Crescendo

Prologue

He stared at the television screen, oblivious to the gunfight typical of every Mafia movie made in the ‘70s of cut-rate, Mario Puzo variety. He was distracted. The sunlight was fading and the day was drawing to a halt as the crisp wind blew and children zipped up their jackets before returning home. But he didn’t see any of the activities that were happening outside his window. He had pulled the drapes closed, shutting out the October afternoon and drenching the room in darkness, the picture tube that cast a cone-shaped ray of light over the floor providing the only illumination.

October. The beginning of fall. Shorter days. Nippy, chafing wind. Gray. He never saw the beauty of fall the way other people did. The leaves changing color, taking a long drive along a winding country road to view the colorful foliage as it blanketed the ground, making the landscape an earthy kaleidoscope, these things did not appeal to him. When he saw the changing landscape, he thought of dead leaves that crunch under foot and bare trees with their fingers pointing accusingly at the sky, damning God for their condition. When the brisk wind tousled his hair he felt, instead, the cold fingers of Mother Nature, so cold they burned, scraping the soft skin of his cheek, punishing him for coveting her warmth. And for him, winter was worse.

But that wasn’t what was wrong with him then as he sat in his bedroom with the darkness of night closing in around him. As the wise guys shot at their rivals, shielding their Don like pawns on a chessboard protecting their king, he stared at the television set—through the television set—seeing that day again and again, as if it had been captured on instant replay.

He had just gotten back to his office. At 10:00 a.m., he felt the walls of his gray cloth cube closing in on him, as usual. He walked across the street to a little bookstore and browsed the magazine rack. Settling on the daily newspaper, he then went to a neighboring coffee shop and bought a cup of Chai tea, heading back to the office with both hands full.

As he sat down, frowning at the ten emails that had come in while he was gone, he thumbed through the newspaper, finally deciding on the Lifestyle section. Pulling out the section and skimming the first page, he realized that the diversion was exactly what he needed. There was nothing heavy in it. No fatal accidents on the highway; no politics, no coverage of the previous night’s football games to get his dander up. Just good old neighborhood happenings and movie listings. He didn’t feel like engrossing himself in anything that would take more concentration than a story about a local hero or a cat stuck in a tree. But he never got the chance to read the story about the 102-year-old woman who lived in his town, not ten minutes away from his single-family house, who had won the National Garden and Landscaping award that year. He didn’t see the picture of her garden full of winter mums, or her wrinkled, watery-eyed, pleasantly smiling face surrounded by a shock of white hair above the caption that read, At 102, Myra still tends to her garden daily. Instead, a memory masked in the haze of a dream filled his mind.

It was like a nightmarish screenplay playing in his mind, the storyline pieced together by a sentence or a look. Thoughts, memories, wretched clarity jostled him. Images flitted in and out of his consciousness, filling it, pushing past the monotonous thoughts that normally flooded his mind, such as what he was going to have for dinner and his mental checklist for the weekly meeting at 3:30 p.m. Even when he raised his ever-cycling thoughts as a shield to deflect the intrusion, the images still trickled in slowly until they took over his mind completely. The wicked smiles, blinding in their lucidity, descended upon him without pause.

They taunted him.

Gliding from side to side like a vulture surveying its next meal dying on the ground below, these truths cast their shadow over him, moving in and out of focus, only turning to face his mind’s eye for a second, teasing it.

He knew.

It was this understanding that had paralyzed him behind his desk in an office filled with chattering project managers and accountants, sustaining the buzz and paperwork that made up life in Corporate America. It was this same understanding that stood before him then, blocking his view of the dance of death portrayed on screen, pinning him to his chair, his limbs immobile and motionless, his eyes dried by the air that hung thickly in the room, his lids unable to blink. It was the dreadful knowledge of what would bring him to his demise, to his inevitable fate, that weakened his knees and made his bladder contract.

He knew.

He had known, even then.

And as he sat, staring impassively at the television screen while the imposing shadow of the inevitable engulfed him in its wake, he realized with painful clarity that he had known all along.

Chapter 1

The clouds hung thickly in the darkened sky that night. Black smoke bellowed upward, polluting the air with the smell of burning oil. And there was one other smell, dancing seductively in front of him, horridly playing at his nostrils. The smell of burning flesh. It surrounded him, settling heavily on his clothes and filling the air with its scent, thickening it. He lifted his legs high as he ran toward her, like he was running against the ocean current, his knees almost touching his chest. Still the viscous air encircled him, hindering his movement.

