—The Rabid Incident—

CH.1 Part 2

༺✄༻JULES༺✄༻

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The caravan door didn’t so much open as perform a dramatic, blasphemous impression of a cathedral’s main gate, smacking the wall, rattling the spoon rack, announcing everyone’s imminent doom.

Mav, my bestie, was mid-sip of something suspiciously alcoholic and promptly choked, coughing like a Victorian woman who’d just discovered cigarettes. Her long pink hair swung forward when she doubled over, the black roots already coming through. The eyeliner was thick enough to survive a hurricane, and the grin she flashed between coughs had the sort of energy that suggested she’d once heckled a funeral and had a brilliant time doing it. I loved that about her. Also, if you cannot tell already, she is alarmingly attractive, which made her mockery even more dangerous.

I stood in the doorway soaking, like a damp postcard of defeat; mud up to my ankles, my shorts plastered to my legs, my puffer jacket clang onto me while carrying this man like an ornate, collapsing puppet. Glitter puffed mournfully from his sleeves every time I shifted him since my caravan is full of it - I'd like to think we looked like a very dysfunctional confetti commercial.

Mav gurgled out.

“Are we doing murder now? Is domestic homicide our new group activity?”

I slammed the door shut with my foot. “Relax. Not murder. Maybe...manslaughter. Accidental. Sexily.”

She raised an eyebrow in the way only Mav could, equal parts incredulous and delighted.

“I have never heard anyone use the word sexily like that.”

“Well, now you have. Anyway, he’s not dead. Breathing...ish.”

“‘Ish’ is not a medical term, Jules.”

She popped a piece of gum and twirled a strand of hair. Who chews gum while clutching a cocktail in a mug and delivering sarcastic medical commentary?

Mav. Obviously.

“Wait, shit...hold up!” She squints carefully. “Is that...Callum?!”

I dropped this ‘Callum’ on the sofa like wet laundry and poked his cheek.

“See? Squishy. Squishy means alive.”

Wait a second. I place my hands on my hips questioning a few things. I've never seen this man ever, and I spend almost every day with Mav but she never mentioned she met such a view before. Not that I think he's extremely attractive...Or something.

"How do you know him!? Where? He lives here? In Gora?"

I started biting my nails to pretend I wasn't panicking. Callum grunted, a sound that might have been a moan or the attempted pronunciation of ‘help’.

“Uh...Yeah?! Back in school, of course I remember. But anyways...that's not a healthy noise.” Mav observed. “That's a haunted-doll noise. Next he'll spin his head like one of those creepy toys on telly.” She was already back on joke patrol. Great.

The rabbit, Bun Bun - the little fluffy fucker - hopped onto the couch, turned around, and started licking his ass like it hadn't just caused vehicular manslaughter. I jabbed a finger at him.

“This lil' monster is the reason I almost committed a felony tonight.”

Mav looked at the rabbit like he was an unfixable art piece, then melted into a ridiculous, soft-eyed grin.

“Aww, he came back! Fancy little coat, big dumb eyes. He's a cutie.”

“A cutie until he causes a pile-up on the motorway! I chased the suicidal fuzzball through half of Gora Park like a lunatic. Mud everywhere. And mind you, my dignity is still missing!”

She shrugged. “Don't blame me. We both have a taste for disaster.”

I lobbed a pillow at her. She caught it one-handed, because of course she did. The pillow bounced off Bun Bun, who didn't even blink. I swear he absorbed kinetic energy and grew stronger.

“Right.” I said, pointing to the Pandora's box of random stuff in the corner of my caravan. “Improvised medical time.”

From the pile of random crap, I pulled last year's cheap nurse costume and threw it over my muddy jean shorts and T-shirt; cheap polyester, some patches missing, the whole thing hugged my body like a bargain-basement superhero. Professionalism, right there.

Mav lounged on the glitter-splattered armchair, watching the impending farce with the kind of delicious patience that comes from knowing you're about to witness something spectacularly dumb.

I leaned over Callum and sprayed his face with a bottle that might have been water. I think...? At this point, my ability to correctly identify liquids is questionable; my handwriting on the tags is tragic. He glistened like a sad, wilted sunflower.

“He'll be fine. Hydration. Nature's cure-all.” I announced.

Callum did look, absurdly, unfairly handsome. My eyebrow twitched. I hated giving myself the chance to notice things like that. Obsidian, black hair stuck in artful disorder, jaw dusty with grit, eyelashes dusted with glitter. My glitter.

