kalinara (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kalinara) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
i_read_what2022-06-30 12:40 am
kalinara) wrote in i_read_what2022-06-30 12:40 am
Bloodcircle - Chapter Eight
So last time, Jack died. A bit more publicly than usual. That could end up being a problem.
So Escott (and mist-form Jack) have been taken to the police station. Escott is, of course, AGHAST that his friend's body has gone missing. The police, of course, aren't buying it. They remember how dead set he was against the autopsy (the pun is Ms. Elrod's not mine) but Escott has laid his alibi well and sticks to his story. Jack even thinks that if he wasn't the missing body, he'd start to believe him.
But the cop, Curtis, is a hard case and unfortunately Escott can't hypnotize him. Jack even considers walking in the door with a tale of concussion, catalepsy and amnesia, but doesn't go through with it.
Anyway, he doesn't really have to. Charles gets fingerprinted, but they don't match what was found on the table (Jack grins, because those are HIS prints instead). They're suspicious still, but they decide to let Charles stew for a bit. Jack goes to his cell and reforms on the top bunk, like a drama queen. They confab: Charles isn't too worried - they have to charge him or let him go after twenty-four hours, but Jack is inclined to have a little chat with Curtis to speed up the process.
Charles is on board. He asks how Jack is doing: not too bad, apparently mist form is nature's aspirin. They discuss what happened to Jack, after his body was found. A head wound, even one caused by a wooden bat, isn't the same as a stake, so there wasn't any shrinking or aging. Charles gives us a lot of interesting details of the police investigation, how they found Charles himself, and so on. I intend to recap none of it. It is a pretty fun read though.
There's a funny running gag throughout the scene, where the poor deputy keeps barging in because he hears Charles talking to someone. Jack always disappears just in time. But soon enough, Jack gets the opportunity to go off and talk to Chief Curtis alone, and Escott's set free.
So all is well and good, except that apparently hypnosis is a lot more strenuous than mist-form. Jack's headache and dizziness are back. And so is Barrett. He's in their room We get a slight possible retcon here:
“I read the paper,” he began. “I read ail about the double murder and saw the name John R. Fleming, so I thought I should check it out and see if it was you. I’m glad you’re all right.”
My face must have been stone. “Are you?”
His lips thinned and his own expression hardened. “Yes, I see that you are. I’ll go now.”
Aw, Jonathan's not a bad sort after all.
But also, from what I remember about Bloodlist, Jack was named after his grandfather, whose tombstone reads JONATHAN Russell Fleming. John, of course, could be itself a nickname. But probably not in this context. And Jack has never eluded to having the same first name as Barrett, so I think we've got a minor retcon.
That's okay, really. Jack is Jack. It's weird to think of him as a John or a Jonathan. I DO think it's pretty hilarious that Elrod gave both of her vampire leads the same name though. Anyway, Escott plays diplomat and gets Barrett to stay.
They discuss the dead man, disclosing that he was the cab driver and mentioning the size of the tip. Barrett doesn't get the significance right away, until they discuss Maureen's destination:
“But he did not take her to New York, he drove her to Port Jefferson.”
“Port—”
“Why would anyone want to go to Port Jefferson?”
“To use the ferry to—” He broke off, his brows coming together.
“Would Maureen have had any reason to go to Bridgeport?” Escott asked, putting a very slight emphasis on her name.
“I don’t know.” He wasn’t sure, though, and we both picked up on it.
Vampires and water do not mix.
While Escott is calm and patient, Jack takes a more confrontational gambit. He asks if Jonathan intended to kill Escott too. And Jonathan's reaction seems to acquit him.
Any breath in him had seeped out and he struggled to replace it to speak, only he couldn’t speak. His face was eloquent. Unless he was a better actor than Escott, he was an innocent man. Innocent of my attempted murder, at least.
“No,” he finally whispered. “Why ever should I want to kill you?”
Escott didn’t answer directly. “Banks was the intended victim, Jack only arrived at the wrong time and was attacked in order to shut him up. He might have seen or heard something that would have identified the killer.”
“Why do you think it was me?” he asked, honestly puzzled. “Is it because of Maureen? Because we were once lovers?”
It's a fair question, and Jack is forced to acknowledge that:
I hated him for being right. I hated the thought of Maureen in his arms, holding to him, responding to his touch-however long ago it had been. I hated that when she’d been in trouble she’d gone to him for help and not to me. I realized with shame that I could hate her for that as well.
