“Smart girl with a smart mouth, huh?” He nods like that’s a good thing, but I’ve heard those exact words a thousand times, and never spoken with an indulgent smile. Usually, they come accompanied with an open palm.
My smile vanishes. My stomach knots. My dad’s face flashes in my mind as my confidence wavers. “That’s what my father always says,” I whisper, drawing my arms down to my sides again.
“And he’s looking after your siblings?” If he notices my reticence, he doesn’t acknowledge it. He keeps asking questions with that soft smile perking up the corners of his mouth and the light dancing in his eyes.
This interrogation is confusing. Why doesn’t he ask about Tom? Why doesn’t he seem concerned about his brother or what happened to him?
I continue to answer his questions out of a sense of polite respect, but I keep my responses clipped. “Yeah.”
“And your mum?”
“Works all day and much of the night.”
He nods as though that explains things. Perhaps it does. Perhaps he knows the type of people we are; dirt poor and struggling. But, judging by that fine suit, he doesn’t know it from experience. Iwatch his face for any sign of distaste or sympathy, but I see neither. Just acceptance.
“Why are you asking me all this? Don’t you want to know what happened with Tom?”
“Of course. Do you feel ready to tell me?”
Am I ready?It’s what I’m here for and the sooner I get through it, the sooner I go home. Wasn’t that what he said? “I guess so.”
“Then I am all ears.”
He sits back and waits while I shuffle and try to figure out where to start. I suck in a huge breath and begin.
“The lift was broken…I mean, I was late for work and the lift was broken so I took the stairs.” I pick at my jeans as I speak, rubbing my thumb back and forth over a dark stain. “Near the bottom. I heard talking. There were two of them. Tom and someone else. When they caught sight of me, I ran,” I continue to explain but my words are empty, they lack description and emotion. Every fact I mutter makes me sound remote, but inside my head the opposite is true. The night floods back and, with it, all the sensations I’d experienced. The fear and the dread. “I hid. The other one came to find me but I tricked him with the mirrors on the corridor, so he left again. After a while I overheard bangs, but I thought they were from the fire door.”
“You think they might have been the shots?”
“I don’t know? Maybe? The timing fits, I guess.”
“Okay. So, what happened when you went back out?”
“Tom was on the stairs, alone, blood dripping from the step. There was a lot of blood even though it must have only just happened. Is that normal?”
“Sometimes.”
I nod. “I called you. He asked me to. Then he passed out, and I had to stop the bleeding.” The damn stain on my jeans won’t budge. No matter how hard I rub it. It’s ingrained. I lick my thumb and rub. The stain changes. I lick and rub again. Parts of it fleck away as the rest changes colour from brown to a deep red.
And just like that, I know what it is.
My breath catches in my throat, forming a lump that, try as I might, I can’t—won’t— swallow. Will I choke if I can’t swallow it? How long before I can’t breathe?
A hand falls upon mine, stilling my shakes. His fingers are long, slim, and lined with stories I might never know. Gently, he pulls my hand away from my jeans and places it on his knee. His fingers tangle with mine, holding me steady.
“Breathe. Take your time.”
I count a breath and then a second, but words fall from my mouth unbidden. The story seems determined to tell itself. “He revived a little after you hung up the phone.” My mind throws me visuals to accompany my words. I see Tom’s face, hear his groans, picture his attempt at smiling through the pain. “We spoke before he passed out again…”
And then came the visions of the blood. The way it dripped onto the floor.
Dax’s fingers tighten around mine, tethering me to him. The taste of metal burns my tongue.
“…He started coughing…and the blood…”
The way it bubbled onto his lips as the coughs shuddered his body.
The room shrinks around me. Darker than it should be with the strips of neon lighting permanently switched on. The darkness doesn’t stop the nausea. “…There was blood on his lips and…so much blood on the stairs…”
