AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Doubt it,” said Lulu, and disappeared into the kitchen.
Dr. Parks waited until Amory made it up the stairs, then followed Lulu toward the kitchen. It was then that she felt her fingers turn cold. They were practically blue, and her palms were growing clammy. The dizziness was coming in waves at that point, every thirty seconds, and the towel on her head had soaked through. Was she headed into hypovolemic shock? She wondered. Had she already lost two liters of blood? Maybe, possibly. How long, she wondered, had she been passed out on the bathroom floor?
Adrenaline made her thoughts fire. She was weakening, for sure, but that voice inside kept diagnosing and kept barking orders. Could 10 percent of her blood be gone? Fifteen percent? By 20 percent, she’d be in real trouble. She had to get better control of her gash. What had it been? Four minutes? Six? Since she awoke? If she wanted to live, she told herself, she had to stop stalking Lulu. She had to think. She had to stop acting like a crazy person and take control of the situation. She had to escape and call 911.
She needed a plan.
From there in the hall, she could turn left and head out through the front door to the driveway, or she could head down into the basement if, only if, she could get by Bandit.
The basement was safer. Once she got in and shut the door, no one would hear her head down the steps, not in bare feet. But could she get up the outside stairwell? She had to keep her heart rate low. The harder her heart pumped, the more blood she’d lose.
A cry rang out from the kitchen, and that voice she knew.
It was Nikolai’s.
CHAPTER 33
“DON’T SHOOT ME!” Nikolai cried from inside the kitchen.
Down the hall, the doctor sneaked closer. At the end of the hall, the kitchen door was left open a crack.
Lulu stood near the patio doors, beyond the island. She’d pulled the gun and pointed it straight at the boy’s face.
“Shut up, dumb ass.”
Nikolai raised his hands in surrender. He looked calm but his voice sounded weak.
“Okay. But don’t. Please don’t.”
“Yeah, don’t shoot,” Josh said, coming to the young boy’s defense. “Someone will hear you. Listen, Lulu—”
“What?” Lulu snapped.
“A month ago, before I left, I flushed twog’s of tar in the basement. Maybe it’s still in the pipes down there. Let’s all look for a drain snake thing and we can relax. Okay? We did this. It’s over. My mom’s gone. We’re good.”
Lulu frowned and looked at Nikolai. “Fine. Do you want to get high with us?”
Nikolai shook his head slowly no.
“See!” she said. “Let’s take him out. What is he even doing here?”
Behind the patio doors it was dark, and the doors caught splashes of light from the range clock and the icemaker. Impossible to see through the windows to the yard.
“My mother’s here,” Nikolai begged. “In the pool house.”
“I’ll shoot her, too,” Lulu said. “It’s no problem.”
“Wait, where’s Masha?” Josh said.
“She moved out,” replied Nikolai. “She’s my aunt.”
“Masha? Masha’s your aunt?”
“We’ve been staying here now.”
“Shit,” Josh said, and turned and looked at Lulu. “I didn’t know.”
“Exactly, so let’s just take them all out.”
