The Heart of Beacon Heights

Dark Shadows

Chapter 8:

Dark Shadows

Strangely enough, Alison's first thought was not the blood on her hands or the pain on Emily's face. Strangely enough, it was the girls. Her babies. Because she had no idea if they were with Emily. And if they walked in and saw their mom hurt and bleeding she knew it would scar them for life. Her eyes darted around the room. She looked at Emily in a frantic panic.

Somehow, Emily managed to decipher exactly what was on Alison's mind.

"They're not here." She gripped her injury, huffing out a pained breath. "Lily and Grace aren't here. They're safe."

Alison nodded. She reached for her phone to call 911, but Emily stopped her, accidentally knocking it out of her hands. Alison saw it fall to the ground, Emily's blood smeared on the screen.

Emily grunted.

"Jesus Christ, Ali..." She held her palm tight against the injury. Alison saw her hand moving up and down rapidly as she tried to breathe through the pain.

All Alison could feel coursing through her veins was shock. For half a second she thought she was having another nightmare. The cops hadn't really come to her residence to tell her that Emily was dead. Maybe this was just a figment of her imagination. But then she looked at Emily's face, and she knew it was real.

"Sit...you...you need to sit." Alison stuttered out. She helped her move down against the bed. "I'm so sorry. I...I didn't know it was you." She looked at the wetness pooling on Emily shirt. "God, that's really bad."

Emily lifted her sweatshirt. She moved her fingers away from it to get a better look. The gash had a significant amount of blood flowing out of it, but it wasn't nearly as bad as she thought it was going to be.

"It's okay. I'm okay. It didn't go in as deep as I thought." Though she could see the fatty tissue and the torn muscles inside of the gaping hole. "It didn't hit anything internally."

"How can you know that?" Alison sat down next to her. She ran her fingers against her bloody skin. She felt sick to her stomach. She'd never been good with blood. "You need an ambulance..."

"I'd be dead if it was serious."

"Serious? You have a hole in your stomach..."

"Side." Emily corrected her. "There's a lot of padding there. It's just skin and muscle. Mostly muscle. You know I work out."

"This isn't a joke, Emily."

"I don't know. I've got some side-splitting laughter happening here..." She said through a pained smile.

Alison felt like melting into a puddle on the ground when she saw the sweet expression on Emily's face. Her eyes were the most soulful thing in the world.

God damn her smile...

Alison's eyes darted down to the injury and then back to Emily's face. She could see beads of sweat forming on her forehead and cheeks. But she was awake and alert.

Alison felt her panic dissipating. In her haste to try and defend herself she hadn't injured Emily as badly as she could have. And the stab wound didn't change the fact that Emily had been lying to her.

Her fear and terror was slowly being overshadowed by her frustration and anger. Had Emily been in town this whole time? And she hadn't contacted her? How could she leave her hanging like that? Emily knew how sensitive she was in these situations. She stared at her wife for a few seconds, still trying to get over the initial shock of it all.