The water runs cold, then hot, then cold again as I scrub, watching my reflection in the spotted mirror. How can eyes look the same when they’ve seen so many terrible things? How can hands not have changed when they’ve been doused in gore again and again? But no matter how hard I look, I can’t find any visible evidence of what kind of man I am these days. Good or bad, sinner or saint, it’s impossible to say. It’s all lost in the crooked slope of my nose and the cold blue of my irises. No proof either way of whether I’m going up or down when my time on earth expires.
I want to believe that keeping my promises will punch my ticket upstairs. Eliana made me swear, and I didn’t cross her line. Harold suffered no permanent damage. No scars that won’t heal. He will walk out of here intact, if not untraumatized.
But I came so fucking close.
And fuck, how easy it would have been. Press just a little harder. Let the knife do what knives do best. I think about the blade in my pocket, still warm from proximity to Harold’s skin. Theweightof it. How it felt in that alley and every time since.
I’m still the monster she ran from. Just on a leash now.
I wonder how long before the leash breaks—or before Eliana realizes she’s holding the other end of something that should have been put down a long, long time ago.
30
ELIANA
nightcap /'nit?kap/: noun
1: a final drink taken before bed.
2: one more taste. just for tonight.
I’ve been lying here for what feels like three consecutive geological eras, rolling from side to side, trying to find some configuration of limbs, blankets, and pillows that doesn’t make me want to scream bloody murder into the void.
The pullout couch is actively hostile to my sleep patterns. I’m pretty sure it’s made of actual rocks bound together with Scotch tape and spite. The pillows are Styrofoam at best. The blankets—let’s not even go there.
Around 2 A.M., I give up entirely.
I peel myself off the couch with all the grace of the beached whale that I’m slowly becoming and shuffle toward the kitchen, one hand on my belly and the other outstretched to navigate the unfamiliar darkness.
I’m absolutely parched. I feel like the Dry Squidward meme.Waaateeer.I just need some water, and maybe then I’ll be able to catch a few hours of sleep before dawn.
But when I pass the front door, I freeze.
I smell cigarette smoke. The sharp, acrid scent of it drifts in through the crack under the door and into my nostrils. My heart does a stupid little leap, because I know immediately who it is.
I go to the front door and ease it open as quietly as I can. I stand there, a balmy night breeze on my face. “You’re back.”
Bastian doesn’t answer right away. When he does, he sounds beyond exhausted. “Yeah.” Another pause. “Couldn’t sleep?”
I step outside, letting the door close behind me with a soft click. The concrete of the front stoop is cool under my bare feet. It’s a classic Midwestern summer night, humid enough to feel like I’m being actively waterboarded, but still better than the swampy heat of a house crammed with too many fugitives.
“My bed is a cinderblock with fangs,” I say. “What’s your excuse?”
“Couldn’t stop thinking.”
I can hear him take a drag. The cigarette crackles as it burns. The tang of smoke mixes with the wintergreen scent that’s pure Bastian in a way that almost disorients me. Like two different versions of him colliding in my nostrils.
“Since when do you smoke?” I ask. I lower myself to sit beside him. My hip nearly grazes his thigh, but I leave a careful inch of space between us.
“Since the day I died,” Bastian says with a dry laugh. “I bought a pack on impulse after I staged the body. Haven’t touched them until tonight, though. I dunno why.” He takes another long drag. “Seemed like as good a time as any to start bad habits, I suppose.”
I hold out my hand. “Let me try.”
“Eliana—”
“I’m not asking for a lecture on prenatal health. I’m asking for a cigarette.”
Still, he hesitates. I don’t think it’s the nicotine he’s objecting to—though God knows I don’t need that—but rather the ritual. The implication, so to speak. The pretense that we’re just two people sitting on a stoop in the middle of the night, sharing a smoke, shooting the shit, la di da, life is simple, life is normal, life is beautifully boring.
