side.
When she climbed up, she paused with her head just above the boulder. Madelyn peered at the dark woods for a minute before she trusted the silence. She climbed up, cursing the sound of the dripping water.
Chapter 6
{Nephew}
“W AIT ,” J ACOB SAID , INTERRUPTING her, “you got away from Roamers by hiding under water?”
Madelyn blinked. She hadn’t meant to tell him the story. She looked back to the skull. Looking into the sockets where David’s eyes had been, she had just started talking. She wasn’t even pointing the gun at the kid anymore.
She sighed and motioned to him.
“Come on outside,” she said. If this was to be done, it had to be quick. Apparently, she couldn’t trust herself.
Jacob swallowed. He obeyed her order.
She set the dusty skull down and followed him out. He didn’t even try to run.
“Sit,” she said.
Her nephew sat on the edge of the porch. His legs dangled over the place where here grandmother had always tried to grow roses. Every year she would plant the things. Every year they would die. Madelyn sat down next to him. She looked at the scattergun. It would all be so much easier if she could just pull the trigger.
She set it down.
Jacob let his shoulders relax a little.
Madelyn pulled her long knife from the sheath clipped to her belt. She felt the edge with her thumb. She reached down with one hand and pulled her ankle up on top of her other knee.
“It has been years since I had to incinerate David. I’ll tell you how this works,” she said. She pushed up her pant leg, revealing her calf. She had a series of horizontal scars up the side of her leg. The one on top—David’s scar—was a lumpy mess of shiny skin.
She put the blade against her leg, a centimeter higher than David’s scar. She slapped the back of the blade, cutting herself.
Madelyn didn’t react. Jacob sucked in a surprised breath.
“You make a cut when you lose someone you love,” she said. “I loved my brother once.” She handed the knife to Jacob. He looked at her blood.
“While the cut is healing, you’re not allowed to think of him. If you do, you cut again in the same place. Once the scab falls off on its own, you’re allowed to think of your father again. Got it?”
She looked at Jacob. He was staring at her bleeding leg.
“How many is that?” Jacob asked. He pointed the knife at her leg.
“I don’t know,” she said. She put her leg down and the blood ran towards her sock. She pulled up her other leg and pushed up her pants. “There’s more on this one.”
Jacob’s eyes went wide as he looked at her other leg. She had dozens of scars there. Maybe there were a hundred—she had never counted.
Eventually, he nodded and crossed his own legs. He held the knife against his flesh. Her blood mixed with his as he copied her gesture and slapped the back of the knife. It cut deep. Madelyn looked at her nephew and saw the tears in his eyes. When he blinked, they spilled down his cheeks. He put the knife down on the porch.
“Come on,” she said. “You’re going to want to spray some helpers on that before it gets infected.”
She rolled down her pants and stood. She extended a hand and helped him up.
“You didn’t finish your story about David,” he said. “What happened after you climbed out of the stream.”
She began to walk towards the door.
“I’ll tell you another time,” she said.
She turned back and saw him pick up the scattergun. He held it by the stock with it pointing towards the ground. She opened the door and waved him inside.
# # # # #
After they were bandaged, Madelyn took her nephew down the stairs and then into the tight compartment. The elevator lowered them down to the storage and utility chambers.
“I don’t have a lot of need to come down here anymore,” she said. “It’s a little creepy, if you ask me.”
When they reached the bottom, the doors slid apart. The lights were automatic. The air was perfectly dry.