FULL BLEED: NOT WITHOUT YOU

For the end of the year, I'm dragging out another trunked horror story. This one was written in response to a call for survival horror stories a couple of years back. Yeah, that's funny. I hate those. But I figured I could do something interesting with it, even with the expectations that the form has baked into it now. Funny thing was this story got me a "You were so close, just eliminated in the last round" sort of rejection letter. No indication as to why, no notes and by the time I got the story back I bet the anthology was being POD printed.

It's fine. I wasn't gonna rewrite it anyways. I think it works just like it does. Maybe you will, too.

--

Lily watched the plane parked out on the tarmac, off-kilter to the terminals and their passenger gantries un-deployed. The cockpit escape window was popped open. A red sheen glazed sticky on the plastic. It burned wetly in the setting sun. There was a flurry of dirty finger markings smeared on the white enamel of the fuselage nearby, a flock of apostrophes and hesitation marks.

She’d never seen the pilot. It had been two weeks. Maybe more. She’d watched as the interior windows of the parked plane grew darker, increasingly smeared with a soup of what must have been blood and worse. Every night another one was marked off like someone was counting down to something terrible.

But all the terrible things had already happened. Every one that she could have imagined, anyways. Instead of waving goodbyes to loved ones, the air had swollen and burst with a clamor of shrieks and wails and moans, everyone losing their minds as easily as a set of misplaced keys or a knife from one step to the next. They fell on each other, hunger and rage and mindlessness unleashed. It had taken only hours.

After that the strange kites fell out of the contused sky, floating then spilling tangles of opalescent tendrils that fingered along the ground. They drew up bodies or those who’d survived, pulling them upwards and passing them through unseen mouths. Inside the triangular abdomens, you could still see the remains, curled on themselves like fetuses awaiting birthing. It took several days for one of the creatures to digest. The kites would walk in the day, sunlight filtering through their bodies like cloudy bodies of marmalade. Victims within them lost their skin, their flesh and finally their bones. Sometimes there was an imprint left in the flesh of the creatures, an echo of the consumed.

Something moved outside, deftly slipping from the shadow of a gangway and across the concrete. Another shadow with nothing to cast it. As easily as people had lost their minds, they seemed to have lost their shadows. Unattached, the shadows grew hungry. Hungry but wary of the kites. Wary but feeding on the scuttling insects or crabs or whatever they were, that had come along with the broken sky. Something had come through cracks in the world, from spaces long hidden. They had brought their simple appetites to Earth, to America and everywhere else, Lily guessed. The TVs didn’t have any signals, even when they had power. The cell phones had signal but it was poisoned now, crowded with lilting whispers of no language that she could recognize.

There was no help coming. Not for her and not for Thomas. But at least his infection was breaking, having spent most of this time too weak to be delirious. He was hardly aware of where he was, and that wouldn’t do. She had to be the help for the both of them. She watched the shadows flock around the plane parked by the jetway, circling hungry as sharks, their patience eroding bit by bit every day. They couldn’t get in, and they were afraid of the kites and their anemone-like tentacles trailing behind. She wasn’t afraid of them. But she was afraid of losing Thomas, so soon after having gotten him back.

She inspected the pistol once more, making sure the one loaded chamber was lined up. It was still there. Still ready. Because that time was coming.

Lily crept back, low to the ground, as was her habit now, in a crouch so she could burst past anything that got in her way or made a move. She knew that there weren’t many things left to fear, but she’d never seen that pilot who’d gotten away and left his flight to die by rows out there. Maybe he hadn’t been insane and he needed help.

And maybe he was just waiting for Lily to drop her guard.

She picked her way back to the Memories souvenir shop, logo written out in a blue cursive squiggle, almost unreadable. She’d done her best to make it look like it had already been ransacked, bags torn open and contents crushed to colorful dust, the orange grime of cheese curls in a scuffle of footsteps.

Crossing the threshold into the space behind the register, the crinkle of a plastic and foil bag scratched at the air. Lily froze and scanned the grimed gray industrial carpet flecked with consumer debris and strips of colored trash. A gleam of oily green shell, there. The legs all half-curled up like a lazy hand half-clutch, too many fingers.

The crabs had come along too scavenging what they could, but Lily had seen a group of them tear into one of the bomb or drug-sniffing dogs. They took live prey when they could. Suppressing disgust, Lily swung the pipe with the end she’d sharpened as best she could, thrusting at the jointed creature before it could get away. The shell cracked and the thing didn’t squeal, but it did clatter against the plastic counter, uselessly grabbing for purchase until Lily tipped the spear up, keeping the thing at a respectful distance. It reached for air, the multitude of legs all working in a slow cycle almost like a machine, not like something alive at all.

