3. Luna
Blackwell.
That’s the name scrawled in dark green pen across the whiteboard pinned to the door as I stand before room twelve.
The three men from before are already inside, standing over their unconscious brother, even though I’m pretty certain they shouldn’t be. But I saw the doctor speak with them only a short while ago, looking around before she ushered them inside, and there they’ve remained since.
Eight hours of surgery and one retrieved bullet later, the man lives.
For now.
I’m not sure why death follows me so closely, but it does, and everyone seems to know it.
As though they can sense the dark cloud haloing my head, the black cloak covering my shoulders, billowing out behind me as I traipse through the sterile white halls. Marking patients’ ends as I pass with nothing more than my presence.
I’m not sure any of that is really true, but it feels that way.
It’s why I hover outside this room now.
I’m supposed to be checking the patient’s stats hourly now that the senior nurse has declared him stable, but I can’t bring myself to cross the threshold, not after he was saved.
What if I ruin that?
I shouldn’t even be here now, my shift ended an hour ago, but Swiftson told me I had to work an extra half shift, so I won’t leave here now ’til at least midday.
Indecision makes my head hurt the longer I stare at the closed door. I take a step back, immediately knocking into someone, the breath punching out of me as I spin around, my pen clattering to the ground.
“Honestly!” Felicity shrieks. “What are you doing standing in the middle of the walkway?!” she spits at me, lips pulled into a sneer. “You’re supposed to be checking on the criminal!” Criminal? “Do you ever do what you’re told, you little freak?” She tucks a wisp of bleached-blonde hair behind her ear, smoothing her hands down on either side of her head as though bumping into me has ruffled her into a complete flustered mess. “Like, how is it we get paid the fucking same but only one of us is actually any good at the job?” she huffs through her nose, pinching her lips together tightly. “It’s not fucking logical.”
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly, dropping my gaze, fingers blanching white the harder I grip the edges of my blue clipboard. “I didn’t see you. It was an accident.”
“Yeah, well, clearly you being born was a fucking accident.” I glance up at that, the way she says it, so dismissive, so viscous.
Cutting.
Something heavy develops in my chest.
“I said I was sor-”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re sorry. Lunatic Luna’s always so fucking sorry. You always this sorry when your patients drop dead, too?” Felicity cocks her head, her light eyes wide, brows lifted high on her head, as though the mocking is a legitimate question.
Brow collapsing, my nose scrunches, an involuntary reaction to her words, but my eyelids feel hot and my chest feels tight and I just want her to stop paying me any attention at all.
“You’re such a fucking weirdo,” she scoffs when I don’t answer. Dropping her hands to her thighs, she bends forward, putting her face right into mine, cocking her head, “Good luck in there, Loony,” she whispers.“I hear they’re all killers too.” She lifts a hand to my face, her fingertip bopping the tip of my nose with every word as she sing-songs, “Just. Like. You.”
With that, she straightens, strutting away, her long legs carrying her down the corridor. End of her blonde braid swishing across the tops of her shoulder blades like a swinging scythe.
Only when she’s disappearing around the corner do I take in my first real breath since bumping into her. My lungs burn, and my heart thuds hard in my ears, but I need to do my job before she tattles on me again. I really need this job. It’s the only thing I have that’s mine.
Rolling my shoulders back, I dip down to retrieve my pen at the same time another hand, this one large and tanned with pale green veins ridged along the back of it, beats me to it.
In a crouch, I glance up, the formal suited brother holds out my pen, clicking the end of it to retract the nib as he offers it to me, “Your pen, Miss…?”
“Oh, um, well, Lu- Beaumont, but everyone calls me loon- Luna,” I shake my head, pushing up to stand, the man’s scent making my head spin, salt and leather, something sharp like a lightning storm. “I’m Luna,” I whisper on an exhale, dropping my head, I reach out slowly, taking my lime green pen from his fingers as he too comes to stand, and shove it quickly into my breast pocket.
“Well, Luna, it is nice to officially meet you,” the man doesn’t smile, but his words sound kind and truthful.
On an exhale, I offer a tight smile, dropping my eyes back down to the ground.
