The Hornsey Bay Chapters

Chapter 8 - Blood and Rain

The cold and wet discomfort is forgotten momentarily as Alicia tries to rise to her hands and knees, but the incessant rain, combined with her jerking muscles, makes the task slippery and difficult.

The only thing she's 100% certain of is that Ranger's face is way too close to hers. Close enough to feel the whisper of his laboured breath against her cheek. Her chest pressed firmly against him is much too intimate, and she flushes a bright red with embarrassment while she scrambles awkwardly to lift her torso off the boy, apparently taking a nap on the steps just short of the front door.

"What the...?"

The rain around him smells of alcohol. Is he drunk? He's soaked, and judging by the watery red stains spreading over his light-coloured track-suit top, it's not all because of the rain.

She's recovering from her initial shock in time to gasp as another, worse shock takes her breath away. Ranger's usually pretty face is a mess of bruises and scrapes, and aside from the washed-out blotches on the outside of his clothing, a darker stain grows from the inside around a tear in his sweater. Alicia's hands are trembling uncontrollably, and it is now only partially due to the cold that has crept all the way into her marrow. It takes her a couple of nervous attempts before she successfully lifts his sweater to investigate the cause of the spreading stain.

If she were a screamer, she would've screamed right now if she had any breath left in her frozen lungs. As far as she can tell, there's a rather deep cut in the side of his upper stomach area. She's no expert, but it looks like a stab wound! Was he attacked? Suddenly scared, she glances around frantically, searching for signs of danger. All her built-in alarms are ringing.

Is the attacker still here?

Her eyes jump from the streaming vegetation, inspecting each branch of the big loquat tree growing in the small front yard. There's no one among its branches. The pedestrian gate was locked when she arrived, and the vehicle gates around the corner were closed when she passed them. The front door is firmly shut.

"Ranger! What happened? Is there someone here?" she asks, shaking him to wake him up.

"S-shook them off..."

That makes no sense to her. Whom did he shake off? His attackers? Did he run from them and collapse before he could unlock the door? Question after question rushes through Alicia's brain in rapid-fire succession. Ranger's house keys are clutched in one fist, his phone in the other, lending plausibility to her theory.

"Just hold on, I'm calling an ambula-"

"No."

He is trying to get up but failing, looking puzzled by his inability to sit up, and then he frowns at her as if he's only now noticing her presence. His semi-sitting position has brought his face far too close to hers again, close enough for her to see the golden flecks in his dark brown eyes. He blinks a couple of times and then looks down at his thighs, still frowning. Alice follows his gaze with her own and nearly dies of mortification.

She's straddling him!

Blushing hot enough to stop her painful shivering for a few seconds in a heat wave, she scrambles to her feet, losing her balance and footing more times than she's willing to admit. She constantly has to drag the skirt of her soggy dress off Ranger's head just to have it stubbornly return there again, wrapping his face in its wet embrace.

Is he laughing?!

He is sprawled, half dead and bleeding on the stairs of his home, and he is laughing at her! The guy really isn't human! At least he's not making embarrassing comments about the underwear she keeps on displaying to him while he's under her skirt.