Page 6 of The Blood we Crave

This man brought his child along with him to murder someone? What kind of parent does that? What kind of human being does that?

My brain is ready to spiral, prepared to run a mile with this new information and try to piece together what is happening right in front of my eyes, but my mental spasm doesn’t have time to start because Henry moves into the night-coated hallway, leaving his son bare to me in the doorway.

Every microblade of hair on my neck stands up, alive and shaking with electricity that I can feel all the way to the soles of my feet. I feel like snow has reached inside my home. Frost appears around his shoes with every step he walks into the room. A personification of winter and the freezing cold. I’m submerged in the coolness he carries along his shoulders like a second skin.

There’s a breath caught in my chest as I look at him.

A beautiful, lightless Jack Frost.

A boy, one I’ve never seen before. One that doesn’t look much older than I am but feels far beyond his years. Like his soul has been here much longer than his youthful body. A pair of well-tailored jeans wrapped around his long legs, a bleak sweater covering his upper half.

He walks with his head up, a regal posture that makes it seem like he’s floating across the floorboards. My fingers twitch when the moon spotlights his porcelain-white hair. He doesn’t look real, and yet, he’s the most tangible thing in this room.

There is no flaw in him.

No imperfection or blemish.

When he kneels down beside my mother—her corpse—that grim realization brings me back down to reality and away from my daydream. The fog of his hold begins to fade, and with it comes clarity.

This boy, Henry’s son, is here to kill me.

That’s the reason he came, isn’t it? To help his father tie up loose strings, and I’m one of those, aren’t I?

But as I look at him peering down at her, I can’t bring myself to believe he’s capable of that. Capable of what his father had done. I imagine for a moment him on top of me, slashing a knife across my skin over and over until I finally gave in to death. His neatly styled hair would shift out of place when he was finished, blood coating his immaculate frame.

I can’t picture it.

Not when he’s so…clean. Methodical. Groomed. He makes me feel dirty in comparison. Like he would cringe at the stale sweat that clings to my back or turn his nose up at my uncontrollable hair that had dried since my shower before bed.

Unlike his father, this boy looks at the damage on the floor. He looks at the body that’s all I have left of my mother and just kneels slightly. I desperately want to know what he’s thinking because one thing he does seem to have in common with his father is his ability to look emotionless.

Impassive. Cold. Void.

I want inside of his mind. What is he thinking? What is he feeling? Is he just as cruel as the man who’d given him life? Is this the future he wants for himself?

Something in me snaps when I see him reach into his pocket, pulling out an object that he starts to bring towards my mother’s face. Is it not enough for her to be brutalized that she now has to experience torment after her death?

I’m no longer in fear of my life. I can’t find it in me to care about what would happen when I left this closet and made my presence known.

My fingers wrap around one of my mother’s heels, gripping it tightly in my hand, before I push the closet door open with my foot. When the door spans wide enough to expose his body to me fully, I do the only thing I can think of.

I throw the shoe directly at his head.

I wanted to hit the back of his skull, but the door opening must have caught his attention because he turns to face me just before the heel makes contact with his bottom lip with a dull thud.

Wasting no time, I scramble to my feet, tripping slightly over the clothes on the floor of the closet. My head is swimming, the room spinning with how fast I stood up, but I don’t care.

I just want this nightmare to end.

One way or another.

“You aren’t supposed to—”

“Don’t touch her,” I say, reaching down into the pit of my stomach and trying to pull as much strength as I can, but all that came out was a fragile whisper. My feet carry me shakily to her body. I doubt I would be able to do anything to fend either of them off, but maybe that’s the point.

This isn’t about protecting her after death.

Not really.

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