I don't own anything. I just like to play. Please review, she whined pitifully...
I shut the bathroom door with a little more force than necessary and lean back against the wood for a few seconds, just breathing. I can hear Connor and the man, my father, talking in low voices outside the bathroom door. It nibbles at the corners of my nerves how quickly my brother embraced him back into the fold, he who left us as tiny boys, and who had been trying mightily, for a time, to kill us. After all that has happened…
I turn to the side, leaning against the sink and closing my eyes against an oncoming headache, but my gaze is drawn to the mirror, and the sight makes me feel sick. My hands and face are still sticky with blood, both mine and Rocco's, and my hair is tacky with it, sticking to my forehead in ropy clumps. I step forward for a closer look and flinch at the kabuki mask of gore. I can smell the thick iron stink of the blood, can taste the copper tang on my tongue.
Suppressing a groan of pain, I shimmy out of my jeans, noting with disconnect that one of my knees is bloody, the skin scraped away from scrambling around on that concrete floor. I hadn't even noticed until now. Bigger problems, and all.
As I strip off my shirt, my wrist pangs with agonized protest at the movement. It is swollen purple black, puffy and weeping where the cuffs gouged away bits of flesh, and bruised where Connor's boot had bashed at it. As I touch one of the welts with tentative fingers, pain flares hot and my stomach gives a roll of nausea. The angry wound on my bicep is throbbing, and I unwind the soiled bandage, which sticks and pulls at the triangle of burned skin around the gunshot. I can still faintly smell the stench from the cauterized flesh.
After a moment I look down at my bare chest, and softly touch my fingers to the dried bloodstains that look as though they have been finger-painted across the skin, dirty brown, streaky, uneven. I run my hand over my face again and bend to turn on the shower. The steam begins to billow from behind the curtain, turning the air soupy, and I step in, ducking beneath the water.
It is uncomfortably hot, but I step into the stream, gritting my teeth against the stinging spray. The blood on my chest and face begins to soften and run, spilling down my legs and circling the drain. As I watch the swirling brown tendrils in the water, I refuse to allow tears to fall. And a thought strikes me. There goes my friend, down the drain.
I am filled with self-loathing at the thought, and reach to turn the cold water down. I can barely stand to stay beneath the blistering heat of the water, but I grimace and force myself to remain still, to feel that pain. I lift a hand and watch as steam rises from my flesh like a spirit. Roc, I'm so sorry…
Rocco. Stupid, simple Roc, shallow as a thimble but as fiercely loyal as anybody could wish for. If only we had told him no, had refused to allow him entry into our world. Don't ever stop…The sound of his words echoes in my head, repeating over and again like a maddening, skipping record, and I bite hard at the corner of my split lip to stop it wobbling, because with those three words I had to hear his last, shuddering breath, had to watch the life leave his eyes like a spotlight dimming over a stage.
Another burning stab of pain in my arm drowns out the voice in my head and I close my eyes, gritting my teeth. I welcome the physical pain, embrace it. Who can listen to the voices of the dead when your nerves are on fire?
Rocco…It had barely registered at first, I was too focused on kicking the ass of one of the bastards who had been bashing us up only moments before. It wasn't until I heard the gun go off, heard my brother scream that I understood. For a split second of terror I thought it was Connor who had been shot…his horror was so visceral. But as I wrenched back around, handcuffs shredding the skin on my wrists, I saw.
It was Roc.
I didn't really even feel it when I crashed over sideways in the chair. My only thought was to get to him. I had to help him, save him…
No.
I heave a shaky sigh and rub my hand across the last remnant of blood on my skin. The heat is making me slightly dizzy, so I ease myself to a seat in the tub, the chill of the porcelain contrasting with the warmth of the water pouring down on me. The heat, the pain, and the horror of the day steal over me, dimming my sight until all I can make out is a faint yellow glow from the naked bulb above the sink. My head begins to pound in rhythm with the beat of my heart. No good fainting, Murph, I tell myself. Connor'd never let ya hear the end of it.
I close my eyes and I can see it in my mind, his face pale beneath the smears of his blood, the copper pennies shining like fiery, glinting eyes. Dead. Dead because of us, because of me. Don't worry, Roc. We'll kill him. I'll kill him. I'll bring down justice like the Sword of Heaven…Don't worry…
And I try to think of Rocco as he was before, to remember the moments that we laughed together, played together, even fought together. But all I can think of is the sight of that red-brown stain whirling away down the drain.