Devour

Chapter 6 - Pasch

Evening draws slowly upon the old house. We do the rest of our lessons soon upon our return from town, then we set about fixing dinner from whatever is left in the pantry. That winds up being beans and toast and sausages. Not overly appealing, but our shipment of goods is, as usual, late. 

After the long walk into town everyone is rather subdued. Cora focuses on our lessons then our dinner, Errol backs her up with that generally and helps Jules with his homework. He's overly quiet. Errol is. He dislikes run ins with the local police in general but more than that he's concerned about the others' reaction. He knows Dax and Emma just want to help and do good things. But they'll never be allowed to.

"No cats at the table, go put him outside," Cora says, patting my shoulder. I realize I've been absentmindedly cradling my new orange tabby, Sunshine.

"It'll be cold tonight," I say, obeying anyway.

"They know they can sleep in the barn," Errol says. He has no regard nor sympathy for my pets. Treated like an animal himself for the majority of his life, spending the first twenty years or so of it in a cage, he has relatively little sympathy for most any plight which is not, in fact, being chained to the wall and given powerful electric shocks multiple times a day. That's to an extent understandable, but you see the thing is I don't care.

"Emma no books at the table, we're going to eat now," Cora says, as she ushers us to wash our hands.

"Sorry," Emma hurries to put it up in the living room. She's started War and Peace. It is quite thick for her but she feels ridiculously clever reading it. I quit following along after a few pages it's dull for my taste.

"Jules, wash again how you are you still grubby?" Errol asks, turning him back around to go wash again. No not with his hands he can't use those very well. Most his fingers are mashed together and all of them are crooked. He thinks about that fire every goddamn day. Lying there, screaming in agony, wanting to just die. Trying to crush his own skull just to be out of the torment. Then. Eventually. Hands. Hands rolling him over.

"Stay back!! Stay back!" people were shouting.

"I'm going to give you morphine. It's all I have, okay? I'm going to inject in in your arm," a voice, terrified, but unable continue watching the torture.

"Please," Errol whispered.

"Okay, okay I'm going to inject it I'm trying to help you. I don't----I don't know if you'll be okay."

It didn't knock him out. That first shot didn't. He just kept lying there in agony. Then eventually someone qualified or whatever shit came and loaded him up onto a stretcher. And that hurt terribly. And then they did succeed in knocking him out. Sometimes he can still smell his own burning skin.

"Wash your hands after that cat," Errol says, consciously or unconsciously pushing me from his mind.

"I wasn't going to," I say, flippantly, going to obey.

"You have another headache?" Cora asks, frowning. Errol is tossing Excedrin into his mouth, chewing it up.

"Yeah um, this day," he says. Well, I have been in his head a bit today. I should quit. Will I? Possibly not, he did already take the medicine.

"Nel, you've been quiet, anything up?" Errol asks. He suspects she's upset over the police station incident today.

"I just wish we could have done something. That girl is missing somewhere, and why would she run away without a bag?" Nel asks, upset.

"The police are looking into it. They just don't have any need for us right now," Cora says. The police were not looking into it enough. They thought the parents did something that's why the parents didn't want to talk to us. I don't think the parents did something.