Blood in the Past (Blood for Blood Series) Read Online Free PDF

movements. Jillian also didn’t know one of Susan’s pastimes included kick-boxing cardio classes with her daughter at the gym on Saturday mornings.
     
    Calvin’s wife ducked at the noise and spun around with surprising precision.
     
    Still, Jillian’s body kept up the assault without the consent of her mind. A bony fist flew into Jillian’s jaw; her teeth pinched off the tip of her tongue. She realized then she’d only been struck because one of her arms instinctively protected her abdomen.
     
    The two women tumbled into the bedroom, caught in a knot of arms and legs, thrashing and screeching and grunting. Still clutching the kitchen knife, Jillian lashed out as soon as she found ample room for her arm to arc.
     
    Susan blocked with her right forearm and immediately cried out. The blade had caught near her wrist and slid through her flesh easily, parting her skin all the way up to the inside of her elbow. The blow brought her to the floor.
     
    Blood painted the world red. The walls. The floors. Them. Their journey was punctuated in splatters and smears. A stunned Jillian, still tasting her own blood, backed up. Susan slumped down, propped up against the bed, bleeding steadily at Jillian’s feet.
     
    Badly injured, but not out of the fight yet, Calvin’s wife staggered to her feet. At that moment, Jillian snapped to the present just long enough to admire the woman’s spirit. Susan looked at her wound, and instead of pressing it to staunch the bleeding, she stared intently at the dribbling flow of red for a second. Her shoulders went slack, her defiant spirit broken. Jillian thought Susan may have conceded her fate, resigned to die.
     
    They stood for a single, fleeting second, glaring into each other’s eyes. Susan’s were a mottled blue, like a roiling, storm-strewn sea, Jillian’s a glittering, bright chestnut. Then Susan crumpled and her already fair skin faded to white. The fight Jillian had admired in her eyes faded as well. Life left her.
     
    Jillian left soon after.
     
    ***
     
    Jillian retreated to her apartment and sat on the floor. She backed into the darkest shadow with her knees pulled to her chest. Covered in the blood of her lover’s wife, Jillian was all alone to process what she’d done.
     
    Days passed beyond the windows of her room. Eating never entered Jillian’s mind, and her lips crackled from dehydration. The carpet beneath her grew damp and foul with waste. Jillian’s mind fell quiet and empty, overcome by shock. She thought of nothing except for the blood. She would never forget the blood. She could still taste it.
     
    The intercom by the apartment door buzzed. How many days had passed? Static and distance prevented Jillian from making out the voice, or its words, from her bedroom. Certain her visitor wasn’t anyone concerned with her well-being, she ignored whoever rang the doorbell. She forced herself to unfold from the fetal ball she’d formed in the corner. In a trance, she peeled her stiff clothes from her body. Blood had soaked through to her skin and thoroughly dried, leaving deep crimson lines from the folds of the fabric, and giving her coffee-colored skin the appearance of a tattered map.
     
    Jillian sat on the floor of the shower, mesmerized by the water swirling around the drain. The steam only slightly defeated the cold of the ceramic surface beneath her. Hot water hit the crown of her head, plastering her thick hair to her shoulders. She had killed someone. An innocent woman. Someone’s daughter. Possibly someone’s sister. Lyla’s mother. Calvin’s wife. She’d killed Calvin’s wife. Her name was Susannah , not Susan, as she’d originally presumed. Jillian had learned her name from Channel 6 news. She’d left her TV on when she rushed to Calvin’s house and hadn’t had the presence of mind to turn it off when she returned. Only one other piece of information had managed to get through the haze and fog of the last seventy-two hours: the police were