I got changed at a snail’s pace, brushed my teeth, run a brush through my hair and headed downstairs. I could hear the shower blast from Ethan’s room. Someone had kept the fire going, the lights were off and in the dull light, the orange glow radiated across the room. Monique was seated at the table, her feet hooked up on a chair, drinking tea. Michael was on the couch, his legs crossed, reading the paper. Karson was nowhere to be seen.
“How are you feeling this morning, Amelia?” Michael asked, peering up over the paper. An image of a crashed van filled the entire front page. A flare of guilt stole the breath from my lungs. I jerked my eyes away before I could read the story.
“Like I’ve been hit by a Mini Minor,” I answered, my ribs burning with each step. I held the rail for support as I climbed off the last of them.
“Not as bad as a bus, then.” He sent me a sympathetic half smile.
“Where’s Karson?” I asked, diverting the topic.
He didn’t need to answer, because as I spoke Karson opened the door. He stopped abruptly as if he was startled to see me. A flicker of what might have been tenderness cut through his eyes, and then, in a blink it was gone. He cared enough to save me, but not enough to be with me. He released me, I reminded myself. The tiny skerrick of hope that’d ignited with the look extinguished like ashes in the wind as I let out a breath.
“Hey,” I said softly.
He was holding a small, blue, disposable ice-cooler in one hand. His hair was ruffled, like he’d been in the wind, but there was no wind. He had a thin sliver of blood, like a fluctuating graph line, across the front of his shirt. Not wind, a fight, I realized. He dropped his eyes quickly, with a look that might have been guilt on his face and moved inside.
“Well? Monique asked. She reached for the esky as he sat it on the table.
“Have you checked the perimeters?” he demanded.
“It’s not our first rodeo,” Michael drawled, settling the paper on his lap.
“Well, was it the boy?” Monique pressed.
The boy.Chris.
For the second time the breath tore from my lungs.Was he dead, had Karson killed him too?I felt sick. My chest tightened. The walls seemed to close in.
“You went to see him, didn’t you?” I breathed, scanning the blood on his top.
“Yes.” He met my eye. “I did not hurt him, if that is your concern.”
It was. I looked pointedly at the blood on his shirt and folded my arms over my chest.
“What did you do?”
He rubbed a finger down the side of his nose and looked amongst us as he spoke.
“He denied it. Of course. The woman Tom heard was just a nurse who was one of his father’s ex-girlfriends, apparently. I told him I did not kill his father, if I wanted him dead it would have been done much sooner.” He slid his eyes to mine. “And that if he ever looked even sideways at you again, I would pull him apart, limb by limb.”
Charming. “And the blood?” I questioned, wanting to believe him but not entirely convinced.
“Just a tap on the nose.” He waved his hand dismissively, moving into the sitting room. “He’ll live.”
I raised an eyebrow and followed behind. “Oh? I suppose the wind ruffled your hair then.”
He swung back and made a frustrated sound out of his nose. “Unless Chris wanted to hit me with his plaster cast, I doubt he was capable of any kind of physical encounter.”
And yet he’d a physical encounter with someone. And also, there was no need for a physical encounter with Chris at all, not when he could mind read. I circumvented the need to point it out, I figured the answer would be he enjoyed the infliction. So, who did he tussle with then, if not Chris?
“That’s the problem when you hang around witches, Karson,” Monique said looking between the two of us. “They are such deceitful little creatures they don’t trust anyone.”
I threw her a sharp look, but it was wasted, she’d already turned her attention to the cooler. She held up a blood-bag and squeezed the contents, a dark-red, sickening-looking concoction, into her cup.
“Did you have a chat with Caron?” Michael asked, watching the blood run into the cup like it spoke to him in tongues, thenhe dragged his eyes back to Karson. Monique popped the half empty bag back in the esky and took a sip.
“She wasn’t home.” He yawned, something I’d never seen him do before, and stretched his shoulders back. He hadn’t slept at all then. Monique lifted her eyebrows in a look of suspicion but remained tight lipped. She disappeared into the kitchen with the cooler.
“Perhaps she’s simply off making her own enquires,” Michael mused.
