Chapter Seven #2
He drops his arm from my shoulder and fumbles for his key, but his hand is trembling too violently to make contact with the lock.
I snatch the key from him, unlock the door, push it open with my foot and help him across the room, unceremoniously tossing him onto his bed.
‘Gentle,’ he says with a pained hiss.
‘I’m not your nurse. If you refuse to go to the hospital, this is what you get. Now, wait here while I find something to clean you up.’
‘Wait here? I was planning on going out for a burger and hitting the clubs.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ I whisper to myself.
I retreat to my room and lean against the wall with my eyes squeezed shut. My hands shake at my sides, my heart still racing. That could have turned out so much worse. So, so much worse. Another image of Celeste flashes behind my eyes. Nope, nope, not going there .
I shrug off my jacket and take a couple of quiet breaths in a failed attempt to calm down, then grab my bag and rummage through it, pulling out the first-aid kit I packed at the last moment.
I had a feeling I would need it. I drop my bag back onto my bed, and that’s when I notice the adjoining door.
It’s perfectly camouflaged, covered in the same hideously patterned wallpaper that adorns the walls.
But there it is, a door linking my room with Callum’s.
You have got to be kidding me .
I click the lock, close my hand around the brass handle concealed within a swirl of gold, and fling open the door.
Callum leaps about a foot off his bed.
‘Was this your idea?’ I ask.
‘I would like to take credit for it, but no. I appreciate it, though.’ He gives me a weak smile.
He looks terrible. He’s pale, even paler than usual, and he’s sweaty and slumped awkwardly on his bed.
‘Take your shirt off,’ I say.
‘That’s a bit forward, Holly.’
‘Callum, can you take your shirt off or not?’
‘I might need a hand.’
I eye him suspiciously, but as he struggles to remove his jacket, I can tell he’s hurting.
‘Hold on.’ I help him slip his jacket off one arm, then the next as he hisses and grunts and groans.
I need to get to the wound, but also want to check if he’s broken a rib or three, and I can’t see how we can get his T-shirt off without a lot of pain, so I ask, ‘This isn’t a favourite in your collection of black T-shirts, is it? ’
He looks confused, his eyebrows bunching.
I pull a pair of scissors from my first-aid kit and begin to cut his T-shirt away.
‘Kinky,’ he says.
I pause the scissors mid-snip. ‘Callum, stop trying to be cute. You don’t have to put on a tough act all the time.’
He stares directly into my eyes and says, ‘I could say the same to you.’
I squirm. It was a good comeback. I always have my game face on and my walls up. Vulnerability and fear are things I learnt to hide a long time ago. I had to. I wouldn’t have survived otherwise.
I breathe out long and slow, relaxing my shoulders, letting my face soften.
‘Okay, so both of us can drop the act and be freaked out as much as we want. Now, let’s get this shirt off so we can sort that wound. Are you in a lot of pain?’
‘I’ve had worse.’
‘So you keep saying.’
I pull the remnants of his bloody T-shirt away, and look around for somewhere to drop it where it won’t stain the mint green decor. Balling it up, I take it to the bathroom instead and toss it in the tub.
‘Okay, how’s it—’
When I step back into his room Callum is facing me, bare-chested, the towel still pressed to his side. I’ve been so focused on cutting his shirt off, I’m not prepared for what’s beneath it.
The stomach I got a glimpse of in my office has muscles I was not expecting, and his now naked shoulders somehow seem even broader. But he also looks anxious and frightened, and I don’t remember ever seeing him this shaken before.
He blinks at me, chewing on his lip. Then he forces out a smile.
‘Right,’ I say, not moving. ‘Right,’ I say again, this time a little firmer. I sit on the bed beside him and pour antiseptic onto a cotton pad, which quivers in my shaking hands. Adrenaline. It’s just adrenaline . ‘This is going to sting.’ I gently dab at the cut that runs just below his ribs.
His lets out a muffled groan and grabs my arm. ‘Sorry,’ he says, but he doesn’t let go.
‘Hang in there,’ I say. ‘I’m almost done.’
