By the time I managed to get her up, get her into my arms and out of the tents, I thought the world was ending. I’d grabbed a knife, but I didn’t know what to do with it. I’d once skinned an animal and it had nearly made me puke.
I found out later that there were only four of them, but at the time it seemed like they were everywhere. That’s one of their tricks. Chaos. Confusion. There was fire—two tents went up just like that, like two match heads exploding—and there were shots and people screaming.
All I could think was run. I had to run. I had to get Blue away from there. But I couldn’t move. I felt terror like a cold weight inside me, rooting me in place, the same way it always had when I was a little girl—when my dad would come down the stairs, stomp, stomp, stomp, his anger like a blanket meant to suffocate us all. Watching from the corner while he kicked my mom in the ribs, in the face, unable to cry, unable to scream, even. For years I’d fantasized that the next time he touched me, or her, I’d stick a knife straight in through the ribs, all the way up to the handle. I’d thought about the blood bubbling from the wound and how good it would feel to know that he, like me, was made out of real stuff, bones and tissue, skin that could bruise.
But every time I was frozen, empty as a shell. Every time I did nothing but take it: red starburst explosions to the face, behind the eyes; pinches and slaps; hard shoves to the chest.
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Tack was shouting from the other side of the camp. I started running to him without thinking, without watching where I was going, still clotted up with panic, with Blue soaking my neck with snot and tears and my heart drilling out of my chest, and when the Scavenger came from the left I didn’t even see him until he was swinging a club at my head.
I dropped Blue. Just let her fall to the ground. And I went down behind her, knees hard in the dirt, trying to shield her. I got a hand around her pajama bottoms and managed to pick her up and get her on her feet.
“Run,” I said. “Go on.” I pushed her. She was crying, and I pushed her. But she ran, as well as she could, on legs that were still too short for her body.
The Scavenger drove a foot between my ribs, exactly the spot where my dad had fractured them when I was twelve. The pain made everything go black for a second, and when I rolled over on my back, everything was different. The stars weren’t stars but a ceiling spotted with water stains. The dirt wasn’t dirt but a nubby carpet.
And the Scavenger wasn’t a Scavenger but Him. My dad.
Eyes small as cuts, fists as fat as leather belts, breath hot and wet in my face. His jaw, his smell, his sweat. He’d found me. He raised a fist and I knew it was starting all over again, that it would never stop, that he would never leave me alone and I would never escape.
That Blue would never be safe.
Everything went dark and silent.
I didn’t know I’d reached for the knife until it was deep between his ribs.
That’s all I’ve ever heard: silence. The times I’ve killed. The times I’ve had to kill. If there is a God, I guess he has nothing to say about it.
If there is a God, he must have gotten tired of watching a long time ago.
There is silence in Julian Fineman’s execution room, except for the occasional click-click of a camera, except for the drone of the priest’s voice. But when Abraham saw that Isaac had become unclean, he asked in his heart for guidance . . .
Silence like whiteness: like things painted over and concealed, or left unsaid.
Silence except for the squeak, squeak of my sneakers on the linoleum floor. The doctor turns to look at me, annoyed. Confused.
The first gunshot is very loud.
I’m remembering: all those years ago, sitting with Tack when he was newly named. The red-ember glow of the fire in the old woodstove, and Blue, breathing easier already, heavy in my arms. Sleep sounds from the other rooms, and somewhere above us, the hiss of the wind through the trees.
“You came back,” I said. “I didn’t think you would.”
“I wasn’t going to,” he admitted. He looked different, wearing clothes Grandpa had found for him in the storeroom—much younger, much skinnier. His eyes were huge dark hollows in his face. I thought he was beautiful.
I hugged Blue a little closer. She was still hot, still fussing in her sleep. But her breaths came even and slow, and there was no trapped rattle in her chest. For the first time, it struck me that I’d been lonely. Not just at the homestead, where everyone was too busy surviving to worry about making friends, where most of the Invalids were older or half-soft in the head or just liked to keep to themselves. Even before that. At home I’d never had friends either. I couldn’t afford to, couldn’t let them see what my house was like, didn’t want anyone paying attention or asking questions.
Alone. I’d been alone my whole life. “Why did you change your mind?” I said.
He smiled a little. “Because I knew you thought I’d bail.”