Guys I'm on fire this week! Not only have I uploaded two chapters in three days but this is also my longest chapter yet! I'm so excited! I spent the rest of the afternoon writing this chapter but decided against posting it so soon as I first wanted to check it over. Also, if I need to re-check my work a thousand times to catch mistakes and still find a few, I think we can all say I'm not Joss Stirling and not the author of her books. Too bad? I'm not that sure, I like them just how they're written and believe me when I say they wouldn't be half as good if I'd attempted to write them.
Anyways, ON WITH THE CHAPTER!
I turned for the hundredth time on the uncomfortable hotel bed. The thin sheet ruffled a bit because of the wind in what would have seemed like a soothing gesture hours ago but that was simply becoming annoying now. The mattress squeaked under my weight when I sat up and looked at what probably was the colourless room wall. Not for the first time I regretted not staying over at Will's but he didn't have space for Xander and I couldn't let my baby brother stay in the lonely hotel room all by himself. I'd come over and decided to sleep here instead and was becoming slightly annoyed at myself for making that decision, I was sick of this place. The squeaky mattress, the uncomfortable bed, the lumpy pillows and the window that wouldn't close and was constantly bringing cold into the hard to heat up room. I couldn't take it any more.
Standing up too quickly I balanced on one foot, carefully thinking about where to place my other foot, vaguely remembering a part of the wood full of splinters that had already sunk their way into the soft skin on my soles one time too many. In the end I put it down slightly forward, hoping that I wouldn't have to wake Xander to get the wood out from my foot. He was sleeping quite deeply, as I could see through the white walls, and I never liked waking him up when he was in such oblivious sleep where he could forget about the outside world. Finally putting my foot down I realised I had miscalculated and had placed my foot straight in the middle of the horrible wood, getting at least ten splinters stuck in my foot and managing to fall sideways with a small shriek.
"Fudge!" I whisper-yelled quietly when I fell on the floor with a muted thud. I reached for my foot almost straight away, looking for damage. When I touched it my blood went cold as I noticed what I had managed to do. I had six little bumps coming out of my skin – more like going into my skin – and there was blood all over my foot and now my hand as well. I hated blood, it meant pain, and even if this wasn't like my parent's murder or the time Xan cut his arm with a knife when he was six it was still blood and still represented horror. Just like rain represented happiness in my life.
Swallowing back tears from pain I tried to get some out but couldn't get a firm grip on the splinters because of all the sticky and wet blood. The day I'd discovered what blood looked like thanks to Xander my hate for it was intensified, it looked like the memories it brought back. Full of hate and pain; blood red.
At that amazing moment, yeah right, when I was about to break down in tears my phone vibrated from underneath me, tickling my back with its soft buzz and making me have to sit up again so I could grab it and blindly press answer, literally. Will had given me this phone when we were about to go our different ways so that – and I quote – 'you can contact me if you're ever in danger of anything', jeez, thanks for the tip but, buddy, I've already survived ten years and think I can survive at least one more.
"Iris?" Oh, it was Will – who else would it be? - Just great. I was about to face palm when I remembered that the hand not holding my phone to my ear was full with blood and the nausea took over my stomach once more. "I just wanted to check if you were Ok, I didn't wake you up did I?" He asks me that at three am? I mean, sure, he didn't wake me up but there was a bigger chance that he would wake me than that he wouldn't.
"No, don't worry I was still awake." My voice sounded softer and sadder that I would have liked, I tried speaking again so he wouldn't ask what was wrong. I didn't need him driving over to our hotel just to get six or seven splinters out of my foot. "I couldn't sleep." That didn't work at all. I sounded hysterical and close to tears, almost like a sob was about to escape my mouth at the end of the sentence. He was going to come over wasn't he?
"I'm getting in my car, be there in two minutes." Yup.
