When the Bough Breaks by David Mark

Author:David Mark [Mark, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-19T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Jarod watches Sal make her way through the thick snow: a blurry figure lost in a great swirl of ghostly petals. His vision splits. Fragments. For a moment, he’s looking at himself through a kaleidoscope of spinning, twisting shapes. He feels like a giant fly: his vision magnified and splintered into endless perfect cubes. For a moment, he sees himself through her eyes. For a moment, he is inside her head: the hot haze of her pain searing his own nerve endings as he drifts within her consciousness.

She knows, he tells himself. Knows, deep down …

He shakes his head. Blinks. Returns to himself. He has been losing himself more and more in recent weeks. There had been a mix-up with his medication: the pharmacy at Hexham General made their standard cock-up over his repeat prescriptions. He’d missed four days. The withdrawal was an agony unlike any he’d known: zapping, vibrating darts of scorching agony ripping through the centre of his brain. It had been harder than coming off cocaine. By the fifth day, he began to wonder whether it mightn’t be a good idea to push on through. To let the last of the antidepressants and antipsychotics leave his bloodstream. He was beginning to feel … alive. Memories long since dormant were beginning to resurface. He saw parts of himself as a great dragon asleep upon a mound of gold coins and glittering treasures. In his head, he saw its tail flicker. Saw it begin to wake.

He hates that he’s deceiving Sal. She’s still falling for the performance. Wulf, too. He’s no doubt Dagmara will see through it, but he’s doing a good job of keeping her at arm’s length. The snow has been a Godsend. He’d agreed to help with some renovations to Cate’s peace garden at the youth centre. He isn’t sure he’d have been able to keep up the act. Dagmara has always been able to read people. She knows what’s written in people’s hearts. Knows what they’re worth.

‘You heard?’

Jarod balls his hands. Forces himself back into this moment, seals himself within his own skin.

‘Say again?’

Sal comes to a halt a few paces ahead of him. There’s snow on her glasses, tears in her eyes. The rectangle of skin between hood and scarf looks wind-slapped and sore.

‘You heard. They told you. Barry.’

She fires the words like bullets. She’s short of breath. He wishes he’d brought her a hot drink. Wonders if that’s what the other version of himself would do: the one that he’s still pretending to be. He doesn’t want to lay it on too thick. Needs to get the balance right. It really does have to be the performance of a lifetime.

‘You’re sure?’ asks Jarod. His words are lost in the wind, and he has to lean forward on the quad and shout the words again.

Sal doesn’t reply. She just stares at him, looking lost and hurt. For a second, she is Little Sal again, with curly hair and rosebud lips, big eyes and a friendly smile.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.