A gun fired. The sound was delayed for a split second. Angie felt the bullet whiz past her head. She heard a chunk of concrete fall to the floor. She turned around.
Dale was sitting on the stairs. His gun was in his lap. Even from twenty yards away, Angie could hear him panting for breath. ‘Stop,’ he said, but Angie wasn’t afraid of him anymore. You only feared for your life when you had something to lose.
Delilah came out of the room. She was covered in blood. She was laughing.
‘What did you do?’ Angie asked, but she knew what the girl had done.
Delilah clapped together her hands as if she could clean them. ‘She’s dead, bitch. What’re you gonna do now?’
Angie looked at Delilah’s empty hands. She had left the knife inside of Jo.
Her only weapon. Her only defense. ‘You stupid cunt.’ Angie grabbed Delilah by the arm and swung her toward the open balcony.
There was no sound.
Delilah was too terrified to scream. She teetered, almost catching herself, but then she lost her balance. Her hands shot out. She clawed at the air. She finally screamed as she plummeted down.
Her body hit the ground with a sickening crunch.
Angie looked at Dale. He was still sitting. He held his revolver with both hands, taking the time to aim, because he wasn’t going to warn her this time. He was going to kill her.
Angie darted into the room. She closed the door behind her. The knob came off in her hand. She pushed against the door. It was latched closed.
‘Angie?’ Dale said. He had managed to stand. She could hear his feet scuffing the stairs. ‘Don’t drag this out.’
Angie closed her eyes. She listened. He was out of breath, but he wasn’t shuffling. She had locked herself in this room. He had four more shots in his revolver. Four more chances at close range to hit a target a blind man could hit in his sleep.
There was only one thing to do.
Blood cupped Angie’s bare feet as she blindly searched the room. She found Jo in the corner. Her body was propped up against the wall. Gently Angie felt for the knife. She found the handle sticking out of Jo’s chest.
‘Angie,’ Dale said. He was closer. He knew he didn’t need to rush.
Angie sat down beside her daughter. Cold concrete curled up through the blood-soaked floor. Dale had been killing Angie every day of her life since she was ten years old. She wouldn’t let him have the final blow. The knife that killed her daughter would be the knife that killed Angie. She would drive it into her own chest. She would bleed out in this dark, empty room. Dale would open the door and find her already gone.
Slowly Angie reached for the switchblade. Her fingers wrapped around the handle. She started to pull.
Jo groaned.
‘Jo?’ Angie was on her knees. She was touching Jo’s face. Stroking back her hair. ‘Talk to me.’
‘Anthony,’ Jo said.
‘He’s safe. In my car.’
Jo’s breathing was shallow. Her clothes were slick with blood. Delilah had stabbed her over and over again, yet somehow Jo was still breathing, still talking, still fighting to survive.
My daughter, Angie thought. My girl.
‘I can stand up,’ Jo said. ‘I just need a minute.’
‘It’s okay.’ Angie reached down for Jo’s hand.
It wasn’t there.
She felt smooth bone, an open joint. ‘Oh God,’ Angie breathed.
Jo’s hand was nearly severed from her wrist. Only tendon and muscle kept it attached to her body. Angie felt the steady spurt of blood pulsing out of her open artery.
‘I can still feel it,’ Jo said. ‘My fingers. I can move them.’
‘I know you can,’ Angie lied. A tourniquet. She needed a tourniquet. Her purse had ripped off her shoulder. There was nothing in the room. Jo would bleed to death if she didn’t do something.
Jo said, ‘Don’t leave me.’
‘I won’t.’ Angie took off her underwear. She wrapped the thong around Jo’s wrist and pulled as tight as she could.
Jo groaned, but the pulsing blood slowed to a trickle.
Angie tied off the knot. She listened for Dale. She tried to hear his footsteps. There was a low keening. Angie didn’t know if it was coming from Jo or from her own mouth.
‘Please.’ Jo leaned into her. ‘Just give me a minute. I’m strong.’
‘I know you are.’ Angie held her as close as she dared. ‘I know you’re strong.’
For the first time in her life, Angie cradled her daughter in her arms.
All those years ago, the nurse had asked her if she wanted to hold her baby, but Angie had refused. Refused to name the girl. Refused to sign the legal papers to let her go. Hedging her bets, because that’s what she always did. Angie could remember tugging on her jeans before she left the hospital. They were still damp from her water breaking. The waist was baggy where it had been tight, and she had gripped the extra material in her fist as she walked down the back stairs and ran outside to meet the boy waiting in the car around the corner.
Denny, but it didn’t matter that it was Denny because it could’ve been anybody.
There was always a boy waiting for her, expecting something from her, pining for her, hating her. It had been like that for as long as Angie could remember. Ten years old: Dale Harding offering to trade a meal for her mouth. Fifteen: a foster father who liked to cut. Twenty-three: a soldier who waged war on her body. Thirty-four: a cop who convinced her it wasn’t rape. Thirty-seven: another cop who made her think he would love her forever.
Will.
He had said forever in Mrs Flannigan’s basement. He had said forever when he put the sunflower ring on her finger.
Forever was never as long as you thought it was.
Angie touched her fingers to Jo’s lips. Cold. The girl was losing too much blood. The handle of the blade sticking out of her chest pulsed against her heart, sometimes like a metronome, sometimes like the stuck second hand on a clock that was winding down.
All those lost years.
Angie should’ve held her daughter at the hospital. Just that once. She should’ve imprinted some memory of her touch so that her daughter didn’t flinch the way she did now, moving away from her hand the way she would move away from a stranger’s.
They were strangers.
Angie shook her head. She couldn’t go down the rabbit hole of everything she had lost and why. She had to think about how strong she was, that she was a survivor. Angie had spent her life running on the edge of a razor—sprinting away from the things that people usually ran toward: a child, a husband, a home, a life.
Happiness. Contentment. Love.
All the things Will wanted. All the things Angie had thought she would never need.
She realized now that all of her running had led her straight to this dark room, trapped in this dark place, holding her daughter for the first time, for the last time, as the girl bled to death in her arms.
There was a scuffing noise outside the closed door. The slit of light at the threshold showed the shadow of two feet slithering along the floor.
Angie closed her eyes again. Dale had done the same thing when she was ten years old. Stood outside the closed door to Deidre’s apartment. Waited for Angie to open up. Deidre never hesitated to open the door. She didn’t care who was on the other side so long as he could bring a needle full of heroin closer to her arm.