Escott shifted uneasily and I looked away from them until the emotions cooled off. Given a chance, they lose their terrible intensity, but until then I’m not safe to be around.
Jack's interesting as a narrator because while he's honest, he's got his own areas of unreliability. His trauma, for example, is something that rarely gets a conscious thought, until it smacks him in the face.
I don't think, based on what we've seen, that Jack is consciously jealous of Jonathan. At least not most of the time. But as he says here, the fact that she left him and went to Barrett for help would be hard for most men to deal with.
That said, I don't think Jack's distrust of Barrett is unreasonable at all. Barrett has been confrontational and obstructionist since they arrived. His story doesn't completely make sense, and whether that's because he's lying or because something else happened is unclear.
That may be part of Jack's problem actually, when it comes to dealing with his emotional state. Because he's reasonable, and practical, he doesn't have to examine the layers of what he's feeling until things go very wrong for him.
Anyway, Barrett can read a room, he can tell that Escott doesn't think he's guilty and asks why.
Escott lays it out for us:
“There’s too much coincidence involved for my peace of mind. The day after we spoke with him, the man was murdered. I believe the killer found out about our investigation into Maureen’s disappearance. That person did not want anyone looking too closely into things and cut off a source of information. This, of course, presupposes that Maureen is dead.”
The only sound was Escott’s heartbeat and the soft tick of his watch. Barrett was utterly still. Eventually he looked at me, hoping I’d deny Escott’s words. I’d lived with the possibility for so long on the edge of thought that I felt nothing. Barrett had never once considered it and was having to deal with the idea as one solid blow.
He shook his head slightly, barely moving. “You think she’s dead?”
I looked past him out the window, not wanting to see a mirror of my own old fears on his face.
And of course, that's the other part of what Jack has been dealing with. His options are pretty terrible here. Either Maureen abandoned him or she's dead.
Barrett wants proof, but they don't have any. But I appreciate Escott's attempt to offer some comfort to Jack here:
Escott stepped in and answered for me. “Jack has no other proof than his knowledge of Maureen and her feelings for him.”
“But she was terrified of Gaylen, of facing her.”
“If Maureen were still alive, she’d have returned to him despite Gaylen’s possible interference.” He switched back to me. “She loved you, Jack, she would have returned to you.”
And credit to Barrett, he doesn't suggest otherwise. And in an interesting bit here, Escott and Jack switch roles.
“Then who killed her?” asked Barrett. “If she has been killed.”
“You could have.”
Barrett wasn’t threatened by the accusation. “Why should I?”
“To maintain your position in the Francher household?” he suggested. “Maureen could have upset that for you, especially if she ever suspected you of setting the fire that killed Violet Francher.”
I felt the wave of pure shock roll from Barrett and flood the room.
“Easy, Charles…”
Jack might be angry and suspicious, but he's not the provocateur that Charles is. Escott pushes about the fire, the very very convenient fire, which pisses Barrett enough to basically charge at him. But Barrett actually isn't a bad guy. He just looms.
Escott continues musing about the fire and admits that it probably wasn't Barrett's doing: he has other ways of dealing with interfering mothers. Barrett admits that Emily asked him not to mind-whammy her mom, but he was ready and willing to mind-whammy any psychiatrists that were sent Emily's way.
I also love this little side bit:
“Servants’ hall gossip can be most enlightening.”
Barrett snarled something obscene and returned to stand behind the chair, resting his hands on its tall back. I withdrew to the trunk. If he’d wanted to kill, he’d have done it by now.
I'm pretty sure I said this in an earlier review, but I'm fascinated by the dynamics in this scene. Barrett and Jack clash, but they clash in a reasonably straightforward way. They're from very different backgrounds and they're never going to see eye-to-eye. It's hard to imagine them ever quite being friends, though allies for a common cause is doable.
There's something about Escott though that really manages to get under Barrett's skin and it's fascinating to watch.
As we see here:
“What was Emily’s reaction to her mother’s death?” asked Escott.
“What do you think?”
“I’m asking you.”
“I don’t know how to answer.”
“Was it normal grief?”
“What’s normal? I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
Barrett appealed to me. “How do you put up with him?”
“I usually tell him what he wants.”
See? Even with all the baggage between them. Even though Jack outright accused Barrett of murder. He's still appealing to JACK. That's fucking hilarious.
