Page 5 of Scythe & Sparrow
I don’t know what happens when you get poked in the eye with a fistful of cocktail sticks. His other eye might be squeezed shut.Or maybe he’ll be able to fight through the pain and run after me. But I can’t think about that shit now. I just have to get to my bike. Hold on to the hope that I can get away.
When I get to the bottom of the driveway, I glance toward the farm. Matt Cranwell is on his hands and knees, still yelling and cursing, spitting venom and dripping blood onto the gravel. And then I look toward the house. Lucy is there, standing behind the screen door. A silhouette. I can’t see her face, but I can feel her eyes on me. She can’t see me clearly from this distance, not with the helmet obscuring most of my face. She doesn’t know me well enough to recognize me from my clothes or my mannerisms. She knows something life-altering has happened, that something is very wrong with this moment, her husband screaming in distress on the driveway. But it’s not him she’s watching. It’s me.
She closes the door and disappears inside the house.
I leave Matt where he belongs, rolling in the dirt. I hobble to my motorcycle. When I swing my leg over the seat, something catches against the inside of my leather pants. Pain ripples up my leg. But I keep going. I start the engine. Close my hand around the clutch. Change gears and pull back the throttle and get the fuck away from this farm.
I don’t know where to go.
I just follow my instinct and ride.
OATH
Fionn
I’m rounding the corner for home, walking briskly after my evening run. It’ll be the perfect night to sit on the porch with the glass of Weller bourbon I’ve definitely earned, not just from this run but from the unholy combination of Fran Richard’s ingrown toenail and Harold McEnroe’s massive boil that I had to deal with at the clinic today. My little house is within sight when an alert comes through on my watch.
Motion detected at front door.
“Fucking Barbara,” I hiss as I pivot on my heel and retrace my path into town. I pull up my phone to open the video doorbell app. “I know it’s you, you fucking crazy—”
I stop dead in my tracks. It’s … it’s definitely not Barbara at the office.
There’s a woman I don’t recognize on the camera. Dark hair. Leather jacket. I can’t make out distinct features of her face before she looks away down the street. But she’s unsteady on her feet. Probably drunk. Maybe someone who’s come into town for thecircus and had too much fun at the beer garden down the road from the fairgrounds. I consider pressing the button to speak to her, and though my thumb hovers over the circle, I don’t touch it. Maybe I should set the alarm I hardly ever use now, thanks to Barbara triggering it one too many times in the middle of the night.I should call the police, I think as I start walking, staring at my screen. But I don’t do that either.
Not even when she somehow manages to open the locked door.
“Shit.”
I pocket my phone and run.
I do the math in my head as I sprint in the direction of the clinic. I’ve just finished a long run and can’t push much faster than a 5:30-minutes-per-mile pace, so I’ll be there in seven minutes and nine seconds. I’m sure I’ll make it to the office in less time than that if I push as hard as I can.
But it feels like an hour. My lungs burn. My heart riots. I slow to a walk as I round the last corner and a wave of nausea rolls in my stomach.
There are no lights on in the clinic. Nothing to indicate anyone is inside except the faint smear of a bloody handprint on the door handle. A motorcycle with a dented fuel tank lies on its side in the grass. The key is still in the ignition, the polished chrome engine ticking as it cools. A black helmet painted with orange and yellow hibiscus flowers sits discarded on the walkway to the door.
I clasp a hand to the back of my neck, my skin slick with sweat. I look down one end of the road. Then the other. Then back again. There’s no one else on the street. I take my phone from my pocket and grip it tightly.
“Fuck it.”
I turn on my phone’s flashlight and stalk toward the door. It’s unlocked. I pan the light across the floor where it reflects on a bloody boot print. A streak of crimson paints the tiles in a long track that snakes through the waiting room. It passes the reception desk. Curves down the hallway like a horror script.This way to your violent death.
And like any idiot in any horror film ever made, I follow it, stopping at the mouth of the corridor that leads to the exam rooms.
There’s no sound. No smell aside from the astringent burn of antiseptic that clings to the back of my throat. No light except for the red emergency exit sign at the end of the hall.
I guide my flashlight to follow the blood on the floor. It leads beneath the closed door of Exam Room 3.
With a single deep breath, I follow. I hold that breath as I press my ear to the door. Nothing comes from the other side, not even when I push it open and it meets resistance. A boot. A limp leg. A woman who doesn’t stir.
My thoughts snap like a glow stick. From darkness to light. I hit the switch for the overhead fluorescents. Urgency and training propel me into the room, and I drop to my knees beside the woman lying on my exam room floor.
A makeshift tourniquet made from her shirt is tied around her right thigh. A fresh one from the cabinet is loosely knotted just beneath it, as though she couldn’t tighten it with her waning strength. Medical supplies are scattered across the floor. Gauze bandages. Sterile cloth. A pair of scissors. Blood trickles down her calf and pools on the floor. The scent of pineapple and banana is a sweet contradiction to the broken bone that pokes through thetorn flesh of her lower leg. Her leather pants are cut all the way up to the wound, as though she got as far as exposing the fracture and couldn’t bear it anymore.
“Miss.Miss,” I say. She’s turned away from me, her dark hair strewn across her face. I press my palm to her cool cheek and turn her head in my direction. Rapid, shallow breaths spill past her parted lips. I rest two fingers against her pulse as I tap her cheek with the other hand. “Come on, miss. Wake up.”
Her brow crinkles. Thick, dark lashes flutter. She groans. Her eyes open, inky pools of pain and suffering. I need her conscious, but I hate the agony I see painted in her features. Regret twists like a hot pin lodged deep in a cavern of my heart, a feeling I learned to shut away a long time ago so I can do my job. But somehow, when her eyes fuse to mine, that long-forgotten piece of me comes alive in the dark. And then she grabs my hand where it rests on her throat. She squeezes. Locks me into a moment that feels eternal. “Help,” she whispers, and then her hand slips from mine.
