Blood

I was longer than planned. I fell into a deep and lust filled dream. No, I didn't sleep, but, yes it was good and I've not done that in a while. I should do it more often. I have a spring in my step. I make my way back into the forest proper by following the river. I pick berries and things off the forest floor to nibble on as I go and remember to take some for Spencer.

For a minute I just stand and look and take in the scene. This is where I left him. He is long gone now, hopefully back to the ranger's hut but his shirt is here lying on the floor and blown against some tall river hugging plants. I walk over and pick it up by the collar and look at it. There is a slight dampness to it from the night air. Inspection of the buttons lets me know that it has been removed and not ripped from him. I fold the shirt carefully and then hold it to my face and press it against me. I breathe in the lovely scent of Spencer and the thought of him being somewhere without his shirt gives me a pleasant twist in the stomach. Really I do need to get to him quickly.

The trail back to the hut is easy to follow and made easier by the discovery of Spencer's tie. I bend down and pick it up and run it between my fingers. 'Why have you left these?' I mutter to myself. Something alarmed him maybe? So I move on a bit faster.

Something is wrong.

I know something is wrong long before I get to the clearing with the hut. I can smell blood. The hackles on the back of my neck alert me and I run a hand across the back of my neck and take in deep breaths through my nose.

More than one person has been injured but I think maybe one more than the other. It's hard to tell, but I do think one of them is Spence. I take two speedy steps forwards ready to break into a run and then I stop myself. He is just my whore. I can get another one. He is not worth running for. Don't show alarm. Calm. Spencer is nothing, but the twisting in my stomach is trying to tell me otherwise. I walk; I do manage to walk with added caution to the edge of the clearing. I poke the tie into my pocket but I am still holding onto the shirt in my hands. I can see again something is wrong. The hut door is open and lying on the ground just outside, looking like it had been leaned against the wall and slid over, is a large rucksack.

'Shit.' I mutter to myself. I really hadn't been expecting this and now I permit myself to walk quicker but yet still with caution. The fact that the overriding smell isn't Spencer's blood is a small comfort, but I can smell him too. I can smell his blood and his sweat and his fear.

That's OK. I can comfort him.

I walk quietly. I walk so that my feet hardly touch the floor and now I am standing in the doorway looking at a body on the floor. I suck in on my lips and scratch the back of my neck and look around for Spencer. He is huddled up on the cot with a blanket over him. I can hear he is muttering something under his breath, maybe in his sleep. Moving into the hut now I bend down and check the pulse on this guy. He is very cold and definitely dead and again there is a surge inside me making demands, but I don't have time now. I take a few steps back so I am outside again and pull in the big green rucksack. I drop it to the floor and push the door closed.

'Spence.' I say it quietly. I can still smell his fear and as I walk closer I can smell the think delicious smell of his blood. That wonderful sweetness which, coats my senses and is causing my heart to pound and my breathing to become deeper as it tries to suck in the flavour of his blood in the air. 'Babes?' He is rocking slowly back and forth under the cover of the blanket. 'Hey Spencer!' and I reach out and snatch it from him. I pull it back away and he makes a strange whimpering sound. 'What in the name of the gods happened?' I can see he is sitting in a puddle of blood. There is a blanket pulled up close to his chest but it is sodden and dripping. My lighter is on the floor next to the cot so I pick it up and put it in my front pocket and try to remove the other blanket from him. 'Let me see.' I'm not sure what I am feeling now. I am pissed that someone hurt Spencer. I am equally pissed that Spencer killed someone. I want to help him, yet I want him to get out of the way. Get out of my food. I want to – no I need to – There really isn't much I can do about it. It's maybe genetics. I nod inwardly at that decision. I was cursed from birth. This thing I am going to do is, it is, not my damned fault, which is irrelevant anyway. I crawl up onto the cot so I am kneeling in front of Spencer and I take hold of his ankles and I pull them quickly away from him and towards me.

'No!' he shouts at me. He is trying to defy me? I must have misheard him. I move forwards now so that I am kneeling between his legs and I place my hands on his shoulders and push him back so he is lying down. Then I slowly crawl up him. I lick as I go. I suck and lick at the sticky mess on his chest. 'Please stop.' He mumbles but there is a sweet smell and a sweet taste and a sweet sound and it feels so divine that I'm not going to be able to stop if I wanted to. Which I don't. I keep one hand pressing down on his shoulder, I place one next to him in the blood pooling on the cot and my mouth I use to lick and suck and bite at him. His hands are on my shoulders and they are not pushing me away, the fingers are digging in as I lap up the blood off his abdomen and slide my fingers across the blood.

I bring my hand up and look at it. I stare at it dripping with cold blood. I give one finger a long languid lick and then move it to Spencer's mouth. 'Hey babes.' I say as I run my bloodied fingers over his lips and then move my head back down to clean him up. Gradually I get closer to the wound and I can feel those fingers digging in harder and the breathing getting deeper and my tongue moves over the cut in his chest as my fingers push their way between his lips and into my mouth.

