“Not sure I can answer that one.”
Harlen hangs his head. “Yeah, you don’t have to answer that, Laik.” Then, he shakes it, and if he was alone I can imagine himbeating his palm against his forehead. “I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to say.”
I nod, then push my tongue to the roof of my mouth, tasting the same metallic substance I had back at the diner. I wanted to spit it off my tongue, I wanted to scrub my skin, tear the flesh from my bones, just so I could feel like myself again.
I needed a shower.
Grey matter and I don’t know what else remains stuck to me like glue.
My breath comes in a short staccato, and there is something cold lingering in my stomach when I realize Harlen hasn’t said anything about the dead girl,the killing, the news that has no doubt taken to Devil’s Peak like a storm.
I turn my eyes on him and watch his jaw flex as he grinds on his molars. And if I wasn’t mistaken, he knewhewas back. It made sense why words weren’t coming easy to him today, why it felt like he was walking on eggshells, tripping around me.
“I know, Harlen…” I speak beneath a whisper, it's so low and so haunting.
I turn and look up at him, see his eyes are cast over, a tender cloud of gray lingering at the edge of his blue.
“He’s back…” I step forward, and turn to walk backward. “It was only a matter of time, right?” I lift my shoulders in a shrug, then let them fall with my exhale. I dig the tip of my Reeboks into the loose orange rock at my feet. “He’s coming for me.”
My words fall like an anvil between us.
Harlen tries to speak, stumbling over his words, “He won’t, we won’t let that happen?—”
Swallowing the bile that starts to trek up my throat, I cut him off.
I didn’t want to hear it.
“Any chance I might be able to take a shower?”
“Oh, yeah.” He swallows too. His eyes are distant now, landing everywhere but on mine. “For sure,” Harlen says, and I don’t miss the nervous lilt to his voice when Chase approaches, then storms past us.
He hauls the back door of his truck open a little too roughly. And it is all the confirmation I need to know that he heardexactlywhat I’d said.
He’s coming for me.
I can’t help it, I flinch.
Chase reaches across his back seat, then slams the door shut, turning with a washed-out gray T-shirt bunched in his fist. He extends it toward me, and I take it, my fingers trembling, brushing his when I do.
Chase’s voice is raspy when it eases its way down my spine.
“Come on.”
Water pummels the top of my head. I rest my tired eyes as flesh and bone and what was left of the blood matted in my hair roll from my face and over my chest.
My skin turns raw and red, my nails scratching as I lather a fifth round of the sandalwood body wash across my neck.
I am aware that I am tearing at flesh, however, the sting doesn’t transfer, and neither does the heat of the water that only comes as blunt needles across my limbs.
I let go of my breath, realizing that I’m numb all over again.
Numb to devastation.
Numb to tragedy.
Numb to death.
My knees wobble, threatening to give out, and I reach for the tap, catching myself before I’m ass down in a grimy shower stained with the smell of dehydrated piss and too much liquor. Shutting the water off, I dry myself before stepping out. Thick clouds of steam swirl in the air making the space feel smaller than it is.
