Blood Will Tell by Kit Laine

Author:Kit Laine [Laine, Kit]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Reque House
Published: 2024-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

Sera sat back, resting against the sofa.

Eating with Jed was a little like trying to share a fresh kill with an angry jackal. Dawn reached over with her fork, poking the stack of empty boxes.

“Did we finish the noodles?” she said.

Jed nodded. He slowly swilled the wine around and around, in his glass. The deep colour pattern was strangely hypnotic.

David had stopped after one glass but Dawn was matching Jed drink–for–drink. Sera lifted her own glass, watching the fire through the tint.

She could see Jed watching her as the dog edged closer, to share the fireside.

Dawn tipped the remains of a bottle into her own glass. “Shit, sorry. I seem to have finished it.”

“There’s more,” Sera gestured down the hall.

“I’ll get it,” said David, but he didn’t move from the armchair.

Sera heaved herself up. She brought another two bottles.

“It’s like that is it?” said Dawn. “I’m staying over.”

“Of course,” said Sera. “You know wh–”

“I call the spare bed,” said Jed, raising his hand.

“That’s not very gentlemanly. Are you staying then?” Dawn asked, tipping her head to one side.

“I damn well hope so after the hefty part of the last two bottles,” he told her, opening the next. “I’m not sleeping in the car.”

“Sera, your music selection is dreadful.” Dawn moaned. “What is this rubbish?”

“It’s Bach,” she said dreamily. “It calms me.”

“Too much culture.”

“Bach was a fantastic mathematician,” said David. He dropped down from his seat to sit closer to Sera. “He w –”

“Fuck maths.” Dawn waved her fork in the air. “Jed, pass me the noodles, please?”

“You said not to let you eat another mouthful,” said Jed. “You told us, specifically, not to allow it, and that I should hide the last box – I believe the phrase involved my chopsticks and another part of my body, but I’m not getting into the whole, he-said-she-said argument.”

“Sera, pass me the noodles.”

Sera reached for the box, but Jed put his hand over the box.

“For her own good, I forbid it,” he said.

“Ah shit, now I want them even more!” Dawn grumbled.

Jed held the box tight to his chest but then shrieked as Dawn leapt to seize the food. Landing on top of him, she tipped them both backwards as she grappled for the box, both of them dissolving into a fit of giggles.

Sera grinned.

The dog licked at a noodle on the carpet. Sera picked another from Dawn’s hair.

“They’re cold,” she said.

“I’ll get a cloth,” said David.

“Don’t worry,” Sera waved her hand over the mess. “The dog seems to be on the case. Life’s too short for floor cloths – hell, life’s too damn short full stop.”

Her face fell and suddenly the well dressed, elegant woman she had become, slipped from her tiny frame, and Jed saw the girl who never smiled, whose big dark eyes used to follow him around his father’s house. He gently slid Dawn away and moved to Sera.

“It’s ok,” he said. “We’re all here.”

Sera brought her hand to her mouth, but she couldn’t speak. She nodded. Without thinking, he pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her, burying his face in her hair.

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