Read Online Cold-Blooded Beautiful by Christine Zolendz - Free Book Online

underlying shit, and not from the treatment the surgeon was providing.  I think my father thought I would die overseas and I wouldn’t ever find out, but when I came home, he needed to watch over me carefully, so he got me a husband, the only person he trusted, his partner in crime.”
    “And this is what he was giving you?” Dylan asked.
    “In very small doses, both arsenic and cyanide, among other things, but they were the most lethal and did the most damage to me.”
    “What the fuck did it do?”  Dylan asked. 
    I couldn’t ask.  I couldn’t speak a damn word.  Held it in.  Held it in, grinding my teeth, nostrils flaring, eyes stinging so she wouldn’t get hurt any more.  No more.  Never again.
    “The lovely cyanide will starve the body of its oxygen.  It destroys the enzyme that is crucial for cellular metabolism.  The death of the cells will result in the death of the victim being poisoned.  As you can see, I didn’t die, but I came away from the situation with a nice bag full of neurological issues, and limbs that tremor. The majority of people who are poisoned this way die.”
    “Huh?” Dylan questioned.
    “Didn’t you ever go to high school chemistry? It messed with the things I needed to make my body function correctly, to keep the oxygen flowing in me, and to keep me breathing correctly. It’s like messing with a car’s fuel system.  A car won’t run on mud instead of gasoline; the mud only plugs up the car’s fuel system.”
    “I was poisoned with mixture of a bunch of their filler medications, so with the suicide note I supposedly left, it just compounded the idea that I knew these medicines would kill people, since I used it to try to commit suicide, and my company was using them.  David held it above my head. Leave him, and he tells authorities, and I’d be the one in trouble, not him,” she whispered.
    “There was only one thing wrong with his plan,” Jen said, quietly.
    “What was that?” Dylan asked.
    “He underestimated me.  As soon as I was strong enough and woke up, I slipped out of the hospital. I packed my bags and Jen was going to drive me to the airport.  I was going to by a ticket to one place, and disappear to another.  But he caught me leaving, just before Jen got there.  This time, I wasn’t pregnant, and I fought back. I should have checked his pulse.  Jen was so scared when she found us, and he even got a punch right into her face. She dragged me off him, and I didn’t think he was alive.  Not until that night in the bar when he sent that guy to kill me.”
    I sat silently.  What could I have said?  This was the first time in weeks she opened up; I wanted to absorb everything.  And yes, I was happily planning his death .  He bloody well deserved it, don’t you agree?
    Sam walked over to me and slowly unwrapped the bloody paper towels I had wrapped my knuckles with.   Her lips pressed tightly together and she swallowed hard when she saw the damage.  My stomach knotted from her expression. I deserved pain like this, not Samantha.  Yet, all I did was add to hers.  I didn’t even think I could hate myself any more if I tried. Yes, may I have a little more self-loathing with my coffee?
    I stared up into her eyes as she washed out my cuts.  I felt nothing but her soft warm hands, no pain, nothing but her calming touch.  Her eyes were red-rimmed as if she was holding back tears, yet her features were smooth and expressionless.  Her fingers moved slowly and meticulously over the broken flesh, pulling out small fragments of glass and plastic.  At some point, Jen had brought down Sam’s aid-pack, and ointment was slathered onto the mess of my hands, and gauze was covered over my skin. 
    The moment, Jen and Dylan left the room to get some sleep, Sam walked to the door to leave, and then glanced back towards me.  Her eyes were bright red, then surrendered to their tears, unfocused, and deadpanned.  “Don’t ever do that to yourself again.