She kissed the side of his neck, then moved over to inspect the offending floorboard.
“It’s going to have to be replaced anyway, so can’t we just rip it up without caring about any damage?”
[I suppose so]
She peered under the parts of the board that had been forced up then felt for the supporting joists. Grabbing the crowbar, she jammed it under the board where one joist was and lifted. After a few seconds of straining, it came free with a loud pop. She repeated the process on the other end. This time the board split before lifting clear.
[That was both sexy and emasculating at the same time]
Laila laughed. “Let’s see what’s underneath.”
The ritual instructions called for “blood from the ground of death”. The floorboards where Denny bled out had been scrubbed, but they reasoned that all that blood must have seeped through and could therefore be still under the floor somewhere. At least, they hoped.
Together, they turned the board over. Laila sat back on the floor, staring at it.
A large part of the underside of the wood was stained a dark, dusty red.
“Oh Denny,” she said softly, her eyes filling with tears.
There was movement next to her and then his arms were around her, his face burying in her shoulder. She closed her eyes, turning from the gruesome sight and holding him. It was suddenly so real, Denny’s death, laid out there right in front of her in his blood.
“Are you okay?” she said.
He didn’t move at first, holding her tight. Then he lifted his head from her shoulder.
She turned to look at the tortured floorboard again. “I can do this by myself,” she said. “You don’t have to see this.”
His head moved against her as he shook it.
He left her side and the hammer and chisel were lifted from the floor. Laila moved to take hold of the board, keeping it still as he carved red flakes from the underside. When he had a small pile, they turned the board right way up and fitted it back into place in the gap on the floor.
“I’ll clean up in here,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “You go see what’s in my bag in the kitchen.”
He took her hand and squeezed it then his touch left her.
She gathered the blood-soaked chips of wood into a glass jar, clearing everything else away, then stood staring at the warped floorboard. Even though she couldn’t see the dried blood now, it still danced across her vision, soaking the floor in front of her. The board would have to be replaced, but it wouldn’t erase the memory. She sighed and turned away.
Nothing would do that.
Thirty-Eight
Denny watched Laila get ready with something akin to panic.
This was far too dangerous. Her chances of getting caught were too significant to ignore, and yet she was still going. It terrified him.
He took the pad and pen lying next to him on the bed and wrote the same thing he’d written dozens of times just today.
Please don’t go. We can just tell her. Ask for her help.
He waved the pad in the air to get her attention.
She shook her head. “No. She doesn’t need to be involved. It’s much better this way. I’ll be fine.”
She continued to get dressed, pulling on black jeans and a black t-shirt. How sexy she looked all in black barely registered to his anxiety-soaked mind.
What if you get caught?
“I won’t.”
He could see there was no way he was going to dissuade her. It made him proud that she had come so far in the time he’d known her. Six months ago he knew she couldn’t have done anything like this. He wasn’t the type of man who needed a woman to obey him, but just this once would have been nice.
He stood and wrapped his arms around her as she zipped up her black hoodie. She leaned into him, holding him close.
“Please be careful,” he said into her hair.
“Don’t worry,” she said against his shoulder, “I will be careful.”
He smiled. He had no idea how she knew what he was saying, but it made him blissfully happy that she did. Brushing his fingers against her chin, he lifted her face and touched his lips to hers, saying, “I love you,” before kissing her.
“I love you too,” she said, “and I will be back before you know it.”
“Not going to happen,” he said. He knew he would be worrying every second she was gone.
***
Laila waited in her car and watched her sister’s house.
She hadn’t spoken to Kelly in over a month, since her attempt to get Laila to stay with her and speak to a psychiatrist. She had called a few times, but Laila had ignored them. It occurred to her that one day she would have to face up to her sister again, but that day could wait until after Denny returned to life. Right now, the last thing she needed was Kelly’s interference risking everything they were working for.
The timid, frightened girl she had been was gone, and she was determined to never become her again.
She pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket as she waited and unfolded it. The page was torn across the top where it had been ripped from the pad it had originally been a part of. There was other writing on it, but Laila focused on the reason she always kept it with her. One single sentence, in Denny’s handwriting.
You are the strongest person I have ever known.
He had written it just over five weeks previously. They had been lying in bed and she had been talking about how she wanted to get her self-confidence back and how much he was helping her. His response had taken her breath away.
She kept the piece of paper to remind her of how much Denny believed in her. His belief in her helped her to believe in herself. She wouldn’t let him down.
The front door of the house opened and Laila watched Kelly walk out. The sky was darkening and she was parked a little way up the road, but she was still concerned her sister might recognise her car. To her relief, Kelly didn’t look around, too absorbed in rummaging for her keys in her bag and then getting into her car and driving quickly away. Laila smiled. She could always rely on her sister’s inadequate timekeeping skills and chronic lateness.
