Kiss of A Titan
Chapter 7

It took me fifteen minutes to arrive at the bottom of the staircase where the last bag was left stranded without anybody to watch the bags and I found that the door was still wide open the way aunt had left it. I was indeed lucky to have found everything still intact when the door had been left ajar and it would really have been hell in the house if aunt found out that got missing from the bags and I would have been blame for it if someone entered the house through the door which was open the entire time while we were still upstairs.

I shut the door after seeing that the boot of the car was closed and went back to carry the bags from where I had briefly left it. It turned out that the last bag was actually mine and I didn't had the courage to face aunt after being reprimanded for my actions so I took my things to the other hallway, to the empty room where Tom had seen the sculpture and took some time to picture how my room will look like in the next couple of weeks. Though I felt excited that I will be living in a new neighborhood henceforward, I was a bit sad leaving some good friends behind in Georgia and had myself standing by the window peering outside the house with my hands tucked in my sweater.

It was then I recalled that I needed some music to keep my thoughts busy but I couldn't hear a single sound from the earpieces I had stuck on both ears beneath the hood I still wore on my head.

I checked my cell phone only to find out that its battery had hit rock bottom and it had powered off. Feeling upset that I couldn't relax my mind with some good mp3 music, I went out of the room and shut the door behind me, not too concerned if I had left some rumpled clothes on the bed. I strolled back wanting to find something to eat for lunch but I decided to assist aunt in arranging things first in order not to get on her bad side.

Returning back to the other upper hallway, I found them in the room and Tom was silent as ever as aunt neatly brushed the bleeding with a cotton wool she got from a first aid kit among the pile of things she had taken to the room where Nora was.

As I approached the room, I kept hearing Tom grumbling inside the room as I got closer to the door but I didn't go in when I arrived there and took a peek to see what was going on inside. I was surprised to see Nora already wide awake from her sleep sitting on the bed which appeared a lot neater without any of the large polythene cloth that was used to cover it earlier, while watching aunt tending to Tom's bruises with the cotton wool and some little bandages near the open window.

"Hold still and be quiet", "Mom, are you done yet?"

"No, Tom, I still got to apply a little bit of iodine on it so it won't get swollen", she replied carrying on with her first aid treatment and dribbled a little amount of the iodine solution into the wound. Tom felt a sharp pain as soon as the liquid came in contact with the wound and frowned at aunt but he soon felt relieved after some minutes when the effect wore off.

"See, I told you it won't hurt", "I... no longer feel the pain", "That's how it usually feels, dumb-head", This time, it was Nora who spoke. "Mom-"

"I don't want to hear that from you, Nora", Aunt intervened. "But..."

"Not one word!" Aunt ordered diffusing any form of argument that may arise from her two kids. Tom was happy about what aunt did and he pulled out his tongue at Nora who got irritated at him without aunt realizing what Tom did behind her back.

I was careful enough to reveal myself as I stood at the door which was slightly ajar but Nora somewhat took notice of my figure by the door without me even finding out that she had seen me already since my attention was focused on the patient and his nurse.

"Rosalie, come join us!" Nora suddenly said, blowing my cover. Aunt and her seven year old patient quickly turned and looked at me standing by the doorway and I was taken aback by their stare except for Nora's smiling face which somewhat gave me a glimmer of hope to move inside. I pushed the door open and my complete stature was exposed for them to see.

Then I took two steps forward and walked inside but stopped halfway when my confidence to face aunt was dwindling. Ironically, she didn't shout at me but rather got up from where she was and came towards me with Nora following behind her leaving Tom to cater for his wounds.

"Rosalie, I want to have a word with you outside", she said and walked away. Nora and I followed her to the corridor and I shut the door behind us. Nora was tugging on my jeans playfully but I ignored her and kept my focus on Aunt who stood right in front of me with her hands tucked in her trousers.

"Listen carefully; I need you to watch Tom and Nora", "Where are you going?"

"Uh...I need to get the dustman. There's a lot of dust in the house and we need to lessen it for us to sleep comfortably when it gets dark", "I'll take care of them but what will we do about the electricity?", "For now...Um...We can't do that just yet", "How long will it take?", "Let's say two weeks, I guess but it could be more than that. For tonight, we'll be using candles to see our way around the house", "I don't think that will last us for a week", "I know but until the lights are fixed, it's what we have to put up with till then", "Okay, aunt. I'll do as you ask", "That's good. I'll be leaving now to gather some groceries for supper this evening and breakfast tomorrow but if you have any suggestions to make things easier for all of us, please don't hesitate to tell me", "I will if I have anything good in mind", I responded by trying to push Nora's hands off my trousers. Aunt soon noticed her bugging me and glared at Nora. "Stop that!" she barked and Nora reluctantly obeyed feeling bad that I wasn't in the mood to play with her like I was with Tom.

"Oh, I just remembered", "Be fast with what you have to say. We don't have much time ahead of us", She checked her wristwatch and folded her hands to listen to what I have in mind.

"We didn't talk about the water", "Oh, shit...I didn't think of that. Thanks for the reminder", "How do we solve it then?", "I'll figure it out on the way back to the house", "I guess you'll be leaving now", "Yes, I am... right, I prepared some sandwich and two burgers back home for everyone and there are in Nora bags so do well to eat them with the kids", "Got it, anything else?", "For now, we are done here. I just hope my credit card won't mess things up", she replied and gave angry Nora a kiss on her forehead and walked away heading downstairs till she was out of sight.