“Cold water should work, so I don't know why-” Mav offered. She grabbed the bottle from me, eyes narrowing. “-Jules! this is weed killer!”

“Plan C!” I said, reaching for the frying pan.

“What happened to Plan B?”

“It's a secret.”

“Jules...give me the pan.” She is so much taller than me and as she takes a few, slow tentative steps towards me, I'm completely deprived of the lighting coming from behind her.

“Nah-huh.”

“Jules—”

“Mav—”

We grappled like deranged toddlers, me half-kneeling on Callum's chest, probably depriving him of what little oxygen he had left. Not the worst way for him to go.

Mav reached for my hair and grabbed a handful of curls and I squealed while she poked her tongue at me. A war zone developed over the pan which is probably still holding leftover breakfast. Mmm...burned frikin, fried eggs.

Then—

CRASH.

We froze. A sound came from outside my caravan like a horror movie.

Meanwhile, the rabbit sat on my sofa. On my FUCKING shirt - the one I'd just handmade after scrapping everything to snag that shit on sale!

The sound came again, heavier this time, and Mav's eyes darted to the door.

We simultaneously fell silent and looked at each other in dead silence - I can practically hear Mav blink. What in the actual hell is outside?!

We squealed surprised as the door smashed open and a figure in dripping dirt-bike gear filled the frame, rain sluicing off him in dramatic rivulets. For a beat he could have been Death in a helmet. Mav leaned forward, eyebrows leering.

“If that's Death,” she whispered, licking her lips, “I'm asking if he's available.”

“It's not the time to flirt!” I hissed as we hugged each other.

The figure shrugged off the helmet and the voice - flat, weary, and a little exasperated.

“For God's sake. You two are exhausting.”

Lore.

The hot nightmare Gora Park had somehow spat out was standing in my doorway: Lore, all broad shoulders and wet hair plastered across his forehead, looking like someone who'd been dragged through a hedge and told his tea was lukewarm as a personal insult. There was a large scar across his forehead, more visible now with rainwater still clinging to it. Two handsome men in my caravan in one night? Fucking livid day. He stood there soaked to the bone, grimacing the way guys do when life has been particularly rude to them - the living embodiment of too tired for this shit. Mav went appropriately slack-jawed, which, honestly, I couldn't blame her; he was stupidly easy on the eyes even when he looked like a wet napkin.

“Lore?!” Mav blurted.

He took one look at the glitter, the rabbit, the frying pan, the questionable liquids, and the semi-conscious man slumped on my sofa and waved a hand like he was dismissing an unpleasant fly.

“What the fuck is happening?” he asked, taking in the whole scene with a single, perfectly weary sweep. Then - because the universe loves awkward reunions - his gaze snapped to Mav.

“You again. Of fucking course.”

Mav, who'd been resuming sipping on her ‘tea’ avoided my gaze. I shot her a confused look; they'd clearly had a recent summit I'd missed. For a hot second I considered putting on my detective hat, but then I remembered I was still wearing an ill-fitting nurse costume and had literal mud up to my knees while sitting on mister half-dead right here, so I decided not to be the Investigator of Gossip tonight.

Lore let out a long, exasperated breath, the kind of breath that says he's reached the end of his patience allowance and is now on "emergency" mode. If anyone deserved to be allowed a little rage at this point, it was him.

“Fixing your disasters is a full-time job.” He muttered, half-complaint, half-admiration. “I should be charging rent to live in your mistakes.”

Mav offered her signature smile, part sheepish, part guilty.

He's glare softened the second he clocked Callum, draped dramatically on my glitter-covered sofa like some kind of disco corpse left over from Studio 54. Sparkles clung to his jacket, his hair, his eyelashes, like glitter had declared bankruptcy on my carpet and moved into his bloodstream instead.

Lore pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering something low, clearly trying to keep composed while flashing another quick look at her. And honestly? Whatever was going on between those two...Lore's frustration, Callum's presence, Mav suddenly sitting there like a calm statue instead of her usual gremlin self - it was uncharted territory for me.

And I don't like uncharted territory. I like maps...Or IKEA instructions. Not this.

Still, it was entertaining me more than it should have. I was mid-smirk at the absurdity of it all when something shifted.

Oh. Correction. Someone shifted.

Right underneath me.

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