Her Blood Sings: Episode 01

Dan was working on the nail on the
headboard's metal frame. His fingernail was bloody and loose on its
bed, but he was so close from removing the nail. Then, all he had
to do was wait for the old woman to come down the stairs. He'd
knock her out and make his escape.

The door creaked open on the top of the
stairs. Dan's hand stopped moving.

"Dan, darling, dinner," she said. Her voice
had that awful sweet pitch to it again. Was she delusional?

Dan sat up straight, pressing his back
against the cool, dank wall. He hid his bloody hand under his
leg.

She stopped at the top of the stairs, a tray
with dinner in her hands and an irritating know-it-all look on her
face. She looked down on him in the humid basement, his prison, and
let out a
tsk
sound.

"What are you doing, boy?" she asked.

Dan wanted to laugh. He could ask her the
same thing.

Instead, he said "I'm not doing
anything."

She sighed and shook her head. "I hate when
you lie to me, darling."

She reached the bottom of the stairs and
walked straight to her left, where the washing machine was. She put
the tray with Dan's dinner on it and left it there. Then, she made
a show of removing her worn, leather belt from the loops on her
jeans.

He kept his eyes glued to her belt. "What
makes you think I'm lying?"

"You got that look on your face." She got
closer, the belt dangling from her hand in a veiled threat. "That
mischievous,
I'm up to no good
look. You've done that since
you were a little boy."

He looked up at her, keeping his face as
blank as possible.

"I'd never lie to you, Mom," Dan said.

"You promised me you wouldn't go after that
little whore and-"

"Don't talk about Evie like that," Dan
snapped.

She raised her hand and lowered it fast. The
bite of the leather belt wasn't nearly the worst thing. He had
gotten used to it by now. Neither was the humiliation of it all.
The worst thing was that it was his father's belt. The same man his
mother had driven to suicide.

"You think I enjoy doing this to my only
child?" Another bite of the belt. "Do you think I liked moving all
the way to this shit hole?" Another stroke. "I moved to save you.
To help you." She dropped the belt and took a deep breath, her face
clean of any anger. She smiled and turned to the dinner tray. "I'm
here because I love you, my boy."

Dan, who had curled into a ball, didn't
move.

"I thought we could see a movie upstairs
after your dinner." She sounded giddy again. "I'll get the
restraints and we can-"

Dan tuned her out. If she wanted to play
house, to treat him like a little pet, she'd have to do it alone.
His face was only inches away from the loose nail. His bloody hand
drifted from its hiding place underneath the covers. Dan's eyes
darted to the woman fixing him a sandwich, her back set in a
straight, unyielding line. She was still talking about the new
movies that had come out on Netflix. Dan turned to his handiwork
and continued, working at a feverish pace. He had to break free. He
had to leave. If he didn't, she would drive him crazy and he would
kill himself - just like his father had done years before.

He had tried to escape the week before. Dan
had gotten all the way to the living room. Then, she had turned the
tables on him and hit him in the head with the old block of wood
she used as a cutting board. As it turns out, he had made one
crucial mistake: he had left her wide awake. When he woke up, he
was chained to his bed. She said she was doing it to cure him,
because she loved him. Funny. He liked her sense of humor.

The nail wavered on its resting place and
fell on his hand, rolling between his fingers and falling on the
floor. He was free.

Dan raised the head of the bed and freed his
arm.

"What are you doing, Dan?"

No matter how old he was, the anger in her
voice always made his blood freeze in his veins.

He sat up and pressed his back against the
wall, his eyes wide both in fear and awe at this joyous moment.

"I'm free, Mom."

They stood there, frozen, for a moment. His
eyes were on her face. Her eyes were on his wrist still sporting
the handcuff.

Her hand curled around the knife she had been
using to cut his sandwich in neat halves.

Everything after that happened too fast for
Dan to really think about it.

She started towards him, her face once again
set in angry lines. Dan shot to his feet and grabbed the loose head
of the bed, yanking it from its spot.

Before he had time to hit her, she crashed on
him. They both fell on the bed, struggling. It swayed under their
weight. She tried to pin him down. The edge of her blade bit
against his wrist. She was incredibly strong for a woman her age,
but her real edge was the fear Dan felt whenever he was in her
presence. They both knew that. He shoved her away and shot out of
the bed, running for the stairs. He would lock her here. He was
bigger and faster than he was when he was a boy. He could out run
her now.

A sharp stab of pain hit him in the leg. He
looked back. She had thrown the knife at him, hitting him on the
back of his thigh. Dan removed the knife and looked at it. She
wouldn't wait for him to lose the will to live. She was going to
kill him herself.

Her scream cut through his fear. He looked
up. She was running towards him. Her hands curled in claws.

Dan took a step back.

Their bodies slammed together.

And then there was silence.

Their eyes locked. His eyes wide in shock;
hers in bewilderment.

He shoved the knife a little deeper in her,
pulled it up, ripping her open.

His voice was just a whisper, the voice of a
confused little boy. "Mom..."

She staggered back. Her hands shot to the
gash on her belly that now oozed blood and entrails. She looked at
the sticky red liquid covering her hands as if it was something
alien.

She looked at Dan. "My darling boy..."

Her body collapsed on the floor,
lifeless.

Dan dropped the knife, his eyes on his
mother's dead body. Then, he thought of Evie. He loved her and now
there was nothing between them. Where was he? Was he still in
Thunder Bay or had Mom dragged him back to Oregon? It didn't
matter. He was free to track her down and bring her home. She was
meant for him. He would make her see that - even if it killed them
both.

