Reapers - Thirteen Brothers

VII - All Sorts of Weird (2 of 2)

--XIII--

We were dismissed early. Cars came and go as worried parents fetched their kids. But not me.

I was left at the empty parking lot waiting for Dad. All the while, I was staring at my wrist watch. Like doing so would make Dad's truck magically appear out of nowhere.

It was ten past five. As uncaring as he was, it wasn't Dad's nature to forget his obligations. Maybe he had really lost his mind. It was so selfish of him to lose it at this point and leave me alone to figure out things on my own.

Cursing, I made my way to the road and started to head home. A yellow vehicle screeched to a halt in front of me, nearly running me over.

A vein pulsed violently on my forehead. I knew fairly well who drove that damned thing.

"What the hell!" I screamed, pounding the hood with my fist. With that, I heard a snap and I was pretty sure that it wasn't the hood that broke. "Crap!"

My middle and ring fingers were twisted the wrong way.

I heard Vincent yell a couple of curses as he got off his Cruiser. In exasperation, he ruffled his dark hair with his hand.

The unbearable pain had me doubling over in the sidewalk that I didn't even have the energy to argue with him.

He approached me and gently took my injured hand. I was so startled that I wasn't even able to hit him back or yell at him. Instead, I just stood there stupidly.

"Does it hurt?" he grunted, examining my hand which was maybe his peculiar way of saying "I'm sorry."

Sadly, it didn't work for me.

"My fingers are bent in all the wrong directions. Of course it hurt!"

It was unbelievable how thick he could sometimes get. Instead of arguing with me, he shrugged off his long sleeved shirt—I mean the outer shirt, duh—and ripped a long piece off of it.

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

Vincent didn't answer. He just towed me to the Cruiser and helped me up into the front seat. Then he started to bind the long piece of striped cloth that used to be his shirt around my hand like a bandage.

I didn't know what came over me. I didn't even give him a fight and sat there like a limp doll, staring at him as he intently dressed my injured hand.

He looked so different when he wasn't angry or being annoying.

"This is going to hurt more," he murmured, momentarily lifting his gaze to my face.

Instantly, I shifted my eyes to the dashboard, managing a bitter smirk. "Yeah, no kidding."

I heard my fingers snap. Excruciating pain shot up from my fingers to my arms, then to my temples. My vision momentarily darkened. I tried to tug my hand from Vincent's grip but he didn't let go of it.

"Let go!" I pleaded and he finally unhanded me.

When I looked at my fingers, they were back to their normal alignment. They were sore and painful but I guess I would live to see another day. I was contemplating on thanking Vincent for fixing my fingers when suddenly, his baritone voice echoed throughout the empty parking lot.

"You're such an idiot, you know that?" Vincent yelled angrily, kicking the front tire so hard that the whole Cruiser shook. "You think you're so invincible, don't you? So what's next? You'd bang your head on a brick wall?"

He cursed under his breath, his shoulders shuddering with anger.

My jaw almost dropped in amazement.