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“Not that hard to get blood out of silk.”
Rolling my eyes, I held his bleeding hand up. “Seriously? Trust me, buddy, it is.”
He hissed as I tried to look at his cut. “You scrub a lot of blood, sheep?”
“I’m not a sheep. I’m a woman, and we bleed once a month and often it just comes out of nowhere. I’m not going to throw away my favorite underwear because Aunt Flow decided to show up in the middle of a class. You learn to keep those little stain remover wipes in your purse at all times. Never know when you’ll need to clean up a crime scene in your panties.”
He visibly paled. “I did not need to hear that shit.”
“Oh, grow up.”
From across the room, a woman suddenly screamed, “Madre Dios!”
I turned to find Juanita, an older Hispanic woman with steel grey hair pulled back in a braid, standing at the entrance to the room with her hands over her mouth in obvious shock. We’d met last time I was here, and she seemed really sweet and nice. When she’d found out I spoke Spanish, she’d been overjoyed and nearly talked my ear off while making lunch for myself and Mrs. Cordova. I gave her a weak smile as she stared at us in horrified shock.
Glancing at Fernando’s hand, which continued to drip blood like a leaky faucet, I realized my hand and arm were covered in his blood as well, making it look like a scene out of a horror movie.
“He’s okay!” I yelled first in English, then in Spanish. “He accidentally broke the lamp then cut himself trying to clean it up. I think he’s going to need stitches.”
Diego, looking chagrined, tried to pull his hand away from mine, scowling when I tightened my grip and lifted his arm higher. “I don’t need stitches. Leave me alone, sheep.”
Juanita leapt into action, saying something into a small black phone before rushing over to our side. She grabbed a navy and white throw blanket from the back of the couch, then took Diego’s hand from me, blotting at it while hissing threats in Spanish. Diego, the little shit, actually rolled his eyes at me as the old woman fussed over his hand.
“Shit, Juanita, calm down. I’m fine. This is nothing.”
With obvious worry in her voice, Juanita scolded him like he was a little boy, “I swear to you, Mr. Fernando, if you don’t start taking care of yourself I’m going to…well, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it will be bad. You hear me? Bad.”
The door swung open again and Diego strode in with Judith close on his heels. They both stopped when they caught sight of Juanita and myself trying to take care of Fernando, and I waited for Judith to freak out. Instead, she frowned at me and a chill raced down my spine.
Her voice was as cold as dry ice as she said, “What happened?”
The words dried up in my mouth, but thankfully Juanita spoke up. “Mrs. Cordova, Mr. Fernando accidentally knocked over a lamp, then cut himself trying to clean it up.”
“Joy,” Mrs. Cordova snapped, making me jump. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I stammered while trying to find my backbone around this super intimidating woman.
Diego crossed the room in our direction, his expression dark and grief-filled as he knelt next to his twin. His sleek black braid fell over his shoulder as he tried to catch his brother’s eye, but Fernando ignored him. With them together, the resemblance was uncanny except Fernando looked like someone dying of some exotic tropical disease, and Diego radiated good health.
Mrs. Cordova nailed me to the carpet with her deadly shark gaze. “Then why are you covered in blood?”
“I was trying to elevate Fernando’s hand. I thought I remembered from my CPR training class that you were supposed to do that. I also remember my mom, she’s a nurse, did it with my sister when she fell off her bike and onto a piece of glass hidden in the dirt. It was really gross.” I looked down at my hands, solid red as if I’d dipped them into paint. “Actually, now that I think about it, this is really gross. I don’t…feel so good.”
The metallic coppery scent of his blood seemed to saturate the air around me, and I started to become dizzy and nauseous.
My stomach pitched, and a harsh sweat broke out over me as revulsion made my skin itch. Blood, there was so much blood covering my hands. It reminded me of all the blood I’d shed during the beating, of the blood welling from Hannah’s cut lip. I could almost taste it and little black dots danced on the edges of my vision. Just like that my heart started to race and sweat prickled down my back as my vision began to dim.
