thirty-eight: in which she's dying to be saved

Dedicated to Wattpad Block Party prize winner, Moisa71

"Which funeral comes marchin' when the holy deed is done?" –Ciscandra Nostalghia, Who You Talkin' To Man?

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I could move my thumb.

You live life taking most things for granted and you never even think of the simple movement of your opposable thumb. You never appreciate it, never even give it much thought.

But, well, I could move my thumb.

And the joy was something so great that it made me think I was smiling.

That brief moment of joy evaporated the instant McNally held up a serrated blade – a small blade that looked like it had been cut from something bigger – for me to see. And when he lowered it, I knew just what he was going to do.

The funny thing was, I could move my thumb.

But that was it.

Even so, it was my one source of comfort – that I could still feel something. Even if he was mutilating me, even if he was hurting me, I couldn't feel that – but I could feel something.

"David was always afraid of the dark," McNally was saying, focusing entirely on what he was doing to me, "and needles. When we were kids, I'd take his flu shot for him. Our mother never understood why he always caught the flu if he'd taken his shots.

You have very smooth skin here, Miss Fenton."

You creep. You disgusting creep.

My eyelids were fluttering, which was a bad sign because it meant that I was quickly regaining feeling elsewhere. And if that were the case, it wouldn't be long before I felt exactly what McNally was doing to me...

Time was passing. Of course it was. Time didn't stand still just because I was still.

In my mind, I could feel the cold steel of McNally's blade against my skin. In my mind, I could feel him tracing the tip along the inside of my thigh, maybe even pressing deep into my skin, finding my femoral artery. God, was I bleeding out? Was McNally just standing there, watching the crimson seep out of my skin, until I was nothing but a husk?

In my mind, I could feel myself dying.

It's funny – they say your life flashes before your eyes before you die, like an endless loop of recorded memories – but all I saw was the one person who had become my life.

Jake.

It always came back to Jacob Ford, didn't it?

I saw the first time I'd ever laid eyes on him.

"You don't even look at those Ford boys, Ella," scolded Aunt Stacy, one hand holding mine and her other holding Ella's as we crossed the road to our car. "They can make you pregnant just by looking at you, with their wild eyes and filthy mouths. You want to be pregnant at fifteen, you go ahead – but just know, I am not gonna look after any babies."

"Mom, ew!" said Ella, wrinkling her nose. "They just invited a bunch of us over for a birthday party! It's just a party."

Aunt Stacy fumbled with the car keys in her purse. "Huh. No child of mine is going over to that house of sin and unlawfulness. Gang members and prostitutes roaming about? Do I look like a fool, Ella Fenton?"

"I'll take Maya with me, Momma. Please?"

I perked up at the sound of my name. Ella was so cool, so pretty and if she wanted to hang out with me, I was all for it. It had only been a couple of months since my parents had died, and I was desperately clinging to this new family of mine, needing them for security. For safety.

Aunt Stacy narrowed eyes as dark as chocolate at the both of us. "Leave Maya out of it. She's only eight," she snapped, unlocking the car. "You're not going, Ella, and that's that. Get inside, girls."

She was using her don't-mess-with-me voice, and Ella knew better than to challenge her. We silently piled into the car – me, in the backseat, and Ella in the passenger seat, next to my aunt.

The March sun was bright outside, and when something flashed even brighter, catching my eye, I looked. There was a boy standing on the pavement, his bicycle leaning against the wall of the 7-11 we'd just left. Scruffy-haired, tall and really skinny, he was drinking a bottle of pop, eyes trained on our car across the street. The silver studs in his black jacket were what had caught my attention, glinting in the sunlight like fireflies in the day.

He raised his bottle at me, as if to say 'Cheers', like the grown-ups did, and I quickly looked away, scared that I'd been caught looking.

That was a Ford boy – and I didn't want to fall pregnant.

I saw the first time we'd ever spoken to each other.

"They were really young."

