Chapter 10: Tobias's Night

Tobias lay in the huge bed and listened to the shower running in the next room.

She had been in there a long time.

The blood of that thing had been all over her when she came in.

It had run black down her sleeves and caked in her hair, and she had walked straight past him without a word.

He did not mind.

He had watched her all day, and he had a question he could not stop asking himself.

Who was she?

Eight months ago, she had been a hospice nurse who cried over sad songs and left the lights on in empty rooms.

Now she carried a fire axe.

She had called a storm to the minute, and a monster to the inch.

And every time she looked at him, something in her face closed over, like water over a stone.

The water stopped.

She came out in a white robe, with her wet hair loose down her back, and stood at the foot of the bed.

She looked at him.

There it was again.

"Don't do that," he said.

"Do what?"

"Look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm already a photograph."

Her face went still.

He pushed himself up against the headboard, because he wanted to see her clearly.

"For three days you've been feeding me, bathing me, carrying me."

"And all the time you look at me like I'm something you lost. I'm right here, Veda."

"I know you are."

"Then look at me like I'm here."

For a long time she said nothing.

Her hands had tightened on the belt of the robe.

"I can't," she said at last, very low. "Not yet."

"Why not?"

"Because every time I look at you, I think about how much I'll lose if I do it wrong."

It was not an answer.

It was the most honest thing she had said to him all week.

He held out his hand.

"Come here."

She crossed the room and climbed onto the bed.

She knelt over his legs in the white robe, with her wet hair brushing his collarbone, and took his face in both hands.

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