“You need to come in?” he asks me, reaching past me to plant his hand flat against the door, pushing it inwards.
My eyes roll towards the small opening, the other two men still stand over their brother, side by side like sentry guards. I suck on the inside of my cheek, squashing it between my molars, contemplating entering the room.
The man holding the door pushes it wider, an invitation, as though he can sense my hesitation. But I take it for what it is, letting him prop open the door, I step inside, and as he follows me in, the doors swinging closed at our backs, it feels as though all the air in the room gets sucked right out.
All eyes fall to me, my steps feeling heavy as I move towards the bed. Head lowered, I reach the monitor, snagging the pen from my pocket, I scribble down the figures and diagnostics on my clipboard, checking the level left in the IV and making a note of it.
Nobody speaks as I work, but the weight of their collective gazes feels like boulders slowly building on my shoulders. Sweat beads along my spine, moisture gathering at the nape of my neck, my eyelids feel hot and my vision feels blurry, eyes bulging in their sockets. Studying the steady graph of the patient’s heartbeat, I start to count every spike inside my head. Making a few final notes on my board, I click my pen, tucking it back inside my pocket and then turn to make my way back out of the door.
“Luna.”
Hearing my name stops me still. The smartly dressed man with a voice just as smooth as his suit makes my spine rigid as I face the doors out into the hall. The clipboard feels heavy in my hands, short fingernails cutting crescents into the plastic coated board. I worry that he heard before, what Felicity said, what she called me. I worry he’s about to say he doesn’t want me inside this room anymore checking on his family member.
Instead, he calls out a politely spoken, “Thank you.”
And it feels sincere.
June is supposed to be dry, but it’s raining as I make my way home, taking the shortcuts through side roads and back alleys. Raindrops pelt down like bullets as they hit the top of my head, soaking into my black hair and running down my neck, my forehead, dripping into my lashes. It feels nice though, the coolness of it, because despite the rain it’s still warm.
Cars drive by, their tyres speeding through puddles gathering along the side of the road, dirty water splashing up the sides of my legs as they pass, soaking into my beige linen trousers. The material gets heavier and heavier the wetter they get, the band around my waist sagging low on my hips the further I walk.
It’s only when my toes cross the threshold of my garden path that the rain miraculously stops. I squint up at the sun breaking through the clearing wisps of cloud, the heat of the rays washing over me like a blanket of warmth. I spend just a moment enjoying it, the way the heat feels prickling across my pale skin, the little hairs on my arms drying and dancing in the light breeze. Eyes shut, I tilt my head back, bathe in the sunlight for the first time in years, and then I drop my gaze, straighten my neck on my shoulders and pull my shoulders back.
At the end of the straight brick pathway, dotted with weeds and yellow dandelions growing between the red blocks, is a large, two story, Victorian house. Two intricately carved white pillars on either side of the front door support a small, square balcony above enclosed by rusting, white, metal railings. Large Sash windows line both levels, three huge windows on either side of the balcony and front door below.
It looks like a fancy home that just needs a little love, but inside, it needs something else.
Steps slow, I swallow, making my way towards the front door, feeling my breaths coming a little too fast. Anxiety claws inside of my chest like a wild animal trying to break free, and for a fleeting moment, I allow it.
The panic.
Fear.
I’m twenty-nine years old, but when I step inside this house, I’m still the same frightened six year old little girl that was sent here to live with an estranged uncle she’d never met.
It was terrifying that first year.
Now I’m almost numb.
“Luna,” Uncle Nolan calls from the parlour as I try as quietly as possible to close the creaky front door, shutting out the sunlight for the darkness. “Come in here.”
The first burn of tears heats the backs of my eyes, nostrils flaring as I breathe in deep, the musty air of the foyer infecting the back of my throat giving me the urge to cough. Dry and gritty, I swallow down the feeling, letting the shudder rip through my chest to settle the internal tremor.
“Luna!”
My feet move before I can think about it, a small smile curling my mouth in auto response to his summoning, it’s not worth wearing anything less.
