Angel's Curse (8 page)

My eyes lost focus again in an effort to survey the room. One was sitting in a corner, the other three crouched in a huddle at the opposite end talking in some sort of sign language, yet still seemingly looking in my direction.

New moves, new tactics — that’s what I needed in order to keep them guessing. I kept my eyes on them, as they kept their eyes on me. The three of them were still talking in signs and I took the opportunity to run to the corner where the vampire, still recovering from having his feet cut off, was resting. I slammed the heel of my palm into his forehead, driving his head back against a tree —
thwack
— and slashed through his neck with Death, the blade biting into the trunk. The song was different again, muffled and restrained, perhaps from being stuck in a tree. I had to put my foot on the tree trunk and pull fiercely — grunting as I did so — to remove the blade. As Death came free I felt searing pain in my back — one, two, three points of contact. I fell on my side and reached around to my back to try and feel what was causing the pain. My fingers touched something cold and hard, with a series of sharp, pointed edges — throwing stars.

I was beginning to see double of everything and my head started to spin. It seemed I’d underestimated Drake. He may have said I smelled good, but he no longer coveted me like I thought he would. As such, I’d made a fatal error in judgement. Or was it simply he’d wanted to test me against his assassins — ninjas or specialists, whatever they were — to see how I fared, and if I lived I’d be welcomed into the fold. Either way I’d been taken for a ride and was hurting. My back was starting to feel cold and numb, but the rest of me was on fire. I could feel the throwing stars sapping away my strength. How odd that such a simple weapon could be my downfall.

I really had to learn to get out of these sorts of situations before things turned nasty.
You should’ve erred on the side of caution,
I chided myself.

The spinning got worse and I felt like I was falling, head over feet, and in actual fact I was. Not being in total control of my faculties I’d transported myself to the top of the stairs back at the cottage, just outside the ballroom, and promptly fell backwards down the stairs, driving the throwing stars further into my back.

7.
Demon's Blood

Danny came out of the library to see what all the commotion was about, thinking I’d been on another shopping spree — dumping bags and boxes all over the place — only to find me splayed on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, breathing shallowly. He sat me up and placed an arm under my knees and the other under my neck, careful to keep well away from the small amount of steel that was still sticking out of my back. I moaned as he lifted me and let my head loll forwards, unable to find the strength or energy to hold it up.

He laid me face down on the bed and examined my back, before donning smelter’s gloves to try to remove the throwing stars as swiftly and gently as he could. Only a quarter of each star was visible, so removing them was not such a simple task, particularly wearing thick and heavy gloves. I was too far gone to even question why the gloves were necessary.

I heard a faraway metallic ping, somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, as the stars were dropped one by one into a metal bowl. He washed out the wounds with warm water and sat back to wait for them heal. An hour later, bleeding and unhealed, Danny resorted to the one thing that had worked in the past — his own blood. I screamed as his blood dripped onto the wounds, burning my flesh —
it’s all in the mind, Helena
— yet leaving no scorch marks. He sat down again and waited for the wounds to heal. They continued to ooze blood and remained open and raw. I thought I heard him say a quick prayer before I felt his hands on me — so cold, I couldn’t understand why — wrapping layers of crepe bandages, over gauze, around my torso to dress the wounds.

I was asleep, I was sure of it, as the pain had gone …

My second abortion had been performed by a friend of the family I’d been fostered to — my last-chance family — and it had been a backyard botch job. I was haemorrhaging badly, though oddly enough wasn’t in any pain. I was mostly cold and wanted to sleep. I remembered seeing bright lights and thinking I was going to die, and glad of it …

“Helena, can you hear me?” someone asked.

The bright light was fading now, getting further away and I blinked.

“She’s still with us,” another voice said.

“Cold,” I murmured.

“Did you catch what she said?” voice number one, a man, asked.

“No,” voice number two, a woman, replied.

I felt hot breath on my neck and the warmth was nice. I shivered.

“What did you say, Helena?” the man asked.

“Cold,” I murmured.

“She said she’s cold,” he said. “Have we got the results of the blood typing yet? She’s going into hypovolemic shock.”

“They’ve just come back,” another voice said. “A-negative — that figures. Why does this shit always happen on our shift?”

“No time to bitch. We need three units of blood,
now!”
the man yelled.

I heard some shuffling and mumbling in the distance.

“Helena, you’re going to go to sleep for a while, and when you wake up you’ll feel a lot better. I promise,” the man said.

There was pressure on my face and the air tasted funny. I struggled to keep my eyes open, but the lids were just too heavy and everything went dark …

Voices were whispering inside my head.

“She’s really lucky to be alive. Whoever butchered her
should
be locked up,” the man said.

“Do you think she’ll talk?” the woman asked.

“Not likely. If she was that desperate to seek out a backyard abortionist she’s not likely to rat on them,” the man said.

“So they get away with what they did and she can never have children of her own, all because of one mistake,” the woman said bitterly.

Did the woman mean I couldn’t have children of my own? Big deal. Why would I want to bring kids into a scummy world like this anyway?

“She should be coming around soon,” the woman said. “Did you want to wait or shall I call you when she’s awake and coherent?”

“If you could call me that’d be great, but maybe you should talk to her first. She’s probably going to be traumatised and I don’t deal with that stuff very well,” the man replied. “Besides, I need to interview her foster family and get started on the paperwork.”

