Page 15 of Cardinal House

Wolf

Two nights go by without Luna being on shift.

Instead, I get this bouncy, flouncy, blonde bitch with a name like Trinity, or Flossy, or something. She has scowling, pale blue eyes, a snarl to her thin upper lip and a cockiness to her attitude that makes me want to knock her out just so I don’t have to look at it anymore.

Usually, she only comes in to check my monitor, muttering about me being a ‘criminal’ under her breath, then jots shit down on her clipboard, and fucks off again.

Not tonight.

Night three with no sign of Luna and I’m starting to forget all about searching for my little brother. Who, honestly, like my dad said, is probably holed up in The Crypt, a cult-run, underground bar, drowning his sorrows in absinthe and uppers. Rather than dwelling too much on that, I’m thinking about hauling my arse out of this bed and searching the streets for Luna instead.

I feel restless and irritable, and the room is so stuffy with a window that doesn’t fucking open -what’s even the point of it?- I sort of want to throw myself out of it.

“-just because she doesn’t show up for her shifts for two days, because she’s ill, I have to be the one to cover her. And honestly, I have better shit to do on my nights off tha-”

“Who are you talking about? Luna?” I grunt the question, interrupting her, which from the narrow eyed glare she throws my way, she doesn’t much like.

“Why? You miss the little weirdo or something?” she sneers at me, dropping her eyes down my mostly nude body with interest.

I've got the sheets covering my lower half, but my chest is bare because the heat inside this hospital, I’m almost certain, is what kills its patients.

I lift a brow, glaring right back at her, I’m not going to snap back and tell her that Luna isn’t weird, because, well, she is, but, I think I fucking like that about her.

“Don’t start that bitchy bollocks with me, just answer the question,” it’s said in a drawl, lazy, languid, like I couldn’t really give a fuck either way.

It’s kind of what I tell myself, too.

That I don’t care.

Though, I don’t find myself to be very convincing.

The blonde rolls her light eyes, popping her hip, “Yes, I’m referring to Luna.” I hate the way she says her fucking name, like she’s beneath her, less than, it makes me want to rip her tongue out. “The little liar’s called in sick, wait, no, scratch that, her guardian’s ‘personal assistant’ called in sick for her the last two days,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes again. “Which, you know, is just sooo, like, a cop-out. It screams privilege, right?”

I blink at that, bewildered, quite frankly, at the jealousy pouring off of this girl that claims to dislike her because she’s weird.

“Luna still has a guardian…” it’s less a question, and more of an out loud thought, but Florence keeps talking as though I’m actually conversing with her.

“Yeah,” she scoffs again, as though it should be obvious. At my frown, she rolls her eyes again. “She’s like, not all there, is she, you know, mentally…” she screws her face up as she says it, like I’m stupid, and it’s obvious. “I mean, clearly. How many other twenty-nine year olds do you know that still get ‘looked after’?”

She looks at me, waiting for an answer, and honestly, I don’t even know what to say to any of that. It doesn’t really give me anything. If Archer were here, he’d gossip along with her and get every last piece of information he could squeeze out of this girl. And she’d do it willingly, give up her darkest secrets, spill her guts, because Archer is nothing if not seductively charming.

“Right,” I finally say, and half of her face does this weird sort of scrunch thing, like she’s both cringing, and thinking I’m a complete moron, either that or she’s having a stroke.

“Yeah, so, anyway, guess you’ll be getting her back tomorrow, that’s what Josephine said after she took the call, and I’m getting four longgg days off.” Fiona says, well, she actually says a lot more after that, bitching about every other staff member she has the clear displeasure of working -loose term- alongside in this department.

But all I can focus on is the fact Luna will be back tomorrow. That’s how my next twenty-four hours drag by, waiting.

“Arrow’s spoken to him,” Archer drawls, kicked back in the hospital chair beside my bed, throwing a gobful of M&Ms into his mouth, they clack against his teeth before he crunches them with his mouth open. “He’s trippin’ balls, man, trippin’, balls.” Something dark falls over his face as he laughs, his eyes shadowed, the usual flares of green in them hidden by storm clouds.

“Why, what’d he say?” I ask, swallowing my own handful of colourful chocolate sweets.

Archer’s gaze rolls back to mine, before flicking onto Dad’s who’s sitting the other side of me, opposite my brother. He’s in a tailored, navy suit, sans tie and jacket which is folded over the back of the small plastic chair he brought in from the hall to sit on, because like I said, it’s a thousand degrees in this fucking room. It’s why I’m still shirtless, nothing covering me but a fresh pair of black boxer shorts. I was covered by the thin, white, cotton bed sheets, but I’m atop them now.

“The usual,” our dad sighs, blinking up from his phone, the device clutched between both hands so he can type furiously. The man texts faster than any teenager, I’m sure. “Bleeding walls, moving floors, ghosts.”

Dad shrugs, like it doesn’t really mean anything, but the pinch of his brow, his dark brown eyes tight, I know he’s worried. He just won’t say anything while I'm here. With a bullet hole through my chest that itches like I’ve got fleas forming an army inside my sternum.

“Anyway,” Dad says, pressing the lock button on the side of his phone and tucking it back inside his slacks pocket. “Your sister sends her love, as do the boys, she wishes she could come, but, well...” Dad shrugs again, but this time it’s a looser gesture, warmer, familiar.

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