Page 144 of Because I Killed Him
She closes the door, her hand lingering on the latch after she locks it, and for a moment, even the pearl on her bracelet hangs still. Then, slowly, her shoulders start to quiver, a ripple that spreads up her spine, out through her arms and neck, until her whole body is shaking.
When Phillipa turns, I recoil so hard my shoes skid on the ice.
Her face is warped with rage, every muscle straining beneath the skin. Her nostrils flare over peeled-back lips, showing teeth bared to bite. Oneof the Dobermans bolts, its claws skittering across the floor. The other dog hesitates a beat too long, and she kicks it aside before throwing herself at Edmund, her nails raking down his cheek until they catch at the corner of his mouth. He grunts, trying to break away, but she snatches the front of his training vest and rips it open, tearing at the bare skin beneath.
I jerk back, my pulse ricocheting through my chest. Blood sprays in thin arcs, trails running down Edmund’s throat and soaking into his collar. His hair clings to his forehead, slick with it, and still, he doesn’t resist.
His hands stay locked behind him, shaking violently now. The muscles in his arms twist and turn, tendons pulling so tightly his fingers start to separate under the strain.
Phillipa’s palm slams into Edmund’s throat, and he chokes, his legs buckling as he fights to stay upright. Her nails fly in a savage blur, scratching deeper and deeper, as if she’s trying to split him open and crush the defiance inside.
I clamp my hand over my mouth to smother a scream. I can’t watch it, the horrible silence as he bleeds. I don’t understand. I don’t understand how she can—
“You will fall in line!” Phillipa screams, her voice cracking under the weight. “You will be like Richard. Like Rosamund. You will be abeast.”
She tears away, gasping for air, her hands shuddering and streaked with blue. Edmund’s blood is on her fingers, under her nails, splashed across the fine velvet of her blouse.
The Dobermans pad to her side. They rise on their haunches and begin to lick her hands, their tongues dragging over her knuckles and slipping between her fingers, lapping at the streaks of blood. She holds her hands out and watches the dogs, calm now, as if this is how she always washes.
Edmund is barely standing. His face is raw, his left eyebrow split clean through, blood running in jagged lines down his cheek. He lifts his chin, and the blood slips into his eyes.
“Careful what you wish for, Mother,” he says, his voice hoarse. “A beast would strike you back.”
Phillipa exhales a scoff. At the same time, her gaze flicks to Edmund’s hands, checking whether they’re still locked together.
They are.
“Change is coming, Edmund,” she warns. “The kind where there’s only our side and theirs. You will choose Blue, or you will lose.”
She breaks away from the Doberman Pinschers, her hands now clean and glistening. She walks up to Edmund and wipes the dogs’ saliva on his trousers, one slow drag at a time. Then she rises onto her toes and kisses the single bloodless spot on his cheek, leaving a smudge of lipstick.
“You were once my greatest pride, Edmund, second only to Richard. Now, you are my greatest shame. At the very least, do not sit and stare at your wounds as long as your father did.”
Edmund flinches, not away from her but inward. His head turns slowly, his eyes meeting hers, and the look in them is clouded, like a lens that’s drifted out of focus.
“You are my mother,” he says. “It should not be difficult to love you.”
Phillipa grumbles softly. Then she reaches up and brushes a strand of bloody hair from his face. “I don’t need to be loved anymore. Just obeyed.”
She turns, crosses the room, and walks out the door. The Dobermans follow at her heels, tails wagging.
Edmund waits until the door closes before he moves. It’s a slow turn, as if every joint hurts, and the motion tears him further open. He walks to the edge of the fencing room, to the tall mirror mounted on the wall, and stops before it.
The reflection is a ruin.
His face is already swelling. Left brow split to the bone. Lip torn. Neck, chest, and arms scored with scratches, some shallow, some deep, all sputtering and blue. His training vest sticks to him where the blood has soaked through. He blinks at his reflection, slow and dazed, as if he’s not sure who he’s looking at.
Then he notices the wetness in his eyes, the glassy tear welling at the edge of the left one. He squints, his throat twitching as he tries to hold it back. The tear falls anyway, cutting a line through the blood on his cheek. His jaw clenches, and he wipes it away with his fist, cursing under his breath.
He turns from the mirror, grabs a tube of rejuvenation cream from the gear cabinet, and staggers out of the fencing room.
I stop feeling the cramp in my calves and the icy wind stabbing across my face. All sensation in my body narrows to a single point in my chest, a pain so intense it feels like my ribs are collapsing inward to crush my heart.
Still, my heart thunders wildly. With every beat, it begs me to run after Edmund, to help him, or at the very least, to clean up the blood. Trails of it still glisten along the fencing room floor, scattered in blue flecks and stamped into the shape of his shoes.
But my head won’t let me move.
I know there’s no helping Edmund, no holding him. Not even when he’s hurt.
