Page 41 of Queen of Nothing

Time is something I’m short on now.

Carefully, I take the syringe out of the bag, then clasp the phial onto the latch.

The needle is separately packaged, and it’s a fumbling moment before I’m slipping it into place, then it locks.

And it feels like a gun in my hand.

Dangerous.

Too dangerous.

I should put it down, bury it again, run out of this garden—and never return.

But I wind a strip of fabric around my bicep and stretch out my arm.

I move slow, slower now that there’s murkiness in my vision, like terrified tears are brewing but not falling.

I pause.

Strap around my arm, my veins are starting to rise, and I aim the syringe at myself—and my hand starts to tremble.

I swallow back an audible gulp.

But it does nothing to soften the lump in my throat.

I inch the needle closer to the larger, lifted vein.

A groan thrums in my throat.

I pierce my flesh—and a hollow sound ribbons out of me.

The pain is more than I expected.

Maybe since I do it to myself.

Maybe that my insides are in turmoil.

But I draw blood.

Red crimson floods the phial. It sloshes and splashes against the glass.

Then, once it’s full, I peel the needle out of my vein.

Teeth bared, I fight off the rattle that aches to shudder me.

But that shudder locks into my hands, hands that tremble as I unlatch the phial, then let it fall onto my palm.

I still.

On my knees, moonlight cascading over my back, I hold the phial of my blood in my shadow.

My face twists.

The tears finally fall.

And I lift the phial into the moonlight—

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