What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) by Delany Beaumont Read Free Book Online

like she’s changing from a young girl, barely grown, into an old lady. She wears a perpetual sneer, always ready to roll her eyes and make a face if I say anything she disagrees with. “Are we going to stay here all day?” she says. It’s not what she says but the tone of her voice, like a little yapping dog, that makes my shoulders tense, my fingers clench.
    Ignoring her, I take my time spitting out the last of the toothpaste, swish a little water around my mouth and spit again. She’s watching me, kicking at the floor with one foot. I grab my rifle. She’s blocking the doorway, trying to provoke me, but I shove her aside. She follows me into the main part of the motel room. Pointing at the rifle, she says, “You’ve always got to take that with you, everywhere you go. You can’t even go into the bathroom without it. Do you think we’re going to start shooting each other while you’re making yourself beautiful?”
    I look around. CJ and Terry are lying on one of the beds, playing quietly with some plastic soldiers. I’m grateful that they’re getting along for the moment. I don’t see Stace anywhere in the room. “Where did Stace go?” I ask Emily.
    She shrugs. “She’s probably playing in another room. Maybe outside.”
    “You’re supposed to help keep an eye on her.”
    “It’s the middle of the afternoon. What’s going to happen to her?”
    I’m finding it hard to control my anger, to keep myself from shouting. “We’re in the city. We’re right off the highway. We don’t know what’s around here.” I hiss the words at her.
    “The city.” She shakes her head sadly, laughs through her nose, making a sound like the honk of a sarcastic goose.
    “Yeah, the city.”
    Emily walks over to the window facing the back lot, stamping her feet, folding her arms and staring outside. There’s a nice view of a burned out water heater and plumbing supply store just across the way. Pipes lie twisted in the middle of what was the showroom floor like giant strands of metallic spaghetti. “We don’t need to be watched like babies,” she says, not turning around. “We can do things on our own. God!”
    I follow after her, pausing just long enough to lean the rifle against the sofa. CJ and Terry have stopped playing and watch us, their eyes wide. “Emmy, what’s your problem?” She says nothing so I grab her shoulder and jerk her toward me. She spins around, fists like tight little balls, looking like she’s about to hit me. She tries to stare me down, her red face pinched and sour and she’s trembling uncontrollably.
    “We finally got here,” she says. “We walked miles and miles and there’s nothing. That’s my problem. You said everything was going to be different.” She starts pacing back and forth like a caged panther. Behind her I see Stace’s face appear in the doorway of the room like a little red-haired, freckled ghost.
    “Can I help it? Did you really think there was going to be a welcoming committee? A banquet laid out for us?” I look around at all of them, my four adopted children. “Nothing’s going to be like it was. All of that’s gone. We can only hope we find someone who can help us. But who that is, where they are, I don’t know.”
    Emily suddenly deflates. She plops down on the edge of the bed where CJ and Terry are lying quietly, listening. “I know that,” she says. “Don’t you think I know that?” She slaps her palm hard on the edge of the bed. “Damn it. Why couldn’t we stay in Oxbow Ferry?”
    I sit next to her. “With Larkin? I wanted us to stay there with him, Emmy. I wish we could have.” She starts to sob—hard, convulsing sobs like something damned up inside her has finally broken free. She lets me put my arm around her and I start to rock her gently to and fro.
    “Are we going to get sick?” Terry asks softly from over my shoulder. “Like Larkin?”
    “I don’t know. You’re not old enough to worry about it.”
    Emily’s sobs subside