“Yes.” He pulled a key from his pocket and placed it in my hand. “In case we get split up.”
I stared at it. “Where?”
He gave me the address—a small town on the other side of Albany.
“Five hundred a month, skimmed from my summer boss’s slush fund. A safe house just for us.”
He’d planned this back in summer. Maybe longer.
“A revolution of two,” I said, leaning across to kiss him, shiveringfrom the rain, the cold, and the body in the back seat under the wet quilt. His lips, the only warmth in the car.
The rest was easy.
We didn’t drive into the parking lot, but eased the car along the access road beside the highway barrier. Our headlights picked out trash and plastic squares of rat poison, a few needles sparkling in the mud.
We carried the body through the darkness, and placed it in the shadows beside the stairs, like she’d slipped on a slick metal step and gone under the banister. Someone coming down in the rain might not see it there, not till morning light.
I wrapped myself in the wet quilt, keeping watch while Sebastian compared the body to his photos from the pantry, arranging it so the blood would pool in the same spots.
Then we went back across the lot, scraping away everything that looked like a footprint in the mud.
No one came out of their room at the wrong moment, and no cars passed us on the access road. As we drove away, I kept one hand wrapped around the key in my pocket.
I would wear it on my silver chain.
63
Dear Blessica!
I’m not mad. I’m sure your letter will arrive any day now. Or it got lost & will arrive with the answer to my last one. Or maybe no one at Hell College taught you how letters work. It’s simple:
a) read the letter sent to you
b) answer the questions therein
c) tell an interesting or, much better,shockingthing that’s happened to you
d) thank your extremely thoughtful & wonderful correspondent for writing you in between vomiting & swelling up & being covered in red scaly horror rashes.
I’m sure it’s easy to write letters when not vomming, swelling & scratching. (IF MY MOM SNEAKS A READ OF THIS I’M NOT ACTUALLY SCRATCHING BECAUSE I KNOW ABOUT INFECTIONS!)
Since I last wrote, I’ve read Pride & Prejudice & fallen in love with…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Ampersands!
Haha! I bet you thought I was going to say Darcy. (Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy is his proper name.) Apparently everyone loves him. I do not. I find him most vexing. But not as vexatious as people who break their epistolary promises.
Don’t say you’re too busy studying to write. Everyone tells me that Helshire is super easy. Are you not writing because you have a new paramour? (If you do, ewww! Kissing is gross.) Because your creepy family won’t let you? (How exactly is your family creepy? No one here will explain.) It better not be because you forgot me! (You said I was unforgettable!)
I could write &s all day long. I like how &s swirl. The new nurse, Victoire (she’s from Quebec & has the best accent) says that ampersands are lazy, but I demur because it takes me longer to write “&” than to write “a-n-d” & the & looks prettier. Victoire just laughed. She laughs a lot. I like her better than Nurse (formerly) Eyebrows.
My next news is dispiriting. It turns out some species of octopus aren’t exploding because of climate change. They’re disappearing because the water’s too warm for their eggs. Also the doctors say the immunotherapy isn’t working as well as they thought. My legs are still wonky. Next up: experimental drugs!
Which means I’m the experiment. Mom’s hopeful. Dad cries a lot. So does Amy. She says nothing though. Did you meet Amy? I can’t remember. If you did you’d know I was joking because Amy is nine months old. She makes noise but not words. Mostly she just cries.
Tell me anything!
Wear a seat belt!!