She’s dying.

He tried to silence his inner voice but it kept whispering to him, relentless in its efforts to make him hear, to make him understand. It spoke only two words, the voice even, devoid of emotion. But he wasn’t. The words sent him into a panic, pushing him forward, throwing him headlong at the burning car.

The flames kicked upward and the air gave them life. He sucked in black smoke—smoke as thick as tar—as he ran, his legs propelling him forward by some unseen force. The car, its windows darkened from the heat and smoke, was covered in a majestic shade of orange. The flames blanketed the car, contouring the shape of the windshield and hood. The flames were mesmerizing as they shimmered up to the sky like sensuous fingers reaching for a lover.

He could see her.

Through the flames and smoke engulfing the car, he could see her looking at him.

She was screaming.

Fire licked out at him, pushing him back. He blinked rapidly, his eyes stinging from the smoke. Through the haze he saw her turn to look at him, her agonized scream abandoned. She looked at him through the darkened glass with a kind of resolute peace on her face.

Groping hands pulled him away from the car, directing him toward the emergency vehicles. As he stumbled backwards awkwardly, he watched her staring out at him. Her eyes seemed to look right through him. Her face was dirty, but not burned even though flames engulfed the car. Her eyes were clear as they looked at him from the burning car. There was a sadness in them that tore at his heart. He saw something else in them also, something flickering there, just below the surface. As he watched that sense of calm was replaced by something much less tranquil. Her face seemed to darken. A smirk formed on her lips and her eyes glistened with condescension. Some intangible knowledge flamed within them. Her stare was unwavering, derisive at its base. A feeling of inexorable fear brewed within him, spreading from his stomach down to the base of his feet and up through his arms to the tips of his fingers. A gasp rose in his throat.

His legs stopped moving and he found himself being dragged by two people, one on either side of him. Their hands grabbed him in the pit of his arms, thrusting him backwards and away from the fire. He felt the heels of his shoes digging into the soft ground beneath them as he was pulled, but it was distant, inconsequential. The woman kept staring at him even as the flames grew hot around her. The smell of her hair, singeing at first, then burning off completely, filled the car, its bitterness mingling with the stench of burning leather. Her face had grown heinous, her expression grotesque as the fire burned her skin. But he couldn’t look away. He could only stare back at the woman in the car, watching as her life was being taken away from her, staring at her disconcerting countenance in the midst of it all, because of it all.

You have to stay back here, sir, a voice admonished. He turned towards the voice and, for the first time, noticed that the people that had dragged him away from danger were firefighters. They had stopped dragging him and set him on his feet to stand a considerable distance from the burning car. As he stood amidst a crowd of people, police officers blocking off the scene, onlookers oohing and ahing at the spectacle in front of them, her eyes called out to him, beckoning him to her, inviting him to the dance. One firefighter had left but the other one still lingered, speaking to him curtly, but politely, holding his arm tightly, urging him to comply.

It’s not safe for you to be any closer than you are right now.

No! I have to help her! She’s⁠—.

She’s dying.

He tried frantically to pull away from the firefighter and make his way back to the car. Back to her.

She’s dying! he exclaimed, giving life to the voice in his head. Her and the baby.

His voice hitched as he spoke, the words bubbling up from a hidden well inside him, spilling over into the smoke-laden air. The baby? He would have no way of knowing that she was pregnant. Where had that come from? He caught a glimpse of the car again. The woman still stared at him, her face ruined now, but turned toward him, nonetheless. A chill came over him as, suddenly, he knew the origin of the damning words he had just uttered and it made his blood run cold. She had spoken through him.

He struggled against the firefighter, losing strength with every lunge. He finally doubled over and coughed violently, his body shaking as he fought the smoke invading his lungs.

Take it easy, fella.

A middle-aged fireman looked at him compassionately and led him to an ambulance. He looked back at the blazing fire. At the woman’s demise. The pregnant woman. A steady stream of water doused the fire, but he knew in his heart it was too late. He could still see her silhouette, charred and rigid, in the front seat. They were looking at him.

And he smiled back at them.

Chapter 2

James bolted up, sitting rigidly straight in bed, knocking his pillow that had been balanced precariously on the edge of the bed into the dark abyss below where it disappeared from view almost completely before hitting the floor. He was shaking fiercely, trembling from a coldness that seemed to permeate his bones. Andrea was asleep next to him, his movement only disturbing her enough that she switched positions and let out a disconcerted moan.

