Chapter 2 - The Blood
The digital clock on the dashboard read 4:12 AM when I finally tore into the parking lot of the Salt Lake City Urgent Care. The neon red 'EMERGENCY' sign bled onto the wet pavement.
I left the keys in the ignition and sprinted through the sliding glass doors. The lobby was empty except for a triage nurse behind a pane of bulletproof glass and my brother, David, pacing the linoleum floor.
He looked up. His face was a mask of stone, but his eyes were entirely black with rage.
"Where is he?" I demanded, my voice echoing off the sterile walls.
"Room 3. They’re cleaning him up," David said, grabbing my shoulder to stop my momentum. His grip was a vice. "Listen to me, Marcus. Before you go in there, you need to know. He’s physically fine."
I let out a breath that felt like shattered glass leaving my lungs. "Thank God. But Mrs. Gable said he was covered in—"
"He was," David interrupted, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "He was soaked in it, Marc. But there isn’t a single scratch on him."
The implications hit me like a physical blow. The room tilted. "If it’s not his..."
"It’s a match for Victoria’s blood type," David said grimly. "O-Negative. The doctors ran a rapid test. But there's something else. The amount of blood on Ethan's clothes... Marc, no one loses that much and walks away."
I pushed past him, shoving open the door to Room 3. Ethan was sitting on the edge of the examination table, dwarfed by a hospital gown. His pale legs dangled over the edge. His face was scrubbed clean, but his dark hair was still matted at the roots. He looked up at me, his eyes vacant, hollowed out.
"Buddy," I choked out, rushing forward and wrapping my arms around him. He didn't hug me back. He just stared at the blank wall behind me.
"Mommy painted me," Ethan whispered. His voice was flat, devoid of the childish cadence I knew so well.
The blood in my veins turned to ice. "What did you say, E?"
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"Mommy painted me," he repeated, finally looking into my eyes. "She said the red would keep the monsters busy."
David stepped into the room, holding a clear plastic evidence bag. Inside it was Ethan’s ruined, blood-soaked sweater. "I've called my contacts at the precinct," David said softly. "The police are at your house right now, Marcus. We need to go."