I almost screamed, startled to hear a voice in what I'd thought was an empty cemetery. I turned around, widening my eyes when I saw just who was standing there.

"Who?" I managed to ask, only just recalling the statement he'd just made.

"Your parents," said Jacob, nodding at the two headstones I was standing in front of. "They were really young."

"And you don't think I know that?"

He looked taken aback, like he wasn't used to someone speaking to him in that tone. And I could believe that. At only sixteen, he was taller than most adults in town – and broader. And when stories of the things he did got around... Well, you were smart not to cross him.

I expected him to say something menacing – maybe tell me how an eleven-year-old little girl like me should watch her tone when speaking to a thug like him – but all he did was take out a little silver flask from his back pocket and hold it out to me.

"Wanna drink to their memory?" he offered.

I stared at the flask for the longest time, knowing that my aunt would kill me. First, for talking to a Ford, and secondly, for even contemplating drinking alcohol. And I didn't really want to put my lips to something that a boy had touched. Debbie from school was always saying that that was like kissing.

I shook my head.

Jacob smiled, and that made me notice that one side of his mouth was slightly puffy. "Then I'll drink to them," he said, "for you."

I saw the first time we touched, the first time we kissed, the first time we made love – various scenes that rained on me like bullets, making me feel even worse.

"I want to ask you something. Of course I know you can't answer me," said McNally finally, breaking me out of my endless loop of misery. He put his face directly over mine. He was threading his hands in my hair, and the brief glimpse I had of his fingers showed me that they were tainted red. It was better this way, wasn't it? "Do you ever wonder what happens when we die? Where we go, what it would be like? Do you ever lie awake thinking that what you've done in life affects what happens to you in death?"

I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to do that so badly that I was actively trying to make it happen. Maybe if I closed my eyes and shut this man out, I could pretend I was somewhere else. Somewhere better.

McNally kept talking.

And I shut him out.

Playing the if-only game was helping.

If only I hadn't broken up with Sebastian...

If only I'd never gotten together with Jacob...

If only I'd never fallen in love with him.

The if-only game sucked. Every thought just made me grow angrier and angrier, until, before I knew it, I was clenching my right hand – and I was feeling. Little pinpricks of icy terror stabbed at my skin, making the fine hairs there stand on end. It took my brain a little while longer to process the fact that this room – this room with the blinding lights and white ceiling stained black with mold – was freezing cold. And not just there's-a-slight-breeze-gusting-through-the-window cold.

No: This was arctic.

I'd been in a room as cold as this once before: When I'd had to go identify my cousin, Ella, at the morgue. That was what I was now – a cold body on a cold slab – but instead of panic, all I felt was anger.

Anger at myself.

Anger at Sebastian.

Anger at this psychopath.

Anger at Jacob.

Had I really made such shitty life choices? Shitty life choices that led me here – to be diced up like a lamb in a butcher's shop?

He's going to kill me, and there's nothing I can do about it, a small voice in my head was saying.

She sounded defeated, this voice, and yet, I was feeding of my anger, feeding off of it and just...feeling.

"F-f-f..."

My mouth was working. Barely. And all I could manage was one letter – one tiny letter.

McNally leaned down even closer, brow furrowed. "What was that?"

"F-f-fuсk...you," I breathed, and if he decided to stab me to death then and there, I wouldn't be sad. I wouldn't be scared. I welcomed it.

But he smiled. Gave me a really huge smile like I was his little girl saying her first words.

"Is that what you'd like? Is that your final request?" His voice was gentle, pacifying. "You only have one. Remember that."

A sharp sensation spread down my abdomen, down my legs, and I had to bite the inside of my cheeks to keep from screaming. Instantly, I tasted blood, but that wasn't the worst of it. Aside from the pain, I could feel the wetness – the warm liquid, my essence – seeping from my skin. That sent me spiraling. All feeling was returning to me in spurts, and I really did feel like I was dying.

That was until I heard the gunshots.

Hope.

