THE SEVERED THREAD:
AN ABIGAIL LASSITER NOVEL – BOOK 1
A novel by Dione C. Suto
THE SEVERED THREAD
AN ABIGAIL LASSITER NOVEL – BOOK 1
Copyright © 2015 by Dione C. Suto
Cover design by Jenny Zemanek – Seedlings Design Studio – www.seedlingsonline.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
For Claire,
the star around which my planet revolves.
Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
~ Mark Twain
Chapter 1
There was so much blood – Jason’s blood. It was on my hands and under my nails. Twin spider webs of red were embedded in the little creases on the sides of both thumbs. My hands were literally sticky with it but all I could seem to do was stare at the white walls and the cracked linoleum, at the vertical black streaks on the far wall from some misguided gurney. I was barely able to acknowledge the voice of my mother at the periphery of my numb bubble, urging me to wash my hands. I was too preoccupied with the circular route of my thoughts, reliving the events of this morning in an endless loop that I thought might drive me mad.
A horn honks in the driveway. I quickly gather my things as I head towards the foyer and the front door.
I shook my head in an attempt to clear my thoughts. It seemed that no matter how badly I wanted to make it stop, the replay continued on and on like the gruesome highlights from some terrible horror film with me as the unwilling star. Fragments of time that I have no memory of were alternately punctuated by moments of heart wrenching clarity.
The sound of tires squealing reaches me in the house. I look up and through the sidelights at my front door I see Jason lying on the ground clutching his middle.
“Honey, you need to get cleaned up,” my mother said, interrupting the grisly rerun. “You will feel better once you do.” The idea that a hand washing had the power to make me feel better nearly produced a hysterical laugh. Soap and water could never wash away the memory of this day. The only way I would ever feel better again would be if I could scour the horror from my mind as if it had never happened.
I had to give my mother credit though, she kept trying. Maybe her attempts at taking care of me were part of her coping mechanism. Jason was beyond her help but here I was sitting within her sphere of influence, completely shell shocked. We had been waiting for what seemed like days for the doctor to come out and talk to us about Jason’s condition. I already knew. There were very few who could survive with injuries like the ones I witnessed today. Jason was nearly eviscerated, the blood covering me a testament to my attempts to hold him together until the ambulance arrived. I firmly squashed the tiny flicker of hope for his survival. If I focused on it, that little glimmer would break me when the news finally came. Better to anticipate the worst. And there was little doubt in my mind that the worst would be what the doctor would report.
I continued to ignore my mother’s plea to clean myself up as my mind cycled through this morning’s events. I just wanted it to stop and closing my eyes only made it worse.
I’m outside attempting to hold him together as a crimson pool forms around us. Frantically I dial 911. ‘Yes, 47 Arbor Drive! Hurry! Please hurry!’
My mother tried again. “Come on Abigail, you need to get that off your hands.” I had been pressing the pad of my thumb against my index finger and repeatedly pulling the two apart, the motion making a sticky, snapping sound. Press, snap, press, snap – the repetition moved in time with the strobing images of this morning.
A horn honks in the driveway. I quickly gather my things….
I reached up to scratch my face and stopped short. She was right; I did need to wash my hands. It might not actually make me feel better but smearing tacky blood on my face wouldn’t either.
“Alright,” I said. She didn’t waste any time.
“Caleb, help me would you?” she said to the tall ebony skinned man standing quietly a few feet away. Caleb was my mother’s bodyguard and was never far from her side when she was away from home. His hand was immediately under my left elbow and hers under my right, coaxing me from my seat before leading me down the corridor. Caleb ushered us to the ladies room before taking up a position just outside to wait.
The whole hospital had an antiseptic tang and the bathroom was no exception, only here it was overlaid with the pungency of stale urine and enduring sadness. I imagined I was not the first to wash blood off in this room and I was sure not to be the last.
My mother pumped the wall dispenser and plopped a large dollop of foaming soap into the palm of my right hand.
“Here, let me get the water going for you.” She wiggled her fingers in front of the sensor on the faucet. I flinched as the water surged into the basin. I had been lost in thought staring at my hands again. I needed to start participating or we were going to be in here forever. Slowly I lowered my hands under the streaming water and watched as the brick-red runoff circled the drain.
I lathered my hands three times before they were even close to clean; the suds going from dark terra-cotta, to a ruddy clay and finally to white. There were still stubborn traces fixed in the crevices of my nails. I was going to need a brush for that. Even so, it was progress and my mother seemed relieved.