“No supper for you tonight,” she said as she adjusted her grip and then raised the impaled thing up before smashing it down hard enough to split. The non-shattered half tried to scuttle away, dragging the ruin behind. Lily brought down the pipe again and ended it. She then pushed the carcass out into the empty foyer, where the shell and meat and ichor flew a wobbly arc into a growing collection of such bodies.

They didn’t eat their dead. But the cockroaches did.

Lily drew a breath. Sweat beaded at her temples and armpits. Not that it mattered. She hadn't been able to wash since everything went wrong and she didn't know when that would happen again, if ever. Water was for drinking, when she could find it.

She scanned back to the recessed door behind the register, the one that led to her and Thomas' hiding place. She was sure that she'd latched it before she set out, almost an hour ago. She was sure.

There was a dark gap where the door was faintly ajar, a finger-width. Sickness sloshed around her, not from the bugs or the memory of that dog but from the thought that someone or something had seen her leave and gone to investigate that little hidey-hole she'd come out of. Then they'd find Thomas and they'd--

She gripped the rod with one hand and checked her pocket for the gun. It wasn't any use against a shadow, and probably not even a kite, but they didn't follow and prowl the same way that humans did. They walked like they had nothing to fear. Humans and those who were still close enough to being human, they were a worry. Cleverness and stealth was more fearful than the inexplicable.

The door swung back as she pressed the rod against it gently. The tunnel behind that was velvety dark, sweet with the smell of spilled sodas and ripped-open packages of cake. Blue-white spill from the whining fluorescent lantern vibrated faintly.

Something black and stretched out lay in the floor of the passageway. Lily started, believing it was one of the sourceless shadows. It wasn’t. She calmed herself then realized that it was Thomas. The rod clattered to the floor and she fell towards him, fearing the worst, that something had gotten in here and gotten to him. Her hands ran along him, trying to find a wound or blood or anything. She pressed near the splint in his leg and his entire body locked in spasm, ragged breath sucking in over opened teeth.

“Aaaah! Fuck!”

He was okay. He was going to be okay. Lily let her heart start beating again.

Thomas was back laying on the nest of coats and child’s sleeping bag that Lily had scavenged not long after setting up their little den. Pastel-maned cartoon unicorns shared space with stains that she didn’t care to identify and Thomas was too tired or weak to have ever cared about. Nothing was new anymore. Nothing would be new again. It was okay to hold onto old things, Lily decided. Sometimes they were all you ever had.

She lay an oversized and heavy peacoat on top of him, tucking the edges in as best she could. “What on earth were you doing up? You’re supposed to be recovering.”

“I woke up and I wondered where…” He grimaced, pain tugging at his expression like half-melted wax. “Where…”

“Where I was?” she finished the question for him. “I told you I was out hunting while I could. I should be out there right now. There’s only so much dusk time to use before it goes black.”

“I got worried.”

“You don’t have the strength enough to worry right now. But you’re getting better. Blood loss then fever. You’ve been down a long time.”

She peeled back the coat to look at the wound that ran down his right leg, from mid-thigh to past his knee. It had been a clean wound at first, the knife making its bite, but then he had started wrestling with an enraged ticket-taker, blood and froth running down the front of their white uniform shirt. The flexing and scraping had turned it to a ragged and dirty highway of blood and opened muscle beneath. That was then. Now, it was sutured up with dental floss and a sewing kit from someone’s spilled hospitality bag. That and most of their supply of medicinal alcohol had kept him alive.

After the ticket-taker had been dispatched. Lily saw Thomas struggling with an enraged navy-blue pantsuit-wearing attacker and realized that no, he couldn’t die there. He had to live.

That was the first time that she’d ever really fought anyone past schoolyard scrapes or the end of that shift were everyone’s nerves were so frayed that McGillicudy had finally picked the fight she’d so badly wanted forever. Lily had felt bad about giving her fellow nurse stitches. The ticket-taker, however, took no thought at all. Once the decision was made, that Tom had to live through all this, Lily thought about the insane and feral woman as an obstacle to be removed. Her jaws had snapped and raged when Lily pulled her off, eyes rolling and seeing nothing. Lily’s trip-kick brought the woman’s skull to the end of one of those fixed rows of seats, eye-socket proving to be no match for the cast metal of the arm.

