Finding Hope

Chapter Nine

Winter

     I don't know what I'm doing. I can't control my hands as they reach through the door. I only watch as my hands get bloody. I can't feel them. I know some of the blood is mine, but most of it is Eric's. I hear the sound of my fist hitting his face. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. Before I know it I've lost count.

     I feel two small hands on my shoulders, screaming, violently trying to pull me off of him.

I hit him three more times, even though he's long past unconscious.

     I lean back and wipe under my lip with my wrist, a thin trail of blood following where I dragged my hand.

     The ringing in my ears stops. I didn't even notice it.

"-off of him!" The woman jerks at my shoulder again, and I slowly get out of the car, walking towards Cassidy.

     I kneal by her head as the woman frantically sobs at the mans chest.

     I wince at what I know I have to do. I grab the handle of the knife in Cassidy's stomach and I pull. It comes out with resistance. Cassidy lets out a wail.

"Cassidy," I whisper. "They'll be here soon. I'm sorry."

Her dad is close to tears, but I just look at her face. It looks like she can't even feel the pain. She's pale and sweaty. Her lip trembles, but her eyes. Her eyes are warm and amused, almost. Amused maybe at the fact that we just got back from the hospital, and now we're going back. Amused, maybe at the fact that this woman trusted the man enough to let her around her children. Amused, maybe at the look on my face. Or maybe at her parents' reactions.

     The woman screams. Jesus. I think. He isn't even dead.

Cassidy's mom speaks calmly into the phone, explaining her condition to the operator.

Within minutes I hear sirens. Two sets of wails, a cop car and a ambulance. Or two ambulances, depending on what Cassidy's mom told them.

     They appear in front of the house, and I see two ambulances and a cop car. 

     A woman and a middle-aged man get out of one ambulance and run to the car. Another two men rush to Cassidy with a gourny.

     I slide out of the way as the men slip her onto the white sheet. They press a cloth to the wound and put an oxygen mask on her face. Her mother accompany her and they load Eric onto a gourny.

Cop car. Cop car. I just beat a man. Cop car.

     "Winter Louss?" A man in a blue police uniform asks me.

I nod.

     "Will you stand up and put your hands behind your back?" He asks, obviously not wanting to arrest me.

I comply, wiping my hands on my shirt to get the blood off. "Do you want me to? I'm bloody." I say, looking over my shoulder.

     The man ignores me, placing the cuffs on my wrists.

The woman that was sobbing walks uo in front of me. "You," her voice is threatening. "You bastard." She slaps me across my cheek. My face turns with the force of it, but I'm used to getting slapped. It doesn't hurt.

     The man puts me in the back of the car and shuts the door. We drive to the police station.