Struggling around me breaks my song, and I startle a little, as the hold around me disappears, I’m on the floor. No contact anymore. My knees pull into me, body recoiling towards something soft. It cushions the pain in my back, but nothing is stopping the pain in the rest of me, as I keep staring blankly. More movement. Legs and shouts ringing out in front of my gaze on the floor.
And then bright green eyes stare back at my level, blood dripping across one of them.
He’s gasping, trying to breathe. Can’t. Not with an arm around his neck.
I look up slightly, stare at Malachi as he stares at me. He looks vicious, nasty. Like he comes from my streets. Nothing like my memories of him. His face is contorted, sneered, malevolent, as he keeps choking the bad man. It takes me away from the pain for a while, makes me think of rage and carnage and Devil's nights and vengeance.
Blood.
Death.
Dead men.
Tommy.
The body in his hold drops with a thud. I see his face then, recognise it. Temple Greene. He’s dead. Vacant. Gone. And yet he’s still inside me.
They all are.
More movement. A knife. Big knife.
Temple’s body is turned, his trousers pushed off. And then more blood, as I watch hands I know well sawing through skin with the blade. Not my skin this time – Temple’s skin. It’s a mess. It’s all a mess and I’m just here watching blood and gore and quiet violence.
“Alice?”
That was Malachi. It was. I know that voice. It’s real to me. He’s here for me. Brought our song with him. One, two, three. One, two, three
Bloodied hands pull me up again, this time filled with a solidity I recognise. Something goes around my shoulders, warmth. I can smell it on me – smell him. It feels like a cloak on me. A death cloak. That’s what I’m doing – dying. I’m falling into myself like I was before when I was watching the water. I should have stayed in that. Found a blade. Sliced myself.
“I’m here,” Malachi says.
Always here.
But he wasn’t.
Not where I needed him to be.
Mirrors then. Mirrors and the feel of us going down. I gaze at myself in his hold, peer through the wall of black clothes shielding us from a clear view. It’s just me in his arms, him in his shirt. Protecting me. His protection is too late. I’m not rescued.
It’s already done.
More movement. More blurred images. We’re outside. Moving fast across the ground. Cars. Number plates. More men circling us, some talking. I close my eyes to all of it, not caring for anything in the now. I’m still back there. Still feeling the abuse, still in pain. There’s nothing else but that until we reach the inside of something.
I’m held as movement starts under us. We’re moving again, driving this time. No noise anymore. No sound of footsteps around us. No song. Just quiet.
Nothing but the sound of deep breaths above my head.
“Sssh. I’m here now.”
But not then.
I still don’t have any words. None.
They’re gone.
~
I don’t know where time has gone. Is there any? Doesn’t matter if there is or not. There’s just this bed around me and the dull drone of noise. I think I’ve slept. Or maybe not. I’m alone, though. I wasn’t. I can remember water on me, hands on me. It was Malachi. He was in clothes while he washed me. I could see his chest through his shirt, feel his hands gently landing on parts of me. It’s not replacing the memory of what happened before that. They’re still all over me still. In me.