"What? Two minu-" He cut me off half way through the question, not waiting for me to finish speaking before he started speeding down the road towards the hotel, and he probably was. It had taken him ten minutes to get to his house from the café we had been in and to go to the hotel we had to go in the opposite direction. He'd have to break almost every driving law there was to get here so quick. Soon enough I heard a soft knock outside the door and I opened my bedroom door soundlessly. Limping my way down the hallway, with one of my hands tracing the uneven wall and the other one spread before me so as to alert me of anything unexpected I went towards the noise, wanting to open the door for Will as he didn't have a key. Just when I touched the painted over wood of the door it opened with a squeak and there I saw Will's hunched over aura.
"What the..." I wondered out loud as I hadn't even made a move towards the door handle. Will heard my voice and his aura immediately straightened up, his arms engulfing me and bringing me to his chest. "Will, how did you get in?" I asked into his chest, glad to have something to balance on again so I could stand on one foot – the un-splintered one – without having the danger hazard of falling over onto more wood or nails, knowing my luck it'd probably be a black widow or a bucket of glue left there by the hotel staff.
"I kinda, may have, picked the lock." He told me really quickly, like the words had been tormenting him inside and he just wanted to spit them out once and for all. "Sorry but I thought comething was wrong." And then he noticed the fact that I was using his chest for support and had been standing on one foot like a flamingo for the past two minutes. Very intelligent Will. "Oh gosh, what happened?"
"That's not what this is about Will." I said to him sternly. His aura turned slightly confused and he probably gave me a what-are-you-even-saying look that I could only hope to see one day. "You freaking picked my lock!" I told him while thumping his chest with the hand that wasn't already on it and successfully putting my blood all over his shirt. As soon as he saw it he was going to flip.
"Is that blood?!" He asked me, slightly panicky. He didn't like blood either? Good, we were on the same page. In a feeble attempt at wiping the blood off his shirt I passed my hand over the place where I guessed the stain was only realising a minute later that the hand I was using was still full of blood.
"Maybe." Oh God please let him not over react. A minute later I was scooped up and the ground disappeared from underneath me as Will carried me back to my bedroom and laid me down gently on the bed. He didn't bother tracing his hands across the wall or walking slowly so he wouldn't trip which hinted that the light was on. The only thing I could think as he looked me over for mortal wounds was that I hoped the bright light wouldn't wake Xander. That was just what I needed, another person over reacting about some splinters. I knew I had been freaking out just mere moments ago but it was different, I was the one with the splinters stuck onto the bottom of my feet and the one with blood coating my right hand and foot.
"Where are you bleeding?" I decided I might as well answer before he started having a full blown panic attack in the crappy hotel room. One of us crying and making things explode with savant power was more than enough.
"Right foot." He launched himself towards the end of the bed, making the bed springs squeak once more under all the new added weight, not that Will looked fat but he was very tall, just like the rest of his family. When he got to the bottom of the bed he started putting feather like touches on my skin that made me giggle, forgetting about the small pain it caused. It tickled like hell but I kept my mouth shut apart from the few short laughs that escaped it every once in a while. I then started to feel a little more pain where I guessed the splinters were as Will tried to take them out. After about five minutes of trying he gave up, standing up and making the floor board screech in protest.
"Xav you need to come over now!" He practically yelled, making me realise that he had been holding a phone and had called Xav. By his tone of voice I could deduce that it was one of his brothers because he didn't bother with formalities. Just like this afternoon. After I'd told them about my life being in danger they all bombarded me with questions and reassurance until Will told them all to shut up and leave without hesitation. We then spent the rest of the afternoon in Will's car, him whispering it would all be alright and me just sitting there, feeling thankful I'd gotten such an understanding soulfinder. There was a pause on Will's side of the conversation, when he exploded once more. "Xav I don't god damn care about the fact that it's three am, she's got splinters in her foot." He yelled back into the phone, obviously not happy with Xav's answer to his request. It wasn't that hard to guess what he'd said.