“Thank you Abigail,” she said. The relief on her face and the unshed tears in her eyes startled me. I had been so lost in my own horror that I hadn’t even considered for one second how upsetting seeing all that blood on me must have been for her, especially when the blood belonged to my brother. I was such an ass. I grabbed her, pulling her into a desperate hug.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I squeezed her. I had to look away when I finally stepped back, needing to get a grip on my emotions. I was teetering on a precipice and I dared not let her see the rage that was slowly overtaking my numb horror.
“How are you holding up?” I was finally able to ask as we left the restroom, Caleb silently following in our wake. I needed to focus on her, support her and stop cycling through visions of my brother lying in my driveway with his insides falling out. I said a little prayer of thanks that at least my mother had been spared that horror. I knew that the visual would be with me until the day I died as would the frantic commentary of the paramedics in the ambulance on the ride to the hospital.
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“I just wish your father were here,” she sighed.
“Phuff,” I scoffed, my slow simmer ratcheting up to a low boil. My father had never approved of Jason, resulting in his standard protocol to never show up to support anything of Jason’s. Apparently that policy extended to his impending death as well. The more I thought about the fact that he was not here, the angrier I got. Anger was good as long as I did not allow it to get away from me. I had the uncanny sense that if I held onto it like a life raft it might prevent me from drowning in a maelstrom of grief and tears.
“Abigail, he is your father. He loves both of you.” I was too emotionally exhausted to point out that if he was such a concerned loving father - where the hell was he? Now would have been a good moment to demonstrate some of that love mom was always assuring me he felt. Instead I ignored her comment. That was my standard protocol.
We arrived back at the waiting room to find the doctor already there. The expression on his face solidified my sense of dread.
“Mrs. Lassiter, Ms. Lassiter” the doctor began. “I’m very sorry. We did everything we could, but there was too much blood loss.”
I nodded numbly as my eyes slid to my mother. Her face was frozen halfway between the polite smile she had offered the doctor by way of greeting and a horrible grimace.
“We declared Jason dead at nine forty-three this morning.”
I fixated a moment on the declared time of death; nine forty-three. How precise a number ascribed to an event that surely occurred considerably earlier in the day. I didn’t remember much of what he said after that. Clearly I had been deluding myself about my squashed hopes. It seemed that no amount of certainty that an outcome will be grim ever truly prepares you for the brutal confirmation of a loved one’s death. How had I convinced myself that I had buried that little seed of hope so deep that it could not hurt me? I was completely mistaken. The crushing of that little hope pushed me over a line I had never crossed before; the line that separates those that know true, soul searing loss from those who don’t. Sadly, I was now forever on the wrong side of that line.
My mother was hunched over, quietly sobbing with both arms wrapped tightly around her middle. I reached out, pulling her to me and rocked her while she cried. She seemed so fragile as her shoulders shook in grief. I wanted to be able to croon to her that everything would be alright - that he was in a better place - but I just didn’t have it in me. Selfishly, I didn’t really believe he was in a better place at all. Where else was better than here with us, the family that loved him? I was dry eyed, cranking down hard on my emotions in order to lock away the tears of rage and sorrow. There would be time for that later.
Over my mom’s quaking shoulder I spied my aunt hurrying down the hall, her brown curls bouncing behind her. Her steps faltered when she saw us. Her worried blue eyes sought out mine. I shook my head.
“Oh no,” she said in a whisper, her hand covering her mouth as she made the final few steps to us. She reached out and pulled my mother into her embrace while putting a hand on my arm.
“Is it just the two of you and Caleb?” my aunt asked, the unspoken question about my father obvious in her eyes.
Her mouth hardened at my nod. She turned her attention back to my mother as I signaled to Caleb from where he had been unobtrusively keeping watch. Always alert and animated, today his normal vivacity was notably subdued. He started towards us stiffly, obviously ill at ease in the face of my mother’s monumental grief.
“I think you should take both of them back to the house,” I said to him. “I can take care of whatever needs to be done here.” I couldn’t believe my father was not here, if not for me or Jason, than at least for my mother. He was such an ass! I would have had to send my mother home with just Caleb if Aunt Gracie hadn’t shown up!
“Yes ma’am,” Caleb answered.
I waited for him to escort them away before turning back to the doctor. Frankly I was surprised to see him still lingering. If I had just delivered such horrific news, I may have been more cowardly, slinking away before additional questions could be asked.
“I want to see him,” I announced.
“I think you should hold off until we have had a chance to move him from the trauma room.” I knew what he really meant was that they wanted to clean him up so that his appearance was more orderly, more sterile.
“No,” I replied firmly. “Now.”
“Ms. Lassiter,” the doctor tried again. “I think you should really wait.”
