Page 129 of Molt

“You said you’d love me until there was nothing left of you.”

“I did.”

“And there almost isn’t.”

I look down at myself.

She’s right.

My shirt hangs on a body that is barely mine. One shoulder collapsed. Ribs missing. Four fingers. One eye dim. My legs feel hollow. My teeth loose. I’ve been emptied out for a promise I made beside a dying woman. “I loved you.”

Lenora cries. “Love me now.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

“LIAR!” The scream ruptures something inside Sarah. Her abdomen distends. She doubles over. Then her stomach splits.

Not open completely.

A narrow seam tears from beneath her sternum toward her navel. Blood pours between her fingers.

I grab her. “Sarah!”

Something pale moves inside.

A hand.

My hand.

Five fingers. Pressing outward beneath the opening.

I vomit.

Sarah screams.

The hand pushes through. Attached to nothing I can see. My missing finger completes itself. Then wrist. Bone. Muscle. A piece of me being born from her.

“Get it out!”

I grab the wrist.

The second I touch it, my own right hand goes numb.

I look down. The fingers are fading. Skin collapsing. Bone disappearing.

Transferred.

The hand emerging from Sarah becomes more solid.

Mine becomes less.

She sees.

“No.”

“It’s okay.”

“No!”