Page 31 of Insidious

Please.

Then I see the blood.

Chapter 7

Isaac

She is lying on the bathroom floor. There is blood around her head, a crimson stain against the grey tiles.

The paramedics move around her with a kind of controlled urgency. I listen to their calm voices passing instructions back and forth. The sound of bags opening and equipment clicking into place. Beep. Beep.

“You the husband?”

I realise the woman is looking at me, talking to me. I nod.

“She’s breathing, but we have to get her on this stretcher, so I need you to back up.”

Relief hits me so hard my knees almost give way. I back up as far as I can and still see her.

“She has taken some of those pills. We don’t know how many. Do you know how many were in the bottle? No? We’re concerned about the fall. She’s hit her head.” She keeps talking as they get Luna on the stretcher.

And just like that, the relief vanishes like smoke.

I stand here, useless. Completely fucking useless.

I watch as they work, as they lift her.

As they check her pupils, her pulse, her blood glucose.

It doesn’t feel like this is my Luna.

Not my Luna.

They carefully move her onto a stretcher. I realise they are probably trying to calm me down.

And I just follow. The ambulance ride passes in flashes.

Blue lights. The constant, sharp wail of the siren.

The space is cramped. I am at her feet. That’s where they tell me to sit. Lily promises to follow with Amelie.

So, I do what I am told like a good little husband.

I watch from a distance as my trembling fingers reach for her toes. She has a sock on one foot while the other is bare.

Cold. So cold.

For a second, I can’t breathe—

My brain scrambled, desperate to make sense of it.

Luna always has cold feet, I tell myself.

Always. She takes the hottest bath, cranking up the hot water to the max.

She shoves her little stockinged feet between mine in bed without warning, making me swear and jerk away.

“Jaysus, Luna, your feet are like ice!”