Chapter 16
Brody
I was in the office in town when I felt the effects of whatever the fuck Selena had put in my smoothie. I felt sick, a feeling I rarely felt. Then all hell had broken loose.
Hours later, I was finally starting to feel better, at home, mainlining mineral water and sleeping it off.
I showered and had just sat down to look at the reading I needed to do over the weekend, when Selena’s door slammed next to mine.
So, the poisoner was home. I had spent a lot of time over the last few hours to imagine terrible things befalling the little heathen and coming up with a plan.
I’d already put food for dinner in Selena’s room. And I’d attached the fitting for a padlock to the outside of her bedroom door, right at the bottom, which I’d been betting she didn’t notice, as it was pretty discreet. Now, I got up calmly and left my room, stopping outside her room.
“Selena, let’s talk.”
Silence met my words. Great, now she was ignoring me.
“I’m coming in,” I warned and tried the door. Predictably, it was locked. So, plan B it was, then. I took a padlock out my pocket, fitted it through the loop on the door, and closed it.
“When you want to talk, let me know,” I called and then went back to my room.
I tried to study. I did try, but any noise from her room distracted me. How was she being so quiet in there? What was she doing?
My phone chimed continuously. Some asshole, probably Marcus, had shared my number with the team’s puck bunnies, and now I was invited to every single party on campus for the foreseeable future.
I didn’t bother responding. There was nothing I’d like to do less than go and be around a bunch of drunk people, and have some girl who didn’t know me from Adam fawning over me because of my last name.
Then, I heard it: the sound of glass breaking. It was in the bathroom.
I looked over in that direction, and the picture frame holding a snap of me, Cal, and Emily, only weeks before she’d died, caught my eye. There was a crack in the glass. Somehow, the sight of the jagged shards splintered across Emily’s face had me on my feet.
I was up at the door before I could stop myself.
“What are you doing in there?” I demanded.
Silence.
“Tell me right now, or I’m coming in. I don’t care if you want me to or not.”
More silence.
“Fine. You asked for this,” I warned her and unlocked the Jack-and-Jill door from my side. To my relief, it opened. She hadn’t checked to see that my side was locked, probably unwilling to escape her room if it meant going through my bedroom.
Darkness met my eyes. It was early evening, but the bathroom didn’t get much light at the best of times, given that big trees blocked its windows. I pushed the door open, and it creaked slightly.
“Selena?” I called.
A sound came from the left side. It was a strange sound. Alien somehow. The only word I could think to describe it was an old Gaelic word.
A keening.
It sent cold rushing through me. My eyes adjusted to the murky light, and I followed the sound to her.
She was lying on her side, rolled in a ball, rocking back and forth. That horrible keening sound was coming out of her mouth, pulled open with some terrible emotion, one too horrible to keep inside. Her eyes were open and unseeing.
“Selena.” I crouched in front of her.
She didn’t see me.
“Selena, snap out of it!” I clicked my fingers in front of her face, but it had no effect.
There was a smell. One I knew well. Like hot copper.
Blood. Dark patches dotted the white tile beneath her hands, and panic surged through me.
“Where are you hurt?” I demanded, touching her hand.
As soon as my hand made contact with hers, the keening cut off, and she was slapping at me.
Not just slapping, biting, and scratching.
Coming alive like a wildcat, she attacked me.
I wasn’t sure what the hell was happening, so it took a second to decide what the fuck to do.
Her fingernails raked my cheek, scoring deep.
I swore and grabbed her wrists, restraining her feral hits.
She screamed, and my blood ran cold. This wasn’t the same kind of rivalry we’d been involved in up until now. This was something else.
She bucked and convulsed against me. I pulled her closer to my chest. The sound of broken glass crunching under my feet caught my attention.
I had shoes on. She didn’t. With a muttered curse, I bent down and got her around the waist, hoisting her over my shoulder.
She screamed, raining blows down across my back as I marched her out of the bathroom and into my bedroom.
I dropped her onto the bed, purposefully using the rough momentum to confuse her, so I could position myself to get a grip.
I lunged across her, straddling her waist, and pinned her arms above her head.
“What the fuck is going on?” I growled at her.
She stared up at me, her eyes glazed and unseeing. Her arms were streaked with blood.
“Answer me!” I demanded in a near roar. I couldn’t let go of her arms, or she’d be free to attack me again. I needed her to listen. I needed to find where she was bleeding from.
Abruptly, I lowered my forehead to hers, and she stilled.
“Selena Carmichael, I don’t know where the fuck you’ve gone, but it’s time to come back.” I looked into her eyes from point-blank range. “Come on, little heathen. Come back, calm down, and tell me what the hell happened.”