Anyway, Barrett is certain Emily didn't do it. She was with him on the night of the fire. When they suggest that she could have rigged something up during the day, he doesn't believe it. Emily is incompetent when it comes to anything mechanical, having always had servants to do things for her. He also thinks she's too soft hearted.
Barrett wants to know why Charles is so sure that this isn't an accident, and the tone shifts.
Escott tilted his head to one side, looking directly at him. “Besides, it was an accident, as you said.”
He scowled, knowing that Escott was patronizing him. “Why do you insist it wasn’t?”
“Because it brings sense to what followed after: Maureen’s disappearance and why she disappeared.”
Things tumbled and lurched inside me that had nothing to do with my injured head. “Charles…”
He looked at me.
“No more,” I said. “Leave it as is.”
They really are on the same page, most of the time. Barrett sees this and demands an answer. Jack continues to balk.
“I can only tell you what I’ve been able to deduce from the inadequate data I have at hand.”
“No, Charles. What’s the point? What’s the good of it? Maureen’s dead, this won’t bring her back.”
“I know.” He was surprised, but not offended at my attitude. “Maureen, Banks, and nearly you—who’s next? That is the good of it. That’s the purpose and point, the one that I have to justify it all for myself—to stop her from killing again.”
And by "her", Charles doesn't mean Emily. He means Laura. Barrett doesn't believe it, of course.
Her name echoed silently on his lips. The color had gone out of his already pale face, leaving him a cold, bloodless statue until he began to shake his head again. “No. You’re both wrong again. You’re too inept to find Maureen, so you invent nonsense to excuse your lack.”
“Was Laura home last night?”
He stared me up and down, then sense and disbelief took over, and he smiled. “You’re wrong, laddie. What you’re thinking is impossible.”
Back to the condescending "laddie", the first time since they met and had that meeting of minds.
Anyway, Escott lays out his theory: in 1931, fourteen year old Laura came home for holiday and found herself in the midst of a tense situation. She meets and becomes infatuated with Barrett. Emily's mother was trying to send Barrett away. And regardless of the cause of the fire, the aftermath meant that Laura didn't have to go back to school. She could stay and help her grieving cousin.
And then Maureen came. Escott sums it up:
“It was probably the best summer she’d ever known… and then one night another woman came into the house—a former lover, and a woman you were still very attached to in ways that Laura could only understand by instinct. You invited Maureen to stay as long as she liked.”
“You’re saying Laura was jealous of Maureen, but not of Emily? The girl wasn’t deaf or blind, she knew we were sharing a bed.”
“Emily was also much older looking than you. To Laura’s young eyes she was no competition at all, but Maureen was young, beautiful and well acquainted with you. Laura must have eavesdropped on some of your conversations together, enough to see her as another threat.”
I mentioned before that I think Barrett has some blind spots when it comes to women. I wonder what Escott's own experience is like. I tend to get the sense that he's worldlier than Jack is, and has had broader experience, but maybe not to the same depth that Jack had with Maureen and now Bobbi.
Anyway. There's the question about how much Laura knew. Barrett claimed an allergy to sunlight, which could mean anything, but if she happened to eavesdrop on Barrett and Maureen, might she have heard more?
Barrett's reaction says maybe.
And of course there was the cab ride in the next day. The gardener and driver only saw a veiled woman. There's no reason to have gone to Bridgeport. Except, Laura's boarding school was in Connecticut. She'd have known the route and how to get back with a different cab.
Barrett asks about Maureen's trunk. Escott doesn't know. He proposes asking Laura, but Barrett balks. That's when Jack proves that Escott's not the only one who knows how to pick a fight:
“Where was Laura last night?” I asked.
“At home in her room,” he said too quickly, then realized it.
“What time? Was she in her room at seven-thirty or taking a swim? Was she out shopping or visiting a friend or just taking a drive in a hurricane? Or just maybe she was swinging a club at the back of Banks’s head. There was a lot of blood… did she get it all off? Did the storm wash it away before she got home? Was her hair dry by the time you went up to her? Was she even in the mood for your company? Or maybe she was all excited and needed you to help work it off— The shock had come back to his face, then it swiftly evolved into white-hot fury. He was in front of me in one step, hauled me up, and knocked a fist square into my face before I could vanish. The room swung sharply to one side and a wall slammed me hard all over; or the floor, or both. I didn’t care. Maureen was dead and I didn’t care about anything at all.
