Dany’s right eye is swelling shut. With every heartbeat, blood ebbs and flows, and her eye pulses with pain. The sky above Faraday’s dark yard slowly fills with red, and she has to remind herself of how little time has passed. Only this morning, she had history class with Liz. Only yesterday, she stood in the rat house with Jasper.
A part of her is still in that classroom. And a part of her is still in the blue suit.
And at Darling-Holmes, and at Bea’s, and at the prison-hospice.
Seeing a red rope. Hearing the sound of bone dislodged from a fleshy socket.
The ringing of alarms. And always, always, at the back of her throat, the acrid taste of smoke.
But, as always, too, she is sitting quietly at home on her bed, on a park bench, in the back of a classroom, reading a book, reading
