Blood Dripping Fingertips by Meghan Escott (read ebook pdf .txt) 📕

I could feel it. Feel my cheek once again and the hand shaped bruise that was appearing on my cheek. Finger by finger. The hatred burned through me, as well as anger and my stupidity. Had I really just given into her again? Had I really allowed her to hurt me once again? I had repeatedly promised myself that I would never back down to her again but as I felt the sting of pain as the hand emerged on my cheek, I knew that she would never give in and I would always have my mum to hurt me. She would treat me like pieces of dirt on her always perfect face.
My mum had once again slapped me straight across my face and she had left me bleeding and bruising. I was once more sat in the corner of the filthy basement situated deep below my house. However, I knew what my mother was and would always be, and thus unfortunately knew what I would soon become. I knew it would happen to me sooner or later.
My mother just could not help herself. Because of her condition. She just had to see and smell it everyday of her perfect life and I knew she would absolutely anything to get what she wanted. Including hurting me – her only child.
“It's not her fault,” he would never stop saying when he saw the bruises and the blood. “It's our heritage.” He would say, explaining repeatedly how the condition worked, how it would change the lives of the bearers and how it would impact on my life.
“The gene runs in that family,” he would say, always defending and never fearing my safety. “You need to be prepared for what is to come.” But what had I done to my parents to make them want to have a child? What had possessed them to create me one evening when they could have stopped the gene once and for all. And what had I ever done to my mother to focus her anger and hatred on me?
The third generation would always be special they told me and it had to be me. The third and only one of me.
I know I cannot change the unbreakable past however I can try to change it. I can try and correct the anomaly’s in the life plan but I know that I will never manage it.
The day would come, and they knew it. He would come to me in a place I could call home and change my life by doing unimaginable things to me. Taking me away from everything and everyone. But I know what was coming. I had read the journals that my great grandfather had created and I knew what the pain would feel like.
Just like my mother hitting me all these years.
I would always dread this day to come in the now near future and the books had said that I would leave and I couldn't bare to leave my school and my friends. My family would be easy to leave but not him. The person I thought I would love for the rest of my human life.
Tom.
When Lucy got up that morning she had no idea of what could and would happen in that day to come. She had just gotten out of her bedroom and went into the bathroom to start smearing her face with foundation and concealer when her mother entered much to Lucy’s surprise.
“Sorry darling” her mother said then walked out the room. Lucy was in a state of shock and she nearly dropped the huge pot of foundation on the floor to run all over the carpet. She caught herself just in time to bend and grab the pot before it hit the floor.
That was the first time her mother had said sorry to Lucy in her life. That had seriously freaked Lucy out just like the first time her dad had mentioned her mother’s condition and what would happen to her in couple of years time. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Her mother apologizing, that just wasn’t right.
She kept on thinking these things while she finished putting the foundation on her face and got dressed to go to school. She had just finished when her dad came into her room and sat on Lucy’s bed. “What do you want dad?” Lucy couldn’t stop herself from saying. She clapped her hands over her mouth and looked apologetically at her dad but still waiting for an answer. He didn’t answer. “Dad?” He still didn’t answer and Lucy was starting to get really worried. He looked up at her, looked around her room, looked at her again and then stood up and walked out.
Lucy was getting seriously worried about her family. As she went to get her bag up from the floor, she noticed a piece of paper on her bed where her dad was only seconds before. She picked it up and unfolded it. It was a picture, a picture of a boy.
He looked like he was in his late teens, maybe twenty. He had blonde hair that was flicked over his face. It looked like he was a rock star. “Why is my dad leaving pictures of rock stars on my bed?” Lucy thought with intent but then she studied the picture more carefully. His skin was too pale and it looked like he was wearing make-up because she could see markings on his skin showing through the foundation.
She didn’t understand it then but when she looked back on it she knew her dad must have been trying to tell her something that morning.
She picked up the picture and stuffed it into her blazer pocket and ran out of her room with her back on her shoulder. She ran down the stairs to try and catch her dad before he went to work but by the time she got down the stairs, he was already zooming off in his car to the office. Her mother was sat in the kitchen with a mate of hers. She was staring at me with such intent in her eyes that it was disturbing. Lucy had to look away it was so freaky.
