“I didn’t ask about her.”
I tiptoe through the kitchen and slip out the front door. What am I supposed to tell her? That my body is bloodthirsty and my mom’s a monster? That we’re preparing to skip town without saying goodbye? That I’m beaten down and overwhelmed and it’s taking all my strength to hold back the flood of terror waiting to break over me if I take even a moment to think about what might happen to us?
“Is Joanne okay?” I ask, instead of answering.
I can hear Veer’s swallow on the other end of the line. “We worked her all the way there, but, you know. She’d lost a lot of blood.”
I don’t want to hear the thing that Veer is trying not to say, but, like a scab I can’t stop picking at, I’m also desperate to make her say it.
“But you got her to the hospital,” I prod.
“We worked her all the way there, Ellis.” She says my name like a diagnosis. “Because I care about my fucking job. We both know it didn’t make a difference.”
I want to feel guilty. I want to feel monstrous. Instead, I feel nothing.
“Okay,” I say, numbly.
“The cops will want to talk to your mom.”
A strangled feeling pinches my throat. “You talked to the police?”
“She died, Ellis,” Veer snarls.
“What did you tell them?”
“I don’t know.” Agitation makes her words come faster. “That there was a lot of blood. I don’t know what happened.”
She could have told them about my mom’s warping jaws, and the needle she saw in my hand. But she didn’t. I don’t want her pity. I can’t be in debt to Veer, not now.
“Why’d you tell them that?” I snap. It sounds like an accusation.
“Because I don’t know what I saw!” I can’t help my flinch. Her rage is palpable, even through the phone. “So you’d better figure out what you want to say, because otherwise they’re going to figure it out for you.”
A small silence. She’s waiting on my answer.
“Thanks, I guess.” I hate how lifeless it sounds.
“Okay, then.” Her voice turns sharp edged, almost cruel. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I realize, too late, that it’s not pity she’s offering after all. Not even protection. It’s the power to decide for myself what comes next.
I want to reach out and take it. But she’s already hung up.
That stings. But there’s still my suitcase, and the car, and the waiting road.
Except when I let myself back into the apartment, something smells off. I’m reminded of the house party and the eaves that wept blood, and of the sticky, congealed darkness around the edges of Uncle Bill’s freezer. Of the arid desert aroma in his office.
That’s what the air smells like now.
A twinge behind my belly button. I fumble for the dead bolt, but my hands land six inches to the left of where they should. The shadows are too dark, the space around them too bright. I shut my eyes to reorient myself, but it plunges me into a cacophony of scent: dry flesh stretched to breaking, bones picked clean by wind.
I think I open my eyes, but all I see is blankness. I try to blink a few times. Nothing changes. Are my eyes still closed? Are my feet still on the ground? I’m suspended in the void, I’ve fallen down a well.
No, I’m in our apartment. My mom is in the bedroom. I’m in shock, or I’m having a seizure, or who knows what the fuck else, but I know one thing: none of this is real.
My eyes are still closed. I just have to open them.
When I do, all I see is yellow.