"Will they're just splinters." I told him, sitting up on the bed. I could hear a little of what Xav was saying on the other side of the phone slightly muted, but it sounded exactly like what I was saying.
"Ok, ok. Jeez, no need to gang up on me." Could he stop being so dramatic for two minutes? Just two? He was quiet again as he waited for Xav's answer and didn't seem very happy with it again. "Then at least tell me what I should do." His voice sounded a little panicky once more and I couldn't help but role my eyes. I could tell him what to do and I wasn't even slightly medicine inclined, I had no idea what to do when cuts or wounds were involved but this was just plain obvious.
"Will get some tweezers and get them out." I told him, not waiting for him to hear what his brother had to say, probably the same thing I said. Xav was a doctor, that much I could tell by the conversation, or maybe that was his savant ability, but I was pretty sure that what I'd said to Will was the exact same piece of advice his brother would give him.
"Um, ok. Xav, gotta go." He made his way to my bag where I'd pointed to it in the corner of the bedroom and hummed silently to himself as he looked for my tweezers in the handbag that I'd taken out previously to brush my teeth before going to bed. It had been given to us by the nice lady at reception after I'd told her with a dewy eyed expression that we'd forgotten al of our bathroom things. "Yeah, yeah. I won't panic next time. Whatever." I heard a beep as he disconnected the call, and then made his way back to me, he sat back down at the end of the bed. The pricking feeling started again but I tried to forget about it; it was times like these when I wished I could find the small splinters that were piercing my skin and just take them out myself, but I couldn't. Seeing inanimate objects wasn't really my speciality or one of my abilities at all.
"Ow Will." I told him, accidentally making my leg twitch and hit him in the face. The moment I did it I felt pretty guilty considering he had actually been doing me a favour and all I'd done was moan about it and kick him in the face. Smooth move Iris, smooth move. Instead of complaining and telling me to just do it myself – like I would've done if our roles were reversed – he just sucked it up and didn't mention the fact that I'd just hurt him.
"Sorry, did I hurt you?" Was this guy serious? It was ridiculous, complete and utterly stupid. Couldn't he just complain for two seconds? It would make me feel less bad if he did, making me feel like he wasn't just hiding the fact that he hated me and in fact was being honest. If he kept saying things like that every time I hurt him physically or otherwise, I'd go absolutely bonkers, just plain mad.
"Oh for peeps sake Will, I'm the one that kicked you." Won't you just accept the fact that I'm not taking your crap and yell at me for five minutes? Just for my sake?
"What? Didn't feel a thing." No? You're just going to let an innocent girl, not to mention your soulfinder go mad? Good to know you're that type of person Will. I sat up completely after he'd taken the last one out at and shot daggers at him with my eyes. He was going to complain or I was going to end up murdering him on the spot.
"Can you not just swallow your gentelmanlyness for two god damn seconds and say 'you hurt me Iris, at least say sorry'" I asked him, doing my best possible imitation of him towards the end. Soon he was sitting next to me and rapping an arm around me, trying to comfort me but I shook it off. "No! I want you to yell and scream at me, not accept me and forgive me the second I do something wrong! You can't just ignore all my faults and defects, I'm not perfect. So just tell me so and don't tell me it's Ok before I can even say sorry because I can't do the same for you, and I feel bad, blaming you for everything to have you forgive and forget." Well that right there was quite a rant I got going on. Oh jeez. This girl has some serious issues. Why yes, yes I do.
"But you are perfect, at least in my eyes." Nailed it! He chorused in his head before swinging his arm over my shoulders once more, this time I didn't flinch or move away, I leaned over and wrapped my arms around him in appreciation of his nice words. Words nobody had said to me before. "Sure, you whine like crazy and see the world differently, but I like your insight into things, it gives me a whole new view of the world I thought I already knew." Smiling like crazy, and not trying to stop it from showing, I cuddled up to his side as we both fell simultaneously onto the hard mattress.
That time, I had no problem retreating to the world of dreams, and they were dreams of colour.