The farmhouse was cold when I let myself in through the back door to the mud room. I'd parked around the back, out of sight. It seemed sensible. The longer people were unaware of my presence here the better.
I had driven slowly past Bill's home on the way, leaning over the steering wheel to peer down his driveway. No lights were on, and I sensed no one there. The knowledge was a relief. I'd been fairly certain he had returned to Boston for another semester of college, but seeing the stately home ensconced in darkness made me feel surer of the fact. The less unexpected vampire visitors the better.
I strode through the kitchen and straight to the guest bedroom. The house still smelled faintly of the wood fire from when I'd been here earlier the previous month. Inside the master bedroom, I opened the closet and uncovered the little vampire hidey-hole Bill had built so long ago. It had been years since its last use… And that had been when Karin had left Amelia's father Copley Carmichael bound and gagged as a little gift for me. I wasn't sure what state to expect the hidey-hole in now.
I gave the interior a rough dusting and rustled up a plastic sheet from the woodshed which I used to line the bottom of the hiding space.
I retrieved Sophie-Anne's body and gingerly lowered her into the hidey-hole. I removed her wrappings—the woolen blanket and plastic bags. She was ghastly. Like some sort of monster from one of those Korean horror movies. Or an X-File, in fact. I could see how the idea of a shadow man came to be. I pictured her, half-desiccated, dragging herself through the darkened cemetery and lunging at unsuspecting residents of the neighborhood trying in vain to feed. I shuddered.
Was she conscious right now? Somehow aware of her surroundings? I couldn't bear the thought. It was too ghastly. I swung the trap door shut.
I dragged a small area rug over it. There was nothing to stack on top… I'd emptied the closets when I'd cleared the house in preparation for Jason last year, so this would have to do. I slumped against the closet door after I closed it behind me. My emotional, mental, physical tank was beyond empty. My body could only sustain that level of fear and panic for so long.
I trudged into the main bathroom, just about giving myself a fright when I saw my reflection. My t-shirt was soiled and my denim cut-offs were covered in brown stains. My hair hung about my head in scruffy lanks. No wonder the police officer was suspicious of me.
I stripped off immediately and tossed my clothes and the items I'd wrapped around Sophie-Anne into a fresh trash bag. I crossed the house and dumped them in the laundry basin in the mud room. They were destined for the trash now.
Still, in my underthings, I dashed out to the car and grabbed my belongings. I left them on the bed in my room. It was then that I remembered the missed calls I'd received on the drive over. I checked my cellphone. Somehow, I'd missed several more without hearing them. Probably spoke to the mental state I was in for much of the drive.
There was a call from Diantha, another from Amelia and several from the palace. Christ on a cracker. I should've been more vigilant. If I'd answered straight away, I could've smoothed things over. Had Bubba been in contact with them? If I'd thought more clearly, I could've called them ahead of time. Concocted some sort of believable story, then I could've—
Like a sucker punch to the stomach, I suddenly recalled the human bones I'd found in the tunnel. Oh my God. Did they belong to Joey—the missing husband of the woman I'd spoken to just this morning? Whose were they? Was it someone Sophie-Anne had killed?
It was midnight and a Sunday. I hemmed for a moment but didn't give myself time to haw, I phoned Agent Ray on his cell. He picked up immediately, his voice thick with sleep. I relayed as much as I could in dot points. I'd been exploring the neighborhood near the cemetery. I found a tunnel. Looked inside. Lo and behold there were human bones. Lying by omission, yes, but I was beyond caring.
He sounded instantly alert, promising me he would handle it.
"I don't want my name associated with this," I told him.
"You don't need to worry about that. It was never my intention," he said, and the line went dead.
It occurred to me then that perhaps my involvement in this case was less about the noble deed of clearing out New Orleans' cold case backlog, and more about Agent Ray leveraging my skills in order to boost his reputation and get him back in the good books with his superiors. Oh well. We'd used him to solve Lydia Ryker's murder, so now he used me in return.
I showered until my fingers began to prune and the hot water cooled, then collapsed in bed. I was ready to sleep until late into the next day. I'd deal with the missed calls in the morning. I would deal with the enormity of everything in the morning.
… but sleep evaded me. I tossed and turned. My ears strained for sounds of movement from the bottom of the closet in the guest room. They strained for sounds of any aberrant noises outside.
