Faye stepped closer, plucked up her courage, raised her arm toward Henry, said, “Take my hand, Henry. I’ll lead you somewhere safer. Someone could walk in at any time.”
Henry hesitated a moment, then reached out his giant steel hand, searching. He brushed against Faye’s tiny fingers, and she drew in a quick, sharp breath. “You’re so cold,” she said. Then her fingers found purchase on two of his fingers. She clasped them and pulled. “Come on.”
She led them away from the door, away from the tiny window, away from any source of light, deeper into the boiler room. She knew her way around the boiler room because she often came down here for a sneaky smoke on particularly cold days in the dead of winter. Even so, she walked carefully, feeling ahead of her path with her right foot.
A minute later, she stopped. They were tucked into a far corner of the room, sort of an alcove, with three walls very close around them. Cleaning supplies stacked neatly near their feet. Henry clumsily kicked a broom and bucket as he stepped inside.
“Shhh, Henry, careful.”
“Sorry,” he said, sheepishly. “Still getting used to these big clodhoppers.”
The space was small, maybe five or six square feet. They were now so close that touching was unavoidable. Milo floated just outside the alcove, watching, listening.
Tentatively, Faye reached a hand up to Henry’s face. She cupped her palm, feeling the edge of his cheek. Cold as ice, hard as stone. She flinched back for a moment, and Henry flinched away, too. She recovered herself, pressed against the cheek again, this time leaving her hand there, warming the steel.
“I remember how hot you were in your apartment,” Faye said. “Burning up. But dead.”
“Not dead, I guess, just changing.”
Her hand moved down to his neck, where sharp protrusions nestled in clumps near his collar bone.
“Careful,” Henry said.
She felt around to the other side of his face, to his nose, his mouth, lips. He bent over more so she could feel his forehead, the top of his skull. He knew she needed to do this, to understand. To prepare herself for when she could no longer hide him in darkness.
She moved her hand from his head, ran it down the length of his left arm. Smooth except for thin crevices where the steel had not yet fully formed. A gentle thrumming coursed through her palm as she explored. Whatever Henry was becoming, he was still in transition, and Faye was experiencing the change in real time. Her flesh to his, connected intimately.
Faye’s fingertips down Henry’s arm were like a soothing balm applied to the skin of a burn victim. He felt as though he were on fire as the machinery inside him went about its work, but Faye’s touch calmed him, made him feel somehow at peace with what was happening to him. Although encouraged by this, at the back of his mind, he knew that she had still not actually seen him – all of him – clearly, and that when she did, there would be no more touching, no more sympathy, nothing. She would run from him, get clear of him as fast as humanly possible.
And what would he do? Would there still be enough of who he was left to understand the rejection, to let her go? Or would he follow her, run her down, smash her to pulp?
Faye ran her hand down his right arm. This one was less formed, thicker crevices, some small holes here and there, her fingers dropping into these empty spots, then popping back out, like a tire going over potholes.
When she explored his chest, she used both hands pushed flat against him. This was different terrain. Not nearly as smooth as his head and arms. Being careful to avoid the sharper protrusions near his collar, she felt where his pectoral muscles would normally have been, and moved down from there. The metal here seemed to ripple – somehow reacting to her touch. Down, farther still, to his belly. His abdomen tensed as she neared it, then settled into a similar rippling motion as his chest. She wondered briefly what it meant, if anything. She was going to ask, but found that she couldn’t form the words. She was too entranced by the motion beneath her fingers to manage speech.
After a few more moments with her hands on his stomach, she pulled them back, said, “We need to get you somewhere safe. Someone will eventually come in here for cleaning supplies.”
“I know.”
She waited a moment, felt her heart racing. Was she really going to say this?
“You can stay with me, but I don’t know how we’re going to get you to my apartment without being seen.”
* * *
Milo had been floating outside the alcove, hypnotized by the scene inside. He suddenly felt something like the air pressure changing in the room. His senses prickled. He turned, drifted away from the alcove a few feet and, not more than an arm’s length away, a woman stood.
Looking right at him.