The parlour has extravagant high ceilings, carved coving connecting walls to ceiling, a smooth, decorative finish that’s covered in cobwebs and dust, greying out the pearly white finish. There are huge portraits and art pieces in gold filigree frames lining the forest-green, damask wallpapered walls. And heavy, velvet drapes in raincloud silver, thick with dust, blocking out the world beyond the panes.
Uncle Nolan sits in a sage green leather armchair, smoking his usual Hamlet cigar, a putrid stench that’s ingrained in every inch of this house. A newspaper open over his knee, one leg folded across the other, his foot dressed in expensive leather bounces casually as he reads over the black and white news spread.
Uncle Nolan is a large, trim man, his lean, muscular build dressed impeccably in a pale grey pinstripe suit. Jacket folded neatly over the arm of the opposite chair, his white shirt sleeves rolled up neatly to his elbows, waistcoat still buttoned, pocket watch still attached, but his tie is removed, the tail of it peeking out from his trouser pocket.
It isn’t fair that he looks the way he does. The way he makes my skin crawl should, by right, make him ugly. A beast with a snarling, dripping maw, glowing red orbs and razor-sharp talons blading from his hands.
Instead, he has warm green eyes that he can make look soft and inviting, and a smile that could outshine even Her Majesty’s crown jewels when he wants to be charming. His dark hair is just starting to grey at his temples, but in a way that makes him appear youthful for his age.
Those green eyes spear me on the spot as I stop behind an empty armchair matching the one in which he sits. Fingers curling over the back of the worn leather, I wait patiently for him to speak. Ignoring the other men he has stationed around the room. Security guards. Or something. I’m unsure what it is my uncle does, but I know whatever it is, it’s not something good. There are always armed men here, standing sentry around the house, every room, every hall. I have grown up here knowing not to pay them any attention.
Uncle Nolan doesn’t like it.
Already knowing what he’s upset with me about, I feel my breath funnel into my lungs as though it’s filtering through sludge. Leaning forward, he ashes his cigar in the crystal-cut ashtray opposite him on the pouffe, leaving it to rest there. His gaze scans over the parts of me he can see above the chair when he sits back, my white blouse clinging to my upper body where it’s saturated with water, my bundled hair dripping down my spine.
“You’re wet,” he states almost questioningly, despite the fact, I know, even with the curtains closed, that he knows it’s been raining outside.
I say nothing in response, holding his eye. He purses his lips, his head canting slightly to one side, as he rolls his gaze over me a second time, dismissively.
“Where have you been?” he asks smoothly, that slippery smile starting to worm itself onto his face.
I know he knows that too.
Because my uncle always knows everything about me.
“At work.”
A dark brow lifts easily on his forehead, and the look he gives me slides like melting ice down my spine, “Did I give you permission to be outside of this house during the day, Luna?” He twists the gold jewellery he always wears around on his right ring finger, a big circular signet ring with the letter B embellished in it.
The tremble is involuntary, I couldn’t stop it if I tried, “No, sir,” I respond quietly.
“No,” he tuts, sighing with a slow shake of his head as though he hates to be having this conversation. His short hair is perfectly lacquered to sit to one side, unmoving when he smooths a hand over it, before running it down his chest, dropping his arm to rest his wrist on the leather arm of the chair, hand hanging over the edge. “And you didn’t even think it pertinent to call.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Mm, you don’t look very sorry to me.” I blink, my tummy flip-flopping as he wets his lips. “You didn’t call me, so I have had no idea what you have been doing or where you have been for the last five hours. Not only did you not ask me permission to work an extra half shift. You did not call me. And apparently, you also think it appropriate to walk around outside in public,” he sneers at my white blouse like it is a thing of disgust, “like that.”
“I’m sor-”
“I thought you were lying dead in a ditch somewhere, worried sick, and all you are is sorry?” his dark brows lift high on his head, expression open for my response, but I don’t give one, this is how it always goes. “That’s what I thought.”
He tuts, uncrossing and recrossing his legs over the opposite knee. He turns his attention back to his paper, lifting it up so it’s open before him to read once more. Long seconds of silence drag by before those menacing green eyes flick back up, finding mine once more. My bottom lip trembles, my insides sinking at the look of cold violence in his gaze.
“You’re dismissed. Go upstairs and wait for me in the bedroom.”