Page 159 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
“Oh, honey, you’ve got a lot of blood on you.” Melany reached my side first and rubbed at my back.
“I know.” I sniffed. “I banged my hands up.”
“Well, you certainly did. But most of the blood is from here.” She gingerly touched the side of my head.
I yelped when pain zapped my skull and pulsated down the side of my neck. And then I reached up to check my hair.
Tacky streaks of blood painted the strands.
I prodded the seeping gash arching along the crown of my head.
He’d torn some of my hair out.
Thatjerk.
Something soft brushed against my bare calves, making me flinch.
Marvin twined himself between my legs and sat in front of my feet, fixing me with that judgmental stare.
“Darling Marvin,” Melany said, “told us you were in a spot of trouble. And…Pippi, your boyfriend was in Brew & Bites ravingabout?—”
“Jackson?” I straightened sharply. Too sharply. My head fizzed. I staggered.
“There, there, honey. Take it easy.” Melany touched my arm. “Sarah was getting you a?—”
“Already have it.” Sarah strolled up to my side and shoved a glass in my hands. “Drink this.”
I took it from her, surprised at the fierce thirst scraping the inside of my throat, and downed the glass in a few big sips.
“What was Jackson doing?” I swung my gaze between the three of them.
“Telling lies,” Marvin said. “As he does.”
“He was raving about the Loch Ness Monster,” Melany clarified. “Said…Oh, it wasawful.” She tutted as she touched a blood-streaked strand of my hair.
“He was saying the monster tookyou,” Sarah finished.
“What?”
“The way he told it, you wanted to explore the cliff trail. He asked you not to, but you went anyway. You slipped and fell, and the Loch Ness Monster took you away.”
“He seemed very upset,” Melany added. “Thinking you were dead. I believed him, Pippi. I was bawling my eyes out.”
“He said I was dead?”
“No. He worried you were dead,” Sarah said. “But claimed he didn’t know for sure. He’s a rotting bastard for saying something like that.”
“But it was very convincing.” Melany chaffed my arm.
“It was,” Sarah agreed. “That’s why he got so many volunteers.”
“Volunteers?”
“To hunt the Loch Ness Monster”—Sarah’s lips pursed—“and find you. More than half the isle went with him.”
My knees buckled.
Marvin hissed, reminding me he was beneath my feet. Melany and Sarah grabbed for me, keeping me upright.
