“DRAKE!” Bones cried. “I, can’t figure it out! He’s going to die and it’s all my fault. I…” Bones stumbled over his words gripping his long emerald hair in his fists. I gripped his shoulders.
“Breath! Explain.”
“Poison!”
I took a deep breath and walked over to Koa’s bed. His warm rich skin was slick with sweat. His muscles were tight and his hospital gown and speckled in blood. I glanced at the heart monitor.
180.
I placed my hand over his heart, trying to sense anything I could. I closed my eyes and focused.
Belladonna, was the main problem; underlying that was… Arsenic and Strychnine? They were mild and head to detect but enough to cause damage. Whoever did this know what they were doing.
Bones was still crying; it was distracting. “Out,” I told him.
“What?”
“Demigod I will not ask again. Get out. Now!”
Bones scurried out of the room, shutting the door behind him. I grabbed a flask from my coat, and took a swig of the burning, smoky caramel taste of whisky. I sighed cracking my neck and looking down at the man on the bed.
His carved handsome features as if carved from marble aiming for perfection.
He was not perfect. On his lip was a scar from a fishhook. He had freckles and sun kissed shoulders. His hair was curly, and remined me of red wine. I found it quite a beautiful shade.
“You poor son of a bitch,” I sighed to myself as I walked over to a cabinet, grabbing a bottle of pure black liquid. Pure HE. I grabbed an IV bag and emptied the bottle inside.
I hooked it up and put it on the slowest drip I could. I waited for hours, watching the black liquid drip into his veins.
I grabbed another bottle and downed it myself. It was tasteless and cold. It felt like nothing. My nose snapped back into place, tears dripped down my face and I tried to become more comfortable. The room was silent. I looked at the heart monitor.
0 BMP.
I shot up and looked to Koa. He wasn’t breathing. I calmed myself and began CPR. I could feel his ribs crack under the pressure. I didn’t stop until I heart the beeping of the heart monitor.
I collapsed down onto the chair next to his bed and stared at him. I’d never been close to Koa. We’d talked a few times, and joked around, but I didn’t consider him a close friend. I didn’t share the same chemistry as I did with Pandora, or Fritz or my girlfriend Skyla.
I only watched him from a far as he joked with Virgil. I didn’t really see him with anyone but Virgil. As far as I knew he ran away from home and met Virgil along the way and decided to stick around him.
Koa was a mystery to me. As far as I knew, he was an only child and doesn’t live with his mother and father if they are even still alive. He moved to Black Rose City a few months ago and seems happy enough to live here and make polite conversation with the members of Henbane, but mainly Virgil.
He gave Virgil gentle smiles and his eyes seemed to soften when he looked at him. Like whatever was eating away at him, stopped when Virgil was around.
The way he laughed and smiled, remined me of somebody I knew a long time ago. I don’t even remember their name or their face. It’s blurry. The answer was of the tip of my tongue.
Koa’s eyes fluttered open and looked around the room before settling onto me.
“Drake?” He asked voice weak. “Where’s Bones?”
“Taking a breather,” I told him.
An awkward silence fell across the room. We never talked and certainly not alone. His voice was hoarse, and I handed him my whisky flask. He drake some and coughed.
“Whisky?”
“Yeah…”
Silence.
“Thank you,” he said. “For saving me. I assume it was you.”
“Yeah… It was no problem.”
Silence.
“Drake, I’m sorry. I’ve never really gotten to know you, and you saved my life.”
I looked down at him about to say something like. ‘don’t mention it.’ Or ‘maybe we could get drinks.’ When I saw it and choked back tears. That warm skin and kind eyes. a sweet voice. Even that scar on his lip reminded me of somebody I was close to somebody I loved. Somebody I killed.
My baby brother. He was a little ray of sunshine. He trusted me. He loved me. And I killed him. It was all my fault. I wasn’t Drake then. The boy who killed his mother and baby brother died in those fires. He was gone, and I remained to pick up the pieces.
His warm eyes, kind smile and scar on his lip. I hated them. I hated him.
“Drake, are you okay?” Koa asked reaching out his hand to touch mine.
“Don’t touch me.”
He withdrew. “Sorry.”
I stood up and took another swig of whisky. “I was just helping Pandora.”
“Yeah…” Koa murmured.
I left the room and Pandora and Bones rushed to Koa, thanking me as I walked down the hall out of the cold of the hospital.
Heavy rain had started outside, and the path to the church was muddy and slippery. The forest smelt damp and I could hear the whispers of shadows.
“Leave,” I commanded.
‘He is dead because of you,’ a voice hissed. Guilt. ‘it is your fault.’
“I know.”
‘You should tear out his throat.’ Anger retorted.
‘I should?”
‘Yes.’ It hissed. ‘Make him pay.’
“No.”
‘You should have been the one to die,’ guilt wailed.
“I know.”
“You know what?” Somebody asked from behind me.
I looked back and there stood Fritz Almoon. He had sepia brown skin. And long black hair tied back in a bun. Blazing yellow eyes and jagged claw-like scars across his face, going through his left brow over his nose and down to his jaw in fragments. Another went from under his left eyes down across his mouth and to his chin. On his neck were three more scars next to each other. He had more on his arms and back. He wore an old olive-green fur-trimmed coat, with tares throughout the sleeves and around the cuffs. The hem was a wreck. It was shredded and in tatters. His ears were slightly pointed, and his canine teeth were sharper. Around his neck was a necklace carved of old wood. In the crude shape of a wolf's head. there was a cord of black thread making the chain on which it hung. On wolves, head there was a golden crescent moon. His shirt was back and so were his jeans. They were also torn by claws. He was holding a black umbrella.
“Hey,” I said, whipping my eyes of rain and tears. Fritz’s face was hard and tough. “I thought you were with Mari?”
“No, that was yesterday. She’s out tonight.”
Fritz sniffed the air and looked at me. “You smell like Brownies.”
“HE,” I said, and he shrugged. That is what Fritz finds comforting? Brownies.
“Fair enough. Come on, let’s get out of the rain.”
We walked in silence as we approached the chapel. The lights were on inside, and Skyla was standing waiting in the doorway holding two sets of towels. Her chestnut brown hair and sandy skin made her jade green eyes glow. He looked so human the only sign she wasn’t her golden pupils. She was of average height and had an almost hourglass figure. Her shoulders were broader than her hips. Her features were soft. She smiled as we came up to the door and placed a light kiss on my cheek. “I have warm drinks ready inside,” she chipped, handing us towels. Her voice was like a choir of angles made of liquid gold.
Skyla handed us a mug, Fritz drank a green tea while I had pure black coffee. She sipped a hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles. She wore a pinafore dress pleasure leggings in her skin tone covered by dark stockings, and a rounded collar shirt with bishop sleeves. Her shoes were buckled, and her hair was full and tied back in a bandana. I slipped away to change into dryer clothing.
I heard the whispers as I walked the dark halls of the chapel littered with bones. It was a church dedicated to the devil, but a flaw in its design meant it was dedicated to me instead. One wrong symbol and the whole thing can go to shit. The worshipers built the halls of bones, so the front is lined with skulls and dark rich stones. I open the door to my room and on my bed, his shadow sits.
His words were jumbled and more like metal in a garbage disposal. My vision tunnelled, and the world went black. When I opened my eyes, Fritz was washing my arms of blood and binding them in crème bandages, and Skyla was holding me close to her chest, soft, white wings wrapped around my shoulders. Across the room, I saw the glinting silver of a blade covered in black blood.
‘You were doing so well,’ a voice whispered in the back of my head. ‘You have disappointed them once again.’
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