I sniffled and, with every muscle of my body resisting my brain’s orders, struggled to
bring my knees down into the water. I was sobbing, deep convulsing sobs. I brought my arms and
hands down next and watched his blood swirl in a haze, dissipating into my bathwater. I lay down
and ducked my head underwater, silencing my cries.
My skin pruned and a towel wrapped around my torso, I zombie-walked to my bedroom. Standing
dazed in the doorway, it took me a few minutes to clue in that my room was completely empty.
Apart from the sheets on my bed, there was no trace of me left in there. I remembered that my
stuff was somewhere out there being hastily packed so that no traces of me were left behind as
evidence of my dream and nightmare.
I yanked the curtain closed and walked away. It would take me a while before I would be able to
go in there again. I rummaged through my roommate Cassie’s room. Midway through the last school
year, Cassie had decided that she was a vampire. Of the few clothes that she had left behind,
all were black—good enough for walking around in my coffin.
Dressed for mourning, I went downstairs, turned on the TV, and lay on the couch. I hid under the
blanket that I had dragged off of Cassie’s bed and closed my eyes. I would stay in that spot,
waiting for someone to come identify the body.
The pain had localized to my right hand, which had crunched when my fist had connected with
Spider’s face. I’d spent my time watching the two middle fingers slowly grow black and blue. I
couldn’t bend them anymore. By the second morning, they were so swollen that the inflammation
was starting to spread to the other fingers. All I wanted to do was sleep and forget. But the
throbbing was keeping me up now. Grudgingly, I used some of Cassie’s pale Goth makeup to cover
up the nasty bruise that Victor had left on my cheek and neck and headed for the school medical
clinic.
The X-rays confirmed that one finger was dislocated and the other had a hairline fracture.
“How did this happen?” the doctor asked, scanning my face over the edge of his glasses as if
he could see the bruises showing through the pound of makeup.
“Kickboxing,” I said without flinching. I had planned my excuse ahead of time.
“Hmmm,” he said, disbelief coloring his tone. “One more day and gangrene would have cost you
a finger or two.”
He grabbed hold of my dislocated finger and, without warning, snapped it back into place. It
didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, but the awful sound of bones cracking into place
brought a wave of nausea. I pushed the doctor away on time to puke in his garbage can. He rushed
out of the room. A first-year medical student came to finish the work.
Though I had to painfully sit still while the nervous student wedged—tried to wedge—my
throbbing fingers into metal loops, at least there were no more questions. He needed to put all
of his attention on his patient … his first patient ever, apparently. He would probably
remember this for the rest of his life—and I would try very hard to forget.
I trudged back to the house, looking down, avoiding eye contact with those that I passed on the
street—like these strangers knew everything, like they were judging me for having survived
Cameron. My pace quickened with every person that walked by. When I got back to the house, I
almost slammed into Tiny on the walkway. He ignored me and went back to the truck for more
boxes.
Carly was standing by Spider’s truck, directing foot traffic. She warily walked over to me and
pulled me to the side so that the guards could finish their job and get out of there.
“How are you?” she asked, her eyes scanning my face. Her voice had almost seemed genuinely
concerned.
I glared back and squeezed my unbroken hand into a fist, but a booming bark woke me from the
shadows. Meatball was pulling at his leash, which had been tied to one of the pillars of the
front porch. The sight of him made me start crying. I was amazed that I had any tears left in me
—everything else inside me had seemed to run dry.
“We brought Meatball. He should be with you,” she said softly.
I wiped my cheeks with the sleeve of my shirt. She noticed my badly taped-up fingers. “Your
hand! Is it broken?”
“It was worth it.”
She pressed her lips. “I don’t know what you said to Spider in the car, but he was raging mad
when he got back. I’ve never seen him so upset before. He looked like—”
“What? Like he was going to kill someone?”
Carly stood frozen like I had just slapped her in the face. In a way, my words had done just
that.
Tiny and the rest of the guards finished bringing in my bins and were waiting for Carly by the
truck.
“You can go now,” I said with bitterness.
She jumped, suddenly awake. “No, I can’t. I have something for you.” She pulled a folded
piece of paper from the back pocket of her jeans and handed it to me. I unfolded it, and a
business card fell out in the process. Scribbled on the lined paper were some forty rows of
jumbled letters, numbers and dashes.