Blood: The Third Course

Chapter Eighteen

Spencer stared at the paling dark through the sliver of window he had uncovered. He sat on the floor, his back against the side of the bath, in the same position he'd been sat for the last few hours, watching the progression of night. The rim of the bath dug into his back where it came over the tacky, polished chipboard panelling, and yet he focussed on it, pushed back against it, listening to the pain in his back instead of the absence of voices in his head. His temples throbbed with his pulse, his eyes watery and sore. His stomach swirled in a way he remembered all too well.

The time to leave would have been hours ago, right as the sun had set after Edeline walked out the door with the werewolf, Carson. He'd listened to her footsteps, the creak of the mattress as she got up and the clinks of the chain as she'd put it aside. He'd screamed until the voice inside his head was hoarse with it. He'd not uttered a sound, but he knew she had heard him. If she'd wanted to say anything to him, he'd not heard it, not that her gift had still been in his blood at that point.

He sung to himself as he watched the sliver of light move across the wall with the setting sun and finally disappear, anything to keep the quiet in his head at bay. He'd wrapped himself tight in the blankets stolen from the spare bed, and repeated lines from movies, waiting.

He could feel her blood in his body, working its way around, chemicals and hormones to be absorbed into his flesh or to fizzle into nothing. The drug was used up, but the rest was still there, needling at him, as intrusive and overwhelming as the voices she gave him.

The mirror lay in a thousand shattered pieces across the floor, reflecting the last of the night. Spencer clutched a piece tight in his hand. Blood slid along the edges and dripped in between the shards. His fingers stung with repeated cuts, and he pressed them harder to the tiled floor, a hundred bloodied fingerprints easing a little more of the curse from his body before the wound healed. He slashed each finger again and waited for the sun.

He heard the click of the door through his latest song choice, and realised that answered one question. He'd wondered if they'd left the door open, knowing the sunlight would trap him inside the room. Probably ripped down the covers on the windows too, it was what he'd do. He'd not dared go out to check, knowing the temptation would be too much. Hearing it open, the footsteps coming into the room, he remained silent, staring at the window. Carson back to finish the job, no doubt. Perhaps it was even Vince, coming to punish him for his broken words. But that smell, inching under the bathroom door, made his heart ache until tears sprang in his eyes. He was imagining it, he was sure. He cut his fingertips again: index, middle, ring, little. The scent of blood covered the offending smell like the blanket wrapped around him, hiding the crimes they had made of him, the cause of the monster it had made of him.

The door opened.

Spencer lifted his head and met his blue gaze. He looked over his pale drawn face, his blond hair usually so immaculate but now ruffled, his lips pursed and brow drawn.

"Spencer," he said.

His gaze drifted over the partially uncovered window, the broken glass, the bloody marks. He swept his foot across the floor, brushing aside the bigger shards, and came to Spencer's side, crouching beside him.

"Spence, what are you doing?"

Spencer closed his eyes and breathed. The voices weren't in his head. His voice wasn't in his head, and yet it was there, as deep within him as it had ever been.

"You shouldn't have come here, August."

"Are you addled? Of course I came."

"I shouldn't be here."