“You have to move your hands,” she says. “Okay? Move your hands.”
Not knowing what else to do, I start petting his head like Spingate did, sliding my palm from his eyebrows back. Blood on my hand smears across his circle-star, gets into his hair.
His skin…it’s cool, clammy, and not just from the blood. He’s sweating.
I look at Spingate. “Do something!”
She tugs at his hands, trying to pull them away from his stomach. “I’m trying,” she says. “Can’t you see that I’m trying?”
Yong’s hands won’t budge. Spingate leans over them, pulls harder, but his hands stay in place, clutching so tight I wonder if his fingertips are punching through the skin, causing even more damage.
“Aramovsky,” she says, “help me here.”
He does as he’s told, his black-skinned fingers wrapping around Yong’s blood-covered wrists, pulling them gently but insistently, overpowering Yong’s resistance. Yong’s fingers clutch at open air.
“Mom…it hurts.”
Not as much energy in his words now. The mom comes out as a long, broken word: maa-aaa-aahm.
Spingate rips Yong’s shirt open, sending buttons flying. His tan skin is a sheet of smeared red. She wipes her hands down his muscled belly, shoving away the blood, making him almost clean for a moment.
But only a moment, because red wells up out of a stab wound slightly above and to the left of his belly button. Gush, flow…gush, flow…
Spingate slaps my shoulder.
“Em! The tie!”
I shove it against the wound, so fast he cries out like I punched him there. I press the tie firmly, hoping it will do what Spingate said it would do.
Yong looks at me with unfocused eyes.
“Mom? Please…make it stop.”
The words are weak. His hands relax, shift from clutching talons to limp fingers.
His eyes close. Did he pass out?
Spingate shakes him again.
“Yong! Wake up!”
The tie is already soaked, a wet washcloth that needs to be wrung out, but I keep it pressed in place.
“If he’s asleep, he won’t fight us,” I say. “Why don’t you want him to sleep?”
She looks at me, confused. “Why? I…I don’t know. Just because.”
Aramovsky glances at me, his eyes full of doubt. He doesn’t think Spingate knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t, clearly, but none of us do.
Yong’s entire body relaxes. His head tilts to the left. Aramovsky lowers Yong’s hands, puts them on the floor next to his hips.
Spingate is breathing too fast. She shakes her head. “I’m twelve,” she whispers. “I’m twelve.”
She rubs at her thighs. I see tears dripping down her cheeks.
“Stop it,” I hiss. “Crying doesn’t fix anything. Help him!”
Spingate looks at me, a fast glance where she catches my eyes, then her hands go back to work. She places them flat on Yong’s belly, one on either side of the tie.
“Em, lift it away, slowly,” she says, and I do.
The blood burbles out suddenly, like we’d filled a balloon and then opened the end. The brief gush flows down his side….
The gush that follows is much smaller.
I wait for the next one, but it doesn’t come.
The bleeding has stopped.
I look at the tie in my hands: red fabric soaked with red, red that drips down onto Yong, onto my legs, onto the floor. Yong’s blood has turned the dust beneath my knees from powder gray into a crimson slush.
Spingate blinks, like she just remembered something. She presses two fingers firmly to Yong’s neck.
He doesn’t react.
Aramovsky and I stare. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bello coming closer, hand over her mouth, eyes wide, head shaking slightly.
Spingate moves her fingers, tries another spot. A pulse—that’s what she’s looking for, a pulse.
She moves her fingers again, to below his jaw, pressing them in so deep the skin and muscle of Yong’s neck billow up on either side.
He doesn’t move.
My eyes drift to the stab wound, the wound that I made.
A thin line of blood lies in it, pooled there, unmoving.
Spingate pulls her shaking hand away.
“He’s…he’s gone.”
The word turns Yong from a person into a thing. I fall to my butt, scoot away, leaving a wide, smeared path through the red slush until my back hits the wall and I can go no farther.
I stare at the frightened little boy who wanted his mother.
Yong is dead.
I killed him.
TWELVE
I don’t know how long we sit there.
Spingate is crying. So is Bello, and this time I don’t think she’s being weak. I wonder if I should be crying, too, but no tears come.
Yong’s blood is all over my shirt, my plaid skirt. Spingate is blood-smeared as well, with two prominent streaks on her ribs where she tried to wipe her hands clean after he died. I know it’s not her own blood, and I know it’s not the right way to think about it, but I’m almost glad she’s finally dirty.
Aramovsky’s shirt is spotless. Not a speck on it, not even a wrinkle.
“It’s not your fault, Em,” he says. “It was an accident.”
“Of course it was,” I snap.