Bled

Chapter 1

Cassandra stretches and places her book face down on the table. She smiles as she stands, leaning on the book, imagining her father’s pained look as the spine cracks.
She knows her clothes are still wet without opening the dryer, and slams three more quarters into the machine while throwing a dirty look at the bitter, old lady behind the counter, who is pretending to read a magazine while keeping one eye on the Laundromat’s only midnight customer.

Cassie plops back down into the hard plastic chair and picks up her book. Rather than falling back into Anastasia’s world of control-freak billionaires, Cassie finds herself replaying her last argument with her dad. As usual, he thought he knew what was best for her. She grins, remembering the look of shock on his face when she had rejected his offer to send her to an Ivy League school, instead signing up for this forensic archaeology course 800 miles away from home.

At first, Charleston’s all-round quiet had threatened to drive her mad. But over the past two years she had grown to enjoy small-town life. She had even come to enjoy working through holidays like Spring Break, when, drained of its 3,000 university students, the town sagged like an old dog flopping down on a porch for a sun-drenched, afternoon nap.
She knows her dad would never understand. He had lived all of his life at the bleeding edge, and thrived on the manic buzz of eight and a half million people battling it out for their piece of New York City’s 300 square miles.

‘Look at all of the opportunities,’ he would tell her. ‘Look at everything you get to choose from.’ As if all that choice were a blessing, rather than the cursed burden of constantly missed opportunities, each one another failure to add to her ever-growing list. Cassie had begun to spend more time with her father after her mother had passed away, but living close to him was suffocating; their relationship rotting in the no-man’s-land of their unspoken sorrow.

Now she was free to be herself, to build new relationships on her own terms. She knew that moving here was the right choice, yet, somehow, it still felt like she was running away.
Cassie jumps to her feet and bursts out into the parking lot, book in hand, her eyes glued to the shadowy outline of a form just visible through her fogged up rear window. “Hey!” A clawed hand grabs her wrist.

She shouts and spins, seven years of kickboxing training driving her elbow before her eyes, stopping just short of demolishing the Laundromat attendant’s disgust-wrinkled nose. “Sorry.” The old lady pushes a clump of damp clothes into Cassie’s arms. “Take your rags and get outta here. We’re closed.”

Cassie turns back to her car. The shadow has disappeared. She sniffs the air. It smells like a urinal. Don’t worry, Little Jimmy, we’ll get you cleaned up. Her back aches as she climbs in. I hope Frank’s in town. I could do with a massage.