Chapter 19
Blood seeps between my fingers, oozing too quickly from the harshly sliced laceration. Jagged and uneven slashes into both of my inner thighs, but my right one is worse, I started with it first. Emotion causing me to carve too deep. Stabbing the sharp scissors into my leg before butchering the blades through. I’ve done it before, but not like this.
My left thigh is bleeding too. A steady flow that beads, gathering along the length of the cut until it’s just enough to slip down the curve of my thigh. Pool on the base of the shower before the water washes it down the drain in a swirl of violent red. It’ll stop on its own, a towel, a little bit of pressure.
Heart hammering too hard, tightness in my chest, I feel light headed as it batters against my rib cage. My fingers squeeze my thigh, pain lighting up along the separated flesh. Fear licks over my skin, through my blood as it spills out between my fingers. There’s no medical kit in here, bandages, even plasters. I know this because I went through all of the cabinets immediately after Blaze cleared them out.
It’s how I knew about the scissors.
Tummy churning, I wet my red hands under the spray, my head spinning as I release the wound, watch the crimson leak between the two severed pieces of skin. Sickness lurches its way up my throat, a heave catching in my chest, I squeeze my eyes closed tight as my head spins, the room seeming to move with me.
It feels like I’m under water, my ears buzzing, muffled, that’s when I come to, my head pounding, cheek pressed against the base of the shower. It takes me a moment to blink, the room, the night, the cutting. All of it coming back to me in stuttered increments. Slow, rolling waves lapping at the inside of my skull, the edges of my consciousness. My tongue feels heavy in my mouth, teeth dry as I run my tongue over them. Swallowing hard, I blink again, the spray of the shower cooling as it continues to beat down on my foot. Goosebumps skittering across my light skin, eyes casting down towards my legs, I search for the wound, for the blood.
Numbness dulls my senses as I get a weak arm beneath me, hand shaking as I splay my fingers, pushing myself up into sitting. The slippery surface beneath me definitely isn’t reliable so I twist my back towards the wall, my skin scraping across the slick grey tiles as I sit myself up.
My heart beats so hard that I can hear the whooshing of my blood as it soars through my veins, rushing in my ears. In through my nose, out through my mouth, I breathe deeply, blinking slowly. And without looking down, I drop a quivering hand to my thigh, place my palm over the still seeping wound.
Nostrils flaring, I lick my lips with my slow exhale, my heart still hammering, caged behind bone bars, I try to think of what the doctors said, you can control some physical symptoms with your psyche. Only for a short amount of time, but it can be the difference between fainting and getting help.
Only, I don’t want to get help, I need to get a towel to staunch the blood flow, and then I need to search for a sewing kit. It doesn’t really feel like that’s something Blaze would have, but that’s exactly why I know, somewhere, he has one. When we were young, he told me something about always being prepared for anything. Learning skills other than fighting on the estate growing up seemed like a waste of time. But Blaze was always teaching me the most unusual things. Something his mum always told him; he would repeat back to me as though it were a broken record.
‘Surprise is everything, resourcefulness will get you much further than learning how to throw a punch, Emmy.’
I never really understood it then.
Until that night.
Watching him with my glass bottle of half-finished chocolate milk, the way it shattered against the metal railing as he held onto the neck of it. Small fragments ricocheting upwards into our faces, cutting us both, my eye, his chin.
“Ember?” Cole’s deep, smooth voice has my breath hitching, chest stilling as I slowly roll my gaze to the door. “You all right in there?”
I can see his shadow through the crack, but he isn’t trying to look in, his head dropped, angled away from the jamb. I swallow, staring at his side profile, shadowed but lit from the white glow of the mirror in here, reflecting across the rich dark skin of his cheek, jaw and neck. His short, neatly styled stubble makes me stare at him in my silence, the clean lines of it travelling up along his cheekbone into the fade of his hair.
“Yes, thank you,” I call over the pound of the water.
“I’ve got your medication.” The door opens a little more, but it’s not intentional, the way his hand quickly snakes through the gap, grips the edge of it, scarred fingers curling over the wood and tugging it back towards him, so it doesn’t open. “I’ve left it on the bed with some more fresh clothes from Phoenix.”
“Thank you,” I swallow hard as tears fill my eyes.
It”s a strange thing, from Cole, to be kind, to me.
“You need anything else?” He clears his throat as he asks it, sounding uncomfortable.
“Is he back?” I find myself asking unconsciously, nerves shooting through me at the thought of Blaze, all angry and hot, storming in here and calling me some more names.
“He is, but he’s not sleeping in here tonight.”
I swallow, dropping my blurred gaze back to my thigh, tears clinging to my bottom lashes. Briefly, I wonder if it’s because he meant what he said, about me only being a convenient hole for him to shove his dick into. It hurts again, like the barbs just whipped out of his mouth once more, but Cole, rather confidently, tells me differently.
“We told him to give you space tonight,” he swallows, and I lift my head, staring back at the side of his head, the way he still talks away from me, his eyes not even attempting to look in. “That okay?”
I want to say no.
I want to force Blaze back in here. Make him apologise to me. Tell him it’s not what he thinks.
Isn’t it?
I think of Phoenix, his soft, licking kisses, the way he smiles at me, and it always forces the same thing outta me. His scent, like autumn, Halloween, Bonfire Night, the way he’s warm and soft and he makes me melt. I feel extra shy and a little bit giggly around him and he never makes me feel like I don’t want his touch.
Flint is different. Harsher. Boyish. Rough. His blue eyes scorch me like a fire readying to burn me alive, like I really am the ember and he the flint. Nothing can come from our collisions but sparks.
And I want it. I think.
To burn.
