Obscure Blood by Christopher Leonidas Page B

long. His eyes had yellow tints.
    Octa appeared to be well built, at 175 pounds, 73 inches tall. He had the eyes of his father.
    Octa was filled with a hollow depression. He must not have expected his father to welcome him heartlessly. He went back in full defense mode, suspecting the old man of doing the murders.
    “Why are you ready to attack me, after I spent a decade searching for you?” said Octa.
    “Do I look like I’m here to answer your pathetic question?”
    “You must be the one killing those children, too.”
    “What if I were? Would that make a difference?”
    “I guess not.”
    Octa’s father took a few steps forward. “Do not move,” Octa said. “Drop your weapon.” His father kept on walking toward him. “Don’t you push me to shoot.”
    Octa’s father threw the knife at him, and it hit Octa in the stomach. Holding his injury, Octa heard a noise behind him. Something hit him on the head.
    When he woke up in the hospital the next day, the last thing Octa remembered was the sound of a gunshot.

Chapter Two
    Waking up in the hospital is not something everyone does regularly. But for Octa, the only thing unusual was not remembering the last scene at his family’s house the previous day.
    He kept on going back to hearing the sound of a handgun’s blast. He reached for the back of his head and discovered it was slightly swollen. The back of my head hurts, he thought. My abdomen hurts too. The knife was somehow deflected and caused little injury. He had a slicing flesh wound.
    Bob walked in and said, “How are you feeling?”
    Octa took a breath and replied, “Don’t worry about it. Just tell me what happened.”
    “You passed out and the suspect was shot, and managed to get away by…” he said. “Do you remember anything about the suspect?”
    “No, all I heard was a gunshot. I was half dead.”
    Someone must have hit me in the head, he thought. Is my dad’s working with someone in the department? Octa got up and pulled the IV out of his arm.
    “You need to rest,” Bob said. A nurse walked in and made the same suggestion, only more forcefully. Octa, however, went to the bathroom, changed into his clothes, checked the markets on his phone, and walked out without addressing or responding to anyone.

    “Octa, what are you doing?” Chief Detective Albany asked, when she walked into the hospital.
    “Please, no more lyrics,” Octa said, “I need my car key.” Whenever Octa got injured while on an investigation, Albany usually confiscated his car key, because when a case was standing wide open like this one, no injury was ever going to stop him. Even his wife knows he cares more about a case than his health.
    “You’re not going to drive like that,” she said.
    Octa stopped.
    “Give me your freaking badge, Detective Octa,” she said. He still proceeded out.
    His boss accompanied him out onto the street.
    She patted his back and walked away. As he stood on the sidewalk, a taxi stopped in front of him.
    He jumped in the car and gave the address of his childhood home. He was heading back to the same house where his mother had been murdered and from which his father had disappeared. His phone rang. Lucinda was calling him.
    “Yes, bunny,” he said.
    “Are you doing okay, love?” she asked. Bob had already informed her about Octa’s injuries.
    “Yes, bunny, I’m doing awesome. It’s just a small thing.”
    “Lucinda, I think you should stay a little bit longer in North Carolina until everything is settled down here.”
    “I’ll not stay here for another week.”
    “We should move to another house, then.”
    “Hell no!” she screamed. “This won’t happen. Also, I know your body is injured. You always lie about your health. Let me guess . . . you left the damn hospital, too.”
    “Well . . .”
    “Well, what?” she said.
    “I love you. Let’s talk about it when you come back to Miami.”
    “Yeah, bye.”
    She hung up. Octa did not have the chance to make a kissing sound