“Yeah, the crazy son of a bitch rode his Harley here and you probably saw the trail of blood on the stairs. Speaking of which, Natalie, you might want to go clean that up.”
My spine stiffened at his direction, but he was right, a trail of blood leading right to my front door wouldn’t make me friends with the property management company. As I went to the linen closet to grab the rattiest looking towels, I thought about Victor; I had been so busy taking care of him that I hadn’t considered the flight of stairs he had to climb in order to reach my apartment. No wonder he was in so much agony.
There wasn’t much blood on the stairs, just a series of drops, but the railing was covered in bloody handprints. The fact that it was dark outside and I had limited lighting made the clean up a little bit more difficult. I was about halfway up the steps, armed with a bottle of Clorox bathroom cleaner and a couple of towels when Jason arrived.
“Jesus Christ, Nat. Are you hurt?” He came rushing up out of nowhere, scaring the shit out of me. I shrieked and dropped the cleaner as I whirled to face him. “You’re covered in blood,” he said.
I had completely forgotten about our date by this point and wasn’t paying attention to my appearance. Jason gripped me by my shoulders and I looked down at the front of my clothes. I had unfortunately worn a white long sleeved sweater, which was now more reddish brown that white. My jeans were stained as well, but not as glaringly obvious as my sweater.
“I’m fine Jason. It’s not my blood.”
“Oh thank God!” He pulled me against his chest, wrapping his arms around me. “Whose blood is it and what are you doing out here?”
I sighed and stepped out of his embrace. Some blood had transferred to his light blue dress shirt. “Shit, I got it on you. I’m sorry.” Something about seeing Jason’s clean shirt soiled from touching me made me think that it was analogous to my life tainting his. He was going to be a lawyer and here my apartment had become a clinic for injured mobsters.
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