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At least the dragon guy from the Playground was a stranger. At least I didn’t have to see him every day. He’d helped me discover what it was bodies could do when used properly, but Zander? I would be a fool to ever give myself to him like that.
I gave myself one rule right then: no more kissing Zander.
My father left, and Zander stood there in the hall for a few seconds. He must’ve then realized I was watching the whole thing, for he turned his head toward me. He didn’t smile, didn’t do anything to put me at ease. No, the only thing he did was poke his head into the room and say, “If you need me, I’ll be out here.” Giving me space.
So unlike him.
What the hell was up with that?
I didn’t bother to try staying up. When drowsiness swept over me again, I let it take me. I was in and out of sleep, not caring what time it was or even how many hours passed. I never asked how long I’d been out, how long it had been since the gunshot. A part of me didn’t care. The longer I was in the hospital, the less I had to be in that house with my father. He could plan and plan all he wanted, but I wouldn’t be a part of it.
His dear daughter, wearing white, as if she was the most innocent out of them all. The truth was I was just as dirty and depraved as them. I looked men in the eyes and killed them, and I didn’t feel guilt, even to this day. What kind of innocent girl did that? Who could spill blood and not have nightmares over the garish red hue painted on their white flesh?
Blood. It all came down to blood.
When sleep claimed me again, right after I’d eaten some of the worst food I’d ever tasted, I dreamed of it. Blood. Blood and God, or rather, God’s personification in my life.
I was in a church, its pews familiar to me. I stood before the altar, staring at the statue of Jesus hanging directly behind it. A statue that wept for the sins of mankind. Personally, I never understood the story. What kind of higher power would impregnate a woman, force her to have a son, and then make that son pay for the sins of mankind? Even if he rose up a few days after being crucified… why?
I would never give up my life to save mankind. As far as I was concerned, let them burn. Let them all burn.
It was with that vengeful thought that I felt something warm on my hands, and I looked down, away from the hanging statue, and saw my hands were covered in bright red. Blood. No gloves to be seen anywhere, which was strange—but then I couldn’t quite remember when I had them last.
Noises of someone sputtering filled the air, and I looked up to see the statue of Jesus had been replaced by an actual man, a man who now hung on a cross, as beaten and bloodied as Jesus had been in the story.
Father Charlie.
My heart skipped a beat, and I ran up to him. I couldn’t reach him; he was too high. Blood dripped off his naked feet, onto the carpet below. I looked all around for something I could use, and the only thing I saw that might help me up was the altar table.
“Hold on, I’m going to get you down,” I told him, and Father Charlie could do nothing but groan and bleed from his fixed position on the cross. His hands were impaled by rusty iron stakes, along with his ankles. He was helpless.
I flipped around and went to the altar, my bloody hands grabbing the tablecloth and yanking it off. I pulled the table, and slowly it came, scraping along the floor all the while. Using all of my strength, I inched it closer and closer to where Father Charlie was. I crawled up on that table, going for his hands, but I couldn’t get a good grip on the metal spikes. Neither would budge. My fingers just kept slipping off the stakes.
Fuck.
“Sometimes,” Father Charlie’s voice came out shaking and dry, “you must accept the inevitable, Giselle.”
“No,” I said as I shook my head, adamant against his words. “No, I won’t accept this. I won’t!” I was basically yelling at him, and I didn’t know why. It wasn’t his fault he was stuck on the cross, but there was no way in hell I was going to give up and leave him there.
He could spew all the wise words he wanted; didn’t mean I had to listen to him.
No matter how hard I tried to get him down, I couldn’t. No matter how I gripped the metal stakes jammed through his palms, I couldn’t get them out. Never before had I felt so desperate, so helpless. I couldn’t say whether I’d ever wanted something so badly before; Father Charlie had saved me, and now it was my turn to save him.
But then the table below me cracked, the wood breaking. In the next moment, it gave out, and I fell. I fell for a long, long time, longer than I should’ve. When my backside landed on the ground, I wasn’t in the church anymore—I was outside, on the concrete sidewalk. A world of night surrounded me, and I didn’t even get a chance to call out for Father Charlie to see where he went.
No, because how could I call out when something so unbelievably hot and searing pierced my insides and made me see stars?
I looked down at my stomach, finding a bloody wound, and my body fell back. I lay on the sidewalk, alone and bleeding out, dying like I’d wanted to do all those years ago. Father Charlie should’ve let me jump into the river that night; he’d saved me, but only for three years. What good had those three years been? What had they given me?
I knew the answer: nothing.
My hand went to my stomach, where the wound was, and I could feel the slickness of the blood coating my clothes. I now wore the same white dress I’d been forced to wear at the party. White was a death sentence in this city. My father had to have known that. He painted a target on my back and he just didn’t care.
I closed my eyes, willing myself the strength to get up. But nothing happened, and when the blackness took me once more, I went into it willingly. Sometimes it was too hard to fight. Sometimes all you could do was give up and surrender, accept the inevitable.
The dream shattered around me, and I woke up with a start, my heart beating rapidly in my chest. For a moment, I forgot where I was, and then I heard the familiar beeping of the hospital machinery, felt the needles in my arms and hand. I saw two things of flowers sitting on the other side of the room, and though I couldn’t see who they were from, my guess was someone on the Black Hand, or some of the others in competition with my father.
You know, trying to look good, paint the picture that they weren’t suspects. The truth was, everyone was a suspect. No one was innocent until someone was proved guilty. I would be on my guard until I figured out who the hell had shot me.