Slowly, piece by piece, I watched her drag the parts of herself together. Her eyes cleared, through tears ran endlessly out of them, dropping down her temples and into her hair.
“Breathe,” I ordered.
She immediately complied, her chest rising.
“In for four, out for eight, do it now,” I continued.
Her breath stuttered, and I shook her. “I said, do it.”
She swallowed hard and then did it. Minutes passed as she calmed her nervous system down. The fight ebbed out her muscles, and the manic look slipped from her eyes, leaving only sadness in its wake.
Why was this girl the way she was? This was no rebellion. This was something else.
“Good girl,” I murmured, when she’d calmed enough for me to let go of her hands.
She didn’t try to run off when I let go and rose, sinking back onto my heels. I looked down at her body and my T-shirt. Both streaked with blood.
“What happened?” I asked her.
She stared at the ceiling and shook her head. I got her message. She didn’t want to talk about it.
Still, I had to know. I slowly got up and went back to the bathroom.
Turning the light on, I looked for the glass.
It was broken all over the floor, but there was one particular shard that caught my attention.
It was stained with blood in a very precise way, delicately painted down one edge. That wasn’t an accident.
She’d cut herself with this. I could feel it in my bones. I held the glass and straightened. What the fuck was I supposed to do with this information?
I walked back to the bedroom to find that she’d turned over, stuck her face into my pillow, and appeared to be… asleep? Passed out?
Perplexed, I stood there and watched her for a while, and then went to clean up the glass.
“What was all that?” Cal appeared in the hallway as I walked past with the glass wrapped in newspaper.
I told him what had happened.
He raised an eyebrow. “That’s a trauma response.”
I tilted my head to the side. I trusted Cal’s expertise in the area of therapy and mental health. He’d never shied away from understanding himself and his past, trying to conquer it.
“A trauma response? What happened to her?” I muttered to myself more than anyone.
Cal shook his head. “I don’t know, but I heard one of the random, lesser-player assholes on the Hellions team call her something behind her back the other night. That might be related.”
“What did he call her?”
Cal’s jaw clenched, a sign of the distaste he felt at repeating the words.
“He called her damaged goods.”
I reared back from that statement, such words offensive to hear.
I thought about her drinking and the way she hated anyone to have authority over her.
The way she dressed like she was hiding in plain sight.
The way she tried to numb herself any way she could, even if it was with cough syrup, a fact the housekeeper had brought to my attention when she’d asked if someone was ill, as she’d noticed the medicine depleting.
“Who said it? Who called her that?” I asked my brother.
He grimaced. “If I tell you, promise you won’t get us kicked off the team before we’ve even played a game?”
“I’ll never get you kicked off the team, I promise,” I reassured him. After I got the name, I continued downstairs to throw away the glass.
I pulled my T-shirt off and shoved it in the laundry basket. I poured a glass of water and stared at my reflection in the kitchen window, which overlooked the outdoor pool.
Damaged goods. The guy who had said that would be having a talk with me. The scratch from Selena’s slap was a long, deep scratch mark across my left cheek. Just the thought reminded me of the blood on my white T-shirt and on Selena’s arms.
I grabbed the medical kit from over the counter and went back to my room.
Selena was out cold. Had she taken something? Was this the violent end of a bad trip? But Cal’s words turned over in my mind. Damaged goods. There was a whole story there, and I needed to know it.
I set the medical kit beside the bed and made my way to the bathroom. I washed my face and filled a glass with warm water. The scratch looked to be superficial.
I went back to my bed, sitting on the edge, and studied her. She wasn’t stirring. Either she’d taken something or she was exhausted.
I wet some cotton wool from the medical kit and started to clean her arms. I found the row of cuts high up on her inner arm. A part that would usually be hidden.
It wasn’t the only thing I found.
Old scars, precise and methodical, marching in short, straight rows along her inner arms.
She had spared her lower arm. Well, it wasn’t unmarked, but the mark there was different.
It looked like… a burn of some kind. Something hot had melted the skin. I couldn’t make out the symbol, the inside was too muddled with disfigured skin, but the circle was too perfectly round to be any accident.
It looked like a brand you might see on cattle.
I ran my finger over it, my thoughts quiet. The silence in my head was deafening.
I put antiseptic on the fresh cuts and taped a large, clean piece of gauze over them.
Then I tucked her arms under the covers. I cleaned up slowly. It was my way. Everything in its place. Except for her. When I finished, I sank into the leather armchair in the corner and watched her sleep.
Should I move her back to her room? Should I sleep somewhere else? Was it wise to leave her on her own?
Tiredness weighed down on me. When I couldn’t keep my eyes open one more second, I got up, went over to the free side of the bed, and slid in.
No. I wouldn’t be leaving her alone. No fucking way.