Blood Bonds: A psychological thriller Read Online Free Page A

cheated,” he said. “He cheated, right?” he addressed the others. They nodded uncertainly.
    “That’s not fair!” I protested. “You promised that if I could get up The Mount without you seeing me I’d be allowed to join your gang. You said it and now you’ve got to keep your promise.”
    “You’ve tried to make a fool out of me, in front of the others.”
    “I beat you to the rock.”
    “That’s not possible; we had everywhere guarded.”
    “I came through the thorns,” I explained.
    He snorted derisively. “Nobody would do that!”
    “Look, see,” I said, showing him my scarred arm, the blood and the welts.
    He stared intently at the marks, and then pushed me away. “You cheated!” His face exploded in crimson, his finger stabbing out accusingly. “You couldn’t beat me, no way! I’d have seen you unless you cheated!”
    “You’re a bad loser!” I protested.
    In a second he was on me, flailing me with the oak stick and laying into me with all his strength. I felt the blows come sharp and solid – on the arm I held up, on the legs, the body, and finally one to my head that floored me. I cried out in pain, appealing for the others to get him off me, curling up into a ball, my world beginning to turn black. A voice filtering through the fog of pain and confusion: “You cheated! You cheated! You tried to make a fool out of me! Nobody makes a fool out of me!” That was the last thing I remembered.
    It was 1968. I was nine years old. The Mount was a mound of slag from a nearby pithead, planted with grasses to keep it together and disguise it somewhat. It was the first time I’d ever had to have stitches in a hospital.
    It was the day I first met Max.
     
    *  *  *  *

3
Tuesday
    There’s been so much happen to me, so many strange things. Terrible things. My mind is in a whorl, confused as to what I should relate first. Where to begin? I suppose really I should begin where I left off, with Max. Yes, I’d have to, if you are to really understand what has happened, in so far as you are able to understand given that I was at the heart of it and cannot fully comprehend it all.
    Yes, It’s all to do with Max.
    But someone is outside in the hallway. I hear their shuffling, their heavy boots clunking on the wooden flooring of the corridor. They are usually regular in habit, as if they are automatons given motion by coiled springs and oiled brass cogs. Their arrival now is highly irregular. It isn’t time for the lights to go out, not yet. An hour or so, then it is time. So I find it difficult to concentrate on what has happened in the past when I’m concentrating on the confusion of the present. I have to be careful with my writing, lest they enter and snatch it away from me before I can write more. And it desperately needs to be written. Before I go completely mad.
    They have moved on and the corridor outside my door has plummeted once more into dreadful silence. It was nothing to worry about. I can resume my writing knowing I will remain undisturbed for the next hour.
     
    *  *  *  *
     
    Max’s mother came round to our house that same evening to apologise…
    No, that’s not right. I think it was the next day, in the morning. My head was still throbbing and I’d been dosed to high heaven with aspirin that hadn’t had the slightest effect. My mother insisted on wrapping my skull in bandages, quite unnecessarily, but she had a morbid fear of germs, a legacy of her own mother’s obsessions. I answered the door and a woman rushed forward in a blaze of bright colour and hugged me.
    “You poor, poor darling !” she said, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me tight. She gently stroked my bandaged head. “It looks dreadfully painful. Does it hurt, darling? I feel, so - so responsible !”
    She was on her haunches, staring into my eyes. “It is Philip, isn’t it?”
    I nodded lamely.
    “I thought as much,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I didn’t expect too many of the family to be