Into This River I Drown - By Tj Klune Page 0,71

I care about your son. I care about all of you, but I care about him more. I am here to protect him, and I will do my duty.”

She trembles, tears welling in her eyes then spilling over onto her cheeks. She sniffs and brushes her face angrily. “Then you better do your job,” she says bitterly. “If something happens to him, I am coming for you. Do you understand me? If anything happens to him, I will hunt you down and make you pay.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” he says, squeezing her shoulder.

She glances at me, her expression unreadable, and then she turns away, leaving the kitchen. I hear her going up the back stairs and wait until her door slams shut. He stares after her for a time before I call his name, my voice rough.

He seems so big when he walks toward me, as if there are parts of him, just under the surface, that add to his mass. For a moment, I think I see the faint outline of wings stretching out behind him, the tips dragging along the floor. A flat disc of metal feels like it’s burning a hole in the jeans pocket I placed it in earlier. My skin feels electrified. My heart pounds. I don’t know what all of these events mean, but it feels like things are changing and I can’t do anything to stop it. I don’t know that I want to even if I could.

He towers so far above me that it seems impossible. His eyes are like pools of oil, liquid in the way they shift. He reaches down and takes my hand in his and carefully pulls me out of Big House and toward home.

He takes me to the bathroom in Little House and turns on the shower, telling

me to strip. I do, trying to decide if I should be shy in front of him. My shirt goes up and over my head. I hesitate when I reach the fly to my jeans, but the earnest expression on his face is not mocking me, nor is it filled with any kind of deep hunger. I take off my boots and flip the buttons on my jeans and drop them to the floor. Something stutters across his eyes then and there’s a quick flash as he looks me up and down just once, and I think I hear a sharp intake of breath, but I can’t be sure over the noise of the shower. He parts the curtain, closing it behind me when I am under the water. I can see him through the plastic as he picks up my clothes and folds them, then puts down the toilet seat lid and sits. Waiting.

The water scalds my skin. The steam is heavy in the room. I feel detached, like I’m above myself, looking down. This moment feels almost like a dream. I lean my forehead against the tile, the water cascading down my back. I close my eyes and I’m tired, suddenly exhausted. My knees feel weak, and I open my eyes, my vision tunneling. I inhale, but I choke on the steam. It’s hard to catch my breath and I just want to lie down. I just want to close my eyes and not think. It’s not a bad thing. I know that desire to want to escape, to not have to worry about the things I no longer have control over. So I let go. The release is almost shocking in its simplicity. I let go of all of my confusion and jumbled thoughts because I just want to float on my back and look up at the sky and go wherever the river will take me. I let go and fall.

But before I fall completely, strong arms wrap around me, holding me tight. A worried voice says my name. Lips brush against mine, and in my secret heart (crossed, hoped for death, a thousand needles stuck in my eye), I know I’m safe as I disappear into the dark.

There is no seventy-seven in this place. There is no river. There are no crosses,

no trucks that crash down embankments. No voices call my name, no shadow figures standing on the roadway above. It smells of earth and there is only peace because all I have is blue.

Consciousness creeps in slowly. I don’t want to wake up, but I feel that I

must. I’m warm, and comfortable. I know I’m in my own bed even before I open