...I did mention that Jack maybe has a few issues when it comes to dealing with his emotions in a healthy manner, right?
The chapter ends here.
So Escott (and mist-form Jack) have been taken to the police station. Escott is, of course, AGHAST that his friend's body has gone missing. The police, of course, aren't buying it. They remember how dead set he was against the autopsy (the pun is Ms. Elrod's not mine) but Escott has laid his alibi well and sticks to his story. Jack even thinks that if he wasn't the missing body, he'd start to believe him.
But the cop, Curtis, is a hard case and unfortunately Escott can't hypnotize him. Jack even considers walking in the door with a tale of concussion, catalepsy and amnesia, but doesn't go through with it.
Anyway, he doesn't really have to. Charles gets fingerprinted, but they don't match what was found on the table (Jack grins, because those are HIS prints instead). They're suspicious still, but they decide to let Charles stew for a bit. Jack goes to his cell and reforms on the top bunk, like a drama queen. They confab: Charles isn't too worried - they have to charge him or let him go after twenty-four hours, but Jack is inclined to have a little chat with Curtis to speed up the process.
Charles is on board. He asks how Jack is doing: not too bad, apparently mist form is nature's aspirin. They discuss what happened to Jack, after his body was found. A head wound, even one caused by a wooden bat, isn't the same as a stake, so there wasn't any shrinking or aging. Charles gives us a lot of interesting details of the police investigation, how they found Charles himself, and so on. I intend to recap none of it. It is a pretty fun read though.
There's a funny running gag throughout the scene, where the poor deputy keeps barging in because he hears Charles talking to someone. Jack always disappears just in time. But soon enough, Jack gets the opportunity to go off and talk to Chief Curtis alone, and Escott's set free.
So all is well and good, except that apparently hypnosis is a lot more strenuous than mist-form. Jack's headache and dizziness are back. And so is Barrett. He's in their room We get a slight possible retcon here:
“I read the paper,” he began. “I read ail about the double murder and saw the name John R. Fleming, so I thought I should check it out and see if it was you. I’m glad you’re all right.”
My face must have been stone. “Are you?”
His lips thinned and his own expression hardened. “Yes, I see that you are. I’ll go now.”
Aw, Jonathan's not a bad sort after all.
But also, from what I remember about Bloodlist, Jack was named after his grandfather, whose tombstone reads JONATHAN Russell Fleming. John, of course, could be itself a nickname. But probably not in this context. And Jack has never eluded to having the same first name as Barrett, so I think we've got a minor retcon.
That's okay, really. Jack is Jack. It's weird to think of him as a John or a Jonathan. I DO think it's pretty hilarious that Elrod gave both of her vampire leads the same name though. Anyway, Escott plays diplomat and gets Barrett to stay.
They discuss the dead man, disclosing that he was the cab driver and mentioning the size of the tip. Barrett doesn't get the significance right away, until they discuss Maureen's destination:
“But he did not take her to New York, he drove her to Port Jefferson.”
“Port—”
“Why would anyone want to go to Port Jefferson?”
“To use the ferry to—” He broke off, his brows coming together.
“Would Maureen have had any reason to go to Bridgeport?” Escott asked, putting a very slight emphasis on her name.
“I don’t know.” He wasn’t sure, though, and we both picked up on it.
Vampires and water do not mix.
While Escott is calm and patient, Jack takes a more confrontational gambit. He asks if Jonathan intended to kill Escott too. And Jonathan's reaction seems to acquit him.
Any breath in him had seeped out and he struggled to replace it to speak, only he couldn’t speak. His face was eloquent. Unless he was a better actor than Escott, he was an innocent man. Innocent of my attempted murder, at least.
“No,” he finally whispered. “Why ever should I want to kill you?”
Escott didn’t answer directly. “Banks was the intended victim, Jack only arrived at the wrong time and was attacked in order to shut him up. He might have seen or heard something that would have identified the killer.”
“Why do you think it was me?” he asked, honestly puzzled. “Is it because of Maureen? Because we were once lovers?”
It's a fair question, and Jack is forced to acknowledge that:
I hated him for being right. I hated the thought of Maureen in his arms, holding to him, responding to his touch-however long ago it had been. I hated that when she’d been in trouble she’d gone to him for help and not to me. I realized with shame that I could hate her for that as well.
Escott shifted uneasily and I looked away from them until the emotions cooled off. Given a chance, they lose their terrible intensity, but until then I’m not safe to be around.