Thoughts of Sophie-Anne Leclerq swirled in my mind. A vision of the Queen came to the fore, her wide brown eyes framed by carefully styled auburn hair, the secret smirk she always wore, one that gave the distinct impression she knew something everyone else didn't. And maybe she did.
She was adept at the game of vampire political chess. She escaped and survived for quite some time, when everyone else thought she was dead. I sighed and rubbed my face wearily. It was Thalia I needed to be most concerned with. What would happen if Sophie-Anne came to take her throne back? Things hadn't been exactly stable under Queen Sophie-Anne's rule. She hadn't coped post-Katrina. She'd always operated with a little too much vampire ruthlessness. It wasn't ideal in a post-revelation world.
I remembered that night at the summit where Andre had cornered me, trying to force his blood into me in order to get me in control. They'd wanted me as a tool of her monarchy. She'd seen how useful I could be to her. It wasn't even about wielding my skill; to her, my usefulness lay in having me as a possession and the advantage that afforded her among her peers. What was to stop her doing it again? What lengths would she go to?
Enough. Enough!
I threw the covers off and stormed down to the living room. Why was it up to me to grapple with the future of vampire politics on such a scale? This could be so easily solved. No one would know. I thought of Lorena. Victor. Debbie and Sandra Pelt. I'd made tough decisions before. And I lived with them. I could do it again.
I picked up a log of wood from the basket beside the fireplace. I marched out the back door, stuffing my feet into the pair of Jason's old work boots I kept there. Out in the yard, I took a hatchet from beside the wood pile and set the log on the chopping block. I split the log into several small pieces. Stake-sized pieces.
I marched back inside and threw open the door of the guest room, then opened the hidey hole.
I stood chest heaving, staring down at Sophie-Anne's form. She was so slight, her body gnarled and weathered like the curling roots of an old bald cypress tree. I crouched, then kneeled. It would take such little physical effort to stake her. I could pick up her ashes in the tarp she lay in. Light a bonfire and toss the ashes in. Wouldn't be the first time someone's remains had been disposed of that way in my yard.
Do it, Sookie. Get it over with. Protect your friends. Protect your future.
No. I couldn't. I let out a cry of frustration and threw the stake into the corner of the closet; it clattered and disappeared into the darkness there.
I couldn't do it—not until I was one hundred percent sure. If I was going to make this decision on my own, then I needed to be certain. I needed to be sure I could sleep at night, knowing it had been the right thing to do. Not just for me or my friends. But for the vampires of Louisiana too.
A night of thin, unsatisfactory sleep finally passed by, and I rolled out of bed at dawn feeling like a zombie. I dressed and drove myself to the Piggly Wiggly. Before heading into the store, I found the dumpster around the back and dropped the trash bag of soiled items inside. My clothes and the woolen blanket.
Inside, I kept my head down, filled my cart with food and the few items I'd need for the next couple of days. I stood for a long while in chilled goods, staring at the selection of synthetic bloods. Glassy eyed, I surveyed the offerings. The fluorescent lights made the surroundings look almost unreal, the tinny sound of a pop song from a few years earlier playing over the speakers. Finally, I put a six pack of Life Force in my cart.
I was home within an hour and loaded my purchases away. I brewed a pot of coffee. I brought my cup out to the porch and closed my eyes to the sun, drawing in the scent of sunshine warming the morning dew. Jason had been keeping the lawns mowed in my absence, and I was paying Terry to come and prune and tidy once a month. The garden was not in great shape but thriving, nonetheless. Fall leaves added a beautiful pop of color to the lush surrounds.
Upon opening my eyes, I noticed immediately that something sat on the rose bush beside the porch stairs. A letter from Niall. For a desperate second, I wondered if somehow my great-grandfather knew about my current plight. I tore it open.
The letter was in the same vein as his previous ones. Telling me a little of his life in Faery. Asking after me and how my life in the city was, how my work and studies were progressing. He described at length a feast he'd hosted at his palace, the spectacular array of foods served, and alluded to the gathering being one of many small attempts he was making to broker peace, or at the least a détente, between the warring fairy factions. I didn't care. I didn't care about any of it.
I flopped back on the porch swing, closing my eyes. Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes. How was it that this decision had fallen upon my lap? What kind of strange twist of fate had led me to this point? What in the Sam Hill was I going to do about Sophie-Anne?
