Page 105 of Bound Bride
Dropping my arms, I watch her arms and legs flail in the air as Calvin scoops her up.
The realization that Beatie is armed flashes across Calvin's face with such alarm that my heart drops down into my gut.
Beatie twists like a snake as she writhes in his arms.
Then the knife vanishes and Calvin's face pales immediately. He stops moving and slowly relaxes his grip around Beatie.
As she falls, she stumbles backward, and her hands remain around the knife handle with the blade embedded deep in Calvin's gut, high near his ribs.
"Calvin!"
Beatie lifts her watery eyes and looks at me and then she twists the knife.
The grunt of pain from Calvin is nothing compared to the cry that rips from him or the scream of panic from me as she rips the blade free and Calvin crumples to the floor.
"No!" With little thought, I throw myself forward and land hard on the tiled floor on my knees, thrusting both hands over the pouring wound as Calvin collapses. Beatie stumbles away and trips over herself, almost as if she can't believe what she's done.
"Calvin! Oh my god, oh my god!" I wrench my head up and glare at my sister. "Go and get help!"
She doesn't move. She stands there with wide eyes, tears trailing down her pale cheeks, the knife clasped in her hand. Blood drips off the blade and stains the floor, but it's nothing compared to the rapid pulse of blood against my palms from Calvin's wounds.
"Beatie!" I scream her name and she blinks. "Get help!"
"He said it would be easy," Beatie mumbles and her eyes are locked on Calvin's writhing form. "He said… it would be like cutting chicken. I'd have to do it once and then he'd let Mom go."
"What?!"
"He said it would be easy," she repeats softly.
"Calvin? Oh my god, please don't die. Please don't fucking die!" I lean over him and use all my weight to cover the wound with as much pressure as I can. "I don't know what to do, fuck!"
"You—" Calvin croaks, but his eyelids are heavy, and each blink seems to be a fight with himself to stay away. "Keep pressure," he croaks.
"Pressure. I can do pressure." I lift my head again. "Beatie, for the love of everything, please go and get someone!"
"You left me," Beatie whimpers. "You left me all alone."
"No!" I yell back at her. "I didn't leave you! Why do you keep saying that? Didn't you see everything I did to keep you safe? While you and Mom were chilling in that back room, do you know what I was doing? I was fucking those cunts to keep them distracted and away from you. I was doing everything,everythingI could to buy Dad time and keep you and Mom safe because there was no one else! And then they basically sold me!"
"No," Beatie whimpers. "That's not true."
"It is true! They married me to Kon so they could kill him and a whole bunch of other stuff and I did it because it was supposed to keep you safe! It was supposed to keep all of you safe!"
Calvin gurgles beneath me and his body spasms as tears drip down my cheeks and Beatie stares at me like she's not quite seeing me.
"You left and got married. You came here and had a nice life. You left us."
"No Beatie."
"You left us!"
"No I didn't! I didn't leave in the way you think I did! Who told you that, was it Mathew?"
Beatie's wrist flexes slightly as she tightens her grip on the knife.
"It was, wasn't it? Was he also the fucker who put the first needle in your arm?"
"It helps," Beatie murmurs. "Makes me feel safer and warmer than you ever did."