There is something strangely wonderfully sexual about the whole process. I'm not sure if it is just me. I wasn't sure if it was just me anyway, until Spencer started to suck on my fingers and lap at them with his tongue as I ran mine over the split in his skin. I sucked gently and he responded with a bite and by bringing up his knees and moving his legs so he has them wrapped tightly around me.

So I lick and suck at him gradually cleaning him and he sucks and bites on my fingers licking off his own blood with a hunger I thought only I felt. I can feel his legs clamped to me and his body moving and grinding against mine and those little whimpering noises he makes when he wants me, but I'm giving him nothing. Not now…now is this blood lust thing. Now is my hunger.

And he holds tight and I slide my fingers from his mouth and reapply the blood and now I lay on him…my head resting so I can see the cut across his chest and I lick at the blood on my fingers and feel Spencer rocking against me and arching his back and begging for me to take him.

'You killed someone.' I finally say to him. 'Did he do this to you?'

'I didn't kill anyone.' He says, sounding slightly confused.

'The body walked in here all on its very own and laid down there just for show?' And his legs unfold themselves from around me and I can feel his hands touching my hair.

'I had a nightmare.' Now he is finger combing my hair for me. 'It was a bad dream. I don't like the dark, you know that, you gave me the lighter to light the candles, but they went out. Burned down. I had a bad dream because of the dark.'

I turn my head so I am facing the other way and looking at the dead guy. 'So where did he come from then Babes?'

-o-o-o-

My mind is all over the place. I don't understand what Floyd is saying and I don't understand where all the blood came from. I don't know why I am in such pain in my chest and in my hands. 'Floyd?' I look over at what he is looking at and there is a body on the floor. It is prone and bloodied. It looks like the thing from my nightmare but that can't be right. I am awake now. I am awake and I am sitting in a puddle of blood having my wound licked at by the man I love and I am looking at a dead body.

'I didn't do that.' I say. I have to say it. If I say it then it might just go away. I close my eyes but as soon as I do that the voices in my head start again.

Whore, slut, murderer, filth.

'Who did it then Spence? You are the only person here and look at this.' He shows me my sock, my bloodied sock, full of stones. He shows me my split knuckles and broken fingernails. 'You beat him with your bare hands Spence. I am impressed.' He gets off me now and he moves away and over to the body. 'You've stabbed him too.' He pushes the body over so it is on its back. 'You did a good job on him, but my question is why?'

'It was a nightmare.' I whisper to myself, but obviously it wasn't.

'Ranger Austin.' I am told. 'You beat a forest ranger to death with a sock and your knuckles. I didn't know you had it in you. I'm just puzzled over why you did it. He would have fed you and given you light.'

I shake my head. It all seems so unreal. I can't and won't accept this as real. I start to move off the cot but the wound in my chest is bleeding again. I feel light headed and the room is spinning. Leaning forwards I put my hands out to stop me from falling from the bed and onto the floor but probably the loss of so much blood has made me too weak to stop and I fall face first from where I have been sitting into the cold dirt of the hut floor.

-o-o-o-

'Oh my god!' The voice is coming from a female and I can hear the panic in her voice. My shoulder is in agony and it feels as though I have cuts to my face and hands. I can hear Sam next to me, partially under me crying. Slowly I move. Very slowly and I look over at the voice. I tall skinny girl who looks about twelve but must be older if she was the one driving the car.

'Oh my god!' she reiterates.

I put a hand up to her and try to smile. 'I'm fine.' I lie. I don't want to worry the poor child and it was my fault. It was Sam's fault.

'He just stepped out. I couldn't stop in time. Oh you saved his life. Is he OK? I'll call an ambulance.' She is talking very fast and I can see a big fat tear start to work its way down her slightly flushed face. I move off of Sam and run my hand down his back. I know the game he is playing with me and I should walk away from it, but I also know that he is not bluffing.

'Sam.' I say to him. I can feel his body is shaking. I'm confused. I just tried to kill him self but now it acting as though it was an accident. 'Sam turn over so I can see you.' And then I look up at the girl. 'An ambulance won't be necessary.' I've been hit by a car and I think I have a broken collar bone and I have no idea as to Sam's condition, but I don't want this formalised. I don't want this 'friendship' documented. The words he said back in the diner are still too fresh in my mind to want that.

'Please tell me what I can do.' She says and I try to smile and sit up in the dirt and pretend I'm not injured. I don't want this child to have nightmares over this, so I smile up at her.

'Do you have some tissues and water?' I can hear Sam next to me groaning as he turns over.

'I'll get something.' And her long blue jeaned legs race back to her car which is pulled up on the grass verge now. I can hear the sniffling cry of Sam still and so I turn and look at him.