I heard the door open and close and thought I was alone. I opened my eyes and the room spun.
Round and round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows.

I threw up everywhere, a disgusting smelling liquid, probably bile.

The woman was still in the room. She opened the door and yelled into the corridor, “Can I have a nurse in here please. She’s throwing up!”

My stomach was empty, yet I continued to retch until even the bile wasn’t coming up anymore.

The door opened again and I heard two sets of footsteps, one heavier than the other. I turned my head slightly and saw two nurses.

“This will stop you from being sick,” one of the nurses said.

I felt a sting in my thigh and nurse one rubbed the area before covering it with a small sticky plaster.

“Gees, it’s like that exorcism movie in here,” the second nurse commented, “but without the pea soup. God I
hate
the smell of this stuff. Give me a bedpan any day!”

The first nurse cleaned my face and hands with a wash cloth and warm water while the second nurse removed the blankets and sheet from my bed, before covering my legs with fresh, clean and cold ones. I shivered.

“Does she need a new gown?” the second nurse asked.

“Yes,” the first nurse replied.

“Here,” the second nurse said, throwing a gown. “I brought one along just in case.”

“Helena, can you lean forward for me please?” the first nurse asked. “I need to untie your gown, slip it off and slip on a clean one.”

She helped me lean forward, my head nodding like that of one of those little dolls with springs for necks. There was a fiery pain in my abdomen and I groaned.

“Sorry, hon, I know it hurts, but you’ll feel better once I’ve changed your gown and given you something for the pain.”

“Can I help at all?” the woman asked.

“Yeah,” the first nurse replied, “can you unhook the IV bag and slip it through her sleeve while I hold her up? I really need three hands for this.”

“Sure,” the woman said.

When they’d managed to change my gown and injected something into the drip for the pain, the nurses left, but the woman remained behind. She pulled up a chair and sat next to the bed. She took my hand in hers. I pulled it away.

“Helena, my name is Madeline, but you can call me Maddy,” the woman said. “I’m a clinical psychologist. Some people call me
Mad!
”

It was a really pathetic attempt at humour and she gave a high-pitched nervous laugh before clearing her throat and continuing. “How old are you, Helena?”

“Fourteen,” I whispered, “and a half.”

Maddy nodded thoughtfully, knowing that for children half years were
very
important.

“Do you know what happened to you?” she asked.

My head was still shrouded in fog and I tried to think back to what had happened, why I was here.

I heard a siren and my foster mother knelt next to me, resting my head in her lap. She wanted to put on a good act for the paramedics, the distraught carer.

She leaned down until her mouth was next to my ear. “If you know what’s good for you we had nothing to do with this. We didn’t even know you were pregnant, never mind how you found out about backyarders. Am I making myself clear?”

I gave a small nod and when she lifted her head the paramedics were there and she had tears in her eyes.

“
God, please help her,
” she cried out, “
she’s dying. Please don’t let her die!
”

I nodded my head and sobbed. I remembered all right.

“Helena, it’s okay.” Maddy reached out for my hand again and I retreated once more. “Anything you tell me is covered by doctor-patient privilege.”

I’d seen enough television to know there were always loopholes. The only person I could trust,
ever,
was me.

“It was my own stupid fault,” I whispered. “I had unprotected sex. It was my very first time.” I was a convincing liar, especially when I was sobbing. “I thought you couldn’t get pregnant if you were still a virgin.”

Maddy shook her head. “Don’t they teach kids anything about sex education in school anymore?”

“My foster parents wouldn’t let me take the class. They wanted to protect me from that sort of thing.” I made a pathetic attempt at a weak laugh. “I really blew it, didn’t I?”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Maddy said.

She was trying hard not to pass judgement on me and to gain my trust.

“Am I going to be taken away from my family?”

“That’s not up to me to decide,” Maddy said. “That’s for your case worker. I can only put in a recommendation.”

“
Please,
” I begged. “They’re good people. I don’t want to leave them.”

I fidgeted with the blankets, gripping, releasing, gripping, releasing.

“I’ve been
so good
all these years. Don’t punish me for not knowing about sex.”

“Helena, how do you
feel
about what’s happened?” Maddy asked.

The question caught me off guard. I thought she was here to assess whether or not I should be taken from my foster family, not to determine my mental well-being.

“I …
I don’t know,
” I whispered, and cried again.

“Give it time, Helena.” Maddy patted my arm. “Everything’s too fresh for you at the moment and the drugs are probably making it hard for you to think. You’ll need time to sort through your emotions.”

I laid my head back on the pillows. I didn’t want to talk anymore.

“I’ll be back to talk to you tomorrow, but here’s my card.” Maddy left the card on the bedside table. “Call me any time, day or night, if you need to talk. I only want to help.”

People came and went, asking questions and taking notes. After two weeks I was allowed to go home, back to my foster family. Maddy’s recommendation that I not be removed from the only family I had known, due to my delicate emotional state, had been accepted. The only additional requirement was that I had to report in once a fortnight with Maddy, so she could continue to assess and monitor me.

David knew what had happened to me and he also knew I hadn’t talked. He believed his parents would have been all over him if they thought he was responsible for what happened to me. He still didn’t know about my other secret life, but he was right to think the baby was his. It was. He was the only one I had unprotected sex with, though his parents thought one of their clients who really disliked condoms was responsible for my pregnancy. Now it didn’t matter, I’d never fall pregnant again.