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A female shriek and the sound of shattering glass burst into the cacophony of sounds.
A sudden cool wind gusts over my body, dispersing the heat and the smell of burning plastic. The final strike still hasn’t come so I tentatively open my eyes and raise my head.
Everything stops around me as my mind goes into overdrive, trying to understand what I see.
Sam towers above me inside the circle of fire. His beautiful face is serious and stern, with none of the usual smugness in sight, and he doesn’t seem to be at all perturbed by the weird-looking fire raging around us.
But that’s not what sends my mind into overdrive.
Sam’s usual appearance of a runway model is weirdly offset by pure, snow-white, extra-large angel wings spread wide behind him, shooting up to the ceiling and taking up a quarter of the room. His wings are glorious with glossy and soft feathers, looking exactly like so many angel pictures I’ve seen.
They flap lazily behind his back, providing a cool breeze to my body and protecting me from the fire’s heat, and although the fire is right behind his back, it doesn’t seem to hurt his wings and it feels like he uses them to shield me from the blaze. They are much larger than him and, somewhere in the back of my mind, I wonder how he can fold them without dragging them over the floor or tripping over them.
He looks glorious and powerful – the commander of his universe.
My sluggish brain churns the vision, like a large wheel stuck in the mud spinning, but not covering any ground. I must have finally lost my mind and now there will be a compulsory white suit with decorative straps for me.
The crisp sound of a whip cuts through the other noises and a red, fiery, glowing whip’s tail wraps tightly around Sam’s legs, binding them together.
Surprise registers on his face. His eyes lock on mine and his lips move, telling me something, but I can’t hear him over the roar of the fire and skull-splitting sound of the fire alarm. I don’t know what he wants me to do. I don’t know what I can do.
Losing his balance, he falls face down with a heavy thud of a chopped down tree, and the next second he is pulled out of the fire ring with incredible force and speed.
Smoke and fumes from the burning plastic eat at my eyes. I’m blind, as tears pour down my cheeks, and I can’t blink them away. Viciously, I rub at my eyes with my healthy arm, smudging soot over my cheeks.
I spy Mia’s school blazer on the back of her chair. Coughing, I crawl on my stomach towards it. Rising on all fours, I yank the blazer down, burying my face in it. The demure, crisp smell of lily of the valley hits my nose over the stench of the fire, making me angry.
Mia, you little sneaky bitch! You pray that I die in here and never meet you after this!
I take a deep breath through the fabric and then wrap its sleeves around my fist and, lifting myself up, I start beating at the edge of the fire with Mia’s blazer. The blazer smacks at the fire, landing on the floor with a thump, but does nothing to bring the fire down. I haven’t made a dent in the deadly wall around me.
Another coughing fit wrings me to the ground.
I bring the blazer back to my face, covering my nose and mouth, but the raging fire has burned out the oxygen. I’m struggling for air as my lungs collapse on themselves.
I can’t move anymore.
The sound of a fight comes through the other noises and I feel vibrations of hits through the floor. I hear crashes of broken furniture and shattered glass, the buzz of a whip and the heavy thud of a weapon meeting concrete and metal.
I fall sideways, gulping for air like a fish on a river bank, scratching at my throat.
Red dots buzz, spreading in front of my vision, growing with every empty breath. Blood thunders in my ears, taking over all other noises as my mind goes black. My thoughts are sluggish and empty as I slowly lose consciousness.
✽✽✽
I slowly stir and stretch.
I’m cosy and warm, swaddled in soft bedding under a fluffy quilt. My limbs are heavy from the sleep. I roll onto my back and rub my eyes.
With my eyes still closed, I remember a new, weird dream of a fire, crazy Mia and ‘Sam the Angel’. Although weird dreams have always been a part of me, I am worried that now they are changing, adding something new to the staple diet of assassination.
With one last yawn, I open my eyes and freeze mid-stretch at the sight of a high, ornate gold ceiling above me. Intricate stuccowork of wine leaves, flowers and fruits cover the entire ceiling, painted in different shades of gold, giving it stunning depth. My jaw drops at the sight of a striking crystal chandelier the size of a small car, suspended from the ceiling. Sun rays caught by the crystals split into shards of rainbow across the room.
I sit up. My head is spinning from coming up that fast. I gape at the unfamiliar room I’m in.
