Leah laughs. “Holy shit. I forgot. You’re crazy too. We put a God View on her phone, you stupid bitch. We read all your sad little messages. What’s wrong with you enabling her being crazy like that, huh?”
“You—” My heart is stuttering in my chest, and my head is floating. I can’t tell if I’m having a panic attack, or if it’s whatever’s in the water. It wouldn’t be this instant, would it?
“You,” Leah mocks in a whiny voice. “You don’t have a mom. You’ve got no one. You are no one. That’s why you’re here. The only meaningful thing you’ll ever do is die. You should be grateful.”
There are no thoughts, only action. I whip the bottle, spraying the liquid that’s left at her face. She steps back and reflexively tries to block it with her hands. I throw the bottle at her face. She takes one more step.
It puts her close enough that Emma can grab her by her perfect topknot. Leah flails, then hits the floor. The sound of Emma’s foot impacting her stomach is a thick thud, followed by a choking gasp. Leah curls into a ball on her side and clutches her middle.
The whipcrack sound of a Taser lighting up punctures the air. Emma’s face contorts into waves of twitching spasms from the Taser pressed to her thigh. She kneels on the floor gasping for breath.
Leah gets to her feet, still clutching the Taser. She looks like she’s about to use it on Emma again, thinks better of it, then abruptly turns to retreat. She gets a few strides in, and then Emma’s tennis shoe smacks into the back of her head.
Leah whirls on Emma and lets out a sound of pure frustration. She’s still backing up, holding the Taser with both hands in front of her like a sword.
“Did you just throw yourshoeat me? What’s wrong with—”
Leah tries to take another step back, but trips on my outstretched leg.
She stumbles, arms wide. The world slows as she falls, and a thought rings through my head clear as a bell.
Hurting people is actually pretty easy. It’s the getting-started part that’s hard.
She hits with a muffled “Ooph.” The Taser flies out of her hand. I grab her ankle. She jerks away, but I hold on. Her squirming just makes it easier to pull her toward me.
The new thing taking shelter in my skull is panting and shaking and all I can think is:
yes yes YES eat survive
The world falls away until there’s nothing but the hot rush of a struggle between living and dying. She’s below me. Her nails rake across my neck. I feel it, but not enough to stop me from pressing the handcuff chain into the thin skin of her throat.
Her hand is on my chin, pushing me away. My tongue and lips are slick. Iron in my mouth and at the back of my throat. Did I bite my cheek? Did I bite her? Either way something is bleeding.
This is a bad way to die, I think.This is a horrible thing for Emma to see.
I can’t do this.
I pull back. I’m shaking so hard that the handcuffs clink when my wrists knock together. Goose bumps cover my entire body. The world is melting and blurring into a swirl of colors.
A whisper of breath brushes against the shell of my ear. It carries the smell of decomposition.
I try to move, but I’m too slow. I’m never fucking fast enough, am I? I’m never fast enough to save myself or anyone else.
A weight slams into my back. It knocks the air from my lungs and presses me into Leah. I can’t get up past my elbows, and I can only get a little space between the chain and her neck. My biceps scream from the effort.
“Don’t, don’t, please—”
All there is, in and around me, is rage. It’s not hot, not fiery. It’s a frigid Ohio river, running brown and thick with ice in the dead of winter.
Cold hands slide down my shoulders, down my arms, down my wrists. The thing—the monster, because it’s not human, it can’t be—rests its hands over mine. Its fingers, long and cold and gaunt, worm into the spaces between my own. They’re the same fingers I saw at the hollow.
The hands press and press and press until I feel my wrist bones grinding—
together, always together they come to burn you to trap you, they’re never alone, this one is alone, this one willdie,they’ll all—
It’s not mine. The emotions. The images. None of this ismine. The tuning fork has been shoved right in my ear canal, and something slick and wet drags over the wound at the back of my head. A drop of black lands on Leah’s cheek, then another. I close my eyes because I can’t see this. There’s nothing I can do to shut out the sounds—the choking, gasping sounds—
I don’t open my eyes when the weight leaves. My skin shivers like a ripple in a pond. I’m on my side, numb, face wet with snot and tears. I don’t look at the thing that once contained a human next to me.
