Chapter 24: Knockin' on Heaven's Door, Pt. 2

The noise died away behind them; the sun was low, the streets were emptying.

“When did they let you out?” It was the easiest question.

“I come and go.” Michael's arm tightened around her as she stumbled. “Brenna got me the keys.”

At the jailhouse he held open the door, and put a hand out in case she needed help up the steps. She didn't, but she took it anyway.

The cell stood ajar. Lily dropped onto the bed as Michael stepped out the back; she heard a pump creaking, and the splash of water. She found herself watching the door, chewing her lip.

He came back with a bucket and set it between her feet, handing her a square of worn cloth.

A tremor shook Lily's hands. The fire and the fury and the screaming. Streams of red in the dirt. Ash in her mouth. She could scour her skin to the bone but the blood would still be there, always—

Michael touched her arm.

Lily flinched back to the cot, the rough blanket, the pine-log walls, Michael kneeling in front of her. She waited for it to dissolve into a muddy, smoking battlefield, but it didn’t.

"Can you do it,” she whispered.

He took the rag, cradling her face in his palm as he carefully wiped the blood and dirt away. First her cheek, then her temple, then her jaw and neck.

He went to work on her hands next; blood had dried into the cracks and seams of her skin, so it took some doing. Lily watched him. Tried to figure out how to say, I thought about you all the time.

“How’s your arm? And the…how are you?”

He glanced up, then back down. “Fine.”

Lily imagined rolling back his sleeve, examining the topographical map of his skin. Touching him the way he was touching her.

Instead she watched the dark water rippling in the bucket and remembered 63’s face before she pulled the trigger. “He looked at me when I shot him."

Michael tipped her chin up. “He would’ve killed you without a second thought.” His voice caught somewhere in the middle; he cleared his throat, then dropped his hand and sat back on his heels. "What else do you need?”

She wasn't sure. She wanted a hot bath, clean clothes, and a good meal, but exhaustion made these concepts increasingly more abstract. “I’m just so tired.”

“I’ll let you get some rest, then.” Horror of horrors, he actually stood up and made to leave.

“No,” Lily blurted. “Stay.”

He just stood there. She wanted to sink through the floor and into the cool, quiet earth; instead she busied herself with the blankets, giving him a chance to go. Because of course he was going to go.

Only he didn't. He sat down beside her and unlaced his boots.

Before she could talk herself out of it Lily struggled out of her blood-stiffened sweater and lay down, pressed up against the wall. Goosebumps prickled on her arms. Her undershirt was thin cotton, pilfered from a Sierra Base locker. It smelled like burning.

The slats creaked as Michael stretched out on his back, his face a perfect blank. One of his legs hung off the bed; he was so careful to give her space.

All she had to do was move closer. Lily swallowed, and dragged a shaky palm down her face.

“I missed you.” Michael kept his hands folded and his eyes on the ceiling.

Her throat closed. Her eyes stung. “I missed you too.”

It still wasn’t what she wanted to say, but it was as close as she could get.

—

She dreamed of trees blazing like torches, of howling things in flaming clothes, of a man in black.

It spiraled and repeated.

Sometimes 63 begged when she took aim. Other times he laughed with a mouth full of blood. Once he wore Michael’s face, but her finger kept tightening on the trigger with dream-slowness until the gunshot woke her, mute, frozen in terror—

Michael lay warm and heavy against her in the dark, but the press of his body was a comfort, not a horror. Her arm was numb where his head rested on it. His hair smelled clean.

Lily brushed his cheek with her fingertips and tried to slow her racing heart.

He woke with a start, face a pale blur. “Sorry. I should—”

“No.” She coaxed him back down, and moved his arm around her waist again. “I had a nightmare.”

“That’s my job,” he remarked, and she exhaled a breath of laughter. “Are you all right?”

His hand moved in a slow, uncertain circle on her back; she could get used to that. To a lot of things.

Lily willed her eyes closed and found nothing waiting for her. “I think I’m gonna be.”