Chapter 5 - Blood on the Floor
Inside the bedroom, the fight was brutal. Marissa was thirty years younger than Ruth and fueled by desperation, but Ruth had the strength of a woman defending a child.
Marissa clawed at Ruth’s face, her manicured nails leaving deep, bleeding scratches across the older woman’s cheek. But Ruth refused to let go, pinning Marissa against the wall.
"Caleb, unlock the door!" Ruth shouted.
Caleb, weeping in terror and clutching his raw, bleeding arm, fumbled with the deadbolt. Just as the lock clicked open, Marissa brought her knee up viciously into Ruth’s stomach.
Ruth gasped, the air leaving her lungs, and she collapsed to the carpet.
Marissa lunged forward, grabbing Caleb by his pajama shirt and hurling him away from the door. The boy hit the floor hard, crying out as his injured arm scraped against the wood.
Marissa picked up the heavy bronze bookend again. She stood over Ruth, her chest heaving, her eyes wild. "You should have just stayed downstairs and baked your cookies, Ruth," Marissa panted, raising the weapon.
SMASH.
The bedroom door didn't just open; it exploded off its hinges.
Grant Whitmore stood in the doorway, his chest heaving, his eyes locking onto the scene in front of him. He saw Ruth bleeding on the floor. He saw Marissa holding a weapon.
And then, he saw his son.
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He saw the shattered white cast. He saw the rusty, blood-stained padding. He saw the black beetles crawling across the carpet. He saw the horrific, weeping chemical burns eating into Caleb’s small, fragile arm.
The silence in the room was absolute, save for the rolling thunder outside.