The room was impenetrably dark. He could see the shape of the armoire across from the bed, the doors still open to reveal the darkened picture tube of their television, but that was growing faint. It seemed that the armoire and the wall behind it were one structure, the armoire’s doors reaching out from its base like hands of the condemned. The room seemed to be darkening somehow, like a cloud had covered the moon, blocking all of its light. It felt like the walls were closing in making the darkness of the room seem tangible, physical. The desk and chair were faintly visible in the dim light; their bone finish was more reflective in the dark than the oak and pine furniture in the room. He couldn’t see the floor, couldn’t see where the carpeting began under the thick blackness that surrounded him, covering the room like fog. The atmosphere in the room seemed wrong. Almost sinister. James blinked against it, trying to clear his vision.

He tried to focus on something in the room, on things that he could see well enough to discern a shape. He looked at the armoire again, trying to make out the angular lines of the crafted top. There was a silk floral arrangement sitting on top of the armoire—pumpkin roses, red and yellow daisies, and russet-red berries with sprigs of eucalyptus in a wicker vase. James squinted, trying to make out the base of the vase or the shade of one of the flowers, but saw nothing. He turned his attention to the sides of the armoire once more, determined to see something of the shape that was visible, although faintly, minutes before. Nothing.

Suddenly a dim stream of light penetrated the room from a window behind the bed.

A window that wasn’t there a second before.

James stared in awe as the wind ballooned cheap curtains the color of crimson outward in wide shimmering bursts, blowing their frayed ends over the bedpost. One of the sheers grazed his back, caressing him like an impassioned lover. James jumped, not from the touch of the curtain, but from the reality of it.

He looked at Andrea, expecting to see the shape of her body under the sheet turned to the side, her hips tilted backward waiting to spoon with his own, her hands folded under her head. He recoiled awkwardly when he saw her sitting up in front of him, wide awake, staring right at him. He realized quickly that it wasn’t the shock of her being asleep one second and awake the next that startled him. It was her, the way she looked.

There was something wrong with her.

James had always loved Andrea’s brown eyes. The softness they held when she looked at him, the playful jubilance in them when she told one of her silly jokes, the lift in their corners when she smiled. He could see none of that now; only empty sockets that seemed like inordinately large holes, holes that once hugged her beautifully shaped eyes.

Paralyzed by shock and indescribable fear that some part of his mind tried to tell him was irrational, James stared at his wife who seemed to relish his reaction. She smiled a heinous version of her usually vibrant smile and licked her lips with a bloody tongue. She hissed,

You’re mine now, Jimmie.

A bony, claw-like hand clasped his forearm and James found that he couldn’t shake its grasp. Underneath Andrea’s skin he could see something wriggling, moving. It traveled down her arm, over the top of her hand, and separated as it moved through each of her fingers. Andrea let out the most terrifying laughter James had ever heard as he felt his forearm become hot. The veins in his arm pulsed and his skin grayed as whatever was in Andrea transferred to him. He screamed from the hollow of his stomach as he changed.

He didn’t feel his teeth bite into his tongue, filling his mouth with the tinny, metallic taste of his own blood. He saw only his wife, his precious Andrea, laughing at him as her long, jagged nails curled, reaching for his eyes.

Chapter 3

James’ eyes snapped open. He looked around disoriented, surprised that he could see at all. He turned over and saw Andrea lying peacefully on her side, her back facing him. She was sound asleep. It was Saturday morning and sunlight pierced the room from the window behind the chaise in their reading nook. James looked behind him quickly, half expecting to see the mystery window set innocently in the wall behind the bed, confirming that he was still embroiled in the nightmare. It was gone.

Andrea awoke to her husband sitting up in bed whipping his head around, surveying the room.

Are you okay, honey? she asked in her groggy, ‘it’s too early to be awake’ voice. James looked at her, dazed, disbelief spreading over his face.

James?

Andrea put her hand on his forearm. His first reaction was to yank it away, not wanting to let the thing inside her travel through his skin. Panic flashed across his face, alarming her.

James, what’s wrong? Andrea asked, concern creeping onto her face, replacing the fog of sleep that seemed suspended in front of her. She blinked her bleary eyes and stretched. James looked at her, desperation filling him as he scanned her face. Her beautiful eyes stared back at him, gradually gaining focus as she pulled herself out of sleep. They were normal.

