Who was she now?
A heightened and frenzied voice comes from behind me, and I blink, letting my hand slip away.
“Yeah, some crazy fuck just shot himself inside the diner.”
I turn over my shoulder to see the Devil’s Diner head chef, Randy, with the corded landline pressed to his ear. He’s watching me and Laiken, while I watch him.
I know Laiken hasn’t taken her eyes from me though. I can feel them set like concrete on my neck.
“Yeah, okay, can do, thanks,” Randy says, voice raspy.
I turn back to Laiken at the same moment she whispers, “It sounded so much like I remember.”
At that, the organ in my chest severs right down the middle.
I bite my lip, and fight back the guilt.
I couldn’t protect her then, and I couldn’t protect her now. The one night I promised myself that I would.
I should have kept her closer.
All words evade me and I find myself reaching for her instead, pulling her against my thumping chest and pushing my nose to the top of her head. I sink my fingertips through her snow-white hair, which is now stained a pale shade of crimson.
And this time, when I reach for her, she doesn’t reach for me. But she doesn’t pull away either,and I have to be okay with that.
Her arms remain pressed to her side, head to my chest when one controlled, yet quiet cry slips through her lips. I feel it push beneath my ribs at the same time a splinter of cold recognition wedges into my spine.
I lift my chin and squint when I notice the rust-colored blanket from the night I spent in lock-up, draped around the guy with his brain now plastered across the light pink wall.
My brows pinch together, face contorting as the vivid memory of his words settle like an anvil on my chest.
“Pray, boy, all we can do is…pray.”
Reeling pictures of him spinning around and running himself into the opposite wall follows.
Who was he?
I force myself to swallow, trying my best to dislodge the tightness in my throat.
And why did he blow his head off?
A shiver, then a ghostly voice whispers, and I realize as the words stutter…they are his.
“Doomed, doomed, doomed.”
I’m sitting in a booth on the opposite side of the diner with both hands jammed beneath my thighs. My palms are clammy with sweat, clinging to the leather seat.
Blood is stuck to my skin like glue. I’d tried cleaning myself up as best I could. And yet, it was still there, pink stains, a permanent rash.
I squeeze my eyes closed, run my fingers through my hair, feeling pieces of missed chipped bone tangled in the strands.
I couldn’t get away from it.Death, it followed me, clung to me, had a hold on me.
A clunk resonates from in front of me. I raise my chin to see Chief Wynston sliding into the seat opposite me. The last strands of his gray hair are pushed back into place over his balding head, and his unruly, bushy eyebrows pointing in all directions.
Peeling one hand from beneath my leg like hot wax, I reach out, wrapping it around the glass of water.
It quivers the way I knew it would, but I do my best to clamp it down, bringing the cool glass to my lips, taking a small sip.
