Page 44 of A Game So Reckless

But it won’t be spotting for long. My period may not come on any sort of predictable schedule, but one thing about it has always been annoyingly consistent.

The murder-scene levels of blood it produces.

I need to get some stuff to deal with this. Sighing, I wad up toilet paper and stick it in my panties, just in case there are any unfortunately-timed gushes before I can get a tampon. I wash my hands and check the cupboards, but there are no supplies in here. Giving up on that, I head to my bedroom, rummaging around through my bag that’s mostly unpacked by now.

There’s not much left in here. Just the white bathing suit – useless without the ribbon to tie it at the front. A few bottles of hair products and my hair straightener that I haven’t bothered using. Nail polish. An extra phone charger.

My shiny little cosmetics bag full of period stuff isn’t here.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I am not in the hormonally balanced place to deal with this shit. I beat back irritation and fight for calm as I double check all the other spots in my room. The dresser, the bedside table, even under the bed. But the more I look, the more I know I never packed it in the first place. I can literally picture where that bag is in my bathroom at home.

Goddamnit.

I leave the bedroom, hating the feel of the damp toilet paper between my legs. I check all the other bathrooms, but there are no extra supplies anywhere. There’s no point in asking Mamma for any. She got a hysterectomy after I was born.

I can ask her to drive me into town, though. Only, I find her asleep – passed out, really – on her bed. On it, not in it. The TV in her bedroom is on, playing some old British miniseries we have on DVD. There’s an empty bottle of wine on her bedside table and a very precariously-placed glass near the edge.

“Jesus, Mamma,” I murmur under my breath. Even if I woke her up now, driving is out of the question. She’d probably reverse into a tree before we even got out of our own driveway.

Well, this blows. I’m trapped out here in the middle of freaking nowhere with no way to get what I need. I can’t even use a grocery or drugstore delivery app from my phone, because I don’t have any decent service, plus we’re so far out from town I doubt any driver would even accept the job. Trying to focus on something I actually can control, I take the wine bottle and wineglass off of Mamma’s table and bring them to the kitchen. I return to her room with a big glass of water that I put down gently beside her. I try to get her under the covers, but that turns out to be a waste of time. So instead, I settle on covering her with a throw blanket from the chair in the corner. Then, I turn out the lamp, though I leave the TV on. I know she likes to have some background noise at night.

Leaving her room, I close the door behind me. Now what? Toilet paper isn’t going to last long, even if it is the thick, expensive kind.

My mood brightens as I realize I do have at least one option. Maybe not ideal, but I could go ask the group renting the cottage beside us for supplies. There are two women there. At least, I think they’re still there. I didn’t notice them outside today, but that doesn’t mean anything. They could have just gone into town again, or maybe they were nursing hangovers indoors or something.

Feeling a little better now that I have some semblance of a plan, I grab my purse and head outside.

The air is pleasantly cool on my bare arms and legs. My flip flops smack against the bottoms of my feet and send the little rocks of our driveway, and then the road, skittering away. I can’t stop myself from glancing behind, back the way I came, but it looks like Darragh hasn’t arrived for the night yet. The sky is clear and bright with stars I never see in Toronto. Trees spike upwards into it, pointed like arrowheads.

The lots are pretty big out here, so it takes me a couple of minutes to reach the driveway of the neighbouring cottage. I don’t hear any music or partying for the moment, and when I turn into the driveway and get a better view beyond the trees, I see that there’s only one car here, when previously there had been three. The cottage windows are dark, and I don’t smell any smoke that would mean a bonfire out by the water.

“Shit,” I breathe, fiddling with my purse’s strap. Doesn’t look like anyone’s there now. Maybe they’ve gone somewhere for the night and only took two vehicles. I suppose I could still go knock on the door, just in case…

The sound of gravel crunching under the weight of wheels stalls me. I stop walking, only a few steps into the driveway, and turn to see two headlights bursting through the darkened road. There are no streetlights here, so it makes the lights seem extra bright. I squint and raise my hand to shade my eyes, but even half-blinded as I am, I know whose car this is.

Darragh doesn’t keep driving past to his cottage. Once he becomes aware of me, he stops his car in the middle of the single-lane gravel road. The lights and engines die. A moment later, the sound of a slamming door tells me he’s exited the vehicle. He comes around the front of it, then to the side, where he stops to stare at me.

“What do you want?” I ask, already over whatever shit he plans to pull on me tonight before its even begun.

He ignores my question. The unnerving black hole emptiness that his eyes embody at night go above my head, settling for a moment on the rented-out cottage, before coming back to me.

“What were you doing in that house?”

“I wasn’t in that house,” I reply. “I haven’t even made it to the front door yet.”

“And why were you heading for the front door?”

There’s an edged warning in the question, the far-off scent of danger, but I can’t quite sniff out the source of it. Why does Darragh care if I go knock on a neighbour’s door? He told me some bullshit about not bringing another man to his building a while ago, but he hasn’t given me any other ridiculous orders lately. So what the hell is his problem?

“I… I needed to borrow something.”

“Borrow?”

“Well, take. Buy, if needed.” I shrug one shoulder, making my purse bang against the denim shorts hugging my hip.

“What,” he drawls, leaning back against the vehicle and crossing his arms over his hard chest, dressed in a long-sleeved black shirt. “Need a cup of sugar?”

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