Craven Manor(33)

He’s still alive. Daniel stepped back as giddiness and fresh adrenaline made him unsteady. It’s a borderline miracle.

The broken window seemed impossibly high. The overgrown bushes were probably the only thing that had saved Kyle from sharing Adrian’s fate.

Focus, Daniel. He’s alive, but you don’t know for how much longer. Blood continued to drip from Kyle’s arm and face. He needed medical attention… but Daniel had no phone. He could run to town, but that meant leaving Kyle alone—and not just alone, but alone with Bran, who had thrown him through a window. It would take him half an hour to get to town, even if he ran. That was an unacceptably long time to leave his friend bleeding.

Wait, Kyle owns a mobile. Did he bring it with him?

Daniel pushed forward again, fighting through the brittle branches, and searched Kyle’s pockets as carefully as his shaking fingers allowed. There was a solid lump in the back of the man’s jeans. Daniel fished inside the pocket and pulled out the phone. He thanked his lucky stars that Kyle hadn’t left it at home.

He dialled the emergency help number with shaking fingers but stopped before putting the call through. They would ask for his address, and he didn’t even know it. Telling them to “turn right at the old oak” would be useless, doubly so when the path couldn’t fit an ambulance and the intermittent paving stones were near invisible at night.

But other than myself and Bran, no one else knows how to get to the house. Daniel’s head snapped up. Wait, that’s not true—there’s Joel.

Daniel erased the emergency help number with one hand and hunted through his jacket’s pockets with the other. He’d tucked the note there when the delivery man had given it to him, and Joel had promised that he kept his phone next to him at night. He also had a truck that could get most of the way to Craven Manor.

Daniel stayed at Kyle’s side, surrounded by the thicket and listening to the dripping blood, as he pressed the phone to his ear and prayed he was making the right choice.



Daniel sat in the hospital waiting room. He felt lost. He’d been diagnosed with a mild concussion, and the cuts on his hand had been stitched. He was officially discharged under instructions to rest, drink a lot of water, and return to the hospital if dizziness or nausea came back. But even though he was free to go, he stayed for Kyle.

The doctors had gone over his cousin’s case notes with him. They said his spinal column was intact. He would have scars from the lacerations. Scans showed he had some minor bleeding into his brain, but it had stopped by the time he reached hospital. They had made the call not to perform surgery.

Daniel couldn’t remember what he’d told the nurses when they asked what had caused the accident. They’d found the alcohol in Kyle’s system and seemed to assume he’d fallen during a drunken stunt.

After Daniel had called him, it had taken a dishevelled and bleary-eyed Joel thirty minutes to jog into sight. Between them, they had moved Kyle—who was, by then, half-aware and moaning—into the back of Joel’s pickup truck. It had taken another twenty minutes to get to the hospital.

“We’re not sure what the bleeding will have done to his brain. There might be some damage.” Daniel cradled his head in his hands as he ran through the doctor’s words. The waiting room’s lights were impossibly bright and made his migraine tenfold worse.

And because he was alone, all he had to do was think.

Bran had tried to kill Kyle. There was no way he could have thrown a man out of a window and realistically expect him to live. The intent had been murder. That knowledge was forcing Daniel to reassess everything he’d thought he knew about the man—not just the assumption that Bran was ultimately well-meaning, but also the man’s age and physical capabilities. Daniel wasn’t small, but Kyle could beat him in a fight. Working construction had built up his cousin’s muscles and endurance. And yet Bran had dragged him around like a rag doll.

But he sounded so frail. Was he faking? Daniel dug his fingers into his hair. The scalp still ached from where Kyle had gripped him. The memory of the assault was fresh in his mind, though he wasn’t sure what to make of it. He and Kyle had always been friends—at least, that was what he’d thought. How could his cousin turn on him so suddenly and violently? Daniel hadn’t lied to him or cheated him, and it stung that Kyle held so little trust in him.

It must have been the alcohol. He’s not like this normally. Something got into him and bothered him—the stress of needing a new roommate, maybe—and he went out drinking. One thing led to another, and he ended up at Craven Manor in a bad mood and with his inhibitions removed.

The idea all made sense, except for one detail. Kyle had tried to follow him to the mansion the night before. That suggested premeditation.

The bustle had grown too much. Quick voices, intermittent beeps, and crying children crowded Daniel’s mind. He stood, gathered his blood-speckled jacket, and stepped through the automatic doors.

Dawn was still an hour or two away. The air was cold enough to make his skin ache, but he couldn’t bring himself to wear the bloodied jacket. Instead, he folded his arms around himself and began walking.

He regretted sending Joel away. The delivery man had feigned liveliness as he sat next to Daniel in the waiting room, but Daniel could tell the missed sleep was hurting him. He’d sent him home after giving a promise to call if he needed help. Daniel still didn’t have his own phone, though, and Kyle’s mobile was now tucked into the cupboard beside the sedated man’s bed.