I gave myself till the count of ten to just sit in my misery, before giving myself an internal shake.
I stood, gulped back the rest of my coffee and went inside. Mr. C had emailed me some links to some of the online supe law archives for me to research. Vampire law. A lot of it. I wasn't actively assisting him with any vampire cases currently, and I had only done the most peripheral work when it came to assisting my boss in this area—primarily with Queen Thalia and the upcoming summit. But I took his email to mean he understood the exact nature of my current precarious position.
No one had ever accused Desmond Cataliades of being a fool.
I spent the morning doing preliminary reading and taking notes. Research, particularly of the legal variety when it came to supe stuff, was akin to a pig hunting for truffles. You sniff around fruitlessly for hours until you catch the trail of something that might be relevant and then you're off and running, only to discover it wasn't anything useful after all.
This was further made difficult with vampire law—which was bogged down by the minutiae of their court documents and legislation. Pages and pages dedicated to detailing just a single aspect of a law, sometimes even simple definitions had their own sub-reports extolling at length the exact meanings of certain terms. And everything was couched in such dense legal terminology that by the time you deciphered what they're trying to say and they'd determined what that exactly meant, you'd forgotten why you were wanting to know it to begin with.
I struggled with it for as long as I could, finding no leads. I wasn't even sure what I was looking for. Or for whom. Was it for me? Or for the vampires? Which vampires? Whose skin was I trying to save here? I thought of Sophie-Anne in her current physical state and grimaced. Poor turn of phrase.
I closed the laptop and dragged my fingers through my hair. It felt like someone had replaced my brain with a pile of scattered puzzle pieces. I needed to be smart about this. I had the body of the former queen in my possession. I had to decide what to do next. I needed to bring it to the basics. Distill it to cold hard main issue? If I killed her and someone, somehow, found out it was me…? What would come of me then? I swallowed hard at the thought and pushed the notion aside. And if I were to let her live? What then? Could some legal maneuvering be done to ensure the safety of myself and others?
Vampire law differed from human law. In the human world, primary sources of law were determined by legislation passed by congress (at least in the States) or by cases in the courts. For vampires, legal decisions were often heavily predicated by tradition and what was deemed 'proper'. A big focus on pomp and circumstance and propriety. A vampire version of that, for example, would be staking someone with a ceremonial silver-tipped stake or stringing offenders up to await sunrise. In my supe law unit for my paralegal studies, I'd even read about 'immurement' where vampires were encased in specially made silver-lined cells that were no bigger than a suitcase with barely enough room to sit. And then there was the Oracle, who they trotted out and treated with reverence befitting a deity. She functioned as judge, jury and executioner.
While demons could be fickle and temperamental when debating rule of law (which often brought about unexpected results), in vampire courts, once a case finally made its way out of the legal weeds, punishment was meted out as a means of validating law. There was a legal term for it, too: Quod nocet, saepe docet. What harms, often teaches.
I abandoned my efforts and took myself outside where the sunshine was calling.
I walked my garden and soon found myself deep in the woods at the back of the property. My feet had led me to the fairy door. There was a slight wavering in the air, but I felt it more than I saw it. Physically, I could run my fingers along the door. Feel the furrows of wood under my fingers, the cool sheen of a metal handle. Mentally, I sensed it too.
I tried the handle. I'd gotten rid of a body this way once. The door had been open a crack and I'd tossed Sandra Pelt's corpse inside. The door didn't open this time. Of course. Niall had locked it and thrown away the key. I walked out of the woods and back into open sunshine several minutes later.
I was no clearer on what to do. But I knew I couldn't live my life like this anymore. Most of the last decade of my life had been marked by death, violence and destruction. Whatever path I chose—I couldn't be party to more destruction. I had to choose the path that led me the furthest away from it. Whether that meant Sophie-Anne's true death was an acceptable loss for the greater good, I didn't know.
•───── ─────•
A loud banging woke me from a dead sleep. I jumped up from the couch in a fright, heart in my throat. My laptop slid from my lap and landed on the area rug. I'd fallen asleep on the couch studying after dinner. I'd been dreaming of Sophie-Anne, and for a sick moment, I thought it was her at the door coming to exact some sort of revenge.
I opened the door to Eric.
