Page 37 of The Darkest Half

But worse than the thought of death is wondering why my brother still hasn’t come to rescue us.

That reality is, of course, affecting Izzy more than me, but I can’t deny that it doesn’t bother me, too. I gave Victor the benefit of the doubt; I knew in the beginning that a rescue operation like this wouldn’t be easy or quick, but he should’ve been here by now. And all three of us should either be free or dead by now.

This kind of slow death…just fucking kill me already!

I feel my body shutting down, my organs rejecting me, the air in my lungs becoming something akin to porous cement. My teeth hurt. My head. My back. My whole fucking body hurts like hell. My bowels feel like mush.

“Niklas?”

Izzy’s voice pulls me from my thoughts; she sounds so weak, and it just pisses me off whenever she tries to talk, and I have to hear it because I can’t do a thing about it.

“You could eat me,” I tell her, and although I was kidding, a grim part of me meant it.

“That’s not funny, Nik…”

“Sorry.”

“Why hasn’t he come…Niklas, why hasn’t Victor come?” I can’t move my head to look at her, but I can hear the breathlessness in her voice, and I know she doesn’t have much longer, either.

When they poured water beneath the door earlier this evening, she was slow to move toward it. We’ve both made sure to stay as close to the door as possible at all times, not in case someone opens it—that’s not gonna happen—but so we don’t have to move as far to get to the water when they bring it. I know one fucking thing: there’s not a cleaner floor in this city, that’s for sure.

“I…don’t know, Izzy,” I finally answer. “But… as I told you when this all started…he’s not going to come.”

“I don’t…believe that.”

“You should start,” I tell her. “Erase him from your memory, Izabel, and accept that he never loved you enough—he never loved either one of us enough.”

“You’re wrong,” she argues. “You’re wrong…and you know it.”

“We’re still here, aren’t we? And…where is Victor? We’re starving to death, and my brother knows it—he sees it!” I stop to catch my breath; my eyes shut tight to let the excruciating pain pass. Then I continue in a calmer, quieter voice, “We’re going to die….in this room together, and Victor will let it happen because there’s nothing he can do. No sense in all three of us biting the bullet.”

“I wish it were a goddamn bullet,” she hisses, and her breathing gets choppy. “I’d rather a bullet than this slow, miserable death—hey, did you see that?”

The question catches me off-guard.

“See what?”

“A rat,” she says. “I saw a rat running across the floor.”

I lift my head and only manage to roll onto my side. I look right at her, lying on her side, staring in my general direction.

“Where?”

Izzy’s eyes dart around the small space between us, about eight feet. “There! It’s right there!” She lifts her hand and points at me.

Confused, I look downward at myself, but I don’t see any rats, just a malnourished slab of meat in clothes, slowly deteriorating. If there are any rats in this building, they’ll show up after my corpse starts decomposing.

“I don’t see anything,” I tell her.

Her eyes grow wider, full of anger and determination, and hell if I know what all else, but I do know she’s starting to lose it.

“Izzy,” I say softly, “close your eyes and try to sleep.”

“I know what I saw,” she insists, then tries to get up. “If we can catch it, it’ll be something to eat, at least.”

“Izabel, stop moving.” I raise myself to grab her. “Seriously, lay the fuck back down and close your eyes—you’re hallucinating.”

She doesn’t listen; she manages to prop her body by her hands, her bony arms shaking unsteadily in the moonlight. But she’s too weak and can’t hold herself up; she falls, her cheek slapping against the tile.

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