I turn my head from side to side, taking in the quiet, opulent gold and burgundy room. The room smells of lemon furniture polish and flowers. I’m lying on the large mahogany four post bed, with luxury burgundy velvet draped over the posts’ sides, held back by gold cords with tassels.
The sun is streaming through the large window, illuminating the imperious room. The window takes up the entire wall and has a door to the side, probably leading to the balcony. The gold-stitched drapes around the window are drawn back by heavy golden cords with tassels matching the ones around the bed.
The walls are covered in burgundy velour with a subtle golden leaf design. Old oil paintings, which are clearly original and must cost a fortune, hang heavily on every wall in substantial golden frames.
A few pieces of heavy, dark furniture are scattered around this vast room. Fresh flowers in vases are standing proudly on every surface, releasing elegant sweet perfume.
A large fireplace with an ornate white mantelpiece occupies the entire wall across the room, with a hazy and haunting painting of a ship in the middle of a storm hanging above it in its elaborate gold frame.
None of it makes any sense and, just to make sure I am not dreaming, I pinch myself.
“Ouch!” I pinched harder than I thought.
A grim thought pops into my head. If I’m not asleep, I must be hallucinating. Crazy, here I come.
A soft knock sounds at the door and I yank my quilt up to my eyes as the door slightly opens and a girl’s head pops in.
“Hi, I heard you’re up. Can I get you anything?” A pretty child’s face with small pixie features, big brown eyes and a volume of brown, glossy curls chirps excitedly at me.
“Who are you? Where am I?” I demand, as fearless as I can muster.
I want to ask her if I’m hallucinating but I stop myself, figuring that if I am, she’ll be part of it and that question won’t offer me any clarity.
She giggles, as if I said something funny and her bobbing head disappears as she shuts the door.
I can feel that I am in my underwear under the sheets, so I scan the room for my clothes. My school uniform is hanging over the back of the regal armchair near the fireplace.
With a quick glance at the door, I throw the quilt over and dash on my tippy-toes to the chair to grab my clothes. I shove my legs into my skirt as fast as I can, afraid of anyone else to pop their heads in the room and catching me in a half-naked state.
As I fight with my skirt with only my bra covering my top, another knock sounds and before I can say not to come in, the door swings open with a decisive hand.
Sam is in the room, stunned, gawking at me. His piercing blue eyes are open wide, taking all of me in.
With a piglet squeal, I dive behind the armchair, protectively covering myself.
I peek over the back of the chair, keeping myself covered as much as I can.
“What are you doing in here?! Get out!” I shriek.
Slowly Sam’s stunned expression is replaced with one of his signature smirks. Appreciation is bouncing behind his eyes.
“Sorry”, he says, without making an effort to retreat and not sounding like he means it.
“Get out!” I yell, still crouched behind the chair. “And next time, wait to be invited, unless you want an important part of your anatomy to be cut off”, I hiss.
“I didn’t realise I needed an invitation in my own home”, he declares, as smug as usual.
“Do you mind?” I’m annoyed as hell now. My legs hurt from crouching behind the chair and I’m not prepared to have a battle of wits while I’m still undressed.
“Okay, I will give you some time and I’ll be back”, he says and with a last once over of the chair, he leaves the room.
I decide to get dressed in my nook behind the chair, just in case more visitors decide to burst in uninvited. My trembling fingers fumble with the buttons, struggling to push them through the holes on my shirt, as my mind contemplates the last few days.
What really happened, and was it a fantasy, a hallucination? Was the fire in the science room, Mia and ‘Sam the Angel’ a dream? Am I losing my mind? How did I end up here? The questions are endless and I don’t know the answer to any of them.
Soon another knock sounds but this time the door remains closed.
“Come in”, I yell. Fully dressed, I feel less vulnerable and scared.
The door opens cautiously and Sam steps into the room.
Sam looks effortlessly hot this morning and my heart skips a beat as I watch him entering the room.
His broad shoulders are tightly hugged by a thin navy jumper and I can just make out an outline of his pecs and a six-pack underneath it. His black jeans fit exquisitely over his long legs and his taught butt. Expensive looking black leather trainers finish his outfit.
He smells fresh out of the shower and his usual smell of moss and undergrowth is now mixed with a tingling smell of the mint and rosemary. His hair is still damp, falling in waves over his clear forehead.
“Is it safe to come in? Is everyone dressed now?” he calls in a sing a song voice, with his hand covering his eyes, spinning on the spot. He is mocking me.
