Page 2 of Bloom: Part 1

“My name’s Crowe.” I extended a hand toward him. “Let me take you away from here. Are you hungry?”

I was fully inside the shed now, and it was even worse than I’d thought. The scent of human waste on top of the dead bodies was unbearable. My eyes burned, and my throat clogged up.

I can’t take much more of this. I need to get him out now.

“Let’s get you cleaned up and into some clothes.” I moved quickly toward him. He was tiny after all and couldn’t ward me off. I reached a hand forward to grab his wrist, which held the knife. A bloodcurdling scream pierced the air. Startled, I jumped back as he slashed at the air with the knife. I stumbled, and fought like hell to regain my balance.

The boy dashed across the shed with legs as thin as twigs and dove into a box at the back of the shed. His entire frame fit inside, though he peered over the top.

“Saint’s right, man,” Winter said. “The cleaning crew is on their way. We can let them handle him.”

Hell no. I hadn’t come this far to give up now.

“I just need to disarm him, and then we can take him away.”

“Take him away? Look at him, Crowe. He’s like a wild animal.”

“Then we tame him.”

“I can’t talk you out of this, can I?”

“No. Whatever you do, stay back. The more of us that are inside, the more terrified he gets. I’m gonna shut up now. My lungs are revolting from this stench.”

With each step closer I took to the boy, he let out a scream that sounded every bit like the wild animal Winter made him out to be. But this was no wild animal. He was a boy. One who needed our help. For all the misery we’d caused in our lives, we could do one good deed.

The boy’s head disappeared inside the box. Next to it was the bottom half of a plastic juice bottle filled with maggot-infested rotten food that had to be several days old.

That’s it. I can’t spend another second inside this filth.

I kicked the box gently. Just like I’d expected, he lunged out with the knife. I grabbed his thin wrist, twisted it, and he howled. The knife fell to the ground, and I picked it up.

“Calm down, kid. I’m not—”

A searing pain ran the length of my cheek.

“Crowe, he’s got another knife!”

Winter’s words were too fucking late. Blood dripped from the cut. Fuck. It wasn’t so much the cut that I minded but the possible infection. Who knew where the fuck that knife had been before he slashed me with it?

“Give that to me.” He tried to stab me with the knife again, but I knocked it out of his hand. I grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted him out of the box. Shit. He weighed next to nothing. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, given how scrawny he was with every rib protruding, but I still hadn’t expected it. A strong gust of wind could blow him away. Had he really killed those two people? How?

He sank his teeth into my arm and wouldn’t let go, no matter how much I shook him. Not until he bit out a chunk of my flesh. And swallowed it whole.

“Did he just—” Winter cried.

Blood poured from the wound in my arm, but I grabbed him by the hair. For someone who weighed as little as he did, he had an inhuman kind of strength as he kicked and fought me. His body, slick from blood, didn’t make it easy to maintain a grip on him either, but eventually I got him out of the shed and into the light.

The boy went stiff, his eyes wild with fright as if he wasn’t used to being in the open. His chest rose and fell hard as he sucked in huge gulps of air, his eyes darting in all directions. His pulse in his thin wrist beat frantically under my fingers.

He was no longer lashing out at me. Instead, his fingers were like relentless hooks fastened in my cut. The sounds coming from him were full of distress—pitiful grunts and moans—but nothing intelligible.

“Listen to me. We’re not going to hurt you. You don’t have to be afraid.”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but no word came out. His eyes rolled back into his head, and his body went limp in my arms.

“Shit. Is he dead?” Winter asked.

I laid the boy on the ground and pressed two fingers to his long neck. His pulse fluttered erratically beneath my touch. “He’s alive, but we need to get him medical attention.”

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