“What are . . . doing to her?” I growl at the pitchmen, all my hard-won fluency melting away in the heat of panic.
“We are making her a comparable offer,” Yellow Tie says.
“Does she share your ambivalence toward discomfort?” Blue Tie asks me.
Julie’s scream rises higher and higher and then breaks off, collapses into a sob.
My eyes squeeze shut. I see fireworks. I see fire. I see flames roaring from rooftops, kids running from schools. I see rapturous faces watching the flames, watching me, hands clapping, applauding, eyes glittering in the orange light, and a bottle in my hand, a flaming rag stuffed into it—
I see a cheap plywood casket descending into a hole in the ground, a preacher sprinkling platitudes into it like piss into a toilet while fools watch and pretend to weep—
I see a blond woman in a forest, bruised and bloody, eyes full of loathing as she presses my gun to her forehead—
I open my eyes.
Julie is tied to a chair by my side, our shoulders almost touching. She is looking at me with a kind of bleakly apologetic smile, breathing hard, her eyes red and wet.
“Hi, R,” she says.
Her face is spotted with small bruises. Her lower lip is cracked and puffy. On the side of her neck just above the clavicle, precisely my favorite place to kiss, the skin is mottled with the bluish brown of an electrical burn.
I feel the TV cables cutting into my ankles and forearms. I hear the chair creaking under the strain.
“Stop,” she says gently. “I’m okay. Don’t give them what they want.”
“Unfortunately,” Blue Tie says, “we do need to continue the interview at this time.”
“Remember,” Yellow Tie says, “if at any time you would like to accept our offer, simply say ‘yes.’?”
Black Tie sticks the wire into the burn on Julie’s neck.
“Stop it!” I scream as she writhes against her bonds. “Stop!”
“If you would like to accept our offer, simply say—”
“We can’t . . . do what you want!” I sputter, choking on my tongue. “Even if . . . wanted to . . . can’t! We don’t control the Dead!”
“Our reports show that you are viewed as leadership figures by the non-living population,” Yellow Tie says. “We look forward to working with you toward a greater mutual understanding.”
“Yes!” Julie growls through clenched teeth as she writhes in her chair. “Yes!”
Black Tie removes the wire from Julie’s neck and she slumps over, gasping.
“You agree to assist us?” Yellow Tie asks, her smile radiating goodwill.
“Yes,” Julie wheezes.
I stare at her, unsure what to feel.
“You are aware, of course,” Blue Tie says, “that these interviews will remain available to you throughout our partnership. If at any point your cooperation wanes, they will resume.”
“We believe in ongoing commitment to excellence,” Yellow Tie says. “?‘Yes’ should be more than just a word.”
“Oh,” Julie says, straightening up in her chair. “Well in that case, no.”
Yellow Tie tilts her head and pouts like a disappointed mother.
“We apologize for our failure to communicate effectively,” Blue Tie says.
Black Tie sets the power cord down and opens a case full of electrician’s tools.
“Julie,” I plead with her, though I don’t know what I’m pleading for. Do I want to give in? Do I want to do my best to help them own the Dead along with the Living? How much of the world would I burn to keep Julie safe?
“It’s okay,” she says. “We’ll be okay.”
Black Tie pulls out a pair of cable shears. He sets them on Julie’s lap and pries open her fist, forcing her fingers flat against the chair’s arm.
“No,” I say. “No. No. Julie, I can’t . . .”
“R, listen to me,” she says, her voice beginning to tremble. “I’m not going to help them. That’s my choice. So no matter what they do to me . . .”
Her eyes dart toward her hand as Black Tie spreads her fingers out and picks up the shears. They dart back to me, wide with panic. “No matter what they do to me—”
She shrieks. The tip of her ring finger falls to the floor. One unique print, one yellow-painted nail, rolling across the filthy floor and vanishing beneath a locker.
My mind becomes a furnace of incoherent horror. “Stop!” I scream at Yellow Tie. “I’ll do it! What do you want me to do, I’ll do it!”
“R!” Julie snaps savagely. “You don’t get to surrender for me! It’s my choice and I’ve fucking made it!”
Black Tie moves the shears further up, toward the base of the finger.
“You don’t always have to keep me safe,” she says, her voice suddenly soft, and she somehow manages a smile. “That’s not why I love you.”
A tiny sound, like the snap of a fresh carrot.