Jack's interesting as a narrator because while he's honest, he's got his own areas of unreliability. His trauma, for example, is something that rarely gets a conscious thought, until it smacks him in the face.
I don't think, based on what we've seen, that Jack is consciously jealous of Jonathan. At least not most of the time. But as he says here, the fact that she left him and went to Barrett for help would be hard for most men to deal with.
That said, I don't think Jack's distrust of Barrett is unreasonable at all. Barrett has been confrontational and obstructionist since they arrived. His story doesn't completely make sense, and whether that's because he's lying or because something else happened is unclear.
That may be part of Jack's problem actually, when it comes to dealing with his emotional state. Because he's reasonable, and practical, he doesn't have to examine the layers of what he's feeling until things go very wrong for him.
Anyway, Barrett can read a room, he can tell that Escott doesn't think he's guilty and asks why.
Escott lays it out for us:
“There’s too much coincidence involved for my peace of mind. The day after we spoke with him, the man was murdered. I believe the killer found out about our investigation into Maureen’s disappearance. That person did not want anyone looking too closely into things and cut off a source of information. This, of course, presupposes that Maureen is dead.”
The only sound was Escott’s heartbeat and the soft tick of his watch. Barrett was utterly still. Eventually he looked at me, hoping I’d deny Escott’s words. I’d lived with the possibility for so long on the edge of thought that I felt nothing. Barrett had never once considered it and was having to deal with the idea as one solid blow.
He shook his head slightly, barely moving. “You think she’s dead?”
I looked past him out the window, not wanting to see a mirror of my own old fears on his face.
And of course, that's the other part of what Jack has been dealing with. His options are pretty terrible here. Either Maureen abandoned him or she's dead.
Barrett wants proof, but they don't have any. But I appreciate Escott's attempt to offer some comfort to Jack here:
Escott stepped in and answered for me. “Jack has no other proof than his knowledge of Maureen and her feelings for him.”
“But she was terrified of Gaylen, of facing her.”
“If Maureen were still alive, she’d have returned to him despite Gaylen’s possible interference.” He switched back to me. “She loved you, Jack, she would have returned to you.”
And credit to Barrett, he doesn't suggest otherwise. And in an interesting bit here, Escott and Jack switch roles.
“Then who killed her?” asked Barrett. “If she has been killed.”
“You could have.”
Barrett wasn’t threatened by the accusation. “Why should I?”
“To maintain your position in the Francher household?” he suggested. “Maureen could have upset that for you, especially if she ever suspected you of setting the fire that killed Violet Francher.”
I felt the wave of pure shock roll from Barrett and flood the room.
“Easy, Charles…”
Jack might be angry and suspicious, but he's not the provocateur that Charles is. Escott pushes about the fire, the very very convenient fire, which pisses Barrett enough to basically charge at him. But Barrett actually isn't a bad guy. He just looms.
Escott continues musing about the fire and admits that it probably wasn't Barrett's doing: he has other ways of dealing with interfering mothers. Barrett admits that Emily asked him not to mind-whammy her mom, but he was ready and willing to mind-whammy any psychiatrists that were sent Emily's way.
I also love this little side bit:
“Servants’ hall gossip can be most enlightening.”
Barrett snarled something obscene and returned to stand behind the chair, resting his hands on its tall back. I withdrew to the trunk. If he’d wanted to kill, he’d have done it by now.
I'm pretty sure I said this in an earlier review, but I'm fascinated by the dynamics in this scene. Barrett and Jack clash, but they clash in a reasonably straightforward way. They're from very different backgrounds and they're never going to see eye-to-eye. It's hard to imagine them ever quite being friends, though allies for a common cause is doable.
There's something about Escott though that really manages to get under Barrett's skin and it's fascinating to watch.
As we see here:
“What was Emily’s reaction to her mother’s death?” asked Escott.
“What do you think?”
“I’m asking you.”
“I don’t know how to answer.”
“Was it normal grief?”
“What’s normal? I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
Barrett appealed to me. “How do you put up with him?”
“I usually tell him what he wants.”
See? Even with all the baggage between them. Even though Jack outright accused Barrett of murder. He's still appealing to JACK. That's fucking hilarious.
Anyway, Barrett is certain Emily didn't do it. She was with him on the night of the fire. When they suggest that she could have rigged something up during the day, he doesn't believe it. Emily is incompetent when it comes to anything mechanical, having always had servants to do things for her. He also thinks she's too soft hearted.
