Page 24 of Scythe & Sparrow
“Not that much. And you said ‘killing,’ not ‘murdering.’”
“Same thing.”
“Not really.”
He folds his arms across his chest and squares off in front of me. “Explain.”
“Killing is like, ‘Someone is dead because of me, but maybe it’s anoops—’”
Fionn snorts. “I highly doubt this is an ‘oops.’”
“—But murder is like, ‘I totally meant to do that.’”
“Did you mean to do it?”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s not?” he asks. I lift a shoulder, and Fionn’s head tilts. “Then what could possibly be the point if it’s not youfucking killedsomeone?”
“You said ‘killed,’ and ‘killed’ is nicer.” I slosh the beer side to side in a last-chance gesture, but when he doesn’t take it, I stuff it in the front pocket of my plaid shirt. “Your loss. Follow me, Doc,” I say, positioning my crutches so I can safely hop down from the tailgate. Fionn moves closer as though he can’t stop the urge to offer his help, but he does stop himself, in the end. He halts just shy of taking my arm and then stands back to watch as I swing my way to the driver’s door. When I pull it open, he’s still standing where I left him. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanna show you something.”
Fionn looks toward his vehicle parked on the dirt road. I’m sure the pull is strong to get away from here, to go back to life the wayit was before I appeared like some kind of fever dream. Part of him probably wants to crawl back into the shadows and imagine this is all just a strange nightmare that might cling to his consciousness for a few days before it fades from memory. I know what it’s like to hide, and I know what it’s like to be found. It can be exhilarating to be seen. And it can be terrifying to be exposed.
“I guarantee I don’t enjoy this as much as you’d think,” I say, pulling the beer from my pocket and cracking it open. I take a long swig in an effort to swallow the churning unease that creeps up my throat. With a deep sigh, Fionn turns toward me and stops at my side.
“That’s reassuring.”
I give him a tentative smile that isn’t returned, and then take a deep breath and hold it, setting my beer down on the dash. I turn toward Eric’s body to start patting him down for his phone. When I tug his torso into place to sit upright on the driver’s seat, I find it in his front pocket. As with pretty much everything in the truck, it’s covered with blood, so I wipe it off on my shorts.
“That’s good. Make sure you get the evidence really embedded in the fibers,” Fionn says.
“In for a penny, in for a pound.” I turn back to the corpse and hover the screen in front of his face but it doesn’t unlock. When I use the edge of his shirt to wipe the blood from his skin, that doesn’t work either.
“His eyes need to be open for the face ID to work,” Fionn says flatly.
“How about now?” I pull his eyelids open and try again, but still nothing. “Bear with me a minute, Doc.” Leaving my crutches to rest against the open door, I hop off the rail and over to the rear ofthe cab, climbing onto the back seat to rummage through the box of tools. With a squeak of triumph, I find the perfect tool to help.
“Sweet Jesus.Rose—”
“Call it circus ingenuity,” I say as I hop back to the front of the vehicle with my prize in my hand. I climb onto the rail and hold open one of Eric’s eyelids with one hand, lining up the staple gun with his lash line. “Last time I used one of these, I stapled a curtain to my hand, so let’s hope for the best.”
Fionn’s whispered curses fall into the backdrop as I press the handle down, pop a staple into his eyelid to attach it to the flesh below his brow, and then turn to retch. “You might want to find another hobby,” he offers.
I cough. Retch again. Take a few deep breaths and a swig of the beer sitting on the dash. “I’m good.”
“Have you had this reaction to blood and gore before?”
“Not really … though maybe now that you mention it, I did pass out during the curtain incident. Woke up to Jim flapping my arm around like a wing.”
“What about when I found you passed out on the floor in my exam room?”
“Well, I thought that one didn’t count, all things considered.”
“I think it still counts.”
With a fleeting smile and shrug, I turn back to my task and repeat the process with Eric’s other eyelid. Pop. Staple. Retch. Blood seeps over the surface of his eyes, so when I’ve managed to subdue the urge to vomit, I take my can of beer from the dash and pour a line of liquid across his brow to wash it away.
“Dear God,” Fionn says, and it comes out more like a resigned groan than any true shock. “This is a fucking travesty.”
