The Collector Book One: Mana Leak Read Online Free

football pitch to apprehend a pupil, she’d started to plan her own death. Her hand had rifled through the contents of the medicine cabinet, like a child would run his hand over jars of sweets.
    Razor blades were her front runner for a while; to go out in a red blaze of glory to make up for her timid and mundane existence. She thought against it. The mess would surely get Frank in a rage. Slashing your wrists was a very selfish way to commit suicide. She opted for the pills. An overdose of painkillers, fall asleep…hello oblivion. The voice had crept up again—the annoying, nagging voice she supposed was her conscience. If she swallowed all the painkillers in the house, what about Frank and his headaches? He’d lash out, of course, and without her around…
    The idea of suicide had come and gone within the week.
    Things haven’t been this bad since Katie…
    The memories flew thick and fast, pounding into her. She gripped the sink to keep from falling, swept to the floor by the sudden tidal wave of sounds and images. She almost smelt the hospital and felt the touch of her daughter’s hand…
    No!
    She refused to wander down this corridor again.
    I’m sorry, but the latest test results aren’t good.

3.
    “I’m sorry, but the test results aren’t good.”
    “What do you mean? They aren’t good?” Frank demanded.
    The doctor glanced down at his notes on the clipboard in his hands. He looked young, in his early thirties at the most. It did nothing to reassure Frank and Anne that Katie was receiving the utmost care; especially Frank. He preferred an old pro, the consultant himself, to be on hand.
    “Her stats have dropped over the last twenty four hours. The next twenty four will be crucial to see if she can get through this.”
    “Thank you, doctor,” Anne said from behind her husband.
    She sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair by her daughter’s bedside, clutching Katie’s small, pale hand. A mountain of pillows supported Katie’s head, and the brilliantly white bed sheets were drawn up beneath her chin. Her arm hung out of the side of the bed.
    The doctor said his goodbyes and left, his white coat billowing out behind him as he walked down the ward, like some medical superhero. Frank joined Anne by the bed, sitting on another chair at the opposite side.
    Katie had never been a strong girl. Having been born premature, it seemed life had already marked her for a tough ride. She was so small when she was born that Frank could fit her into the palm of his hand. Sure, the nurses thought it was cute, but Anne realised their smiles and good natured comments hid their worry. Babies should not be that small, and they had seen enough to know it.
    At age ten, Katie was still the smallest in her class, and Charlie had nearly reached her height, despite being five years her junior. She caught diseases easily: measles, mumps, chicken pox – she’d had them all, and Anne had spent many days just like this, holding her daughter’s hand while the latest infection had run rampant.
    But this? This was far worse than any of those. Katie hung in the destructive grip of leukaemia. It explained why she was so weak, and why her immune system was so low, something that Anne always put down to being an early child.
    The body eating itself, it was a thought that made Anne sick. She imagined a cluster of mutated cells, all disfigured and oozing. The creatures from dozens of fifties’ B-grade movies popped into her head, like The Blob or The Brain from Planet Arous, invading her daughter’s body. She could see it creeping through her daughter, taking a bite from this or a nibble of that.
    She guessed that Frank, ever the physicist, saw it differently. Probably a formula, something like tumour size divided by survival expectancy multiplied by a hundred, would give the amount of shit they were in.
    The worst of it was the chemotherapy. She saw the chemo as a wave of steaming green liquid, like boiling bleach, flowing through her