Page 87 of Driftwood Daffodil 2

I noticed everything about it. The pointed tip, and slight curve in the edge leading to the sleek black handle, but it was the two chips on the left side that my gaze was stuck on. Tiny little missing pieces that meant that this knife had been used.

There was someone walking around with slivers of metal in their body. Or worse, they weren’t walking anywhere. They were cold in an unmarked grave somewhere. Forgotten and left alone with no witnesses but the remnants of the weapon that ended their life. And not in a quick way, but in sharp stabbing slices that delivered agony in their last moments. Death by a bullet was fast. A knife was unnecessarily cruel.

I needed to get out of here, but I couldn’t move. My arms were too heavy to lift.

I tried to raise them, but they wouldn’t budge. The same weight pressed down on my chest, compressing my lungs, while fear slid its icy tendrils up my spine, paralyzing me. I was trapped with no escape from that deadly edge.

It sounded like someone was saying something, but the voice was distorted and far away. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Maybe it wasn’t a they at all, maybe it was the forgotten screams held within that blade that were calling to me. Voices and terror coated in blood that dripped down fat globs…

Glop.

Glop.

Glop.

“Oh my God, Nova, don’t look.”

There was blood everywhere. On my hands, soaked into the knees of my pink pants, and pooled under me on the floor. A coppery ting assailed my nostrils while the sticky thick fluid molded around my butt.

I watched a red drop roll along the arm flopped over the tweed couch and drop down to join the puddle below. It made a weird sound when it hit the blade laying on the floor. Not quite a plunk or a ting, but more of a glop.

I’d been sitting here for a while now. SO long that I didn’t know if it was the same day. And those drops kept on coming. Long after the arm had stopped moving.

Glop.

Glop.

Glop.

One after the other they fell back to the blade that released them. As if they were trying to go home.

The knife couldn’t suck any more up though. It was tinted red and shimmering under a pool of crimson. Yet still…

Glop.

Glop.

Glop.

That’s all there was. Just me, that coppery scent and the glops.

“Nova, Nova…” Someone called while my eyes followed another drop.

Glop.

Glop.

Glop.

“Kato, what’s wrong with her? Nova…”

“Nova!”

My face jarred to the side as a sting spread across my cheek.

When I refocused my sight the glops were gone, but the knife was still there, staring me in the face.

“Get that thing away from me.” I jerked to the side, causing the belt around my wrists to bite into my flesh.

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