Blood

It’s about six o’clock at night and I’m half way to Kappamor, my heart beating quite a bit faster than it should be.

I’m driving faster than I should be, too. I don’t know what I’m thinking, other than that Lorna’s hurt. Really hurt.

I can’t remember the last time someone I care about was really hurt. I know that Justin broke his arm a couple years ago, but that’s just an arm. That’s different than being found on the side of the road in December.

What makes it that much worse is that it wasn’t the fey. No, that would make too much sense. Instead it was George Owens. Her brother.

How could anyone just leave a part of their family to die?

Come on, now, Mallory, says the voice in a happy kind of way.

I tap my fingertips against the steering wheel, trying to ignore both the voice and my growing panic.

It has gotten dark out startlingly quickly. The sun’s completely gone now, replaced by the waning, quarter moon. It will be a new moon on the solstice, not a thought I hold happily.

Yet that’s not what I find myself worried about.

Instead my mind is filled with all the violent ways someone can attempt to kill another, how long it takes for brain damage to start after you stop breathing and what George Owens would look like if his throat were slashed open, what his blood would taste like. And the worst part is that I’m not sure which thought frightens me the most.

I pull to the right as another set of headlights illuminate the road, blinding me, despite the fact that they aren’t their brights.

He said alive, I think, but who’s to say that Lorna couldn’t have died in the past few hours? Dad had no idea how she was, other than that George had attacked her and left her in the ditch.

No, he didn’t leave her. He made the effort to push her off the road into the ditch after he attacked her, however he did that. Likely without a weapon, a weapon would require forethought and Lorna had said she was supposed to go home with Reid.

Which makes me think that this is probably my fault. And that’s a narcissistic thought since it would mean that George tried to kill his only sister to spite me, but what other reason is there?

I shake my head and try to calm my heart while also trying to avoid any ice that might be on the road. There isn’t much of it, though and that’s good.

I blink somewhat rapidly as the lights of Kappamor grow brighter. There are a lot of them, more than one for every house, which I suppose makes sense but it doesn’t make my eyes feel any better.

This is terrible, I feel so scattered. I’m afraid I’m going to go off the road.

But I don’t, somehow I make it to what we call our hospital, but is more of a house that was turned into the doctor’s clinic.

I pull the door open, happy to find it isn’t locked. Or, not happy, I don’t feel happy. Or relieved. Maybe ‘not disappointed’ would be the best phrasing.

I start to walk through the waiting room, except I stop when I see Lorna’s father, Michael, looking up at me.

“Is Lorna—”

“She’s asleep,” says Michael Owens in a tired voice.

A pressure that I hadn’t know was there disappears from my chest, yet I still feel fairly frantic.

“I should…” I start to say but stop when I realise I have no idea what I should do.

Michael looks me up and down, as though he’s judging me, but not in a judgemental way. He sighs. “She’ll want to see you. It’s the third room on the left. The door should be open.”

“Thank you,” I say, already headed deeper into the bowels of the clinic.

I count the doors, the first of which is open, except it’s empty.

Two.

I stop at the third door on the left. The lights are on and the door partially closed.

My heart isn’t beating right. I normally have a lower than human heart rate, but now it’s so scattered that I can’t tell if I’m having a heart attack or not. I’d reckon not. I take a breath and push the door open.

There’s not much in the room, a bed, a table, a desk, a few chairs, but most importantly, Lorna.

She is asleep, her curly red hair covering her face and at least five blankets covering the rest of her.

The hoard of blankets moves as she breathes.

I take a deep breath. More pressure leaves my chest, unfelt until it was gone.

I walk around the bed, tilting my head to see Lorna better. I can’t see what’s wrong with her.

“Lorna,” I say.

What if she isn’t sleeping? What if she’s slipped into a coma or something worse?

Except she stirs, causing one of her blankets to fall onto the floor.

I kneel down beside the bed and say her name again.

Her hand reaches up and pushes some of the hair out of her face.

Her brown eyes slide open and I see her neck.

There’s a huge plum coloured bruise stretching across her throat, then a circle just below her ear.

“Mal?” she says sleepily, pushing more hair out of her face and readjusting the way she is lying.

Her eyes are rimmed with red and shadowed by dark crescents.

“Hi,” I say, my voice almost breaking.

She closes her eyes and covers them with her hands, rubbing her temples. She drags her palms down her cheeks and rests them against the bed.

“Did you come to see me?” she asks. Her voice sounds raspy, not how it normally does.

I shrug and look away, trying to get the image of Lorna gasping for air in the dark, her eyes bulging, out of my head. Strangulation isn’t a pretty way to try and kill someone.

“I’m sorry I woke you,” I say, because it’s all I can think to say. The words aren’t lining up right in my head.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” Lorna says, although I can’t tell whether or not she’s telling the truth. “My throat just feels kind of…tight, and my voice sounds like shit,” she laughs, but barely, then winces. “I just bruise easily.”