Lily felt worse about the crab-swarmed dog than any person she’d had to end since thing went crazy. The dog didn’t know any better. They were just doing their job. They were just here when it happened when insects from wherever showed up and everyone else went insane. Dog was just dog, another bite in a new food chain.

“The leg’s not opened, by some miracle,” Lily said after a quick inspection of the improvised sutures and checking the temperature of the wound for the second or third time today. Warmer, but not hot enough to be a concern. The infection might have just been pushed back, not ended. If it came back… that would have been a terrible way to go. But not the right one.

There was only so much that her skills and cobbled-together instrument kit could do here. Even if there had been a hospital just across the tarmac, it would have been just as easy to swim to the moon.

“I’m just lucky that you found me,” he said, voice dry. “I’m still trying to--“

“Here, drink this,” Lily said, pushing the freshly-opened bottle of water to his lips. “I know you like soda, probably a little too much.”

He took the gulp. “Water just makes me piss.”

“And soda is going to kill you.”

“Better than waiting out this nightmare.”

“You,” Lily said, leaning hard into sternness “barely know what’s going on outside. I’m there every day. In here,” she then swept her hand, fingers outstretched through the pale blue gloom, indicating their collected belongings “you’re safe and can get better and then.” She paused. “Then we can figure things out.”

Thomas closed his eyes in reply, sweat or tears trickling from the corners of one of them. Without thought, Lily wiped it away with the edge of a sleeve.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said.

“No. It’s not that.” He turned his head fully to the side and stared blankly, unable to meet her gaze. “It’s that I feel so helpless and stupid. I don’t even know what hurt me. I don’t have an explanation for what’s going on.”

“You’re not in charge.” She waited for the words to hit.

Tom swallowed like he was trying to stuff his own skull down his throat.

“I feel so fucking helpless.”

She closed her fingers and drew her hand slowly down his cheek and his neck. “You have me. And I’m not going anywhere.”

“I thought that… No, forget it.” His jaw clenched, long muscles bunched under the skin of his jaw and face.

“Go ahead.”

“I’m such a goddamn pussy.”

“I’m the only other person around to judge you, Thomas. And you aren’t. You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Yeah.” He turned and locked eyes with her, his burning with tiny flecks of fire in the blue. “And I freaked out ‘cause I thought you abandoned me today. I was going to go out look for you.”

“You’re not a coward. And you’re not a pussy. You got really unlucky and then really lucky again. I’ll make sure you get better.”

“I thought you hated me, you know. After that fight, back before everything got stupid.”

Lily leaned her weight back on her hips and sighed. “I already told you I don’t want to talk about this again. Not anymore. That happened in a world that’s…” Lily drew a torn breath and she felt a heaviness drape across her, one that she rejected. “That world is fucking gone, okay? It’s over. We have a new one now, and whatever happened before, I don’t want you to talk about it.”

“But the party and--“

“I SAID STOP!” Lily felt her face twist in anger and she couldn’t hide it. She shook the emotion from herself, but it left behind a cloying feeling, like unclean teeth. “Just don’t. Okay? It’s over. We get to start all over again. Just think about how lucky we are in that. That we didn’t go insane and we were around for each other.”

Thomas sat up on an elbow, wincing as he did. “I wish I could take it back.”

“You don’t get to. We only get to push forward from now on, okay?” She patted his face and pressed the water bottle into his free hand. “Drink some more. Eat some nuts, something with some protein. I’ll see if I can find something better tonight.”

“Okay,” he said like a scolded child offered a treat, taking it reluctantly.

“And don’t move around. Those things could pop right open.” She pointed at the wounded leg. “Got lucky patching you up once. A second time might not happen. Promise me?”

“Yeah, this time. I promise.”

They both well knew that Thomas hadn’t done so well with promises before. But Lily let this one slide.

She arranged a couple bags of nuts and some paperback books within his reach then pulled the door closed behind her. Lily thought she heard a chuckle or a sigh on the other side of the door, but left him his space.

Outside the sky was orange with red veins shot through it like an exotic and sanguine marble. It belonged in a fancy house somewhere, the kind where people didn’t have to cook for themselves, where someone waited hand and foot. She laughed at that. One of them was already there.