"I woke you," he said. He was dressed in casual attire—t-shirt, blue jeans. His red corvette was parked in the driveway behind him. It was any wonder I slept through it rumbling up the drive.
"What are you doing here?" I didn't open the door fully. "You can't be here."
"I spoke with Pam." The way he said this set me on edge. While his expression was neutral enough, there was an excitable air to him. A gleam in his eyes that promised something dangerous. He knew something. I wasn't sure how much or even what. Either way, it didn't bode well for me.
"You can't be here," I said. "You need to go."
"Busy keeping company?" He looked over my shoulder into the dark house.
"I've been studying. Working."
"Time for a break, lover?" He rested an arm against the door frame and flashed a jocular smile.
"No. I need you to leave."
He stilled and really stared at me then. "Something's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong. I need to be alone; I have a big submission for school."
He straightened. "You were always a poor liar," he said flatly.
I tried my darnedest not to squirm under his intense scrutiny.
"Ah…"he said knowingly. "So, it's bad, then."
Crap.
"Eric," I said with every ounce of effort in my being. "Go away."
He studied me without response. I moved to shut the front door.
"Why did you leave New Orleans so suddenly?" he asked.
"I didn't. I had to come here and so I did. There was no 'sudden' to it."
"But when I spoke to…" His gaze had traveled into the foyer behind me. "What is that?"
My heart froze and went cold. I had no idea what he'd spotted over my shoulder, but the sooner I got him out of here the better.
"It's nothing. Please go. We can catch up another time."
I turned to look, however. All the lights were off, with the foyer only dimly illuminated by the outside security light. Something small and shiny sat on the floor against the baseboard. Eric pushed the door open while my head was turned, but I stuck my leg out, trying to not let him pass. "I didn't say you could come in!"
It was futile, I was not an immovable object. He pushed past me easily. He was an unstoppable force when he wanted to be.
I knew of one other unstoppable force, however.
"Eric Northman, I rescind your invitation."
He was dragged backward and out onto the porch, down the front steps. Rage and disbelief warred against one another on his features. I swung the front door shut.
"Like hell, nothing's wrong!" He ran up and pounded the door. "What trouble are you in now?"
I rested my forehead against the door. "Go away. You can't get involved. Please."
"What have you done?"
I let out a sad scoff. Of course, he'd assume I'd done something wrong.
All was silent for a long time. Please, just go. Get in your car and go away, I chanted the words prayerfully inside my head. Yet I knew he'd just be standing there, grappling with his anger, considering how best to manipulate me into letting him back in, manipulate me into telling him what he wanted to know. I felt his presence move slowly around to the side of the house and to the back yard.
I stood stock still, body tensed.
He zipped back to the front door and said, in an eerily calm manner, "What did you transport in your car, Sookie?"
"I can't tell you." I wrapped my arms around myself. "Just—Eric, just know it's better for you if you don't know. And are not involved."
"Invite me in."
"No."
"Invite me in, Sookie."
"No."
"Why can't I be involved?"
"Go… please." I sank to the floor. Hugged my knees. Buried my face against them. I could wait here till dawn. He would have to leave eventually.
"Is this to do with the family emergency you were dealing with?" His voice was lower now. I pictured him crouched on the other side of the door.
"Eric. Please."
"I can help you."
"You really can't. If I mix you up in this, it could be…" Disastrous for him. Life ending, or undead-life ending, as it were. A span of time passed, but still he did not leave.
"Sookie. Let me help."
"No."
"Please." His soft entreaty plucked at me, plucked at my stupid weak heart. "Whatever you've done, whatever's happened, I'll help you."
"I can't let you," I whispered.
"I will help you set things right. I promise you."
My laugh was dry and sad. "You can't help."
"Why?"
"I can't tell you. The second you're involved, things go from very bad to very, very worse."
"I am involved."
"No, you're not."
"You don't get it? My dear Sookie, if you're involved, then I am involved."
I squeezed my eyes shut. It was all I could do not to wail like a baby. This would be a big mistake. Lord help me. This was gonna be a big fat mistake.
"Come in," I whispered.
The front door was open the moment I croaked the words. I scooted out of the way. Eric kneeled before me cautiously, like I was a skittish cat that would dart from sight.
I refused to meet his gaze. He stood eventually and retrieved whatever it was on the floor that he'd spotted earlier. It was dark with the front door closed, and so I couldn't see what he was holding. But I could hazard a guess.