Neither of us say anything for a moment, which leads me to try and ask,

“So, after you left…”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Or, anything.”

She says it almost angrily, which isn’t overly surprising since Lorna says a lot of things angrily, but the way she says it still seems odd, almost accusatory.

She pulls herself up, leaning against the wall with her knees pulled up to her chest. She’s got a heavy sweater on, which seems excessive with the amount of blankets.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Tsk,” Lorna scowls at me. “It’s very annoying when you do that.”

I start to apologise again and then realise that it would make Lorna angrier than she is now, so I don’t know what I should do.

Her eyes dart around as she stares back at the bed in front of her. She rubs the side of her neck.

“What does the doctor say?” I ask, hoping that it’s not a part of the anything.

Lorna looks at me and then shakes her head, smiling in an ironic kind of way.

“I’m here for observation,” she says. “To, uh, make sure I don’t just keel over and die in the next couple days,” she laughs again, a laugh made of nerves and barely concealed fear.

She’s not looking at me, and I’m pretty sure that’s on purpose.

My mind races through everything I know about strangulation and choking, which is a lot more extensive than one would think, and recall some studies they did in America on internal injuries that can be sustained after neck trauma, especially partial strangulation. I also remember that the death is normally quick and violent.

But I try to compartmentalise that and say, “Lorna.”

She looks at me, grabbing her lips with her fingers when she realises that they’re quivering.

I smile at her, wondering how stupidly forced it looks.

“Ya ain’t gonna die.”

Her eyes narrow angrily, but she’s chewing on her lip and still pinching it. It could be because she does it when she’s nervous, or because Richard Hawthorne told her that swelling in the lips is a sign of trouble.

“How would you know that,” she sneers.

And since I didn’t plan that far ahead I speak without thinking, “Because only nice people die young and tragically.”

Oh, fuck, I think, but instead of yelling at me Lorna laughs.

She laughs harder at the look of confusion on my face.

She squeezes her eyes shut tight, gripping the side of her neck and her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” she says, opening her eyes and looking at me after she’s got herself under some degree of control. “I just really didn’t expect ya to say that—and your face.”

She pushes her hair back out of her face, gathering it all on her right shoulder.

It brings her bruises to my attention once again, which makes my stomach turn.

Lorna takes a deep breath in and then lets it out quickly with a smile.

“Thanks.”

She touches the tips of her fingers to my cheek, shaking her head slightly as though she finds me too much of a joke for her to fully understand.

Then she pulls her hand away and lies back down on her side, looking straight at me.

“Do your knees not hurt?” She asks.

I blink, trying to understand what she means. “I’m sorry?”

She closes her eyes for a few seconds and then opens them again. I feel bad for waking her up when she obviously needs the sleep.

“You’ve be kneeling for a long time. My knees would hurt by now.”

As she says it, I do notice pain throughout my legs, stemming from my knees, but I don’t really mind. I hadn’t noticed until she pointed it out.

“You can sit,” Lorna says. “In one of the chairs or on the bed.”

She closes her eyes again, this time for a bit longer.

I turn around and grab the chair behind me, pulling it closer and then pulling myself off the floor into it.

Lorna opens her eyes again, blinking a couple times.

“Lorna, do you want me to go?” I ask.

She looks hurt, as in the emotional way. She is hurt.

“What? No.” She says it forcefully.

“Are you sure?”

She rolls her eyes. “I don’t want you to go.”

Except she sounds very tired.

She frowns, “I just, don’t want to talk about anything important. Funny from me, eh?”

“Not particularly,” I say, since it makes a lot of sense.

Lorna closes her eyes again. “Well, then you know me better than I do since I think it’s funny.”

I look around the room, although I’m not sure why. As my eyes pass the doorway, I notice someone move out of my direct line of sight, which is odd, although I don’t say anything.

“My aunt died,” Lorna says.

I look back at her, and meet her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

My mind’s eye fills with pictures of my brother, both dead and alive.

Why them? I think, although not in the hopeless way that a normal decent person would, but in my way, which means I’m trying to figure out exactly why the faerie chose my brother and Lorna’s aunt.

I mean, I can see them wanting to do that to Justin, but why Mrs. Hather? Was it just a matter of convenience? That reminds me that the solstice is falling right around the new moon.

“Is your cousin alright?” I ask.

Lorna frowns, “No, he will be though,” she hesitates and then says, “Aunt Jo was…sick.”

I want to ask what kind of sick, but that feels like it would be insensitive.

You’re talking to Lorna, I think, so I ask, “What kind of sick?”

Lorna rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling.

“I don’t know what it’s called. Um, she was...not right, uh, in the head.”

I look back at the door again, and then back at Lorna.

“I’m sorry,” I say again.

She shrugs, which looks odd with her lying down and all.

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, and then she pulls herself up, sitting cross legged on the bed and facing me.

