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deep breath and sighed, hearing the banging of the angry mob outside the house. Then I remembered:
    The window.
    Although it was high off the ground, one could feasibly reach it if given a boost. I quickly pushed a bookcase in front of it to make any entry attempts more difficult.
    Finally, I turned my attention toward Sarah, who was slumped in the folding chair, pale, sweaty, and panting. I lifted her into my arms, kicking the seat away and lowering her comfortably to the carpet. I snatched the pillow from the bed and placed it delicately under her head, brushing strands of hair from her face.
    I looked down into her eyes and smiled, my brain coming up with no words sufficient for the moment. Eventually, I said, “So, I quit drinking today.”
    She smiled but didn’t respond.
    My eyes gravitated toward the wound in her side, blood soaking through her shirt. “When were you bitten?”
    She inhaled with a wheeze and responded, “Earlier today. I was downtown when the chaos started, and someone bit me. I pushed him away, got in my car, and raced home. I tried to bandage it, but it started stinging around the edges, and it wouldn’t stop.” Her face contorted with pain as she tried to hold back her emotions.
    It was tearing me apart inside to see her like this, lying on the ground, bleeding, looking at me. It reminded me of Annie.
    She coughed deeply, in a way that sounded terribly unhealthy. “My doorbell rang an hour ago, and it was Sherry from next door. So I let her in and…” Sobs wracked her body now, but she didn’t need to finish her sentence. I understood.
    I held her hand in mine and squeezed. “I’m here now. You’re not alone.”
    She took a deep breath to clear her body of the sobbing and said, “Nick…”
    She had that tone. The tone that said she was about to talk about something serious. “We don’t need to do this, Sarah.”
    She clutched my hand more tightly. “For once, Nick… you’re going to listen to what I have to say.”
    My cheeks flushed, because she was right. I often walked away during our arguments, but that wasn’t why I didn’t want her to continue now. I knew that what she was about to say would provide closure, and that meant she was expecting this to be a goodbye.
    She took a breath and spoke, her voice weak and trembling. “I never blamed you.”
    Immediately, my dry eyes watered with torturous pain.
    “I didn’t ask you to leave because I didn’t love you anymore.”
    “Sarah—.”
    “Let me finish,” she interrupted and then coughed deeply. “It wasn’t because I didn’t love you. It was because every time I looked at you, I saw her green eyes. And it was so painful to be reminded that she was gone every time I saw you.”
    A tear escaped from my eye and landed on her cheek, and I softly wiped it away as silence suffocated me.
    Finally, she smiled and said, “Those green eyes are the only good thing she got from you.”
    I laughed through my tears, a welcome emotional shift in tone. I wiped my face, feeling weightless for the first time in a while. I sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, my hand in hers. And we simply existed together for those few quiet moments, ignoring the madness outside.
    Eventually, I leaned forward and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I still don’t have any idea what’s going on out there. What are these people?”
    Her docile eyes flickered with fear. “You have to leave, Nick.”
    “I’m not leaving you.”
    “Get out of town while there’s still time!”
    My brow furrowed as I clutched her trembling hand, hoping to calm her from her growing state of agitation. “What are you talking about? Who are they?”
    “It’s not the people that matter.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “It’s what’s in them!”
    “In them?” I thought back to when I escaped the police station and was in my truck. I remembered the group pounding on my window, and I’d sworn that something dark flickered past the whites of their