"Whose ring is this?" He brought it to his nose and sniffed. His head spun in my direction. "Sookie?"
Sophie-Anne's form was so frail. Her rings and bracelets had all sat loosely on her withered bones. And evidently one of her priceless baubles had fallen off.
"The spare room," I said, my tone lifeless.
He zipped from view. I heard the wooden boards by the hidey-hole creak. And then nothing. When I finally roused myself from the floor, I found him sitting on the edge of the bed in the guest room, elbows on knees, head in hands. It was reminiscent of the night he'd finally remembered his amnesiac days with me. Except this was a million times worse.
"Is it who I think it is?" he asked.
"Yes."
"How?" He opened his hand and looked down at the ring in his palm.
"I found our shadow man."
His gaze snapped up at that, and I shrugged, laughed hollowly. "I believe they call that a cruel twist of fate."
He was suddenly in front of me, clasping my arms tightly. I cringed. God help me, I'd pulled him into an impossible position now too.
"Tell me everything," he said.
I spilled the beans, relief battling with guilt the entire time. It was a burden I was both desperate to share and desperate to protect him from.
"It's not too late for you to go," I said once I gave him the cliff notes of my last day and a half. "You can leave and not be culpable for whatever happens next."
"And what exactly happens next?"
"I kill her. Or I don't."
He froze, his face becoming an unreadable, blank canvas. It took a lot to surprise Eric. But my statement had. I guess that goes to show just how far removed I was from the person I used to be, the person he used to know.
"You cannot," he said and released his hold of me.
I didn't know why his answer surprised me. It was easy to assume Eric would be the first to charge in with the simplest, most pragmatic solution. Killing Sophie-Anne was certainly that. But Eric had long been a loyalist to Queen Sophie-Anne. Perhaps not to the nth degree, but he was a good Sheriff and subject to her. He admired her and even though she was his junior, he sought her counsel, respected her advice.
"She's deceased according to the rest of the world. Nothing changes if I kill her," I said. "For all intents and purposes, she's dead and long gone."
"For all intents and purposes—except in the literal true sense of the phrase," he said. My words had provoked him; he began pacing the room.
"Semantics," I said. "You've seen her. She's hardly what you'd call alive, even for the undead."
"And killing her in her current vulnerable state is a decision you can live with, Sookie?" he said. "Is it really?"
"If I have to, I will."
He sneered, and I winced when I saw his fangs had run out. "If someone knows she lives and traces her true death back to you, your life is forfeit."
"You know that's not enough of a threat to dispel me anymore."
Eric exhaled sharply through his nose and closed his eyes as if to rally patience.
"How do you think this plays out, Eric?" My voice rose with anger. "How exactly? Sophie-Anne regains her health… She challenges Thalia for the throne. Sigebert and Wybert, they're long gone. Sophie-Anne has got no one to support her, no one she can use to strong arm her way back onto the throne. So, would she be successful? Probably not. We both know how capable and vicious Thalia is. Sophie-Anne dies anyway. Thalia is now on the hook for the death of, not one, but two monarchs. Felipe and your former Queen. What are her chances legally of maneuvering out from under that at the next summit?"
He glowered at me yet spoke not a word.
"And, in the meantime, what position does that put you in?" I continued. "Are you loyal to Thalia? Or Sophie-Anne? And what are the ramifications of each of those decisions? You know, sure as hell, that you can't take a passive stance in a fight like that. You'll be forced to align yourself to one of them.
"And what are the ramifications for me?" I asked. "And my life? And what of the other vampires in Louisiana? I know many of them were loyal to Sophie-Anne once upon a time. If Thalia goes ahead and kills her, what does that mean for her hard-won stability here? What kind of after-shocks will that have for Thalia's rule? And supposing it all goes the other way and Sophie-Anne lives and assumes the throne. What does that mean for Thalia? What does that mean for me?" I stepped over to him and poked him hard in the chest. "Could you live with that, Eric? Could you really?"
He grabbed my wrist. And we glared at one another.
"I need to think," he said darkly.
"Hah! Welcome to the last twenty-four hours of my hell!" I threw my hands up and walked out of the room. "I'm going to bed."
I took a long shower. I put on a fresh set of cotton pajamas. I blow dried my hair until it was mostly dry. I laid in bed. Eric was in the living room and hadn't moved for a long time. I guessed he was in downtime, trying to think a way out of the mess I'd landed us in.