“George choked me.”

She shakes her head then touches the tips of her fingers to the side of her neck, beneath her hair. “I s’pose you already knew that, though.”

I nod, unsure of what I’m supposed to say. But it turns out that I’m not supposed to say anything since Lorna looks away from me and continues talking.

“He was angry that I like you, so he started yelling at me,” she looks back at me for an instant and then looks away again. “I don’t like being yelled at so I yelled back at him and then I called Sarah a whore a couple times and he lost it. He stopped the car, uh, got out and pulled me out. I don’t remember too much after that. I woke up in Reid’s truck, except it was my dad driving.”

She looks back at me, and smiles in a sad way, which doesn’t quite suit her face. “You look like you’re going to pass out.”

“Do I?” I ask.

My blood’s boiling. Again I wonder what George would look like dead, whether or not he would scream or cry, how much he’d offer to live and what kind of blood he has.

“Mhm, try not to, though.”

I glance back towards the door at the sound of exceedingly close footsteps.

Lorna’s father is just stepping through the doorway.

“Hiya, Da,” Lorna says.

Michael smiles at his daughter. “How’re you doing, love?”

“Not that great, yourself?”

“Oh, I’ve been worse.”

I look at Lorna, then at her father, then back to her. “I should get home,” I say.

Lorna turns to me, frowning. “Are you afraid of people?”

I stand and say, “Just a bit. I’ll come back tomorrow, if that’s alright,” I glance at Michael and then back at Lorna.

Lorna rolls her eyes. “My dad’s not going to hurt you, Mallory.”

“Oh well let’s not get ahead of ourselves, sweetling,” Michael says with a bit of a grin.

Lorna shakes her head slightly and says, “He won’t.”

“No, I just, really need to get home, I’m sorry,” I say. Of course it’s a lie since I don’t need to get home.

I don’t look at Lorna and only glance at her father as I leave, trying to ignore both my conscience and the fact that I’ve like as not upset Lorna just now, which I’ve been trying to say was the last thing I wanted.

As I’m passing through the door, someone coming out of another room runs into me a bit. I didn’t notice them since I was looking at the floor.

“Sorry,” I mutter, but the person I ran into doesn’t move.

I look up and see David Fletcher with his eyes narrowed.

After a moment he shakes his head and smiles a fake smile.

“Sorry about that, Mallory. It took me a moment to recognise you.”

There’s an undercurrent to his speech, something dark that he isn’t trying very hard to hide. I don’t know what it is but I have a feeling that it has something to do with Lorna.

I don’t know how to reply to what Fletch had said, so I just step around him and leave the clinic.

After I get in my truck, it takes me about 15 minutes to get where I need to go.

I knock on the door and George answers.

“Mallory,” he says in a cold voice. There’s no red around his eyes, nothing to indicate even the least bit of sorrow for what he’s done to his sister.

“Is Sarah here?” I ask.

He frowns. “No.”

“Good.”

I push George into his home and then follow, slamming the door shut behind me.

It’s an ugly little place, chosen because of its low price and modest acreage. The walls are yellow, lit by lamps. I barely see the room, though.

George stares at me in an incredulous manner.

“You need to leave,” he says.

I smile, and it scares me since it’s the same smile that the other Mallory has, the Sro.

“You know, I don’t think that’s what I need at all.”

I walk closer to George. He stays in the place he had been, but he doesn’t look too sure about it being the right thing to do.

It’s not. He should be running.

“Mallory, Lorna’s fine.”

I tilt my head. “Lorna could die, George. You tried to kill her. You’re supposed to be her brother and you tried to kill her!” I sneer.

“Tsk. Brother. A bit rich coming from you.”

I shove George again.

He falls and then stammers to get back to his feet.

I don’t like how much I liked hitting him.

“Is that what this is all about? Me and Justin? What, are you saying you tried to kill your sister because I killed mine when I had no other choice?”

George shakes his head, although he looks terrified. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not like you. I didn’t plan that. I didn’t think, ‘now I’m going to show that bitch what she deserves.’ It just happened!”

I grab George’s collar and drag him, shoving him against the wall beside the door and pinning him there.

His eyes bulge.

“What is it that you called her?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer.

I tilt my head again. “No, please, I want to make sure I heard you right.” I smile.

George spits on my nose. “I called her a bitch.”

I shove him against the wall again, making him cry out.

“If you ever call her that again—if you ever think that again. You know what, if you even go near her without her telling you to, if you try to talk to her first, I will find you then tear your heart out of your chest and eat it in front of your dying body.”

George’s breathing stops for a second and then he starts to hyperventilate.

“I take it you understand?”

He doesn’t make any sign of understanding.

I slam him against the wall again and yell, “Do you understand?”

He nods.

I smile. “And you believe me?”

Another nod.

“Good,” I say and let him go.

I’m vaguely curious what colour my eyes are right now.