The kites were gathered, picking at the body of a coyote or wolf, whichever it was that lived around here. Their tendrils played over it, lit by the emergency lights at the bases of the gangplanks. Their translucence was bloody. Occasionally birds swooped out from overhangs and picked at the kites, pecking and fleeing just ahead of the sweeps of the coelenterate arms like undersea ferns. Lily wondered if nature, her nature was fighting back. What was that movie with the Martians and the germs?

“Work faster, germs,” she muttered.

The dying light flushed through the tramway, chaos of the last couple weeks still evident in the trash and litter left behind. She’d made herself cart the bodies away as best she could, thinking that they’d distract whatever might make it inside or whoever else had survived that night.

But then she got to thinking about how she hadn’t gone through the pockets of those bodies, maybe missing opportunities for new weapons or some piece of novelty to pass the time or a lighter. Those would always be handy.

“They don’t let lighters on planes now, stupid,” she told herself.

Still, her pocket knife had gone missing in all the frenzy of the initial disaster. The gun she found then carried had but the one bullet and you could only do so much damage with food court cutlery. There was the prep blade, but that was only threatening to chunks of pizza dough. Anyone getting close in would not be reachable with the rod.

Lily checked her gear and watched a pack of starlings pick at the kite, remains of its last meal glowing inside that tough and fleshy gelatin body. Then she started down to where the bodies were kept, pipe out crosswise between her and the rest of the world.

The corpses were in a tangle, mislaid and exhausted. Limbs that didn’t quite match jutted out from the mass. The smell was bad enough that Lily rethought things. It was one thing to drag them down here over the course of days, but another to go through the pockets of now-ripened stiffs, hoping for a treasure to pay for the boiling nausea.

She let go of the idea and decided to check the food court once more. The freezer area and its looming door might be an obstacle she could overcome. And maybe there was something she’d missed in a drawer or under a counter. Something processed and not yet rotten. Things went bad faster than she’d have guessed they would.

Then Lily saw the dirty once-white shirt and captain’s cap atop the head slumped down on the chest of the body at the far end of the pile. It was one that she hadn’t placed. She would have remembered a pilot, at least she thought she would’ve. There were things that she’d had to do in the past fortnight, things she would have thought unimaginable before. Reminded her of why she liked those frozen microwave meals. No prep, no cutting, no mess. No notions that it was even stuff that had once been alive.

The gap between those things was far close than she’d ever thought. The days of easy meals were long gone. And the packaged snacks would not hold out forever. The bottoms of those cupboards were clear enough.

She made her way down in the gloom, towards the body she hadn’t accounted for. A stubborn clutch of LED lights from a bathroom alcove shed enough light to see, making it so she couldn’t have missed it, really. She was sure he hadn’t been there before. Something tugged at her, making her flesh crawl and wrenching adrenalin from her body, reserves that she thought would have been tapped by now.

The captain’s head was bowed, chin on chest, comical as a kid who’d fallen asleep in class. His hat was tugged forward, covering his eyes. She saw that well enough, and registered the gleam in them as they spun and locked on her.

He was up in a crouch and ready to leap as she brought the rod up, interposed between him and her. Lily was on the slight and short side of things, which she was painfully aware of, so even an average man could be a serious threat should they choose to be. Subtract reason from this and she felt the danger of the moment galvanize her.

“Saw you. Thought I’d lost my mind,” he rasped. Bloody spittle ran from his lips. “I waited.”

Lily said nothing, not knowing if he was one of the insane frenzies or just a man trotted out to the edge of insanity for long enough to have decided not to come back.

The captain was in his half-crouch, eyes more on the rod and the glint of the roughly-sharp end than on her. “Can’t you speak?”

Lily just let her lips twist in reply.

“Okay, you be like that,” he said. His body relaxed and he put his weight to his backwards foot. “I was just trying to be friendly.”

He sprang before the last syllable left his lips. Lily brought the pipe up but couldn’t get the cutting end up in time. She braced herself and locked her arms, trying to get the length of the pipe to hit something fragile. Shock of impact rolled up her and pushed her backwards, throwing her onto the hard floor.

The captain fell short of her, taking the pipe across his face before knocking it free of her grip. An uneven and bloody welt ran down the side of his face. Interrupting the mark, his eyes were white and wild.

“Not hardly fair. Thought you’d be happy to see a man.” He came to his feet. Lily was already up, hand shot to her pocket to pull the gun free. Only one bullet. It was supposed to be special. She was supposed to save it. But keeping it didn’t matter much if she were dead.

“Oh, you got a gun in there? Is that it?” He ran two fingers down his face and they came back bloody. Then he jammed them into his mouth and sucked, leering. He spat a stream of red down his chin.

