365 Days

8

"It's a poison. And it's strong. I don't want to scare you, Kayla, but someone's trying to kill you. And if we're not careful, they might succeed."

"This isn't good."

I shook my head.

"Any idea how it got into my blood system?"

He shook his head. "No, sorry. I'm looking into it."

Any new symptoms?

Kayla looked up from the paper to face me. Large bags sat obvious under her eyes and she looked considerably thinner. "Insomnia's getting worse and I'm lucky when I can keep anything down. So no new symptoms, but they've worsened."

I bit my lip and looked to Peter.

"I'm looking into it," he said. "For now, ju--"

His voice cut out. I was wondering why he was just standing there, staring at me.

Then I realized his mouth was still moving.

He was still talking.

My hearing had gone.

I held up a hand and his mouth stopped. Kayla looked towards me with concern as I pushed on my ear, trying to get anything; even the ringing of high blood pressure would work. After a couple minutes, I gave up and brought out my notebook.

There goes my hearing.

Kayla looked at me a moment before taking the notebook from me and writing something down. When she was done, she flipped it around and showed it to me.

I'm so sorry.

I shrugged and took the paper from her.

I was expecting it. Peter, what were you saying?

I handed it over to them and waited. Peter took the pencil from me and started writing.

Nothing really. Just telling Kayla to just hang in there. I'm looking into it. Right now I'm trying to figure out how it got into her blood system. When I do, I'll get to you. It doesn't have a name, so it's going to be tricky. But I'll get it.

When I was finished reading it I nodded.

After Kayla and Peter left, I let myself drop onto a chair in the living room, feeling useless. I hadn't done anything but pull Joe into the situation, and that got him killed. I suppose his death brought Peter into it, but does that mean that he's in danger as well? Probably. Then that means I'm in danger? Yeah. Although I'm a different story. I'm going out either way.

I got up and picked a folder up off the counter. Peter had dropped it there when he first came. He had copied the pictures poloice photographers had taken at the crime scene Joe was killed at. Dropping back onto the couch, I opened it and leafed through the paper copies.

After a while of searching for anything that stuck out in the potographs, my finger slipped and my living room was covered in paper. I sat there staring at them for a while before moving to pick them up. As I did so, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. When I looked over, it jerked and was gone. I narrowed my eyes at the place it was a moment ago before deciding it was gone and went back to cleaning up the spilled file.

A rushed movement caught my attention and I looked back up. Outside my screen door was a light blue Ford speeding down the road. I abandoned what I was doing and ran for the door, stirring up the paper and destroying my pile.

It was turning the corner just as I made it outside, but I was close enough to it to read the license plate on the back.