As she got to the front door and opened it her mother shouted to her. “I’m really sorry darling. Love you!” Now that was disturbing. She actually said that she loved me and once again, she had never said that to me in her life before. Lucy ran out the door before things could get any weirder.
As Lucy arrived at school her friends all came to her laughing and giggling. She didn’t want to know what they were laughing about but she thought that they told her anyway but she didn’t care. All Lucy wanted was to see Tom and tell him everything that had happened this morning. But she couldn’t because she was trapped between all of her friends. She could see him and he could see her but she couldn’t focus on him cause of the person standing next to him.
It was the boy in the picture that her dad had left her. As she looked at him she saw a bracelet glimmering on his wrist in the sunlight. Lucy knew that there was writing on it but she could read any of it apart from a big letter “T”. And that was when she knew. Today was the sacred day in her life when she was going to be turned. She knew that that boy was the Turner. She knew that her mother and father had seen it coming. That’s why her mother was being so nice to Lucy that morning.
“No. Please no. Not today.” She said. Her friends dispatched themselves from her and thinned out into the playground around them. The Turner started to walk towards her slowly giving her opportunity to run but she knew it wouldn’t help. She knew she just had to face up to facts and today was the day.
As the Turner reached her Tom stepped out from his friends and walked toward her oblivious of knowledge of what to do. “No! Please no. Not today. Please.” Lucy shouted even though she knew it wouldn’t help her cause. The whole playground stopped what they were doing to look at the cause of the shouting,
“You know what today is. Yes?” The Turner said in a calm voice. Everyone flicked their attention from him to Lucy. Staring at like she was a madman. “I know what today is. Yes.” Lucy replied trying to stay calm. She failed miserably though because as soon as she said it she burst into tears. As soon as she started to cry Tom was behind her pulling her into his embrace.
“Can’t you see your upsetting her? I don’t know who you are but get away from my girl.” Tom shouted at the Turner. The Turner looked from Lucy to Tom and then replied in calm and collected voice.
“Yes I know I’m upsetting her but I can’t get away from “your” girl. I have to turn her and she knows that.” The Turner looked straight into the eyes of Lucy before anyone could protest or protect her. Pain seared through her head as she dropped out of Tom’s embrace and onto the floor. She could tell that everyone was trying to get away from her but she didn’t care, she just wanted the pain to stop.
Lucy could feel Tom holding her upright seeing if she had hurt herself. He was talking to her trying to get to her talk but she knew she couldn’t. She heard a thump and Tom’s hands slipping away from mine. She also her a loud crack on the floor like a body falling onto concrete. Just then the pain subsided. She opened her eyes to see the Turner looking straight at her. He bent down and touched her face.
Just as suddenly as the pain had stopped, the pain started again but this time she couldn’t stop herself. She screamed in agony and started crying again. Someone picked her up and she knew it wasn’t Tom because his hands were bigger than the ones carrying her. She tried to move out of their firm grip but every time she tried to move, the pain got worse. Eventually she stopped struggling and the pain got a bit better.
She was getting put down on the floor. A cold stone floor and then she knew she was in the school hall. She heard a lock click and then a thumping on it. She knew that it was Tom trying to get to her. She wanted him and he was the only one she wanted with her right now. She wanted to hold his hand and have him take her away from the Turner and away from anyone. But she knew that was impossible.
“How are you feeling?” The Turner asked calmly. How did he think she was feeling? Fine and dandy after all that pain he had just inflicted on her? She didn’t think so.
“How do you think I’m feeling after all that pain?” Lucy tried to shout but came out as a whisper.
“You know how this is going to go right? Your dad told you about me yeah?” The Turner said but before I could answer he put his hand over my mouth and took off his Turner bracelet and put it on her cheek. As she suspected, it was excruciatingly painful. The bracelet was white hot and she could feel her cheek melting against the silver bracelet. Then the pain all