Free Obscure Blood by Christopher Leonidas Page A

still searched for his father.
    As Octa’s car merged onto the freeway heading home, his phone rang, repeatedly. He looked at it multiple times before he decided to answer. It was his wife, Lucinda.
    “Octa, I’ve been calling to check on you,” she said.
    “I was away from my phone,” he answered. She did not utter another word to him. There was a silence between them. It was always this way, her checking up, him busy, and the awkward silences that grew more frequent between them.
    “Is your mother going to make it from the kidney cancer?”
    “She’s having surgery at the North Carolina Surgery Center. I should be home next week.”
    “Don’t worry. Everything will be okay,” he said, attempting a bit of comfort. Lucinda coughed and said she would see him later. They hung up.

    When Octa made it home, he sat in the living room looking at the files. He’d been dreaming of Christina and it startled him awake. Octa and Lucinda had lost their only daughter Christina six months ago.
    Christina had been gunned down in a restroom at her high school. The supervisors at the North Miami Senior High School closed the school for three days. The suspect was gunned down in a fire fight with police officers. No one knew his motive. Their daughter’s mouth had been bound with an electric cord, and her head was blown off from behind. There had been no evidence of sexual assault. Since then, they had not dared to talk about their loss. They only shared their love and pain through their daughter’s dog: Maisey. Lucinda never left Maisey behind. She even traveled with her.
    Just then, Octa heard a sound in the next room. “Bob, is that you?” he said. Bob Arkansas is Octa’s partner. Bob was an ambitious man who had been diagnosed with PTSD, lives in Octa’s house. Bob had been to Iraq, when he was in the Marine Corps, and had lost his battle buddies from an Intrusion Detection System (IDS). He hit his head on a slab of cement during the blast as hadn’t been the same since.
    Octa didn’t hear Bob’s voice back. He got up to check the noise out. As soon as he walked into his home office, someone rushed him and started punching him.
    Octa pulled free himself of the man’s hold and landed a solid punch on the intruder’s chest...Octa went for his gun, but before he could draw, something hard hit his head. His strength vanished and he fainted.
    Octa came to his senses a few minutes later. Still feeling weak, he looked around in his house. All of his valuables had been stolen. He also found the case files in his trash can, shredded to pieces. Still in a lot of pain, he lay on the floor, feeling helpless.
    My boss is going to blow a few fuses when she finds out, Octa thought. Feeling disturbed, out of sorts, and his head still pounded, he went to visit the house he grew up in. On his way, he thought about his mother’s murder. His eyes filled with sparkles again when he remembered the teapot that had been found on his mother’s tomb. This seems very unlikely, that he would just remember this odd fact now, sometimes after he has discovered the blood-filled teapot at the crime scene of the murdered children. When he reached the house, he felt a bit dizzy. To his surprise, the front door was unlocked.
    As soon as Octa entered, he saw a teapot placed on the floor. He stopped to investigate. When he lifted the lid, he saw that the teapot was filled with blood.
    He moved past the teapot. “I’ve been waiting for you,” a voice said. “Come into the kitchen.”
    Octa, anxious and angered, moved toward the kitchen with his gun in hand. When he saw the suspect in the kitchen, he stood still at the doorway, shocked.
    “I’ve always wondered if a father and son can hunt each other,” the suspect said as he brandished his knife.
    Octa slightly lowered his firearm. “Father,” he said. His father was short and thin, to the point of gauntness. His neck was bony and veins popped up on his skin. His hair was grayish white and