“Yeah, everybody’s dressed”, I grumble, annoyed at myself that I’m finding him so attractive. “Listen, can you please explain where I am?”
“You are in my home”, he smiles, looking at me. He spreads his arms wide, inviting me to take in the grandeur of this place.
“Yes, not bad, thanks. But I really need to get back to my house”, I say, moving towards the door, walking around him. “I don’t want people to start panicking and call the feds on my arse”. Although I don’t remember how I ended up in here, I most definitely am not going to tell him that.
“You can’t go back. Well, not now, anyway”, he says. His sober voice is calmer and quieter than usual.
“What do you mean?” I stop midstride gaping at him, hoping for a “gotcha” any moment now. I’m just a few steps away from the door.
“It’s just, you need to stay here for a bit”, he says, “for your own safety”.
As I gawk at him, not saying a word, he continues.
“Do you remember the fire in the science class?” he asks.
“Yes”, I stretch out the word, looking at him, waiting to see where he’s going with it.
So the fire did happen?
I try to keep my face neutral as my mind is churning, spinning, trying to process the fact that the fire wasn’t my imagination.
“And do you remember everything that happened during the fire?” He asks me, placing the emphasis on “everything”. His gaze is locked on mine. He is expecting something from me.
“Well”, I answer, keeping my voice measured. “Here’s your reason why I need to keep going, everyone at the house had probably heard about the fire by now and are trying to contact me. Thank you for your hospitality, but I’d better go”, I say as I take another cautious step, skirting around, while keeping my eyes on him.
“And do you remember Mia?” he utters and I stop, frozen to the spot.
I spin to face him. My stomach pulls at the memory of Mia, of my burning blistering arm, and I’m petrified to hear what more he will say about Mia.
“What do you mean?” I croak. I need him to say the words. He needs to vocalise them. I don’t trust my mind any more.
“Do you remember Mia starting the fire in the science class and trapping you in? She was trying to kill you”, he cautiously starts.
“And do you remember me?” He takes a step closer. I’m watching him, afraid to speak and desperately wanting him to shut up. It’s never good for me when I’m reminded of my past, of things that I’ve done, of things done to me.
He takes another step towards me.
“I’ve saved you”. He is now next to me. I crane my head up, our gazes are locked. His smell of moss and the forest undergrowth envelops me.
“Thank you”, I whisper.
His lips lift into a smile, his perfect dimple is back on his cheek. He bows his head slightly in acknowledgement.
But I’m silent, waiting. I feel that he’s going somewhere with it but, for now, I don’t know where to. Or maybe I just don’t want to know.
“I’m an angel and so is Mia. And she will try to kill you again”, he says.
Wow. That is not what I expected.
He said he’s an angel. An angel! He is nuts. That or one of us is nuts!
Wait. Could we both be nuts? Maybe we both inhaled something during the fire, toxic fumes or something. I remember the smell of burning plastic...
My mind is racing. My thoughts are like galloping horses on a racing track, sprinting, overtaking each other, falling back. I’m struggling to process it all.
And then a clear winner rushes forward. It carries only one thought: He said that he’s an angel!
I repeat it in my head on a loop. I remember his wings, but I thought at the time, that it was my oxygen deprived brain working overtime, cooking up something crazy, like when people who have experienced a clinical death claim they saw a tunnel filled with a white light.
But he’s saying it so calm, so matter of fact...
That’s impossible. He’s crazy. Angels aren’t real! I need to get out of here.
The thoughts are pouring through so fast that I’m struggling to catch and formulate all of them. But I know for sure that he must be crazy and I need to get out of here.
I take a small step away from him, forcing my face to form a calm polite smile.
Feeling nauseated, I decide to go with it, treading a thin, constantly changing and fluid line with a psychopath.
“Okay, Sam. So the fire was real. Mia was trying to kill me and you’re an angel, but I remember burning my arm. I had blisters all over. How is it possible for them to disappear? Where did they go?” I look at my perfectly healthy arm.
“I healed you”, Sam answers matter of fact, shrugging his shoulders.
“Sure”, I say. I can’t help it. My careful reasoning is all forgotten as sarcasm drips off my tongue. “No doubt, with your heavenly powers”.
Shit. Calm and nice with a psychopath. Remember the movies, you need to agree with him.
