Still….” David waved his hand vaguely at the battered man. “You look awful.”

“Best I’ve felt in years,” Mal answered. “I needed a serious ass kicking. You have no idea how fucked up I was up here.” He bumped his temple with a fist. “What shit I was on. I was in a dark place, a really dark place; you know, the kinda place so dark it blinds ya to the nightmares but funny thing is, you can always see your nightmares, aye, no matter how tightly you squeeze your eyes shut.” He winked at her. “I’m betting y’know what I’m talkin’ about, eh, little girl?”

“Me?” David gave a deliberately languid shrug. “I’m just a pretty little thing.”

He laughed, coughed, and grimaced. “Sure.” With a press of a button at his side, he raised his seat slightly and wincing, turned to face him more directly. Again, the assessing eye, sweeping across his frame but with little attention to tits and ass. Rather, Mal seemed to be searching for something.

“Anyway. You don’t go filling that pretty blonde head of yours with guilt for beating up ol’ Mal. I had it coming, and getting my ass knocked into this place’s the best thing could’ve happened to me. What’s her name, that tough-ass bitch boss woman of yours, Ms Smith?”

David blinked. “You mean Katherine?”

“Yeah, tha’s her.” Mal smiled. “Whatta gal, right? Anyway, she’s the one got me in here. Dunno why—not like I could’ve afforded’t otherwise. She didn’t explain none, just passed by to say I was here on her expense and so long as I played nice, I could stay. So I’mma playing nice. Meanwhile, they’ve cleaned me up real good here,” he said. “Cleaner than a poop shoot after a green tea enema at a detox spa.”

That’s when David saw it, the hidden gesture, the subtle curve of the finger and twitch of the hand. David gave the expected counter-sign, with his hand held low by his thigh.

Mal gave a slow nod.

“So what’s your name, pretty girl?”

“Cynthia.” David smoothed back his hair, tucked behind one ear a few strands that had escaped the hairband. “Bellamy. But everybody calls me Cindy.”

“Well, Cindy, I owe y’a favour, and Mal don’t like being in debt.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way to pay me back.”

Mal laughed, so hard he clutched his side and groaned. With hurried and heavy steps, a nurse approached, glaring disapprovingly at David as he moved to lower Mal back into a resting position. Crystal may have pulled strings to enable the visit, but David knew he shouldn’t outstay his welcome.

“Sorry,” he said to the nurse.

“You’ve got five minutes,” the nurse answered, brow furrowed with concentration as he checked his patient’s vitals. “He gets tired easily.”

“’Cuz you won’t let me get the fuck outta bed!” Mal shouted.

The nurse fixed him with a steely glare and his patient grumbled and subsided. “Five minutes,” he repeated to David, before retreating.

“Goddamn pissant tyrants!” Mal mumbled under his breath, then gave a little grin and wink. “I jus’ love to wind ‘em up. Best doctors I’ve ever had, and I’ve known a few.”

“I bet you have.” David answered. He knew he shouldn’t and that it was none of his business; and he knew that anything said openly here would be picked up by Katherine and the others; but curiosity and the memories of an old comrade compelled him to ask, in his little girl voice, “after Blackwater Phoenix?”

Mal eyes darkened and he looked away.

“Sorry,” David said.

“How’s a cute girl like you know about a terrible thing like that?”

“Maybe I’m not as cute as I seem,” David said. “Maybe there’s a lot about me that isn’t as it seems.”

They spoke for a few more minutes. Mal asked about the girl he’d been with at the café—Alia, he said, his ward, a sort of adopted daughter, the child of a friend of his. When David told him he’d hit Alia and thrown her to the ground, he eyes darkened and he withdrew into himself, into a terrible, self-loathing silence that David recognized all too well.

“I’m sorry, Mal.” David said, and for the first time reached out and lay his hand over the other man’s. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

With surprising speed, the man grabbed David’s hand. He held him in an iron grip. Mal yanked David out of his chair. Up close, David felt the man’s breath on his face and saw the madness still lurking in Mal’s eyes.

“You better know what the fuck you’re doing, little girl.” Mal’s voice was a low hiss, and David realised the man’s grip was tight around the armband at his wrist—blocking any audio pickup from the device.

David gazed at him levelly and after a moment very gently kissed the man on the cheek. “Thank you,” he said.

Mal rubbed at his cheek, grinned and gave her an exaggerated wink in reply.

Leaving the infirmary, David checked the time and saw he still had a half-hour to go before his meeting. He felt momentarily at a loss. What to do? There wasn’t time to hit the gym; he wasn’t hungry enough, yet; and as nice as the staff were, he hoped to never visit the salon—any salon—again unless it was to get these damned acrylic nails removed or long hair hacked down to size.