McNally cocked his head to one side, annoyance shining in his green eyes. "He's like a cockroach. Do you know that?" he muttered, eyeing me. "A fuсking cockroach. I'm sorry that it's come to this. Really, you're nothing but a pawn, and I – what the fuсk!"

God, the pain.

It was like nothing I'd ever felt before – but it was worth it to stab McNally in the hand with his own blade. So worth it.

I rolled off the concrete slab, landing in a messy heap on the cold, hard ground. My nerves were waking up, my limbs were almost there. But God, the pain. It was as if my entire body was on fire, and in my panicked state, all I could think about was finding a way out of here – wherever here was.

My eyes frantically scanned what little of the room I could see from my vantage point on the floor.

I was cold – so, so cold – and my ragged breath puffed out in a cloud before me.

There was so much gray – the walls, the floor – concrete.

And plastic sheets...for my body.

The dress I was wearing clung to me, soaked with blood, and I just couldn't tell where all this blood was coming from. In fact, I couldn't do much, except try to live.

"You...stupid...bitch!"

McNally rounded the block of concrete, fiddling with the blade in his hand, his face contorted in pain. I'd managed to get the thing clean through his hand. There was something satisfying about that. Even if I died right then, at least I'd go down fighting.

It hurt to inhale and exhale, hurt to drag my body away from a man who was intent on killing me – but I did. Because the alternative was dying.

Please, God...

McNally loomed above me, ripping the blade out of his hand with nothing more but a grimace. "You want to feel pain, huh?" he snarled, the stoic façade he'd been putting up finally, finally breaking. His eyes were wild, full of hatred. Full of pain. "I'll give you pain."

I wanted to scream at him that he'd already given me a world of pain, that it hurt too much to so much as let out a puff of air, but he yanked me up by the hair with surprising strength in one arm.

He shall never leave me...

It didn't register that he had slammed my face into the concrete until my head started spinning and I could taste a fresh stream of blood in my mouth.

Nor forsake me.

It happened again, but this time, I was prepared, and I closed my eyes and told myself to go numb. In the background, I could still hear the gunshots. More death, I imagined, and because of me.

Don't play the blame game.

It would be easier if I just died – here and now.

"What kind of talk is that?"

Was that Aunt Stacy? Yes. She was coming to take me. To make this pain go away, to make it stop. Was I smiling? Maybe.

"We Fentons are fighters. Giving up is for sissies and you, Maya baby, aren't a sissy."

McNally finally let me go, but by then, I could barely see, my vision was clouded with blood.

But not clouded enough to not notice the glint of silver at McNally's feet.

He was turned away from me, breathing heavily, an elbow on the chopping block. Probably thinking that I was dead, or on my way there, his guard was momentarily down.

And that was all the time I needed.

I could hardly see, could hardly make my limbs cooperate, but the moment my hands wrapped around the handle of McNally's blade, I was awash with a strength I didn't even know I had.

Silently, I inched my broken body even closer to him, and once I was close enough, did what I had to do.

Just one clean swipe and I knew I had severed the Achilles tendon in his right foot.

He cursed out loud, turned slightly, and crumpled to the floor, landing on top of me. I'd ripped the knife out of him, feeling his blood flowing onto my own legs, knowing that I had just done that to him.

It wasn't enough.

Sobbing, I stabbed him again, plunging the blade into flesh, not even seeing or caring where exactly it was going as long as it was in him. It must've been four inches long, easy, but McNally fought back, finally pinning my arms above me, staring down at me with unfocused eyes.

"Stop...it," he panted, slamming my right hand into the ground until I lost my grip of the blade. His red hair was matted to his forehead, his skin pale; far from the polished, suit-wearing man I'd met at breakfast.

I knew I was dying. He knew he was dying.

"For...give...me," he whispered, releasing his grasp of my arms.

My eyes slid shut.

James McNally was lying on top of me, so I felt the exact moment his breath left him.

And then I died along with him.

***

NEXT UPDATE: April 29

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