Chapter 21
Edited by Penulis
Mina continues staring out the window. She was lying down in the back seat and could barley look at Tom and the bandage now around his wrist. The tension between the two and started to build straight after the incident in the forest. He had helped her out, laying her down in the back seat and had not heard a word from her since.
Adjusting the mirror he could see her face carrying guilt and shame, "Are you feeling better?" He asks, attempting to bring back some normalcy.
"Not really." She says in her very cold, British manner which made Tom roll his eyes.
He opened his mouth again, but knowing exactly what he was going to bring up, she cut him off. "-I have never seen her before, nor do I know where she came from. After I assisted in the destruction of Dracula, I was the only lucky candidate left."
"Well since last July I have learned to keep an open mind," he said smiling at her and shrugs his shoulders.
She was able to smile back at him, albeit very sadly, "No. Unless he seduced some other young woman with his 'we were lovers from medieval times' line."
The mention of the era brought Tom back to his dream from the night before; he wipes his brow with his forearm as if his mind is aching.
"Are you alright?" Now it was her turn for concern.
"Not saying." Tom smiles, "Now we're even."
Mina gives him a smirk, something very immature for her, as her foot comes up and kicks the back of his headrest.
"Arrested?" Henry repeats after Mary who sits at the bed's end told him. Skinner stares out the bedroom window as the young man and his fellow soldier empty out the bodies from the carriage, "Geeze, it's like watching those jesters exit out of their little wagon at the carnivals."
"Could they be looking for Hyde?" Mary asks Henry trying to get all details she could before making a plan up.
"No. It shouldn't be… I'm supposed to be pardoned.-"
"-I wonder where those wagons come and go from?" Skinner cuts off Henry's rambling as he talks partly to them and himself.
"Do you mind? We are trying to have an intelligent conversation here!" Henry says in such an angry tone that Mary's breathe hitches. He and Skinner stare at each other and Mary thought she could cut the tension with a knife.
"Do you know what I want answered?" Skinner snaps back and looks down at Mary. "Mary do you know where they," he shifts his half white face towards the window, "come from and go to?"
"I believe a hidden morgue near parliament." Mary answers back, beginning to understand where Skinner is going with this, "Why?"
"I wonder why there is a secret morgue, of all things. I mean really, who steals bodies in this era?" Skinner rest his hands on his hips as he stairs into space, a grand scheme beginning to formulate.
"You frighten me when you have that look," Henry says feeling Mary's hand begin to rub his feet as her head nods in agreement.
"Well," Skinner began as he took off his jacket and unbuttoned his vest, "allow me to find the answer for that intelligent conversation of yours."
His dark brown eyes open. He gazes around the once familiar bedroom, which is so alienating for him now. "Why I am back here?" He thought as he sat up in his bed.
His mind wraps around the hell he was formerly in, existing in the portrait and watching the world continue on around him without any interaction, until a drape was placed over his view and all turned to darkness.
His eyes drift across the room, to the fireplace that looks as if it was recently attended and resting upon the portrait of a young woman looking at him.
"Sybil." He whispered in longing, "The closest thing to an angel I will ever meet." He lies back down in the bed, curling up in a small ball and sobbing.