Fear burned the back of her skull as she tried to wrench the gun loose. The windbreaker fabric was wadded up all around it, making the pocket impassable. She reached across herself and tried to hold the jacket fast.

“You’re a woman. I’m a man. Let’s just let nature take its course, okay? Cute little thing like you needs protecting.” He took a step closer. “But you got to stop this silly game.” The captain was just using his body to block her in, throwing his space around her. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t scared of anything.

Lily’s back hit the wall and she tore at the fabric, tore like she’d been buried alive and this was the only way up, the only way out. She wrenched the gun free and brought it up as the captain was close enough to shed his corpse stink camouflage. Cold click of the hammer pulled back and she stared right through him.

“That isn’t real or it isn’t loaded.” His eyes narrowed from wide crazy to more feral and calculating. “It’s a lighter.”

Lily shook her head slowly, giving him every chance to move on. She wished there was a better way out than the bullet. Finding the pistol with just the one shot. It had been an omen or a gift. She knew it hadn’t been meant for now, but plans have to change sometimes.

“I’ll just take away whatever you got squirreled away in that little hiding spot.” The captain gloated as he drew back his jaw and thrust his teeth over it, making a wet noise. “Then you won’t have a--“

The sound was loud, but not as much as Lily had expected. She’d heard shots, far away, through other parts of the airport, peppering the air as things broke loose, like squeals from an amusement park when the rides whipped by. This was brief, leaving only a slight ringing behind, not even an echo. The captain clutched at his chest, dark and thick liquid welling between splayed fingers.

The animal look never left his face. Even as he dropped to his knees. His eyes tracked Lily as she picked up the pipe and gripped it like a baseball bat in two hands and wound up.

He made a noise that conveyed no meaning other than deflation, whatever animating force he’d retained was escaping, crawling out the clenched teeth of his mouth. They were darkened by stains that suggested an appetite best left unexamined. Lily swung before he finished his protest or defiance, whatever he thought it was.

His body joined the others, but not before she checked his pockets. She pulled out an inexplicable collection of foil gum wrappers, all rolled up into little BBs of grotty silver. Then a lighter and a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Tom used to sneak those, thinking she was dumb enough not to notice. Even before a date, he’d suck down a drink or mint and that taste was always underneath his kiss. Tar and the breath of ash. She let him get away with it because, well, because it made him feel like he was smarter than he actually was. She’d loved him, even knowing his faults. Until his faults…

Lily bit back the thought and went through the dead man’s pockets. The uniform hung on him baggy, not from going hungry, either. Her fingers closed on something smooth and warm from being on his thigh. A knife.

Not her knife, the one she’d lost that night. She’d never even wanted to carry it, but she knew that most people, even most muggers, lost their nerve once they’d seen their own blood. She’d never used it until hell broke loose, thinking the chance was slipping away. Then she missed it after it was gone. But that was for the best. She didn’t want any more reminders.

Lily pulled out the weapon. The handle was matte black and rubberized, filthy with gunk like lichen in the diamond-pattern grip. She tested unfolding the blade, finding that it was oil-smooth and quiet, easy with just a little pressure from her thumb. Borderline legal, just one step away from a gravity knife. But legal didn’t really matter any longer, did it? She pocketed it and then rolled the captain, whoever he had been, onto the pile. She’d have to do something about that, one day.

One hand carrying the pipe and the other close to her mangled pocket with the new knife in it, Lily went about her rounds, showing little for her troubles besides an intact scotch bottle half-full and an off-brand smartphone. There was just enough battery power on it to see it was choked with unanswered messages. The top one was frantic enough to make Lily’s heart curl up before she tossed it into the wall. She made sure it was broken enough not to read any more. She had enough problems to not want to hear about anyone else’s needs or fears.

Outside it was good and dark, afterimages of the veins in the sky dully lit. One of the gelatinous kites held fast to the parked jet’s wing in a wind strong enough to voice whistling cries along the face of the terminal. Tentacles lashed, not driven by the wind alone, but trying to brush off more harrying birds. Or maybe they weren’t even birds, but another chunk of alien ecosystem feeding on itself. No free lunches, not even in this new world. Lily stopped in front of the smudgy window and tapped with a middle finger topped by a ragged nail.

“Don’t mess with Baltimore, asshole.”

Maybe it would be gone by the morning, nibbled to death by blackbirds or seagulls or whatever they were.

