Page 18 of Cardinal House

Three minutes.

Uncle Nolan’s entire body trembles with his rage, but his voice betrays nothing, he doesn’t shout, or raise his voice, or scream. He never does, never has, I wonder if I'd prefer it if he did.

“Well?” He taps his foot against the wooden floor, his arms by his sides, hands in fists. “Where were you?”

My mouth works, but no sound comes out. The book in my lap feels heavy, my feet feeling numb beneath me, and tears fill my eyes. I know my uncle loves me, that’s why he gets so upset. He’s protective of me, but I don’t feel safe with him. And for the first time in my life, after the other night, I feel real, unbidden fear.

“I wasn’t late home, sir,” I whisper, staring up at him, my heart in my throat, because I never talk back.

“Excuse me?” His voice gets deep, slow, rough, it feels like a rumble, and my skin goes ice cold. “What did you just say?” he whispers, and it’s a poisonous hiss.

Air shudders into my lungs, and I swallow hard, wetting my lips, “I wasn’t late home, sir,” I repeat, even quieter than before.

“Is that so?” he lifts a dark brow, and I hate it, the look he gives, cold anger, but I suddenly won’t back down.

“Yes, sir,” I hold his eye, until his gaze rakes down my body, the tension dropping out of his shoulders, his fists unfurling, before his eyes come back to mine.

Sickness washes around inside my belly, but I hold my stare, I don’t let the wetness gathering along my lower lash line fall. I hold myself together, waiting. And, honestly, I don’t know what’s going to happen here. I have never talked back before. Ever.

“Paul!” Uncle Nolan suddenly yells, making me flinch.

He doesn’t take his eyes from mine as the man comes into the room, and I don’t dare look either.

Uncle Nolan licks his lips, still looking at me when he speaks, “What time did Luna get home today?”

“Five-thirty, sir,” Paul says automatically, and I feel my shoulders hitch up around my ears.

“Precisely?” Uncle Nolan clarifies, still staring at me.

“On the dot, sir.”

My uncle stares at me for long silent moments. The tension in my spine makes the skin pull tight around the small burns down my shoulder blade, they’re in a sort of cross-hatch pattern from where I fell against the fire grate, they sting, but they don’t look too bad.

There’s relief now, somewhat, like a warmth heating the iciness in my veins, that I was right, about the time I arrived home.

Somebody lied to him, to get me in trouble?

“Are you lying to me, Paul?”

My head snaps up at that, and my eyes dart to the man at my uncle’s back.

That’s my mistake.

It doesn’t matter that I don’t look long enough to catch a glimpse of him to even be able to tell you his hair colour, just that tiny flicker of my eyes sends my uncle into a fit of rage.

With a speed almost inhuman, he turns sharply, grabbing the man and throwing him to the floor. The guard smacks his face into the hardwood, and blood blooms on his lip. My uncle turns the man over, and hits him in the face. His hands curled into fists, knuckles blanching, he punches the guard, the big gold ring he wears splitting the skin on the man’s cheek.

There is so much blood, it’s hard to see his face, the sound of flesh smacking flesh, bone and cartilage crunching, as Uncle Nolan beats the man’s face, rolling around inside of my head like a violent echo.

Ice rushes through my veins, my heart beating so hard it threatens to crack through my chest cavity, but I don’t move. I do nothing as my uncle kills a man with his bare hands. He’s straddling the unconscious man now, the rest of the security team sentry around the room, and I don’t dare look at them, but nobody seems to have any sort of reaction to the violence taking place.

The murder.

I don’t realise tears are falling until my uncle crouches down before me in the same position I was in when he first came home. Frozen in the leather. Uncle Nolan reaches up, cupping my cheek with a hot, slick palm, smearing my skin with blood. I’m not sure I can tear my eyes away from the body on the floor. The man’s head, Paul’s head, nothing more than a concave, bloody mess.

I’m trembling when my uncle directs my chin with the firmness of his thumb, dragging my attention onto him from the corpse on our bedroom floor. His face is flecked with blood, splatters across his forehead, his cheek, chin, little droplets of it dripping off of his jaw.

The whimper that escapes me can’t be stopped, I can’t choke the sound down, as I heave in a sob. My uncle just keeps holding my face in his big hand, crouched before me, his green eyes soft considering what’s just happened. It’s as though he isn’t affected by it at all.

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