As I'm standing up I hear the black van. I hear it before I see it; blended with the twilight, it appears out of its own sound like a solidification, a clotting of the night. It turns into the driveway, stops. I can just make out the white eye, the two wings. The paint must be phosphorescent. Two men detach themselves from the shape of it, come up the front steps, ring the bell. I hear the bell toll, ding-dong, like the ghost of a cosmetics woman, down in the hall.
Worse is coming, then.
I've been wasting my time. I should have taken things into my own hands while I had the chance. I cannot go down without a fight. I should have stolen a knife from the kitchen, found some way to the sewing scissors. There were the garden shears, the knitting needles; the world is full of weapons if you're looking for them. I should have paid attention.
But it's too late to think about that now. already their feet are on the dusty-rose carpeting of the stairs; a heavy muted tread, pulse in the forehead. My back's to the window.
I expect a stranger, but it's Nick who pushes open the door, flicks on the light. I can't place that, unless he's one of them. There was always that possibility. Nick, the private Eye. Dirty work is done by dirty people.
You shit, I think. I open my mouth to say it, but he comes over, close to me, whispers. "It's all right. It's Mayday. Go with them." He calls me by my real name. Why should this mean anything?
"Them?" I say. I see the two men standing behind him, the overhead light in the hallway making skulls of their heads. "You must be crazy." My suspicion hovers in the air above him, a dark angel warning me away. I can almost see it. Why shouldn't he know about Mayday? All the Eyes must know about it; they'll have squeezed it, crushed it, twisted it out of enough bodies, enough mouths by now.
"Trust me," he says; which in itself has never been a talisman, carries no guarantee.
But I could snatch at it, this offer. It's all I'm left with.

Time feels frozen. I'm thinking at the speed of light. Nothing moves around me. You know how they say your life flashes before your eyes? It doesn't. It didn't for me. Maybe it meant I wasn't...
The world unpauses. I feel my lips move; Prove it. I don't know where this courage came from, but if I am about to die, nothing will change that. I felt like crossing my arms over my chest, being adamant, stamping a foot on the ground, maybe snorting and flicking my head like a bull about to attack.
He cocked his head at me. I saw a flicker in his eyes.
Prove it. A command. It's been forever since I heard anything but passiveness in my own voice; my heart flutters.
Without even a glance over his shoulder, he steps toward me, catches my cheek in his palm, his eyes shutting as he nears, kisses me. Soft. Like the kiss after a long, slow night of love-making. It's something we should have done long ago; I wouldn't care if I were dead if I'd had this before.
I wished it were raining. It would make this nearly romantic.
My eyes are closed. My hand reaches unconsciously for his hip. I bury this moment in my heart.