She waited for another ten minutes, then got out and walked along the road to the front door of the terraced two bedroomed house Kelly shared with her fiancé. She pressed the doorbell.
Jack’s eyes widened in surprise when he answered the door.
“Laila,” he said, “uh, hello.”
She smiled. “Hello Jack. Can I come in?”
“Um, sure, but you just missed Kelly. She’s working tonight.”
He stepped aside as Laila walked in, closing the door behind her.
“I know,” she said as she went into the living room and turned to face him, “I didn’t come here to see her. I came to see you.”
Fear wasn’t an expression she was used to seeing on her future brother-in-law’s face. He was tall and well built, with black hair and brown eyes and an olive complexion. He was extremely good looking and he knew it. He wasn’t conceited. In actuality he was a very nice person, but he wasn’t unaware of his looks and his self-confidence wasn’t lacking. He needed it to keep up with Kelly.
But now a look of something very close to panic was breaking onto his face.
Laila sighed. Kelly had obviously discussed her sister’s unhinged behaviour with him. Her anger at Kelly spiked again. It was like being fourteen all over again when she’d wanted to watch Alien on TV one evening when their parents were out and Kelly hadn’t let her, saying she’d have nightmares. When she finally managed to see it six months later, she hadn’t had one nightmare. Although breakfast the following morning had made her feel a tiny bit queasy.
But Kelly’s overprotective attitude had continued. Laila felt like she’d hit a wall. It was now driving her nuts. There was no way she could ask Kelly to help her.
Jack, however, she had a chance with, if she did this right.
“I need your help,” she continued.
<
br /> “Help?”
“Yes. Your IT expertise.”
He seemed to relax a little at that. He even smiled slightly. “Oh. Okay. Yes. What can I do?”
He motioned for her to sit and he joined her on the black leather sofa, opening his laptop.
Laila had always got along well with Jack, right from the beginning, two years previously, when he’d first started dating Kelly. She had even helped get them together when she had seen the potential in Jack that Kelly hadn’t, obsessed as she was at the time over a worthless jerk called Roger.
Jack owed her. She just hoped he saw it that way.
“First of all, I want you to remember how I always believed in you, even when Kelly didn’t, and that without me she never would have said yes when you asked her out.”
The look of semi-panic returned. “Okay.”
“And I want you to consider how we are friends and what you know about me and my sensible personality, uncoloured by what Kelly may have told you lately.”
“Okay.”
“And I want you to embrace the possibility that Kelly is wrong.” She knew that shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.
A hint of a smile touched his lips. “Okay.”
“I also want you to try to accept that there may be things going on that neither she nor you understand, but that nevertheless are true and valid.”
“Okay.”
“So what I need is for you to get into the blood donor records and find out where the donation from a specific person is right now.”
“O... what?”
“Just one single donation.”
“I...” he looked at the screen and back to her. “I don’t know...”
“Please, Jack. I can’t explain right now, but I promise that it is more important than you could imagine and I really need you to trust me.”
He sighed and looked embarrassed. “Kelly thinks you are having some kind of delayed reaction to what happened to you with Gary and that you’re losing touch with reality.”
“And what do you think?”
There was a short pause. “I think Kelly, much as I love her, has trouble with her judgement when it comes to her little sister. She’s too over protective.”
“So will you help me?” She held her breath.
There was another brief pause, although to Laila it seemed like it lasted for hours.
“Yes. But don’t tell Kelly.”
She grinned and put her arm around his shoulder, giving him a squeeze. “Of all the men Kelly’s dated, you are by far my favourite.”
He chuckled. “Given the amount of men Kelly dated before me, that’s high praise.”
It didn’t take long for Jack, with his job in information technology in the National Health Service, to get what Laila needed, and twenty minutes later she was heading to the hospital with a blood donor number and a location for the blood she was looking for. Trish’s blood.
The blood of a close relative was the most difficult thing that they needed for the restoration ritual to obtain. When Denny mentioned offhand that Trish was a blood donor and it was a shame they couldn’t get hold of one of her donations, Laila had immediately started planning. When she told him about her plans, he was horrified.
Denny didn’t want her to risk it. Neither of them wanted to involve Trish directly, knowing that if the ritual didn’t work she would just be going through the pain of his loss all over again, but he insisted they had no choice. Laila had stood firm. She was going to get the blood they needed.
Her stubbornness came as a bit of a surprise to her, especially when she was being stubborn with Denny. But she knew he just wanted to keep her safe and she loved him for it.
For the first time in her life, she was making her own decisions and sticking to them. It felt liberating. And more than a little scary. Especially as she approached the hospital.
She pulled into the car park just as the evening visiting hours were starting. That would give her plenty of time to get in and out and not look conspicuous as a non-employee walking around the place.