That’s a downfall of mine, when I’m scared, I utilise sarcasm as my defence mechanism. The problem is that I usually annoy the hell out of people, aggravating them even further instead of keeping them calm and placid.
I take another step closer to the door. “As much as this is a very fascinating conversation, I really have to go”.
Trust me to befriend someone crazier than me.
“You can’t go”, he says quietly.
“And you can’t hold me here against my will”. I’m by the door now, turning the handle.
“Will this help you make up your mind?” He says behind my back.
I glance over my shoulder, handle in my hand.
Stunned, I let go of the handle and the door closes again with a soft click.
I turn on the spot, pressing my back against the door. If I could go through the wall right now, I would.
Glorious angel wings are unfurled behind his back, shooting up to the ceiling, swallowing the space in the room. The chandelier chimes with a soft, crystal sound as droplets hit each other when his wing brushes over them.
My mouth agape, I take a step back away from him, sliding along the wall. Then another one. Then one more.
Stunned, I lose my footing and land painfully on my butt. My mind spins, taking in the magnificent, imperial sight of a real to God angel in front of me, with pure white wings.
Who’s nuts now?!
He has four wings although I only remember seeing two in the science class. Two larger ones are spread wide behind his back, shooting up to the ceiling, while the smaller two are facing down, growing from his lower back, half hidden behind each leg, their tips brushing the floor.
I sit and stare. Seconds are trickling by. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t rush me.
My eyes are still locked on him. I raise my hand and pinch myself.
“Ouch”, I protest weakly. It does hurt. I really need to stop doing it or my arm will be covered in bruises. Or, more accurately, I need to stop finding myself in situations where I have to question my sanity.
“It’s a trick. Your fake wings are just strap-ons”, I whisper in an accusing shaky voice. “You’ve probably nicked them from one of those half naked Victoria’s Secret models”.
He throws his head back and laughs, a bewitching, irresistible, musical sound.
“You are welcome to inspect them”, he says with a charming smile. His blue eyes are hooded, looking at me. “I can even take my shirt off for you”. His smirk is back on, now with a challenge.
I ignore his remark about the shirt, mesmerised by the sight of his wide white wings, gently moving around him, taking up almost the entire space in the room.
Okay, let’s take stock. I’m not asleep and my pain is real. But is it possible to feel the pain, corresponding with the hallucination and still be hallucinating?
I’m so confused and I don’t know what to think, as my mind is going into overdrive.
Clumsily, I scramble myself up off the floor.
It takes a few moments and dozens of heartbeats for me to command my feet to carry me closer to Sam.
The ever so familiar scent of pine needles, forest and moss shrouds around me. I close my eyes and take in a deep breath. I don’t care anymore if I look stupid, needy or too girly. I need something to calm me, to ground me, and right now this scent is as good as anything.
I open my eyes and lift my head up at him. My eyes are seeking permission. He answers me with a nod.
I’m confused and scared. Not scared, petrified. The possibility of him being an angel, of me being here or of another set of species being real. All of it can be confirmed with one stroke of my hand over his wing. But what if I’ve finally lost my mind? What if I’ve finally fallen through that rabbit hole, through the black hole of no return? The prospect of my final demise scares me more than the discovery of celestial creatures.
“Go on”, his relaxed smirk is back on. He dares me.
I take two sidesteps to the left, behind his muscular body. His pure-white angel wings move slow and steady. Close up, they have the luminescent glow of a pearl. I can see individual feathers making up the wing as I reach out.
The moment my fingers make contact with the silky softness of a feather, his wing jerks away from my touch, starting to beat like wings of a butterfly caught in a net.
Startled, I drop my hand.
The chandelier above chimes wildly, when it’s hit by his thrashing wing.
“Sorry”, he grits through his teeth. “Give me a second. Nobody’s touched my wings in a while”, he mumbles apologetically.
He tightly shuts his eyes.
“Okay. I’m ready. I will keep still”, he exhales.
“Are you sure?” The strangled, stammering whisper doesn’t sound like my voice at all.
“Yes”, he snaps. “It’s fine. Just do it”.
I look at him. His eyes are tightly shut, his lips pressed in a decisive line.
I slowly reach again.
His wing jerks again once my fingers make contact with his feathers. I pull my hand back as my gaze jumps to his face. His jaw muscles strain under the skin, as his eyes close tighter than they were before, if that is even possible. But his wings are pushed back into their original position and frozen in place.
