Ann Aguirre - Mortal Danger

“Can I come up?”

The question elated me. Maybe there was still hope for us, together.

“My mom’s probably home,” I warned.

Rueful smile. “That’s fine. Just … give me a minute.”

Oh. Wow. It was impossible for me to restrain a smirk. “No problem.”

Five minutes later, we got out of the car and headed into the foyer. Right away, I noticed the mezuzah was gone. Like before, only the nail remained. A shiver went through me as I trotted up the stairs, Kian close behind me. He set a hand in the small of my back while I dug for my keys, but—

The door stood open, half an inch.

My blood chilled.

“Let me go in first.” Kian tried to push past me but I shook my head.

“We’ll go in together or not at all. Maybe she just got home.”

“My mom used to leave the door ajar if she was carrying groceries.” By his tone he knew that was unlikely.

Yet I couldn’t help but cling to hope. Silently I counted to three before nudging the door wide. The way the apartment was laid out, I had a clear view through the living room to the kitchen, where I saw my mother’s feet, motionless on the tile floor. Kian tried to hold me back, but I yanked free and ran to her, my breath a tight and silent shriek in my chest. Recycled fabric bags were spilled all around her, broken eggs and bottles of juice mingling with the blood— oh my God, so much blood —I crumpled. Kian caught me. When he carried me out of the apartment, I didn’t fight. Inside my skull, the screams echoed in endless loop.

He took her. The bag man came. He took her head.

I was only half aware of Kian banging on Mr. Lewis’s door and asking him to call 911. The old man complied at once, and Kian carried me out of the building, cradling me on his lap on the front steps. He rocked me, and I held on, but I couldn’t cry. Everything was tight and dry; my mind simmered with the madness of it. The bag man will have your brains for his soup, your skull for his bowl, and he’ll drink you dry. Mr. Lewis brought a blanket out for me, and Kian wrapped me in it. The fleece did nothing to banish the cold.

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. Across the street, I saw the old man with the bag, and it bulged with a new and hideous weight. Beside him stood the two black-eyed children. The girl-thing’s pinafore was smeared with blood. I fought free and jumped up, racing toward them. They vanished before my eyes as the screech of car brakes yanked my attention to the street. Kian hauled me back to the stoop, shaking, while the driver shouted out his window at me.

“That was…” Kian tightened his arms on me.

I wasn’t listening. “Kian … did you see them?”

He glanced around my shoulder. “Who?”

“Never mind.” My head was a mess; I couldn’t think.

“What’s your dad’s number, Edie?”

I shrugged, dazed and shivering.

Kian was gentle in plucking the backpack from my shoulder. Silently, he rummaged in the front zip pocket until he found my phone. A few clicks, and he was talking to my dad. His voice was a low rumble but I couldn’t make out the words. Buzz, buzz, buzz, go away. I don’t believe this is real. I won’t. This isn’t my life.

“I’m ready to give you up.” There was some sadness in the admission, but if keeping Kian meant living this, then the nightmare had to end. “The dream is over now. I need to wake up.”

No more coma dream. Back to reality. Back to being an ugly girl with no friends, no boyfriend. But I’ll still have my mom.

“God, Edie,” he whispered.

I’m sorry, the wind whispered. I felt a sad, familiar presence all around me, raising the hair on my arms. Through dry eyes, I stared hard at the street I had lived on all my life. “Cameron?”

But there was only a stained newspaper tumbling down the sidewalk. And Kian was still here, holding me, with a face like an angel and a dark shadow in his eyes. In the distance, sirens screamed toward us.

When I said I wanted this to stop, I anticipated sitting up in a hospital bed, IV in my arm, both of my parents at my bedside. You tried to kill yourself. You failed. You’re in a coma. Wake up, now. Wake up.

“She’s in shock,” Mr. Lewis said.

“Could you make her some hot tea? Plenty of sugar.”

“Of course.” The old man moved off.

A few minutes later, or maybe hours, Kian put a warm mug in my hand. I drank the tea because it was there. I couldn’t wake up; there was no exit from this that didn’t end in policemen putting tape on my front door. Two officers showed up and then an ambulance, but it was oh-my-God too late. They carted away her body, covered in a sheet.

“We have to ask you some questions,” the older cop said gently.

I stared up at him. There was no tinnitus. Allison hadn’t registered on my faulty ears, either. The irrational desire possessed me to demand to inspect all of their belly buttons. Another death, and I can’t tell the truth. Or maybe I can. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. I opened my mouth, but Kian squeezed my hand. He warned me with his eyes not to open that can of crazy and upend it all over the nice humans. I understood now why he said it like that; it was what you called people who walked around with blinders on. I might’ve started life that way, but I didn’t feel part of the collective anymore.

He took her head. Why can’t I cry?

“Okay,” I said finally.

“Her dad should be here soon,” Kian put in. “Maybe you should wait for him.”

“Is she a minor?”

He nodded. “Eighteen in February.”

“Then let’s secure the scene and wait for the detectives to arrive.” The younger one followed his partner upstairs, leaving us on the front step.

Ten minutes later, my dad dashed toward us, his chest heaving. I’d never seen his face that shade before. He hunched over for a few seconds, hands on knees, before he could get the breath to ask, “Edith?”

It was all the questions wrapped into one. Kian loosened his arms, but I didn’t get off his lap. My mom was the one who asked if she could hug me, and I couldn’t get the words out at first. My dad’s hair was a mess and his glasses were fogged up. He took them off so he could see us better.

“Mom’s dead,” I said. Two words, heavy as osmium.

“Oh God, honey.” From his expression, I could tell he didn’t know what to say, what to ask, and my words were balled into a Gordian tangle.

“Are you Alan Kramer?” A man in a wrinkled suit stood outside the brownstone, wearing a grave but purposeful look.

“Yes.”

“Please come with us. We have some questions for your daughter.”

In the end, they asked Kian and me several times exactly what we saw. We recounted the story separately and together. No, we didn’t see anyone fleeing the scene. Yes, we both had class before coming home. Kian picked me up at Blackbriar; we came straight home. I resisted the temptation to give the detectives a description of the bag man. It was late by the time we finished, and our apartment was a crime scene.

“We’ll … get a hotel room,” Dad said. “We can stop at a pharmacy and buy some essentials, like pajamas and toothbrush—”

Kian cut in, “You’re welcome to stay at my place. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

He seemed older than twenty at the moment, but age was more than chronology. I didn’t have the strength to doubt him, so I clutched him close instead. I turned to my dad. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather do that.”

“Okay.” It was so strange for him to acquiesce that readily, like my mother had been the reason for the steel in his spine.

Kian drove us to his apartment from the precinct and parked a few blocks down. On the way, I stopped at a corner drugstore. They had toiletries and I found T-shirts and novelty shorts to sleep in. Silently, I dropped the few items into my dad’s basket and he paid. Nobody felt like eating, just as well, because Kian had cup noodles and a box of tea. He made each of us a mug, and my dad seemed every bit as shell-shocked as I felt.