Because that’s what this is. It has to be. It can’t be real, it cannot be my life, it cannot be Bastian standing at the far end of an alley with blood on his hands and those eyes so fucking black, sucking away all the light.
That’s exactly what they’re doing, actually. They’re sucking away the light. They’ve been doing that for a long time now, haven’t they?
They stole the light from the corners of my vision first. One little dot of paint at a time, they snatched it away from me. And they were greedy, those black eyes of Bastian’s. So they kept taking. And taking. And taking. Nibbling away at the world I could see until all I have left is this kernel, this tiny little pinhole.
And framed in that pinhole is one of the last things I’ll ever get to see: Bastian Hale, the man I thought I loved, with death dripping from those hands that I’d finally begun to believe would keep me safe.
That’s the final image.
The blood.
The rain.
The eyes.
The hands.
The chef’s knife that severed the last tie.
When I can’t bear it anymore, I turn and run.
59
ELIANA
gut: /g?t/: verb
1: to remove the internal organs.
2: to rip out the last precious thing you had.
Behind me, I hear Bastian shout my name—once, twice—but his voice gets swallowed by the rain and the roar of blood in my ears. I don’t stop to hear if he yells it a third time.
The alley spits me out onto a main street. I careen left without thinking and shoulder-check a lamppost hard enough to spin me sideways. My hip clips the edge of a newspaper box. I wobble but catch myself, keep moving.
The world has narrowed to almost nothing now. Just a tiny speck of vision straight ahead. Everything else has been swallowed by the ever-encroaching darkness.
I crash into someone, a man in a rain jacket who grunts and grabs my elbow to steady me. “Hey, watch where you’re?—”
I wrench free and keep running. His voice fades behind me, probably calling me crazy. He’s not wrong.
A car horn blares. Headlights flash across my face. I leap back just as a taxi screams past, close enough that I feel the spray from its tires soak me all over again.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, lady!” the driver yells out his window.
I don’t respond. I’m already moving again, tripping off the curb and across the street. My foot lands in a pothole filled with rainwater and I pitch forward, catching myself on the hood of a parked car. The metal is cold and slick under my bloody palms.
I push off and keep going.
More.
Faster.
Away.
Gone.
People blur past me—umbrellas and coats and voices asking if I’m okay, if I need help. I ignore all of them. My lungs are burning. My legs feel like they’re moving through concrete. But I run anyway because if I stop, if I let myself stand still for even a second, I’ll have to think about what I just saw.
