Chapter 3

Sister’s gonna sister

Lincoln came to with the pressure of a fire hose in his skull and a screaming fight like a siren outside it.

“Are you fucking kidding me, dad!? Again with that tired old shit,” Elena yelled. “I. Reject. Your. Reasons.”

“Debate class isn’t real life.” Came the always tired quiet gravel of his fathers voice.

Lincoln looked around the room and saw bloody rags, medical gear and posters from the various stories by the nerds at The Adventure Zone podcast. His room would never be the same. The cheap paneled walls seemed to shake with the force of his sister’s outrage.

For being only 15 years old, Elena seemed to have boundless outrage and endurance when it came to arguing. Her thick black hair, normally neat and plaited down the back of her head like armor, was disheveled and matted from sweat and blood. Her green eyes blazed as she verbally tore into their dad as hard as she could. She only got this bad when Lincoln got hurt.

Hey, sister’s gonna sister.

“You’re seriously going to say that to me right now? Do not talk down to me. Lincoln almost died, and you want to lecture me about using a gun? Fuck the neighbors!"

Lincoln’s dad, Mason, was sitting against the wall, on top of Lincoln’s desk. He was wiping off the skin stapler. $10.99 on Amazon and probably the best gift Lincoln had gotten for Christmas. Mason Villalobos looked like every other mid-40’s man in this town. A dirty trucker hat pulled down over his wavy hair. A week old beard dusted his face. He wore a weathered green flannel and old Levi’s. His eyes were like reflections of a man Lincoln remembered from family pictures staring across a wasteland of depression.

Ok, so maybe not like every guy in town.

Mason numbly rubbed at the sticky blood on the clinical white plastic of the stapler, using their last good washcloth. The sky blue one with a little yellow flower embroidered in the corner. It was a rare touch of softness in a life of hard edges. Now it had been ruined in the rush to save Lincoln’s life.

Thinking about the stitches and staples that were likely holding his leg together sent a nauseating wave of pain arcing from his thigh. It threatened to empty his stomach.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Do not look. Do not look,” Lincoln told himself.

He looked. He stared down at the wound on his bare leg, just below his ruined boxer briefs. The subtle olive of his skin was roiled and puckered where the staples had squeezed the wound shut. Pink flesh tried to squeeze out. It was all greasy and glistening from a slathering of Neosporin.

“Nope. Yup. Time to puke,” he thought. And did so. Right onto his own chest.

Elena and their dad stopped to look at him. Elena’s head whipping around to face the new crisis, Mason eye’s moved and then his head followed. The worry and tired slowing him down.

Lincoln spit the drool strings onto himself. He held his hands out to the side, half begging and half helpless, and said “Can you two please give it a rest? I’m literally begging you.”

The fire immediately left Elena’s eyes as she cocked her head to the side with concern. Just like their mom used to.

“Oh, Lincoln. I’m… Well, I’m not sorry, but… Let’s clean that up.”

She slid confidently over to the bed, scooped up the hand towel that matched the blue washcloth and half wiped, half scooped the sick off his chest. His bare chest. Like a baby.

“Ok, ok, let me do that, jeez,” Lincoln complained, taking the hand towel and finishing the job. “I really need a shower.”

Lincoln tried to push himself up to get out of bed, but the pounding in his head beat him back down with a groan.

“Oh gosh! That was dumb. That was double dumb.”

As he fell back into the bed, he felt an ache in his shoulders and a burning on his back.

“What happened to my back?”

Elena stood back up, fierce again as she straightened her Che Guevara t-shirt. You know the one. “Well, I had to drag you most of the way back to the house on my own. The weeds cut you up. Not my fault.”

She looked him defiantly in the eyes, daring him to argue.

He just looked at her with soft caring eyes, seeing the fear and trauma of what that had been like for her under the angry shell.

“Thank you, Elena. I really mean it.”

Her lip bunched involuntarily and her eyes glistened. She turned away. “No biggy.”

The room fell silent, the sound of a distant truck on the backroads faintly came through the walls.

Mason sat still, watching his kids distantly. He ran through all the things he should say at that moment, but only came out with “Why were you out there tonight, Elena? You never take Hole duty.”

Elena wheeled on him, wiping her eyes.

“Because, dad, I was just about to go out with friends, but I thought I should make sure Lincoln was ok. I was worried about his safety. Where were you?”

The blow should have hit Mason hard. His kid laying bare his failures like that. However, he just fell silent and looked down, rubbing his chest where the creatures had injured him 6 years ago.

Lincoln didn’t think it was the time to ask her why she had her gun with her on the way “out”. Their arguing was like a wound of it’s own and he just wanted peace.

He looked down at his leg again.

“Oh butts. What am I gonna do about school?”