Page 55 of Surface Scratch
V’s fingers loosened first, followed by a strangled gurgle. Caleb felt something wet dripping onto his face, like thick, hot raindrops. He opened his eyes as the last bit of strength behind the grip faded and watched in horror as V fell back, his eyes impossibly wide and his mouth agape. A string of saliva and blood dripped steadily from his lower lip and his hand pressed the side of his neck where the switchblade stuck out, buried to the hilt.
“Oh fuck!” Caleb scrambled onto his hands and knees to crawl out from underneath the ofrenda. He’d only wanted to hurt the guy enough to make him stop. Not this. His hand trembled as he reached out for the handle of the blade, unable to look away from the incessant gush of blood as it bubbled out of V’s mouth.
“Pulling that out will make him bleed out in less than five minutes,” Ophelia groaned as she stumbled toward him. She spat again, blood and tissue flying from her mouth to the ground. Her eyes looked glazed over and dazed, but her face was hard, a quiet fury building in her.
V scrambled backward, attempting to support himself on his palms before his arms gave out. Caleb frantically scanned the area for something to absorb the blood, his eyes resting on the ofrenda’s tablecloth. Without hesitation he grabbed it and yanked it down, sending the last of the altar’s contents crashing to the floor. He pressed the cloth firmly against V’s throat, desperate to keep any more blood from spilling out.
“Get an ambulance!” Caleb yelled at Ophelia. His throat burned from the stomach acid in his esophagus, the warm blood soaking through the cloth and onto his own bleeding hand. He looked into V’s eyes, bloodshot and wide with fear, his mouth gaping as he tried to form words.
“I’m sorry. Help is coming, okay? You’ll be okay.”
“Fucking hell, Pinky,” Ophelia gasped, her voice right next to him. “I’m not calling an ambulance for this piece of shit.”
“Just do it! I fucking stabbed him! I can’t be the reason—”
Caleb’s words were cut off as his vision filled with a red haze. V’s head jerked back against the ground, a hole the size of a quarter appearing between his eyes as his nose seemed to deflate and a massive chunk of flesh and bone and scalp seemed to peel back from the side of his head in an instant. Chunky, fatty material streaked across the carpet, like ketchup packets popping underfoot.
The sound that followed was ear-shattering, vibrating in Caleb’s ears in a deafening explosion that stole all sound from the room. He found himself unable to move, his gaze fixed on the pieces of brain and blood that pooled around V’s head.
He stared down at the blood and gray matter that had exploded onto the carpet, trying to comprehend what he was seeing. He felt Ophelia’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him, her voice far away like it was underwater, barely decipherable over the ringing in his ears.
“There. Now I’m the reason.” She crouched down in front of him, continuing to shake him with one hand, a gun held in the other. She was saying something else to him, but he couldn’t make it out. All he heard was the high-pitched whine growing louder in his ears, and he was unable to tear his eyes away from the gun in her hand.
V’s gun.
Chapter Seventeen
Caleb hugged the cool steel of the trash can tightly to his chest, gulping down strangled breaths as he emptied what little contents remained in his stomach for a third time, unable to tear his eyes away from V’s body. He hadn’t thought anything could top seeing his mother’s cold and gray corpse, but he had been wrong. It was one thing to watch someone slowly waste away. It was an entirely different matter to see someone who had been very alive minutes before blink out of existence.
He wished Ophelia would come back inside from whatever scheme she was coming up with. She wasn’t exactly comforting, but he didn’t want to be alone. His hands shook as he thought about the blood bubbling out of V’s mouth. How scared he’d looked. Caleb had felt like he was protecting himself and Ophelia from danger in the moment, but now he felt like he’d done something wrong.
He’d hurt someone to protect himself, and now that person was dead. Most men would be proud for being able to defend themselves, but Caleb wished he could turn back time and stop himself from getting into the truck with Ophelia. He hadn’t wanted to fight, but it seemed like violence had been on his tail since he started working at Club Euphoria.
Caleb leaned his head back against the wall and shut his eyes, trying to catch his breath before the next wave of nausea hit him. He kept waiting for the flashbacks of the car to come after him like they always did when he was stressed out, but they were far away, like they didn’t dare share headspace with the corpse in front of him.
What were they going to do? Their spit and sweat and blood was all over the room. They couldn’t just leave V rotting there and wait for someone to discover him. But the thought of handling the body, brain matter oozing out of the gaping hole in the side of his head, made him clutch the trash can tighter.
“Heads up. Reinforcements have arrived,” Ophelia called to him as she walked back in the front door, the hood of her coat up and covering her face.
For a split second, Caleb panicked. V had said his boss was on his way. Were they going to have to fight again?
Instead, he watched three much taller figures follow her in, all three wearing large duster jackets, ski masks, and aviator goggles.Vampires.That shouldn’t have made him feel better, but after the day’s events, he was happier to see them than Ophelia. They would know what to do.
Ophelia flitted around the room, pulling the curtains closed over the minimal light of the evening seeping into the room through the blinds before she vanished into the kitchen.
“How’s your neck?” she called over the sound of her rummaging around.
Caleb’s shaky hand ran along the sore skin. “I’ll be fine,” he rasped, feeling like his voice box was being prodded with needles.
The tallest of the masked men appeared next to him, already crouching down as he pulled off the ski mask and whistled. “Damn, buttercup, you certainly gave as good as you got.” Vincent cocked his head as he examined Caleb’s neck, his cold blue eyes nearly glowing against his black sclera. He brushed cold fingertips against Caleb’s throat, making him flinch and drop his trash can of stomach contents.
“Hands,” Tariq’s voice warned as he appeared on Caleb’s other side.
Vincent rolled his eyes as he stood back up. “I know, I know.”
“Hey, man, can you get up?” Tariq asked, holding out a hand for Caleb to grasp.
He hesitated, his gaze fixed on Tariq’s transformed eyes. Normally, he had deep brown, almost black irises, but with the whites of his eyes gone, Tariq’s eyes were solid black orbs that made his skin crawl. He didn’t like feeling like that. Tariq was always kind to him, never aggressive or cruel.