'It fucking hurts!' He snaps at me. 'Before you say something. You fucking hurt me you bastard.'

The boy is unbelievable. 'I got hit by a car to get you clear, so you can drop the act Sam. I know you're not hurt.' But I can see a nasty graze over the side of his face. I want to reach out and touch it, but again I now have that worry that my touching him will bring on another of his performances.

'I'll do it again you know. If you don't look after me properly. I'll not be giving you a warning next time either. I'll just go and do it.' He rubbed at his face making it bleed even more as I heard the scrunching of feet from the girl.

'Here.' She hands over some bottled water and a back of baby wipes. 'Oh, I keep those in the car for emergencies. I wasn't expecting it to be this though.'

I thank her and take them from her. 'Really we will be fine. I don't want you do worry.'

Sam spoke now. 'You might be fine Aaron, but look at my damned face. That stupid tart could have fucking killed me and I'm not going to be able to work for weeks now. I hope I don't get a bleeding infection.'

I push with one hand to get to my feet and turn to look at the girl. 'He is in shock. Don't worry. Please don't worry.' But she is looking from me to Sam and back again.

'Work?'

And I can see the cogs rolling over in her mind as she tries to work it out.

'You are an actor or something?' She finally asks and I had every intention of ignoring it and gently guiding her back to her car.

'No, I'm not a sodding actor. I'm a whore and no one will want me now. I bet you don't even, do you Aaron? Oh god – Aaron please don't abandon me again.'

And he is off again with his stories and lies. I watch as he gets to his feet and yes he does look a mess. His face is bleeding as is his left arm. The leg of his dungarees is also ripped and bloodied. 'Sam.' I take hold of his right hand and squeeze it slightly. Just enough I hope to pull him out of this fantasy he has slipped back into…but it's not enough. He snatches it away from me and walks over to the girl.

'Please take me with you!' He is begging her and I can see the fear in her face. The situation for her has gone from very bad to completely surreal. 'Don't leave me with him. He will beat me. With that stick over there. He will beat me with it!'

I glance down at the bit of wood he had been using against me and turn to get it. If I can at least remove that from Sam then the balance will be better.

I see it out of the corner of my eye.

And I think I am wrong.

But by the time I have turned it is over. Sam is stepping back and the youngster is lying with her neck twisted in the road.

'What the hell have you done!?' I shout at him, dropping the wood and running painfully over to where she was flopped in the road near her car. 'Sam – why?'

I run my fingers through my hair and look down at her.

'Because I could and because we need a car and because she would have reported us and because your DNA is here on the car and you will be the one they are looking for, especially when they start asking questions down the road, cos this won't be a federal case Agent Hotchner, this will be the local rednecks after your fine little pink arse. Help me stick her in the boot – the trunk – whatever.'

I can't and I won't be part of this. I won't be manipulated by a child. I move towards her and roll her over onto her back. There is her pocket is her cell phone. I can see the shape of it through the denim. I need to get a call out. I need to get the police here and I need to do it without Sam knowing. I'm not afraid of him. I am wary of him. He is Flanders' child and I don't know what he is capable of. I have to be vigilant. We really don't want to be caught. I look up at Sam who is standing watching me. Purposefully I look back at the stave he has been using to attack me with and then back at the girl. 'I'm so sorry.' I say to her and stroke some hair off her face.

'For fuck's sake just get rid of her.' Sam spits at me and he turns to get the wood. Now I slip my hand into her pocket and pull out the cell phone and transfer it to my jacket pocket. My shoulder is damaged. I can feel bones grind against each other as I grasp one of the girls hands and pull her off the road. I then grab the keys from the ignition and pop the trunk. It is a struggle and I manhandle the poor girl in way's I rather not but I need to keep Sam calm for now. I need him to give me enough room to make a call. I lay her down gently in the trunk and drag a blanket over her.

-o-o-o-

He thinks I am stupid?

He really must do.

Really stupid if he thinks he can pull one like that on me.

He is forgetting who he is.

He needs to be reminded.

As Aaron concentrates on covering over the little whore in the trunk I bring the wooden thing down on the back of his head. He tries to turn so I swing again on the side of his head this time.

One, and I drop the wood.

Two, and I grab Aaron.

Three, and a tiny bit of leverage from me and he joins the girl in the boot of the car – sorry the trunk of the car. I stick my hands into his pocket and take the cell phone away.

'Who did you intend calling?' But he's not going to answer me yet. I move him so he is on his side. I don't want him to vomit or choke on blood or something and die on me. Not yet anyway. Not until my job is done.

I close him in and turn the key in the lock.

Driving this wont be a problem and the forest starts only a few hours away now. We are getting closer.

Later…later after he has said he is sorry and I've had my dinner…maybe in the morning – then I will fix his bones for him.