I don’t want to apologise for kissing them, and I know that’s what Blaze’ll want from me. Probably some sort of begging on my part.
But I’m not going to do that.
Things feel different now.
The way, not so long ago, even the thought of someone touching me made me itch, my fingers twitch to tear my way out of my skin. Now there are cautious gentle brushes of hands, fingers tucking locks of curls behind my pierced ears. Rough skin, and smooth, and calloused, and scarred. None of it feeling unwanted. None of it uncomfortable. It all feels too much like what a home should be.
Warm and soft and even though they’re all hard edges and scowls and blood drenched hands, I’m not stupid, I hear them talking, referring to the security guards that follow them around as members of their crew. I know The Ashes is a gang, I know that means they probably hurt people. Kill them.
I thought that might be what they’d do to me. That night in the boot of the car. As soon as I was pulled out though, I knew that wasn’t it. The way Blaze stole me away in the night, it wasn’t planned. He hadn’t planned it.
Then tonight with Cole… the way he treated me, holding open doors, taking care of me, he was so… soft, after I thought he couldn’t stand me.
Now everything feels different.
“Yes,” I reply, just loud enough for the dark, brooding man to hear me.
I see him nod, his shadow cast in the gap of the door, his movement jerky after waiting patiently for my response.
“You sure?” I hear him shuffle, the water still drilling into the base of the shower. “I could-” he stops, cutting himself off, but I stay silent, waiting. It feels suddenly important, to hear his offering, but then he straightens from the door, movements stiff, “Goodnight, Ember.”
Heavily, I exhale, “Goodnight, Cole.”
He moves away from the door, and I strain my ears, listening for the closure of the bedroom door signalling his exit, but with the shower still going, blood rushing in my ears, my heart roaring in my chest as I breathe out shakily, I realise, I can’t. Hear him, that is, at all.
The thundering pulse in my thigh draws back my attention. I wince when I see it, the split skin, deeper than I’ve maybe ever cut before.
I suck in a breath through my teeth and push myself up to stand. Using my elbow to knock the tap, the cold water shuts off and I step out onto my small pile of discarded clothes, I reach forward and drag a black towel from the shelves on the other side of the door.
As soon as the material presses to the wound, I feel wobbly. My free hand clinging onto the edge of the sink, I bow forward, my vision blurring black at the edges.
I make it into the bedroom, my hand stuttering across the wall, flicking on the overhead light as I make my way to the bed. And just as Cole said, there’s a box of my usual medication and a fresh black tracksuit folded neatly beside it. That’s the first thing I do, sitting beside it, I swallow down two tablets with the half-filled glass of water I left on the bedside table the night before. I hold the glass to my forehead, sweat beading at my temples as I shiver, a tremble rocking through me.
This isn’t good.
Lifting my leg, I lay out the towel beneath me, then pull the corners up and across each other, looping the thick material into a knot atop my thigh. I yank it hard, pinching my skin, tight on the severed flesh. I push a breath out through my teeth and then head for the dresser.
There’re guns in the top drawer that I blink hard at before quickly averting my gaze, closing the drawer softly before traversing through the next four beneath it.
Typically, what I’m looking for is in the bottom one, it’s always the way when you’re desperately searching for something. As I shove a couple knitted items out of the way, a dented biscuit tin comes into view. I know it’s a sewing kit without needing to open it, it’s the same one Blaze had when I lived here too. He stitched up one of my favourite teddies for me when I was eight, told me his grandma taught him.
Then he taught me.
Showed me the stitch I’m about to close my flesh with.
Needle pinched between thumb and forefinger, I snip the bright turquoise thread with my front teeth. The cotton fluffing at the end as I try to poke it through the eye of the needle. When I get it through, I draw in a deep breath and try to think of this like the time I had to stitch the crotch of my favourite black jeans because I point blank refused to wear the pairs in my wardrobe that cost more than most people’s fucking rent.
My tummy feels like I’ve swallowed an acid leaking battery when I unknot the towel. Blood instantly dribbling out of the laceration. Because that’s what this is. It isn’t a cut. This is a wound. I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth, try to unstick my tongue from the roof of my very dry mouth.
Sitting on the floor between the bed and the dresser, the bathroom to my right, the closed bedroom door to my left, I try not to think about what’s on the other side of it. I lean back against the side of the bed, the pale grey sheets soft beneath my damp skin.
My bottom lip trembles as the needle pushes through my skin, the tip sharp, but it’s tough, it’s hard to get it through the slippery flesh, trying to make sure I don’t stitch too deep, keep the incision above the layers of fat. I pinch my skin together when I manage to pull the thread through, every part of my leg burning, I poke the needle back through.
I tie off each individual stitch as I make them. Knotting and tying them with the bright thread. On my fifth stitch, my head heavy, eyes blurred, I press a bloody hand to my belly. Sickness rushes up the back of my throat, blowing out my cheeks as it explodes into my mouth, but I can’t expel it, I can’t do anything with a needle half-sticking in my flesh.
With a blood stained hand, I fumble for the tin waste paper bin, a plastic bag lining the inside of it, and my insides quite literally heave up my throat. When I’ve expelled everything, I rest my sweaty forehead to the cold metal rim of the bin, breathe too hard and too fast, but I’m fine. I can do this on my own. I don’t need anyone. I’ve been alone for as long as I can remember now, dealing with shit myself. Just because I have a family doesn’t mean I really have a family.
I finish up with three more painfully slow stitches. Dried and wet blood smeared all across my legs, my hip, lower belly, up my side. My hands and forearms look like I’ve dipped them into a bucket of blood for a horror costume.
Eyes scanning the carefully closed wound, the stitches as evenly spaced as I could manage. I nod my head to myself, breathing out slow, and then get to my feet to wash up.