At some point, Eric stirred me from my bleary reverie. His tall frame filled the doorway, Sophie-Anne's mummified body nestled in his arms within the plastic sheet. He wore work gloves and Jason's old work boots. I doubted they fit comfortably.
"Come," was all he said. Bleary resignation rolled through me.
Tennis shoes on, I followed him through my back garden. In one hand I carried a bag containing both my flashlight and the six pack of Life Force. In the other, I carried a shovel.
Eric laid Sophie-Anne gently on a patch of grass not so far from my apple tree. The tree was redolent with fall leaves; they whispered softly in the evening breeze, the odd few drifting down to lay on the grass. My eyes stung with tears.
I held the flashlight as Eric shoveled earth. He went at human speed, perhaps to limit the mess to my garden since the shoveled dirt gathered in a neat pile beside him. Or maybe just to draw out the misery over all of this. Who knew at this point? When he was several feet down, he stopped.
"This should be enough."
He lowered his former queen onto the ground, and I looked on as he parted her gaping mouth and poured bottle after bottle of Life Force into her. It disappeared and left no discernible effect. Like water into parched earth.
The night was cold, and I shivered in the thin sweater I'd thrown over my pajamas. I wrapped my arms around myself.
"It won't be enough," he told me. "I'll need to dig her up at first dark tomorrow. She'll require human blood. It'll likely take a several nights feeding her like this for her to revive. Perhaps longer given the length of time she's been in this state and her current physical injuries." I presumed he meant her amputated legs.
"Why bury her?"
"Physically it's more restorative. Similar to when first turning a vampire. It guarantees a better end result."
I nodded but said nothing more. I didn't care to know. Eric filled the hole back over, stamping the earth flat with his booted feet. It felt as though the hard-earned sense of security and safety in my life was buried and gone along with her.
"You're upset," he stated. He leaned the shovel against the trunk of the apple tree, ready for tomorrow. The sky was already beginning to lighten, an almost imperceptible shift from darkness toward twilight.
"My, aren't you observant?" I wiped my damp cheeks against my inner sleeve.
"This is the only right decision."
Eric pulled off the work gloves he'd been wearing and shook them out. He'd remained surprisingly clean throughout the whole endeavor. He draped the gloves over a low branch of the apple tree.
"Since when are you so concerned about doing what's morally right?" I didn't intend for that to sound as callous and caustic as it did. But there, I'd said it.
"Since when is murder the first solution you jump to?"
I recoiled as if slapped.
"That's unfair," I hissed. "That is not how this played out."
I could've left her in that tunnel and walked away. I could've staked her then and there! And no one would've known. Instead, I'd put her in the trunk of my car and escaped to Bon Temps.
"You can't predict the future," Eric said, walking over to where I stood. "It will take her time to recover. Any threat she represents isn't immediate."
"Oh yes, time for us to see the brick wall before our car crashes head-on into it."
"You think I like this? You think I'm happy with this turn of events?" His accent was extra pointy as he clipped out the words.
"I gave you an out. I didn't want you involved!"
"Sookie," he said, and his broad hands clasped down around my upper arms, holding me in place. I strained to make out his expression in the dark. He looked angry, as though he didn't understand why he was involved either. Well, he was a fool. A nosy fool. "When it comes to you, I am always involved."
"Oh, come off it." I shook my head in disgust. "Tell me why I shou—"
His lips crashed into mine. Shock ran through me, the words my mouth had been forming instantly extinguished, forgotten, like I was struck by lightning. His hands released my arms and slid across my back to draw me up in a tight embrace. The kiss was hard. Needful. I felt something big and unnameable burst within me; I flung my arms around his neck like he was a lifeline, and I kissed him back.
"Dawn is coming," he said, parting from the embrace first. He lowered his head to brush his cheek against mine, and his nose dropped into the little hollow at my collarbone. I felt a cool rush as he inhaled, breathing me in. I shivered. "We will speak more at sundown tomorrow."
I went to offer him the hidey-hole, but he was already gone, the breeze of his swift departure rustling the leaves of the apple tree. I lifted my hand to my lips. They tingled—no, they burned. All my insides felt like they were crawling with fire ants.
"Goodnight," I said to the empty yard.