I dip my face to check his wound, gently touching the skin around it, now smeared brown with iodine. He’s warm. I’m warm. I look up and he’s watching me.
‘I think you might be right,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t look that bad. Just a lot of blood.’
‘I told you it was just a scratch.’
‘I still think it could do with a couple of stitches.’ I dab at him again and he jerks.
‘That stuff stings like a son of a bitch.’ A crooked grin twitches on his pale lips. ‘You’re enjoying hurting me, aren’t you?’
I smile and say, ‘More than I could ever express.’
I use butterfly strips to hold Callum’s wound together and cover it with a non-stick dressing, then clean two small cuts on his arm and cover them with Band-Aids.
After some pushing and prodding, and the occasional yelp from Callum, we both agree he hasn’t broken anything.
The only thing left to do is clean up the nicks on his face.
I reposition myself and, without thinking, rest my hand on his thigh as I pull myself closer.
He sucks back a breath, his muscles flexing beneath my palm.
Gently placing my other hand under his chin, I lift Callum’s face to catch the light.
He leans into me and closes his eyes. My heart races.
My adrenaline must still be pumping from what happened at the house, because it can’t be anything to do with how close his face is to mine.
Or his lips. Or his thigh under my touch.
He winces again as I clean a tiny cut on his cheek. ‘Sorry, nearly done.’
His eyes open and he looks at me.
‘No, Holly, I’m sorry. I could’ve been really hurt tonight. I should never have put either of us in that situation. Especially knowing what you’ve already been through. It was stupid and thoughtless.’
My hand still cups his chin as he stares at me, his gaze locked to mine. He’s so close, just a couple of inches closer and my mouth would be on his.
He breathes out, his tongue swiping across his bottom lip.
Oh shit . I spring to my feet. Nope. Nope. Nope .
‘I think you’ll live,’ I say.
I bend to pick up the mess of cotton pads and discarded Band-Aid wrappers from the floor, but I can feel his eyes still on me and I need to be out of this room right now.
I straighten up so fast the blood rushes to my head and Callum reaches out to steady me as I wobble.
I take a quick step back, putting some distance between us.
‘We can sort this mess out in the morning. Do you need painkillers or anything?’ Callum’s eyes are still on mine as I awkwardly stumble backwards across the room.
‘I’m okay,’ he says quietly. ‘But… do you think you could leave the door between our rooms open a crack? I’m kind of freaked out.’
‘Oh. Of course. Sure.’ Then I remember what he said at the house. ‘You said you saw someone at the house tonight. What exactly did you see?’
‘I saw a woman.’
‘At the window?’
He nods.
‘Are you positive?’
‘Yeah. No. I mean, I think so. She was looking out the window at us, but when I got closer to the house, she was gone. Then boom .’
I frown. ‘It wasn’t a reflection or anything?’
‘Do reflections explode?’ His eyes widen. ‘You really didn’t see anything?’
‘I felt something. There’s obviously something very wrong at that house. But I didn’t see… Callum, you’ve never seen spirits before, right?’
‘No.’
‘Not on any of your investigations?’
He slowly shakes his head. ‘Nope. Never. But that can’t be what happened, can it? I must have imagined it.’
‘Do imaginary things explode? I think spirits can choose to reveal themselves to certain people because they want something or need something. But it’s usually someone with a deep connection to the spirit.
Like a husband or a wife. Spirits have no choice with me, I can see them whether they want me to or not… ’
‘But I don’t have a connection to this place, unless you count wanting to investigate it… It doesn’t make sense.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
A deep crease settles between his eyes.
‘Don’t think about it tonight,’ I say. ‘We can go over it more tomorrow. There are a few things we should discuss.’ What happened tonight has made me realise that we’re dealing with something big, something unknown.
And that means I should probably tell Callum about my dreams, the pull I feel from the house.
‘Things we should discuss? That sounds ominous,’ he says.
‘Just try to sleep. I’ll leave the door open, call out if you need anything.’
As I flick off the light, through the darkness, I hear him quietly say, ‘Thanks for looking after me, Holly.’