– And it’s just too early to take it out.
– Are you here to save us?
We look at the pregnant girl, pushed up on her elbow, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
– Please tell me you’re here to save us.
I shake my head.
– No, I’m just here because your dad wants to see you.
She shakes the boy.
– Awake, Benjamin, he’s here to save us.
Amanda shakes her head.
– Really, Joe, is it any wonder I drugged her. She will not stop talking like that.
I take a step toward the kids as the boy starts to rouse.
– Whatever.
Amanda clucks her tongue.
– Sela.
The blade is in my hand, my arm is wrapped around Amanda’s neck, the edge is on her throat.
Sela is on the balls of her feet, I can see the flutter of pulse under her jaw. Too fast. She’s at zero percent body fat. Her skin is starting to get that stretched look. Everything about her looks stretched to the limit.
– Let her go, Joe.
– Open the door, Phil. Kids, over here.
Phil fiddles with the knob.
– Um, I got this feeling, Uh, like, if I open the door Sela will kill me.
– So stay here, Phil. Be here when Predo comes. Better, Predo doesn’t come, be here when Amanda can’t let enough blood herself to keep Sela alive. Phil, why the fuck do you think you’re still here in the first place?
He hangs his head.
– Maaan. That sucks.
Sela twitches.
– Gonna finally kill Joe Pitt.
– Thought we always got along OK, Sela.
– Till you put a knife at my girl’s throat. Till you found those bleeding children in that hole in Queens and did nothing.
– Oh, that.
Chubby’s daughter has gotten the boy awake. I step from the door to let them past.
– Phil.
– I don’t know, man.
– Just run. Leave the keys. Take the kids and run. She won’t come after you.
– Awww, shiiit!
He yanks the door open and runs, not with the kids, but he does drop the keys.
Exceeding expectations.
Delilah is dawdling.
– And you, sir?
I don’t look from Sela.
– Start downstairs. Don’t stop. Just keep going until they run out.
The boy points at Sela.
– You want help with her? I’m, you know, I’m like you.
– Kid.
Tighten my grip on Amanda.
– Seriously, you’re not.
The girl grabs him and pulls him out the door.
– Come, Benjamin, we must flee.
They’re gone.
Amanda tilts her head a bit, baring her throat further.
– Come on, Joe.
I start backing toward the door.
– Sela, just get him off me, will you, I mean.
She laughs.
– It’s Joe. He won’t hurt me.
Sela takes a step for each of mine.
– Be quiet, baby.
– Just get him off me and go get the girl and the baby.
We’re at the door.
Sela bounces in place.
– Kill you, Joe.
Amanda lifts her chin higher yet.
– Come on, Joe, slit it. Sela, he won’t. He can’t. Just come over here and he’ll push me at you and run. He won’t even use me as a shield. He won’t risk hurting me if you two fight. Just scare him off me, knock him down and, I mean, the baby, Sela.
– Be quiet, babe.
I back us through the door into the hall.
– Pull it closed.
Amanda goes limp.
– No.
Sela steps closer.
– Do not play games with him.
I jerk her upright.
– Amanda.
– Joe, dear.
– I killed your mom. I murdered her.
She stiffens a little.
– That’s a lie.
Sela, getting closer.
– Babe.
I think about Amanda’s mom. Her neck breaking. Just after she kissed me. A long time ago.
– I killed her. And if you want to know why, close the fucking door.
Amanda reaches for the door as I let her go.
Sela moves.
It’s shut. I have the keys, snap a lock, and run.
Amanda grabs me.
– Joe. Tell me.
The door rattles in its frame. Double cylinder locks, take a key to go in or out. Sela will have to find hers to open it. Seconds. More if she loses it and goes feral.
– Joe.
I look at Amanda.
Worm at the middle of the world.
I sheath the blade.
– Girl, you don’t want to know.
I shove her away, vault the banister, hit the next landing down, feel it in my bad knee.
Door being pounded above, Sela screaming. Doors pounded below, howling, increasing floor by floor as Phil and the kids descend.
But all I can hear is her.
– You couldn’t do it, Joe. You couldn’t hurt me. Not really. You couldn’t.
But she’s crying while she says it.
So I know it’s not true.
I can hurt anyone. Experience counts for something.
We’re fucked before we hit the ground floor.
I catch up to Chubby’s kid and her boy. She’s waddling down the stairs, he’s got her arm, helping her. I hit the landing next to them, racket from the door there, whatever’s behind it can smell her blood.
I grab the girl and swing her off the floor and turn to the kid.
– Carry her.
He takes a step back.
– She’s a little heavy right now.
She’s trying to writhe out of my arms.
– No one need carry me.
Door upstairs is hammered. Sela screams.
– She’s going to rip off your legs if she catches you.
I shove the girl into the kid’s arms and drop her and he takes the weight of her before she hits the ground.
– Run.
He takes off, faster now, but not fast enough. I follow to the next landing, one of the empty floors. Quieter upstairs. Sela’s stopped screaming. No smell of blood outside their doors, the good people on the upper floors have settled down.
I hear a jingle of keys at the top.
Because any asshole would know that Amanda has a set of keys. Shit.
When the door on this floor came down they used a catering table as a battering ram. One of the steel legs is on the ground. I pick it up. It’s hollow, the top jagged and bent where it was ripped from the bottom of the table.
I can hear Amanda whispering, jingle of keys, snap of the lock, the bang of the door slamming open and I look up and Sela is over the banister and dropping, flicking her arms, she pushes off the narrow middle of the stairwell, silent now, just the rush of air as she falls at me, little thumps as she controls her plunge, sounds like a giant cat running on a wood floor, headfirst she’s coming, gives a hard shove off the opposite rail just above, changing course, sudden angle onto my landing, heedless, fast, she’ll break me when she hits. The steel table leg will bend around her when I swing it, thin and feeble, but it might knock her off course long enough for me to run another half flight.
Guns. Why am I always losing guns?
She’s in my face.
I jam the jagged end at her, catching the soft flesh above her collarbone, her momentum forcing it deep and she slams into me and we both go down, her blood sprays my face, tastes like acid on my tongue, I can’t reach the blade, she screams and wheels off me, table leg jutting from her shoulder, right arm hanging at her side, something inside severed. I push to the edge of the landing and tumble down, crawl, she’s making wet coughing noises, the end of the leg in her lung. I tumble down the next flight.
– Joe.
Phil and Chubby’s daughter and the boy, standing at the door that opens toward the front of the building.
– Joe! Keys, man!
I stand, bent over goddamn broken ribs, start toward the door under the stairs.
Phil shakes his head.
– Aw shit, no, man. No. This way, man.
I get the keys out.
– Predo will kill us all.
I shake the keys at him.
– And Sela’s not dead.
She screams, there’s movement up there.
Phil grabs the keys.
– Shitshitshit.
He opens the locks.
The kid moves closer, Chubby’s daughter still in his arms.