Barrett wants to know why Charles is so sure that this isn't an accident, and the tone shifts.
Escott tilted his head to one side, looking directly at him. “Besides, it was an accident, as you said.”
He scowled, knowing that Escott was patronizing him. “Why do you insist it wasn’t?”
“Because it brings sense to what followed after: Maureen’s disappearance and why she disappeared.”
Things tumbled and lurched inside me that had nothing to do with my injured head. “Charles…”
He looked at me.
“No more,” I said. “Leave it as is.”
They really are on the same page, most of the time. Barrett sees this and demands an answer. Jack continues to balk.
“I can only tell you what I’ve been able to deduce from the inadequate data I have at hand.”
“No, Charles. What’s the point? What’s the good of it? Maureen’s dead, this won’t bring her back.”
“I know.” He was surprised, but not offended at my attitude. “Maureen, Banks, and nearly you—who’s next? That is the good of it. That’s the purpose and point, the one that I have to justify it all for myself—to stop her from killing again.”
And by "her", Charles doesn't mean Emily. He means Laura. Barrett doesn't believe it, of course.
Her name echoed silently on his lips. The color had gone out of his already pale face, leaving him a cold, bloodless statue until he began to shake his head again. “No. You’re both wrong again. You’re too inept to find Maureen, so you invent nonsense to excuse your lack.”
“Was Laura home last night?”
He stared me up and down, then sense and disbelief took over, and he smiled. “You’re wrong, laddie. What you’re thinking is impossible.”
Back to the condescending "laddie", the first time since they met and had that meeting of minds.
Anyway, Escott lays out his theory: in 1931, fourteen year old Laura came home for holiday and found herself in the midst of a tense situation. She meets and becomes infatuated with Barrett. Emily's mother was trying to send Barrett away. And regardless of the cause of the fire, the aftermath meant that Laura didn't have to go back to school. She could stay and help her grieving cousin.
And then Maureen came. Escott sums it up:
“It was probably the best summer she’d ever known… and then one night another woman came into the house—a former lover, and a woman you were still very attached to in ways that Laura could only understand by instinct. You invited Maureen to stay as long as she liked.”
“You’re saying Laura was jealous of Maureen, but not of Emily? The girl wasn’t deaf or blind, she knew we were sharing a bed.”
“Emily was also much older looking than you. To Laura’s young eyes she was no competition at all, but Maureen was young, beautiful and well acquainted with you. Laura must have eavesdropped on some of your conversations together, enough to see her as another threat.”
I mentioned before that I think Barrett has some blind spots when it comes to women. I wonder what Escott's own experience is like. I tend to get the sense that he's worldlier than Jack is, and has had broader experience, but maybe not to the same depth that Jack had with Maureen and now Bobbi.
Anyway. There's the question about how much Laura knew. Barrett claimed an allergy to sunlight, which could mean anything, but if she happened to eavesdrop on Barrett and Maureen, might she have heard more?
Barrett's reaction says maybe.
And of course there was the cab ride in the next day. The gardener and driver only saw a veiled woman. There's no reason to have gone to Bridgeport. Except, Laura's boarding school was in Connecticut. She'd have known the route and how to get back with a different cab.
Barrett asks about Maureen's trunk. Escott doesn't know. He proposes asking Laura, but Barrett balks. That's when Jack proves that Escott's not the only one who knows how to pick a fight:
“Where was Laura last night?” I asked.
“At home in her room,” he said too quickly, then realized it.
“What time? Was she in her room at seven-thirty or taking a swim? Was she out shopping or visiting a friend or just taking a drive in a hurricane? Or just maybe she was swinging a club at the back of Banks’s head. There was a lot of blood… did she get it all off? Did the storm wash it away before she got home? Was her hair dry by the time you went up to her? Was she even in the mood for your company? Or maybe she was all excited and needed you to help work it off— The shock had come back to his face, then it swiftly evolved into white-hot fury. He was in front of me in one step, hauled me up, and knocked a fist square into my face before I could vanish. The room swung sharply to one side and a wall slammed me hard all over; or the floor, or both. I didn’t care. Maureen was dead and I didn’t care about anything at all.
...I did mention that Jack maybe has a few issues when it comes to dealing with his emotions in a healthy manner, right?
The chapter ends here.