Taking a few minutes to study the map she’d printed out of the sprawling hospital complex, she memorised the route to the blood bank where, according to Jack’s research, Trish’s blood was waiting to be processed before being sent to wherever it was needed. She didn’t need to get lost while carrying a pint of blood in a bag under her hoodie.
People were walking in and out of the main entrance in a constant stream when she got there. That was good, it meant she could blend. She noted where the security cameras were and tried to nonchalantly keep her face turned away from them, just in case. She’d seen the bad guys do that on TV lots of times. She hoped it wasn’t one of those TV things that they tested on Mythbusters and which turned out to be wrong in real life, like security lasers that you could see or being shot sending you flying through the air.
The walk to the blood bank, which was up on the second floor, was uneventful. Laila fought the urge to run with every step, trying so hard to not look suspicious she began to wonder if her complete lack of suspiciousness could in itself be seen as suspicious. She rolled her eyes and continued walking at a calculatedly normal pace.
Reaching the doors to her destination, she stopped. It was locked, fitted with a card swipe and keypad entry system. That wasn’t a surprise, she wasn’t a stranger to the hospital with Kelly working there. She had considered trying to steal Kelly’s keycard, but had discounted that option immediately. Kelly kept it in her purse and she always kept that with her.
She peered through the narrow vertical window in one of the doors. It was well after six so she was hoping there wouldn’t be many staff still there. She was thrilled to see just one man working at a bench. Perfect.
Knocking on the door, she ran across the corridor and leaned against the wall, pretending to be absorbed in her phone. After about twenty seconds the door to the laboratory opened. A young, dark haired, studious looking man peered out. He looked up and down the empty corridor.
“Pardon me?”
Laila glanced up from her phone, raising her eyebrows at the man, who was looking at her.
“Yes?”
“Did you see someone knock on this door?”
“Oh, yes. There was a guy with red hair who knocked, but then I think he got a phone call and he left really quickly.”
“Tall? Crooked nose? Squinty eyes?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t pay that much attention, but could have been.”
The man nodded. “Paul. He always does things like that. Attention span of a goldfish.”
Laila was careful not to smile. Maybe it was her lucky day.
“Well, thanks.”
He turned to go back in and she tensed. Then he paused and looked back at her. She very slowly relaxed again.
“Are you okay?” he said. “Do you need any help?”
“No, thanks. I’m just waiting for my sister. She works here.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, thanks again.”
She nodded and smiled. He turned back and disappeared away from the door. Launching herself away from the wall, Laila sprinted across the wide hallway, focusing on the door swinging closed ahead of her. I’m not going to make it, she thought in horror as it moved faster than she had anticipated. It reached within a couple of inches of the frame, then stopped abruptly as the hinge’s safety buffer kicked in and resumed closing at a more sedate pace. Laila grabbed the handle just before the latch engaged.
For a couple of seconds she just stood, breathing and swallowing. Then she carefully peered through the narrow pane of glass in the door. The man was faced away from her, still walking back to his workbench. Pulling the door back a fraction, she peeled away a piece of clear tape she had stuck to her hand and pressed it down over the latch, then left it to close again.
Walking to a bench some way along the corridor, she sat down and tried to lower her heart rate to under two hundred.
She had to wait for almost an hour before there was any movement fro
m the blood bank door. Each time someone passed she tried to relax and look like she belonged there, expecting her presence to be challenged at any second.
Finally, the door opened. She quickly got up and ducked around a corner. After a few seconds, she peered back at the door to see the man walking away from her along the corridor. When he’d disappeared around the corner at the far end, she ran to the door and pulled. It opened as the tape keeping the latch in place in the door held firm.
With a final look up and down the hallway, she entered the room.
A quick look around the large room filled with equipment and computers revealed no blood, but a steel door in the back wall looked promising. She walked quickly to it and tugged on the large handle. The thick door swung open on silent hinges and a rush of cold air enveloped her. She shivered for a moment, then plunged in.
She was surrounded by refrigerated blood, both in bags and as samples in racks of test tubes. For a few seconds she panicked, not knowing how she could find one specific bag of blood amongst it all. But then she saw them, two large, square, red padded bags with white crosses on the side. Laila guessed they must have been from the donor session that day.
She went straight to the first, unzipping it and searching the bags of blood inside, looking for Trish’s donor number. It wasn’t on any of them. She quickly closed the bag and moved on to the second. She was nervous. She didn’t know how long she had before the technician got back, or even where he was. The risk was huge and she was beginning to think it would be for nothing when she saw the number she’d been looking for.
Grabbing the bag of blood, a relieved smile on her face, she zipped the padded bag back up, closed the door of the walk in refrigerator and went back to the door to the corridor. She slipped the cold bag of blood beneath her hoodie, gasping as the chill seeped through her t-shirt. A quick look left and right outside the door revealed the hallway to be empty and she slipped out.
“What on earth are you doing?”
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