“Why?” I met his concerned gaze with my determined one. “Could anything I see in there be worse than what I saw in my driveway this morning?” The doctor chewed on that a moment before loudly blowing out a defeated breath.
“No, I suppose not,” he finally admitted. “I will send a nurse out in a minute to take you back.” He very obviously did not think this was a great idea but I really couldn’t have cared less. He left me standing in the hallway to await the nurse. Thankfully I was not kept waiting long.
“Ms. Lassiter?” a gentle voice asked from behind me. I turned to see that the speaker was a scrub clad young woman in her mid-twenties. “Doctor Baramey sent me to escort you back to see your brother’s body.” I blanched.
Body. The word hung heavy in the air around us. Gone was the man everyone called Jason. Now there was only the body.
I swallowed heavily because despite the confident stance I had taken with the doctor, I was nervous. Before I could chicken out, I forced myself to nod and follow her down the hall to the trauma room. Just outside the door, she stopped me with a gentle hand on my forearm.
“If you need anything, press the call button on the wall,” she instructed sympathetically. “Take as long as you need.” My eyes flashed to her hospital badge. Her name was Sally. I cannot remember the last time I met someone as young as her named Sally.
“Thank you,” I said before pushing through the door into the room.
I stopped in my tracks at the grisly sight before me. The absolute stillness of the room was suffocating, the metallic stench of blood, overwhelming. To my right Jason’s hastily removed clothes, obviously cut from his body, were lying in tatters on a rolling stainless steel tray. I forced myself to move further into the room, treading carefully to avoid the bloody gauze pads that littered the floor.
“I know you’re here,” I said into the stillness.
The air shimmered briefly before revealing a nearly seven foot tall, sun kissed man with glowing blue wings. Golden haired, he was wearing his usual white tunic and brown homespun pants. If not for the wings, his appearance would be nearly monochromatic. His name was Naris and he was standing near the foot of the bed looking down at Jason.
“I thought you said you were keeping an eye on him?” I accused. Jason was always getting into some dubious investment or another but never anything that should have gotten him killed. When he’d asked to meet me this morning, I had expected to hear about some misguided financial escapade. Instead I was covered in his blood and he was dead.
“I was,” he assured me, still looking at Jason. “I was prevented from interfering.”
“Prevented?” I asked incredulously. Who or what could prevent a Guardian from intervening? “By whom?” He turned to face me, his features etched in sadness.
“Those who decide,” he replied simply, like that should explain everything. I really wish I knew what the hell that meant.
Naris and I had been together since I was six years old when he first appeared to me in the brightly hued rows of my mother’s rose garden. I was crouched down intently watching the path of a stick bug hidden among the branches.
“That is quite the discovery,” he had said from behind me. I was young and like most children had not been overwhelmingly alarmed by the presence of a stranger. I had puffed up proudly at my find before it ever occurred to me to ask why he was in my mother’s garden.
That first day among the flowers he told me he was sent to watch over me. He was a Guardian and I was his charge. I had
never heard of a Guardian but the story sounded reasonable to my six year old self. Later that evening, when I told my mother about Naris’ visit, she thought that he was just an imaginary friend, a figment of my imagination. She explained that Guardians were make-believe, the stuff of legend. Certainly not something that would show up in the garden to talk with her six year old daughter. Looking back on it now, it seems odd to me that she did not wonder how I even knew about Guardians. She had never told me about them and there was absolutely no chance my father had done so.
When I was a teenager I tried to learn more about my mysterious protector but I never did discover anyone else who had one. All the references implied that they were considered a myth. I only knew that Naris seemed to be a permanent fixture in my life, someone who over the years I had begun to think of as a mentor and friend. That being said, you would think by now I would better understand the tenets that governed his actions. I didn’t.
The only thing I truly did understand was that he was permitted to intervene when things were not proceeding according to The Plan. Naris had explained to me that The Plan was the grand design set out for all beings in the universe and that nothing he did could be contrary to it. I’m not sure how he knew which actions were contrary and which weren’t. That information seemed to be embedded into the very essence of who he was.
“Who are they exactly,” I asked in frustration.
“They are.” Well that wasn’t cryptic or anything, I thought. Not exactly helpful but completely expected when it came to Naris. Spending the last twenty-four years in his company had accustomed me to regular doses of bewildering explanations.
“Did you at least see who did this?” I hissed, pointing at Jason’s lifeless body.
He opened his mouth to respond but no words came. He looked confused for a moment and then a cool blue washed over his normally warm toned skin, followed quickly by scarlet.
He looked at me sadly before replying. “I cannot say.” I took a moment to digest that before another question occurred to me.
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