Conflicted (Brothers Conflict)

Chapter Five

Time flew by, the season for the underground cage fighting league had ended, I wasn't number one of the rookies, but I made it to the top five and was voted fan favorite. It was finals week for the culinary program I'd been studying at. I was doing well in the culinary program and happy that it was my last week in France and I'd get to go back home, or to my new home, in a few short days. I couldn't wait to see Natsume and my little sister, Ema, though I wasn't looking forward to meeting all my new siblings. It probably would have been smart to try to learn all their names, but I figured introductions would be made when we met and I'd have a better chance committing them all to memory if I could put a face with the name.

Natsume had been unable to find out any more information about his new sister that was studying abroad and said his brothers were being oddly cryptic and annoying about it not even telling him her name, which seemed a tad mean for a joke, but I guessed boys had a different way of picking on one another. Ema and I didn't really pick on one another or play pranks on one another, we'd always been close and I'd always been protective of her, since I could remember.

My assigned group and I were working on our final assignment, we had to cater a fancy meal for all of our instructors. We each picked a course and set to work, I was in charge of dessert and set to work at a small space of countertop to slice some fresh fruits thin enough so I could use them as garnish and make roses out of them. One of my group mates, Aaron, was at the stove top with a stock pot with a delightful savory soup for the starter course. The oldest one in our group, Rita, was busy with the entrée. While the youngest in our group, May, scrambled about trying to find all the dishes we'd need while she waited on her side dishes to finish in the oven.

I finished garnishing the chocolate soufflés I'd made with the fruit flowers and set them to the side to cool and went to help Aaron as he was struggling to move his giant stock pot. May bustled back into the kitchen after her hunt for glasses, carrying two trays stacked with glasses and I had a brief sense of time stopping as I realized what was about to happen as the glasses began to teeter on the trays in May's hands.

My gaze flit to the counter and I reached for the stock pot lid as the glasses tumbled from May's tray broken shards littering the ground all around us. The shattering glass startled Aaron who jerked to look in the direction of the sound sloshing the boiling hot contents in the stock pot. The boiling liquid splashed upward and Aaron instinctively flinched and dropped the stock pot.

I cast my hand with the stock pot lid out blocking Aaron's face from the boiling contents and winced as the majority of it splashed onto my arm. Aaron jumped after realizing what had happened, only to slip in the contents of the soup now all over the glass covered floor, falling into me, taking me down with him.

My back hit the glass covered tile and I attempted to catch Aaron to keep him from falling face first onto the glass covered floor. May screamed uselessly behind us and I held back a string of profanities as Aaron fell on top of me causing more shards of glass to puncture my skin.

"EVIE!" Everyone screamed in a panic.

"Oh, god!" Rita cried, "Don't move, nobody move, I'm calling an ambulance!"

"I'd really appreciate it if Aaron got off of me." I protested weakly, my arm was in searing pain, my back felt like someone had just attacked me with a blender and I could feel the hot sticky substance of blood pooling underneath me instantly soaking the back of my chef jacket.

"Rita! Hurry!" May paled as she stared down at what I could only assume was a pool of blood, the glass had done some extensive damage.