Her hands, her soft skin and manicured nails, were normal. Not claws and cold, scaly skin, but the hands of his wife of three years. He looked into Andrea’s eyes and sighed in relief.

It was just a dream, that’s all, he said, not sounding convinced. I didn’t get much sleep last night.

James sank back into his pillow, somehow comforted by the sunlight that brightened the room. Everything in the room looked normal in the light of day. The armoire’s doors stood open revealing the picture tube but it no longer seemed like an ominous pool of blackness like in his dream. The armoire itself looked pleasant, as though it belonged in a country home surrounded by bright yellow daisies and wicker furniture. He stared at it, daring it to change back into the hulking structure that loomed at the foot of his bed in his dream. Nothing happened. James sighed as he nestled deeper into the bedcovers, succumbing to the fatigue that had played around his senses all night—a sigh that was both one of relief and acquiescence.

Andrea stroked his hair as he drifted into an inhibited, fitful sleep. As he dozed, his eyes shutting against the room, James could feel the darkness surrounding him. He was vaguely aware that the room had become impenetrably dark, almost like the moon had eclipsed the sun. James saw Andrea sitting behind him, her body pressed against his, raking her talons through his hair, drawing thin slivers of blood as they pierced the soft skin of his scalp. He saw her mouth open, contouring into a devilish grin, revealing pointed, yellowed teeth. Blood dripped from her mouth like raindrops falling from the sky. It pooled on his shoulder, the stain spreading on his white nightshirt.

He saw all of this on the backs of his eyelids, like a movie reel playing in an old, dilapidated movie theater whose only patrons were the kind of people who needed the privacy of a dark room to do what they do.

Instinctively his eyes fluttered open and he immediately felt foolish. The same sunlight that brightened the room before he shut his eyes shone in the room still, casting brilliant colors off the white and silver vase that sat on the desk—a wedding present from Andrea’s mother. He turned over and looked at the rest of the room. The sunlight was still coming in from the window behind the chaise, drenching the room in warmth and light. Everything seemed normal.

He looked at Andrea and noticed for the first time that she was asleep. The light from the window backlit the slender frame of Andrea’s sleeping body, making her look like an angel. James stared at her, watching, listening. Her steady breathing was rhythmic, hypnotic. A shudder rippled through him as he realized that he had been dreaming when he thought she was awake.

Yet the room looked the same as it had in his second dream.

James took a deep breath, inhaling and exhaling slowly, trying to clear his mind. I’m really awake this time, he said to himself. He could smell the linen spray Andrea used on their sheets, could feel the warmth of the sunlight as it heated up the room. This time it wasn’t a dream.

Or was it?

James grinned in spite of himself as his mind played devil’s advocate. He nuzzled the pillow, ignoring the screams of terror that reverberated in his head.

James slept as the last Saturday of his life carried on, unaware and unconcerned. Everyone except one woman went on about their lives, shopping in the mall, having coffee at the corner cafe, having sex in the warm sunlight that caressed the backs and legs of entwined lovers. It was a normal day for everyone else except Carmen.

Chapter 4

Miss?

A gray-haired woman looked questioningly at the girl in front of her who seemed to be daydreaming. She was staring at the wall, just below the ancient advertisement for Newport cigarettes; her brow furrowed, wrinkling the otherwise smooth skin of her forehead. She looked too young to have the troubles that showed on her pleasant, dimpled face. The poor girl looked as though a storm was brewing behind her tortured eyes.

Sighing, Pauline shifted her weight behind the counter. There wasn’t a line waiting behind the girl, but she was anxious just the same. She didn’t have time for any foolishness; her body language expressed her impatience. She put a hand on her ample hip and repeated,

Miss?

Carmen turned her gaze to the woman who seemed to be looming over her, zooming in and out of focus. What she could make out was that the woman was scowling. Her face was contorting into wicked expressions. Her face went from normal to demonic, writhing as it changed, ripping through the vestiges of her human face until only raw evil remained. The thing—the woman—was talking, but Carmen didn’t hear anything. An audible gasp escaped Carmen’s lips as she blinked and took a step backwards, almost crashing into a potato chip display. As her right hand rose reflexively to cover her mouth the woman’s face returned to normal, showing only her discontent, but nothing more sinister. Carmen looked at her in disbelief, not believing her eyes.

