Page 3 of The Blood we Crave

I am frozen in my own fear, too terrified to do anything other than watch.

“I trusted you, Phoebs. And now you have left me with no choice.” He brings his other hand up to her face, running one knuckle down her cheek. She fits comfortably with him, like this isn’t the first time they have held on to one another. He caresses her so gently, so calmly, that it should convey something sweet, like adoration. But it just feels gross and looks forced. “You’ve done this to me, to you, to us. I want you to know that I didn’t want to do this. You made me do this, love.”

My mother jerks from him, trying to wiggle out of his hold, but even from my space in the closet, I can see how much he outweighs her. How much stronger he is than her.

The way she looks so frail and weak in his arms. But that isn’t enough to stop the fight in her. No, not my mother. She is anything but weak.

“No, Henry,” she says with a tone that wobbles, but she manages to keep her head up. “You don’t need to do this. Just leave, and we can pretend this never happened.”

I see his face clearly, the way his eyebrows crouch into a deep V shape. “How could I ever forget this? How could I forget what we shared, Phoebe? How could I forget that we were, as you said, something consuming? You do remember saying that, don’t you? Or will you lie to me about that as well? You said that Iconsumedyou. That my entire being enveloped your own, and it made you feel…safe. Do you still feel safe with me, my love?”

His words are trying to convey sadness, something heartbroken and hurt. But his body, his eyes, they show nothing. Not even a hint of anything other than surface-level emotion. He is nothing but a void. A deep, dark, ominous void that is swallowing my mother up.

Leaning forward, he begins to whisper something in her ear that I can’t hear, and when her body leans into his willingly, a stark white smile breaks across his face. A smile filled with nothing but sinister intentions.

Until my mother launches her knee into his gut, catching him off guard long enough for her to slip past his grip. A cheer of encouragement surges through me as I watch her take off towards the bedroom door, ready to flee from his presence.

I think for a split second, she has a chance. The feeling in my gut was wrong—she is going to be alright. Everything is going to be okay if she can just get far enough away to call for help or grab some form of weapon.

But this is not like the fairy tales I read, the stories my mother tells me before bed. There is no happily ever after at the end of this once upon a time. This is an entirely different story, one shrouded in darkness and gloom. One where the handsome prince turns out to be the evil warlock, and the beautiful damsel in distress becomes prey.

The victim.

There is no frog that will be able to fix this, not even with the sweetest of kisses. No magical fairy godmother to save her. My entire life is being rewritten in front of my eyes. The beginning of my new story. One that will have scars lingering on my soul, a brutal stain on my mind that can’t be erased or struck out.

I can practically feel the pen moving along the paper of my life, washing away everything I’d known before and turning me into someone else entirely. Someone I did not know, could not recognize.

Henry, as my mother called him, recovers impossibly fast, whirling around with the first real emotion I’ve seen him show.

Anger.

It’s all over his face and in the way his movements become charged. The way he snatches the back of her hair, winding his fingers into the soft mocha color before yanking her to where she once was. Except this time, she is not standing on her feet; she is slung onto the floor.

The clatter of bones knocking into the wood makes my teeth throb, the stale taste of pennies flooding my throat, and I realize I’ve been biting down on my own tongue.

I suck my own blood into my throat, using it to quench my thirst, swallowing over and over again in order to remain quiet. So much blood that the taste loses its bitterness and turns sweet.

Like candy.

My mother is facing me now—well, facing the closet door mainly. The only person in the room who knows I’m here, that I’m hiding quietly inside. She scrambles to her knees, staring straight into the slot in the door, unknowingly making eye contact with me.

I’ve never seen her like this.

So afraid.

So broken.

She’s always been the prime example of a strong single mom. A full-time award-winning biologist who never let the fact she was a woman derail her success. She demands perfection from herself and sometimes from me. But she always knows how to toe the line. To be caring, nurturing, and motherly but also pushing me to be my best.

How am I ever going to know what the best version of myself looks like without her?

A sob tries to leave my mouth, but I shove it down painfully, covering my mouth with my small hands as tears continue to fall with no plan to stop. She sits there, staring at me until her lips begin to move, mouthing to me silently.

“I love you, Scar. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

She repeats it over and over again. A quiet promise. A reassurance. Hoping she can say it enough that I’ll never forget what it feels like to be loved by her. Hoping she can say it enough times that it will last a lifetime. So that even though I’ll be without her, I’ll never be without her love.

I know she can’t see me or hear me, even, but I reach my hand towards her. I wish I were bigger, I wish I were stronger and could swallow my fear in order to protect her, but I just can’t move.

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