Tentatively, I move my finger up to meet the feather, slowly stroking its silkiness.
And as his wings stay still, I feel braver and I want to touch more of his wing.
I take a small step closer to him, closing the distance between us.
I’m next to his body. I lay my open palm on his wing and stroke it upwards as far as I can reach up on my tippy toes and then bring my hand back to the base of his wing and stroke it again.
The feel of his feathers under my palm is strangely satisfying. It’s soft and silky, fragile yet strong, and very graceful. I’m in awe by the sheer divinity of it. The shape of his feathers is uniform but the size of them differs, depending on the area of the wing. Some feathers are as long as my arm, while others are of the length of my hand. I marvel at the feel and the look of them – they are magnificent.
I turn my head, looking up at him. My wonder struck smile shrivels under the intensity of his gaze on me.
I drop my hand, swallow, and take a small step back. I turn my gaze back to his wing and watch it for a bit before I speak again.
“How is this possible?” I croak, bewildered, needing to hear something, I don’t know what, but something to tell me that I’m not losing my mind.
“Everything is possible”, he replies in a coarse, throaty voice. “Remember, Mr Shaw said once in his class, that just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it does not exist”. The side of his mouth lifts up into his usual smirk. “Wise man”, he winks at me, “for a human that is”.
His face sobers, relaxes, his unseeing gaze stares into space. I don’t know what he is thinking, but now I have this nudging feeling that something else is happening behind those eyes, something more, that’s not shared with me.
His gaze sweeps back to me.
It locks on mine and then, guided by his thoughts, it leisurely travels around my face, taking in my features, lingering on my lips, as if drawn to them by a magnet. I shift uncomfortably under his gaze, unconsciously wetting my lips with my tongue.
I clear my throat.
“But if you’re an angel, what were you doing in my class? Why were you there?” I ask, filling in the uncomfortable silence.
“I was there because Mia was there. I had to protect you from her”, he answers.
“Like my personal guardian angel?” I snort out an unamused, sarcastic laugh.
He shrugs his shoulders.
“Well, I still don’t see why I can’t go back to my house?” I demand. Now it’s my turn to shrug my shoulders.
“Mia is still out there. She is after you and it’s much harder for me to protect you out there”, he says slowly and patiently, as if he’s talking to a toddler.
I hate to be patronised like that. Like I’m too stupid to understand the enormity of the situation or the gravity of my decisions, which only wise people, like him, should make for me. Sure, I haven’t been that smart until now, but that doesn’t mean an automatic void on my input on any of my wishes or needs.
And just like that, my annoyance and irritation spikes up.
“But what about my family, school, people who know me?” I stammer, appalled. “They will worry about me. Can’t we just go to the police and tell them about Mia, about how she did set the fire to the class? With the fire damage to the room and thirty witnesses that had to flee it, it’ll be valid enough evidence. I’m sure they’ll be able protect me”.
“Unfortunately, police can’t protect you from her. I told you, she is an angel, just like me”, he cuts me off.
He is a picture of a calm determination. His arms are folded over his chest, his jaw is set and he is clearly not going to budge on this one.
I inhale a shaky, angry breath, and I am about to tell him what I think about his totalitarian and obnoxious attitude, and where he can shove it when the door creaks open again.
The young girl from earlier with bouncy curls pokes her head through it.
“I’ve got her breakfast”, she chirps, giving us both a wide smile. She nudges the door wider and comes in with a tray in her hands, laden with food. A pair of silvery-grey angel wings flutter behind her back, opening and closing in time with her bouncing steps. Unlike Sam, she doesn’t have an extra pair of wings growing towards the ground. She only has two regular ones, shooting upwards.
Look at me, talking about two angelic wings as if it’s a norm!
The girl bounces across the room with a tray towards me, and then abruptly stops a few steps away, looking at me expectantly. I don’t think she is usually a servant: she doesn’t seem to know what to do with the tray and is too excited by such a simple job.
She looks like a ten year old child and is dressed like a one. She wears a dark grey sweatshirt dress with a picture of the Empire State Building in New York on the front. Colourful tights in a crazy red and green swirling pattern cover her skinny, twig like legs. Red high tops, laced with acidic yellow laces finish her outfit.
Unsure, she sweeps her gaze around the room, turning slightly on the spot, but then shrugs and places the tray on the floor in front of me, beaming at me with a gorgeous, bright and open smile. This girl is really pleased with herself.
