26. The Bullet
Lysol is the best cleaning product you can buy.
The smell of it is everywhere. One of them, Devil maybe, had been sent to scrub down the table before Boyd carried her through there. Disinfectant and blood together in a stomach-churning mix. She chokes on it.
There is still a faint stain on the wall, only visible in the right light and if you know what you're looking for, but it's there. She's aware of it now, just a few feet from her head.
Bowman's blood on the wall and the floor, seeping into the wood-grain of the table, and then Boyd's, and now hers.
She really should have shot that little son-of-a-bitch when she'd had the chance.
The pain has resolved itself into a burning, numbing ache that claims her entire body. Every beat of her heart sends a fresh pulse of it across every nerve-ending. It's an entity in itself, a living thing that has taken up residence inside of her.
The funny thing is that the pain distracts her from being scared that she might die. She knows it's a distinct possibility but she isn't afraid of it. For that, at least, the pain is her friend.
She thinks again about Helen and wonders, if she doesn't make it through this, will Boyd bury her in the backyard, will he stay in the house to be close to what remains of her; she hopes it will be that and she really hopes that he doesn't put her next to Bowman in the cemetery she has never visited. She needs to tell him this but the effort of getting in enough air to speak is too much and the words catch in the thick gurgle in her throat.
His fingers tighten around hers, the only thing she can feel besides the pain.
And she worries about Boyd because in place of the God he has lost he has given his soul to her and she doesn't know what will happen to it if she isn't there to care for it.
He holds onto her, his head bowed, forehead against the back of her hand, then a kiss pressed against her skin, then his lips moving with words she can't hear; she doesn't know whether it's faith or just desperation but either way she's glad for his sake that he still prays.
There are so many things that she wants to say to him, so many things that she wants - for both of them, not just for herself.
She tries to dive beneath the pain, sink down and find the words to give to him but his hand slips away from hers. There is another voice, a new voice, and darkness and no more pain.