Careless Wishes: A Chilling Florida Urban Fantasy (Discarded Arcana Book 1) by Martin Shannon

Author:Martin Shannon [Shannon, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Weird Florida LLC
Published: 2020-12-08T22:00:00+00:00

9

Bad to Worse

“Kris!”

Blood soaked the floor beneath my friend's rapidly cooling body.

Darcy…

Phone.

Call.

Help.

I dropped the bone and scrambled to my feet. The house seemed to spin and pull in on itself. Walls that I'd never thought about before squeezed the air from my lungs. My feet were numb, they moved on their own accord, and where they went, the rest of me followed.

Voices screamed in my head and I tried to process the sounds into words.

Phone.

Call.

Help.

Simple words and simple thoughts, but even they proved to be too much. The phone in my shaking hands became near impossible to unlock.

“Cathy!” The memory of my brother's voice hit me like a gut punch.

I can't do this.

“Cathy, please!”

My vision swirled like a tear-filled watercolor. Kris was gone. Darcy was dead.

It was all my fault.

If only I'd done what he asked.

The very thought churned my stomach, but each time it did, it came with a front row seat for the terror in Kris’s eyes. I slammed the phone down on the closest counter, and frantically mashed my fingers on the lock screen.

"Come on!"

It took me three failed attempts before I discovered I could just hit the emergency call button.

"911. What is you emergen—”

"He took my brother!" I screamed into the phone.

"Who took your brother?"

"Rich. Darcy's been shot. She’s… There's blood everywhere. Please help me."

"Is there an active shooter?"

"No. Yes. I don't... He has my little brother. Please. I can't lose Kris. I can't lose him."

"Where are you?"

I gave the operator our address in between the tears.

"Help is on the way. Do you want to stay with me while—"

I didn't hear the rest of her words. I let the phone fall from my ear and clatter to the floor.

The bone.

The digit sat in the rapidly widening pool of Darcy's blood.

"Ugh.” Tristan opened his eyes. "Cathy?"

"Tristan! He took him. He took Kris!"

He pushed himself up and rubbed at a rapidly swelling welt on his head. "Shit. Where did he go?"

"I don't know. I called 911. They should be here any minute. I... Darcy..." I tried to collapse into his arms but he pushed me back.

"No! Don't touch me."

"Tris—"

"Not now. You just. You can't… I'll explain later, but not right now. He's too close to the surface."

"Who? I don't—"

My boyfriend waved away my concerns. "It doesn't matter. We need to get out of here before the police get here."

"What?!"

Tristan ignored me and struggled to his feet. "Get the bone."

"Why?"

"Because he wants it."

"Rich?"

Tristan shook his head. "No. Just... just don't let me touch it, or you. Do you understand?"

"No."

The wail of sirens echoed outside.

"Get the bone, Catherine. Get it now."

"I don't understand."

Tristan pointed to the door. "Get the damn bone before someone else walks through that door and takes it from you."

"I..."

"Take it!"

I moved like a puppet on a string. I was doing things, but almost without conscious effort.

Blood, there was so much blood.

The tiny finger bone lay in that blood. A lone bit of white in a sea of red. My fingers closed around the digit, the sticky fluid covering their tips.

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