Why can’t we breathe underwater?
If your eyes are blue do you see everything in blue?
How do you know you’re real and not someone else’s dream?
How do you get wax in your ears?
Where does the water go when you let the bathtub drain?
Why don’t cows talk?
Once she had asked,Are you going to die?
Hopefully not for a long time,he had answered.
Am I going to die?
Not if I can help it.
There were so many things she had not asked her father, that now she wished she had.What it is like to see someone die in front of your eyes?
What do you do when you realize you couldn’t save them?
Wren lifted her gaze to the man she had stabbed in the hand, the one who had tried to shoot her. The one who had shot her aunt. The one who had killed Olive.
He was wrapping gauze around his bleeding palm, and doing a really shitty job of it. When the gun had gone off, at first Wren couldn’t hear anything, and she thought for a second she had actually been shot and this was what death was. But the silence had been her eardrums shutting down, and the blood all over her had come from Olive. By the time Wrencouldhear again, the room bleating in fits and starts, she didn’t want to.
The tattered name ripped from Olive’s lips, for anyone who would be a messenger.
Janine keening.
Dr. Ward moaning in a yellow haze of pain as Izzy checked his tourniquet.
And a tiny, high whistle that it took Wren a while to figure out was coming from the center of her own body, the sound of fear vibrating through the tuning fork of her skeleton.
She stole a glance at the shooter. He clumsily tied off the bandage, using his teeth.
Just watch. Wren would be the girl who had come to a women’s health clinic to get birth control, but still managed to die a virgin.
Suddenly the man lunged forward. Izzy shifted slightly, as if she were willing to throw herself between Wren and the shooter, but Wren would be damned if she let that happen again. She twisted at the last minute so that when he grabbed her forearm and jerked her upright, Izzy couldn’t get in the way.
A small cry escaped Wren’s clenched teeth, and she hated herself for showing any weakness. She forced herself to look him in the eye even though her knees were knocking together.
Bring it, you motherfucker,she thought.
“Let’s go, girl,” he said.
She could smell the cellar of his breath.
Where was he taking her?Where was he taking her?
He glanced at the others. “Do not move. Ifanyof you move I’ll make sure you never move again.” As if for punctuation, he glanced down at Olive’s body.
“Let go of me,” Wren yelled, actively fighting. She tried to pull out of his grasp, but he was too strong. “Letgo of me!” she shrieked, and she lifted her foot to kick him, but he twisted her around roughly, his arm pressing against her windpipe.
“Do not,” he said, “tempt me.”
He increased his pressure on her throat until she saw stars.