“Thank you”, I say warmly, smiling back at her.
She is cute and quite entertaining, and just because Sam had annoyed the hell out of me, doesn’t mean I’m going to take it out on her. She reminds me of my sister.
“My name is Tabbris, but you can call me Tabby”, she chimes, giving me another bright smile.
“Nice to meet you, Tabby. I’m Ariel”, I reply, smiling at her. Her smile is contagious and I find that I want to smile back at her when she beams like that.
“I’ve heard so much about you”, she says as she darts her gaze at Sam.
“Ariel, I think you need to eat. I think it might help you”, Sam interjects into our pleasant exchange, souring my mood instantly.
“Don’t you think that you’re thinking too much?” I snap, turning to him. “People will be worrying about me. I need to get back to my home, to my life, to my family. I can’t just disappear like that”, my voice is rising.
“And you will get back, once I take care of Mia.” The determination in his voice confirms that he won’t budge on this.
“And how long do you think, this is going to take?” I snap.
Irritation and anger are my ‘go to’ emotions when I’m confronted or cornered in a desperate situation and right now I can feel the crippling tide of fear coming over me, already touching my toes, threatening to consume me whole.
My useless therapist at the house always preached that I needed to learn how to control and ‘manage’ my emotions, my anger and rage in particular. That I need to take time out, to take myself out of the situation, to calm myself and to think before running head forward, but... it’s easier said than done.
I feel almost a physical pain in my gut when I walk away, suppressing the release of my emotions, blocking them in. It’s like trying to stuff the morning fog into a bottle and my anger and rage hate that. They are like a poison grenade, like a Molotov cocktail – ready to explode the moment it’s created, slowly dissolving, leaking its toxic poison, not caring who’s going to get hurt in the process.
But sometimes, I found comfort in my rage.
She is real.
She kept me going like kindling stoking the fire. She kept my back straight and my determination focused. Rage and the promise of revenge have kept me better company than my family ever had. She led me to the other side though horrors and she will serve me well again.
“I don’t know”, he says with a finality which really means ‘I don’t care’.
I swallow the toxic poison back into my gut for now.
“But what about people who know me?” I ask him calmly, stamping hard on the panic in my throat, trying to be calm and logical as I try to reason with him. “They’ll report me missing tonight if I’m not home after school. If they haven’t reported already”.
“They haven’t and they won’t”, he answers. “I cleared your room in that house where you were residing. I cleared up any evidence of you from the school. All that’s left behind is a fire-damaged classroom, with some broken furniture and glass, but even that will be passed as a result of an accidental fire and the stampede that followed it. I altered people’s memories of you, so nobody in the school or that residence of yours will be looking for you. All their memories of you were pushed to the back of their minds and only occasionally, if they come across something of yours, it might rise up like a sense of déjà vu, but then they’ll get back to whatever they were doing before, like you were never there. That’s it”, he shrugs his shoulders.
“So I have been wiped out of their minds?” I stammer in disbelief. “Everyone’s? Like I never existed? And they’ll not even be looking for me?”
I’m incredulous. I can’t believe that there’s a truth in what he says. How could it be? How is it possible?
My own personal sense of déjà vu is catching up with me. My fear hikes up a notch.
I might throw up.
Again I feel hidden away, at the mercy of someone else. Powerless, voiceless, forgotten. Only this time nobody is looking for me.
I look up at him.
“You have to take me back. I’d rather take my chances with Mia. I’m not afraid of her. If she kills me then so be it”, I say, steadying my body and forcing my voice to sound strong.
“I can’t do that”, he shakes his head slowly.
He is a stone statue, unmoving and unwavering. My fists curl up at my sides. I desperately want to hit him.
“Fine”, I snap. “I’ll find my way out. Thanks once again for your hospitality”. Sarcasm is back with a vengeance.
Screw the therapist.
Rage is back, skipping in after the sarcasm, whistling a happy song while polishing her blood stained talons.
I step over the tray, marching past Sam and Tabby, surprised when allowed to reach the door. I’m even more surprised when the doorknob turns in my hand and the door swings open for me.
With a final glance over my shoulder at him, I step into the hall.
I hesitate for a moment, deciding whether to go left or right down the hall, and concluding that the ‘eeny meeny’ method is as good as any, I turn left.