Pauline leaned forward and said, Look, if you don’t want the stuff⁠—.

All of a sudden, Carmen could hear the woman speaking again, the odd droning beep that had filled her ears before disappearing. The woman’s rough-edged voice spoke hurriedly, agitated. It was all Carmen could do not to scream. The woman snatched back the bag that had been packed with a 2-liter bottle of soda, chips, and a paperback and started to unpack it.

Carmen stuttered, cleared her throat, and said,

I’m sorry. What do I owe?

Pauline eyed her suspiciously, beginning to wonder if more than a case of the blues was affecting the young woman at her counter. She repacked the bag slowly, keeping her eye on the woman as she worked.

Comes to $9.76, she said, her voice guarded.

She tried to mask her uneasiness as she stood in front of the young woman, who was not more than a girl, really. But something about her made Pauline nervous. She watched the woman warily as she dug into her oversized purse for money to pay the bill.

Carmen conducted the rest of the transaction on autopilot. Her mind was cluttered with incoherent thoughts, all of them feeding off one another, mixing like paint on a pallet. She couldn’t seem to focus on one of them long enough to understand it, to see why it was filling her with a sense of dread. Every time she thought she had pinned one down to review it, just when she started to form an opinion of it, it floated away and was quickly replaced by another jumble of thoughts. She felt confused and disoriented as she fumbled around in her purse, trying to get enough money together to pay the bill. Indiscernible images kept hanging in front of her eyes, only giving her clear sight for a second or two before another vision replaced the last one. She blinked rapidly, trying to wipe them away. When that didn’t work, she tried rubbing her eyes, squeezing them shut. Still, they loomed.

Pauline watched as the woman struggled in front of her. Carmen finally handed her a $20.00 bill, barely looking in Pauline’s direction as she did so. Pauline thought about skimming a couple of dollars from the change, especially given her patron’s state of bewilderment. The girl would never know the difference, Pauline thought. But something changed her mind. It was the sudden dullness in her eyes. They were so lackluster that they appeared bone dry. They sent a chill down Pauline’s spine, and coming from a woman who shot a man in the head at point blank range when he tried to rob her store, that was saying a lot. Not even the splatter of blood and God knows what else on the Fritos corn chips was enough to make her feel the consternation that she felt looking into that girl’s eyes. She felt like someone was walking over her grave.

So, she gave the young woman all of her change and watched her pick up the bag and make her way to the front door as though she was in a trance. She pushed the door open, sounding the bells hanging on the wreath hook, turned, and passed the picture window on the right side of the store. Pauline held her breath unconsciously as the girl passed, bracing herself for what, she didn’t know. When the woman turned to look at her through the dirty glass Pauline jumped in spite of herself. A flash of embarrassment reddened Pauline’s cheeks but left as quickly as it came when she looked at the girl again. The sight of her made all of the color drain from Pauline’s face.

An involuntary gasp escaped her lips.

The girl suddenly looked pallid, wan. She was thinner than she had been moments before, no longer shapely but gaunt. Her eyes had sunken into their sockets. Her skin had darkened and yellowed since she left the store. She looked sickly. Pauline’s hand fluttered up to her neck as it never had before when their eyes met. There was an emptiness in them that was troubling. There was nothing there, no sign of life, no vibrance. They were more than just insipid and dull. They looked lifeless.

Pauline’s heartbeat banged in her ears as the pace quickened. She tried to pull her eyes away from the young woman but couldn’t. Before reaching the edge of the picture window the girl offered a thin smile to Pauline. Pauline returned a smile that was born more out of madness than congeniality. They stayed that way for what seemed like hours, smiles plastered to their faces, eyes watching each other. Finally, mercifully, the young woman walked beyond the picture window and out of sight. A sigh of relief left Pauline’s lungs as she gazed out to the busy street, a street ignorant of the exchange that had just occurred between the two women.

As her heartbeat gradually returned to normal and her mind relaxed, Pauline realized why she had been shaken so. Her mind had a difficult time wrapping around it, but she knew it to be true the moment it dawned on her. Looking at the young woman as she walked in front of the picture window was like looking at the living dead. A film of sweat blanketed her brow.

