Page 8 of Cardinal House

I get it.

I would have tried to lie to him too, were our roles reversed, however, as Blackwells, we do not tell lies.

I’m plucking off little round sticker discs and tugging on IV tubing before I can think much more. Raine is vulnerable. He’s going through something right now and he’s out there, alone, probably getting even more fucked up, and it’s because of me.

“Wolf!” Thorne barks, my feet kicking at the sheets and cotton blankets tangled around my legs. “Wolf!”

Machines beep, an alarm sounds and pain shoots through every inch of my skull, but no one is with him. He probably thinks he fucking killed me.

“Wolf!” Thorne shouts this time, and the only reason I stop is because he shoves me back down, hard, and the pain that bolts and spears in the centre of my chest seems to grow and radiate in waves through my limbs. “Enough! Get in the bed, you fucking neanderthal.”

He tuts as he lifts my leg back onto the mattress. Shaking his head as he starts to untangle the sheets hanging off the edge and bundled on the floor, nothing covering me but a pair of black boxer briefs. The same ones I supposedly died a few times in. It makes me suddenly want them off.

“Those are fresh, Archer and I dressed you ourselves this morning.” That’s how well we know each other, my five brothers and I, we don’t really need to use words to communicate, we just know each other that well.

It’s why I know we need to find Raine.

“Thorne I-”

The doors crash open, and a harrowed looking old bat bursts in with a frown and a glare. Most people would probably cower away from her, she looks like a mean fucking bitch. Grey hair pulled back into a bun so tight, it’s as though she’s trying to smooth out the wrinkles in her aged face. The short woman struts aggressively across the room, every footstep closer makes her seem more and more angry.

“What do you think you’re doing, boy?” she sneers, directing her question at me. “You think we saved you just so you could throw a temper-tantrum like a spoiled little brat?” She bangs her fingers onto the clacking keyboard, shutting up the beeping sounds and alarm.

The dimple in her chin deepens as she turns to glare at me, her lips pursing tightly, the creases around her mouth etching into her skin like cracks. She doesn’t say anything more, scowling down as she resticks a bunch of coloured discs with wires to my chest and sides, puts my IV back in. I stare at her name tag, Senior Nurse Betty Barker. Should be Senior Nurse Batshit Bitch.

Thorne says nothing as he finishes unwinding my sheets, laying them back over my legs. His hands slide back into his slacks pockets, watching her finish, my heart rate spiking wildly on the monitor screen when the nurse finishes getting me hooked back up.

“Relax. Or have a heart attack. You might not be so lucky the next time,” Nurse Barker spits, throwing Thorne a narrow eyed glare, before turning and storming out of the room, the doors banging shut behind her, but I can still hear her voice bellowing orders halfway down the corridor.

“Fucking hell,” I groan, panting for breath.

“I told you I did not want the nurse coming back in here,” my brother says with distaste.

“She’s a fucking nightmare,” I grunt, shutting my eyes and laying my head back. “Raine shoulda shot her instead.”

There’s quiet for a few minutes as I pant to catch my breath, only the sound of Thorne folding himself into the large chair at my side, quiet as ever. So I don’t miss it when someone enters the room, the doors opening once more.

Breathing slowed, I open my eyes, hoping by some miracle it’s Raine, but instead, someone else steps through that makes my heart start hammering all over again.

The woman’s hair shines like black oil beneath the rays of the sun, parted straight down the centre, tied back at the nape of her long neck. Her uniform is sky blue, which, against the white iciness of her skin, makes her glacier-blue eyes pop like neon lights in a dark room. She’s tall, maybe five-ten to my six-six, her shoulders slim, arms soft, skin clean of ink or freckles or scars.

Her eyes blink, just once, as she takes me in. Her gaze roves up from the bandage over my chest to my face, the stubble over my jaw that is usually shaped and short and neat, feels too long now that someone has paid it attention, even if it was just a cursory glance.

My skin feels hot, the longer she holds my gaze, I feel the air in my lungs stilling, warming, like there are kindling embers inside of them. Those blue eyes are almost clear, the pupils so black, it’s like the lake at Heron Mill frozen over in winter, the dead night’s sky free of stars above.

She lowers her head, severing our connection and I take my first breath since she appeared in the doorway. She starts to move closer, only twelve feet between us, but it feels as though she’s daggered my heart, the way it thuds hard and fast in my chest, the rapid beeping of the machine beside my head. I’m not sure I could be embarrassed by it if I tried.

It feels as though I’ve been ensnared in a trap designed to kill. Barbed wire and crushed glass and razor blade sharp spears, all of it capturing me, piercing my skin, sinking deep into my organs and wrapping me up in blood and obsession.

I hate it.

The way my insides react to her.

It’s involuntary.

Her eyes are different, but other than that…

She looks like my mother.

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