I got my arms under Alyssa and pulled her into my chest. Her eyes were closed and her head rolled against my shoulder. There was so much blood I couldn’t tell whose. My heart started a flat hard hammering that filled my ears and pulled the sound out of the room. The edges of everything around me went bright and narrow and a sound came out of me that I didn’t know I was capable of making.
“NOOOOOOO!” I cried, cradling her. “No no no no no.ALYSSAAAA! Wake up. WAKE UP! Wake up, baby.Pleeeease,Gorgeous, pleeeeease.”
She didn’t answer.
I laid her down and began checking her body. My hands were everywhere. Lifting her shirt, checking her stomach, her ribs, her chest, her back. She had a small cut on the back of her hand, her shirt was covered in blood, blood on her face, on her arms, and thighs, but I could not find the wound. I could not find it.
Couldn’t understand what was happening. Then I realized her chest was moving. I put my ear to her mouth, and could feel and hear that she was breathing.
I lifted her up again and wanted to shake her, but stopped myself, unsure of her injuries. I tapped her cheek. Finally, she began to groan, her eyes opening to slits.
“Alyssa!” I cradled her head in my lap and looked down at her. “Where, Lyss? Baby. Baby. Where are you hurt?Where?”
Her eyes moved slow from the ceiling to me.
“Where, Lyss? Show me!”
I looked across the room and saw my phone on the floor. I must have dropped it. I needed to get it, but I couldn’t bring myself to let her go.Her eyes slid past me and came back again, her mouth opened, and what came out was almost nothing.
“Not me.”
I couldn’t understand it. “Show me?—”
“Not me, Julian.”
She lifted her hand and put it to my face, held my eyes, and said it once more.
“Not me.” She started to cry and I held her against me, both arms, crushing her in, rocking her, kissing all over her face, repeating: “thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you God, thank you Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you…” like I knew no other words.
She was alive. Shaking, crying, and covered in — whose blood?
“Alyssa, who?—”
“Julian,” her voice came from somewhere far off, not all the way back in her body. “She’s bleeding… she’s gonna die… you have to call.”
I turned my head.
The body I’d pushed off her had a face now. It was Sabrina. On her back, conscious, a robe hanging off one arm, in her underwear. She was clutching her stomach and blood was pooling out between her fingers. A knife sat on the floor beside her. Her eyes were on me, almost relieved that I had noticed her.
The part of me that had begun to put itself back together understood that she had come into my house, to take Alyssa from Micah. To take Alyssa fromme. And now there she was, having the nerve to look at me like I was about to save her.
I let her see that I was not. I didn’t move.
“Julian.” Alyssa’s hand turned my face back to hers. “We have to call 911.”
“Let her bleed.”
“Julian…”
“Let.Her.”
Alyssa started to shake her head no, then winced, clutching the back of it. “Ahhh,” she hissed. “No. We have to call.”
“No. She tried to kill you, Lyss.”
She put both hands flat to my chest and pushed me back, pulling herself out of my lap, and crawled to the woman who’d come here to kill her. She pressed both hands down over her wound, and looked back at me.
“Call now, Julian.”