Dan looked at the bright kitchen on the top
of the stairs. It had seemed miles and miles away for months. Now,
it was so close he could taste it.

"My life is uncomplicated. It's
mind-numbingly boring." Evie watched Lucy roll her eyes. Her heart
started racing. "And that’s exactly what I want."

"Don't you wish things were different?"

"Sure I do." She gave her statement just
enough time to give Lucy some hope before adding, "Then I remember
everything that happened." Evie looked out the window. The streets
were covered in knee-deep snow. Most people hated it, but Evie
loved it. "So, boring is good. Boring is safe."

Evie's story was very simple. Girl and Boy
grow up together. At one point, out of the blue, Girl falls for
Boy. He falls for her, too. They become a couple. Her love changes
him, gives him focus. He overcomes his troubled family life. Girl
comes out of her shell. They are each other’s firsts: first
I
love you
, first sex partner, first fight, first trip to the
hospital because Boy beat the crap out of Girl, first restraining
order. Then, Girl decides to run off to another state for college,
putting over 2,000 miles between her and Boy.

But that’s it. Boy is out of the picture,
right?

Wrong.

Because about two years after Girl fled from
her hometown, Boy tracked her down and sent Girl's second boyfriend
to the hospital. Then, Boy disappeared. Just like that.

"How do you even know it was Dan, Evie?" Lucy
asks, her voice quiet and soft. "I never asked you because I
thought you had your reasons, but the police said the place was
trashed and some stuff was missing. Even Patrick said that."

"It was the song." Evie's breath started
coming out in short bursts.

Not again, Evie thought. Please, not
again.

"What song?"

"Foreigner's
Waiting For a Girl Like
You
," Evie said, another chill running down her spine. "It was
the song that was playing on the radio when Dan and I first kissed.
I used to call it our song. It used to be my ringtone for him and
his for me." Evie hugged her jacket a little tighter and wrapped
her arms around herself. "When I found Patrick, that song was
playing in his stereo, on a loop. It was a message."

Lucy started talking again, something about
Dan being gone for a year and how he might as well be dead. But
Evie was only half listening.

She was feeling that way she always felt -
the way she had felt right before Dan hit her. The tingling right
under her skin, the feeling that things were changing pace. She had
learned, long before Dan attacked her, to trust this feeling. When
it came along, Evie dropped everything and ran for cover.

"Stop the car," Evie said.

"What?"

"Stop the car, Lucy," Evie snapped.
"Now!"

Lucy glanced quickly over her shoulder,
making sure no one was too close. She slammed the brakes. Both she
and Evie kept moving forward, their bodies unable to stop. Their
seatbelts did their job and pulled them back.

"What the hell, Evie?"

Evie didn't answer. She kept her eyes on the
crossing ahead of her. Her head was buzzing. At the time Lucy's
Honda was supposed to be crossing, a car came out from the opposite
lane in a mad dash. The driver didn’t seem like he could control
his car on the slippery, ice-covered road. The light must have been
red for him. He would've hit Lucy's car head on.

The throbbing in Evie's head slowed down. The
tingling under her skin disappeared. She slumped on her seat.

"Did you..." Lucy's eyes were burning a hole
on Evie's face. "Did you just save my life?"

Evie looked at her best friend. Lucy looked
so earnest, so awed. A laugh bubbled from someplace deep within
her. Had she just saved Lucy's life? The whole thing was so
ridiculous, so impossible. Evie was a girl with a steady routine.
She woke up. She went to the gym. Then school. After classes, she
went to work at a café near campus. Then she went home to sleep.
Next day, she did it all over again. She didn't save lives. It just
wasn't her thing.

The only thing Evie could do was laugh.

Lucy started laughing too.

For a moment, there was nothing but the
nervous giggles of the two girls bouncing in the car. Then, their
laughter died down. They tried to catch their breaths.

Finally, they looked at each other.

Evie felt both spent and filled with nervous
energy. Judging by the way Lucy's hands were twitching on her lap,
she felt the same.

"So," Lucy said. She started the car again.
"Moonlight. Tonight. I promised."

"Yeah. Yeah," Evie said, heaving a sigh. "I
know."

***

Lucy followed Evie into the café, an extra
bounce in her step. She was talking a mile a minute.

Evie glanced over her shoulder. "Are you
still talking about that nightclub?"

"It's not
that nightclub
. It's
Moonlight."

Deep down, Evie was dying to go to Moonlight.
How could she feel any differently? Moonlight was the new, hot,
exclusive nightclub in town. She'd been hearing a lot of buzz about
it for months. It was supposed to be Baz Luhrmann’s
Moulin
Rouge
! meets Studio 54. But she had been on edge for days now,
feeling like something bad was about to happen. Usually, the way
things worked, she'd feel that buzzing in her head and tingling in
her skin right before something bad happened. Now, it was on at odd
moments, making Evie nervous, jumpy. It was driving her crazy
because it made her unsure of everything she did.

She marched to the back of the café and
opened her tiny locker. She shoved her messenger bag inside, along
with her coat, scarf and gloves.

"What are we celebrating, by the way?" Evie
asked.

"Do we need to have a reason?" Lucy
answered.

"If you want me to go, yeah." Evie crossed
her arms over her chest. "Otherwise, I'll stay home. Midterms are
just around the corner."

Lucy's lips twisted in that disapproving way
only she could pull off. Evie picked up a clean apron from the
stack near the ladies' room. When she turned around, Evie found
Lucy waving a sheet of paper, something she had printed. She
snatched the paper from Lucy's hand.

"Why did you print this?" Evie asked, her
eyes going over every word on the paper.