That moment, that hope of respite hit her with the weight of a runaway truck. She’d been pushing through days and nights with raw nerve, focused on her own continuing and Thomas’ as well. To think that maybe there was an end to this didn’t give her life. It just made her feel everything she’d pushed away. She collapsed into one of the chairs nearby and choked on her own breath, refusing to sob, refusing to cry for anyone who she’d hurt or killed or let die or even live. There wasn’t space in her for that. She was broken as the phone filled with messages.

But she would not cry.

She got up and went back to the lounge to call it a night and not sleep, not until the morning when the shadows cast by nothing would be outside and hungry, unless the birds found a way to eat them too.

Lily pushed open the door then shut it behind her. She nosed her way down the passage, dragging the pipe-spear behind her. Thomas wasn’t on the floor again. Maybe he’d actually rested. The light was off, the big emergency lantern. Some red-orange seeped in, the color of her old clock-radio when she was a kid. It was dim enough that she couldn’t see Tom in the nest of coats. She thought she heard him breathing though.

“Tom? Where are--“

The question went unfinished as something hit her from behind, just a little low to be a good kidney shot. A yawning star of pain opened up beneath her hip, eating awareness of all other things.

“Dumb bitch.” Thomas’ words were a fraying hiss. “You think I didn’t know.”

She dropped to the floor, the spear hitting it before she did. Blood lapped slowly from the wound. Stabbed somehow.

“What are you talking about?”

“Stop talking!” he yelled. His voice was near to shrieking. “I’m not as stupid as you think! I figured it out.”

Lily tried to roll over out of range of his voice. “Figured out what? Aaaah!” Her hipbone ground the cut into the floor as she completed the turn.

“It was you. You’ve been stalking me. You were the one who stabbed me that day.” He grunted and the emergency light came on, making her eyes dazzle.

“That’s crazy, Tom! You’re not thinking right!”

The rod was kicked away, hard enough that it clanged against a wall and echoed with a thud. “And that’s you without a weapon. Christ that hurts. Okay, get up slow.”

Lily did as she was ordered. No reason to let him think he was wrong. It always worked. She held out one hand up. “Hurt my arm when I went down. I can’t lift it.”

“Fine. Whatever.” He grunted. “Now admit it. I wanna hear it from you.”

She turned and he was standing, but swaying under the strain of the pain and exertion. His face was sweat-covered and glossy smooth in the light. He heavily favored his right leg and in his left hand, he carried a small knife, still red and wet with her blood.

Her blood, her knife. She kept her expression dead, wondering how he’d hidden it all this time.

“I was protecting you,” she said. “I saved your life.”

She didn’t say why.

“Stop it.” His expression slackened. “It’s over. I’m well enough to walk and you were too stupid to see that. But what the hell. It was nice to have you wait hand and foot on me while the world went to shit.”

“We got another chance, Tom.” Tears rolled down her cheek, acid hot. “Look me in the eyes and say you really think that!”

His eyes came up slowly, dumbly, afraid of what he might see.

“You’re still weak. You’re not in great shape. Just…”

His eyes locked on her and she took the moment to slide her new knife open. It didn’t even click as it locked.

“Look at my eyes. We got another chance. I brought you this far, okay? We’ll get through this. And after that, if you really want to…”

He looked into her, almost pleadingly, his own strength wavering, as if the knife in his hand weighed as much as that jet outside.

“Want to what?” the question came out like air from a leaking balloon, hollow and small.

“If you want to figure out what went wrong before, then we can.”

New waves of sweat, sweat without end wept out of his pores and his eyes rolled back in his head. He still held the knife as he dropped to the floor, energy and willpower spent. He’d always overestimated himself.

Lily breathed out through the pain as she toed the knife from his sleeping-child grip. Then she wrapped him in jackets where he lay, too heavy to move just now.

“You just get some sleep,” she said, kissing him on the forehead. “We’ll figure it all out.”

Lily slid the knife closed and smiled at him as he breathed deeply and unevenly. She wouldn’t need it just yet. But there was the question of whether he’d put things together or if he had just guessed. He couldn’t have known. She’d been very, very careful. Not perfect, obviously, but very careful. But not as much as she had been patient. Some things just can’t go unanswered.

She went to find the medical kit. Her wound wasn’t deep, but it wouldn’t stop bleeding on its own. She’d have to stop it herself. It wasn’t the first time he’d hurt her, not by far. But it would not happen again.

She watched him breathe in that cold light.

She watched for a long time.