I know his only response is to attack, so I leap to the side as soon as I finish the sentence.
Joe lunges at where I was standing, swiping the air and exposing his left deltoid. I launch myself at him and cling to his arm like a monkey on a tree trunk.
Before the needle goes in, Joe’s claws go into my shoulder, and he stabs me.
A geyser of blood shoots into his mask.
Fuck. He hit my artery.
The blood keeps gushing.
I fall off him and land hard on my back.
Joe stands over me. Triumphant. He swatted me away like King Kong.
My blood is still spurting out, spitting into the air and pooling around my head.
He just watches.
This is his thing, wounding someone and waiting for them to bleed out.
This is how he gets his jollies.
I’m so full of shit my brain is too wired to know that it’s not getting any more blood.
The fountain turns into a trickle, then stops.
My heart should go next.
My last image will be the man who murdered me.
The man about to kill Jillian.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
THROMBOSIS
Joe looms over me, taking quiet satisfaction in my death, letting me ooze out like a stuck pig.
I lie here helpless, staring up at the sequoia of a man, waiting for my vision to fade and the ferryman to take me across the river Styx.
Still waiting . . .
And waiting . . .
Shit, dying takes a while.
Has time slowed down?
I’m experiencing my death remotely, like my Marvel Comics Watcher, who is there for the end of things.
Is death like the event horizon of a black hole, where you fall forever?
I know it’s subjective and all, but shit, I should really be dead now.
It doesn’t matter how many drugs are in my system—once you bleed out like that from an arterial wound, it’s a matter of physics. You should be dead.
But I’m still alive. Or at least aware.
Joe starts to kneel down. I can hear him inhaling under his mask. He senses something.
“Theo . . . ,” moans Jillian.
She’s a crumpled rag at the edge of the clearing.
Joe’s head turns to face the sound she made.
Then it hits me.
Joe didn’t strike an artery.
He sliced into a blood bag.
I’m sure I got punctured, too, but that geyser wasn’t my blood.
My pressure is dropping, to be sure . . . which also means that any moment now— BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
My little blood pump kicks to life. Joe whips his neck around to look at me.
I continue to play dead.
The pump sounds a lot like a pager.
He leans over me, trying to identify the source of the vibration.
I.
Don’t.
Fucking.
Breathe.
Joe slides his right glove off and holds it in his left. His massive hand pats me down on the side.
I spot his thick, pink neck under his mask. It’s his soft spot. His gill slits.
Like an opportunistic dolphin, I slam the syringe I’m clenching into his neck.
“MOTHERFUCKER!” he bellows.
“Made you break character, asshole.”
His fist pounds into my face, pulverizing my nose.
Joe starts to put the claws back on, then leans backward on his heels. He stands upright and wobbles.
I roll away and pull myself to my knees. Now I feel wobbly.
Joe stumbles to the side, then stops himself. He gets the glove all the way on, then lumbers toward me.
Weak, but slightly more coordinated than him, I shift to my side. He passes, then collapses like a drunk.
My bad leg gives way, and I fall to my knees, then hit the dirt face-first.
Blood runs down my neck and into my mouth. I can’t see Joe.
I can’t see shit.
I think I’m crashing.
A hand grabs me by my upper arm and pulls me upright.
I try to swing a fist at my attacker but can’t tell where they are.
“Theo!” Jillian yells.
Shit. I almost hit her.
I stop resisting and let her drag me over to a log and sit me upright.
“Are you okay?” she asks, squatting in front of me.
There’s blood running down her face from where Joe knocked her out. “Are you?” I ask.
“Better than you. Hold on.” She limps over to where I dropped the shotgun and picks it up. “Stay with me.”
She sits down and cradles my head in her lap with one hand and keeps the other on the shotgun facing Joe’s unconscious body.
I start to drift off.
“Theo!” She slaps me awake. “Ambulance is on the way. Stay with me.”
I look over and see Joe’s body is still there. I try to do the math and warn her that if he’s not dead, he’ll be up any minute now. We need to think like dolphins.
I fall into a daze before I can say anything.
I think I’m dreaming.
BOOM!
I bolt awake and look for Joe’s body—it’s gone.
“Jillian!”
“It’s okay,” she says.
“He’s gone!”
“To hell, Theo. He’s gone to hell.”
Then I see it—Joe’s corpse sprawled against a tree. His mask is ripped away, and there’s a bloody pulp where his face should be.
I don’t know if he was coming or going, but she dropped the son of a bitch.
I like this woman.
They’re carrying me away.
Red and blue lights wash over the trees.
EMTs pull at my clothes, detaching the tubes.
I expect the face of the paramedic to be my own.
But it’s not.
I don’t even think I’m here.
I decide I’m not.
I’m back at that campus pizza parlor with my students. Juniper is looking at me. She leans in, our fingers almost touching on the bench between us.
She has Jillian’s face.
This time I don’t pull away. I move closer and cover her delicate hand with mine.
She smiles.