Carmen’s daze broke a block past the store. She walked briskly to her new apartment, ran up the stairs two at a time, and locked the door. She felt like something was after her. Paranoid? Maybe. But why? She had just moved to New York from Washington DC a month before and hadn’t met enough people to make enemies. About the worst thing she had been guilty of had been jaywalking in Nyack her first week. Even though jaywalking is a crime in Washington DC, cops rarely reprimanded you for it. Apparently, they did in New York.

Carmen had only worked for a week or so. She hadn’t had that many customers, but that was to be expected in her business. A psychic’s success is contingent upon word-of-mouth advertising, so she was giving it some time. She’d had three customers in the week that she hung her shingle on the door— a man looking for love, a woman wanting to know what would happen in her complicated love life, and a woman who wanted to summon the spirit of her adopted mother so she could find out who her birth parents were. So what if two of the readings had been bogus. Nobody believed in that shit anyway, right?

Carmen put the bag down on the kitchen counter and turned around, surveying her meager studio. She hadn’t brought much with her when she left DC, and still hadn’t had time or money to decorate her digs. But her shabby bedspread and worn-out pleather sofa were not important to her then. She could feel a presence in her apartment.

She walked around slowly, unsure of what she might see and if she really wanted to see it at all. She circled the floor space between her bed and the dining room table (a card table with folding legs), straining her eyes to see something that wasn’t there, something that sat just beneath her consciousness, watching her with perfect clarity. She went into the bathroom tentatively and yanked the shower curtain back. She repeated the process with her two closets doors. Nothing.

She walked toward her bed, shaking her head as she went. I have to lighten up, she thought, trying to shrug off the odd feeling that had plagued her since she entered the supermarket. It was as if something had touched her soul, examining it, fondling it while she walked up and down the aisles. The feeling of being touched—of hands on her skin—was so strong she turned around to face the person trying to get her attention. She found the aisle empty. Chuckling self-consciously, she tried to ignore it, to chalk it up to a medium moment. Sometimes that happened to her. Spirits wanting to communicate with the living thrashed around in limbo on earth, banging against the barrier that separated the world of the dead from the world of the living, trying to break through.

Spirits touch people all the time, but only those who were sensitive to it knew what was really happening. Most people attribute the sudden breeze that tickles the back of their necks to a draft from an unseen window somewhere in the house. They mistake the temporary pressure on their shoulder blade for a muscle spasm. They easily explain these things away so that they don’t have to deal with the supernatural truth that the dead do exist in the same space and time as the living. Carmen tried to do the same thing that most people did: she ignored the odd feeling of being touched. She pushed it out of her mind while she shopped, thinking instead of her plans for the evening—a movie and Chinese carryout. It worked until whatever had touched her in the aisle way crept into her mind again at the counter.

Sighing, Carmen turned on the television and flopped down on the bed, resting her knee on the unmade sheets. The feeling was still there, lingering just under the surface of her skin, waiting for something. She looked around again and saw nothing.

I’m starting to believe my own bullshit, she said aloud to the empty room, her laugh sounding high pitched and tinny to her ears.

She flipped through the television stations absently, finding nothing of interest on the tube. She kicked off her shoes, took off her clothes, and snuggled into the bed. The sheets felt cool to her unprotected skin, the chilly folds touching everything that wasn’t covered by her underwear. As she struggled to get comfortable against the tangles of her bedcovers, a cold breeze whipped around the room. The fact that the windows weren’t open popped into her mind but passed as quickly as it had appeared, as if carried by the soothing gust of air like a feather. The air smelled rich and heavy, robust like Italian food. She mused fleetingly that the neighbors must have been making a pot of their homemade pasta sauce like they did every other week. She made a mental note to go by the Wickers’ house and try it this time, since she had turned down an invitation to do so the week before.

It’s the best this side of Sicily, Marian Wicker had boasted, flashing her a near toothless grin as she stirred the thick, red, fragrant sauce with her weathered wooden spoon.

Carmen nestled the pillow and inhaled, almost tasting the pasta. A smile tickled the corners of her mouth as she anticipated her evening meal. The smell of oregano and basil caressed her nostrils and lulled her into the most meaningful rest she had experienced since she moved.

Carmen was asleep before she realized it, and dead before sunrise.

Chapter 5

When I look out at the chaos building on the streets, I tell myself that I am safe here. But where is here? Here, in the alley that I am cowering in—why? Here in the shadows of my mind?

I should be out in the midst of it all, reveling in their energy, smelling the adrenaline in their sweat.