It’s a fate I avoid at all costs.
Vial in one hand, I jam the needle into the wax top and pull back on the plunger. Dark liquid fills up the glass barrel. I’m tempted to overdose to deal with the pain of the stab wound, but think better of it. I’m going after Dorothy. I will find her. And when I do, I need to be fully in control.
Finding the vein is easy and when I press down on the plunger, the Oil hits me like a cyclone, rocking me back.
Immediate fucking relief.
A fuzzy warmth fills my veins.
The aches and pains in my body disappear.
The nausea abates.
I hang my head, giving in to the feeling…
… the flood of euphoria.
THIRTY-THREE
Cleo
The Tinman is slumped in his chair.
Cleo watches him for several minutes.
She is familiar with this scene, a drug injected, a person nodding off. But more than once, she has moved too early, too quickly, waking Delphine, who would rage against the disruption.
So Cleo waits. She waits some more.
All her life, she feels like she has been waiting.
For something.
For someone.
Maybe for herself.
When she’s sure the Tinman is unconscious, she gets up and crosses the inn’s dining room and comes to a stop at the axe embedded in the wooden doorframe.
Her ears ring.
There is nothing special about the weapon.
The handle is made of emerald wood. Cleo knows this because of the green tinge to the wood. The blade itself is polished Western steel with a crescent moon front and a sharp, pointy back. A tactical axe.
It’s a weapon made to fell. Tree or man or beast.
She reaches up to grab the handle, her fingers tingling with anticipation. And then she pulls.
The axe stays firmly lodged in the wood.
She yanks again, this time planting her feet wide, her slippers pressed hard into the stone.
Still nothing. It’s like the axe is lodged in stone, not splintered wood. It shouldn’t be that hard to dislodge it.
“No one touches my axe.”
Cleo yelps and jumps back.
