“Give me the knife.”
Bishop’s head snaps up. He looks at me like I am a total stranger. “Just let it die on its own.”
I hold out my hand, palm up. “Give it. You’ve never killed anything before.”
Bishop stands. A wave of anger visibly washes over him. He leans toward me, trying to intimidate whether he knows he’s doing it or not, but his anger isn’t because of me—he’s frustrated, furious with himself, and will take it out on anyone or anything.
“No, I’ve never killed anything before,” he says. He sneers. “Have you?”
I look into his eyes, and I nod.
There is a moment of disbelief, then his anger drains away. He knows I am telling the truth.
“What did you kill?”
“A boy,” I say. My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else, someone incapable of emotion. “His name was Yong. He attacked me.”
It was an accident, I didn’t mean to do it, he gave me no choice.
Bishop is stunned. He is the biggest, he is the strongest, he is the loudest. And me, tiny little me, has done something to another human being he can’t even do to a wounded animal.
“You killed,” he says. “A person. You killed a person? You can’t…I don’t understand. But…how?”
While he stammers, the pig suffers. We’ve talked long enough.
I hold my hand out again.
“I killed him with that knife,” I say. “That’s how. Now give it here.”
He offers it to me. He forgets to do it hilt-first. I reach around the blade and take the knife from him.
I kneel next to the pig.
“Hold it down,” I say.
Bishop kneels, again presses the big head to the grass.
I put my hand on the pig’s shoulder. It’s warm. I can feel the thump-thump of its panicked heart pounding through its body. Yong died because I stabbed him in the belly, but it took a long time. I can’t do the same to this animal; it has suffered enough.
I slide my hand to the thick neck. The muscle there is so firm, almost as solid as wood.
Something tells me this is where I should cut.
I rest the knife’s edge against it.
“Em, don’t,” Bishop says in a voice so quiet I barely hear it even though he is right at my side.
It would be easier to let the pig die a slow, agonizing death. But I’m not going to do the easy thing…I’m going to do the right thing.
The pig’s eye swivels: it looks at me.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
I lean in and slice the blade forward.
Filthy black fur and the muscle beneath it part with no resistance. There is a frozen moment where the cut sits deep and empty, then it fills with blood. I push down harder as I draw the blade back.
Blood spurts out onto the grass, splatters across my face and arms. The pig kicks hard, as if realizing—too late—that this is the end. Bishop throws his body on top of it, weighs it down. The pig twists and tries to bite. Bishop’s hands clamp tight on the animal’s muzzle.
The pig squeals louder than ever before, and keeps squealing. I want it to die, please die, I need that sound to stop.
Bishop is crying, big sobs that shake his big body.
I’m crying, too.
I slice forward again, then back again, pushing down with all my strength.
The pig’s squeals fade, turn into soft grunts.
After a moment, the animal falls silent.
The pig’s eye is still looking at me, but there is no longer any life in it.
I’m numb. I didn’t think it would be like that. I didn’t know what to think, I’m not sure if I thought at all…but not like that.
I don’t know how much time passes before Bishop slides off. He sits next to me. He takes me in his bloody arms and squeezes me tight. His forehead presses against my neck. I drop the knife and I hold him.
We hear footsteps approaching. We both look up: El-Saffani is there. The twins stare down at the pig, stare at the two of us sheeted in blood.
Bishop and I get to our feet.
The twins talk together, first the boy, then the girl.
“We followed the trail—”
“—the bloody footprints made it easy—”
“—and found where you went through the hole in the door.”
Their heads angle down at the same time. They look at the pig, then at Bishop, their eyes bright with astonished admiration.
“It’s dead—”
“—you killed it, Bishop—”
“—you are so brave.”
Bishop shakes his head.
“I tried, but I couldn’t do it,” he says. “It was Em.”
The twins turn their gaze on me. They still have that hard stare, but now there is something different about it—I am no longer the enemy.
Bishop could have lied, could have said he killed the pig and they would have believed him, but he didn’t. He told the truth, instantly and without hesitation.
The pig is dead, yet the horrific squeals still echo in my head alongside Yong’s cries for his mother.
My body, my mind and my spirit, they are all spent. I can’t think. I can’t even feel, and I don’t know if I will ever feel again.